Strictly in training

Well, last week I was joking about the tap dancing...and yet, it's been one of those weeks for weird coincidences. Now my beloved and I are going to some beginner's dance classes this week('Almost Strictly Come Dancing') as a kind of birthday present for me (41 this Wednesday). Not sure how much of a present it will be but I always like to do something different on my birthday so tripping over my own feet and standing on his should about do the trick. The teacher asked if I had any shoes with heels...heels? I've got some quite ambitious trainers. I tried heels once when I was about 13, hated them and haven't worn anything remotely resembling a lady-like shoe since. So wish me luck.

I've had some interesting blog moments this week. I finished 'Fugitive Pieces' by Anne Michaels (about 10 years after everyone else) and had...one or two questions (mainly because I tried to read the book with Xmas in the middle). I ended up contacting the writer Elizabeth Baines whose reading group had just covered the book. She was very helpful and her blog is interesting. It made me disagree with the Independent's Christina Patterson (yet again) as she wrote something snooty about blogs the other week. I don't have the exact quote but it was something about people who can't get published writing blogs. Unnecessarily mean I thought. What harm does it do her? I was a journalist briefly and I'm so glad it didn't end up being a long career...journalists can be so bitter and unpleasant! Most of them wish they were doing something else...In fact on several occasions when I did interview someone I had to spend ages reassuring them that I wouldn't totally misrepresent them...like the last journalist to interview them had done. (It is in-house mother who buys the Independent I should point out. Personally it gets right on my wick with its 'be green' one day and 'fly round the world every other Monday' the next. And there's so much about fashion...fashionable clothes, fashionable clothes pegs etc etc). 'Fugitive Pieces' by the way has some fantastic moments...just try not to read it whilst a 7 year-old talks to you about, well, anything really.

I have been writing and thinking about writing quite a bit. Verona and I are to do half an hour of poems and songs at Out of the Woods in Dundee on March 2nd. It's a big venue and usually just music so I'm quite excited. I like reading poems for not-the-usual-poetry-audience. Just now I have put a new poem up on myspace. I'm not sure about it (which is unusual..I'm usually keen on them in the early stages, followed by insecurity, followed by 'well it's done now - let's see what people make of it'). I am sure that a more sensible writer would not have put such new writing in any kind of public domain at this early stage but then sensible has never been one of my choices (footwear excepted). Anyone who wants to look can find it at Rachel Fox blog on MySpace
I'm off to practise walking in lady's shoes (if I can find any). Until next week.