Winners and Sinners

Today, I feel like a winner. Far from having achieved anything specific (it IS only Monday), this is due to the fact that, unlike a large percentage of the population I have encountered in the past week, I have not made any of those nasty little guilt-inducing new year’s resolutions. You can spot almost instantly those friends and colleagues who have already disappointed themselves by failing to curb their smoking/cake-eating/compulsive sex habit (alright, those ones don’t look so disappointed), their faces crumpling when they confess their newly-minted sins, 2007 already a write-off.

My defects, failings and nasty habits are, I am proud to say, well and truly in tact. Suggestions for new and interesting vices will be seriously considered.

This was one of the many Sunday night work-induced insomniac thoughts that occupied me last night as I was slowly absorbed into my beloved memory foam mattress, a sleeping companion that knows the contours of my body more intimately than any lover (and is significantly lower-maintenance).

Another niggling thought was that, despite my anti-resolution stance, I must admit to feeling a need to do….well, something other than being-at-work or not-being-at-work. I decided that my sometime leaning towards making a mess on canvas (clear lack of confidence in the idea of calling myself an artist) should take the route of Vegetable Variations. Striking celery, inviting avocadoes, inexplicable onions; these mute models will be my new focus. And they’re perfect subjects – cheap, quiet, and you can make a casserole out of them when you’re done. This interest in depicting the mystery of fruits and tubers was prompted by a flashback (wobbly lines) to myself at the tender age of 15, explaining to my longsuffering mother why I needed her to acquire a colourful variety of veg which I would leave on my windowsill to deteriorate into a soggy, smelly and potentially health-damaging mess, to be documented by myself in a variety of media over the course of 6 weeks. Her growing concern as spores were gradually released and a foul smelling liquid was exuded by my motley collection of aubergines, apples and mushrooms can only have been assuaged by the fact that her eldest progeny was one step closer to teenage cliché – impenetrable sulks and wild mood swings would now be accompanied – joy! – by rotting food in the bedroom.

Snap back to the present: it occurs to me that I should make amends for these recently remembered tests of my mother’s fortitude by being a Model Daughter for the year. But doesn’t that sound a bit too much like a resolution?...