~ The other side of the bed ~

If everything goes to plan I’ll have something really exciting to share with you on Monday; this exciting thing has been taking up a lot of my time recently so I’m sorry I haven’t been round these parts as often as I normally am.

A while back I responded to a meme on Penny’s blog offering respondents five questions; I couldn’t resist, so here are my five questions answered. If you’d like five of your own, leave a comment and I’ll email you back five juicy ones…

Tell me about a book that changed your life

It would be impossible to choose just one as I feel like every book I’ve ever read has changed my life because I’ve either learnt something, recognized myself in the pages or my brain has expanded and new words have crept in. I’ve always been a book worm; I remember late nights reading Danielle Steel and Stephen King as a teenager; I remember the first time I picked up a novel by Jeanette Winterson and dove into the words; I remember reading practically non-stop in my first year of grief as a way to escape the world, soaking up every drop of poetry I could lay my hands on later as I started to feel again. Lately I’ve been dipping into Michele Roberts’ memoir, Paper Houses, and the way she describes her passion for words is exactly how I feel too.

If you could photograph anything or anyone, what would that image be?

Two situations immediately spring to mind – the second one is me, Saffron Burrows and an afternoon spent taking Polaroids in Paris. Saffron is extraordinarily photogenic and I’d love to capture her eating a pink macaroon from Laduree while wearing ballet pumps and a floral tea dress, all cheekbones and luscious lips.

The first one involves me, a wonderfully charming and worldly man who is no longer here and an afternoon picnic on a sunny summer’s day; I’d love to have the chance to photograph him just one more time.

 In the vein of Ally McBeal, what's your theme song?

Ooh, I have so many for different moods and occasions, different memories and emotions. I guess the most obvious one is Unraveling by Deb Talan – I was sitting at my computer on January 1st 2007, wondering what the hell I could call my new photo blog when this song started playing. It was one of those meant-to-be moments because from there the word has taken on so much significance for me and the work I’m doing.
However, when I need to get moving and want to shift my mood into one that's happy and positive I listen to Good Times by Chic – I'm lucky that I have so many good associations attached to this song. It's the one guaranteed to get me up on the dance floor.

What rituals do you have?

I’m embarrassed to admit that my whole day is one long ritual; living on your own and working from home means you tend to do things the same way over and over as there’s no one else here to break the routine. Some days I make a point of getting out of bed on the other side, and brushing my teeth using my left hand – I’m not joking – just to mix things up a bit.
 
Who would you like to play you in a film, and what would the storyline be?

A few people have told me they can see a bit of Jennifer Aniston in me so I’d either choose her for that reason, or Julianne Moore because I think she’s a great actress (and I once had an idea for a book/film where I could see her as the main character and have never gotten past that thought). The storyline would be: screwed up young woman survives a personal tragedy, fights to save her sanity and in doing so discovers the world is a magical place after all. Or something along those lines. Julianne would carry a Polaroid camera at all times, obviously.