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<!--Generated by Squarespace Site Server v5.0.0 (http://www.squarespace.com/) on Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:32:31 GMT--><rss xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0"><channel><title>[orchidea reflects]</title><link>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/</link><description></description><copyright></copyright><language>en-GB</language><generator>Squarespace Site Server v5.0.0 (http://www.squarespace.com/)</generator><item><title>Choice</title><dc:creator>orchidea</dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:01:39 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/2008/8/22/choice.html</link><guid isPermaLink="false">208015:2036741:2171062</guid><description><![CDATA[Consider this:

Boss' wife, rat-arsed, regales me with an incensed (and detailed) account of how she couldn't find the right Louboutins in the right colour and size in Zürich. At circa one thousand francs a pair upwards, Louboutins are as common as muck.]]></description><wfw:commentRss>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/rss-comments-entry-2171062.xml</wfw:commentRss></item><item><title>The loneliness of the long distance runner</title><dc:creator>orchidea</dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:25:30 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/2008/8/18/the-loneliness-of-the-long-distance-runner.html</link><guid isPermaLink="false">208015:2036741:2151054</guid><description><![CDATA[When Jamaican sprinter Usain Greased-Lightning Bolt ran the 100 metres in 9.69 seconds at the Beijing Olympics, it was one of those where-were-you-when moments for me. God, what a glorious demonstration of supremacy! It gave me goose bumps. I had to phone Mountain Man, who had predicted a nine-sixty-something time and was running up a mountain when I reached him to tell him the news.]]></description><wfw:commentRss>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/rss-comments-entry-2151054.xml</wfw:commentRss></item><item><title>Torrential</title><dc:creator>orchidea</dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:04:16 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/2008/8/16/torrential.html</link><guid isPermaLink="false">208015:2036741:2143542</guid><description><![CDATA[There’s a story of here I haven’t told: the story of when it rained without respite for three days. It was high summer, and warm, and I went away for the weekend. I left to low-hanging cloud and returned to deluge. I left to the scent of sweet summer rain to visit a place with wall murals that could make a whore blush and returned to the scent of rich earth yielding to decay.]]></description><wfw:commentRss>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/rss-comments-entry-2143542.xml</wfw:commentRss></item><item><title>Arm's length</title><dc:creator>orchidea</dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:44:46 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/2008/8/6/arms-length.html</link><guid isPermaLink="false">208015:2036741:2088172</guid><description><![CDATA[For several years, he held me at arm’s length. He would hold me captive with his limbs; flesh so supple and warm, muscle so taut, had me entranced and lulled by his voice, enraptured by his articulacy and impressed by his knowledge. But he never let me in. I can only speculate about the reasons. I’m sure he had them, but of course I could never be certain. He loved to quote classical philosophers but loathed to express emotion.]]></description><wfw:commentRss>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/rss-comments-entry-2088172.xml</wfw:commentRss></item><item><title>Light relief</title><dc:creator>orchidea</dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 03 Aug 2008 20:21:07 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/2008/8/3/light-relief.html</link><guid isPermaLink="false">208015:2036741:2069362</guid><description><![CDATA[B made me laugh. I didn’t expect him to, I wasn’t courting laughter, I wasn’t even hoping for laughter and if you’d asked me a minute earlier, I’d have sneered derisorily and said that raising a mere smile was a preposterous image and totally f*cking out of the question. But there I was, on my stomach on the bed on a hot afternoon with the blinds tilted shut, toes flexed back in hand,]]></description><wfw:commentRss>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/rss-comments-entry-2069362.xml</wfw:commentRss></item><item><title>Ritual</title><dc:creator>orchidea</dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:26:11 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/2008/7/20/ritual.html</link><guid isPermaLink="false">208015:2036741:2002536</guid><description><![CDATA[We met halfway and headed for the forest. I was restless and had to get out; I needed to walk fast and far and meet exhaustion head on. He was complicit. I don’t know how we ended up in the forest; it might have been his intention all along. Maybe it was just years of familiarity and habit that led us there, in the pouring rain. We walked along the dam wall]]></description><wfw:commentRss>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/rss-comments-entry-2002536.xml</wfw:commentRss></item><item><title>Cliché</title><dc:creator>orchidea</dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 19 Jul 2008 13:23:52 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/2008/7/19/cliche.html</link><guid isPermaLink="false">208015:2036741:1999809</guid><description><![CDATA[Mountain Man has gone up a mountain to help break the world record in serial fondue eating (I am serious) and the little man has gone with his aunt, a farmer’s wife, to stay on an alp (this is what passes for ‘summer holidays’ this year chez o), where he gets to fall flat on his face in cow shit at least half a dozen times between sunrise and sunset and ‘help with the milking’, which as far as I can ascertain - as he was very, very excited before leaving this morning - involves]]></description><wfw:commentRss>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/rss-comments-entry-1999809.xml</wfw:commentRss></item><item><title>The big S.E.X.</title><dc:creator>orchidea</dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:13:32 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/2008/7/11/the-big-sex.html</link><guid isPermaLink="false">208015:2036741:1982019</guid><description><![CDATA[I must be ovulating.
My twenties were spent battling with infertility and a cycle with an irregularity that matched my inner life; my thirties with half-hearted attempts that my body, wiser than my mind, aborted (although my mind hung on despite its terror and they had to be scraped out of me – do you know the feeling of nurturing a dead embryo?)]]></description><wfw:commentRss>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/rss-comments-entry-1982019.xml</wfw:commentRss></item><item><title>Detention</title><dc:creator>orchidea</dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 06 Jul 2008 11:05:33 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/2008/7/6/detention.html</link><guid isPermaLink="false">208015:2036741:1969318</guid><description><![CDATA[Taking a toothbrush to the grout inside the shower (we’ve lived here for eight years and I’ve had total faith in the bionic powers of Mr Clean and his ilk until now; this recent activity is a sure sign something is afoot), it did cross my mind, after I’d swatted the two flies that had been copulating on me first, and then on the bathroom mirror and listened to daughter’s humorous account of her first and hopefully only brush with morning detention]]></description><wfw:commentRss>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/rss-comments-entry-1969318.xml</wfw:commentRss></item><item><title>Hero</title><dc:creator>orchidea</dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:04:29 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/2008/6/27/hero.html</link><guid isPermaLink="false">208015:2036741:1949968</guid><description><![CDATA[Last night, I met a hero (I wish I could tell you who, how and why). Not a hero in the archetypal-mythological sense, not a hero as defined by the inflationary use of the term, e.g. sports hero (although, if you googled him you’d unfailingly find the word hero in the first five articles you came across and no doubt beyond; I didn’t read further), but: an ordinary man who has known great personal tragedy and shown great courage in the service of others.]]></description><wfw:commentRss>http://www.orchideareflects.com/orchidea/rss-comments-entry-1949968.xml</wfw:commentRss></item></channel></rss>