Photos, Clips....oh, and Whining
2012-05-04, 9:56 p.m.
MondayWhy are peppers so nosy?
Because theyre Jalape�o business!
Hahahahahahahahaha. Actually, that only works if you�re a pronunciation nazi. If you�re sitting at home going �What? Jalla-peeeeenoh Bizniss? That doesn�t make sense!� then I apologise.
My hair is SERIOUSLY pissing me off now. Its resolutely REFUSING to grow on the top of my head but is fluffing itself out into Easter Chick-ness at the sides � on occasion even needing to be SMOOTHED DOWN, ferchristsake! When combined with my rediscovered taste for food, I look like someone put makeup on Dara O�Briain. Look! Here�s Dara:
And here�s me, looking just like him. Hmmm. �Dara�s tshirt needs to not be anywhere near that patterned sofa, does it? Migraine, anyone?
GRRRRR. Ive taken to shouting �Grow, you bastard, grow!� in the mirror at it, but it isn�t taking much notice. Luckily the weather has been too miserable and rainy to go anywhere much �sans chapeau� at the moment but Im banking on it getting seasonally more clement over the next couple of weeks and I don�t want to be sporting a turban in perpetuity, especially not a sweaty one!
Despite the piss-poor quality of the weather of late, I have been out and about with my camera. Things I have taken pictures of in the rain include
The bluebells at Otterbourne Woods - even though we�re a week or two earlier than we were last year you can still see that nice blue carpetty thing going on. What you cant see is L, hiding under a tree like a slightly crap rapist, trying to stop the rain getting on his (very expensive) camera equipment, or me, stood in the downpour with my sixty quid camera, unable to see the viewing screen cos the rain was beating on my face, just generally waving the camera in the general direction of the bluebells and hoping for the best.
It was also raining when I drove Jooj up to Egham for some sort of university �Experience Day� at the Royal Holloway. But that didn�t deter me from standing about in the rain and taking this picture of the Founders Building, looking spectacularly Hogwartsian
I didn�t take this picture so I couldn�t tell you if it was raining or not, but its awesome nonetheless and makes me want to try it. Preferably somewhere where I don�t own the carpet onto which four glasses of beer will inevitably get spilled
In other news, the thing-that-might-be-a-cold didn�t actually turn into a cold so I should have been Ok to sing on Saturday at the gig. Unfortunately I got right royally stitched up by M, one of the band members, who invited me up on stage after four hours of hanging around and then made me sing a couple of songs I didn�t actually know and which were too hard to do without a warm up. Needless to say my voice cracked right in the middle of both songs and I looked a complete twat in front of my mum and dad.
Not
Happy
Afterwards M made a veiled apology and asked me if I was going to their gig on Thursday this week �because you can do a proper guest thing there�, meaning (I hope) �I wont try to make you look bad�.
Friday Night
So. I did go to the gig last night, which was at a wine bar which has reopened after a 25 year absence in the town. Its in a different venue now, but the vibe was exactly the same � same d�cor, same atmosphere�.and an awful lot of the same people, just 25 years older! I didn�t think there was anyone there I knew but, after hacking L�s FB this evening I discovered that not only were there about a half dozen people there that I knew as business connections back in the day but also that the guy who used to manage the first band I was ever in was there, too! I guess he didn�t recognise me either (I did sing, more on that in a mo) or I would have thought that he would have said Hi. L and the other band guys knew loads of people and there was a lot of back-slapping and air-kissing and hand-pumping going on.
The place was absolutely heaving with late middle aged success stories � jocular, red faced, balding self made men in slacks and sports jackets (no tie � it IS a casual venue!) and artfully made up women with highlighted hair and expensive accessories. I had a Matalan purple denim skirt on and a t-shirt I�d got out of the laundry bin. Outclassed, much?
On the whole, the people were rude. One guy put his arm across the back of my bar stool so he could lean over to talk to his friend who was standing six feet or so on the other side of me. That would probably be ok but he put his arm across the back of the stool between my back and the chair, rather than on the outside of the chair and then just leaned sideways until his mouth was next to my head, meaning that he was yelling �Richard, old boy! Do you fancy 9 holes at South Winch on Sunday?� right into my ear.
I call that rude. I call �dumping all your empty glasses on my table as you go by� quite rude, too, and so is �crowding against my table so that I am pretty much forced to move or to find myself in the middle of a group of strangers talking to each other over my head� quite rude too. Money clearly doesn�t buy manners, my friends.
Quite a lot of people were staring at my baldy head but only one (very drunk) man commented on it, leaning right in my face to tell me �your hair�s REALLY short�. I said, (brightly, because I wasn�t sure whether he was someone I ought to know and for some dumbass reason I didn�t want to offend him) �Yes. Ive been having cancer treatment and its all fallen out�. He stared at me for a bit longer as though he was trying to decide how to process this bit of information, then he made an exaggerated shrugging gesture and proceeded to hit on me for a good 20 minutes, leaning against my legs for good measure and huffing sour wine-breath in my face. Joy.
Eventually Lindy pulled on my arm and turned me towards the people that she was talking to and the drunk guy wandered off. Lindy is the T�s (sax/flute player) girlfriend. She�s annoying in a �Daisy from Not Going Out� way but I can kind of get over that. It was Lindy that told us when T had a heart attack. It�s Lindy who shows up to all the gigs and has little kissy-fests with T like they�re teenagers. Lindy tells me all sorts of anecdotes about T and how she knows him so well after being with him for years. What I cant get over is that T has a wife. I have heard him on the phone to his wife and I have heard him on the phone to Lindy. He has the same loving conversations with both so its not like the wife is evil and Lindy is a welcome respite. Ive never met T�s wife but I know she calls Lindy �that bloody woman� so I guess she�s not exactly a complicit part of that particular triangle. Im not big on infidelity and I struggle with being friends with Lindy for exactly that reason. Ive been the cuckolded wife and its not a nice thing to be.
Ive made myself grumpy thinking about that so Im going to have to watch some Daisy clips to take my mind off it.
I sang a couple of sings in the second half (Dream a Little Dream and Walking in Memphis) and they sounded pretty good. Im still not all that happy with my voice at the moment but Im sure it�ll get stronger as the evil chemo drugs work their way out of my body. At least I bloody well hope so.
After the gig I heard several people (including the winebar owner!) telling M what a great voice I have and how I should be in the band permanently so that was nice and helpful. Im pretty sure M is getting fed up with hearing that and, as there�s no chance of me ever getting to BE in the band, there�s got to come a time when his only option will be to not have me guest for them any more. *sigh*
Had my first counselling session after school today. I dressed up nice because I thought if Im going to talk to someone about how my post-surgery poor body image is likely to have a detrimental effect on my personality, I�d need to at least look as much like �old me� as possible � a bald, eyelashless, bloated, grey-faced version of �old me�, sure, but with both boobs intact (and still looking relatively impressive, as boobs go, if I might say so myself!).
I wore my pink boucle suit to school � before we�d even completed registration this morning a Year 9 girl told me I looked �like Barbie�, which is something I have been told EVERY SINGLE time I wear that suit, so I guess it must be true. I broke the heel off my shoe at the beginning of period 4 � expensive �past life� shoes that I got on a �me-time� solo jaunt to Spain about 15 years ago, all soft leather and thin soles and really only designed for sitting about looking gorgeous in, not for striding up and down a Citizenship class explaining the Magistrate system and getting 14 year olds to fill out worksheets in. Boo. The Head of Technology gave me some Araldite but the repair needed a bit more time than I was able to give it and I had to nip home and change my shoes before going to the appointment. Driving to the counsellor�s office I thought of all the things she might ask me and then I cried, necessitating a quick pit stop in a layby to repair my makeup before I went in.
The counselling room is an office that someone�s tried to make look like a sitting room. It still has strip lights but theyre not on, there�s a couple of lamps with soft bulbs in so the light�s kind of yellow. Big armchairs (but in a durable fabric), discrete box of tissues, not so discrete clock so you know when your time�s up. Faint smell of joss-stick or aromatherapy candle or something like that, walls painted a non-threatening aubergine and taupe. In the corner a floor-standing vase of cheerful flowers (artificial) and on the table a sad looking Dieffenbachia which has had too much pruning and not enough water (real).
The counsellor is a nice lady � maybe 55, 60 ish � sensible shoes, no makeup, utilitarian short grey hair. She did a grand job of appearing to understand what it means to be me, or at least she did a grand job of remembering what I�d said and repeating it back to me after saying �so what youre telling me is�� and I have booked another appointment. To be honest, Im not sure that I am ready to �grieve�, �find small things that give comfort� or �accept a new version of normal� and I have no idea of how one might actually achieve any of those things. I didn�t actually cry during the session � that is, I didn�t do the whole snot/body heaving/boohoohoo type thing � my voice remained perfectly clear and level as fat tears rolled down my cheeks and plopped soundlessly into my pink boucle lap.
My next appointment is after Ive had the surgery so I guess I�ll have plenty to tell her then.
I am still seriously fucked up about this and cant get it into words. If I could, Id tell you lot, as Im pretty sure your words of wisdom would have just as much clout as those of a mousy stranger in a quasi-cosy back room.
L wants to �hear all about� how it went. I think it would be rude to tell him to mind his own fucking business but I think that�s what I�ll have to do.
Feeling deflated and defeated.