Things I found during today’s mammoth cleaning session
1- My iPod (hooray!)
2- A flyer for an Alabama 3 afterparty on which I have written: “Episode where father of suicide kid tries to kill him, but is not strong enough. Pride dented - he’s a crumpled man - believed in his son’s genius. He thinks that fiancé’s father had sent someone to do it, but that’s guilt talking.” I have no idea what this means but I’m using my ‘tortured genius’ handwriting so we can only assume that it forms part of a GREAT WORK.
3- Pencil sharpener that looks like a grand piano.
4- The oft-referred to “John out of 5” review notebook from Hedge in 2007. There were like, three Johns on the bill and wine was only £1.25 a glass so the whole thing ended up up in Kristine drawing pictures of bunny rabbits to illustrate the way John Stammers was “kind to the ears and gentle like fabric softener or a soft teddy bear”, a complete re-imagining of star ratings, and this conversation (paraphrased):
Me: Hey Kris, that dude from The Monk’s Kitchen has amazing cheekbones. Don’t you think he has amazing cheekbones? I’m going to go and tell him that he has amazing cheekbones.
Kris: Yes Meg, I agree with you, you do that.
Me: Hey, dude from Monk’s Kitchen! I really like your cheekbones!
Dude from The Monk’s Kitchen: Erm, thanks? Did you like our songs too?
Kris: I think the painting on your EP cover totally misrepresents your music. It makes you look metal.
Dude from The Monk’s Kitchen: My bandmate painted it.
Kris: Oh well, if you ever want to kick him out of the band I’ll do a new painting for you!
Me: Nice cheekbones! Bye!
I saw him again at Sankeys the week after and he gave me a copy of the metal EP that isn’t metal at all (although there is a song with Edgar Allan Poe lyrics) but then the next thing I heard about was that they’d split up due to “musical differences”. Me and Kristine KNOW THE TRUTH.
“So, what do you do now?”
This lack of internet is now officially my own bloody fault, rather than BT’s, as I’ve ummed and aahed about service providers like a proper Yorkshire miser. I’m sure not all people from Yorkshire are tight bastards, but whenever I’m on the penny-pinch, I feel the need to put on a pseudo-Rotherham accent.
Speaking of accents, I read my poems at Freed Up at Greenroom last night, the open mic poetry night that I wildly put my name down for about a month ago. My voice started off doing that erratic squeaky thing that comes with nerves, and by the end of the Glastonbury poem I was doing the boyfriend’s lines in another Yorkshire accent. I’ve obviously been sharing a house with Andy for far too long. People sseemed to like my poems. The Ringo Starr one even got a few laughs, and there were more experienced readers there who were, frankly, crap, so I’ve been bolstered a bit really. The theme for the next one (not till Feb) is “party”, and I’ve already got a fair few ideas.
On a separate subject, I saw Abi Willock on the way to work this morning. She went to my school and I’ve not seen her for at least six years. I also saw Briony Seed a couple of weeks ago, again while I was heading to work in the morning, although I’ve definitely seen her more recently than Abi. What’s funny is how we come to define ourselves by our jobs so quickly. In both cases, one of the first questions asked has been “what do you do?” I was reading on the Burning Man website that it’s really bad form to ask people about their working lives when you’re at the festival as it detracts from the sense of escapism. I would love to be the kind of person who didn’t care about a career, or rely upon work to provide a sense of self-esteem, but thinking about it, I am an ambitious person who would feel like a massive failure if I was working in recruitment or banking or something I felt was meaningless (as I have before - I even feel a bit of a failure just doing admin, even if it is in the arts) but I like to think that I ask these things of other people just because I have nothing else to talk about, rather than for any judgemental reasons, or for social climbing. It’s sad in a way, that we have so many shared experiences but nothing to talk about other than our jobs. Still, according to my horoscope, the Moon has left my opposite sign of Leo today (?) so any such disappointments will soon dry up. I’m heading to the Hedge third birthday party at the Carlton Club tonight, and Mum tells me The Travelling Band have thanked me in their sleevenotes, so it’s all good. :-)
