February 3rd, 2007

1. A Free Man In Preston: Once Upon A Time.

I’ve learned that melancholia will eventually go and bug someone else if you ignore it for long enough, but awkwardness is always with you, infuriatingly, unremittingly inappropriate, like having Noel Edmonds shagging your leg during a job interview.

2. An Unreliable Witness: Of rings and bonds.

At the second wedding, I only turned up for the post-ceremony garden party and, knowing no one except the bride, spent three hours sitting under a tree listening to the rather intense and socially awkward eight-year-old son of one of the guests as he lectured me in authoritative detail about the complexities of the Star Wars films.

3. I Am Livid: Stories from my past #1.

The foreman took one look at me, and said, “Fucking hell, do you even know why you’re here?”. I admit that tracksuit bottoms and a Pop Will Eat Itself t-shirt wasn’t the best attire for emptying bins, but I had not done it before, so how was I supposed to know?

4. I’m not a girl, not yet a wino: Bygones.

R, if we had gotten married we’d be living in Alexandria, likely in a small house in the back roads of Del Ray. We’d be regulars at the local coffee house, me writing on my laptop and you reading about the latest social revolution. I’d be doubling up on birth control while you did exercises you’d found on the Internet rumored to make your sperm extra nimble.

5. My Marrakesh: For Gavin.

When my mother saw me in the airport, all broken and oozing, she hugged me gingerly and told me how happy she was that I had come home. She said nothing about the way I looked; she’s not unkind. But that night I heard her crying quietly in the kitchen, whispering to my father that she feared that no one would ever marry me. And so it began, My Year of Living Ugly.

6. Pandemian: Life under fallout conditions.

I asked my father that if god made us, who made him? He didn’t know and had never cared to think about it. The first part of that answer set me stumbling down the path to atheism, the second to antitheism.

7. Reluctant Nomad: Death in the garden - pigeons this time.

‘Please see what you can do for this pigeon,’ I told him. ‘It’s not a pet or favourite animal or anything, so don’t spend too much time on it if it looks unlikely to survive. I just don’t want it to suffer.’

8. Rockpool In The Kitchen: Country and Western.

It was a good trip, if tinged, for Granny , with that kind of sadness you start encountering when your children grow up; arriving at a life where, from time to time, you find yourself saying a glad hullo to your adult children, and then, all too soon, saying goodbye. Which is as it should be: you have your life; they have theirs.

9. Tuna Girl: Fan Mail.

Sometimes, I wish I could do that again. I wish I could pass around a sheet of paper with my name in red ink and see what people thought of me. Because egos are fragile things and they all need a boost sometimes.

10. Twenty Major: The worst curry ever.

“Stinking Pete. Don’t have me thrash you to within an inch of your life. What’s going on?”

“Well…hehehe…you think you’re eating chicken but, in fact, it’s not chicken at all.”

“Turkey?”, asked Dirty Dave.

“No, Dave. Not turkey. It’s no fowl whatsoever. It is Quorn.”

11. Wyndham The Triffid: Two Unrelated Incidents.

This happens several times, like this - finger jab: me, finger jab: ankle, finger jab: me - and soon enough everyone is looking at me and then down at her ankle and back again. I try to tuck all of my extremities further into the table but I’m fighting a losing battle against solid wood.