Diary of a Grammatical Misfit

I was out at a bar with some friends recently when one of the group took a phone call.

We stood rather awkwardly as we heard his half of the conversation which was pretty much …”He’s dead”… “No, I’m pretty sure you’ll find he died last year.”

The words suggested we were intruding on a private conversation and yet his facial expression suggested otherwise. He looked both amused and slightly exasperated and somehow the look was familiar.

As it turned out, the call was from his sister and the person she rang to ask about was Bernard Manning*. The look was familiar because I’ve felt my own face do something similar when my sister calls me - also with obscure and random questions, the answers to which she seeks from me as her personal ’fountain of all knowledge’**.

I’ve had calls at all times of day asking all sorts of things - from book titles to diseases to time zones. Most people turn to wikipedia, my sister turns to me. It’s funny to find out that other people’s siblings do it too.

My sister’s all-time best was when she rang me when I was on the train home from work and said: ”I just wondered if you could explain the Israel-Palestine problem to me.”

My commute’s pretty long but in that case, not long enough.

* Well-known bigoted comic who did indeed die last year.
** Her description, emphatically Not my own or I’d probably be sued for misrepresentation!

The last few months have been a hive of activity and inactivity - the inactivity has mostly been on the blog front although with much of the activity revolving around work there’s been some pretty rubbish inactivity elsewhere too - keeping up with friends, the theatre and my laundry topping the list.

The posting hiatus has been mostly the result of being busy but also because the things occupying my mind have been personal rather than whimsical and/or shareable. The bursts of sexual frustration have been the worst since I am reluctant to turn this blog into an account of my increasingly prolific fantasy life!

I’ve also had to fight the urge to blog during the times when my bipolar monsters have reared their ugly heads. I don’t think that giving either the white monster or the black monster air time is a good idea when I am determined to lock them both back in their respective cages. There are some very gloomy and some very hyper posts in my drafts folder but they will remain unpublished and private. Not a lot of point in fighting to spare those around me from the flashes and then letting them read about them anyway…

Of the stuff that I do want to blog about, the biggest thing that has happened recently is the emigration of my best couple friends - Russian Gal and Music Man - to the land of vodka and snow. Russian Gal has been gone four days and I miss her already. Music Man’s departure (along with his crates of varyingly annoying musical instruments) is imminent but I hope to see him a few more times before he actually goes and I start to miss him too.

What on earth will I do without them?

Admittedly the horrendous mid-week hangovers are no great loss but the evenings that precede them are. And their general spirit for doing unusual things and for chatting about anything under the sun for hours on end.

I hope this spirit continues in Moscow - especially for the times I come to visit!

What else has been happening? My diary seems to be full of stuff but most is less than noteworthy.

I’ve had another birthday which was great - Redhead and I were staying with a friend near the Alps and we spent the afternoon trekking up to an alpine valley to hear a brass quintet. Not many birthdays I could say that for. And the evening was spent seeing an opera in Geneva. Somehow I managed to understand what was going on despite lyrics in Italian and a programme in French and my decidedly limited comprehension of either.

I also managed to break the law, since I forgot we would be crossing the border and left my passport behind. Pretty dull law breaking as birthdays go but we did run the risk of being ticked off by people with guns…

A few weeks ago I held a second murder mystery dinner party which was tremendous fun - outfits and accents seem to make for a laughter-filled evening. But then so does an evening in the pub winding each other up and playing charades as I discovered the following week. As does a ‘kiddy birthday party’ (for a 30th birthday) with marshmallow eating competitions. Or just playing cards with some slightly silly friends…

I think I’ve laughed til I’ve cried more times this last month than I have done in years and I’ve loved every minute of it. Although the choking hazard’s a bit tricky - I’m not sure whether coffee or beer is the worst thing to be drinking when you get a giggle attack but they were both pretty painful!

A month spent laughing has almost completely recharged my batteries from the several months spent overworking, undersleeping and fighting monsters. It seems it is the best medicine after all.