birthdays

Send in the clowns

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Twenty two days into February and I finally got to go to another live comedy show.  This is officially part two of my Sparkle Dress Comedy Challenge, following last month’s trip to Greg Davies in Leicester.  You can read more about that here.

 

Last night was John Kearn’s show ‘Don’t Worry They’re Here’ at DINA venue in Sheffield.  It was also my 34th birthday.  I sent a link to some youtube clips of John to some friends and invited them to come with me, but I did let them know that I’d not be offended if it wasn’t their thing.  Comedy can be very divisive, you laugh or you don’t and there’s nothing worse for me than laughing my head off with friends who just don’t get it, it stresses me out and I’d rather go on my own and enjoy it than be worried about how others are going to react.

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I just want to live while I’m alive.

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A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.  Maya Angelou

The 23rd of May would have been Dad’s 65th birthday. I’ve talked a lot about him being ill, his death and how that’s affected me but there’s a big section of his life I’ve not mentioned on this blog until now.  Not because I’ve been embarrassed or ashamed by it, I’ll talk at length with people in person, but because it is something that a large section of the population can’t understand and I didn’t want to have to put up with negative comments that are inevitably on their way whilst coming to terms with a death.

But since it’s been over 6 months since he died and I seem to be doing better, talking about it seemed like a good birthday present.

For the last 4 years Dad has been known not as Donald, but as Dawn.  It’s going to get confusing writing about it because when we found out we asked him what he wanted us to call him and he said that only 5 people in the world could call him ‘Dad’ so we should stick with that.  But with ‘Dad’ comes ‘he’, ‘him’ and ‘his’.  Whenever I talked about him with others I still used male pronouns, but if we were out in public together I did make an effort to use ‘she’ and ‘her’.  But I’m getting ahead of myself…

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Red, red wine

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Actually, that’s misleading from the start, sorry. Today’s moderate level of suffering was solely the responsibility of white wine, but I don’t know a song about that, or a film and I’ve got to stick to my theme.  Even if rather loosely.  I’ll cook prawns in a red wine sauce for dinner in a bit if that makes you feel better.  Actually, that’s not true either because it’s nine o’clock and I should be going back to bed soon.  I will be eating a blueberry swirl ice cream as I type.  Just to keep you updated.

Shall I start again?

Probably best.

Today I think I’ve had my first hangover in about 9 years.  I got in from the bar at about 3, woke up at 6 needing the loo (like you need to know) had some water and – probably a mistake – a chocolate orange brownie.  I tried to have the sensible bacon sandwiches but that didn’t happen for a good six hours.  I’ve been tired, a little bit shaky from too much of a sugar rush and have spent the day very productively in bed watching Elementary and Southland.  For those of you who don’t know, Elementary is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes tv series set in New York with Johnny Lee Miller as Holmes and Lucy Liu as Joan Watson his sober companion.  It’s not as good as Sherlock but I like it.  Southland is a tv series about police in South Central LA.  It has Ben McKenzie (AKA Ryan ‘Fists of Fury’ Attwood from the OC) in it and is a better show, but harder to watch when feeling delicate.  Another show that has graced my computer screen today is Hart of Dixie, with Rachel Bilson (also OC) but by far the best is Grey’s Anatomy.  I love it, it’s trashy, it’s melodramatic, they keep killing off my favourite characters, but I can watch it over and over again whenever I am feeling like crap and it cheers me up.  When I run out of new episodes I go back to series 1 and start again…

Sorry, tangent, that happens when I’m eating ice cream.

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13 Going on 30

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Today is the 22nd, so it’s one month until my birthday and 13 months until my 30th.  Which I am looking forward to.  And which people think is very odd.  Apparently you shouldn’t look forward to turning 30, but I don’t see the point in dreading it.  It’s an inevitability and it’s not as if I can stop it.   I’ve never felt my age.  When I was 16 I wasn’t hanging out in the park drinking booze from a bottle hidden in the bag whilst sitting on the tyre swing over the bark flooring. (How was that bark meant to be good to fall on?  It got mouldy, it gave you splinters, it got stuck in your tights, it was rubbish, although granted better than falling on concrete.  Ok, I’ll just carry on now…) At 16 I was in at least 6 choirs including Brackley Jubilee Choir and Bicester Choral and Operatic Society and I brought the average age of singers down to about 40ish.  I went on holidays with my Mum’s Morris team, Owlswick Morris.  They were great fun and yes, I am that cool, I’m a Morris baby and proud of it.

When I was about 18 I did do something a teenager is meant to do, I went to Gatecrasher Summer Sound System – it was an all night club with various tents pitched on Turweston Aerodrome.  My Dad’s friend was running the security for the event and popped by to see if any of his kids would like to go, so my sister and I each said “Yes please!” and found ourselves being walking through the security office with 4 free passes.  I took my friends Ben, Chris and Liam and we had a great time.  The main things I remember are wearing combat trousers, a black vest top with a dragon on, my hair in two messy buns (yes, I was heavily influenced by the style of All Saints, I’m not going to apologise for that, it could have been worse) drinking Smirnoff Ice from plastic bottles, blue, pink and purple lights in the Happy Hardcore tent, water dripping on us from the ceiling from the condensation, a pretty rugby boy snogging me and walking home at 6 in the morning with the boys (probably mostly Ben and Liam) nicking the signs from the car park and throwing them in the hedge.  If you were one of those people in 2002 who couldn’t find their car that quiet Sunday morning then I apologise, but it was really funny at the time.

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