when all around here was (virtually) green fields...
when I wrote without filtering my words...
the first time a colleague found me via google and used those words against me...
the first time I censored what I was writing...
the first abusive comment I received...
the first time someone stole one of my photos and used it as their own...
the first time I seriously considered that doing this might affect my job...
the first time I seriously considered quitting for that reason...
that I've been doing this (on and off) for over five years now...
that the sky hasn't fallen on my head as a result...
that I've made a lot of good friends through this...
the first email I got from someone I didn't previously know who had read and enjoyed (or found useful) what I wrote...
that this has seen me through three employers and five jobs...
that this has seen me through the end and the beginning of a relationship...
that this has seen me through sickness and health...
that this has seen me through death as well as life...
that I can't come up with a simple answer about why I do this...
that I just do because I just am...
that at the end of the day, nothing else matters.
Is it just me, or have things gone a little potty lately?
Why...
does a head brimming full of words and ideas suddenly empty when faced with a blank page?
can't you procrastinate about procrastinating?
do I keep wearing that pair of boots that give me deep blisters on the soles of my feet every time I wear them?
can't I fall sleep until at least 3am, even though I know have to get up at 8 and I'm knackered?
does my wireless router suddenly lose it's internet connection, necessitating a router reboot?
are trains always early when you're running late and absolutely have to be somewhere?
does it feel weird to have a cleaner come in and clean the house every week, and even weirder to be at home when she's here?
is it impossible to ignore the new mail icon, even when you know it's likely to be a message from a group list you're on, don't read and can't be bothered to unsubscribe from?
do birds suddenly appear?
Do:
Get there early and queue for hours if you feel that the world will end if you're not right at the front.
Do Not:
Force your way through the crowd by elbowing people in the face.
Specifically, do not assume that I haven't noticed you doing this to the two girls standing behind me and that because the 6' tall guy standing next to me has refused to stand aside to let you get in front that that means I'm an easier target.
I'm not.
I'm 5'4" and I'm in this particular spot because I like being down the front and I can see from here. You are at least 6" taller than I am. Therefore, the odds of letting you stand in front of me are actually nil.
Shoving your arm between me and the aforementioned 6' tall guy and attempting to lever us apart by forcefully elbowing me in the left breast will not help. You will get shouted at. When that doesn't work, I will try to gain your attention by tapping your elbow in a manner that indicates you should remove it from it's current position immediately. When that doesn't work, and at the point where your elbow is causing me intense pain, I will punch, scratch, dig my nails in and use every scrap of leverage I have to twist my body and forcefully remove your elbow from my person.
You will not glare at me in a way that indicates that you think I'm over-reacting. Nor will you give full action to the thought of elbowing me in the face, a look which clearly passed over your face and which was betrayed by the forceful movement of your elbow towards my cheekbone, only stopped by the fact that my hands were still on your elbow at the time.
Also, I don't have the memory of a hyperactive goldfish, so waiting 20 minutes and then tapping me on the shoulder and asking if you can get in front of me will ensure you get an incredulous "No. Fuck off. I mean it." in response.
Arguing with the big Glaswegian behind you when he charmingly and very chivalrously (although entirely unnecessarily) takes you to task for your further crass attempts to get to the front probably isn't the smartest move either. He's a lot bigger than you, and less likely to be as physically restrained as I've been so far.
Do:
Shower. Use soap too. It won't make your skin fall off. Promise.
It's a gig. You're down the front. It's going to get sweaty. Everyone knows this.
Sweat from people who have showered recently smells ok.
Sweat from people who haven't, really doesn't.
I know it's hard to believe, but it's really true.
Do Not:
Shower with Brut/Old Spice/Lynx/Whatever cheap supermarket deodorant stuff your mother has bought you.
It's not big, clever or good for the environment.
Moderation is the key. If I can smell you at a sweaty gig when you're three rows back and to the left, you've used too. much. goddamned. smelly stuff.
Do:
Enjoy yourself. Sing. Dance. Mosh. Pump your fist in the air and make the universal "rock" gesture by extended your index and pinky fingers in the air. This is what creates a good atmosphere.
Do Not:
Get so carried away that you cause physical harm to those around you. This includes:
- getting temporarily blinded by your scraggly long hair
- having my nose almost broken by your flailing head
- getting concussion from being kicked in the head because you just had to crowd surf one more time
- fearing that the bones in the top of my foot are broken because you jumped back so hard
Equally, do not stand, at the front, with your arms crossed/fingers in your ears/a grumpy "I don't want to be here" expression on your face glaring and/or tutting at everyone enjoying themselves around you. This is known as a buzz kill. If you don't want to be there, have enough spine to intimate this fact to your partner, before he/she buys the tickets.
Do:
Enjoy a meal with friends before the gig. Socialising is, of course, important, and since it's an occasion, why not make a proper night of it.
Do Not:
Eat something so hot and spicy that it whooshes through your digestive system in record time and hammers at the door of your sphincter, screaming to be let out just in time for the main act arriving on stage.
There is no such thing as a sneaky fart at a gig.
Murphy's law dictates that it will be long, loud (although the sound will be drowned out, ensuring that those around you don't get this important warning), probably acid-tinged and burning and although every cell in your body is urging you to rid yourself of this poison, do not give in to this urge, because it will smell.
Oh lordy will it smell.
It will reek to high heaven.
It will create a fug around you so intensely noxious putrid that even the slightest whiff causes people to retch and gag, and as a result of the hot air created when lots of bodies are in an enclosed space, it will hang around.
For ages.
So just don't. I don't care if it gives you stomach-ache. For the love of your fellow humans, just hold it in.
Lock up your boyrockers folks, cos the girls are back in town.
Yup. That's right, S and I are at it again.
Tonight we head off to Europe. Well, if you want to get technical, we're actually going to the Astoria to see Europe.
[Stop sniggering at the back]
Yes, May is 80s hair-metal month (we're also going to see Yngwie Malmsteen on bank holiday monday).
One thing though, if you hear of a female getting arrested at a rock concert, that'll be me, because I've climbed up on stage and twatted them repeatedly because they've ended the gig without playing the titular song.
Trust me, they'd just better play it, or there'll be trouble.
Update: They were ace. They played the song and it was amazing, and I only accidentally caused one almost punch-up. Good night all round. More later when I'm done following Geoff and Neil round the Zone 1 Tube Challenge in the name of photojournalism.
I don't normally do this sort of thing, but it's either this, nothing, or lots of angst, so I'm afraid you'll just have to deal with it.
Although I have just realised that perpetuating a meme is the third nail in my carefully constructed *cough* coffin of blog cool.
Nail 1 being: picture of cat
Nail 2 being: admitting to knitting (ooh, it's almost poetic)
I'm sure I'll be back to normal soon. Maybe. Not really anything to worry about.
... unless I turn the blog pink. Then you can worry...
Anyway, the meme thing, so nicely passed to me by .jay.
Total volume of music files on my computer is:
Approximately 12gb, since the merging of the mp3 collections, but that lot definitely includes a bunch of duplicates, and not much of my actual CD collections, which, given my current lack of ipod, gives me no real motivation to change.
I used to have a load more but something weird happened and I lost them. Not sure how.
Hrm.
The last CD I bought was:
Yikes. It would seem that I haven't bought a CD in ages, cos the last one I remember buying was a copy of Let There Be Rockgrass by Hayseed Dixie from the Merch stand in the foyer of Islington Academy when I saw their gig last November.
The last non CD based music I bought, however, was Back to Bedlam by James Blunt which I bought from iTunes after hearing Jonathan Ross play one of his songs. Ironically, I tend to listen to Radio 4 more, when I'm listening to radio, and the only reason I heard the song at all, was that I was tuning my radio and stopped when I heard Wossy.
Anyway, I heard the opening few bars, thought his voice was amazing and then promptly burst into tears because the song really resonated with me and had some uncomfortably close parallels to my situation at the time.
Song playing right now:
Nothing but the music of my printer printing it's little heart out on behalf of my flatmate.
As an alternative, the CD's currently in various CD players are:
Study: Evanescence - Fallen
Kitchen: Christina Aguilera - Stripped
Bedroom: Damien Rice - 0
Living room: Zero 7 - Simple Things
Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me: (no, you don't have to guess which is which, or why)
Virgin State of Mind - K's Choice
You Shook Me All Night Long - Hayseed Dixie
Boulevard of Broken Songs - Party Ben (6mb mp3 but oh so worth it)
Glitter and Trauma - Biffy Clyro
New York Minute - The Eagles
Five people to whom I'm passing the baton:
Adrian (obviously)
Pete 'n Karen
Neil
The OnionBagBlogger
Gordon McLean
There. That's a few minutes of your life you'll never get back. Hope it was worth it :)
This is absolutely ace.
Genius in fact.
I recently realised that there was a hole in my life.
A creative hole.
I had a need to do something. Make something. Something more tangible than a website or a photo.
I didn't really know what it was, until I was reading a post at Christine's site a few weeks ago.
I followed the link, innocently enough, and before I knew it, I was looking at knitting patterns, and thinking "oooh, that would be lovely if it was in a kind of... wool with a..."
So, when I went home a couple of weeks ago, I liberated most of my granny's knitting needle collection, and some of my mum's, and a ball of wool to practice on, and on Sunday night, I re-taught myself how to knit.
Monday night found me sufficiently confident that I'd retrieved my long lost knitting mojo from the black hole of my brain, and found me in the haberdashery department of John Lewis, which is somehow bright, modern and upbeat and Grace Brothers meets Aladdin's cave all at once.
45 minutes later I left, just over a tenner lighter in wallet and grinning like a loon.
The 4 balls of wool I bought are currently being transformed into the loveliest, most strokeable scarf ever, and I'm really enjoying it.
Ladies and gentlemen - I am knitting.
Let the piss-taking commence, but only until I finish the scarf.
Then you can shush and admire it, and if you're very lucky, I might even let you stroke it.
A couple of months ago, Adrian drove me mad for an entire afternoon, being cryptic about a surprise he'd arranged.
Despite my stating several times (i.e., every time Derren was on the TV) that Derren Brown freaked me out and that I'd run a mile if I was ever in the same room as him (no matter the size of the room), he booked tickets to see Derren's live show at the Hexagon in Reading, neatly circumventing any protests he knew I'd make if I'd known about it beforehand.
You see, I'm a control freak (this is probably not news to most of you), and what that tends to mean is that I get really quite stressed if I feel like I'm in a situation where I don't have control over my actions. This is also the reason why I've only been utterly off-my-face drunk once in my life.
Even the idea of being near someone like Derren, who is so very good at what he does, makes me really quite stressed. Interestingly enough, this is not the case with a very good friend of mine who makes at least part of his living doing similar things, but that's neither here nor there (or possibly an indication that my friend is better at it than Derren is...).
Anyway, this friend had been trying to persuade me to go along to a Derren show for quite a while, and I'd protested every time, on two counts:
1) I don't trust Derren as far as I could throw him (and that's not far) and I don't feel comfortable (with the idea of) being anywhere near him.
2) Knowing my luck, if I went to one of his shows, I'd wind up getting pulled out of the audience and onto the stage.
... and I was totally fine with that. I was quite happy to watch his shows on TV and be aloof and interested in what he does, and his skill in doing it.
Until Adrian bought the tickets and the wheels came off the wagon.
So, Friday night rolled round, and Adrian had had a rubbish day at work, and wasn't really up for going, and frankly, neither was I (see above), but I knew he'd spent money on getting good tickets, and it just felt wrong to let that go to waste.
Time was tight and there was an element of stress, but with the help of a taxi we made it to the Hexagon with enough time for a drink before the show started and we made our way to the seats, where were on the right hand side of the hall (facing the stage) towards the back, on the tiered area of the stalls.
The show kicked off, and it emerged that people would be chosen to participate in the show by catching a chucked monkey, at which point I relaxed. The monkey was fairly certain to only bounce around the centre section, so I was safe, and even if it did come over in our direction, I could duck it and it would go to someone else.
Easy.
Ha.
Oh, if only.
Fate, in the form of a monkey-chosen punter tasked with finding who he thought were the five best liars in the house, a cameraman and Derren, conspired against me, and 1200 people in a sold-out Hexagon got to see me swear because they panned up a few seconds after I realised that:
1) that was my cleavage taking up a fair amount of the screen on stage
and
2) Derren was saying "oh, we don't have a woman yet..."
... and before I knew it, I was out of my seat (having had to make the entire row stand up to let me out) and walking up towards the stage.
The stunt itself was fairly simple. A velvet bag, five balls (four white and one black) and five people. Everyone picks a ball, has a peek and then is told to put it in a pocket. We're all to step forward to the mic, state our name and occupation and then answer a question. The four with the white balls must lie in response to this question. The one with the black ball must tell the truth, and Derren has to figure out who has the black ball.
There was a bit of misdirection in the middle, with him making me wander across the stage so he could watch me walk (quite what he got from this I'm not sure) and then getting us all to write down the name of the person we first had a crush on and fold up the paper and put it in our pockets.
One by one the guys were called forward and despatched, until it was down to me and the bloke with the black ball, by which point I'd figured out there had been no likelihood that I was getting off the stage any earlier.
So I stepped forward and said my name and job into the mic, only it was a bit too high, and nobody understood my accent (nervousness makes me talk quickly - can't help it).
Someone helpfully shouted from the balcony asking me to repeat it in English, at which point I shrugged, said sorry and repeated myself.
... and quite honestly, I was fine being on the stage. I wasn't massively comfortable, but I was dealing with it, until Derren said that he was looking for microsignals to let him know which of us was telling the truth and which was lying, at which point my hands and legs started to shake, and I couldn't control it, and there's no way he couldn't tell it was me, because my knees were knocking and he (and everyone in the front three rows) could see my skirt shaking.
He then went behind us, waved at who he thought was who, and then stood in front of us, asking whoever had the white ball to put it in his hand.
Which I didn't.
Truth be told, I wanted to make him sweat a bit.
Then I gave in, went through with it, he shook my hand, kissed me on the cheek and I made my way as quickly as possible off the stage and back to my seat.
Sometimes, things are just inevitable, but I survived unharmed, and only mildly freaked out (well, once I'd had some thai food and half a bottle of Argentinean Pinot Grigio).
I'd still turn and walk away if I ever saw him in the street though.
Things are very different for me since the last time I voted.
I almost didn't vote this time. I couldn't be arsed. My vote is meaningless. Blah blah. Then, though my mum wasn't there in person, she managed to pop up in my brain and nag me to do it, because, all clichés aside - people died so that I could, and countless thousands more wish they could, and so in all honestly, I couldn't not vote.
I almost couldn't vote at all, because they didn't send papers round to allow me to register and I wasn't aware of the 11th March deadline until about the 15th. It took me a while longer, but I finally realised that I might be eligible to vote at my old address, and finally got round to checking, confirming and completing the application form for a postal vote mere hours before the deadline.
Mostly, I felt a bit discombobulated because voting SNP wasn't an option, and if you were listening to "Any Questions?" on Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago when Alex Salmond was on, you'd understand why.
But.
I chose to live in London, and so I have to deal with the choices that are available to me.
Looking at my ballot paper I was a bit lost - I knew nothing about any of the candidates, they'd done nothing personally for me, so it was almost eeny meeny time.
Obviously, I immediately discounted the Tories and the Greens, which meant it came down to a choice between Labour and the Lib Dems.
What really clinched it was the fact that I couldn't find anything about what the Lib Dem candidate stood for - not in the first three pages on Google. Not in the Guardian's candidate guide. Not anywhere.
So, feeling slightly uncomfortable, I started going through the voting record of the Labour bloke... and very nearly went for the Lib Dem candidate, but for one thing.
He voted against a bill to make Incapacity Benefit means tested, and that did it for me.
Some of you will have realised by now that disability issues are a big thing for me, and for all I mutter about being part of the forgotten generation that nobody campaigns at, that's one area where politics becomes important for me.
So I put my cross in the box, got my identity witnessed and sent off my postal vote.
I'm curious though - what is it that makes you vote (or not vote)?
This is a live redesign.
It wasn't going to be a live redesign, but then I started fiddling with it after midnight, and now it's the wee smalls and I'm going demented.
This is what happens when I try to fix something that's only a little bit broke.
Lyle, this is your fault.
I'm sorry.
I tried. I really did...
... but work, life, and lack of internet connection to my laptop while up North all conspired against me and I didn't manage to get the changes I wanted to make done in time for May 1st.
I do still plan on getting the changes done as soon as possible.
Work/Life permitting, of course.
... the online home and (not very) alter(ed)-ego of Ann McMeekin, a recently freelance Web Accessibility Consultant.
... passionate about many things, most of which will turn up on this site at some time or other.
... contactable via email.
Design and content copyright 2000-2007 pixeldiva, except where noted.
Copyright of comments remains with the individual author.
All rights reserved.
