scenes

[in my therapist's office]

THERAPIST: But what you don't want to do is be accidentally fighting against each other.
ME: No.
THERAPIST: You see, it's like -

[his face lights up and he digs in a cupboard behind him]

Have you seen one of these? Do you know what it is?

[he hands me a finger trap, looking more animated than I have ever seen him]

ME: ...yes.
THERAPIST: Well, put it on, put it on! People think that they have to pull their fingers apart to get the finger trap off, but that only makes it worse! To get the trap off you have to push your fingers in!
ME: [removing finger trap] Here.
THERAPIST: Oh no, you keep that. I've got a whole drawerful of them. I just love watching people try to get these things off, it's amazing. I could watch it all day.
ME: ...did you become a therapist because of finger traps?
THERAPIST: Aren't they great?

a short play

Cast

ME, a depressive
BRAIN, an asshole

[Bedroom, 9pm]

BRAIN: I'm tired.
ME: It's only nine.
BRAIN: I said, I'm TIRED.
ME: I'm not going to bed now.
BRAIN: I can't stay awake.
ME: Yeah, right up until I turn the light off, when you suddenly remember a graphic newspaper article from when I was twelve or that time someone shouted at me in the street or when you thought of some really creative ways for people I love to get hurt and for it to be my fault.
BRAIN: Well, we need to be prepared for all the ways people you love might get hurt and it might be your fault. Then it won't be a surprise.

[song interlude]

BRAIN: I'm TIRED.
ME: You've got to wait.

[Bedroom, 11.30pm]

ME: OK, this is more like bedtime. We can...
BRAIN: We should empty the washing machine.
ME: O...K...
BRAIN: It's important.
ME: Remember when you wouldn't let me do any washing for weeks because downstairs was too far away and I still had three pairs of clean pants?
BRAIN: IMPORTANT. WASHING MACHINE.
ME: Fine.
BRAIN: And hang it all up.
ME: Yes.

[washing machine is emptied, contents are hung on clothes horse]

BRAIN: While we're up, this room's a bit of a state.
ME: What, now?
BRAIN: NOW. It's a mess.
ME: Yes, it's a mess. It's always a mess. You look at it and you CAN'T and it's AWFUL and you have to lie down.
BRAIN: This sounds like excuse-making. You're always doing that.
ME: Alright, fine. I'll put a couple of things away.

[an hour later]

BRAIN: This cupboard needs reorganising.
ME: You have got to be kidding.
BRAIN: IMPORTANT. CUPBOARD.
ME: It's 12.30am and the cupboard is fine.
BRAIN: I'm on a roll. Stop complaining. You're always complaining about things that need to be done.
ME: Remember when you wouldn't let me eat because moving was too hard and you might accidentally see some other humans?
BRAIN: You're fine. Stop living in the past.
ME: Uh...
BRAIN: ORGANISE THIS CUPBOARD FULL OF FABRICS AT ONCE.

[organisation happens]

BRAIN: Now for writing.
ME: What?
BRAIN: You should write! You keep saying that!
ME: ...you haven't let me write for over three months.
BRAIN: So you'd better jump on it, hadn't you?

[writing]

ME: Does this mean you're going to let me dance again too?
BRAIN: Let's not go nuts.
ME: But...
BRAIN: I don't like moving. And there are people.
ME: I like people.
BRAIN: Yeah, but let's face it, you're no fun anymore.
ME: Whose fault is that?
BRAIN: This would be a lot easier if you just accept the fact that nobody cares if you're there or not and that moving around is rubbish.
ME: I'd rather not.
BRAIN: Maybe you should clean the carpet.
ME: Maybe you should shut up.
BRAIN: Maybe YOU should shut up. Ever think about that?
ME: Yes.
BRAIN: Good.

[writing finishes]

ME: Now is it bedtime?
BRAIN: You need to make a spreadsheet.
ME: A spreadsheet?
BRAIN: IMPORTANT.
ME: Can't we do that in the morning?
BRAIN: Well, sure, if that's a risk you want to take.
ME: Fine.

[The next morning, 10am]

ME: So, did you want to vacuum the carpet?
BRAIN: I'm TIRED. I was up LATE.
ME: Whose fault is that?
BRAIN: I can't do ANYTHING. Not one thing. Bring me the internet.
ME: But...
BRAIN: IMPORTANT. INTERNET.
ME: I remember when you used to be nice.
BRAIN: Stop living in the past and bring me the internet before I start imagining that you've been locked in a room with your ex for science and all you can do is scream obscenities at him because of all the things he did that I'm about to remind you of.
ME: Yes, yes, alright.
BRAIN: Youtube is soothing.
ME: The room is still kind of a mess.
BRAIN: You made me do THINGS. I'm not doing THINGS again for WEEKS. Remember when we stayed awake every night and watched five hundred videos of improv sketches in a row? Wasn't that great?
ME: It really wasn't.
BRAIN: Those were the days.

[Youtube]

ME: Can we go for a walk?
BRAIN: Ask me again in a week.

scenes from my father

This, as faithfully as I can transcribe it, is what just happened to me.

[I am visiting my parents. We are discussing railways]

Dad: But once it's up and running, people will start moving to Swindon because it's an easier commute to London.
Me: Nobody's going to move to Swindon, Dad.
Dad: You never know. It might undergo a revolution of sorts. If you think back to the mid-nineties when the White Stripes brought stripped-back garage rock into stadia...

[I completely lose it and spend the next five straight minutes laughing my head off]

Mum: There you go, she laughed more than I did!
Dad: I read that phrase in an article about two months ago and I thought it was wonderful. I thought, "I must remember that phrase and say it in front of Jen." I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget.
Me: [continues giggling helplessly]
Dad: I've been trying to work out how to drop it into conversation for the last two hours.
Mum: He's been quite excited about it. He practised on me.
Dad: I just went out to the kitchen to look up the phrase so I'd have it right. I've been wanting to say that in front of you for two months.

[He disappears out to the kitchen and returns with his phone, which has a note on it reading "Mid nineties White Stripes brought stripped back garage rock into stadia"]

Dad: See?
Me: Oh my God, you wrote it on your phone.
Dad: I didn't want to forget it. Such a wonderful phrase.
Me: You compared the White Stripes to Swindon.
Dad: [nods, very pleased with himself]
Me: Do you know who the White Stripes are?
Dad: No! Not a clue! I just thought it was a wonderful phrase.
Mum: Oh, come on. You know about Jack Stripe.
Me: Jack Stripe?
Mum: ...that was the wrong one, wasn't it.

[I collapse into giggles for another five minutes while Mum does an impression of Meg White on the drums.]

Dad: I'm so pleased about this.
Mum: You've made him very happy.

technology

Many years ago in the past...

[I am having dinner with my father]
Me: Speaking of birthdays, Mum said she wants an iPod this year.
Dad: She wants a... what?
Me: An iPod.
Dad: Oh! An iPod. Not an iPhone or an iPad.
Me: No, just the iPod.
Dad: ...you know what's good? This Dongle.
Me: Huh?
Dad: That's technology, isn't it?

Skipping forward to last Tuesday...

Dad: While you're home, I wonder if you could help me with some technology business.
Me: Sure, what's not working?
Dad: Well. For our birthday, we ended up with a thing called a Hudl.
Me: Oh, I hear they're good.
Dad: Yes. For the email and such. However, what it doesn't have is this thing called WiFi.
Me: Uh huh.
Dad: So. One has bought... a WiFi machine. But one doesn't know quite what one is meant to do with it.
Me: [helpless giggling]
Dad: What does it do?
Me: It's like a Dongle you don't have to plug in.
Dad: OH! It's like a Dongle! And they've made it wireless? Well. That's jolly good then.

Things I love about this:

1. My father, who took the best part of a decade to learn to send a text message by himself, knows all about Dongle.
2. My father knows absolutely nothing about any piece of technology that isn't Dongle.
3. My father lapses into the royal 'we' when unsure of himself.
4. Once I'd got the mobile WiFi working, I set him up on Twitter and made him follow Beyoncé.*

Then my mother came home.

Mum: While you're home, could you take a look at my new tablet?
Me: What's wrong with it?
Mum: Little things appear in the top left corner, and I swipe down, and it starts doing things.
Me: What things?
Mum: I don't know! Things!
Me: Oh, it's just trying to install a system update.
Mum: What?? What does that do? Do I want that? Help.

I do love that I, as someone who has been known to accidentally turn everything blue when using a laptop, still get to go back to my parents' and become the All-Knowing Technology Wizard. Especially when I don't even have a tablet. When both my parents have a piece of technology that I don't have, it makes me feel hopelessly out of date and like I should maybe get one too, but honestly I have no idea what I'd do with it. It just seems like a really big smartphone that can't call anyone. But maybe I just don't understand technology either.

*Text from father two days later: "And it appears that something called Roxie Rocks is following me."

stamps

[at the supermarket]

Me: Can I get stamps here?
Cashier: [blank stare] ...stamps?
Me: Yeah.
Cashier: Huh?
Me: [waving birthday card helplessly] Stamps. To send this.
Cashier: Um. Ah. George! GEORGE!
George: What?
Cashier: Do we have stamps?
George: Stamps? What stamps?
Me: [waving birthday card] Stamps?

[a moment later]
George: Oh, stamps! Postage stamps!
Me: Yes!
George: You can get them at the kiosk.
Me: Thanks.
Cashier: I thought you wanted to stamp a smiley face in the card.
Me: I just want to post it.
Cashier: Post?

[Exit Jen, feeling very, very old]

scenes from the middle class relationship

Him: How about truffle pasta with asparagus for dinner?
Me: Sure.
Him: I'm on a massive asparagus kick lately. Which is strange, because I'm normally quite seasonal with my veg and asparagus really isn't in season at all.
Me: That's one of the most middle class things I've ever heard.
Him: I met Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall once.

Mum: I'm not sure I can cope with this thing where he doesn't like Wetherspoons. Can you train him to like Wetherspoons?

Him: This area doesn't really have a local paper. So if I'm feeling posh I can read Ham and High, if I'm feeling a bit more riot-y I can read the Wood Green one.
Me: You indulge your riotous impulses by reading a slightly more downmarket local paper?
Him: Yes.
Me: All of this is getting written down.
Him: I know.

Him: It wasn't really about Christmas presents when I was little. If I'd been good all year, my dad would take me to the West End to see a show and go to the really nice cheese shop.
Me: Oh my God.
Him: Hey, I'm not the one constantly ranting about inferior types of pecorino.
Me: Seriously though, pecorino romano? What the hell is the point of pecorino romano?
Him: Ahem.
Me: I stand by that.

blue

My laptop is dying. It's been dying very slowly for a good few years now. First it decided it didn't like sharing WiFi with other laptops and would freeze or shut itself off after two minutes online (I've never found out why this is, it's done it on a dozen different private networks). Then the screen died and I had to get an internal part replaced. Then it died entirely and a nerd magicked it back to life. Then the power cord died. Then the screen started going black when tilted at certain angles. Then all the white space stopped being white at all but two very specific and precise angles of the screen, one of which only exists fifty per cent of the time and the other of which requires the laptop to be practically shut. I haven't replaced it, because it turns out laptops are bastard expensive.

My boyfriend has been offering for months to lend me his old laptop. Which is a Mac.

Me: But I don't get Macs. There aren't any buttons and you scroll the wrong way and dragging and dropping is impossible.
Him: It's fine. They're just computers. They're very easy to use once you get used to the couple of differences.

He scrubbed all his stuff off the old Mac and gave it to me yesterday. Today I tried to do some work on it. Tried.

Me: Uh... help.
Him: What's up?
Me: It went blue.
Him: Huh?
Me: I tried to save it and it went blue.
Him: It went blue?
Me: And all the words have gone.

[he investigates laptop]

Him: Yep, that's gone blue. I've no idea what you did there.
Me: I thought you said Macs were easy to use.
Him: Oh, fuck off.

the best pun ever

I'm trying to write more often so that I stop attaching enormous importance to everything I post. This is not a blog of wider readership or influence or cultural impact, so I'm allowed to post stupid shit if I want to. That said, here is a story about a pun.

Two years ago I responded to a mundane message on OkCupid which led to him flying me out to Tuscany for the weekend two days after meeting me, and then again to Paris for a night a couple of weeks later. This is nowhere near as romantic as it sounds, but I can't say it wasn't fun. However, along the way, this exchange happened.

[Scene: we are out for dinner in Paris. He is eating the frog's legs I goaded him into ordering and complaining about the quality of the food in his hometown, a suburb off Melbourne somewhere]

Him: I went into this pub near my house, and I ordered a pie. I wasn't expecting much, but how badly can you fuck up a pie? Anyway, this thing turned up, and it was so watery inside it was more like soup. It was shocking.
Me: Well, at least they managed to organise a pie soup in a brewery.
Him: [blank stare]
Me: That was a pun.
Him: Was it?
Me: You know the expression, "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery"?
Him: ...no.
Me: Oh. Do you guys not say that?
Him: Nope.
Me: Oh. Dammit. I am NEVER going to get to say "pie soup in a brewery" ever again.
Him: ...I'm going to get more wine.

This still annoys the shit out of me. I mean, PIE SOUP IN A BREWERY. That is an AMAZING pun. And it actually happened, in conversation, without my having to twist anything to make a joke out of it. This sort of thing just doesn't happen. And then it did, and bastard Australians don't even SAY "piss-up in a brewery". To cap it off, we were in France, surrounded by French people who also don't say "piss-up in a brewery". The universe came together in this beautiful way and I was surrounded by people who didn't even see that anything at all had happened beyond some English girl making Pun Dog face for no apparent reason.

I don't think I've ever needed to speak to my dad so urgently in my life. It was the first thing I did when I got home the next day.

Me: Dad. Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad.
Dad: What's the matter?
Me: Listen. You listen to this.
[pun is explained]
Dad: Hah! That is WONDERFUL.
Me: I know! The Aussie didn't get it.
Dad: What??
Me: I KNOW. PIE SOUP IN A BREWERY.

It is entirely possible that my father has never been quite so proud of me.

call centre

Caller: [explains problem]
Worker: That's not something we deal with here, you'll need to speak to [relevant people].
Caller: But I phoned YOU.

Caller: [explains problem] I'm thinking I might sue. Should I sue?
Worker: Well, that would be your decision to make.
Caller: So I should sue! Would I win?
Worker: There's no way for me to know that.
Caller: Fantastic! [away from phone] Honey, she says we should sue!
Worker: I didn't say that.
Caller: It's so great that you said that.

Caller: Don't tell anyone I said this. I don't want it attached to my name.
Worker: That's OK, you haven't given me your name.
Caller: YOU ARE THE GOVERNMENT I KNOW YOU

Caller: Last time I called I spoke to Trevor. Can I speak to Trevor this time?
Worker: I'm afraid we're not set up to direct people to specific advisors.
Caller: [pouts audibly] I liked Trevor.
Worker: I'm sure I'll be able to help you.
Caller: Is Trevor there?
Worker: Not in this office.
Caller: Fine. I'll keep trying until I get Trevor.

Worker: OK, so you have four options here. [explains options]
Caller: So you're saying there's nothing I can do about this?
Worker: Well, there are the four options...
Caller: So, nothing, then.

Caller: Thank you so much for your help, Jezebel.
Worker. My name's Jane.
Caller: Yep! Bye, Jezebel!

Worker: So that's all you need to do, and you'll be set.
Caller: Why can't you do it?
Worker: ...
Caller: I phoned you for HELP.

Caller: So I called before, and you guys told me to use a filter to get rid of my junk mail, and I got drunk and punched a guy in the pub, and now everything's got worse. I'd like to complain about your service.

Worker: [call centre], may I help you?
Caller: Trevor?
Worker: ... no, this is -
Caller: [hangs up]

a stupid thing to say

"Do you remember we were going to run away together? Find some distant bit of countryside somewhere in Europe where nobody would ever think to look for us, get some animals, plant some fruit trees. We'd go and see our nearest neighbours, two miles away, and swap milk for wine, beef for chicken, apples for peaches. Our phones would stop working and eventually, everyone would forget we'd ever existed at all."
"It never would have worked. We like civilisation too much."
"I know. We'd have fought all the time. But I think I might have preferred fighting with you in the middle of nowhere to being happy here."
"That's a really stupid thing to say."
"I know that."
"...I would still go, you know. If you wanted to."

Scenes from the middle class

[There has been a years-long running joke between me and my brother which takes the form of:]

Him: So I bought a selection of jams.
Me: You are so middle-class.

[and]

Him: I brought the Sunday Times, Private Eye, and a spare pair of socks.
Me: You are so middle-class.

[and]

Him: I wanted to make crème brulee for after the poker game, but it’s really hard to do without a crème brulee torch.
Me: Oh my God, you are SO middle-class!

[Some years after this starts, I bring my brother to a lindy hop event at which I am performing]

Him: You don’t get to call me middle-class anymore. This is the most middle-class thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
Me: Yeah, I know.

[a few months later]

Me: So, how was your skiing holiday?
Him: It was excellent. I was with a really good group of mates…

[there is a half-proud, half-ashamed pause]

…I nicknamed us ‘The Piste-y Boys’.
Me: OK, now you’re just a toff.
Him: Yeah, I know.

on a dating site

Somebody asked me what I was looking for in a relationship.

I told him I wanted someone I could learn from, someone who wanted to learn from me. I told him I wanted us to be able to discover new things together, meet new people together, look at things in a new way together. I told him I was looking for rapport, for someone who appreciated and shared my brand of silliness. I said I wanted a relationship to make my world bigger and more interesting, rather than shrinking down to a tiny life with just the two of us in it.

He said, “That’s a first.”

Is it really? That’s a little depressing.

He said, “Women usually say they’re looking for someone they can talk to who makes them laugh.”

That’s a very nice sentiment, I said, but almost everyone wants that. I could give you that answer and you’d have no more useful information about whether we’d be compatible than you did before. I’m not trying to keep my options as wide open as possible; I don’t have a burning desire to get myself coupled up at any cost. If I do decide to start a relationship then I need to know that it’s going to make me happy, and I’m not going to get that kind of certainty from platitudes.

He said, “Yeah. Well, I want all those things you just said too.”

I stopped responding.

Scenes

This is a thing I used to do back in the days when I had a LiveJournal. I'm starting it again in the hope that it'll get me in the habit of writing more frequently.

[I am doing a shift on the door at a social dance. A couple approaches]

Guy: So, what is this?
Me: It's a blues dance night.
Guy: So, it's blues music, but you have to dance?
Me: Yes, essentially.

[The guy puts his head round the door to have a look]

Guy: Oh! So it's a dating event!
Me: No, it's not.

[He looks at me sceptically]

Me: It's really not. That's just what the dance looks like.
Guy: Oh, I see, so these are all established couples?
Me: No, people just come and dance with anyone.
Guy: So it IS a dating thing. Just going up to strangers?
Me: Most of the people here know each other. They come for the dancing.
Guy: It must be a dating thing. Like couch surfing.
Girl: What? What are you talking about?
Guy: We're going to go somewhere else.

[They turn to leave. As they go up the stairs:]

Girl: What do you mean 'it's like couch surfing'? What do you think couch surfing is???

Actual quote from today's NaNoing

"How do you get the Prime Minister into a yoghurt shop?"
"Take... take the yoghurt out first?"

I don't even know anymore.