THURSDAY: It is the second day in Boston; I have been transcribing, and now my beloved is editing and answering email at the desk. Only one of us can use internet at any one time, though we both have laptops with us for ‘writing-on’ purposes, although one of us can use the internet at any one time because he is cheap and I am scared of expenses forms. Instead, I am listening to him type, and reading - without the world wide hivemind at my fingertips - some form of dead tree matter which has a familiar feel to the stuff I would usually read online but in a font I can’t change at will, and if I want to comment on it I have to seem to scribble on the bottom of the page with a biro.

After discussing the thing being edited on and off, his conversation becomes less as he becomes more email-oriented, and somehow, though it is still bright evening sunlight outside the window, the book flops down on my face and I drift off into a heavy, dream-filled sleep, half-cocked, half-sitting, half-alert.

(Seriously - anyone who said ‘Woo! Holiday in Boston in the springtime, though, yay!’ is sadly further off the mark than I would wish for. anyone who ever thought I was even more boring in Boston than I am in real life - oh god, you have NO idea. Well, you probably do, now. You will even more when I post the other thing currently half-written and on draft…)

Twenty minutes later I wake suddenly at the burst of some bad bubble in whatever horrible half-dream I was having, and half-mumble half-shout at the still bright window, staring at the beautiful sun shining on a world that I don’t recognise.

“What? Wherewhatwhat? But. BUT?”

And then, sitting stock straight with my legs hanging off the side but not touching the floor on those stupid hotel beds that make all adults into infants, I - for no reason and with no reason - burst into confused and upset and angry tears. The kind of tears I last saw used by a two-year-old would use if woken up from a nap unexpectedly. Horizontal tears. Spraying like lawn sprinklers and watering everything in sight whether it needs it or not.

After a minute I stop, and have a shower and a twice-strong coffee from the wussy in-room coffee machine, and then I get better.

But sometimes, that is what it is like.
I always thought that jetlag just made you a bit tired.
And i don’t know whether it is because of my general oversensitivity to seasons and light and weather and things, but ‘a bit tired’ doesn’t, annoyingly, cover it. Even slightly.

Wah.

Boston. It has Cheers; it has history; it has just LOADS of universities; it has a very jetlaagged and (currently) slightly pissed me, thinking about what it is like to be in ‘it’.
‘It’ being ‘Boston’.

There. Told you I was a bit pissed.

So, I’m not Actually in Boston, of course, I am in Cambridge, because though we may as a country have had enough influence over this state that they named all their counties, towns and cities over us, we didn’t apparently have enough influence to suggest that just because you walk fifteen minutes, you’re not in a separate city.

Still, I am. I’m in Cambridge, which is lovely, and fun-filled, and pleasant, and just as full of studious-looking and wholesome and annoying students as the other one is. Today I was sitting outside a coffee shop transcribing some stuff from an interview, and the quad was full of them, all bounding with health and frisbees and direction in life, the bastards.

I mean to write more comprehensively about things, but in the meantime, just to keep them somewhere safe, some notes about Boston:

1. The accent is weird. It’s nice but … well … ok, so if you’re British and you’re abroad, your ear naturally picks up another British voice, whatever the British accent - you’re so used to them all, you pick them naturally out of a crowd when everyone else is talking differently.

In Boston/Cammbridge/whatever this is different, because the local accent here has many of the same vowel sounds as the majority of our accents do at home, which means you’re walking down the street and your ears prick up and you think ‘OOOH! Someone from home!’ and then they say another word and you realise they are not. It’s very odd.

2. I have never EVER been in a city more polite. Ever. I was walking down the street and saw a guy on a bike bowling down the pavement toward me. I stepped aside when I reached a point at which only one of us could get through (silently tutting at the fact he was cycling on the pavement at all, though it seems to be quite the accepted thing, here) but then he screeched to a halt, smiled so very nicely at me and said ‘Please, after you!’

And that’s only one example. People are, as far as I’ve experienced, universally Polite and Nice and Sincere.
Does not compute. What kind of city living is this, please?

3. On a downside, every different cafe and restaurant and deli has a different way of doing things and no apparent indication of how that might be done.
Do you choose your bread and carry it to a counter where you then choose your fillings before carrying it to another and then paying?
Do you sit down and wait to be served, quietly?
Do you order one bit here and one bit there and then pay for the whole lot somewhere else?
This is, I’m sure you’ll imagine, an almost implosible state of affairs for a social-phobic type. Such fun.

4. Jet lag. Bad.
That’s not about Boston, it’s just about me.
It makes me cry. But what doesn’t?
This makes me cry in a silly way, though. More of that at another time, I’m sure.

5. The Irish descendancy of so many native Bostonians is so weirdly obvious it’s funny. The man directing the ridiculously long line at immigration when we arrived has red curls topping his ruddy face and solid frame; the actual immigration officer who interviewed me, meanwhile, only needed a tiny green hat with a buckle to make him into the comedy leprechaun he was clearly born to be.

6. It’s sunny, and I would like to move here please.
And yes, I know I say that about every sunny plae ever.
It’s still true.

7. At the subway station for Kendall (MIT) there is a giant wind chime with ten-foot chimes and hammers that sway and chime in a deep, low, sonorous tone when there is a rush of wind from an approaching or departing train pushing through the adjoining tunnel.

How nice is that?

It’s very nice. Especially because it takes your mind off the fact that the trains are every howbejeesusingever.

Anyway. I will make some funnier stories, but right now just wanted to note down some things because I am overtired and a little pissed and yet cannot sleep.

But now I will try, all the same.

[pootles off]
SNOR

God, that’s a horrible title. I’m sitting here and regretting it just as I’ve written it, and there’s nothing I can do because I’ve been sitting here trying to think of a NON-completely hideous pun and failing and I meant to write another silly post here tonight but then went out for dinner quite by mistake and now I don’t have time.

So. I’m going away for a few days, I’m going to a conference called ROFLcon and reporting back from/interviewing people on these kinds of panels. If you do have any interest in that, or have any questions you would desperately like me to ask these internet-meme celebrities (if you do have any interest in that kind of thing), let me know.

For the rest of you (so most, then) I’ll desperately try and post from Boston while away, but will otherwise be back next week…

xxx

[Title suggested by William T, as part of this ask a few days ago.]

“Practice!”
Obviously.
That is the answer that was at some point funny, and in something, when said by someone but I can’t remember who.
And no, I can’t be arsed to look it up, because I am not at work and thus do not need to be able to quote sources. So there.

However, that may have been the way to get to Carnegie Hall back in those days, whenever those were, when whoever said it in whatever it was, but now, it would simply not be enough.

You would not only need practice, You would need some kind of directions from where you were to Midtown Manhattan (in my case those would be ‘turn left onto Gloucester Road, travel 3,472 miles, turn left again at Chibougamau, Quebec, and carry on until midtown Manhattan, Carnegie Hall will be on your left’ so as long as I remember which is my right and which my left - which I generally don’t - we should be ok) but you would also need a visa, as they’re pretty strict on those kinds of things. Seriously, because it would be terrible to do all that practice, get to Carnegie Hall, and then have someone turn up and chuck you out for not having the right kind of visa. It would be terribly embarrassing.

Because if you need to do stuff that some people might consider ‘work’ in certain countries, you ned to have a piece of paper that says that you’re allowed to do that, apparently.
Which is why I ended up with an appointment to have a breakfast meeting with the American Ambassador a few weeks ago on a Monday.

Not quite brunch - obviously, I know that more important people probably get the brunch appointments - but I was fixed up for an 8am business breakfast, or so the letter kind of said.

And even though I had to get up before 5 to make sure I was on the train with all my appropriate documents and things, and dressed smartly in something that would carry me through the rest of the day, it would be nice, I imagined. Me and the ambassaor, some watery American coffee, some Ferrero Rocher; we’d have some laughs, kick some ideas about on the topic of what really was the last great US sitcom; and then I’d show him my documents and he’d be all ‘put those away, Anna, we’re way past that now!’ and he’d smile and get some white-toothed lackey to stamp my passport and we’d kiss - though only one cheek, because he’s really not into the whole continental thing - and I’d be on my way.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself standing in a queue of a couple of hundred people ALSO summoned for breakfast with the ambassador - or rather some perfunctory and bloodless exchange with that lackey with the winning grin (who, in fact, would turn out to be the only factual element of my fantasy morning) - in the very cold, and the drizzle. Oh, and in nice if slightly tall heels, because I’d thought for some reason my journalist visa thing would be more likely to be approved if I could prove that I was able to stand around in uncomfortable shoes for long enough without complaining.

I’d come up to London with no electrical goods in my bag - no laptop, no phone, no music thing, no … well, no anything, because it had said on the letter that these types of goods were strictly verboten.
No, it said ‘forbidden’, sorry, because it wasn’t the German embassy, in which case that would have made sense.
So I had nothing to amuse myself apart from watching all the other people in the queue, enjoying the play of freezing drizzle on my cheeks and reading a slowly disintegrating magazine with a main article about the complete breakdown of control, law and humanity in Abu Ghraib - which, to be honest, I was a bit worried about being caught reading in case anyone thought I was, like, ‘trying to say summink’ and thus was an enemy of the state…

We stood in line. And stood. And stood.

And then we had our stuff checked by one set of security people - the documents in our document pouches, and things - and then we queued and queued and stood some more.

And then we had our stuff checked by a second set of security people. And then we went through the third and fourth sets of security checks, in a security hut, and had everything electrical or time-passing or interesting taken away from us, and even though i thought I’d been very assiduous, I was discovered to have a usb key and some kind of plug in the bottom of my capacious handbag, and I was tutted at and mildly told off and they were put in a plastic bag and I was given a ticket and told I could pick them up later. Maybe. If I was good.

And all the while, everyone stood very patiently and recognised there was a certain order to things and that this is just the way things had to be done, and do you know the only point at which we doubted that? Or, perhaps, the only point at which I doubted the whole sanity of it all is when a bunch of people that looked like a fat old version of a rock band turned up, and I thought to myself “God, that looks like what Robert Smith of the Cure would look like if he was old and fat” and then I realised it was, and he is, and then they all marched with their embassy accompanist past the queue and straight through the security checks without so much as a by your leave. Like they were important, or had actually made an album that anyone bothered listening to in the last 12 years or something.

In the embassy itself, after another two security checks - I hope I’m not giving too much away here, I’m not trying to write a ‘how to’ for grumpy terrorists, I’m really not; and besides, I should think that if any grumpy would-be terrorist ARE reading this (hello! Stop it!), they would be put off by how very very secure it all is. I know I was. Not that I was planning anything BAD, obv, just in a general wa… I’m just going to stop there, I think.

So there we sat, in tight little rows of hard plastic chairs, each holding their ticket with a number in the high thousands printed on, and watching as numbers far below ours were called to windows in a seemingly random but neverending stream that meant you could never look away, or go to the toilet, or really concentrate on anything else in the knowledge that as soon as we DID they would call our number and we would miss it and then have to go to the back of the queue again. Of ALL the queues.

This means, then, that you’re stuck, eyes fixed on these flashing boards and their continuous stream of numbers - unless you’re The Cure, in which case you apparently employ someone to do that for you, as they all stood at the back of the room drinking that watery coffee and talking about the days when they were a real band that people liked in more than a nostalgic way while a be-suited donk stood by them squinting at the screen on their behalf.

Funnily enough, in between the two screens of flashing numbers, there were two screens with constantly shifting photographs.

There were images of beautiful smiling children wrapped in flags and waving in a happy, contented way at the camera. And images of fluttering flags up proud flagpoles standing erect in front of stunning sunsets over municipal-looking buildings. And even one of Mickey Mouse waving at crowds while being driven slowly through a ticker tape parade. And they showed these melding slowly into each other, and in rotation, in the periphery of the thing you were actually looking at, but still very visible.
And I’m not saying that they WERE purposefully hypnotic, just if you were trying to hypnotise people, that wouldn’t be a bad way of going about it.

So with no watch or camera or laptop, in a room with no clocks, I slowly went from gruntled to disgruntled got called to three windows, filled in five more forms, handed over several more pounds and didn’t get offered Ferrero Rocher ONCE. Thouhg I did watch in shock and dismay as The Cure were clearly rushed through the system ahead of everyone else. I eman: The CURE? REALLY?!

But I didn’t kick up a fuss, because all the security guards had guns and - who knows - probably a soft spot for ‘Love Cats’ as well, so instead I sat patiently and read my quietly anti-establishment article and went to the windows when I was finally called. And when I got there, they were all very nice and friendly - well, to an extent - and did at least smile and stamp everything I wanted them to smile at and stamp; thus giving me licence to do something that I’ve not quite figured out what it is yet. Although I do know that it means the things I’m doing later this week I won’t, apparently, be doing illegally.
So phew for that.

And that’s how you get to Carnegie Hall.
Be The Cure.
Everything’s so much easier when you are The Cure.
Bastards.

[Title, which was suggested by Obi Vin when I asked has very little to do with the post. Or nothing But then, I couldn't think what post it was ever going to have anything to do with. Oh, apart from telling you all about that time that I tried to get the other technicians in the backstage crew I was working on at the time to call me 'Captain' rather than the other slightly less flattering nickname they had given me, and it nearly worked. But I think I've already written about that, so since I really liked the title, I thought I'd just assign it to something random]

I have been accused in comments of, and due to, the post below, of being rather wussy when it comes to illness. And, in fact, of suffering ‘man-flu’ worse than any man. I will not deny I have a rather, shall we say ‘dramatic’ approach to everything illness, and may, some might suggest, tend to blow things up rather out of proportion for effect/to keep myself entertained.

And so it was a few weeks ago when I pretty much convinced myself that I might well be terminally ill.
I could make a much longer story out of it, but think it is probably well enough summed up in the twitter I made on the subject.

Trying to work out if I have a spot in my armpit or breast cancer. If it ISN’T a spot, I may have just discovered that cancer is squeezable. 12:51 AM from web

Man flu? Me? You ain’t heard nuffink, sweetheart.
It wasn’t, by the way.
Like I even needed to tell you…
But still, imagine the medical breakthrough it would have been if I HAD discovered that!

I was going to use one of the titles you so kindly donated to me last week when I was in extremis, writey-blocky wise, and asked you to, but I am too tired to go and look one up right now, so I am just going to tell you how Horribly and Dreadfully Sick I am, instead, and then sit back and hope you give me some sympathy before I get better, which should be hopefully tomorrow, because I am not really *that* sick.

Anyway, I am going to tell you about my sick, like this was an old school diary blog and no one read it, (which is some more and some less true, to various extents) and I was just an anonymous person that didn’t care what people thought of me and … anyway. I am not getting nearly enough sympathy from my beloved (mainly because I only have a slight cough)

A couple of nights ago, I had a bit of a tickly throat before I went to sleep, and it was difficult to get to sleep but then I did go to sleep all the same, and slept until the normal time in the morning. I know, it’s so thrilling even I can barely bear it, and I know how it ends!

My mother came for lunch the day after that barely interrupted night of sleep. Not from Scotland - that would have been lovely, but slightly over-the-top - but from nearer by, where she had been, and we went and had something to eat. I had salad, and so did my mother, and My beloved had some of that wet rice I’ve never really understood the point of.

(This bit isn’t related to the main ‘me being ill’ story, so don’t get all detectivey and try and pick up clues about just what in the motherly visit or the lunch might have led me to being ill, because it isn’t anything to do with those things. If you ARE going to be detectivey, I would suggest you looking just a little further back to the subtle hints about tickly throats I was dropping a minute ago, but seriously - you really might as well not bother because I’m going to get to the point in a second anyway)

And then my mother left and immediately I announced my intention to nap, and disappeared upstairs - which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to post about society’s divide between bed-naps and sofa-naps, by the way, don’t let me forget - and then slept very heavily apart from the fact I couldn’t breathe without it causing me to go ‘kof! kof kof! kof kof kof!’ - which really isn’t the most condusive sleeping position, as it turns out, and you can’t take sleeping pills for naps, because that way madness lies.

I got up and did some work and, as soon as I had finished that, collapsed in a little pile on the sofa and had a little bit of a cry, as that’s what I do when I am under the weather (or pre-menstrual, tired, jetlagged, anxious, cross, having a depressive episode, watching something even vaguely sad on telly or so many many other things, let’s face it) and then crawled back to bed, where I proceeded to sleep for a good - and unusual - 10 hours. Then woke up coughing.

My beloved had to go into London, so I thought I was going to have to sit around feeling sorry for myself all day, which hardly seemed fair, but then a nice lady with a clipboard knocked on the door and I invited her in to feel sorry for me instead. She said she was from Mori and her name was Judy, and she was very nice. She communed with the cats, and was duly sympathetic every time I coughed loud enough, but she did also insist on asking me lots of pesky questions about doctors and online activity (I was able to answer ‘yes’ to every single thing under the ‘what have you done online in the last month?’ section, thank you very much. Oh, apart from ‘download porn’, but I may have to change that soon, for reasons I will eplain another day, I promise) although never wanted to have a nice conversation about the things she was asking about, she only wanted numbers and degrees of satisfiedness and yeses and noes. She would ask about how many shoes I had bought on eBay recently, but did she want to SEE the shoes? No. Well that’s just rude, I thought.

And then Judy left, and I drank lots of cough medicine and I ate drugs and slept more and read some and had some more small cries and napped and coughed and by tomorrow I’ll be better.

And that is the end of my story.
It wasn’t a very good story but I wanted to post something and I just thought typing - even tired typing - would get that done.

The End.

UPDATE, FRIDAY MORNING:
Yes, I am feeling a lot better.

[Title suggested by LizSara suggested this title when I asked; here]

I do realise that tights are, by far, the least loved of the legwear world. Stockings might be sexy, socks might be sensible, and well, I mean, I’m screwed if I know, all the cool kids may well be rocking pop socks this year. But I care not. Tights are best. Particularly, and I’m not even slightly ashamed of this, so you needn’t think I am - particularly what are technically known as ’suckyinnytights’ - which are terribly good for the confidence, and the line of your dress, and for the arse.

ALSO - and this is a very good thing - it is almost impossible to lose a matching pair of tights, because they are connected at the top.
Perhaps socks should also consider this. Perhaps in some manner like mittens: you know, with a string around the crotch. Or something.

However, all the love for the suckyinnytights shouldn’t be one way. A one way love would be wrong, and bad, especially for something with two legs. Love between things with two legs should be a two-way love. One love per leg.

So, you know, if you are a person, and you are wanting to show love and support for your legwear, there are various ways you can do that.

Putting them in a special drawer is good one, as is making sure you don’t have lots of snagged nails before pulling them on. Not hanging them up in the bathroom in what must be considered a ‘come hither (and rip me to shreds)’ fashion while your two teenaged cats are watching is also a life-prolonging tip to remember.

You could also try buying them flowers. Or talking to them in a soothing voice and saying nice things. That would also be considered reasonably supportive, if a little odd, what with them being tights and all.

I am lost for other things that one could do. However, if you wanted to have music piped into the drawer in which you keep your suckyinnytights, or any other tights, for example, that would be a nice idea, and I would suggest any of the following tracks might be applicable.
1) “I’ll Be There For You, Other Leg” - by The Rembrants, who moved on to making tight-based songs to capitalise on their Friends theme tune success.
2) ‘Good Nylon Sweetheart’ -it’s a be-bop classic.
3) ‘Non-slip Lovin” - by some big-haired metal band of the mid eighties.
4) ‘Ladder Me Tender’ by Elvis, though at this point he was really considered completely off his tits.
5) Some other songs.
Which I am too tired to think of.

No, I’m not going anywhere with this. It was a nice title though.

[Title suggested by Rachie]

I keep, as I mentioned in brief while asking for titles to posts, buying things from eBay almost, it must be said, by mistake. However, I will post about that another day. This reminds me that I meant to tell you about my suitcase, and the losing of it that happened when I went to Venice recently.

Many many many stupid things have happened to me while travelling - I am jinxed, but only a little bit jinxed; like ‘missing things’ and ‘things going a bit wrong’ jinxed rather than ‘planes crashing’ and ‘people stabbing me in the face on the train’ jinxed. I am glad we have cleared that up - but surprisingly, until I went to Italy in February, I have never yet had my bag mislaid.

We were going with British Airways.
I should have known what to expect, but without the benefit of foreknowledge, I hadn’t a clue that they were going to be running trial runs of ‘how to lose lots of people’s bags at once and generally being completely inept’ procedure on our weekend break.
Still, I should feel privileged to be part of their practice runs.
You know all those people who were trying to fly through Heathrow Terminal 5 recently, and getting all shouty and cross about BA losing their baggage?
Well, I was totally ahead of the curve. I was doing that WEEKS before.

Checking in just before check in closed, and hearing the woman on the desk complaining to the man on the desk next to her that the conveyor belt was ‘being a bit iffy’ that morning, I remember thinking “My bag’s not going to arrive in Venice” - which is why, probably, I wasn’t that surprised three hours later when the carousel stopped and the shoulders of more than two dozen people standing around the carousel dropped and we turned, as one, and schlumphed off toward a window with three wary-looking Italian women sitting behind some glass.

They spoke English to the extent they needed to, in order to help, which wasn’t very much - though better than my Italian, obviously.

But they couldn’t, as it turned out, do very much to help. They could point out that, according to their computers, our bags hadn’t arrived, which we knew, and they could give us a small bag full of miniature goods with ‘BA - With Compliments’ printed on the side.
They were very calm, and very helpful, and I’m sure if they could have done anything more, they would have.

The remainder of the unhelpfulness, it must be said, was mine. It was mainly my fault, I will admit, that when I buy things, certain things, from places, I tend to go with the more unique or - to me - attractive or interesting things.

And not, say, the more useful or logical or long-lasting or example of the object I could possibly find. But when I find what I want, all sensible thoughts go out of the window

So there I was, standing in front of the glass window, trying to explain to the nice lady that the bag I quite desperately wanted was not, sadly, one of the ones she was encouraging me to point at on the handy photosheet of bags she had. It was a semi-circular gym-bag on wheels in bright blue silk covered in little embroidered flowers like the print of a Chinese dress.
Weirdly enough, she hadn’t got enough English for this, and the constituent parts couldn’t be found anywhere in my phrasebook.

But we shrugged and mugged and grimaced our way through it all, and we got our ‘With Compliments’ bag of goodies from British Airways (thanks, guys!) and I went off the hotel in my good high heeled boots that weren’t really *that* comfortable but I’d brought in case we went out to dinner and because they were too big to pack. And then I walked around in them for 27 hours - not solid, no - until my bag finally showed up.

So the bag that I would look for on eBay, if I was searching for one with some kind of homing device, or a large flashing light that said “DON’T FORGET ME I’M SOMEONE’S BAG” in neon letters, or could move of its own account - like one that had legs and could run after me, or something (I would bid quite highly on that one) - or one that was Very Easy To Explain In Italian. Next time I look for a bag on eBay, it’s bilinguality will be the main point I will look for.

(more…)

I just never bloody Finish anything.

I will, I promise, finish some of these, including the story of how I got brainwashed by an all-powerful government but didn’t get any chocolates, yesterday; my current battle with ebay addiction (and shoes); something about the gym; something about being lonely and making friends as a grown up in a new place; something about letters in local newspapers, and something about why I have decided we might move to Brighton. I think that one be passed it’s sell-by a little, seeing as we’ve been here about two years, and the draft’s been here longer.

But I have serious horrid horrid confidence-related blocky problems at the moment, so wanted to ask for your help.

In the meantime, I would like, if possible, for some titles of posts to be suggested - every post has a title, and I’m ljust thinking that maybe if the titles are given to me, I can get over this really really stupid writer’s block I have at the moment and just write something to fit the title.

They can be as whimsical or as direct or as obscure or as suggestive as they like - I may not do with the title what you intend, of course, but that’s my prerogative - or as silly or as sensible sounding - just titles that I can put at the top of the post and then write about.

So, you know, tiles, anything you like. (Though I’d prefer if they weren’t horrid and mean and things like ‘Why I Used to Be Quite Good At Blogging But Aren’t Any More‘ because that won’t be fun to write).

Would that be ok, do you think? Could you give me a title? Please?

From: the desk of a teenage music fan
To: Anna

Dear [insert-favourite-band-here]-hating bitch face,
First, off for you information not only “tweenage” girls like X.
I personally am 16 years old and I love Xand dont have a
problem saying that. Second, each of X alone have more
talent than you ever have or will. I am tired of people making fun of them
because their stupid and jealous. So shut up thanks.

You rock. That’s why Blockbuster’s offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.

From: Anna
To: Teenage music fan

Dear Name -

Thanks so much for your email. I’m glad you like X, I’m sorry you’re so very angry about the fact that I - and quite a lot of other people - don’t. I hope they continue to bring you much happiness; it’s good that we all like different things and you can’t deny that they’re marketed at tweenage girls, I’m afraid, they just are.

If you’re going around the internet finding all the music journalists that don’t like X and writing to them, I imagine you must be quite busy, so good luck with that, and thanks for writing to let me know your opinion. But calling people you don’t know ‘bitch-face’ because they disagree with you? Well, it’s a bit rude, don’t you think?

Good luck in your GCSEs if they’re this summer - be careful to spellcheck things before you hand them in; they mark down for that in exams.

thanks again.
Anna

sigh
I know I wrote to music papers to disagree with reviews and reviewers in my youth. To letters pages, mainly, rather than direct, but still - that wasn’t because I was particularly mindful that real people were behind them, just because I was lazy and there was no easy way of writing direct for me at that point. So, it’s good to see that young music fans are still positive and proactive about defending their passions.
But still.

I am trying to grow a thicker skin. I really am. It is very difficult, because I am naturally very easily hurt, and very scared of offending people, and very upset by things, because I am not very strong - but sadly I’m not going to last very long doing what I do if I don’t try and toughen up a bit. Counting blessings: this is from the same source that has recently seen me have very nice and productive email exchanges with bands’ fans (ones that disagreed, mainly, just in a more polite fashion) and video-makers and occasionally actual band members about other reviews, so benefits far outweigh bitchfaces.

But still. Good morning, Anna!
Le sigh.

The thing about doing what I have been doing recently is that OH MY GOD MY HEAD’S JUST FALLEN OFF.

No, it hasn’t, of course, sorry, no, because I can’t actually touch type, so if it HAD just fallen off that would have read ‘6h 0y g6d 0y head’s 14st f33a335n 5dd!’ because I would have missed the shift button entirely or something.
Unless my head had come to rest actually looking at the keyboard, even side on, because I’m alright at almost touch-typing but not actually touch ty…. No, hang on, that wasn’t supposed to be the point of this post.

Um.

I’m secretly a monster! Gr! Rowr! Look at how scary I am! I’m going to menace your city! Gr!

Seriously! You are not taking me seriously I can tell, but it is true! I am a monster! With like TEETH and CLAWS and EYES and things and

No, that isn’t very good either is it?

Sorry, I’m rubbish at April Fools’.
I’m just very very poor at lying. I literally can’t do it, unless my life or liberty depends on it, which lets face it is quite rare (and almost completely unlikely with a stupid international tedious-pranks day) it doesn’t, really.

Couple of years ago I tried really hard - because I know that people seem to find these kind of jokes funny, and I like to think I am ok with funny, so I thought I should at least try it. But I don’t like cruel-humour, I’m not good with anything that makes anyone else look stupid, so I thought I should at least give the other kind of April Fool. The ‘talking complete bollocks and lying to your friends and family for no apparent reason’ fool.

Addendum: Please note, the following story is not in itself a double-bluff style April Fool. It is just a story.]

And so, while I was off sick one day, called up and told my adored colleagues that my beloved and I were expecting a baby and I was actually off due to morning sickness, which was not true, and my desperate and slightly ill idea of what a ‘joke’ is supposed to be (basically a ‘lie’, that you conclude by laughing and gurning and going ‘ahhaaaaaaarh!‘ and pointing at your lieee)(Is ‘lieee’ a word? As in ‘the person who is lied to’? It should be).

They were so happy for us and excited about it all that I seriously considered getting up the duff just so I wouldn’t have to tell them it wasn’t true.

Then realising that that wasn’t a *terribly* good reason for bringing a child into the world (though I’ve heard worse) I had to brace myself and tell them I had made them all excited for nothing. I had lied to them.
This, of course, made me cry.
Well, I was sick, what of it?
AndIcryeasily.
Because I am basically made of easily-upsettable sponge and have a skin as thick as cheap toilet paper, yes. Whatever. Well … Oh, sod it.

__________________

OH MY GOD MY HEAD’S JUST FALLEN OFF AGAIN! Um. AND ALSO I AM SECRETLY A MONSTER!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That is not True! I GOT you! I am LYING, April FOOL and things!
Ahaaahaaaaaaaargh!
[points]