adhoc

Love my magnets! LOVE. HFF sent me these, you know.

Well, my darlings! I'm in that awkward state of mind for which there should be a long composite German word - I have left it so long, that I don't know where to start, and the longer I leave it, the more I feel I have omitted Vital Stuff, and go into a further state of avoidance. And yet, I sincerely love my long-cherished blog-comrades and miss the interaction I find through this blog. I feel like the lovely Belgian Waffle, whose first paragraph here says it so much better than I could. That happens to me a lot. People expressing my thoughts better than I can. Thank Gawd for 'em.

Let's barge ahead, here. Nothing else for it:

• I've been singing, in the choir. Every night this goes on, for the season, including one bizzarro combo performance with Another Choir, composed of undergraduates, this time. On one occasion, I was late. I disapprove greatly of myself for this, not least because I had missed by minutes the meeting at the gate, where we were to be ushered to the appropriate room in the college to rehearse, and had a frantic Indiana Jones-like run-and-search down long lino-ed corridors, under arches, through courtyards, trying doors and stopping to listen intently for choir sounds. I needn't have worried, when I finally burst in to the room, there was a kindly Robert Hardy-look-a-like banging away at the piano, and the room was filled with The Young People all whispering, giggling, and singing, just a little. Robert Hardy looked at me over his glasses and said "Welcome" and the whole thing was like a three way cross between a seminary musical, a boarding school and a Harry Potter book, all set in the 1960's.


• I've teaching unemployed people with the State Training Body. This happens, weirdly, in a hotel in a peripheral suburb of west Dublin. It's all very Sign of the Times. I sit for an hour on a tram to be launched into this alternative reality, where you must travel on lifts and know codes and finally be delivered into an abandoned office building, where we occupy the one heated room on the fifth floor, to light a fire under the unemployed people, or at least offer them some hope, or so I hope. They are, so far, a dream to teach, getting on with their work, and only stopping to ask me intelligent questions.


• Also, steady money! Hurray.


• Which reminds me, I made a wonderful discovery out there yesterday. Near the hotel, there is a large 1990's style shopping centre, through which one can take a shortcut on the way back to the tram. There was a line of unlikely looking wooden huts in a line at the back of the centre, full of Christmas gift "ideas", personalised mouse pads and slippers, each presided over by a frozen but hopeful retail hutter, the type you feel sorry for. But then! A hut of The Most Beautiful Etchings, like a gleaming jewel amongst the dross. Like this! My eyes nearly fell out of my head:
  
  
  
  As thus it was that the problem of five Christmas gifts was solved on the spot. Well, I thought to myself, Suchandsuch should like this, and frankly, if he/she doesn't, I have no truck with him/her!
  (This is the artist/hut retailer: Jan Goede.)


• Ermmmm.
  
  
• Oh. Yes. Many applications for Art Stuff have been made, including a frightening one, which (life being like that) I might get. The application process is itself an art, I am realising. If I get that one, it'll be shown for an entire month in a public place on a huge wall. No pressure then. Gulp.
  
  
• I have been making art with a group of Other Young People, this time ones affected to varying degrees by cerebral palsy. They are great fun. I have discovered exactly how bad I am (appallingly) at boccia with them, and made some stop-motion animation with them as actors. It's cool.


• Kittaloo, who has been living here for what seems like a century, continues to hold us in her thrall, stroll inconveniently on my keyboard and hog the nearest source of heat. She is exactly as clever as she needs to be, the little maggot. When she feels slightly peckish/bored/cold, her latest thing is to sit beside me and put her heavy paw coercively on my arm, as if to whisper, threateningly: I will not allow you to forget me. Feline mafia tactics! Chilling.
  
  
• The spa was salutary, mostly because of the redemptive presence of my dear friend R, with whom I had a long debriefing session on the subject of the JB. She recommended counselling, and is going to get me the name of Someone. At least I can go, and the JB may feel encouraged to go at a later stage if I break the ice, so to speak.
  Other than that, the spa was as if conceived by the people who made those Philadelphia ads set in Heaven, all muted colours and nice candles - deliberately unstimulating and cocoon-like. Which was lovely for a day. After that, it started to feel a tiny bit like a psychiatric hospital, what with everyone being reduced to a white uniform and floating about. Just a bit edgeless and suffocating. However, no doubt this is me, and my Methodist background, again, making me uncomfortable with .. er.. comfort.
  
  

I've gone on, haven't I? Better stop now, before you lose the will to live entirely.

I have missed this.

Back soon.

xx
T

Comments

[Valery Valentina]

Spa like a mental ward, I have missed you indeed.
And this etch/hut person, he is confusing. Dutch name, french website (with german template), selling stuff in Dublin?
But yes, one glance at those cows and I think I'm in Frisian cow country.

[a]

Wow, it seems you've been up to quite a bit of interesting stuff! Spa as mental ward takes the cake though...

[Womb For Improvement]

Busy, busy.

I need to find a bunch of etchings or similar as Christmas being a mere two weeks away is starting to bring me out in a cold sweat.

Hope the counselling helps.

[Dr Spouse]

Good to see you back (though I can hardly talk)

[Hairy Farmer Family]

*beams at thought of magnets littering Twangy's fridge door*

You fiery ball of art activity, you! I applaud your magnificent efforts in making the world a better place for us all. Disseminating Teh Art and helping your fellow man: all good. Well done, lady.

Am a big fan of counselling. Have had two, one of which I think may have actively hated my guts, but there you go. I still thought it was useful.

Corking cows!

[Bionic baby mama]

Oh, twangy. How are you so damn cool? I am a little jealous but mostly feel lucky to have squeaked in at what must be the absolute bottom percentile of cool you will associate with.

Item: I have been missing singing worse and worse and will be using you as inspiration re: choir-finding in the new year.

Item: that etching is truly lovely.

Item: why aren't there more seminary musicals?

[Adele]

Very happy to hear about the applications for Art Stuff. Irons in the fire. It's absolutely necessary for heart and head in these artistic professions. I laughed at your description of the school - good on you for singing in a choir. I'd be tempted to do something similar myself. If my voice did not sound like a cross between a scalded cat (apologies to Kittaloo) and the squealing brakes of the world's largest truck:)

[Twangypearl]

*Muses*
Blimey, how could anyone hate HFF Wifey, actively or inactively, or any other way?

How can that be?

Bionic, I am looking behind me. IS there someone cool here? No.
No. Uh-uh.

Scalded cat, but that's me, Adele. Yes, ma'am. Honestly I have no idea what I am reading, doing, singing in the choir. But it's fun!

[Andie]

And oh! How we have missed Our Twangy.

I love the choir. Unfortunately, when I arrived in Small City it was too late for this year, but next year, I will be certainly singing away! It is good for the soul.

Well done on the teaching and the Art Stuff. I hope you succeed in the big scary project even though it is scary.

Love the magnets, LOVE. What is it with magnets at the moment? I was compelled to buy a set yesterday. They are of birds, in a sort of french enamelled and glass style. Very pretty. ANyways, I digress. Lovely to see you.