Reasoning

Actual Reasons Why People Don't Text Back:

1. They are busy doing Very Important Things (like work and meetings)
2. They are in the shower
3. They are eating dinner
4. They are sleeping
5. They are driving
6. They are travelling, and signal has cut out
7. They are without signal in general
8. They have run out of credit/free texts
9. They are having a real conversation with someone else, and realise it's rude to text and talk
10. Their phone has run out of battery

Reasons In My Head Why People Don't Text Back:

1. I have said something so mundane, it's not worth replying to
2. I have said something a bit weird, and they are too weirded out to reply
3. I have accidentally said something that has angered them beyond belief
4. They are having far too much fun elsewhere and it would be far too dull to reply
5. They have been mugged
6. They are in mortal peril
7. They are dead in a ditch
8. They are far too busy and important to reply; replying is a huge inconvenience to them and I should probably just leave them alone
9. They are slowly phasing me out of their life
10. Replying is for plebs. Cool people don't bother.

In other news:

• I smashed my car into the school gates today
• Smashed is a very emotive word
• I scraped the side of my car on the school gates today
• My car is ok
• Mumford & Sons released their second album yesterday, and I love it
• I'm not ashamed that I love the Mumford & Sons second album, despite relatively negative reception among my colleagues
• The heating is on
• I'm wearing almost entirely mint green
• I don't particularly like the colour mint green
• Today I ate a Freddo. It was delicious.

A World of Meh

So the last few weeks have been excellent.

I mean - going back to work has actually been ok, we've had a couple of wicked gigs, I've met some brilliant new people; life has been peachy.



This week, however, I feel completely and totally rubbish.



It's as if everything I've tried to do or say this week has come out not quite right, and I seem to have run out of resilience.

Weary.




In other news, I've been writing songs for Alice in Wonderland - so far, I have approx 10 and 2 halves. They're ace.

Well, I've enjoyed writing them, anyway.


Also, this term, we have started running a funk/soul band. So far we've mostly been singing Brown Eyed Girl, which I don't really class as either funk or soul, but it's what the guitar teacher had the chords for, and it's sounding pretty good. Next week, let's get onto some Aretha, please. Or some Stevie.

(Although at present, the wind section is two saxes, one of whom is me. We clash with brass ensemble, and I've been expressly told I'm not allowed to use any brass players (/told off for even suggesting it))



Right, anyway. I feel like poo, so am going to go to Tesco and find some Dairy Milk and maybe some wine. Then I'm going to buy lots of both, and consume all of it. Maybe.



Meh.

Dear Future Husband...

The other day, I was put in a situation where I needed to be able to assist with a tyre change. I learnt how to raise the car off the ground, how to (find and) attach the spare tyre, and the importance of having suitable equipment in the car at all times.

This is not my only car-related prowess, as I am fully capable of checking and adding screen wash, oil and coolant. I mean, I can even hear when my engine needs oil now.

In my garden, my housemate is the pretty-ifier, in charge of flowers and pots and pretty things. My job is to cut the grass.


Also, when I went on holiday recently, I discovered I am quite adept at map reading and some navigation. Now, I don't have the innate 'knowledge' my mother does, which enables her to locate and relocate where she is and where she needs to be simply by, I don't know, sniffing the air, or following the earth's gravitational pull or however she does it. I can, however, read (and, incidentally, fold) a map.


All this is fine, and shows I am in some way capable and self-sufficient of sorts, blah blah.


Yesterday, however - guess what I did...



I BARBECUED.




SO, FUTURE HUSBAND...
YOU'D BETTER HURRY UP BEFORE I USURP ALL YOUR ROLES.


(ER, MY KEYPAD IS STUCK ON CAPITALS. I'M NOT BEING THIS SHOUTY REALLY...)

Blog O'clock

Absenteeism strikes again...

The last few months have passed in a flurry of gigs (both going to and playing in - of late, mostly the latter), exams (mostly (solely) preparing others there for) and general life guff.

It's coming up to Latitude season again, and I for one am HUGELY EXCITED!

(By which I mean, I'm looking forward to it a bit; it'll probably be alright.)



So, erm, turns out I have nothing really to say...

How. Dull.


Shall I share an anecdote?


Today I was in the bathroom and there was the loudest pop I have heard in quite a long time. I was plunged into darkness and silence (the light went off and the fan stopped whirring), and thought to myself, "huh, I wonder if a fuse has blown...?"

Turns out I was right. I went downstairs and flicked the switch thingy and the light worked again. Wonderful.



Shall I share another, just as high in calibre?


At last week's gig, I wore a dress (standard). I caught the train from Kettering to St Pancras, then got the Victoria Line to Stockwell. On arriving in Stockwell, I walked to the Cavendish Arms, where we were due to play. Earlier, in Kettering, I had made the decision not to wear leggings or tights, as I was determined to embrace the 'summery' evening. However, the further I walked through the estates of Stockwell, the more I realised my flimsy-dress-tightless-legs-saxophone-beladen-arms combo was not working in my favour. Many a time, the people behind me must surely have caught a glimpse of my ill-chosen underwear, and the people passing in front of me, that of my red, sweaty face.

Needless to say, by the time I arrived, the dress was more crumpled from my grabbing onto it, and my legs were more bruised by my improvised saxophone-as-dress-weight technique than I had intially intended. Immediate entry to the breezeless pub became my primary goal. Which was relatively swiftly, if a little embarrassedly, achieved.

The gig was enjoyable and the company sweet, so all was resolved.


There now; aren't you glad I'm back blogging?!




Next time (in August?), I may have more tales to share, just as enticing. Hold your breath!

Last Friday (Night)

Last Friday, I woke up with the knowledge that my weekend would be a busy one, and that I had four lessons to teach, and thirteen A level compositions to photocopy and organise.

About 5 minutes after getting out of bed, I was hit with a horrendous stabbing pain in my stomach.

I wilfully ignored it, and had a shower anyway.

Tried to have a shower.


After nearly passing out a couple of times, and having to sit on the floor of my shower to wash out my hair, I realised I probably wasn't going to be in school that day.

Not cool.


As the day passed, and the lovely triage nurse lady diagnosed an apparently unprovoked attack of IBS, I felt a little perkier. As in, I was now mobile.


By the end of the weekend, I had been driven down to Shepherds Bush, caught the train to Cardiff after breakfast the next day, and partied hard dressed in backcombed black, before going on a walk round a beautiful sunshiney park and catching approximately a million trains back home again.


I'm now thoroughly wiped out, and each day does not end soon enough, but I had a wonderful weekend.



The moral of this story is:
As soon as you are able, do.




Or something.

Anyway...


I need to finish planning more fun and games for year 13 (possibly literally).



Also, I have just realised Joni Mitchell sounds a bit like Laura Marling. Or should that be Laura Marling sounds like Joni Mitchell? Either way, I like it.


The end.

Inspirations

The book "The Secret Lives of Dresses" has inspired me to seek out all my alas-not-vintage-but-still-quite-nice dress-based outfits.

The song "Somebody I Used to Know" has inspired me to arrange it for my sixth-form choir, as something a bit funky to do in the summer term.

The activity of making paper birds has inspired me to drape homemade beauties from frames and windows in an effort to add more colour to our borrowed beige house.

The band "Giles Likes Tea" have inspired me to make music with some lovely people and to seize the adventure of gigging with them next week with both hands.



I wonder if inspirations can inspire being inspirational...?



In other news:
- I have a new pseudo-nephew in the form of my friend's baby. Yay!
- I'm dipping my toes in the Vineyard of Leicester tomorrow.
- Michael Kiwanuka tickets have arrived.
- My neighbour is friendly.
- It took nearly an hour to cut a 'square' of garden c.5x6 metres, due to
     a. the general insufficiency of the flymo
     b. the uphill nature of aforementioned square of garden
     c. the necessity to cut the edges with a short-handled, long-nosed pair of secatures... secutures... sec... garden-scissors
- Calke Abbey is beautiful.
- My calf muscles ache.



I think that's it.


I'm going to bed.

John Lennon

"Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans"

I have this quote on a t-shirt.

Then I stumbled across it in one of my dad's books I was reading last Saturday evening.



That prompted me to wear it on Easter Sunday, so I had it emblazoned across my torso on Sunday morning.



Then I stumbled across it again in one of my little sister's books I was reading on Easter Sunday afternoon.

Thrice in fewer than 24 hours.


Are you sending me a message, John?


It feels similar in sentiment to the following... "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce." (Jeremiah 29:5)

I know they're not saying the exact same thing, but the underlying message is:
This IS Life.


There is a time for transience, and a time for moving on. There is, of course, always room for improvement, and getting better, and trying new experiences and living in different places and meeting new people and looking to the future...

This, however, is life.



This, right here, right now. This actual life, this actual moment - THIS IS LIFE.


I don't want to waste it waiting for a better one.




I don't want to miss it.