In Which I Totally Lose Control of My Footnotes
. . . But I am under terrible stress. The Second Frelling Handbell Wedding is tomorrow. There are of course one or two other contributing factors* to the stress level.** But right at the moment, twelve hours*** before Colin swings by to pick Niall and me up† I am chiefly focussed on the fact that I have to ring handbells in public tomorrow. For a wedding! For somebody’s Momentous Life Event! Crumbs and cockatoos. I keep remembering, years ago now, when Niall and Esme were first teaching me handbells, the two of them discussing, during the obligatory tea break, a wedding they had agreed to ring handbells for, and myself saying—and, furthermore, meaning it—that nothing on earth would ever persuade me to ring handbells for a wedding.† And then Esme moved to Wales††, drat her, and Niall’s Svengalian eye fell on me.†††
And like I have time right now to lose half a day to some stranger’s wedding.‡ Like I had time for Thursday evening practise! But we had to practise, the day before the event. Mainly we had to have an appalling dress rehearsal so that we can be brilliant on the day. Sigh. We succeeded nobly in the first half of this schedule.‡‡ And speaking of dress, there’s the what-are-we-going-to-wear thing again. Someone mentioned pink shoes and I said watch your mouth I have pink shoes‡‡‡ and they said, we’re sure you do, Robin, so I think I have to wear the pink shoes. But I have only twelve hours to figure out the rest of it. Niall and Colin, being navy-blue-and-khaki sorts, seem to think it would be brilliant if I dressed in orange and yellow (and pink) and drew all the attention so no one would notice them. Hey. I’m the one with stage fright. I had dibs on the stage fright months ago. I did however say and we MUST get photos of this one. I didn’t get photos last time! I want to hang handbell-wedding photos on the BLOG! —And I had the delicious, the exquisite experience of seeing Colin—who is on the short list for the heavily contested World’s Worst Tease medal—looking completely nonplussed. Mwa ha ha ha ha.
So think some positive thoughts, okay? Please? First—FIRST AND FOREMOST—that we ring superbly. That we are brisk and vibrant and our rhythm is a joy and our striking faultless.§ And second that I find some nice friendly wedding guest who’ll take a few photos.
And third, that it doesn’t rain, and ruin my pink suede shoes.
* * *
* Why did I become a professional writer?^ Why couldn’t I have become something sensible, like a lawyer?^^ Or a doctor?^^^ Or a farmer?^^^^
^ Well, there’s an easy answer to that one. I sent BEAUTY to Harper & Row, as it then was, and they took it. And I’m a writer like I’m a breather. The blame comes with the ‘sticking in an envelope and putting publisher’s address on’ part.
^^ Because I’d keep getting thrown out of courtrooms and hearings and meetings with opposing council and whatever else for losing my temper and shouting at the morons who couldn’t just see they were wrong.
^^^ Because pain is so distressing. I’d either be passing out handfuls of morphine tablets or shouting at the whiners. (See: lawyer.)
^^^^ Because up till a few years ago my hay fever would have killed me. And I’m sure I’d have found something/someone to shout at farming too. The great thing about shouting at your publisher is that unless you are so ill-advised as to pick up the phone or hit the email button before you start shouting+, they can’t hear you. So you can shout as much as you like. Or until your neighbours call the police.++
+ Which I admit I have also done. But let us not lose sight of the fact that lawyers, doctors, farmers and professional writers may have good cause for shouting.
++ No, this hasn’t happened (yet). But in hindsight, up till the cottage, I’ve mostly lived somewhere that neighbours were either irrelevant#, absent##, or aware that the house contained Crazy Artists### and nothing would be surprising. I’m now not only inadvertently marooned on an island of upper middle class poshness, I’m semidetached, which means I’ve got a lot of indoor wall in common with my nearest neighbour. Fortunately his philosophy of life is mellow, and he thinks I’m fun to watch. Or listen to.####
# Our nearest neighbours at the old house were our tenants. And their dogs made more noise than I ever did.
## My nearest neighbours at my little house in Maine were the primary school across the playground and the car park and the high school across the road. And if this sounds dire, it wasn’t: I was tucked into my own little hollow surrounded by enormous lilac hedges, even more enormous boulders, and one enormous maple tree, and everybody at the schools went away overnight. The only noise at midnight was the stream under my bedroom window.
### When I first moved to New York City I lived on Staten Island with two other Crazy Artists. They had been there a while, and had the neighbourhood well broken in before I arrived.
#### The official version is that I do all that yelling at my computer. Well, I am yelling at my computer . . . oh, a good sixty percent of the time, I’d say. The other forty include other malign machinery@, myself@@, lids on jars, those self-closing [sic] strips on bags of dog food, frelling sugar packets,@@@ the wooden spice rack that is always six inches wider every time I’m straightening up from loading the washing machine@@@@ (which is under the stairs, remember my little row of dwarf appliances?), hellhound toys, rosebushes@@@@@, etc.
@ Vacuum cleaners, for example
@@ You halfwit, when are you going to learn that . . .
@@@ I now buy organic fair trade sugar in biodegradable packaging, and you look at it wrong and the packet bursts and sprays sugar all over the landscape. Arrrgh. Bring back evil plastic.=
= Have I discussed biodegradable dog crap bags here yet?
@@@@You halfwit, when . . .
@@@@@ I have a laptop. I could be working in the garden.
** As I mentioned on the forum the other night, the good news is that I believe PEGASUS is a book. It can be a very long cold lonely era in the tiny one-person space station orbiting the outer ring of Saturn while you work on a book before you come to believe it’s a book.
Of course I could be wrong. But I hope not.
*** AAAAAAAAUGH
† There are disadvantages to having a nice car. It means that all your friends with old grubby cars^ gang up on you and make you drive.
^ Even much beloved old grubby cars. There is no doubt that Wolfgang is both old and grubby.
† I knew Niall had to be an alien. No mere human can be that single-minded. Human bell junkies have limits.
†† Or maybe Somerset. Or Herefordshire. Somewhere over that way.
††† I tell you he’s an alien. With strange alien mind powers. . . . Hey. If he has strange alien mind powers, why doesn’t he just zap me into being a great handbell ringer?
‡ Furthermore her parents live in this town and her mum owns the (best) tea shop, so if we screw up I’ll never dare walk downtown again.
‡‡ My left thumb is bothering me. Downstrokes hurt. I have no idea why.^ For pity’s sake, you fates, you gods, will you leave me the dranglefab alone? This started at last week’s practise—I only notice it with a handbell in my left hand, you know—and while it’s better this week (okay, grateful for small favours here) it’s still there. Arrrrgh! ARRRRGH! I suppose if I remember^^ and have time^^ I could take a sweep through the pharmacy tomorrow morning and see if they have an Elastic Thumb Support. That would also add that chic touch to our presentation.
^ Although chances are it has something to do with hellhounds. Especially since the left thumb is the Chaos braking thumb.
^^ which I won’t
‡‡‡ No! Real pink shoes! Not All Stars!
§ Why don’t I just wish that I’m through with PEGASUS by this Sunday evening, that the hellhounds never give me another meal’s trouble about eating for the next fifteen years till they die peacefully and simultaneously in their sleep at the noble age of eighteen, and that SUNSHINE, after several years of slow start, outsells TWILIGHT before Christmas? Oh, and that I can ring surprise. On tower and handbells. By the end of the month. Good grief.
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