Subarticulate
Zo, grahf umgub FRABDABNABBLE arnyagixxit. Glag. Juvverund racondil brirt. WANGLETHORP. Deprath.
It’s been a long day. Raglsolsby. Dopperilplunk. Etc. Fridays are always extra-long because I’m trying to stuff two extra-curriculars into one day, which is both insane and forbidden. I do it every week. I am insane and forbidden. I like the concept of being forbidden: I embody forbiddenness. Hmmm. I could probably write a story about embodying forbiddenness*. . . .
Where was I? Oh yes. Friday.
The morning got off to a bad start when a delivery man managed to take out one of my pots of pansies, and I was as yet insufficiently mobile and caffeinated to remonstrate with him in a manner suitable to his transgression.** This did not put me into the ideal frame of mind for spending too much time at my desk pre-hurtle dealing with 1,000,000 overdue stupid frelling business-type things all of which I’d had reminder letters/emails of varying degrees of politeness about yesterday. GO AWAY, WORLD. YOU’RE REALLY BORING.
And I tweeted about this: when hellhounds and I finally got out, we were climbing over a stile following a public footpath that crossed a field, which path the farmer had kindly cleared*** through the standing crop, a standing crop which is now about waist high, and I saw someone ahead of me ambling down the slope . . . and a strange violent wavelike motion on either side of him in the crop. Which were his two giganfrellingtic Labradors and a medium-sized spaniel, knocking hell out of the poor bloody farmer’s harvest. What the frelling gistelflurtz is the matter with people?† What is going through what passes for this moron’s mind? ‘Oh, my dogs don’t count? Oh, it’s only this once? Oh, but they enjoy it so much?’ What? How about, ‘oh I don’t give a sh_t and it’s not like they’re going to catch me, and even if they did it would cost them more than it’s worth to take me to court, so you can’t make me give a sh_t, ha ha ha ha ha.’ Jenny told me a while ago that local farmers were starting to put locks on gates—farmers who generally speaking have been kindly disposed to walkers and riders and don’t mind if we stray off posted footpaths as long as we use common sense about where we go and what we do—because a really fun thing to do is take your SUV into a field with a tall crop in it, and play motocross. People are amazing. Not in a good way.
Pause to take a deep breath.††
I did in fact get a piano miniature tweaked into Oisin-look-atable condition—I got one and a half in demonstrable shape, although half a miniature is pretty much three notes and a squiggly line. Never mind. They’re a good three notes, which is to say they collide with a crash and a scream, which is how I like ’em.††† But Oisin and I have fallen into the reprehensible habit‡ of sitting around and having a nice cup of tea and agreeing with each other about all the ways the world needs to change.‡‡ This has become sufficiently established that the mere fact that I had some music to show him this time only meant that we tacked it on to the end of the cup of tea . . . which means the rest of the afternoon grew suddenly rather short, and I did want to write one or two more lines of That Dranglefabbing Novel before hound-hurtle and bell practise. Which is where the subarticulation begins. I do write words and notes on the same day sometimes, but I rarely write what-passes-in-my-case for significant numbers of both on the same day. Today was one of those rare days. Blerg.
And I still had bell practise. And there were actually five other inside ringers plus a treble and a tenor available, so we rang Grandsire Triples if you want to call it ringing. Well, if you want to call it Grandsire Triples. GAAAAAAH. The best part was when I said, whoever is standing next to me has to keep an eye on me—since we did not have anyone left over to be a standing-with minder—and everybody shot over to the other side of the ringing circle. Hee hee. But I had Felix on my right and Edward on my left, and they shimmied me through like bouncers escorting a troublemaker off the premises, and urginchbletty twag and blingo tam. Arp. Zigdab ock. Etc. . . .
* * *
*Arguably Nathaniel Hawthorne already has: Rappaccini’s Daughter. Great story. I’ve recommended it before. Never mind it’s by the Scarlet Letter/House of Seven Gables guy.^
^ I like Scarlet Letter and Seven Gables+. What was I just saying about insanity? But the scene where the extremely fey Pearl’s dad goes mental in public is worth being bludgeoned by a few metaphors about Guilt and Purity.
+ Except the ending, where Hawthorne wants you in absolutely no doubt that Phoebe is going to Devote Her Life to Making Her Husband’s Life Comfy So He Can Get on with Important Male Stuff.
**. Death by sword-thrust.
*** Theoretically they’re required by law to keep public footpaths passable, but not all of them do. You want to be particularly nice to the ones who make the effort.
† There is good insanity and bad insanity. This is bad insanity.
†† As we were heading back to Wolfgang again, at the end of a rapidly replotted hurtle, since I don’t want to mess with off lead Labradors even when they’re not engaged in destroying other people’s property, there was a strange whooping noise which I was only hearing imperfectly because I had my Walkperson’s headphones on, but the strange whooping noise was persistent enough to be intriguing. Turned out to be a young man leaning nonchalantly on the bumper of his large beat-up Land Rovery object, calling his cows. Down at the bottom of the hill—the other side of the hill where the Labradors had been cutting crop circles—a large herd of rather irritated-looking cattle were trotting purposefully, having just been prodded through a gate at the far end. The Land Rovery object^ was parked at an insouciant angle outside another gate that the young whooping man had opened. The cows, evidently, were going to come trooping up the hill, angle past the not-a-Land-Rover, and pour beautifully through the third gate just beyond. No cow was going to take it into her head, for example, to duck around the not-a-LR and hightail out for the bright lights of Ditherington, only a different short bit of slope away. Now there often are cows in the field beyond the third gate, so manifestly they are got in (and out of) it somehow. But I’m just as glad hellhounds and I were not on the spot to find out how well it worked. Including the whooping. As we were passing through, the cows were still trotting hard along the bottom fence, looking like they wanted a manager to complain to.
^ I mean it wasn’t a Land Rover, but was of that ilk
††† This insanity theme is going to start making me nervous here in another example or two
‡ Energy levels have not been high since I got Peter back from hospital. Also I have a novel that needs writing which is driving me crazy.^
^ Damn. There’s that theme again.
‡‡ Let’s start with good music programmes in primary schools, and some state funded support for lessons on actual instruments in middle school. And elective music theory in upper school. Composition even. HA HA HA HA HA HA. I’m raving. Yes, but composing does astonishing things for your engagement with music. You may still not have a clue, but you’re now in it up to the neck, and yes, those mermaids are singing, each to each, and to you.
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