this is ridiculous. It's way past my lights out time, I need a shower (and a shit, shave and haircut too, but anon). I have the most tension-filled day tomorrow when my dad is 80, and throwing the mother of all parties to celebrate: but not the kind of party that anyone actually wants to attend. It's been a sort of fearsome struggle between me and my two sisters to try and dodge the invitations, flying like those fateful letters - shouters are they? - in Harry Potter (oh, that is clever, but only I know why). It's half-term: I mean, you can tell how much he digs kids, to have a geriatric lunchtime knees up and expect the grandchildren to be there on half-term. He's getting two out of four, which is, I guess, about half. And approximately twice as many as he deserves. You see, you see, what my childhood was like? We didn't have half-terms, we were sent away to toil and labour, until I grew bigger than him and revolted, all over the place.
One sister has got out of this by breaking two of her toes. This morning. If I wasn't such a coward maybe I would have done something equally brave and noble. But breaking your toes? Ouch. Gives me a bad vibe, to go on top of the bad vibe I already have (do two bad vibes make a good one?). She has been closer to the organisation of this celebration, so I wonder, if she's prepared to self-mutilate to get out of this, just what the hell am I letting myself in for?
It's late, and I'm emotionally fragile, or fraGell, if you're reading this in US time. If I told you I was tense over tomorrow, I wouldn't be exactly ladling it on with a trowel. I'd be offering you some of that good old British understatement. Stiff upper thingummy bob. And it's stiff all right. Or is that a quiver I see before me. Out, I say, out. Stiffen your sinews and say 'all for one, and once and for all'.
I really wanted to write about words. I just watched, mea culpa, the odious J Ross interviewing a gentleman called S Fry, who spoke most movingly and well about language and change and growth and ... so on. He's a very watchable and likeable man. Fry, not Ross. I so wish he, Fry not Ross, would be at the lunch tomorrow. Maybe.. . who knows. Then it might be fun.
happy birthday, dad. I think.
