We went to a 40th birthday party on Saturday night, which as we approach our mid forties is becoming something of a rare event. Nothing makes you feel more middle aged then the comment a friend of ours made, What? You still know people young enough to be 40?
However, age isn't everything as I'm sure you'll agree. And you're only as old as the woman you feel or the man you dance with etc, so we went out to forget how old we were and to have a good time.
A good time in my husband's case normally means avoiding the dance floor at all costs, whereas to me that is the whole point of going out.
We have some very good friends who always lead the dancing on such occasions. In fact the reason I actually know the moves to the Macarena is entirely down to them. So when my other half declines to join me to strut his funky stuff, I usually end up dancing with them instead. I don't care if no one's looking...
As we had to factor in a ten year old's birthday party first (where they also did a lot of dancing - including the strangest version of Oopsupsideyourhead I've ever seen. Ok, ok, there's not much competition for that slot...), followed by the highlight of our week, for which no social occasion is important enough for us to miss - namely the family fest of hiding behind the sofa - we got to the party rather late, by which time my dancing buddy was rather the worse for wear.
Never mind, I joined her anyway, and had a huge laugh trying to escape the attentions of an unwanted beau. Now when I was twenty I would have been deeply offended by his charmless chat up lines (I believe he told me I was frigid at one point), but now I am middle aged I think it is hilarious that anyone other then my husband is interested in my charms such as they are. I did tell him at one point I was old enough to be his mother, but forebore from using my favourite putdown which is Married, Four Children, Do You Really Want to Know? Last time I used that one New Year when I was pregnant (but my potential hero hadn't spotted this as I was sitting down) I've never seen someone run so fast. I have a feeling Saturday's loverboy was so desperate that wouldn't actually have put him off.
But I digress. I managed to avoid shimmying up to LB, and eventually (having ascertained that my other half had drunk just enough to lose his inhbitions, but not so much he wasn't able to dance) got my husband to strut his funky stuff with me. The deeply annoying thing about my husband is that he could be a very very fine dancer, but he is far to English and self conscious. So it is only a combination of red wine and You Really Got Me by the Kinks which gets him dancing. Mind you, once he's up there, it is also very hard to get him away...
Eventually it had passed the witching hour and it really was time to drag ourselves home. We left to the sight of our hostess with the mostest being slam dunked against a wall, without a thought to what tomorrow would bring...
Tomorrow in fact brought a rather bad back.
But that's what being 40 does to you....
Friday, 20 June 2008
Thursday, 19 June 2008
The Hills Are Alive....
Ouch. I seem to have left an inordinate amount of time since blogging my last, but life has been a tad busy. In the interim I have been dealing with the copyedited and now proof version of Strictly Love. I have just waved goodbye to the latter, and with something of a pang waved goodbye to characters with whom I've lived now for over a year.
Looking at page proofs of something you've written is a weird experience. The words don't look right. I frequently read something and think, Did I really write that? then go back and check and realise somehow I have. This time around I was hit by a huge wave of self doubt, so much so that I am tempted to believe the kind Amazon reviewer who pronounced Pastures New to be "dreadful drivel". At this stage of the process it is almost impossible to see the wood for the trees, and I know from my editing days it is perfectly possible to change something for the worse if you're not careful, so I have gritted my teeth and only changed the Huge Howlers (two characters inexplicably changed names halfway through) and the continuity errors I'd managed to introduce after some severe rewriting. I am hoping the end result is nowhere as bad as it feels right now. I have lost all sense of emotion attached to the book, which is wierd when you consider that I was so immersed in their story at one point I actually cried at a scene I'd written. But I guess, as Surallen would say, it's part of the process...
The one bit of the book though, that I do remain inordinately proud of is the dancing scenes. I think they do work, and writing them was an absolute blast.
In my real life we recently took the children to see the Sound of Music which was appropriate because Emily is a huge fan. I was labouring under the delusion that you can quote from songs in books without paying huge copyright fees if you have your characters quote from them, but helas, this has proved not to be the case. I have a scene where Mark comes back drunk having spent an evening with Emily, singing The Hills are Alive... but have had to paraphrase instead.
Watching the thing on stage I was actually quite struck how few songs there are in it, apart from Hills/ How do you solve a problem like Maria?/Doh a deer/Raindrops and roses/ I am sixteen, there isn't alot else. I was hoping for a bit more dancing too. Last year we went to see Mary Poppins and the dancing was stunning. The only bit of dancing in this is when Maria and the captain dance and fall in love. Which would have worked brilliantly except that I didn't believe there was an ounce of compatibility between them up to that point. The script though is wonderful, as they suddenly realise how they really feel about each other, and the dance itself was executed beautifully.
It wasn't quite as good as Mary Poppins, but we did enjoy it and Summer Strallen makes a worthy successor to Connie Fisher.
On which note I leave you with this, the hilarious trailer for How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? which we never got round to watching (though we've followed Jodie's journey to being Nancy avidly).
Enjoy....
Looking at page proofs of something you've written is a weird experience. The words don't look right. I frequently read something and think, Did I really write that? then go back and check and realise somehow I have. This time around I was hit by a huge wave of self doubt, so much so that I am tempted to believe the kind Amazon reviewer who pronounced Pastures New to be "dreadful drivel". At this stage of the process it is almost impossible to see the wood for the trees, and I know from my editing days it is perfectly possible to change something for the worse if you're not careful, so I have gritted my teeth and only changed the Huge Howlers (two characters inexplicably changed names halfway through) and the continuity errors I'd managed to introduce after some severe rewriting. I am hoping the end result is nowhere as bad as it feels right now. I have lost all sense of emotion attached to the book, which is wierd when you consider that I was so immersed in their story at one point I actually cried at a scene I'd written. But I guess, as Surallen would say, it's part of the process...
The one bit of the book though, that I do remain inordinately proud of is the dancing scenes. I think they do work, and writing them was an absolute blast.
In my real life we recently took the children to see the Sound of Music which was appropriate because Emily is a huge fan. I was labouring under the delusion that you can quote from songs in books without paying huge copyright fees if you have your characters quote from them, but helas, this has proved not to be the case. I have a scene where Mark comes back drunk having spent an evening with Emily, singing The Hills are Alive... but have had to paraphrase instead.
Watching the thing on stage I was actually quite struck how few songs there are in it, apart from Hills/ How do you solve a problem like Maria?/Doh a deer/Raindrops and roses/ I am sixteen, there isn't alot else. I was hoping for a bit more dancing too. Last year we went to see Mary Poppins and the dancing was stunning. The only bit of dancing in this is when Maria and the captain dance and fall in love. Which would have worked brilliantly except that I didn't believe there was an ounce of compatibility between them up to that point. The script though is wonderful, as they suddenly realise how they really feel about each other, and the dance itself was executed beautifully.
It wasn't quite as good as Mary Poppins, but we did enjoy it and Summer Strallen makes a worthy successor to Connie Fisher.
On which note I leave you with this, the hilarious trailer for How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? which we never got round to watching (though we've followed Jodie's journey to being Nancy avidly).
Enjoy....
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