My Husband, Mr Rice

So I went to see him play last night as a birthday present from Peach. I had great seats, described as 'restricted view' but actually, they were above the side of the stage so I could see all the technical things that were going on - the sort of thing that makes the secret geek in me very happy. He came on, dressed all in white linen (in preparation for our after-show matrimonials, I assumed) and watched his vulnerable little back as he meandered around meaningfully on a grand piano before morphing it into a beautiful version of 9 Crimes. This began a whole section of some of his most beautiful, self-pitying, melancholic misery and I wondered if life could get any better than this. Then I heard a strange sound - dischordant, incongruous...a...ring-tone? The poor person must be so embarrassed to have left their phone on! Oh..they can't be, they're not...ANSWERING THIER PHONE? They can't be actually having a CONVERSATION?? Damien is singing his beautiful heart out about delicate looks and 'hurting parts of her garden' (I'm not sure what that means, but I think it's probably rude, and he's the only man who can make filthy things sound tragic. Reason #42203 why he is wonderful) and I am forced to listen to someone say in Trigger Happy TV style "I'm at the concert.....yeah....ooooh it sounds lovely dunn'it.....yeah I wouldn't mind 'avin 'im at the end of my bed *gaffaw*" I turned to her and said "Excuse me, do you think you could have your conversation later? I've paid for this ticket to hear Damien Rice, not to listen to your running commentary." In my head. In reality I glared at her with my best withering look, which 5 people down in a dark auditorium, did not seem to be having much effect on her. I remained silent and physically maimed her in my head.

The highlight of the night was when he played Coconut Skins, with a long mad solo section at the end using lots of pedals (which I gleefully observed from my restricted view) even though it was an acoustic guitar, and ran it smoothly into one of my favourites, Woman Like A Man.

After this dirty acousitc noise-fest, he moved back into some of his slower ones (lets face it, most of them are) and another disturbing sound assaulted my ear, this time from my right. It began with an a-rhythmic tapping. The man next to me suddenly felt he wanted to express his enjoyment of the show by demonstrating his entire lack of musicality by TAPPING in an indescribably irritating way, with no apparent reference to the beat. I had to sit on my hands to prevent myself from restraining him physically. Unfortunately this was not the entire scope of his lack of talent. He also chose to share with me the fact that he was utterly tone deaf AND, joy of joys, he knew all the words to both albums AND the B sides! I turned to him and said "I'm sorry, would you mind not singing? It's just it's quite loud and I can't hear Damien properly. Thanks." In my head. In reality I sat siliently while imagining punching him in the face, cutting his hands off and stuffing dirty rags into his noise-emitting mouth while revealing the more unsavoury depths of my vocabulary. These feelings reached thier climax when Damien unplugged his guitar and sang Cannonball with no microphone into the audience. We needed to be so quiet to hear this raw and beautiful sound, so the wailing in my right ear, with the lyrics just SLIGHTLY and MADDENINGLY wrong in places, made me so enraged I actually thought my eyes might bleed.

Despite all of this, and my discovery that my black and sinful heart means that I would rather indulge my anger and imagine murder than actually draw attention to myself (*shame*), it was still one of the most amazing gigs I've ever been to. Every song was done in such a fresh way - different from the recordings but still retaining everything that makes you love the song. Even the lighting was perfect. Thank you Peach.

OddBabble sings!

Click here to go to my new Myspace music site and help me to become an International Folk Bitch. If anyone has a myspace site themselves, please become my friend to help me look less pathetic. Ta.

Peckham's Got Talent?

Shoekeeper 'n' me

Logic

While reminiscing with my mum about my experiences in the FE colleges:

Mum: "I didn't know Bluebeard was bonkers."
OddBabble: "Of course he is! He's called Bluebeard because he's got a blue beard!"
Mum: "Well, I don't see why that should be my natural assumption. You also have a friend called Shoekeeper and as far as I know, he doesn't keep shoes."
OddBabble: "Good point!"

OddBabble likes to...

1./ In her free time, OddBabble likes to dance, watch Lost and Grey's Anatomy, and spend time with her friends and family.
2./ OddBabble likes to spy on him from the darkness of her upstairs bathroom.
3./ Before her games OddBabble likes to relax and listen to music and indulge in her hidden talent: sewing.
4./ OddBabble likes to play on VMK. That's Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom.
5./ OddBabble likes to proofread the local paper.
6./ So, you know how OddBabble likes to do all these surveys and then post them up for everyone to read her answers, well for some reason, i always have to read...
7./ The newlywed OddBabble likes to buy furniture sight unseen, and, in return for Jeff's turning a blind eye to his girly house, he gets sex.
8./ Apart from writing, OddBabble likes to make/play games, beer, movies and a host of other things that cannot be talked about on a family website.
9./ Back from the challenge, pseudo celebrity OddBabble likes to quote Joe Walsh. "Everybody's so different; I haven't changed."
10./ After drinking a lot and expending a lot of...energy...OddBabble likes to get a snack to keep everything stable.

First 10 results after googling "OddBabble likes to"

Bricking It

In two months, my contract will run out, and I’ll have the UCCF door closed behind me and bolted. At the moment I am trying hard to make sure that I can walk right into another one, but so far all I can see is wilderness.

Either way, it scares the living crap out of me.

Whatever happens to me on June the 18th will be something I’ve never done before. All my life I have either been a student, or someone who works with students. Each stage of my life has been a smooth transition from doing something I know, to doing something else I know from a different perspective. I can hardly imagine what it will be like to step off that treadmill to somewhere foreign.

I know that change has to happen, and I know that I don’t want to stay where I am, even if I had the choice to do so. Things are finishing where I am and it’s like trying to warm my hands on a fire that’s almost out. I know I need to get up and make a new one.

I know too, or at least have been reminded, that God is still there. I know he loves me and that he loves to bless me. That he knows me, knows what I love, what I'm good at, what I’m scared of, what my weaknesses are. He knows the right job for me, and he knows how to help me get it. There’s no rational reason why he would lead me to being a make-up artist, or historian or cricketer, or something else that I would hate and have no talent for. I know he’s not vindictive.

The thing that scares me is the truth that he does know what’s best for me better than I do, and that that sometimes means that it hurts. When I look back over my life, I can see why all the twists and turns have come about. I can see most of the time, what God was doing at each point, and why he did it. I can see where going his way saved me from disaster, and I can see where going mine dropped me right in it. I know that whatever he brings me will be what’s best. The Bible tells me so.

But my memory is not short enough to forget that learning those lessons was always painful. That being sanctified, being obedient, being disobedient, being pruned by the great keeper of the vine; that these things hurt.

I know it will hurt to say goodbye to my UCCF family – it’s hurting now!
I know it will hurt to change such well-worn routines, to leave behind esoteric words, mannerisms, intonations, uniforms, networks; all the ingrained things that come from being part of such a small and particular world as I have been a part of.
I know that the challenge of my sinfully putting my identity in my work and in my ‘status’ in having this job, will be a painful challenge. A disorientating challenge. An uncomfortably humbling challenge.
I know that my shyness and fear of entering a world where not everyone has known my name since before they met me, and the things I have done before will seem meaningless to them; I know that these things will erode my sense of identity even further.

It’s these things that I’m scared of, even if I’m led into the most OddBabbleshaped job I could dare to imagine. I know I need that challenge and I need the change. I just wish there was a quicker, less painful way to do it.

Philosophical Conundrum

So I was told that rats made good pets. I thought that I would get two girl ones, and call them Pam and Barbara. Then I bought a book about rats and discovered that they wee on you carpet all the time and need constant attention and supervision. Bye bye Pam and Barabara.

My conundrum is this: By calling into existence the concept of Barbara and Pam, were there from that moment, two ACTUAL rats, who would in the future be named thus? If so, when I decided not to buy them, did they cease to exist? Have I murdered two theoretical rodents? Or have there, since their conception, been two rats, who I WOULD have bought, but now that I haven't, they are just called, say, Sylvia and Prunella?

It tortures me so.