On Elvis

Whenever I watched footages from concerts, or other events involving the presence of stars, I would sigh with lack of understanding and a feeling of certain perplexity at the teenagers and no-longer-teenagers waving frantically at their idol(s) and screaming their hearts out in an almost religious trance. Do not get, do not approve, get a life.

And then I watched Elvis with Jannick. And there we were, two mature women in their 30ies, otherwise mostly reasonable and calm, crying and screaming at the telly, pressing our hands to our lips with emotion as if trying to contain the squeeky noises that were forcing themselves out of our throats (but failing miserably).

(Other people present retreated to the conservatory for the duration of the concert.
Paul, me thinks, had a hard time getting to grips with what was happening to his normally rather much less noisy girlfriend.)

But still, it was Jannick and me and lots of wine and Elvis. Not Westlife or the likes.
Yet, I now know from which part of one's insides those screams emerge and that it is not possible to contain them.
So I no longer judge.


NB. I was told later on that it was rude of us to watch Elvis instead of all of us doing something together. Maybe so. But then I remember another social gathering during which people put on football that some of us had no desire to watch and that was ok. I sometimes get a paranoid feeling that if someone else does it, it's ok, but when I do it, it's rude...

Common courtesy

While I was planning my lessons for tomorrow, GG (which is a Polish chat programme) informed me that my sister was online. I had not spoken to her in ages so I promptly sent a message. The conversation went as follows:
‘Hi there Fatty!’ (It’s a pet name, the whole family calls her that, probably because she’s always been skin on bones)
‘Hello Skinny’ - that surprised me a bit, but I didn’t think much of it.
‘How are you?’
‘Depends what you’re asking about’
‘Am asking in general’
‘And who are you? I don’t talk to unknown Skinnies’ - I thought that my contact info had disappeared from her GG while she reinstalled it or something, so I replied:
‘Your sister, dummy, how many people call you Fatty?’
‘Who?’
‘Your older sister. The one who lives on the other side of the Channel.’ - how many sisters did my sister think she had?
‘Should I whack you or fuck your face up?’ – WHAT?
I proceeded to apologising politely to the apparently unknown person I had messaged thinking they were my sister but insisted that the language was uncalled for. The apology was accepted, the person apologised for the language and explained that they always reacted like that to unknown contacts.
Ah, common courtesy.
Needless to say, I’ve deleted what I thought was my sister’s contact info from my GG…