recipe for embarrassing evening
Here is a recipe for an embarrassing evening:
1. decide to turn up at a Poetry Slam event where you might win £100
2. fail to contact the organiser to find out the rules because her email isn't working
3. forget to have your poem with you after work, thereby either necessitating a long walk home to fetch it or the writing of another one in one hour.
4. decide not to walk home, stop off at your sister's flat, and write another one on sheets of scrappy A4 paper.
5. go to the poetry event half an hour early so no one else is there and you are VERY OBVIOUS
6. pay £6.50 for the privilege of being very embarrassed and out of place
7. sign up for the Slam even though you have just found out that you are not following the rules by only having one poem and not three which you will need if you get through the first round.
8. watch everyone else arriving and saying, 'hello, darling' and hugging each other.
9. try and strike up conversation with other people however reluctant they seem.
10. be, out of 5 contestants, the fifth one to perform
11. watch the other 4 and realise that, apart from one rather doddery and uncertain contestant, the others are all WAY better than you are going to be
12. don't leave at that point. Decide to stay.
13. do not insist on someone adjusting the microphone for you, even though it is a foot taller than you are.
14. do your performance, peering round the microphone stand occasionally to get eye contact with the audience.
15. receive your applause and try not to notice the slightly muted, who-is-this-woman-anyway? nature of it.
16. stay to hear that you have been eliminated from the competition, along with Mr Doddery.
17. stay for the rest of the competition, even though you are a LO-SER!
18. talk to people at the end, and enjoy their compliments, even though you were a LO-SER!
19. think, 'actually, I quite enjoyed that'.
20. think, 'you must be crazy to have enjoyed all that humiliation: ever thought of doing naked bungee-jumping?'
1. decide to turn up at a Poetry Slam event where you might win £100
2. fail to contact the organiser to find out the rules because her email isn't working
3. forget to have your poem with you after work, thereby either necessitating a long walk home to fetch it or the writing of another one in one hour.
4. decide not to walk home, stop off at your sister's flat, and write another one on sheets of scrappy A4 paper.
5. go to the poetry event half an hour early so no one else is there and you are VERY OBVIOUS
6. pay £6.50 for the privilege of being very embarrassed and out of place
7. sign up for the Slam even though you have just found out that you are not following the rules by only having one poem and not three which you will need if you get through the first round.
8. watch everyone else arriving and saying, 'hello, darling' and hugging each other.
9. try and strike up conversation with other people however reluctant they seem.
10. be, out of 5 contestants, the fifth one to perform
11. watch the other 4 and realise that, apart from one rather doddery and uncertain contestant, the others are all WAY better than you are going to be
12. don't leave at that point. Decide to stay.
13. do not insist on someone adjusting the microphone for you, even though it is a foot taller than you are.
14. do your performance, peering round the microphone stand occasionally to get eye contact with the audience.
15. receive your applause and try not to notice the slightly muted, who-is-this-woman-anyway? nature of it.
16. stay to hear that you have been eliminated from the competition, along with Mr Doddery.
17. stay for the rest of the competition, even though you are a LO-SER!
18. talk to people at the end, and enjoy their compliments, even though you were a LO-SER!
19. think, 'actually, I quite enjoyed that'.
20. think, 'you must be crazy to have enjoyed all that humiliation: ever thought of doing naked bungee-jumping?'
Yep, in relation, naked bungee jumping sounds rather attractive!
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