Being Me

I'm now on my summer holidays from school, dear friends, and I think there are two ways these 7 weeks could go. Option 1. I start out with the intention of chasing more agents and publishers for my books/beginning a new novel/writing some articles/trying to pitch a new column/entering some story and poetry competitions, but after 5 minutes of enthusiasm decide to blog/read blogs instead because it's just TOO DIFFICULT.  I therefore spend hours blogging and then find it's bedtime. Option 2. I decide to have a break from the blogosphere so that I can give myself as much chance as possible of actually getting past that 'it's just too difficult' point. I know myself too well.  So, I've decided on option 2.  You're a great bunch of followers and I hope you'll stick around so that when that I start 'Being Me' again in September or thereabouts, you'll be looking out for a seminal post about a stuffed animal or an incident on a local bus .....

If I knew what a 'meme' was - and I still don't, even though people keep saying it - it would help.  I don't know whether to say 'I've been memed by Steve at Bloggertropolis ' or 'Steve has given me a meme' or 'Here's some memming which Steve has made me do'.  Whichever way, I hate him.  Look at these questions he's sent me to answer.  What would YOU do with them?  1. God gives you a free ticket to spend the night with absolutely anybody in the world and the entirety of history – whom do you choose?   Someone who knows how to use who and whom proper like what you do. 2. Frankie Howard or Frankie Boyle? (This is a separate question and is not related to no. 1 above.) I don't know who Frankie Boyle is.  I'm not good on culture.  Comedian?  Actor?  Street cleaner?  Whoever he is, as I don't know him, I'll go for Frankie Howard.  Although, as he's dead, this could be a tedious meeting - I'll bring a boo...

'I'm going to put this massive wadge of cotton wool in your mouth  and then I'm going to ask you all about your summer holidays.  Okay?' At the dentist .... 1. You sit in a waiting room, wishing you were in the mood for people-watching, ie making interesting observations about what others do when they're nervous.  But you are not.  You too are texting people to whom you have nothing decent to say, biting your nails (perhaps for the last time for a while) and curling your toes up towards the ceiling. 2. You read, from cover to cover, a magazine called 'Groom your Dog the Tai Chi Way' or 'Collect Tree Bark as a Lifelong Pastime' and find it absorbing. 3. The words which come over the tannoy ('Fran to Room 3, please) you hear as 'Climb the stairs to your eternal doom' and the receptionist has to tell you it's your turn. 4. You enter the dentist's surgery and hear his opening words ('Hello, Fran, how are you?') as ...

1. I lurve it. 2. I lurve it. 3. I lurve it. 4. I lurve it. 5. I lurve it. 6. I lurve it. 7. I lurve it. 8. I lurve it. 9. I lurve it. 10. I lurve it. (Oh, HOW ANNOYING.  It was all going so well, with all the 'I lurve its' all being in a nice symmetrical row and then, because of the Number 10, which is two digits and not one, it pushed the 'I lurve it' out a bit, so now it doesn't match.) (Whaddya mean, lighten up?)

I knew that if I said to the girl on the checkout, 'Look, I know what you're thinking, but the reason I'm buying 16 bars of chocolate is because I am using them in a class on Monday to help students explore the English language' she would have been very cynical about it.  She'd have raised one eyebrow, looked at a colleague in a kind of get-this-fat-idiot! way and deliberately announced, 'THAT WILL BE TEN POUNDS FIFTY FOR THOSE SIXTEEN BARS EACH CONTAINING AT LEAST 960 CALORIES AND A FATAL DOSE OF CHOLESTEROL, MADAM' and everyone in the shop would have looked my way.  And, of course, it had to be today that I chose a bright pink t-shirt.  So everyone would have been looking and thinking, 'But she already looks like a strawberry blancmange!  Why make things worse?' In the light of all these possibilities, I didn't say anything.  I just kept my head down while she dropped them all in a bag for me (one by one, and very slowly, I swear), paid, a...