Wannabe

Happy 2015 everyone! We’re about a month in. January wasn’t the best month by any stretch of the imagination (and by the sounds of it, a lot of you agree?), but that’s ok, because it was JANUARY. What’s nice about January? It’s like a hangover of a month except mostly without the hangover, just with the feeling of self-loathing and the crippling nostalgia for that particular emotion of the night before… what was it called? Happiness?

Ok, I’m being overdramatic, perhaps. New Years was good, involving close friends in Edinburgh. We popped outside to see the fireworks go off for the bells, standing in the mud and myriad of revellers in The Meadows. People were setting of sky lanterns, but they weren’t really taking flight, instead they’d taken to trundling across the grass, occasionally setting small patches on fire. Midnight came and everyone whooped and yelled and cheered, doling out kisses and hugs. I gave my friends the customary affections and then ran to stomp out a small grass-fire that had been ignited by one of the tumbleweed lanterns. The embers caught on to my shoe, glowing on my sole (OR WAS IT MY SOUL THAT WAS GLOWING???). 2015 felt like it was going to be a good one.

And then the rest of bloody January happened. A lot of it involved travelling between Aberdeen and Edinburgh, walking the dog, earnestly looking for jobs, making decisions and re-making them, and basically just having Reality shove its big face into mine, going, “HELLO THERE,” with direct eye-contact and unavoidably smelly breath.

Doesn’t mean I didn’t have some memorable moments in January, though. My Dad and I went to see the final Hobbit film, which doesn’t sound like that big a deal, but for some reason the Lord of The Rings franchise has accidentally had a big significance in my life. I remember when The Fellowship of The Ring came out, my little sister was borderline too young to see it (thanks to the new 12A rating introduced at the time), so I went with my Dad to go watch it, just to make sure it was ok for Harriets. It was a hideously snowy day, and our car got stuck in gridlock at a roundabout, meaning we turned up to there cinema about twenty minutes late for the screening. Dad and I bought tickets for the next show in over an hour’s time, and went bowling, which turned into an unexpected moment of father-daughter bonding. Of course, when we saw the film I was just about foaming at the mouth with excitement to see it again, ready to drag Harriet along to the next showing (only a couple of beheadings, nothing a seven-year-old can’t handle). I got so into Lord of The Rings — unfortunately still not dedicated enough to read the books, but I tried — I actually tried to write a musical of it. The only original, memorable song I can recall from it was a song about Gandalf’s birthday… which isn’t even a part of the story. I just really wanted to have a happy, upbeat song about Gandalf in the style of the Baha Men (if you ask me, I will sing it to you). Anyway, LOTR took me through some of the weirdest years of my life, including my parent’s separation, and my love for it became so strong that during the credits to Return Of The King, my Dad had to actually ask me if I was ok because I was sobbing uncontrollably. So after The Hobbit, I found myself re-watching Lord Of The Rings on TV and obsessively listening to that Billy Boyd song, soothing myself into post-LOTR life.

In addition to going to the cinema a lot in January, I also took the time while I was in Edinburgh to dip the proverbial toe into the Tinder stream. Not that I'll be doing an awful lot of that over here, because... 

*digs index finger into collar and pulls, going "yeeeeeee-yeee-yeee" through closed teeth*

... you get the idea. And that's not even Aberdeen. Anyway, I had one Saturday to myself to fill, and skipped through the local offerings to find a friendly New Yorker who was willing to entertain my whimsy — we were going to climb Blackford Hill.

Blackford Hill is my favourite hill in Edinburgh, ask anyone. I will often take people up there because it’s the only place that offers the perfect view of Edinburgh. If you go up Arthur’s Seat, or the Castle, or Calton Hill, it’s effectively like going up the Empire State building: you can see everything apart from that important thing you’re standing on. Blackford, meanwhile, looks like the most nondescript hill ever, so everyone’s a winner. Plus! there’s the Royal Observatory. So I met up with New-York, who was this proper, bagels-Jewish-baseball-how-you-doin’ New Yorker. I gave him a taste of my Woody Allen impression, which I think he was thoroughly frightened by (because, it’s terrible).

As ascended the hill, I started to realise that this probably wasn’t my best idea, thanks to the mud and my no-grip trainers. Still, we pushed onwards. The top of the hill gave us the perfect Edinburgh view, just as the sun was beginning to set. I pointed from one end of the summit to a crop of buildings that were just a little way down. “There’s the Observatory,” I said. New-Yoik held out his arm for me to take, in a sort-of “hey-ho, to the observatory we go” gesture. I hooked on, and we launched ourselves into an organic, bouncy step. On the landing, my heel hit the thick mud, and slipped right out from beneath me. I was thrown down immediately, taking my skipping partner with me in tow, and as we landed his elbow, which I was still gripping, went straight into my ribs.

Ow.

I sat up, wheezing. New-Yoik was splattering “Oh my God I’m so sorry”s all over me, while I clutched my chest and inwardly told myself that I probably wasn’t going to die today (a self-reminder I have to dole out regularly). The date ended amicably, once I found my breath again I was able to laugh about it, but New-Yoik is still waiting for my replies as to how the rest of my week was.

It was back to Aberdeen soon enough, and despite joining a temp agency, I wasn’t actually getting any calls for jobs. So I decided to apply to a local restaurant. I put on my best smile, walking into the little venue, cosy with woodwork and dim lighting. The manager sat me down and we exchanged pleasantries, and then he looked over my resume.

“Are you a student?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No, not anymore.”

“So you dropped out.” 

“No…” I said, looking down at the bit of paper in front of him that clearly said I’d graduated. With first class honours. 

“Ah yes,” he said, using his eyes to read. He moved on. “So, you were basically footering about Canada then,” (footering is a Scottish word which sort of means dawdling, or mucking about) “and then you worked… at a comedy club,” he said, with all the pomp of someone looking down to discover they’ve just stood in a wet clump of seaweed.

“That was during the Fringe,” I said, trying to turn it around, “it’s one of the busiest international festivals in the world.”

I wasn’t quite sure what this man might have had against me, but he certainly wasn’t doing me any favours. He then asked about prior commitments that might take me away from work on regular nights.

“Well, I’m a singer-songwriter,” I said, “so there would be evening gigs, but it wouldn’t be a regular Monday-night thing.”

He cut in: “so you’re a wannabe singer-songwriter.”

“No, I’m a singer-songwriter,” I said, trying not to grit my teeth. “I write songs, and I sing them.”

And then with a musical crescendo of violins and horns, I ran to out to the mountaintops and struck a pose beneath the majestic waterfall, and I filled my lungs with the country air and began to sing...

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING

...or maybe that didn't happen. Eh, I'm a bit hazy on that. Perhaps we just talked a little more before he told me that he’d give me a call if I got the job. Needless to say, haven’t heard from him, and to be honest, I don’t think I’d want to! That didn’t stop me from having his face in my head the next few days, saying “wannabe singer songwriter, wannabe, wannabe, wannabe..!” echoing ad infinitum. Maybe that’s why I cracked open another cover to get the creative juices flowing.