Playing the Field

I’ve been seduced by the lure of the twitter….eyes right!… There is clearly no internet fad that I wont tag along with. Blogger, facebook, messenger, twitter et al, if only real life didn’t get in the way then I could really embrace the 21st Century.

twitter is the latest social networking phenomena. Its basically a micro blogging network where you are limited to 140 characters to post, or tweet what you are doing. Sounds dull but it is addictive. You follow other twitters and every time they tweet it you are notified. The main plus of twitter is that it can be easily done by a mobile phone text. It also focuses your mind and as is obvious, I struggle to bring in any cogent thought at under 140  characters. The other thing that twitter is fab, for is stalking, I mean following famous people. Stephen Fry is the most infamous Twitter evangelist, currently followed by over 250,000. I have tried not to become a slave to celeb following, but I am now aware that Stephen Fry saw Watchmen yesterday and enjoyed it, that Richard Bacon ate a Fry’s (no relation) Chocolate Cream and learnt from Dave Gorman that yesterday was US Pi day, 3/14. Vital info I’m sure everyone can agree

Anyway I’m sure you all know this. The thing is I’m starting to feel disloyal to my blog. Twittering feels like I’m cheating on my blog, sneaking away when its not looking. My 1 year marriage to blogger must be creaking if I’m looking for excitement elsewhere. twitter feels like a younger, leaner, hipper model. I was going to use a different word than model, but couldn’t think of the male equivalent of a mistress, doesn’t that say a lot about our patriarchal society. However I will always return to Blogger. Tweeting has fun but Blogging has substance. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but how many of the greatest poets wrote limericks (my gawd that sounds pretentious!).  This old thing has been such a positive force in my recent life. Not only have I made some great blogging friends, and you know who you are, but through it I feel I’ve gained a little more understanding from friends and certainly it has brought my brother and I closer.

I think I can manage to keep both relationships going in tandem, although friends have been claiming that since I was been tweeting, and my how I’ve been tweeting I have neglected to update my blog. I, of  course, claim that this is nothing to do with my new suitor but that I have works in process and it is the tortured perfectionist writer that has been behind my delayed posting, but I fear no one outside my head believes this. So I’m going to try and keep up the post count while tweeting away in the background.

As Michael Jackson & Paul McCartney didn’t quite sing “Bluey Bird and Orange B, sit together in perfect harmony. Side by side on my Windows desktop, let us post and tweeeeet”

A Tale of 2 Sittings

Anyway back to real life (if we have to)

 This has been a week of the same old same old mainly. Work is fairly depressing having to deal with distressed members (that is not a side effect of my hormone therapy , before no one asks) and continual organisational changes (its a default position in the NHS). Outside work has been noticeable for 2 meals out. On Tuesday it was a rare chance to get dolled up, as we celebrated Debbie’s birthday in a charming Italian restaurant in Stone. As usual I panicked that I had absolutely nothing to wear darling, so on this thin excuse I hit Hanley spending nearly 80 quid on trousers, heels and handbag. I was unusually brave that night in plumping for a strappy top and bearing my strapping arms! Still I managed to get away with it and even my new heels still felt walkable by the end of the night, so I feel it was success all round.

Must admit that although I’m getting a little more confident with my appearance on a girls night out, I still think that I a tread a very narrow path between being lazily underdressed and inappropriately overdressed. I guess my compass is wobbly but still pointing Northwards.

Last night was a dinner do at quiz colleague Michael’s house. He was entertaining the complete female contingent of our quiz team,, in Victoria, Heather and myself. He was really sweet in offering to cook for us to make up for missing mine and Vic’s birthdays back in February. However, he slightly soured the sweetness by informing us that he was cooking a Weight Watcher’s meal  ! (like we need to diet!). He then compounded this souring, by marking one of the chairs for only himself to sit on, as it had a dodgy leg that may not survive the ordeal from us three (actually it was me that posed the greatest risk to life and chair limb). Again, I toyed all afternoon over what to wear. This was not because it was crucial to create the right appearance, after all I was just our quiz team. No, my inner Tranny was back, nagging at me. While sorting through some a pile of clothes I found a short denim dress. Now I had bought this dress over 6 years ago, back from those closeted days when things were bought without any expectation of actually having to wear in public.  In those days, I was never able to try on in the shop, and frankly this dress had always been woefully short of fitting. Indeed, on the first attempt I couldn't even pull the thing down my torso. Anyway, as I have lost some decent weight I decided to give said dress one last try before chucking. Lo, behold, it actually fitted, and although I would not have won a best dressed at Ascot prize, it looked sort of ok. So now a germ was planted and I started obsessing that I was going to wear it that night, even though I rarely wear dresses and certainly not one so short. I was going to bottle out and go for something more trousery, but that inner Tranny of days gone by, won over and with the thought of “Oh sod it, why not. I will wear it just because I can” that was my outfit for the night and for the second night of the week I think I got away with it.

In between socialising, I managed to fit in an afternoon at the scene of my first “triumphant” public outing Stafford town centre. It was an unusually bright afternoon and I took the opportunity to snap the church where my parents married, and stumbled upon an impressively fiery, busking juggler.