FeBlogruary... I missed a few...
This should be the 15th, but I missed 12th, 13th & 14th. Should I call it after the date or the number that there are? Who knows?
I'm in a friend's in Donaghadee. Her third floor flat looks directly over the sea. It's delightful. I helped her move out the last of her things from her now ex's, last night. A sad thing to do, on St. Valentine's Day. Though she seems to be bearing up well. We got here andgot stoned and went for a lovely cold walk, along the seafront and up to The Moat, a little castle up a hill, with the half moon shining behind it, and the clouds racing past it, dramatically. We had funny and lovely catch up chats, about mutual friends, gigs, books, and Tinder experiences.
Tinder experiences are a wealth of riches for storytelling, I expect. Like the story dating event I was doing box office for in the arts centre- an Australian woman and an American man, both comedians, had the genius idea of collecting them into books and touring with a show that they only had to write half of, as the audience performed the second half for them. This was a popular event, and people were not shy with their stories, all usually sexual and funny, or silly. However, one lady had written on her card about seeing a fella who'd told her he had been to prison. She thought, ah well, sure, this is Northern Ireland. He's probably been involved with the paramilitaries. The American man was reading this out and he found it intriguing and hilarious- this blasƩ acceptance of our Troubles. He asked the woman to come up on stage. The Australian woman and I had heard this story during the interval, and I'd related it to my boss. We didn't want to hear it again. We retired to the foyer, where we heard the audience laughing away at the sinister story.
"Sure, don't worry, love, it's not like you murdered your wife, or anything, haha!" She had said to him, and he had hung his head. Turned out he had- he had caved his wife's head in, and tried to disguise her body by setting fire to it with chip fat. Then got his 12 year old daughter in the stand to defend him! Grim! A member of the audience escaped past us, hiding in the foyer, at this point.
"I thought this was meant to be light hearted," she whispered to us, followed by the audience's laughter. She looked upset, and headed out for a smoke. I was reminded of this yesterday, when, while I was working, I bumped into an old friend. We compared dating stories, and she told me she'd been out with a fella, turns out, he'd murdered his wife! She said, she should start writing these experiences down, she should put them in a book! I told her that people already had and were making good money out of it. We realised that it was the same story, the same man, the same murderer. He had chatted her up at the market. They had mutual friends.
I hope none of my Tinder dates actually HAVE been murderers... Suffice to say, none have murdered ME.
I'm going on a date today. I'll need to go home and bathe and preen. I'm not working tonight, so who knows how things will turn out? We're meeting at lunchtime. There are staff drinks for someone leaving later, if I need to escape... I haven't drank for nearly 3 weeks but may do, today. I feel more apprehensive, than excited. He was worryingly keen. We shall see...