Indigo Sunday

Sunday 18 October 2009 - an Indigo night in Bristol.

Plan A had been to get to the Indigo Girls concert at either London or Brighton.

The plan fell apart upon discovery that both venues were sold out by the time I got round to trying to book.

So Bristol it was.

Only traces of Andrea make the trip. Bright red finger nails from the day before.

I arrive at the O2 Academy at 6:30 pm and join the end of a queue of maybe 40 people. There are three doorways, but just a single queue.

The queue gradually grows.

There was a time when bright red fingernails would have led me to keep my hands in my pockets most of the time. These days I’m not so bothered.

6:40. a barrier is built to demark the doorway on the right.

6:45 the queue is ushered across to the right of the barrier.

6:47 another barrier between the other two doorways.

6:50 signs appear.

To the left: O2 Customer Priority.

Middle: Paying and Guests

To the right: Ticketholders

O2 is a mobile phone company that also manage a selection of musical venues.

People with O2 phones begin to ask about the priority entrance.

All you need is an O2 mobile phone.

A little sheepishly the privileged few move across to the left.

Being an O2 customer I become a sheep.

Each O2 customer can bring a friend.

Within minutes I have a new buddette. Karen (I think) needs a friend with an O2 mobile phone. She’s been in the queue since 1:30.

7:00 the doors open.

No one checks anyone’s mobile phones.

I’m glad that I don’t have a handbag with me. They are all getting searched.

Into the auditorium and there I am standing at the very front just a few feet away from the stage.

“So … have you been a fan for long?”

The girl to my right and her husband have travelled over from Portsmouth.

She’s American and has seen Indigo Girls frequently in the USA.

Aged 30 and a fan since junior high school … age 14 or so.

She attended seminary and one day hopes to maybe be a pastor within the Lutheran church.

We talk a little about the church’s views on women, vicars, gays and lesbians. She smiles as she says that she was almost surprised to grow up and discover she wasn’t a lesbian.

We both see Indigo Girls as musicians that happen to be lesbians rather than lesbian musicians.

Favourite songs include The Wood Song, Ghost, Mystery and Loves Recovery.

Prefers the acoustic kind of sound.

8:00 and Stephanie Dosen takes the stage. And she is good.

I like her voice and her music.

She’s wearing a frilly white skirt. Black tights. A little wrinkled and torn. The tights that is.

Makes me smile to think how unfeminine I can imagine myself looking with torn tights and how feminine she looks.

Stephanie … smiling as she tunes her guitar.

“Joni Mitchell has a guitar that tunes itself when she pushes a little button.”

More twiddling and fiddling with the guitar.

A cute little smile.

Very quietly.

“Bitch.”

“Don’t anyone tell Joni I said that. When I see her I’ll tell her ‘I did not call you a bitch.’”

Stephanie introduces a song with what she insists is a true story.

A night drive in winter. Cows at the roadside. Cold and shivering.

She begins to sing. A freedom fighters song on behalf of the cows.

Drumming on the steering wheel.

All of a sudden the car is skidding, facing the wrong way and rolling over.

With a hint of sadness. “And the cows never came to visit.”

The words have changed, but the next song came out of those moments.

9:00. Emily and Amy take the stage.

They start to play and then stop.

Amy could perhaps have used a Joni Mitchell guitar at this point.

They both laugh a little.

“Any questions?” Emily asks the audience.

“What’s your favourite pizza?”

“Well … cheese is good. And lately … mushroom and Canadian bacon.”

The atmosphere is friendly, almost intimate.

“Amy … please may I have your plectrum?”

“My plectrum? Well yes … especially since you asked so politely.”

“So how many people here would have asked for a picker?” asks Emily.

“Meeeeeee”.

“Only one?”

“But I am American”.

Amy: “Plectrum … it almost sounds sexual.”

Emily: “Anatomical.”

Amy: “Yes that’s what I mean.”

A request from the audience.

Amy: “Nooooo you cannot play with my plectrum. It’s a kinda personal thing.”

Amy: “It’s a good thing that our new songs are different than the old ones. If they were the same it would mean we never could have gotten better.”

Emily: “When I was younger I would write lots of songs. As you get middle aged it’s easy to find yourself repeating yourself. It takes longer to write songs now.”

Lots of conflicting song requests from the audience.

Then: “Play whatever you want.”
Amy, smiling : “That’s what Mr Obama says.”

“Amy, I love you.”

“Emily, I love you.”

Emily: “We love you too.”

All of a sudden its 10:40 and the stage is empty.

And then they are back and play a couple more songs.

Amy hands over the plectrum.

Time for home.

I loved it. The music. The people. The experience.

Just a few minutes ago I booked a ticket at the Concorde 2 in Brighton for next Monday – it seems it’s not quite as sold out as I thought. £20 at the Concorde 2 web site. The alternative was a bargain at £94 from what is, I guess, a less than honest web site. Now I just have to organise leaving work early enough to get to Brighton by 7:30.

A little like Emily I find it easy to find myself repeating myself.

See what I mean … three myselfs in two sentences.

It’s an easy thing to do in a blog.

Sparkle 09 … Nipples and nails

A long time ago … well several months at any rate … I booked in at the Manchester Portland Street Premiere Inn in preparation for Sparkle 2009.

For me, last years Sparkle experience had been a little mixed, but I decided to give it another go. My hope was that if I spent a little more time getting to grips with what was due to happen that I’d end up with a better experience.

Towards the end of last week I’d got to the stage of wondering if it was worth the effort. Hectic weeks at work seem to have that kind of effect on me. A weekend of doing nothing somehow seemed very appealing.

However on the evening of Thursday, July 09 09, the preparations begin.

A soak in the bath and a little time with the Bic razor. Maybe one day I’ll try the waxing experience. But today is not that day.

My nipples survive intact.

I remember a few years back on my second trip ever out in the big wide world in a skirt. Listening to Fiona Floyd in conversation with a guy about the merits and otherwise of the t-girl experience. She mentioned that if he’d never felt the swish of clothing against newly shaved legs then he should try it – even if he never got round to trying on a skirt. And there is something very nice about the feeling.

Nail polish. A bright red shade from Rimmel. I recently discovered that it comes with a newly designed brush. And it seems to work. I can actually paint each nail with three strokes.

Toes.

Fingers.

Disaster.

Sally asks me about the red spots on the carpet.

Either my nipples are not so intact as I thought, or the new nail polish brush got me over excited.

The nipples are fine.

I decide that it’s best to let it dry a little and work out how to clean it up in the morning.

Lipcote and topcoat

A couple of nights ago I thought I would practise lipstick. I keep meaning to practise makeup more.

The aim was to see how well lipcote works. The idea is … first the lipstick and then the lipcote. And then when you take a drink you don’t end up with a glass coated with lipstick and naked lips.

That was the theory at least.

In practice it didn’t quite work out that way.

First was the lipstick.

Then I fumbled around in the drawer. Of course … the exact word lipcote wasn’t running through … just the shape of the bottle and the word coat.

So … out it comes … topcoat … bottle is the right shape and the name sounds about right.

“Shake before use.”

I shake it.

The bottle, that is.

It reminds me of an observation that a lady work colleague once made. She thought that after filling a tank full of petrol, guys were much more likely to shake the nozzle after they have finished than girls were.

Then, the topcoat is applied to my lips.

Andrea thinks … “this tingles more than I remember it doing last time”.

Ten minutes later I place a glass to my lips and nothing much rubs off.

The next phase of the experiment is to try lip gloss as well. I have memories that it was the gloss that ruined the coating last time.

Looking for the gloss.

And … omg … I discover a bottle that says lipcote.

What did I put on my lips?

It takes only a few moments to discover that topcoat is a coating for nail polish. The bottle says nothing of this … but the smell is a giveaway.

I’m reminded of a story I read about a lady that accidentally super-glued her eyes shut after picking up the wrong tube of stuff for her eyes.

The thought that “it could be worse” passes through my mind.

All of a sudden I am thinking a lot more about how to get this stuff off rather than how well it stays on.

Makeup remover.

Cotton wool with a little nail polish remover … yuk … but it works.

Slowly.

Ah well … it could have been a lot worse.

Stockings, suspender belts, holdups, tights and Nora Batty

Stockings and suspenders, holdups or tights. What should I wear?

This kind of question sometimes distracts my mind from the worries of financial crises, corruption in politics and a host of other important questions.

There are times when the selection of appropriate leg-wear is an important issue.

Stockings and suspenders are my favourite choice. By a long way. For myself as well as on other people. This preference has, I know, roots in the days when the occasional pair of stockings was pretty much my only experience of feminine attire.

There is something nice about rolling stockings up over freshly shaven legs. It feels so very … well … feminine. And yes, I know. Tthe way that stockings and femininity are so closely linked together in my mind may be more a reflection of the state of my mind than of the real world.

There are downsides though.

Fastening stockings to suspender belts can sometimes drive me to distraction. Especially the strap at the back right. For some reason this has a tendency to be infuriatingly more difficult than all the rest. Scratched nail polish. Broken finger nails. I have to stop and slowly count to 10. Short skirts can be a problem as well. I mean … depending on where a girl is going it is sometimes advisable to be showing no more than the odd glimpse of a stocking top.

And also … it is most inconvenient to have a suspender fastening pop undone part way through an evening. Although, this can be quite entertaining. Laura, Nikki and myself had a very pleasant giggle watching Sonya refastening Billie’s stockings at Pink Punters last year. In fact, I think all three of us were silently hoping for an un-popping experience of our own.

Tights on the other hand … or perhaps that should be on the other leg … tights are practical. They work fine with really really really short skirts and dresses. But somehow they don’t seem so feminine as stockings. I know, I know … my mind is twisted. It is definitely true though, going to spend a penny (this is a British euphemism for going for a pee … and I am old enough to know where the phrase came from) is much more laborious when wearing tights than stockings.

Hold ups. These are great … so long as they hold up. I remember buying a basque at Anne Summers once and the lady at the shop suggesting that rather than just getting stockings … hold ups would give added protection against an un-popping. Well – this depends on the holdups. Some of them have a habit of becoming slide-downs.

Primark used to sell some very nice holdups. The large size went all the way to the tops of my legs and they never slid down at all.

Alas, no longer. They have been replaced by a newer, shorter version that slips and slides. A couple of weeks ago I was at home wearing a pair of these and part way through the evening Sally said she wasn’t so sure about the Nora Batty look that I had acquired. For anyone that doesn’t know Nora … here she is:

 

Of course … Wikipedia says more (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurring_characters_in_Last_of_the_Summer_Wine#Nora_Batty)

I don’t think that Nora ever bought holdups from Primark … but you never know.

Either way … Primark is no longer a purveyor of holdup stocking to me.

Holdups and suspender belts are tricky though. Getting the elasticated tops through the suspender belt eyes is seriously hard work. Not for the feint hearted or for anyone wearing nail polish that isn’t tough as diamonds.

After careful research … I asked Laura where she got hers from last week … BHS, of all places, is the place to be for both stockings and holdups. And after popping along there at the weekend I agree.