yonmei

10:57 pm: Dinner at Nom de Plume
Met Ajay for tea at Nom de Plume, which is the LGBT centre cafe, which has been done up and redecorated and is under the same management as the Regent.

I was late. Partly because of Fresh Start, who wanted to Talk to me about an advert, partly because I was bloody determined to do everything today I'd meant to get done.

I have just been emailing someone in India about an evil guru who wants to set up shop in Scotland and pretend to be able to cure people of being gay by doing yoga.

The gay people should do yoga, I think he thinks. Which is absurd: if every lesbian who ever did yoga became straight, we would have even fewer lesbians than we do.

I told Ajay that all my friends who I hang out with locally seemed to be either gay men or married women, so I wanted to make the most of her company for the next two years, which fortunately she found as funny as I meant it.

I forgot to post anything on the Internet at 090909 090909, which is sort of a pity, but I expect when everyone did it broke the Internet.

I'll be 43 in 4 months and 4 days. That will be prime.



Tags: birthday, bloody job, friendship, yoga

07:57 pm: *beams proudly*
My friend Ajay has been doing a part-time degree in nursing for the past few years - she's been a psychiatric nurse for over twenty years. Earlier this year - we were just leaving for Redemption - she got her degree results: she'd passed with Honours.

We were sitting in Waverley Station when she told me, and I leaped up and hugged her and told her I was so fucking proud. (I copyedited her essays. I knew how good they were.)

She skipped the graduation ceremony, because who wants to dress up in a gown and get a pointless roll of parchment? But today she got a package from the university. A heavy package. Inside: the class medal. She didn't just pass with Honours: she was the best in her year.

She was kind enough to say she should saw it in half and give half to me, and I told her not to be silly, I just copyedited, I said they were good essays, and see, I was right!

Ajay's dyslexic. She didn't learn to read till she was 11: no one ever took the time to sit down with her and take the time to teach her. Her teachers all through primary school thought she was a bit stupid, a bit backwards, not worth taking time with. That was thirty-plus years ago.

I'd really like to make those bloody teachers eat that medal. Whole.



Tags: friendship

10:30 pm: Blast the midges
I used to be able to say that midges don't bite me. This was certainly true at one point.

The sore bumpy places on my neck, my back, and did I mention my neck, and a couple of places on my face, say that this is no longer true. OUCH. Midges are horrible.

Today I went to South Queensferry to meet up with a bunch of photographers from Redbubble. I'd never met any of them before. It was a nice day. You'll see some of my pics on Redbubble, once episode 2 of House Season 5 is over, and I can leave the TV and go upstairs and do that.

There isn't a ferry any more in South Queensferry, though there was one for about a thousand years: Queen Margaret used to cross back and forth from Fife and the Lothians and paid to improve it, or some such. Then about 120 years ago they built a beautiful rail bridge, and about 45 years ago they built a far less beautiful road bridge, and, well, no more ferry.

Yesterday I went out to the gym and exercised for about an hour and a half, and then I came home and it was the hottest day so far this year and I lay down on my bed and went to sleep. I woke up and Bob was asleep at my right hand and Wolf was asleep at my feet. I still slightly regret that I didn't have the nap in my garden, in the sun, even though I would probably have got sunburned in advance of my trip to South Queensferry.



Tags: friendship, imaginary friend meetup, just my life really, nonphotos, redbubble

09:49 am: I'm packed and we're leaving Plockton
I don't really have words to say how wonderful the ceremony was yesterday. But at the dinner, afterwards, one of their oldest friends (I mean in age: chronologically, I'm one of their oldest friends, having known RiK for 25 years...) got up and made a short speech about how privileged we all felt to have been invited and to have been there, and then we all toasted them, and it was... well again: no words.

I fell in love with Plockton. I want to come back. If I go downstairs now and pay, I have an hour or more before we actually have to leave which I can spend wandering around and taking more photographs, so I'm going to do that. And we're going to Skye too, today.

Next time I'm going to pack walking shoes and work off these magnificent breakfasts and dinners in walking.



Tags: being queer, films, friendship

11:26 pm: Yay fruity civil partnership!
I am going to the civil partnership of one of my oldest friends, to his partner of 15 years, next week - and they've organised it up in the Highlands, in Ross-shire, not that far from Skye. In fact, we're going there on a day-trip the day after the partnership ceremony, which is happening on a boat.

All of which is very exciting and happy-making and totally wonderful, of course - except for the problem about: What do I do about a gift? Obviously, the pair of them having been living together for years and years and years, housewarming-style presents would be inappropriate. As would any presents which they'd have the problem of shifting back to Edinburgh. So...

...I bought them a fruit basket. A big fruit basket. I actually spent quite a while putting together The Perfect Fruit Basket (easy-eating fruit, oatcakes, cheese, fudge, nuts) only to discover that the company wouldn't deliver that day. Nor would the next company. Which it finally occurred to me was because of the Spring Bank Holiday in England and Wales on the Monday. So I found a company in Scotland, British Bouquets, and they do a spectacular-looking fruit hamper with cheese and oatcakes, to which I added a box of seashell chocolates. Whee. Sorted.

(Also, I am still not sufficiently over the change in the law - not just the Civil Partnership Act but the legislation that makes discrimination illegal: it was an extra fillip of satisfaction to e-mail the hotel that I wanted to send a civil partnership gift and could they put it in the couple's room, and to get a nice message back from the hotel manager saying they'd be delighted. (There have been a couple of extremely nasty incidents in the Highlands of gay men being literally turned away from guest houses: and a bunch more reported of hotel and guest house staff just being plain mean and rude, though not actually denying a same-sex couple a room/a double bed.) Obviously my friends wouldn't have picked a hotel to stay in where that would happen - they've stayed in that area before - but I'm still getting oh this is cool grins over it.)





Tags: *bounce*, being queer, friendship, fruity smells

01:51 pm: Ideas for What To Cook
I have a friend who is now cooking for his mum instead of the other way about. He outlined his cooking skills thus: "Sweet and sour chicken is fine, beef stroganoff ditto spaghetti bolognese and on a simpler level grilled chicken beefburgers and sausages. Hope this hasn't grossed out a vegetarian. The only meal I can cook that I could serve to you is cauliflower with melted cheese." (To clarify/update, I am looking for carnivorous help for this new-to-being-the-family-cook friend not so he can cook for me but to provide helpful resources for him to cook for him-and-his-mum... neither of whom are vegetarians.)

With this in mind, can I get ideas from my skilled, talented, and mostly carnivorous friends: recipes, labour-saving techniques, tips, tricks, ideas, meal plans, other?

Tags: eating some delicious food, friendship, you live longer overweight

11:08 pm: Happy birthday, afrai!
Do you have any birthday fic-wishes to fulfil?

Tags: friendship, write write write

09:55 pm: We ordered Chinese food
We were quite sensible about it. We ordered from the vegetarian menu. A portion each of the "small vegetarian spring rolls", and a beancurd dish (with mushrooms and cashew nuts) and a stir-fried veg dish (with Szechuan sauce) and two portions of egg-fried rice and a side dish of crispy seaweed and another of pancakes.

We were the only people eating in the restaurant, which is very plain on the inside: everyone else was ordering take-out.

We thought we were being sensible and then the food started arriving: two enormous bowls of the main dishes, and rice, and a plate of pancakes, and lots and lots of crispy seaweed, and eight pancakes (very thin, light, white pancakes, perfect for rolling) and the spring rolls were enormous - if those are the small ones, the big ones must be battleships,

It was all unbelievably delicious. I'd brought a bottle of elderflower wine, which was extravagantly good with the food, and we ate, and ate, and ate, and eventually we really did have to stop eating because we were completely, absolutely, stuffed full.

I said, as I was eating a pancake with beancurd and mushroom and cashew nut, and a few of the fried vermicelli noodles that the spring rolls had rested on, and a sprinkling of the crispy seaweed, "My mouth is falling in love with me."

The whole meal, including corkage for the wine, cost £36: we left £40 on the table (they don't take cards) and took the long route walking home. It was really, recklessly good, but I have got to remember for future reference that if I'm with someone and we just want a meal to share, one main dish, and rice each, and maybe pancakes, and one serving of spring rolls, and... oh, who am I kidding? I'd probably do the same again. It was good. Food is a lovely thing sometimes.

We drank about half the bottle of wine and I took the rest home with us so we might drink more of it tomorrow. It was delicious, and I will buy it again when next at the farmers' market.

Tags: eating some delicious food, friendship, seeing friends

02:38 pm: World AIDS Day
In November 1992, my friend Eric died. He was survived by his partner, Nigel, and two cats, Nicholas and Samson. He was a short fair-haired skinny man with, typically, a skinhead haircut: he wore black leather and white woolly jerseys. He liked tea, and long talks about religion, and skiffy movies. He was 28 years old when he died: I was 25, and it's seemed odd to me since 1995 that I am older than he is, as it seemed odd to me since 1999 or so that he had now been dead longer than I'd known him.

Eric's death was the first bereavement of my adult life: I still think, sometimes, of things I would like to say to him, and miss no longer being able to sit on the red couch in their high-ceilinged shadowy sitting-room, drinking endless cups of tea and talking the world away.

Today a co-worker got word that a friend of his in Southampton has been recently diagnosed HIV+.

( poem, Rilke )

Tags: friendship, rilke, someone died

08:31 pm: friendship meme
Tell me about your most wonderful, strange, oddest, sanest friends.

( the wombat )

( the unafraid )

( the glitter )

( the wordsmith )

Four's enough for a meme - I could go on. There are more of you who are most wonderful and strange and odd and sane.

Tags: friendship, meme meme meme

02:23 pm: Guh...

LiveJournal <accounts@livejournal.com> to me
More options 8:53 pm (0 minutes ago)

(the following is an anonymous gift)

Your LiveJournal account "yonmei" has been upgraded to a permanent account.

LiveJournal Team

Am speechless.

Tags: friendship, lj abuse did what???

03:27 pm: Sheds, sunshine, and Shoshanna
My shed roof is felted again!

Thanks to the_shoshanna, who helped me carry the roll of roofing felt back from B&Q, and then stood around supporting the ladder and handing me clout nails. It really was a two-person job. But my shed roof shouldn't leak any more.

It was a lovely sunny day today. Unfortunately we spent most of it walking to and from B & Q, and Shoshanna has now declared she intends to lounge around like a lady of leisure the rest of the day, which is well-deserved.

Tags: diy, friendship, garden record, walks

12:02 pm: That puts a wet sock on my happiness
This morning I walked to work through the dew-laden grass of Victoria Park.

I haven't sprayed my trainers with the waterproofing stuff (why not? you ask. Because I didn't think about it, I mutter grumpily: we were having lovely hot weather when I bought them) and anyway the fabric upper has already worn into a tiny hole, which is an utter pain since the damn things cost £60 and are less than six months old. No, I didn't keep the receipt. Yes, I should have done.

Anyway. As a result, when I got to work, my socks were wet. Damp. Icky. So were my shoes, but stuffed with newspaper (I stopped at a newsagent on my way up the road and bought a copy of the Guardian - for once, yes, for the sports section, though I do plan to read the news-and-views part over lunch) they have pretty much dried out.

The socks, though: Ack. The radiators are switched off (well, it's summer). We are not high-tec enough to have hand-dryers. I have been wandering around the office barefoot because I cannot bear the thought of putting my tootsies back into those cold, disgusting socks.

I shall have to, though. Pity Poundstretchers on Elm Row is closed down: they sold reliably cheap socks. It will have to be the hiking shop or the army-and-navy surplus: I can't think of any other sock shops within handy walking distance. And I really would rather buy dry socks to wear than walk around in damp socks for the rest of the day. [But I didn't have to, because the wonderful brandnewgun nicked a pair of socks from her girlfriend to lend to me. Happy dry feet!]

But I made chewy gingerbread cookies last night, and I wrote 500 words or so of "Out and Far Tonight", and another 500 words or so this morning when I got up, and am feeling indecently happy, altogether, apart from those disgusting damp socks that I shall have to put on in fifteen minutes or so.

Tags: friendship, m*a*s*h, weather, writing

12:30 pm: friends and conversations
I have about ten really close friends - with whom I can talk about almost anything. But for each one, there's an area which I can't talk about with them. In some cases, it's because we'd both be embarrassed: in some cases, because our past history makes it inappropriate: in some cases, because our world views are too wildly divergent to be able to discuss it peacefully. This isn't the same thing for all of them, of course. And this isn't the same as just not talking about stuff: there are areas we could talk about, but we don't, because I'm fascinated by something that bores them, or vice versa. I mean the moment when something comes to mind to say, and I think about it and decide not to say it. This happens all the time in ordinary conversation, but happens far less often when talking with close friends: when it does, it's noticeable

Just something I'm thinking about. And how family are not the same thing as close friends.

Tags: family stuff, friendship