I think the topic this week is New Beginnings. Is it? It could be, only the sidebar says it’s not and Ashley is leaving (shall miss you, Ashley!) and oo-er, I don’t like change.
Which is probably why I fookin’ hate new beginnings. I hate how beginning-y they are. All fresh and shiny and in your face, constantly screaming look at me, look at me! Look at how totally radical I am!
Because, you know. New Beginnings are apparently a Ninja Turtle, direct from 1991.
But I digress. About Ninja Turtles. When really I want to talk about all the other reasons I hate New Beginnings. It’s not just their feminine hygiene style freshness. It’s not just the fact that they’re green and from the early nineties.
It’s all the stuff you’ve got to do that you didn’t have to do before. Shake all your new colleagues’ hands, for example. Even though they’re all weird coffee-drinking office snoots who talk too much about things that bear no relation to any life I’ve ever led.
And if you read my post on Life After Death, you’ll know I’ve led A LOT of said lives.
But oh no. They can’t be like me, in any way. They have to drink Twinings, instead, and when I tell them I don’t drink hot drinks, I have to go and sit in the corner with a dunce cap on my head. They don’t ever wear trainers, not ever, and they all talk in loud voices about that time their son Tristan did a poo.
Or summat. I dunno. There was a Tristan in there, somewhere. And yeah, all right, they probably didn’t say poo, but I just made that bit up, ok? Because otherwise it was just some nonsense about what university Tristan went to five years ago. As though I can really say anything or have any type of conversation with a person who talks about another person I do not know and a thing they did a thousand years ago.
I could never bring up a thing that happened to my son a thousand years ago, in a conversation with a total stranger. Unless the thing was “my son aged backwards like Benjamin Button. That’s why he no longer exists, now.”
Because of course I don’t have a son, and wouldn’t talk about him anyway even if I did. They've no point of reference, after all, you see. It means nothing to them. When you meet someone for the first time, it's far saner to talk about things you can both discuss.
Like, you know. How much I fookin’ hate New Beginnings.
I mean, even the other sorts of ones can be so, so awful. New editor turns out to be a Twinings drinking psychopath. New friend eats your cat and shits out a dog. New contract goes tits up. New boobs explode and poison you.
But what’s weirdest about all of this is…I still long for you, New Beginning. I keep checking the horizon. I’m waiting for my real life to begin, and all that. And when I held that first contract in my hand- I have to accept that that was a New Beginning.
And oh, how it was like the birthday of my life. I’d wait forever, for that feeling to come around again.
Oh, how I needed a giigle today, thank you Charlotte, that was a delicious post!
ReplyDeleteI will keep a hope on standby for you for a lovely new beginning on the horizon that is completely hot beverage and ninja-turtle-free.
Have recently become soured on hot beverages (as of yesterday, during the hot-coffee-spilling incident after which, I must reiterate, I was not only burnt but HAD NO COFFEE TO DRINK). So I do understand. And turtles, like all reptile type things, can carry diseases and bacteria like salmonella. Plus here in Texas we have snapping turtles (they look like this http://mail.colonial.net/~hkaiter/alienadaptation.html and they bite).
ReplyDeleteDid I have a point? Possibly. Can't remember it now, though. But that is just par for the course with me, which is the comforting same old thing. So there you go. A not-new-beginning to help restore your sense of what is right with the world (although I admit the pix of the snapping turtle probably just serve to remind people of all the things wrong with the world such as having giant scary turtles in it).
However, if you had children, you would talk about them. Everybody does. I always assumed I wouldn't but I do. And I think talking about poo and talking about university are pretty much on a par, just separated (one hopes) by an interval of 18 years or so per child. But those two topics fill pretty much the same conversational function for parents.
Charlotte,
ReplyDeleteMy son shared this link to an un-aired turtle episode with me:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1930734
Best,
Ash
Charlotte -now I'm concerned about poor Tristan exploding from poo retention. On the other hand, being full of it might have helped him in college.
ReplyDeleteMadeline- Aww, thank you! You're a peach.
ReplyDeleteDel- I told you. Coffee and other hot drinks- EVOL. I can't be trusted with anything beyond cold juice. And your child talk is orsum! I don't mind totally interesting and funny You've Been Framed-a-like kid talk!
Ashley- LOL Shall miss you, Ash.
Kathleen- LOL LOL You're the best.
Oh dear.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what to say-- I think you've said it all, Charlotte! Just wanted to let you know that I read and appreciated your twisted soliloquy!
Warmly,
Lisabet