Contradictions

The gig was a great success in that all the bands were good, about 75 people attended, and the vibe was positive and politicised. For me the standout act was Pregmant: The Pregnant Man - an intriguing threepiece of jazz drummer, cello player and rapper.

My set was met with cheering and appreciation, and several people said afterwards that they really enjoyed my lyrics and approach to music.

The gig was also a dismal failure in that, as a fundriser it failed to break even, the 10 minute soundcheck at the start lasted a full hour - forcing all the bands to cut their sets. The mixing to the PA was incompetently done, making vocals often indecipherable - the folk singer stormed off because he couldn't even hear himself amplified. And by the end of the evening three quarters of the attendees had left.

Paul T was even more of a pig than usual, demanding the running order be changed just because he felt like playing there and then, "forgetting" to cut the set short, and spending everyone else's set chatting up girls in a different pub or making loud conversation.

Oh, and Max is currently having an extended hissy fit because Sion R dared to organise the whole thing without consulting him first.

I had spent most of the evening and UKP30 on getting rather drunk in response to the above - in fact several people tried to persuade me (genuinely but wrongly) that I was too drunk to perform. I got most of it right, but hit some wrong notes, distracted by even drunker morons shouting comments. I'm not happy with my performance.
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I...might have a boyfriend. Or I might have a friend.

CW and I spent the small hours of Thursday morning texting each other, about the relationship we had 15 years ago in college - how it was based in the simple fact that we understood each other when no one else did, how it was still true, and we were both lonely for each other's company.

He came to the gig - and turned out to know a lot of the people there already. Then I walked him home and we sat outside his house discussing our confused feelings for each other.

I find CW an uttely infuriating man. Highly intelligent with a dense but random scattering of knowledge, he can sparkle in groups with his impossibly quick wit and sense of surreal wordplay. He's like a rapidfire Eddie Izzard, constantly deflecting conversation away from anything serious or troubling.

The thing is though, underneath it all he's serious and troubled, but there's almost no one who can "get" (grok) what he's really thinking. Except me, that is, because although my surface persona is completely different, we're amazingly alike.

And yes, he finds me infuriating too. A month of living under the same roof would lead to mutual murder. It's just that when both our defence mechanisms are down, there's something quite special.