A letter to a dear friend

Dear Friend,

Do you remember the time we first properly met? It was at that party that someone in my year had for his birthday, I was 15. His parents thought he was having a few friends round and he’d actually invited the whole year round. I ended up being sick in his kitchen sink, and various other people were vomiting in the toilets, bedrooms and garden respectively. His Mum and Dad went mental when they came back home.

Despite this not brilliant beginning we became firm friends and you’ve stuck by me through every single momentous occasion in my life. In fact you’ve been a staple of every single momentous occasion in my life.

Remember the time I went minesweeping at my brother’s wedding because I didn’t have much money? I didn’t spend a penny all night and was so hungover I couldn’t get up to wish them farewell on their honeymoon in the morning. And do you remember the time of the absinthe cocktails in Sheffield where I lost the ability to move or speak and just sat on a speaker all night? And the time I decided it would be a good idea to walk back to Salford barefoot and sliced the bottom of my foot open on a beer bottle? There are almost too many fun times to remember.

And what’s been brilliant about our friendship is that I can go for weeks without seeing you and then when we meet up on a night out I revel and bask in your company and can’t get enough of you and it’s like we’ve never been apart.

I think the reason that you’ve made me so happy in the past is that you’ve boosted my confidence a million-fold. I’ve come to rely on you so much when I’m out with friends – I might start off feeling pretty shy, but a couple of hours in your company and I’m feeling wonderful about myself. You’ve become my emotional crutch and I think I’ve been taking you for granted.

Who knows why I don’t have the confidence myself? Maybe it’s because of the first boyfriend who told me I was no good. Maybe it’s because I’m the product of a broken home. Maybe it’s because I was best friends with the undisputably prettiest and most talented girl in school and I got used to never coming in first. Maybe it’s because of a million things or maybe it’s just that some people are wired to be confident and some people are wired to be consumed with doubt and self-consciousness. Either way, I’ve come to rely on you so much that I never stopped to consider going out without you by my side.

Until now.

I hope you understand that it wasn’t my decision to remove you from my life, if I had my way we’d always be friends. But Dr’s orders are Dr’s orders and whilst I’m on the warfarin I’m not allowed any alcohol. There’s just nothing I can do.

When I first heard the news I laughed about it and thought “Oh no what a nightmare” but as time has gone on I realised that I wasn’t finding it so funny. The thought of having to go out on a night out and be stone cold sober was not sitting well with me. And the more I realised how scared I was by the prospect of facing a night out without you, the more I came realise that we possibly don’t have a very healthy friendship. I shouldn’t need to consume vast quantities of you just to feel ok, I shouldn’t have to have a couple of glasses before I go out so I can face walking in to a bar to meet up with people.

I need to somehow dredge some confidence up from down in my boots and learn to stand on my own two feet. I shouldn’t need you to have a good night out, you should just be a bonus.
And so I face my first occasion without you on Friday. And what an occasion it is. A 30th birthday party. And even better, a fancy dress party. Those three words strike fear into my very soul whenever I hear them. They are an un-confident person’s worst nightmare. As someone who strives to go unnoticed on a night out (I don’t use you to make me the life and soul of the party, I just use you to make me stop thinking that everyone’s looking at me) the idea of going out to be purposely noticed makes me tremble. The last time I did fancy dress I got dressed up as a policewoman and had to drink most of the contents of a gin bottle before I stepped foot out of the door.

The idea of walking into that hall, dressed up, without you by my side, telling me it’s ok, actually makes me feel physically sick. I have honestly thought about pulling out but that thought was a sobering one (if you’ll excuse the pun). If you’re not wanting to go out because you can’t drink then you need to sort your life out.

So sort it out I will. I will march into that place with confidence. I will find it somewhere.

And I wanted to thank you for your friendship over these past years. If anyone has abused the relationship it’s been me, and for that I apologise. And it’s not goodbye forever, I’m allowed a small peck of you now and then so I’m sure we’ll meet up in the future. And who knows, in 6 months time we could be back to being best friends, although after facing these home truths I don’t think we’ll ever be the same again.

So for now it’s goodbye.

Lots of love

The Girl

PS One good thing about you not being in my life is that my propensity to fall off ridiculous shoes will be greatly reduced. Which is good news because the Shoes of Death, as they have become known, are coming out to play on Friday night.

Tree Project - May edition

Dear Mr Tree

Ok, what in god's name is going on. I turn my back for one week and this happens...

What are you doing to me?! You can't go from only just having leaves one month to being fully foliaged up.

And not just covered in leaves you have flowers. Many many many flowers.

You really look quite beautiful Mr Tree. Very dapper. And judging by all the twittering and cheeping going on outside my window, the birds are loving it too. Especially Mr Blackbird, he comes and sits on top of the downstairs flat's bay window, loosely called our 'balcony' (no we really shouldn't sit on it but we don't have a garden, needs must!).

Really can't believe how much you've changed. Just to recap you looked like this just under a month ago. Seriously?! Tell me something, are you on 'roids? It doesn't seem normal.

You see this is a long term project, you're supposed to make incremental changes over the months and then this feature will be more interesting, you can't just blow your load in a month. Where do we go from here?! You'd better have something up your belt, otherwise I'm going to be most unimpressed.

Anyway, as you were.

Love

The Girl.

Letters related to this weekend

Dear Brett and Jemaine a.k.a. Flight of the Conchords,

Thank you so much for touring again and coming to the UK. Especially for coming to Manchester on Saturday night. The gig was absolutely brilliant and well worth all the tears and trauma I went through to get tickets.

I would really like to thank you for playing at the Apollo which meant the gig was seated. I don’t know if you know but I recently hurt my ankle quite badly and although I am now up and moving about, there’s no way it would have lasted a whole night standing up.

You played a great mix of songs from the first and second series – you even played Carol Brown which is definitely one of my favourites. And thank you so much for playing us 3 or 4 new songs, I didn’t think you’d have more material because you said you weren’t going to do a 3rd Series, but you did and they were brilliant, especially because I’ve listened to your albums so many times that I know the songs inside out and back to front. Do you think that you could possibly consider releasing To Woo a Lady? It was freakin’ hilarious.

And can I just say that you dealt with all the hecklers really well. I don’t even understand why there were hecklers, it seems bizarre to me that you’d pay at least £30 to go and see something and then shout rude things at the people on-stage but I guess people are weird. I hope it didn’t give you a bad impression of Manchester or the UK.

Could you also pass this letter on to Eugene Mirman? I wanted to say thank you to him as well, I’ve never been to a gig that opened with a comedian before and he was really funny. And I felt bad for him because people were heckling him too and although he handled it well and came back at them, I think it threw him for a bit at the beginning. They were retards, I knew straight away that he was the landlord from the show.

And you had the best merchandise ever. I nearly bought 2 t-shirts because I just couldn’t decide but luckily the coffers were only stretched to one. I’m going to try not to wear it to death.

Ok well I guess I’ve said all I’ve got to say. Thank you again, it was really great and I hope I get to see you again one day because you were so so funny.

Could you maybe just think a little bit about doing a 3rd season? Or a one-off special at least?

Thanks so much,
The Girl.


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Dear lastminute.com,

I have only used you twice but you’ve come up with the goods both times baby. First you gave me the City Warehouse Apartments for when my friends from America came over and we had a reunion in Manchester and this time you sent us to the Macdonald Hotel and Spa. Super fancy dancy and yet only cost us £100 for the night.

(Yes actually kind of expensive but slap bang in the city centre and it was actually last minute and anyway the Travelodge in the town centre was £135. Oh. And the boyfriend was paying.)

Seriously I walked in and was all jaw dropped and speechless and kept making little noises that were kind of excitable. So fancy!


And we all know that the mark of a fancy hotel room is the bathroom and Hello! Did this come up with the goods. It was the size of a small flat. The bath was like an ark! The shower cubicle was the size of my kitchen! There was a speaker in there so you could hear what was on the TV in the room (which admittedly was a little frightening when I was having a wee and suddenly Hollyoaks came blaring at me).

Keep coming up with the goods lastminute.com I’m your new fan.

Thank you
The Girl

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Dear Ankle,

I get that I was silly. I get that I should not have worn those shoes (even if they are beautiful) and drunk that much alcohol. I know that I should grow up and act more appropriately. I really feel like I’ve learned my lesson so do you think you could, you know,

STOP HURTING PLEASE?!

I know that it’s only been a week and the Doctor at A&E told me it would be 6 weeks until I was fully functional. But I don’t think that you realise just how impatient I am. I can only be ill for a few days at a time and then I get really bored and fed up with it and consequently kind of become a pain.

I do appreciate that you have healed enough for me walk on you and I would like to especially thank you for holding out on the walk to work this morning – GO YOU! Actually that is quite impressive that I can walk on you already, maybe I have super-awesome healing powers....

But anyway, you still hurt when I try and go up and down stairs which has been kind of embarrassing and more than a little inconvenient seeing as I live in an old building which doesn’t have a lift.

And I would like to apologise for standing on you for nearly an hour on Saturday when we were waiting for the doors at the Apollo to open on Saturday. I have learned my lesson, 6.30pm is when the doors open, not when the act begins, and there are no pubs to go and have a drink in near the Apollo (well, none that would allow you to leave with your life. Seriously, pretty skanky area of Mancehester). And even though I was freaking out about someone accidentally kicking my ankle at the gig, it didn’t happen did it? So that’s good.

And I swear by the end of tonight I’ll be back on the painkillers. It’s just that I’m giving blood this evening and they have so many rules about not being able to donate that I thought I had better lay off them for the weekend. I realise now that you’re not ready to be un-medicated.

So thank you for holding up all weekend (kind of) and I promise that I’ll treat you better in the future, if you could maybe get better a bit quicker than 6 weeks I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks,
The Girl

A letter to Flight of the Conchords

Dear Jermaine and Brett (or should that be Brett and Jermaine?)

Just wanted to drop you a note and say a massive THANK YOU for adding more UK dates to you tour.

You obviously saw my letter last week to Live Nation UK and understood how upset I was. Seriously you have no idea what a mood I was in last Friday, I was really not a very pleasant person to be around.

But you came to my rescue and announced you were playing another date in Manchester. YAY!

I was working from home on Friday and had the computer all ready and set up to begin the horrendous task of trying to buy tickets online.

I nearly had heart failure when I realised I'd slept in and the tickets had gone on sale 15 minutes previously.

But clearly you knew that I'd been feeling a bit down lately and that I was pure of heart because somehow, against all the odds, I managed to get my grubby little hands on a pair of tickets.

So shocked was I that I still don't think I really believe it. I've refused to let myself get too excited in case I've got it all wrong and haven't actually purchased tickets to see you and will instead find myself at a gig for something completely different.

But if everything is ok then I'll see you on Saturday 8th May. I'm quite far back but I'm pretty tall and the boyfriend's taller so you might just see us. I'll be the one waving and singing along to all the songs.

Thank you so much for making a crappy week a lot better.

Yours sincerely,

The Girl.

PS Please play this one ok? Thanks.

A letter to Live Nation UK

Dear Live Nation

I would like to extend my thanks to you for making my Friday rubbish. Fridays are supposed to be good days, happy days, filled with laughter and growing excitement about the weekend. Instead mine was spent cursing and clenching my fists and sighing very heavily.

I hope this letter contains some useful advice that will stop people feeling the way I did when I tried to purchase Flight of the Conchords tickets this morning.

I sat at my computer, fingers itching with anticipation, I’m a dab hand at this ordering tickets online business now. I know the tricks. I had multiple screens open. Different ticketing sites. I was ready.

And when the clock struck 9 I clicked. I clicked and clicked and clicked.

Disappointment rained down on me. Ticketmaster, my normally incredibly reliable booking office of choice, seemed to sell out in the first 5 seconds of going live, which I still haven’t figured out.

I decided to stick with you. Live Nation was the website that the fan page on Facebook was telling everyone to go to.

And I got them!! They were there. On my screen. All I apparently had to do was enter my Username and Password.

Excuse me?

What Username? You didn’t give me a username. Was I supposed to know this information? I went back to my e-mails all the while watching the timer gradually counting down to the moment when my reservation would be lost and my tickets would go to someone probably undeserving.

I couldn’t figure it out. I tried my e-mail address, I tried the nickname you asked me to create for some unknowable reason, I tried my real name. I capitalised, I hyphenated and then the inevitable happened.

You sold out.

I would like to applaud you for your prompt response to my enquiry as to how I was supposed to know what my Username was. You replied within minutes and I call that good customer service.

And it was then you told me that if I was booking tickets with you I needed to also register with Eventim UK, your ticketing partner.

Now call me a crazy person but wouldn’t it be a good idea to let people know this somewhere on your website? Perhaps in big bold letters. I would imagine it’d come in handy for the people that come to your website to, you know, BUY TICKETS. Or maybe when you send people an e-mail confirming that their account has been activated you could put a little notice in there.

It might be worth thinking about to avoid future customers having an equally crappy Friday.

Now I’ll never get to see Brett and Jermaine

Yours sincerely,

The Girl

PS I do realise that in your FAQ section there is an explanation that you are using Eventim UK as of 1st February 2010 and that you will need to register with them to buy tickets but I’m talking about BIG BOLD LETTERS somewhere. You know. Big. And Bold.


PPS I hope you don't find this letter troublesome but...I told you I was freaky.

A letter to the cleaning fairy

Dear Cleaning Fairy

Just thought I’d drop you a line, see how you’re doing because I notice that you haven’t really been around the flat much for the past week and a half.

Just yesterday I noticed that the bin is dangerously close to overflowing, the recycling bags are almost full and that dishwasher still hasn’t been emptied from 2 days ago, whilst the plates from the previous lie in disarray on the worktops. Also I can’t remember the last time you mopped the floor, I’m pretty sure that’s not hygienic.

And don’t get me started on the bathrooms. How do they get so dirty? What is that weird black fluff/dirt stuff that clings to everything? Why does the shower screen have loads of streaks on it and why is the toilet in need of a good douse of bleach? I couldn’t make it easier for you, there is bleach and that shower screen stuff right there in the bathroom under the sink. Can’t you see it? And don’t get me started on the bath, do I want to have a bath in a scum-lined tub? No I do not thank you very much. (And it is by the by that I struggle to bend down to get in the bath, that’s not the point of this letter Cleaning Fairy, the point is that it GROSSES ME OUT.)

Oh yeah and you really need to get the hoover out. I know that I’m closer to the carpet than usual, what with spending most of my time lying on it and stuff but seriously, come on, you know how much I moult.

And while we’re at it, I looked in my wardrobe today and realised that I don’t have anything to wear. Why is that? Because it’s all in the ironing basket. All of it. The basket is filled and then there’s another basket’s worth on top of that stuff. Clothes don’t iron themselves you know.

Now you know me. It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s just unfortunate that all these things require you to have fairly minimal mobility in your back to carry them out and I just don’t have that at the moment. And in fact I was pretty much all sorted right up until last night when I decided I was well enough to hoover and make a start on the ironing and ended up in extreme pain. That’s your fault I hope you realise. If you did your job then I wouldn’t be in pain right now.

So I hope that everything’s cool with you and it would be great if you could make it down to the flat in the next couple of days.

Yours sincerely

The Girl

PS What’s that? You don’t exist? Well would you mind telling that to the boyfriend before I start screaming and throwing sponges and cream cleaner at him? Thanks.