So this is how I look this morning..(apologies..haven't had enough sleep and scruffy as per usual) and this is how my eyes are actually working this morning. Copable, yes...sure but so frustrating. I have just been to the supermarket to pick up soup stuff and somehow managed to not walk into any screaming children, irate exhausted parents or confused Polish people but now I am knackered and just want to lie down. Its always a battle but no one can tell becasue i look..well sighted. Would it be easier if I wore a Somai pirate eyepatch? Thick glasses? A large sign?
Last Saturday I went to a birthday party in possibly the darkest bar in Brixton (and that is saying something my friends.) Without enough light that white stuff you see in the second picture becomes as thick as gravy. I could see f-all. There I was in my sparking off the shoulder number, hair all glossy and spritzed to potential fire hazard, enough make up to shame Dolly Parton and all I could see was a mass of blackness. I couldn't see to lip read and I couldn't even manage the bar (nuts!) I might as well have been sitting at a deserted bus stop waiting to go home..apart from the fact most deserted bus stops don't do ear slitting (or splitting..either way it was painful) karaoke.
Obviously i coudn't flirt very easily. You try making eye contact when you are not sure if the person is facing you or not! Of the four or five men who appeared out of the gloom to attempt to make shouted conversation about how loud the music was, one was so drunk he had forgotten he had actually met me several times before, two were married to dear friends and the others were looking for the loo.
I have been told that I should date other blind people. Oh grow up!
Who the hell is going to drive or pluck me out of danger when I start a bar brawl? All we would do is bang on about what we had banged into most recently and have several people a day come over and tell us 'how braaave' we were. We would end up walking into traffic together..possibly on purpose so enough with 'date a fellow disabled' please!
This taken to the extreme just becomes moronic. I once was offered a date on the basis that 'Well, he's not much to look at but he's a diabetic so you and he should have a lot in common..' Hmmm yes obviously our mutual friends are shite.
Anyway enough with my whimpering. I am on 35,000 words as of yesterday into my novella and my heroine is getting romance up the yazoo..(cough, splutter) so shall live vicariously though her till the end of the month and put off the eventual unholy slide back into Internet dating. Is romance dead? No, just really pissed and refusing to let anyone else on the karaoke machine.
9 comments:
I laughed so hard reading this (I'm sorry!) but you put it across too beautifully.
My own bar/pub experience ended years ago; I have partial deafness from years of working near loud machinery, and if there's any ANY background noise, I can't distinguish any spoken words at all. Nobody wants to sit in a pub with someone who only says What? What? WHAT? You're right, it's about as fun as the bus stop.
The blunders of well-meaning friends are priceless, second only to Stupid Things Said At Funerals. I'm still a bit boggled trying to equate vision impairment with diabetes.... wha? They can't see it would make more sense to point out he likes the same books (music/sports team/hobbies) as you do?
Anyhow, bravo on the novella: keep typing! I need to get back to mine too (procrastinating today, feeling a bit blue).
Thank you for the laugh, I needed it!
Greta snaps. Good for you on the novel. By the way I have a friend hes 72 has a wooden leg and a parrot on his shoulder he cant see too well so i thought maybe youd like to meet him.Let me know
It must be very difficult for you - aren't friends bizarre about who they want to pair you up with - have I ever had a few horrors! Lx
oh T! man. you made me laugh so hard. you are so wonderfully funny. and graumph schort stutter, give suzie's man a twirl...oh babes. sending you massive MASSIVE bear hug! OOOO
Oh my Gawd, you are funny. Your sense of humor takes me out at the knees. I am working today at a quiet healing center, with candles burning, all zen like... waterfall sounds in the background, and then on my lunch, I come to your blog, and all sense of peacefulness and tranquility have vanished, as I fall off my chair, gasping for breath between fits of all consuming laughter.
Your humor is a healing and hilarious thing~
It is an utter deelight to know you!
No one else can winge with such wit. The diabetic is a singularly bad idea! "Oops sorry darling... yes I think that might have been sugar I put in your tea... er not sure really..."
Susan, Nao, Fam A, Janelle, Tam, I am thrilled to have made you all laugh especially in potentially inappropriate places! I have been really blue about the eyes and wasn't sure how it would come out on the page but the intention was to tickle not to traumatise so most chuffed it worked out. Suzie - your bloke is up!
Thank you.
T xxx
Why did blogger eat my comment?
I went on and on about how mighty you are to write a novel in one month, and said I think you're gorgeous.
Carry on! (Hope this one publishes.)
She is gorgeous. And very clever.
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