The Incredibly Special Notebook

Queenie was thinking about notebooks today. And listening to her The Girl's got Soul playlist on iTunes. She was in the Writers’ Centre shop at lunchtime yesterday, it being through the archway from the Writers’ Centre café, where she was having lunch with Colombo, anyway, to cut an incredibly long sentence short, Queenie found herself irresistibly drawn to the notebook section. Because she has a notebook thing.

Ten things Queenie has a thing about

- Ants

- Notebooks

- Drinking tomato cup-a-soup to sober up – it works

- Lists, which probably drives the thing she has about notebooks, they being the perfect receptacle for lists that you need to carry about in your ladybag, as opposed to your head.

- Organising things so she can find them. Ref: 2 and 4. Also hours spent genrefying the unclassifiable bits of iTunes, spending three hours filing her paid bills last night instead of writing her zine, thereby missing the deadline.

- Giving up smoking. It’s just too damned cool. Queenie knows, she knows, it’s not. It’s just, if she gives up then she’ll be a grown up. And Mickey Martin will have won.

- Her body hair. Queenie swears she has the hairiest arms of any woman she knows. Unless they are all waxing and lying about it. Which is very plausible. Why did Queenie buy a Maria Tecce album? Was she drunk? She sounds like that singer on the patio of the hotel she had to go to for cocktails after dinner in Spain with her parents when she was fourteen and all she could hear was the call of the local boys above her husky lispings but Queenie couldn’t go answer the call, because nice country girls don’t do that.

- Queenie is bored with this list already. Jesus, Queenie has a Joss Stone album. For f’ssake girl, have you no shame? Oh that’s right, she bought it for her friend Polly, then reckoned she might turn her nose up at it, so she had to buy her a proper present and keep it.

- Missing deadlines. Like the Franks one Queenie just missed. Not good. Very upset, she is.

- Nice shelving. Queenie likes a bit of pale beech shelving. With objects placed artfully on them. Or her books. Organised by publisher. Well, some of them

Incredibly special

Queenie has just realised she has an incredibly anally retentive personality. Kinder people would call it an organised mind. And an ant thing. Maybe she was an ant in a previous life. She has never watched the film, but she did watch The Incredibles yesterday. It’s fab.

Queenie particularly like the whole take on ‘everyone can’t be special, because then noone is’. It’s an evil little thought that’s been lurking in the back of her head for a while now. Marvin Gaye is singing Girl you sure love to ball at Queenie now. Which is a bit rude, doncha think. A concept (specialness, not balling) that inexorably leads to reality tv shows involving talentless underdressed teenages who think they can sing because their mothers told them they were special when they were young and had cute, fessy, little blonde curls, instead of the muck brown mullet they’re now sporting.

Where was Queenie, the rambling thing is starting again. This is because Queenie's brain is overloaded. The notebook will sort that out. And her thoughts will follow a linear trajectory again, not the random hopping route they are taking these days. Oh yeah, notebooks.

Anyways, she bought a nice new one, as she had been looking for one since her moleskin filled up with lists. It has shoes on the front. Which of course, would have been no. 11 on the list of things Queenie has a thing about, if the list had gone up to no. 11.

Queenie’s random top random pairs of shoes of all time

- The incredibly pointy flat black suede shoes with luminous yellow buckles she bought in Zerep in 1985.

- The incredibly pointy, stiletto, shin high, black leather boots she bought in Roches two months ago.

- The brown wedge moccasins she paid over 300 euro for one time and didn’t eat for a month. That then stretched, so they’re a bit big for her now. Or maybe Queenie shrunk due to not eating for a month. Whatever

- The silver shantung silk covered wedding dress shoes she got in Pia Bangs for twenty quid about ten years ago that are still perfect because they are waterproof! So if anyone wants to marry Queenie, she has the shoes.

How does the iTunes ‘droid mind know intuitively the two albums she put on the playlist to pad it out, find them and constantly refer back to them on shuffle? Tis the Prince of Darkness!!

- Queenie’s Basher Boots walking boots. They rock.

- The next pair of shoes. It’s getting to that time of year. Oh yeah! She's considering those nice cheap wedges she can get in Top Shop nowadays, of course, then she'll be taller than Percy again. Why do blokes not like it when you are taller than them? It doesn't mean you can run away any faster, the exact opposite actually.

Beautiful Special

Queenie is rediscovering The Beautiful South. They used to annoy her. But now…….. dunno, they’re one of those bands Queenie tends to follow the herd on. Unfortunately, she follows a herd of almost extinct herbivorous, nocturnal, shy, foliage-dappled gazelle-type thingys, who communicate only by email and ‘zine, because they can’t organise a piss up in St. James’ Gate, according to some people, so she can’t ask them right now. Well she could, but they’re all still in bed no doubt and not reading their mail.

Here’s a thought. What must it be like for kids doing the Leaving now? When Queenie was doing the Leaving, her mother used to monitor the phone usage so she would study. Nowadays, they can mail, or mobile call, or text, do they get any study done at all?

ANYWAY, NOTEBOOKS!

Queenie wrote a list of all the things she has to do before she goes to Canada in it to try and calm down a bit. There were 27 things on the list. They are: ah no, she’s not going to do that to you all – that’s what inmyday is for.

But one of the things she had to do was book her going away party. So she went over to the Club after work this evening to talk to the Keeper of the Book of Bookings. Other staff members can pencil things into the Book. But only the Keeper can use the biro. Once he’s done the once-over.

Queenie was a bit nervous, because she forgot to pay for a pint one time and the Keeper tracked her down after about three months and made her pay him in front of about a squillion people. And she wanted the big room. Which is for charities and weddings and special people only. But not only was it available, but the Keeper got the biro straight away, and gave Queenie a discount, and LET QUEENIE WRITE IT IN THE BOOK HERSELF!!!!!

Queenie must be special. Incredibly special.

8pm on 20th May, you’re all invited, don’t be late because
you had to go home for food – there will be food there.