Monday, May 30, 2016

Shiny and new

One of the best things about moving to a new place is the possibility of reinvention. You have to create a new existence for yourself; potentially a new job, new friends, a new lifestyle, and so, you might as well take up the opportunity to create a new you in the process.

I desire to be the kind of person who is instrumental in the team's Pub Quiz victory, the one who can go deep into the well of their knowledge and return, to much acclaim, with the right answer.

And people would say things like, 'Bloody hell, I knew Gemma was an expert on starting unsuccessful online businesses, but I had no idea that she also had such an impressive grasp on Victorian Britain!'

And I would blush, but not too much, because I am not really that humble about it.

And then they would quit our quiz team out of shame and shake their fist at their own poor quality education and wonder how my brain could be so big, and yet my head, so small.

YES.

But when I went to the pub quiz, a strange thing happened; I didn't know any of the answers. Now, my first complaint is that there weren't any thick questions, you know, questions for the thicker individual, which is surely a staple of the pub quiz. Questions which give inferior minds a chance to take part and not feel like completely redundant morons.

My second complaint is that not a single question centred around any of my numerous abilities:

-Spontaneous poetry
-Self-deprecation
-Discussing things to an insane and tedious level of intricacy.

In other words kids, it was a fucking joke.

No one else seemed to have a problem with answering, but I very much doubt that they are a match for my impressive mind - a mind which undertook many hours of extra Math lessons and then totally bossed it by just scraping a C.

Ginger Beard was very supportive at first, and my sense of humour did a great job of inflating and creating a protective barrier between the truth and my ego, for a time.

But when Ginger marched me to Waterstones, and made me buy several stimulating books on general knowledge, I knew that my sensational good looks and above par dinner table manners, were no longer enough for him.

If this marriage was going to survive it's first fragile year, I would have to up my game. And so I did three, crucial things. I threw my unread copy of Glamour magazine in the bin (not before removing the free samples within), I ordered glasses with extra large frames from Specsavers and I hid those awful, boring books so that they couldn't hurt anyone, anymore.

Then I realised, it's okay, I don't need to be a genius, because I'm going to be an artist. And art doesn't have time for history, or geography, or any of the other subject matters which I know absolutely nothing about. You take some paint, and you bosh it somewhere, and you demand a lot of money. So I went to a drinking and painting evening. And my canvas is so bad, that Ginger has hung it up in the lounge to make him feel better about himself.

Join me for the next blog, when I will further engage in activities which only serve to confirm my failings!