If I had a nickel for every event I organised in 2022 and missed … I’d have three nickels. That’s not a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened three times …
I MISSED A FLIGHT TO CARCASSONNE
Yeah, I could have gone to the France. (Bonjour! Voulez vous une baguette?) I had a cheap flight, and an airbnb booked – it was beautiful, a lovely little apartment up several flights of winding steps, overlooking the old town, with a cathedral at the very bottom of it all. A boulangerie right around the corner. I could have sat on a balcony, eaten pastries, and woven a story!
I did … none of those things.
The week before I was due to catch the short flight over to France two things (2) happened:
a) I began to feel a tiny, incy bit poorly
b) the feeling of dread began to climb
There was this very vivid mental image in my mind, you see – I hop on a plane and go to a country, find a ride from the airport to the apartment, walk deserted streets, forget to buy food because it’s too late, lie on the bed and perish of starvation. In the morning I wake, a Victorian waif, and sip water from a tap. Misery is my companion. Despair, my friend.
The vibes, I announced to any unfortunate person in my general vicinity, were off.
I released that I was an adult and thusly, I have autonomy. If I do not want to hop on a flight and butcher a beautiful language and be battered to death with a baguette – I did not have to.
This felt like a sudden and beautiful moment of self-realisation.
The plane took off. My seat, empty. The airbnb, cancelled.
(And it was a good thing too – I developed a filthy cold and had a redder nose than Rudolf himself. Forgive me, Rudolf! I’ll be guiding that sleigh tonight!)
I DID NOT SEE SPOCK
I say this with love, but I probably shouldn’t be permitted to buy tickets. To anything. You know, just no tickets in general. Step away. Don’t purchase.
And, in the dreadful occasion that I do purchase the tickets, I should also ensure that I have a method, a means, or a way – of getting a refund.
(I have not learned my lesson.)
A friend and I were going to go down to London to see Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Friar Tuck (David Harewood) in a play which probably was Very Serious and Important. I definitely was going for the cultural element, and not because I was determined to support Zachary Quinto in person.
We had a dream. We had a plan. We even had a parking space. And then strikes hit the railways and a dastardly cold struck my friend.
Reader, I tried to give those tickets to someone else. I did my very best. There were no takers. We couldn’t move the tickets without incurring extra cost, and we couldn’t get a refund, and if I made the trip on my own I would be driving at one am in the morning. No one wanted that. Especially me, Ness, who is very attached to the idea of being in bed and not on a motorway in the wee hours of the morning.
Alas, when the curtains opened there would have been two empty seats in Grand Circle Row F. But listen, dear actors and stage hands and theatre folk – we were there in spirit.
I messaged my friend: this play is moving me to tears.
He agreed, but mentioned that he couldn’t see the stage as someone’s head was in the way.
We were, in all probability, in our PJs, in our respective homes.
I DID NOT GO TO COMIC CON
… as you can tell, there is a theme here.
Having been to London Comic Con, dressed as Jason Todd and sporting the fakest and most wonderful of crowbars, it was obviously imperative to do it again. But this time? A friend and I were going to be dressed as hobbits.
How exciting! How thrilling!! We were going to look spectacular! The hobbitiest hobbits to ever hobbit! I began mental preparations to make the hobbit feet (and by ‘make’ I mean ‘buy’).
These plans did not last long.
‘What if,’ I asked my friend, ‘we went as ironic hobbits. With a white t-shirt that said “Hobbit” on it?’
She agreed.
I felt quite smug, as if I was a future hipster Hobbit. I could run around and demand if total strangers had eaten their second breakfast! What panache! What style!
Those t-shirts, dear reader, were never made.
But no worries! We were still 100% going to comic con!! It would be grand! Great! Brilliant! It … did not quite happen.
There was a communications failure and the carrier pigeon I sent my friend was shot on its way to her. To exacerbate the matter, I had neglected to organise a) transport and b) apparel – assuming, of course, that magically and wonderfully these things would just … happen.
They did not. We live in a society.
The night before, a decision had to be made. When the morning of comic con dawned, I had a delightful lie-in.
(Sometimes, the best plans can be the cancelled ones.)
Believe it or not, the interrupted plans don’t worry me too much. Sometimes, the dream of going somewhere – that delicious, comforting feeling of something to look forward to – is worth the money itself.
(Is that what I say to comfort myself? Yes. Yes, it is.)
In Calvin & Hobbes, Calvin’s dad would probably say cancelled plans were character building or something, and you know what? I’d agree with him. I really did enjoy that lie-in.
What things didn’t you do in 2022?
of words & books 