Get Cape Wear Cape Fly

I can just imagine you reading the header of this post and thinking; "What? She's obviously using the laptop again." Which, as it happens, I am - but no, I haven't forgotten the basic rules of punctuation.

No, dear reader, I have just got back from a gig. And 'Get Cape Wear Cape Fly' was the name of the band. (Check them out here - you won't be sorry)

But anyway, a Gig.

Me.

Staid, pedestrian, domesticated, elderly 40+ PM has been let in to a Gig. With young people, and everything.

And I have to say, it was rocking.

(How embarassing is that, me trying to sound right on?)

The music was great, the guy fronting it all fantastic, and I really enjoyed the experience of being surrounded by tall young men in their 20's who knew all the words to all the songs without sounding like complete idiots. Well, wouldn't you?



How did this happen? It was because of a friend. The same friend who hooked me up with Husband all those years ago, actually. I have known this friend for more years than I haven't known her.

We went to college together. We were unleashed into so-called adult-hood together, living in the same all-female hall of residence, sharing the same two ring cooker and spin dryer along with 18 others. Before we really met, I admired her long hair, narrow waist, and rower boyfriend. It was thanks to her I developed my taste for vodka when we worked together in the same student union bar, nicking glasses of the stuff when the bar-manager's back was turned, mistakenly imagining he wouldn't smell it on our breath. (Even if he couldn't, he surely noticed our getting gradually drunker throughout the evening. Though I'm not sure he minded, given the opportunities it gave him to look down our sleeves when we poured drinks, the letch.)

We lived together after college in good places and bad, with slugs in the kitchen (yet another reason why it's good to wear slippers in the morning when you fetch your cornflakes. Have you ever had squashed slug between your toes?), and landlords that we all not-so-secretly fancied. We encouraged each other to go out on school nights, getting horrendously drunk and dragging ourselves hungover into work the next morning. We fetched water for each other when those hangovers forced us to 'pull a sickie' and stay home together watching Dirty Dancing when we knew we should be out earning an honest wage.

We commiserated with each other when relationships foundered and the bastards that we knew all along would break our friend's hearts did just that. We kept our mouths shut when those same bastards showed up for a second round (and in my case, a third, a fourth, and so-on). We helped each other move into and out of flats and flat-shares that didn't work out.

We sympathised with each other when each new boss turned out to be just as clueless as the previous one, and encouraged each other when it all became too much and we finally moved on.

And, now I think about it, this makes the name of the band this evening even more apt.

Thank you, Cate.

You helped me to get my cape, wear it, and fly.


(And yes, I have been drinking vodka. But only a bit...)