28 June - Radiohead & Sobriety

Radiohead in Victoria park. 1 hour then am off, having been unable to get rid of second ticket. They’re not mine in the first place but friend who gave them to me and was meant to come with is stuck in a meeting about some other mega band about to return to the scene. I ring 2 people who like the band, but both are close to home at 7.30 and unwilling to come back out. It's bloody Hackeny after all. A third friend who likes the band is already going. Toph says ‘not my thing’. Am sure I could ring more people but then I’d have to make arrangements to meet etc and I can’t be arsed.

I sell the ticket for £20 and buy drinks and chips. Ludicrous prices. I know Radiohead are not responsible but perhaps is a t-shirt is £20 then a bag of chips can be £3. Never mind. I leave after an hour when the sky is still light because I have to go see a friend in town from Toronto. This means I don’t get to see a full light show, but I doubt even with that that the show would have involved me more. They sound fantastically clear and crisp but I hardly ever 'get' gigs these days. It’s hard to get into them. Even if I’d been a #1 fan by now I’d be bored. I suffer too much from 'been there, done that, next'.

So by 10.15pm I get to meet M. at the bar of her hotel and she looks pretty darn good. Not seen her in over 7 years since I went over for her wedding in Toronto, where she'd moved a year or two previously. Turns out she’s been AA for 18 months and has met new partner at the meetings. He runs a bar! Must be hard. Previous husband who was a major beer drinker, has now gone to be a forestry person in Alberta and is also sober and withe new partner. I’m not sure why she drank as much as she says she did, we sort of gloss over the reason, but it was obviously bad enough to go to meetings and cut it out completely. She’s now going to eventually cut out the smoking (which is the first thing I noticed after the fruit juice, menthols are the 'am cutting down' option. Funny that.. We don’t communicate that often but she does well workwise, bought a brownstone in the centre of town, and it just never occurred to me she’d have a problem. We did talk about it for quite a while, I guess there’s a lot of hoping one would be supporting when this kind of info is revealed. Bless. Two hours go past and it's half past midnight on a weekday and I have to go and she has a flight to catch. Wish there was some teloporting for real, would be nice to just make a plan to go for breakfast on saturday instead of knowing it could be another few years before we meet again. sigh....

]