I am now in bed at the Parentals. I had two gigs this evening, one in Camden, another in Kilburn. My body has decided to turn all 'Hunger Games' on me and consequently I feel incredibly physically fragile. My lower abdomen feels like someone is punching it from the inside out. After complaining via the poetics of Snapchat my Dad (aka 'The One Armed Bandit') kindly offerred to pick me up and drive me home to him and my mother so they can nurse me back to health with tea, codine and constructive criticism.
After a two hour drive I am now back in my bedroom. My old bedroom. The bedroom that hosted teenage me at the weekends when I returned from boarding school, puppy-fatty and hormonal. Puppetts are everywhere, and cushions. A fathomless number of cushions. I could drown in cushions. And quilts. My room seems to be just an infinite number of quilted surfaces with puppets, cushions and books on them. In the midst of all this I am wrapped up, in bed, laptop on lap, hands tapping away whilst BBC Radio 6 Music's Guy Garvey show plays. My lavalamp throbs in the corner. The toys look like they could be extras in a Goosebumps episode.
*****
D: "So Emilymileily, any tasty boys on the horizons at the moment?"
I gaze at my dad, my tea in hand, looking at him. I'm perched at the bottom of his and my mum's bed - watching them both like a confused puppy. He's on his side of the bed, my mother is distracted watching Star Trek (she hasn't watched an episode for 2 days and Dad has mentioned in the car home that she was 'starting to get the shakes', so dad and I try not to disturb her).
E: "Dad, if you say tasty again I may have to be sick".
D: "Are you going to be nice about us in your memoirs?"
E: "Potentially"
D: "Will you say we are 'cool'?"
E: "I'll mention you are weird".
D: "What's your new material like?"
M: "Stop talking, I'm trying to listen to Kirk".
*****
Ten minutes later, I show my mother the photographs of my filming for Take Two at Porishead.
M: "Oh Emilymilemily, they look marvelous".
E: "Thanks mum"
[beat]
M: "Don't die will you."
E: "Er?"
M: "Don't die."
E: "Okay...."
M: "It would be such a shame if you died. You must look after yourself. Don't do anything stupid. You must eat and be healthy".
E: "I'll try not to"
M: "You're so photogenic"
E: "Thanks mum"
********
My puppy,Khaleesi, had to meet a Dog Psychologist the other day. Apparently she has 'Seperation Anxiety' and 'Abandonment issues'.
"She is just like you!" my parents pointed out after being told the diagnosis. "You have problems with being alone!"
Thus, I come home tonight to swarm Khaleesi with kisses. She is so excited to see me she jumps up, knocks me over causing me to trip and bash my head against the wall, giving me concussion**, all the while she happilly pees all over me, yapping and licking my face like Dino from The Flinstones.
I'm crying in pain, whilst happy to see her. She's ecstatic, whilst drenching us both in piss.
Like dog like owner.
** I genuinely have concussion.