Michelle's Boudoir

Don't let me do it again......

2009-07-26T12:56:16Z

Nottingham Pride was yesterday. I was up at six, did the usual radio station interviews, got coffee and headed out to the Arboretum. I set up the stage, liased with Sam, Sam the darling Sound Man, built stage, did sound checks, bigged it up on the main stage, fussed over my speakers and spent a lovely hour with the great Tom Robinson.
(We paid Tom for 20 minutes. He spoke for an hour, chatted informally with people afterwards and finally left to get his 7.30 train.)
I then missed the final ceremony as I taking down my stage and then spent the rest of the time clearing up the park, putting things away, picking up litter and running up and down the hill so many times that my leg muscles are now rock hard. (Hopefully it did the arse some good too)
I left the Arboretum at 9.30 and went for a pint. Great to see all the usual pink venues rammed with people enjoying the day and the night was made for me by one person coming up to me in the pub and getting all emotional over meeting Tom Robinson, listening to him speak and agreeing with everything he said and I said in my intro to all the speakers. It was just one person who said that to me - but it was worth it for just that one person. (Even if he did stop me from getting to my pint for 10 minutes...)
I want Pride to still be a politcal piece of activism. Sure it's great that young kids out there have no problem with coming out, with being out and proud at work, home and in their neighbourhood but I HATE that they don't KNOW about the Stonewall riots, about being arrested for even looking vaguely queer near the vicinity of a public toilet and about clause 28 and Prop 8. We're Here, We're Queer and We're NOT just shopping...
Like women must always vote to recognise their Grandmothers struggle for suffrage, queer people MUST pass on their knowledge. Queer history should be taught alongside women's rights and the civil rights movement. And I know there are some people out there passing on the knowledge, but it tends to be the older generation and I also wonder why I'M doing it. Why me? I'm a heterosexual married woman. I know really I'm doing it for Russ, because 70% of the people I socialise with are gay or lesbian but am I seen as a liberal middle-class person doing her charity work, being SEEN to be doing A Good Thing and being smug about it? Giving the impression that I'm better than everyone else because I'm working for A Cause? Perhaps my point should be that I think more of the LGBT community should be doing my job here.

Oh well. I think I did a good job this year, I'm a good speaker on the radio, giving soundbites and writing the pertinent phrases that don't frighten the horses, always being able to turn criticisms or attacks round and not coming off as raving socialist. But it's just the time involved. I started a new and demanding job two weeks ago and have not been to bed before the early hours for about three weeks so can I spare the time, cope with the setbacks and apathy for another year?
I tell you, the way my feet feel today I NEVER want to go through it all again!
But then talk to me after the AGM in Spetmeber.....

A bad thing happened.......

2009-07-09T21:55:08Z

I got mugged. In the Arboretum of all places where we have our annual Pride Festival and at 2pm on a sunny afternoon just after I had had a site meeting with my sound engineer for this year's festival. I had said goodbye to Richard, sat down on a bench, written up my notes and made the dd call confirming it. I got up to go and then *bang* - some fifteen-year old TWAT on a bike, zooms by, pushes me over and steals my bag.
In a way, I wish there was cctv footage of a lady in a hat, frock and heels, picking herslef up and chasing after the miscreant while shouting invective that I don't think my mother even knew EXISTED even though I would die of shame at the words I used. Luckily, the purse fell out but I have lost my darling givenchy sunglasses, all the slap and my phone. With all your lovely numbers and emails on there. So please email me with your number and then I can put them back in the new phone and give you my new number.
I'm fine, just bruised and it could have been worse. But I tell you what - I NEVER knew I could run so fast in heels and on grass. Would have caught the bugger too had it not been for me falling over again.
So please get in touch!

I may be some time......

2009-06-05T09:28:30Z

This weekend - in fact in about four hours time - I am heading off to the airport to visit Amsterdam. I am off with a contingent of The Pink to visit another of The Pink who will be reaching the Age of Reason.
We have presents, we have booze and I even have an enormous iced birthday cake as my hand luggage.
Happy 50th birthday Alan!
So check out the city cams over there and if you see a darling hat, it'll probably be me underneath it.

Did the earth move again people?

2009-03-30T18:02:04Z

Have you not just had a small earthquake out there in SF land? Just check in my darlings and stop me having sleepless nights....

I'm Twittering on as usual......

2009-03-19T21:53:42Z

Well of course as I've nothing better to do it seemed an ideal waste of time to get on Twitter. And that, along with this and the main blog (www.20six.co.uk/missmish) means that i will be spending at least a couple of hours a day on the laptop catching up.Still, it keeps me out of trouble I suppose.
You may find me on http://twitter.com/Madamemish so please tune in to find out exactly how I am wasting my time. Oh and check out the Nottingham Pride Twittter account too.
You know, I haven't time to get a job these days.....

Listen to my words of wisdom....

2009-03-12T21:12:21Z

I have had a BBC Radio 4 person in my house today. I am to be featured on the PM programme in a series about redundancy and unemployment. I tried to come over as noble and sensible and coping under pressure but feel I came over as a middle-class wanker.
Judge for yourselves, next Wednesday sometime between 5 - 6pm.
I may go into hiding afterwards....

I am in tears....

2009-02-23T16:26:29Z

I got sent this link and had a damn good cry over all the happy people in there crying out for their basic human right to love.

http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/divorce

Probably old news to you Californian hands but I just want to add my vote to help in some way.

Thank you! Thank you!

2009-02-19T22:41:46Z

In which I beleive it is customary to give thanks to the honour of St Jude.
More later.
Possibly.

I look lovely in this setting.....

2009-01-08T23:19:30Z

Well a Happy New Year to all friends old and new - even the ones who broke my heart this year.
But just to add a bit of smugness to my lovey year I would like to tell you all where I spent the New Year.
Venice.
Yes, the Queen of The Adriatic was hostess to the Queen of the Midlands (or the Queen of Puffs as I was once called)
You cannot imagine the whole wondrous spectacle of being in St Marks Square with loved friends, drinking champagne, dressed up to the nines, wrapped up elegantly with a hat and a mask on. And the snow was coming down. Which did not detract at all from the ooh!-creating firework display erupting over the lagoon.
Oh, if only you had been there with me darlings.....

See? Smug as a smug weasel in Smugville

'Tis the Season to be Meme-y..... Tra la la la la.....

2008-12-22T01:33:36Z

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?

Fell off a motorcycle

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Never make any darlings....

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Well my mother had a cow when I said I was taking redundancy. Does that count?

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My beloved Russ Bear.

5. What countries did you visit?

France, USA, Holland. Scotland (but that's only a technical thing)

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

Christian Laboutins darling.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Jan 18th - finding Russ. Jan 31st - his funeral. October 1st - hitting San Fran. And a couple of other dates for personal reasons/gentlemen not to be mentioned.....

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Nottingham Pride 2008

9. What was your biggest failure?

He knows.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

ME as ever.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

The kitchen!

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Steve for moving on, the committee for Pride and some friends unmentioned for love and fun things.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

Again, he knows....

14. Where did most of your money go?

The kitchen!

15. What are you really, really, really excited about?

Venice for New Year!

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?

" We open In Venice..."

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) Happier or sadder?

A bit of both.

b) Bigger or smaller?

Smaller

c) Richer or poorer?

Both - richer due to the redundancy but poorer due to kitchen and the San Fran trip. Oh and I might have bought some shoes too...

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Well obviously more sex!

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Holding back.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

With the return of my sister to the area, at her house with family and close friends.

21. What was your favourite month of 2008?

October for San Fran and Les Boys and April for leaving work

22. Did you fall in love in 2008?

Darlings, I do that every month! This month it's with Daniel at The Ivy

23. What was your favourite TV programme?

Top Gear

24. How did you see in the New Year?

With an enormous brunch party at my house with loved ones. And the last time I saw Russ before he left for work.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

Not really, no. Some people have gone down in my estimation though.

26. What was the best book you read?

You expect me to remember ALL the books I read this year?

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Hayseed Dixie & Arvo Part

28. What did you want and get?

Love and affection.

29. What did you want and not get?

Ditto.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?

36 - with Depardieu & Daniel Auteil

31. What did you do on your birthday?

Attended Russ's funeral.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Russ still being around. (and the more sex thing again)

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

Fabulous as ever darlings....

34. What kept you sane?

Gin.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

George Clooney

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

The US elections, Prop 8 and De menzies enquiry.

37. Who did you miss?

He knows....

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Jimmy in San Fran!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

Be Ceaser's Wife.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

" Good Times and Bad Times, I've had them all and my dear, I'm still here..."
(Sondheim, Follies)

Here I am.

2008-10-24T22:46:48Z

Yes, I'm back and a bit down. I had THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME EVER. Which was made entirely by Lang and Jimmy. And now I'm back here, cried all the way to the airport after reading a lovely note from Lang and remembering all the stuff we did. *sigh*

Oh and you CAN get on a Harley in a frock and heels. Ladies, never let a gentleman tell you any other...

Writer's Block: Fright Show

2008-10-24T22:41:06Z

'Tis the season for scary movies. Some rank The Evil Dead as the best horror film of all time. What is your favorite scary movie?

View 500 Answers

The Haunting. Around 1962, b&w, with Clare Bloom and little Russ Tamblyn. You never see anything but I still can't watch it on my own. Book is fairly frightening too.

Coming! (Ready or Not.....)

2008-09-28T20:44:51Z

I am almost packed. I have squeezed the luggage down to a skeletal 3 hats and five pairs of shoes. I have checked and double checked the arangements and flight details and apart from one tiny, tiny detail (I appaer to have booked my ticket back to Nottingham on the day before I land...) I am ready. Due to poor Koala's indisposition ( just tell me HOW someone can fall over one's own feet and do so much damage?) Mad Frankie is booked into cat prison for two weeks and I have done my final social obligations before I go.
I have packed in my suitcase some of Russ's favourite cigars, a few of the Nottingham Pride programmes with REuss's memorial, and a few Nottingham Pride T-shirts (with 'In memory of Russell 'Bear' Sherwood printed on them) If you would like to meet up and have some of this bounty then please leave a message for Michelle Hurst at the Holiday Inn, Fisherman's Wharf as from 1st October.
Or just turn up or send flowers.
Now, what is the first thing a Drama Queen should do when she hits SF?
Oh, yes.
A Martini please.

Well, I was here where were you lot?

2008-08-12T11:12:10Z

Good god! Is it really three months since I last posted? But you know I have been busy. I have a horde of Little Men in the house building me a new kitchen and after last week when I had no water and no electricity for a few days while they did something complicated, it is all coming together. (I can vaguely hear Russ Bear in my mind saying 'be nice to the staff darling' while I am making them tea and generally keeping an eye on them).
However what I really want to tell you about is Nottingham Pride. Getting involved in the Memory of Russ, really helped me and Hantsbear to cope with his loss and we both gained in self-esteem knowing what we could do off our own bat. Steve has turned into a proper radio presenter and a great budding actor with his wonderful portraits of various characters in Progress FM's comedy serial 'Robin's Major Oak' And I appeared to be the Press & PR maven who did interviews on radio and TV all in aid of Pride.
And it was lovely to see everyone on the day, all the Committee members and the volunteers, wearing a T-shirt that said "In Memory of Russell 'Bear' Sherwood"

So I expect to get involved next year too. Steve and I say 'Oy gevalt' at each other - which is our private joke at Things That Have To Be Born. But we do wish Russ was around to kvetch to.

Oh and you are expecting me in October aren't you?

I'm Coming!!!

2008-05-13T22:03:59Z

On the 1st October Madame Mish (AKA, rather prosaically, Mrs Hurst) will be arriving in San Franciso and checking into the Holiday Inn on Fishermans Wharf for two lovely weeks.
I am sure some of you Gentlemen out there can show a girl a good time.
Oh and if someone can poke Lang and tell him I'd be greatful. It appears that I had a blonde moment a while ago and left my filofax in a cab and despite my pleas, adds in the paper and offer of a reward, it has still not come back to me so I am sans contact details for everyone I know.

Summer Fun

2008-03-27T23:37:13Z

Nottingham Pride
Will be helped along this year by myself and the lovely hantsbear Support your local event or come along and enjoy this one. Oh, and the t-shirts worn by the workers on the day wil hopefully have a memorial to our beloved Russ Bear. More later as and when I know....

BREAKING NEWS.....

2008-03-17T21:13:52Z

Ok, So I have had, (to quote the late lamented Douglas Adams) A Long Dark, Teatime Of The Soul...... I have decided to take the redundancy that the Civil Service have offered and to spend the money wisely, rashly and with gay abandon. It is enough to give me two years without work but obviously I will be finding a job in summer to keep me in shoes and gin.
.I will have a new kitchen, replace the Eathquake damaged plaster and.... well what else? I'm vaguely thinking about buying a new (younger) husband* which will mean botox and a new pair of tits and then there's asking Mr Blahnik if he will make THE perfect pair of shoes but they are just fantasy really.
However, there will be a Royal Visit to California (San Fran to be exact) for three weeks in October. It being the (current) Husband's 40th birthday around then, I might just see if he wants to fly out for a few days to do Napa Valley..... But whatever, I want to do Russ proud and have a thoroughly down and dirty and disreputable time.
Call me and leave suggestions please.
It's the least I can do on his behalf.

*Or at least a decent facsimile of one....

A Rude Awakening.

2008-02-27T18:13:13Z

I do feel that I can finally look my Californian friends fully in the face now. Yes, I have lived through an earthquake. 5.2 and bloody frightening.
I lay there, heart pounding, watching the bedroom attempt to rearrange itself and listening to the rumbling of chimney stacks as they wobbled up and down the street.
My first thought was a mish-mash of half-remembered survival laws. Do I head outside? Stay in the stairwell? Brace myself in a door way?
My second thought was: Well, if the firemen have to come and rescue me, thank god I've got the best satin nightie on and had a bikini wax.....

Funeral Blues

2008-02-02T00:19:11Z

So it is all over. I wish I could say that is all over and ended and all the sorrow has been packed away in a box marked 'Russ' to be taken out to be looked at in love every now and again. But you know that isn't true.
I thought - and hoped - that the funeral would be a time for tears and sentiment but somehow comforting. It wasn't. I cried silent, heaving sobs throughout the service. At various points of the day I was hanging on to Beastie, to Steve, Anna and nearly twisted the fingers from my husband through out the service. I hate the awful polite and etiquette ridden comments and polite conversation you make at the reception(? After show? Funeral wake?) I tried to sparkle and make comments like he and we have, and would have done at such moments but it was impossible. I went in there thinking - as he would have done - "come on darling, we're ON!" but I could not act the way he would have expected.
AND I FEEL TERIBLE THAT I'M WALLOWING IN MY OWN GRIEF when I have not been a good friend to Steve and to Lang and supported them who have no other contact here in Nottingham.
I used to have a faith. I used to believe in God - in that English, vaguely cultural Jewish sort of way - I would beleive in Friday night suppers and that there was a God around and that things were copeable with and that God was there. In the quiet spaces and the silence and whom you could turn to in such times.

Yesterday, on my 46th birthday, I officially and publicly rescinded my faith in him.

We drove home pretty much in silence in the car coming back. There had been moments of black, bleak humour going down but it was probably pre-show nerves. It was a cold bleak and inhospitable day, that pathetic fallacy of weather and emotion that makes you long for sturm und drang. The funeral rites were alien to me and I could gain no solace from words, no doubt - and hopefully comforting - to those who were christian and believed but I just saw my boy in the box. And I wanted to scream at everyone and rend my clothes and STOP IT ALL.
We huddled by the road while the family were at the graveside for the burial and I desperatly wanted the pain to end but there was someone missing. A big comforting presence was gone. Despite all the hugs and the hand-holding and the shared tears there was no comfort. It was real. Not a performance, not a make-beleive at all.
I've just come back from the flat to take away a few things of his for me and other people. I've drank coffee and made small talk and tried to give out memories - good memories - that give help to other people and to me. I've gone through his things and remembered stories about them that i hope has eased pain but also given sharp stabs of rememberance. I am sat here with a big polar bear that he loved, that's got worn paws and a bald ear and I'm just sniffing it because it smells of him and the flat and I'm also panicking that one day the smell will be gone and then I won't be able to instantly call up HIM and everything about him in that one instant.

Forgive me. I'm wallowing.

Anyway, here is what I read in church for him. It was so diificult to write. There were better things I could have said, things which completly summed him up but it came out as far too much me, me me, and the day was about OUR loss, not just mine.

Russ and I shared a love of many things.

Old films, new books and theatre. Poetry, classic songs and romantic tales. Opera, literature and rock music. Scrabble and gin. Coffee with brandy and hot chocolate with marshmallows. Just William, Auntie Mame and Alice in Wonderland. Gentlemen.

We would talk of "shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings." We would discuss anything from a Ruthless Rhyme to punk rock to the best way of cleaning satin damask. We would fiercely debate the correct lyrics to Cole Porter songs, the meaning of Wim Wenders films and mis-quote Oscar Wilde to suit our own anecdotes.

I have a hundred memories of him. Of his talent and his generosity of time and skills to help one out. How he would toil away over a panto and yet come back and take in a frock for me. How he would be travelling across the country on tour but would remember my birthday or our wedding anniversary or similar. How he would invite me to the shows or parties if I was in town, introduce me around, and meet me off the train with a big hug and an ' I've missed you' And of course, while he was doing this for me, his liberality of spirit meant that he would do this for other people too.

I have know him - and loved him - for 15 years and yet I find I cannot encapsulate and describe him fully to you in a few short minutes and with a few short words. But anyone who knew him, would know this dilemma. He was talented, beautiful, clever, witty, funny, dextrous, literate, intelligent, mannered, polite and at times, exhausting to be with. But he was also.....hairy! I've watched his beard grow over the years and while he may have looked scary to others, he was of course a pussy cat. Or rather a big, soft bear you wanted to cuddle up with. Someone you felt safe and warm and protected with. He was a one in a million. And while he was a loved and loving, friend, son and brother, to many he was simply: 'Bear'

So I'd like to read the following from AA Milne. It's simply a poem that celebrates bears.

Furrry Bear

If I were a bear,
And a big bear too,
I shouldn't much care
If it froze or snew;
I shouldn't much mind
If it snowed or friz--
I'd be all fur-lined
With a coat like his!

For I'd have fur boots and a brown fur wrap,
And brown fur knickers and a big fur cap.
I'd have a fur muffle-ruff to cover my jaws.
And brown fur mittens on my big brown paws.
With a big brown furry-down up to my head,
I'd sleep all the winter in a big fur bed.

AA Milne

Trite and anodyne I'm afraid. And probably isn't the Bear you remember.

But I will leave you with one funny comment which my husband made a year or so ago.
" When you come back, earlier than expected from a trip away, and you find your wife naked, except for stockings and a pair of high heels, with a glass of bubbly in her hand, MOST men would immediatly leap to the conclusions.
I just KNEW that Russ was up in her dressing room with a mouthful of pins and another glass of bubbly making her into a Diva. AndI it would cost me money for the accesories"

Russ update

2008-01-23T12:44:31Z

Russ Notice

This is the link to the notice I put in the paper. Feel free to add a comment - or not - as the fancy takes you.

Russ is released to us today here in Nottingham and will be going back home to Worcs on Friday. The funeral will be next Thursday 31st January at 12.30 GMT so those of you in the States may want to raise a glass to him around then. I shall be reading something at the church (Oh how he'd giggle at that. Me? A Good Jewish girl? READING IN A CHURCH? Oy Gevalt.....) but have no idea what yet.

Now for the bad and the good news. He died sometime on Tuesday morning from a massive heart attack. There was no warning, no misdiagnosis, no symptom or infection that was ignored. Mercifully quick.

I could cry and cry - as we all could - thinking about him alone in the flat all that time. But he was comfortable, happy, warm on the sofa watching the TV. I assume he simply keeled over.

I am off to see him in a while at the Chapel of Rest.

Another day gone by

2008-01-20T01:42:02Z

And Russ is still the uppermost thought in my mind all the time. It's like I've had teeth extracted and my tongue keeps going to the place where they were and finding pain there. There's this fact that is too FUCKING big for my brain and every now and again WHAM! - it tries to slam into there (RUSS IS DEAD!) and it hurts but won't stay in. It gives me an ice-cream headache and I have to stop and collect myself again.
The family are very appreciative of all comments you have been leaving and are pleased to find that there are people who love him as much as they do.
A few things about Russ and myself.

We must have known each other for twenty years now and despite me having a bad perm when we first met (well it WAS the 80's) he still loved me
He was the only man whom I would accept advice from
He was also the only man whom I would allow into my dressing room and let him throw clothes and shoes away (the Husband probably mourns him for that fact alone)
I could explain a style to him ("Oh darling I want a sort of Vietnamese, French-Colonial look this summer") and he would KNOW what I meant
He worked BLOODY HARD. None of the sneaking off for a quick break or a slacking on the job for him
He charmed people
My Mummy loved his masculinity so much that she wondered if he was a closet hetrosexual
He never held a gudge and I never heard him give a bad word about anyone
We agreed to get married when in our 80's so we would be in the same Old People's home!
We often had similar dreams.
He was the only bloke on my hen night.

Life is, upon occasion, unbearable.

Sad News Re: Rock Bear - Russ

2008-01-18T01:52:37Z

Darlings, I am very sad to tell you that our beloved bear has died.
He had not been in contact with us for about five days and so today, after leaving him threatening messages and dire warnings, I went round to his flat and attempted to gain entry with my key. However, as the flat was locked from the inside, I HAD to call the police to gain entry and it was the worst news possible.
They would not let me see him .
He was relaxed and on the sofa in front of the TV when we found him and I gain comfort that the last timne I saw him - at my party - he was holding forth about the lovely week he had spent with Lang and attempting to upstage Hants bear and my husband with puns and amusing stories. The last thing I said to him was 'Love you. See you soon' and so one must take comfort in that and not the 'should have beens' or the 'I wish'
I shall always remember him as the man I adored, the man who dressed me, told me off for dressing badly, escorted me, beat me at scrabble (twice in three years), gave GREAT party annecdote and the man with whom I shared an ever-growing book pile.
I am all cried out. and miss my boy (and my third Husband) already.
We shall not see his like again.
Fare thee well Russ
Mish xx

Mines a double.....

2005-11-25T10:02:25Z

I can't help but think that George Best has been hanging on until the all-day, late night drinking laws come in.

A Funny Thing Happened on The Way to the TV

2005-11-24T12:05:05Z

I was feeding a habit of mine last night. "Rome" Or "Centurion's Wives" as my beloved Husband calls it.
(Although it's not nearly as bad as the latest Oliver Stone film about Alexander. That should have been renamed "Alexander O'Great", Colin Farell not being arsed to get rid of his Oirish accent and the rest of the cast thinking it so much fun that they may as well join in....)
But I digress. Classic line last night: "It's time you learnt the manly arts. Fighting, copulation and how to skin animals"
What! No 'How to put up Shelves' or 'Swear in a Shed' I wondered?

The Hand Of Friendship turns into a Fist

2005-11-17T11:08:40Z

Someone came round to my house the other night and threw away half my shoes.
Someone came round and was making nasty comments about some of my shoes.
Someone made me fight for the life of some precious pairs and I was forced to beg and plead for their return.
Someone was meaner than a texas rattlesnake with a headache.

I am down to a skeletal 79 pairs.