Drifting away with Doby Gray

I've woken up four nights in a row with the same question rattling around in my head. What exactly did Dylan mean by - it takes a lot to laugh; it takes a train to cry. I've listened to the song over and over, and it's confusing me even more. It does take a lot to laugh, I get that, but the train bit is baffling. Thinking about inconsequential questions in the early hours is, however, preventing me filling my brain with things that should be insomnia inducing, ranging from global warming to how I'm gonna pay that damn tax bill.

It's occurred to me over the last few weeks that music is the best way to prevent real life impinging on my consciousness. I have a playlist for every conceivable activity and emotional state. It's possibly an odd thing to say, but my life has been saved not by a DJ but by my ipod. Rather than sticking my fingers in my ears and humming, I plug into some sweet soul music, pump up the volume, and drift away (to steal a phrase from Dobie Gray). That song is pure poetry - give me the beat boys and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock n roll, and drift away...

The law of sod dictates that the sun shines all week, and it rains all weekend. My plans to do battle with the budlea have been dashed since I'm a fair weather gardener and it's raining. Instead I decided to do some DIY. Whilst sanding the staircase I devised a conspiracy theory that men have kept the pure unadulterated joy of the power tool a secret because it keeps us ladies relatively happy in the kitchen and laundry. Spouse huffs and puffs when he carries out any project in the home, not because it's a chore, but rather he thinks I'll be fooled into believing drilling holes in walls is the shitty end of the stick. I've seen the light at last!

I almost feel that I could be a bloke. Some years before the Little Darlings graced the stage that is my life I completed a blokeness quiz from a magazine like Loaded with a group of my gay male friends. There were questions like, have you ever travelled more than 200 miles to a football match, have you ever bought anything from Anne Summers, have you ever changed a spark plug and so on. I out-bloked them all. But boys will be boys and girl will be women, so I gave birth and re-connected with my feminine side.

This is totally unconnected, but I feel the need to share it with you. Boychild brought home the merit badge yesterday. Every week one child at his school is selected for the honour to celebrate an accomplishment. My first, undeniably unkind, thought was that he'd borrowed (stolen) it from another child. Perhaps this marks a turning point. Perhaps not. Although Jack has stopped undressing himself halfway through the school run in protest at having to sit still for a few hours, he's not a big fan of education. Just as well he wants to be a Police Officer when he grows up.