Ceci n'est pas une ducky

I'm back.

Did you miss me?

I'll do a real post after sleep, I swear (no more bitching about Joel stealing all the covers, I miss my bed and want back. Yes he's still here, no he doesn't seem to have anything better to do, but I had a lovely kidnap experience and have probably successfully lost my job), but I just had to say- Toby can have Banksy, but I want this guy.

Imogen x

Axl Rose has just been released from prison, after biting a hotel security guard.

I love love that!

I'm posting about this is partly from self interest- Dora and Tina, I commented over at yours last night, did you get it? I think Blogger might not like me and my radical changes to the blog entrusted to me.... anyhow, the point is, I told a watered down version of this story then, but I'm now about to tell the story of that time when I got barred from The Metro Club.
Again, but in a little more detail.

Just a little, because I can't seem to quite remember the details in, well, detail.


I met a gentleman friend, and some people were being snarky and just so suggestive- I think we even got a wolf whistle. The bouncer told us we might want to get out of there, and I was admittedly, probably quite rude.

And so, I bit him.

And then we got kicked out, and also barred. But they don't really seem to care so much about that. I'm quite attached to the Met Club, it's a fave haunt.

Which reminds me of another bedtime story today (yes, it's still on the biting theme) but I'll tell it later- there's even audience participation!

Toby x x

When I first started uni, I spent more time drinking and getting lost than I did studying. Very little's changed of course, and I'm hardly alone in this.
Isn't that why people come to study in London? Well, I guess that and to escape the parents.

I got lost though because I'm totally missing the Navigation Chromosone. I'm missing a few others as well mind (my friend, who's like an encyclopedia when it comes to her daughter- think wannabe breeder explained me being gay as "the result of an aberrant chromosone". Or something. Look, I'm not the English student here, ok?), but in a good special way, rather than in a there-are-schools-to-teach-them-to-dress-themselves way. For instance, I can't work out/ remember how to programme a video player, but I can find my way home from anywhere in the city.
So the Navigation Issue is... well. Not such a one, really.

I got horribly horribly lost fairly recently and ended up on Old Street (I have no idea how I wound up here, but at least I wasn't slightly over to the left...), facing the Kingsland Road bit.

And....

Banksy spotting!

I would marry that man, no matter what he actually looks like. See! I'm not shallow!

T *Mwah*

Here's a Quickie

What age is it when you stop being naturally able to put your legs behind your head?


Although, I can still sort of do that. It's all about practice....

T x x x

Always keen to try a new fad (a bit like Madonna's attitude to religion. All of them), I thought I'd have a worthy stab at taking over Im's blog.

When she vanished leaving behind strict instructions pinned to my laptop with blu tac and bits of other Post-it notes, I found the prospect thoroughly daunting and imagination and general mental capactity were far from forthcoming- think that point when you've been awake for over 35 hours and you feel fine, but then you try to apply reasoned logic to something (trust me, I'm a Philosophy student) you go into meltdown.
But now anyway I've had a fair few weeks to recover from recent exams (a cruel cruel practice) and from the shock of having been left in charge. The responsibility! And I know her password, oh yes.

I shouldn't abuse that, really.

Anyway, I haven't felt like this in ages - this particular brand of exhaustion, my mind still whizzing like the pages of a thesaurus, making the keyboard an extension of myself where my hands know the keys before I can even think of which ones to press, images sharpened by habit to a crystal clarity within my head.

I've missed it, that's all.

Now, if I could just stop the bits of tv shocker 'The L Word' from drifting from lesbian housemates' room and invading my thought process things would be wonderful.

Toby x x x

Pot, work, rain, lesbians, Toby is not a happy bunny

We sat up late last night eating nacho's and pizza-
"it's the wrong sort.. oh, but never mind, how about we just pick out the chicken and those funny green bits?"
and fruit pastels-
"I don't like the black ones, does anybody like the black ones?"
and watched old tapes-
"which way round do you put it in the player?"
It took us a while to figure out how to work the video player, but it worked out fine thanks to handy dandy lesbian housmates; and then we watched about five straight hours of Queer as Folk US.

I hate it, I really do, but I'd forgotten just how much.

The UK version, on the other hand... I love Aidan Gillen, which might help.

Mmm. Now, where was I?

I think I drifted off for a while during one of the tours of Babylon's backroom, and woke up to find lovely lesbian housemates, um, cuddling. Averting my eyes sharpish (I love housemate A but housemate B isn't exactly my favourite person in the world. And I'm not, as such, that way inclined- lesbians don't exactly do anything for me) I crawled off to bed, Action-man like, on my belly, and hid in my room for the remainder of the night armed with a flat bottle of lemonade and half a packet of fruit pastels.

So go me, more fool them- I'd choose fruit pastels over sex any day.

Well, almost. Certainly over girl sex.

Anyway, then I found a couple of cans of beer under the bed; and woke up this morning with the imprint of a shoelace on my cheek, a sweet still in my mouth-
"my, how very attractive!", (Said in best game-show host voice; that's what my thought process sounds like. Unbearably chipper, especially when hungover.)
and cuddled up to the kettle, in what may or may not have been an aborted attempt at making a hot water bottle.
I lie still for a moment longer, ignoring the throbbing pain in my head, the sweet congealing in my mouth and the trainer in unfortunate proximity to my head, trying to remember what woke me.

"Toby!" A voice called through from the kitchen, "have you seen the kettle?"

Don't you just hate chipper people?

T x

Surely it's not that hard?

Feel free to comment on what I consider to be an actual post, ie the one below this but I have to say.

I've just been outwitted by a packet of McVite's digestive biscuits.

Yeah, that pretty much sums up today.

Love T x

Babysitters and Breeders

Have you ever been to whats delightfully referred to, by those lacking in children, as a breeder party?

Try not to.

Around this time last year my neighbour conned me into attending this party with her. Well, I say conned, but actually it's more like she flattered me into attendance. I thought I knew full well what I was getting myself into- a night of free nibbles, champagne and mothers. With their children.
I don't dislike children, you understand- I just can't stand mothers in the vicinity of their children who are under the age of twelve.

That's valid though, isn't it?

So I was at this party, carefully avoiding the lure of so much free food and champers, and listening to parents trying to out-do one another with tales of their kids' exploits- "Oh but our George, he's a genius, I'm sure of it. You know, just the other day he.."

And that's where I met Imogen.
She'd gone along in the role of dutiful babysitter (who's employer had, of course, desperately waved lots of money in her face), and locked herself in the bathroom shortly after arriving, not having realised the depths of boredom and depravity this party would force her to witness.
When she arrived she was a faceless character, as I focused all my attention on not drinking too much nor laughing at the wrong moment during some complicated anecdote. Ten minutes in though, she kicked her shoes off in a corner, joined the kids playing on the floor, and was pulled away by a parent with too much time on her hands, "Do leave them be, dear, they have to learn to play as a cohesive unit". Her look of disgust caught my eye, and so I noticed her lock herself in the bathroom with a glass of champers and a cigarette scrounged from a packet abandoned on a shelf. Out of reach of the children, of course.

So I followed her, and she grudgingly let me in and let me share her champagne and the fliched cigarette- isn't it always the way, with English relationships? Meet, get drunk together, share a fag, bitch about the other people in the room, then- poof! Friends for life.


Now, does that count as interesting? Keep the story requests coming! My imagination just hasn't recovered from recent exams.
And I still don't know where your regular authors vanished off to, but our lease runs out next friday, so I imagine she'll be back soon- it'll take at least a week to pack.

Love, Toby x

Missing Author

So Imogen's gone missing.

Well, not missing per se but she ran away with Joel for the weekend, leaving me a post-it note demanding I update for her.
Now, a few weeks worth of Philosophy exams haven't exactly made imagination forthcoming, so story-time might suffer as a result; so I'm going to talk about Miss Im and Joel, who seems to take the title bed-bolster these days.

They have a strange relationship; I read a book last year which mentioned that people have a sort of mystery partner who they'd drop everything for, if asked.

That'd be them, except I don't think Joel would go quite so far as to ask her to abandon her degree to join him in doing whatever it is he actually does with his time, nor would she ask ask him to drop everything and run away with her to live on a cruise ship in the south of France.

Not that she'd do that anyway- she spent a chunk of time doing that during her gap year, and learned the lesson about the less than nourishing effect salt water has on skin and hair and nails.

So it works out ok, and all that really happens is Joel turns up and spends the following few weeks ostensibly sleeping on the sofa but actually sleeping in Imogen's bed (she might bitch and complain about this, but that's what they do), and occasionally he'll kidnap her for a weekend of thoroughly decadent behaviour.

He does presume too much, but it doesn't bother her in the slightest- she loves him, with a big 'L' and an excess of 'O's.

Should I delete this before she gets back and yells at me?

So they've gone; I'm not sure where yet, as her post it note was too full of inane details ('he won't let me pack for myself- is that bad?' and also 'the blog needs updating; you will do it, won't you darling?' plus the 'you might be daft as a brush, but I love you regardless' closing bit. What a flatterer, eh?) and her mobile's turned off.

But she'll be back soon, to relieve me of my task and with stories that'll regale even the jaded and chill the coolest heart.

Until then though, you have me! That'd be Toby, by the way. Are there any story requests?

Revelations of all flavours

Last night's little revelation scared me and drove me to do the whole hair, make up, dancing clothes fandango, then, bolstering myself with thoughts of the lone blueberry muffin in the cupboard, I left the cosy safety of the flat.

Can I just ask, what do certain members of boykind expect, when they call names as you pass them on street corners? While "nice ass!" is, I guess, a compliment, what can you say to that? "Why thank you, kind sir?"

Anyway, I weaved my way through the underage drinkers and the little puddles of vomit and stepped into the warmth of the club.

And I pulled!

Well, maybe not. He came over, he was nice and normal, didn't give my bottom an appraising remark nor did he stare down my top as he spoke to me. He introduced himself, and we yelled in each others ears over the music a bit, and we danced, and I let him buy me drinks- the shoes from last nights post made it a necessity.. and it's rude to refuse a friendly gesture.

I returned it with a gesture of my own, and he pulled away, briefly- "I don't really do that sort of thing on first dates."

Right.

A few hours (and a hicky, damn him, how did that happen?- I'm babysitting Monday night, I'm sure that'll be fun) later, we left the club and stepped out into the street, the chill air bracing me and calming my spinning head slightly. He pushed me up against the wall and we kissed- and were broken apart after a long while by the bouncers whilstling and giving us appraising grins. "Go get a room mate, get her off the streets!" One yelled to Phil, and I began removing his hands from under my top.

Yeah, classy I know.

I looked up at him, "so how about it?"

He kissed me again, hands sliding back under my shirt, knee between my legs- until another whistle from the bouncers ("get in there my son!") had me mentally praying he hadn't undone my bra strap and moving away from the wall. I gave his hand a playful tug, and he walked me most of the way back to my flat. "So?" I asked again, eyebrows raised.

"Sorry," he said then, looking down at me, "I really don't put out on a first date."

Men baffle me. Utterly.

So I live with a handful of my closest friends (and one of their charmless girlfriends), but tonight I'm not feeling particularly warm and snuggly towards them in an entirely platonic fashion, because they've abandoned me.

Yes, that's right. Abandoned me.

Way to make a girl feel good about a) this happy little incident, b) quite possibly probably being in love with Joel, who sleeps in my bed but does no more than sleep sleep with me, and c) having a fairly big thing for Rosie, but her being straight.

My love life's a mess.

Being all alone and feeling decidely unloved means I have two choices; I can curl up on the couch in pyjamas and watch re-runs of Friends and eat excessive amounts of ice-cream and digestive biscuits, or I can put on slut clothes, tame my hair and go out dancing.

-------------------

And now it's twenty minutes to one, and I've been debating going out alone for maybe two hours now. Except I'm full of ice-cream and bad tv, and think I might throw up if I start dancing- also, going out unchaperoned makes me nervous, which makes me smoke to much, which makes me feel ill, which might make the ice-cream revisit and I don't want that.

Oh yes, and I spent my most recent guilt cheque on these- I have no self control to speak of *looks guiltily at empty ice-cream tub* which means I'm feeling somewhat broke and might not be able to afford to keep up the rigorous demands of my lovely nicotine addiction.

So I'm going to stay put, which is probably a blessing as there's a music documentary I wouldn't want to miss in about ten minutes, and I seem to be one of an ever decreasing minority in that I haven't the first idea how to set the dvd player to record.

Oh god, tv's replacing casual sex in my life.

Boarding school lessons

My High School leavers book begins with about twenty pages of photos. A few pages in, there are pictures of my friends with their boyfriends; all but two of those have the words 'three and a half minutes without a break, yeassss!' written above or below, in various different breeds of handwriting and pen, with varying degrees of accurate spelling.

I stared at it for a while waiting for comprehension to kick in, before giving up and calling for help.

"Yeah, we used to time kisses, don't you remember?" Charlotte said, sounding more comfortable with the idea that there was any need for.
"No! How!?"
"We'd put our arms round their neck, carefully crossed so we could see our watch.. How could you forget? I practiced on you!"
"Well, it can't have been that memorable an experience, can it?"

But seriously, I think it's probably best that I forget it- the thought makes me cringe.

Flies and Frappucino

It having been gorgeous summer weather lately, coffee seems to have been replaced with frappucino for everyone apart from me- my caffeine addiction is not a fickle one, to be cast aside in summer for the cooler relation to coffee.
I was sat upstairs in Starbucks, revelling in the air conditioned cool- I’m a hot house plant, admittedly, but hot weather in central London isn’t, as such, the nicest thing- you end up slightly sticky with dirty feet.
Flip-flops might be a no no.

My companions, Becky of the beautiful red hair and Tom, her surprisingly nice boyfriend were sharing a frappucino, as new lovers and students are wont to do, when a fly landed on the table, investigating a spilled patch of strawberry flavoured ice (or so I assume, I’m not really cool enough to ‘get’ frappucino).
Becky poked at it with her straw, several times, before it went to bother somebody else.

Chatting away, I didn’t realise the fly had returned for our sugary leavings, and was crawling round the plastic lid of Becky’s drink- and was being poked, in a fairly determined manner with a straw, and was, by the time I noticed, missing a leg or two and looking rather piteous.

Well, what can you do, with someone who wears skull earrings and has a penchant for black nail polish?

I sobbed my little heart out and begged her to either leave it be or kill it.

OK, actually I told her to leave it the fuck alone or kill it on threat of having an icy cold drink poured down her lovely outfit, but that doesn’t make me sound quite the same

A handful of new aims for the near future come to light

I just had a flick through my sitemeter, and Ellie told me as well, and it turns out I'm in a blogflux directory. Now, is this an automatic blogger thing, or did I sign up for it?

Anyway, my blog tags are-
Fabulousness,
Knickers,
Drunken antics,
Sexuality,
Literature.

OK now, what? I am not, as such, happy about these- I can't even remember the last time I used the word fabulous (although it's now on my To Use list, along with the word 'daft,' courtesy of Dinah), and I haven't done a post about knickers, despite the temptation.

But I think I might.

I can barely even remember sex- and being told to find other creative outlets amuses me not.

Joel simply has to leave. Soon. OK, he's only been here for about two weeks, but I want my bed and my sex life back- and I'm going off to visit my parents in a few weeks, so hopefully he'll have gone by then. Having sex whilst in my parents' house just isn't quite right.

I should probably talk more about literature, since it's my subject and all, but.. It's my subject. So I don't really want to. Although I could post endless rants about how very much I hate Chaucer, or explain how when I'm being chatted up by anyone too terribly boring but fit I run the first act of Othello through my head at high speed.

If I'm still sober by the end or they're still talking then I give up on it.

Is that horrible abuse of an absolutely fabulous play?

Vodka and Valium

Joel's still staying with me.

Which is just grand, except it means that not only is my sex life at an all time low (I mentioned he keeps sleeping in my bed, right?) but it's going to stay that way until he leaves. Which could be in a day, a week, a month; he's not going to know himself until it happens, so..

I'm screwed.

Not literally, which is the problem.

The bigger problem though, is that unlike me he has absolutely no qualms about getting laid during his visit- we went out for a few drinks last night, and he rapidly abandoned me at the bar while he went to work his magic; and got off with the fat girl with the ugly shoes and the giggling friend in the corner.

Finding myself alone, I plastered a smile on my face and turned my feminine wiles on the guy stood next to me; I should have been more selective- who on earth thinks that talking about your most recent exes will help you pull?

"And yeah, then she left me you see, said I wasn't going anywhere, like. And you know what I said to her? I said, I said, right, I told her, I'm going somewhere love, I'm going down the bloody pub!"

After possibly five minutes of that, a large part of the first act of Othello having been run through my head and nothing like enough vodka to make me feel sorry for him and stay, I made my excuses-

"Can't I get you another drink?" He asked, smiling a little desperately, eyes fixed on my chest, hand resting casually on his crotch.

"No. I'm bored now."

Boredom is the absolute best excuse for anything, even rudeness.

In my room slightly later, I expected to luxuriate in finally having my bed to myself- to be honest, I think was expecting it to be the way Mrs Moorehead says it is in The Women- "living alone has its compensations. Heaven knows it's marvelous being able to spread out in bed like a swastika."

But no. I was lonely, just couldn't sleep, and even the cat was ignoring me; when it finally swatted a clawed paw in my direction and turned its back on me, I got up and padded into the kitchen.

I know people who take valium in order to sleep. I mainline blueberry muffins.

Cloud Appreciation Society

Most of this evening was spent in a cookery induced haze, as I watched an almost stranger make me french toast.

A discussion earlier in the day lead to me admitting I have no idea how one makes this student delicacy- and oh, but he was shocked. With a scandaled air, he informed me he'd be delighted to be my tutor in 'how to be a real student', and gave me a shopping list.

Eggs.
Bread.
A toaster.
Whisk.
Cooking oil.
Frying pan.

He's such a patronising bastard. And I live with a bunch of foodies, so of course there's a frying pan and a toaster in the flat.
But no whisk.

I rang him in a slightly sheepish panic.

"Stuart, I don't have a whisk, can you bring one?"
"Do you even know what a whisk is, Imogen?"
Pause.
"It's a metal impliment that whisks things for you," he explained, with an air of talking to the very culinary backward.

"Showoff."

So he brought the whisk, and I was late meeting him as I got lost in the supermarket while looking for eggs- I trudged back to the flat feeling just so proud of myself (absolutely hate food shopping) and found him sitting in the hall and Mrs Next Door gave me a knowing look as she unlocked her door.

I let him in, he made me french toast, and I was so shocked by the idea that someone would willingly cook that I forgot to pay attention, and still don't know how to make it.

----------------

So anyway, I'm working my little heart out to get him to lighten up a bit, but apart from a whole bunch of bad habits I'm not sure what he's out to teach me.
But there does seem to be something on his agenda; hopefully it's not little black book shaped.

He's particularly lovely, but just that bit too serious; I grabbed his hand while we were basking in the lovely sunshine in the park (with roughly half of London, it would seem. Don't any of these people have jobs to go to?) and pointed at a cloud hovering above us.

He's never played at finding shapes in clouds (in response to my undisguised surprise, he informed me he didn't do things like that as a child, but could recite all the points of a horse if I wanted?), nor has he ever got himself locked in a park at night. He told me off for walking on the outer edge of the pavement, and he's never skipped through a busy street (he didn't seem to appreciate my attempts to make him try it, but I'm working on it. Maybe Oxford Street was a bad starting point), and he certainly wouldn't dream of stealing flowers from a churchyard. He's not been felt up in an alleyway after a few too many drinks, and he's certainly never sung that Frere Jaques lullaby. Germaine Greer style.

He doesn't like the c word.

Who on earth doesn't like the word cunt? But I digress.

But then, he made me go jogging with him whilst I was wearing four inch wedges and a little dress; making me go jogging is a risky thing at all times, so maybe he's not that staid and serious, and he made me french toast while wearing a pink sequined chefs hat and insisted we communicate in French accents whilst it was being made/consumed.

And he uses the best Chaucer related drinking analogies.

But I'll get back to you.

Persnick

"Will it make my tongue turn blue?"
"Nope"
"It won't turn me green, will it?"
"No."

I paused for a moment, considering other options, eyes narrowed.

"Will it turn my mouth yellow?"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Rosie waved a paper bag in my direction. "Have one," she suggested.
Cautiously, I leaned forward and picked a sweet out of the bag- a bad idea to begin with, but I've never been able to resist things that rustle just so enticingly.

*smooths skirts, basks for a moment in the lovely rustly noise*

"What is it?"
One of those sour penny sweets, of course. I hesitated for a second- "Will it make my tongue turn blue?"
We could have done that for hours, going through all the colours of the rainbow- although personally I don't feel there's much distinction between Indigo and Violet anyway, and much less so if my tongue's just been dyed that colour by possibly toxic, impossibly sour, penny sweets.

Slightly reassured, I threw caution to the wind and the sweet into my mouth.
Missing on the first try- I lost out big time when coordination skills were being meted out- and the little green ball rolled away across the floor, followed by the kitten.
She came and sat on my lap, and handed me another.
One look at my face told her- "Don't spit it out," she said warningly, "it's my last one."

It's that same old thing, isn't it- to spit or to swallow, to spit or to swallow.

No way in hell was I swallowing this.

Then, she leaned forwards and kissed me.

Well, actually to be more precise and persnickety about it, she leaned towards me and took the sweet out of my mouth, but whatever.

Swings and roundabouts.


And I like her so much I'll even settle for a sweet exchanging scene, if actual kissage isn't an option.

Cela ne vaut pas la peine

I have hayfever. My eyes itch, I can't breathe, and yesterday I got through a whole pack of tissues whilst lying in the park.

And so, in a hissy fit, I went and bought some emergency hayfever tablets, foretting they make me stupid.

Like, really stupid.

Anyway, by the time yesterdays tantrum kicked in, it was fairly late and I was drunk before I remembered that I could actually do something about the sniffling and the eye burning, so I took them earlier today.

And then went and did the whole teaching French thing.

"Can we do a listening exercise today?" she asked me.
So we did-

Il ne s'agit pas d'une bataille contre les médias, went the tape.
"Imogen," she asked me (Miss Clarke! Her mother hissed at her from the doorway), "what's that?"
I looked blankly at her, and couldn't remember.
"Could you repeat it for me, honey?"

Cela ne sert å rien, was the next thing- "Imogen, what does it mean?"
"Remind me what it said?"

After about half an hour of that, I made my excuses and left, leaving my bag behind, with the final bit of the tape whirling about in my head. Cela ne vaut pas la peine, it's not worth the pain.

Then I went and tried to buy coffee, not realising I'd left my bag behind- "Hey there princess," said the man waiting at the counter and looked me up and down.
And I smiled at him, because the tablets make me dozy and just that bit too genial, which is apparently why he decided to try his luck at escorting me to uni- and I let him pay for my coffee.

But I'm not such a scarlet woman; I won't be had for just the one cup of coffee, and certainly not by such an ugly gentleman who thinks that 'hey there princess' is an acceptable chat-up line.

So then I went on to my university library, nearly getting run over in the process, managed to get lost in the isles and then tried to walk out with an armful of books, setting off the alarm at the door, causing librarians of all shapes and sizes to come running and students of all flavours to cast squinty eyed looks in my direction.

Leaving there in a hurry, I fled back to my flat- after allowing myself to be conned out of a fiver by a pretend diabetic.
I hate that, I really do- not that I'd necessarily give them money if they just asked, but when these people pretend to be diabetic and in need of a sugar fix or whatever, I don't want to give them money on principle.

Eventually I got up to the flat. Remembering my keys were still in my bag and nowhere useful I knocked on the door hopefully, and found myself face to face with the New Visitor- we don't like him, he called me rude names that seem to hold my virtue in question.
I walked in and accidentally smiled at him and he came over, pressing me against the wall by the open front door, one hand on the wall above me, the other a heavy weight on my chest, as he played with the pendant on my necklace.

Then I locked him out, and fell asleep on the couch to the dulcet tones of him banging on the door.

So not, as such, an entirely wasted day, but not one of my best. I'm now devoid of one handbag and all the pennies that were lying around in my jeans pockets.
And it's only just gone mid-day. But the tablets seem to be wearing off, which is A Good Thing. And they didn't stop me snuffling anyway.

Meet Derek

This morning, we-

Went for a wander in the lovely sunshine,
Found a mouse huddled in the middle of the pavement,
Moved it to the safety of a nearby bush with the aid of a piece of paper and mucho giggling.

Now, with my good deed of the day accomplished, I'm off to the pub to ruin this whole detox lark with beer.

*shudders*

I hate beer, but what else do you drink in a beer garden? Lemonade? Far be it from me to break with centuries of traditional summer drinking-during-the-daytime rules.

Now Bring Me That Horizon!

Mrs Next Door came over, hair ruffled and looking generally harrassed.
"Imogen," she said, smiling winningly and depositing a handful of blueberry muffin shapes on the kitchen worktop, "please can you babysit for me this weekend?"
"Yeah, ok. When this weekend?"
"Um.. All of it?"

Turns out, she's taking her two younger kids to visit their father and forgot to make arrangements for her other kid, the oldest who has a different daddy.

"Right no problem then. Hows R taking it?"
"He's.. a little upset, but he'll be fine."

At that I dropped a glass, but she's used to my clumsiness and thought nothing of it. Not that she seemed to think there was anything for me to be riled abut anyway.

So I went to visit, after having been councelled by my Alec flatmate to say nothing negative about her lack of parental responsibility to R, who is terribly cute. I timed my visit, giving her half an hour to make her way to the station so I wouldn't have to chat then swanned over. She walked out, I walked in, and R threw himself at my neck crying.
I used to cry when my mother went away even overnight, but I'm sure he'll get over it when he realises it doesn't make a blind bit of difference to her.

R is one of those rare children with a body clock reasonably similar to my own- I like to get up mid afternoon and go to bed mid morning (I've seen the sun rise every morning for the last two weeks as I was dropping off, it's lovely if you factor out the bloody singing birds), and R, in turn, likes to stay up late. So we sat up til just after midnight eating rubbish, playing on my dancemat, singing and watching tv (he doesn't approve of wossname on BB with the boob job, but he knew what I was talking about when I thoughtlessly mentioned the Comedy Food Diet, and thought it was hysterical), and then I sent him off to bed as I realised my hold, already somewhat tenuous, on my language and insinuations was slipping rapidly.

I curled up on the couch and fell asleep to the soothing tones of MTV2, when I was woken by a little figure trying to curl up next to me.
"Sorry Imogen," he said through tears. "I had a nightmare."
"It's ok sweetie," I said giving him a cuddle. "Let's dream about something else now though; what shall we dream of? Pick something nice."

"Porridge?"

Foggy London Town

Julie's boyfriend has, at the grand old age of 24, had three girlfriends in his life- I learned this fact shortly after becoming outraged on her behalf.
He doesn't believe in love.

Who on earth doesn't believe in love?

"So," she said calmly, munching on a piece of week old pizza*, "you see, I can't tell him how much I love him, and I have to constantly remind myself not to let it slip out."
"You what?"
"Oh yes," she went on. "He doesn't believe in love."
"He what?"

He's been hurt too many times before to believe in it, apparently.

"Three?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"I want to ask what he's doing wrong, but I won't."
"There's nothing, he's perfect."

I don't think three girls is a suitable number to base a decision like that on, really.

"It's fine." She finished her pizza and looked at me for the first time. "I know he does love me, so it's not important, I don't really need to hear it; we're practically married, you know."
Yeah, I'd heard.

I accidentally took her out drinking, and then she went on- she really does talk about him an awful lot.
"He said he thinks we'll be together forever."
Oh. Right.
"I nearly said it then you know, the big L word, but I stopped myself."
"Why? Would he run for the hills?"
"He's not like you, Missy. Shallow. Committment phobic. Self involved"

Oh yes?

"I don't want to pressure him into anything, and it'd make him feel uncomfortable, and I don't want that; he's my lovely kitty and I want him to be happy."

Mmm, I said, looking round for something to club her with. Failing miserably and lacking another diversion, I had to start listening again.

"So.. why does he think you'll be together forever, if you don't love one another?"

"He says we're perfectly compatible," she said, crying.


Shallow and self involved I may be, but even I can see this isn't quite right; although I love many people, am currently sleeping with none (I've inadvertently wandered into some kind of celibacy zone, so don't ask, I'm not happy about it) but don't think I'm perfectly compatible with any.



*I would have told her, but it seemed mean as she'd already started... and, frankly, she deserved it.