"Yeah, she was actually really rude. She rang at dawn to yell "You gave my son tonsillitis!" down the phone at me."
"Doesn't she realise her son had a hand in his own downfall?"
"Apparently not. Oh, god, you're going to say it, aren't you. Look, I have to g--"
"--Or a tongue?"

Someone I've only mentioned in passing is now due to get their own post. Last weekend I went out, got rather drunk on banana shots and then categorically informed someone that while yes, I did have tonsillitis, the doctor had said it was non-contagious.

Under a certain, very narrow set of circumstances I can lie like a champion.

And he believed me. Frankly, people quite that stupid deserve all they get. Would you have believed me?

Predictably, he's now poorly too, and doesn't like me very much.

Hilariously, neither does his mother, who called me to tell me so.

I'm twenty, and people are still telling my mother on me.
Only in Cheshire.

Going jogging in the suburbs has never been a good idea. One is guaranteed to bump into a member of the Jewish community. Bank holiday Monday inspired me to go and do some exercise, for two key reasons- one, the realisation that I'd eaten far far too much greasy take out food (you see, this is the real reason why nice girls don't hang out on their own with boykind. You get fat) over the long weekend, and also my mother was going to be home all day. I can't smoke with her around. And I needed to indulge my dirty filthy nicotine addiction in order to appease my hangover.

So I decided to go jogging.

Ten minutes in I was ready to collapse in an undignified heap, but settled for a cigarette.

And then I ran into a Jewish mother.

"I know," I heard her whisper to her son as I said my goodbyes and fled, "it's since she went to that boarding school."

-------

I didn't flee quickly enough; and allowed myself to be roped into an impromptu teaching session at the local Arts Foundation this morning.

Romeo and Juliet.

To fourteen/ fifteen year olds.

But despite my doubts, it was brilliant. At the start they were all such cynics, especially the boys ("they could never be in love after that short a time, Romeo only wants one thing" etc etc) but at the end of the unit we had a vote.
'Were they in love?' (yes, I know it's a bit facile) and almost all of them went for yes, or, better, said it was irrelevant because the play was about youth, not love.

It restored my faith in humanity.

What is the etiquette for dealing with window cleaners? I don't mean for meeting them when out on the town, or anything that involves social skills, because that I can do- I was brought up at society dinners and several of my friends even had a modern version of the Coming Out ball. No, what I mean is, what should you do when you're the only person in the house and they start following you round the building as you move from room to room trying to escape them.

I'm just not cool enough to carry on with whatever I'm doing and ignore the face bobbing up and down at the window, I'm just not. Particularly when I'm wearing pyjamas and sporting beautiful bed hair.

I hereby formally apologise to the man I met in the lift in Kendals this morning; yes, I did hear you say you wanted floor four, but I pressed three anyway because I thought it would be funny. When you started yelling at me and when I then "consciously chose to ignore you" in order to respond to the more pressing need of answering my mobile I do, of course, realise that was just as rude and inconsiderate as you kindly pointed out to me. So I gave you my blog address, didn't I?

And promised a suitable humble apology would be published on the internet as a lesson to all other young whippersnappers who might, perchance, similarly fall suit to depravity.

Still, as a method for generating blog traffic I think it ranks only slightly below changing the background of all the computers on show in the London Apple store to your blog address. In flashing red. With excess exclamation marks.

While not suitably repentant, I am making an effort to channel the excess energy into other, 'more worthwhile' activities. Like list making.
Today I have learned that;
~ Deliberately mishearing people; "Are you deaf?" "Pardon?" is not funny. Well, I think it is- in small doses- but I was informed, by the man what i dedicate this post to, that it isn't. So it isn't.
~ There are people out there who believe me when I say "oh, yes, well, I do indeed have tonsillitis, but don't worry, my doctor said it was the non contagious kind." I mean, meeting one (who, thus reassured, tried to stick his tongue down my throat) means there must be more. Whats most worrying here is that he went to Harrow and then Oxford. Oh, and that I let him, of course. That bothers me slightly, in retrospect. But I'm not breeding with him, so it's fine.
~ Magnums are impossible to eat, especially when wearing a white silk top. Especially when it's chucking it down. Even more so when you decide to go out and sort of surreptitiously jig about in the rain; I adore heavy rain- you know, those rare occasions when it rains like in the tropics, where the heavens practically open. An excuse, if there ever was one, to get my hair wet.
~ One of my ears is pierced all the way up. When did that happen? I didn't notice that happening! I should have done, but... I have no idea how I managed to miss that little nugget of information- next thing you know I'll be finding a tattoo.
~ Just because I smoke cigarettes does not mean I'm capable of smoking a pipe without instruction.

I embarrassed myself with almost as much vigour as the first time I tried smoking, y'know, normal things.

My adamant insistence that I was going to spend my birthday in bed- first asleep until mid afternoon, then sulking under the covers with wine and birthday cake until it ended was ignored and overridden, when the first text message came through at half seven this morning. Despite valiant attempts to get back to sleep, the little beeping noise my phone makes every ten minutes when I have a message/ missed call meant I had to get up and find it- which took a good twenty minutes.
By which time I was well and truly awake, but still doing a good job of ignoring that I'm now officially a, well, a...

A grown up. I believe that's the correct terminology here.

Good lord, but twenty is old. It feels it, anyway- although you wouldn't know that by the way I'm scoffing my birthday cake; it has a poisonous shade of green icing with different sponge sections, shaped like a childs drawing of a caterpillar.

Of all my childhood obsessions- and those include the Famous Five, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Sleeping Beauty- there's one I haven't grown completely out of, and that's Peter Pan. Of course! I had to pick the most potentially ruinous of the bunch.

I don't seem to be bitching to the right people- and not least because all of my friends (except the odd undesirable) have abandoned me in favour of the Carling festival. So who did I choose to bitch to first? With my usual precision for this kind of thing, I chose the lovely person who sent me that message at half past seven this morning- namely, Ca.
I sent her one back, and got a reply- "wait until you're forty, thats fucking weird and all babe".

Fair point.

In desperation- if I have to be awake for the whole of my birthday I might as well have some company, after all- I even asked my mother to take the day off work but to no avail. My baby brother's at his friends' house, and my little sister has gone pony riding for the day- my mother owning a small glue pot of the beasties notwithstanding, she still prefers to pay to ride other peoples. So I have the house to myself, am bingeing on cake and anime, wearing my purple polka dot pyjamas, fluffy slippers with a flower on them and my oldest brothers dressing gown- who says I can't have good time by myself? It turns out lying is not the most fun a girl can have with her clothes on. Well, not only.

Imogen:* x

A snippet from one of Imogen's emails. With commentary by me. Because I'm lazy I finally have the Star Trek; Voyager box set, oh yes!

My Nene's ongoing campaign against my favourite jeans began with "is this any way to dress? It might be OK in England, but things are different here. People will think you don't have any money." Dede's attitude was "look, if she likes them let her wear them- there are worse things she could be insisting on."
These responses say a lot about both of them.
My attitude to my favourite jeans is "they look fantastic on, and my only other pair that looks quite so marv have a come stain on them." This, in turn, says a lot about me.

Truth.

I didn't explain that to Nene fully, of course; I'm finally learning when to stop.

Twenty years in. God bless.

I'm not wholly sure I can take credit for this, actually- six hours on an over night plane being kept company by a very keen Austrian with equally enthusiastic air conditioning after a week of, well, Kos, with a handful of my fellow Catholic schoolies had left me dazed. Somewhat.

The pictures are proof enough. And she sent me a select few, so God only knows what the rest are like.

Although I did refrain from correcting my cousin when she asked why I had such lovely underwear when noone sees it, so I might finally be growing up.

In my dazed state, I let my cousin decide I was her "bestest playmate" and spent the whole of that first morning being steered round my Grandparents' garden looking for a hidden stone, to her directions. "Hot!" "Absolutely broilingly extremely hot!" "No, cold." "Still cold."
"Sunshine, it's 45 degrees out here."
"You're cold. You want to be hot. Means you're near the stone."
"What do I get when I find the stone?"
"You get to hide it."
"Sunshine, I don't want to. Can we do something else?"
"When you find it we could... climb the fig tree?"
Marvellous, just extremely marv.

She's cute though- I appreciate her more after sleep; she runs errands for me if I phrase them as favours but abuses me for satiating my Ayran addiction.

It's a sort of goats milk yoghurty drink. And the cousin's the seven year old vegan daughter of the vegan aunt from Hackney. We love her.

Which leads nicely to my next point, actually. I'm out of cigarettes, and I can't buy any as I didn't think to change my pennies into Lira- and I'm not allowed to leave the house on my own anyway, so I'm fucked. I explained this to Alice and she asked me if it was sideways; keep an eye on her for me, would you? If she was fifty years older people would be worried she'd has a stroke that's left her 'slightly addled'. Frankly. Anyway, is this any way to live? I'm the last of the guilt free smokers, living in a house with a perfect view of the Marlboro billboard, in a country where smoking laws are virtually non existent with a favourite Great Uncle who drinks whiskey in the morning and hides cigarettes in his socks so his wife doesn't find them.
Who, incidentally, has a nicotine addiction of her very own that he doesn't know about: they've been married for about fifty years as well. Mirth. Maybe I can beg some.

At her high school I'm told the cool people were allowed to smoke behind a local fast food shop if they bought some Ribena or somesuch. See, smoking is cool. Nono, not really. But when I say that and people see me lighting up they assume I'm a quitter who quit quitting. Which is true, but when I tried to stop I gained half a stone and then decided I'd rather die early than be fat.

I'm having a hard time hiding my tattoo from my family though; there's only so long I can sling a towel over my shoulder, and when I'm swimming I have to remember to keep my back away from them all. This isn't helped by Ceylan insisting on piggy backs and walking into my room without The Knock at all hours.

Ah yes, The Knock. Or lack of, the source of many an argument in the Spinster household last year. And Ceylan? It's Turkish, and the C is pronounced as a J. This little mispronounciation was drilled into me many a time. I think its a pet hate.

In light of your recent adventures darling, I have to ask: just how, pray tell, does one tell Spanish men and Italians apart?
I love them both, equally. Except my Italian is nonexistent- I'm assuming Gee's wrong when she says it's essentially English, but you add "io" to the end of everything? I was going to just accept it, but then she said "snoggio" and I gave in to the little doubting voice. Incidentally sweetie, I've decided to learn Turkish as I hate not being able to talk to most of my extended family.

Oh yes, what fun! It took her long enough to learn French, and she doesn't use it much (apart from the swear words).

Now, this request of yours for pictures of my underwear. I have one question for you, sugar; do you want sets? Knickers? What? I need more details. Do suspenders and stockings come under the underwear category? I left those at home actually, but bras and panties I have in abundance. Oh yes, also can I ask why?

The order of that last snippet also says a lot about her. But it looks like underwear pictures will be forthcoming. Imogen's.

Love Txxxxxx

So, there I am, waiting for my train on a dimly lit station platform. On my right, beneath the only working light, stands a very very good looking man, in his early twenties, kind of Italian looking. On my left, a mulleted woman bites her nails. Betweeen me and the hot man is a clunky monitor showing various times at which my train might arrive. None of which is the time the hairy station guard told me the train would turn up. Below me is a tiled floor and some old bits of chewing gum.
I give him a cursory glance, smile, then get distracted by the mulleted lady asking me for a light. I put her off with broken spanish and, looking up, find the hot Italian looking guy still looking at me. Green eyes. He smiles, I smile, he does not break the look. I don't break the look. He moves towards me and my pulse speeds up. He comes close enough that I can see the unused piercings in his ear, then he stops, turns, and checks out the monitor.
He turns back to me again and starts to say something when my mobile rings. I curse mentally, answer it, get rid of them and find he's retreated to a more respectable distance. I move towards him this time, thinking desperately what to say. We exchange greetings in stunted spanish, before reaching a linguistic common ground with english, when a train arrives. It is not my train, but he shrugs and moves slowly towards it. Still not breaking the look.
I board the same train, and he moves through the carriage to sit opposite me. He looks at me, I play with my phone to give him time to look, then text Imogen. Big mistake. She wrote Are you sure he's looking at you sugar? Maybe he was looking out the window, or it's because you were staring at him and he's worried you might suddenly attack or something. Mwah.

Next day after making my way back to a recognisable area of Barcelona I ring someone less apathetic. Purely theoretically. "Dave. What would you have done?"
"Well, I have no experience of pulling on public transport. Not being, y'no, that way inclined. But if we were in a bar I'd have bought you a drink."
Good boy. That's what I want to hear.

Barcelona was amazing.

Toby x x x x

"Don't be silly. Girls aren't camp, they're girly. There IS a difference you know... Isn't there? Oh my goodness, I'm not secretly a gay man, am I? That might be one issue too many."
"Put it like this. Can you catch? Unnatural fascination with glitter? Can you knit? How many Kylie albums do you own?"
"No, yes, I luff the shiny things and all of them... Oh. Oh my good lord".


It was only hours after our first meeting that we moved onto discussing sex, while locked in a bathroom at The Breeder Party. The circles I move in being what they are, I know relatively few girls, which makes my mother coming to visit me very uncomfortable. Of course there are girls from uni and girls I've lived with and so on, but that's pretty much all they are. In short then, I have very few girl mates. Things with Imogen got off to a good start when to my surprise I fell sort of hopelessly head over heels when I noticed her ask one of the sticky toddlers, Do you know what this is? after he/she/it found a condom while rummaging through her handbag. After a great start things sort of became a bit fraught. Well, more distant, I guess. As you can probably tell from this.
To be fair, she had a point.
At the start of this year I was living closer to our uni with a group of girls who turned out to be simply frightful to live with-
You can't expect us not to mind you coming back drunk at 4am!
We had that conversation a lot, and many others along similar lines. I spent about two weeks bitching about them to all and sundry, before Imogen got bored of me whinging and invited me to live with her. Then refused point blank to help me move my stuff, which ruined the sentiment a little. So. Our flat and home then for most of the last year worked out pretty well, contrary to expectations. There being only three rooms, my moving in was meant to be a temporary measure- there's only so long you can sleep on the settee for! Lesbian roomies A and B pretty much kept to themselves, while Imogen's never in, nor is the other flatmate. Alec was the rogue male before I honed in on the flat, and we wound up sharing the room. What? You don't expect me to have spent a year sleeping on a settee, do you?
And we're both hot, it's all good. Grand, in fact.
Which made Imogen look like the flat spinster, to be fair. And Jerome was a disaster waiting to happen.
She was going out with him when I met her, although it was in the early stages-
Oh, only about three months now she'd said breezily flicking ash into a pot plant, but it's nothing serious. She looked at me then, a proper sizing me up look - Ah. Right.
Excuse me if I'm right I'd said in response, but you're just as camp as I am. Maybe more, and do I make assumptions about you?
My insistence, not so much that she was wrong but that she might have been lead to her being able to add to her 'list' of favourite things 'kissing gay boys'. Seriously.

Now, for the second time this year, I've managed to end up living in an ugly flat in a rather suspect area of the East End surrounded by very scary looking men neighbours, but all of this is nothing compared to one of my new roomies.
Lauren.
She hasn't noticed. This makes her the only person with the exception of my mother, who doesn't know I'm gay. And she's making me very uncomfortable, being, you know, like, not a guy. And not being pretty. And she's actually properly stalking me. My girl experience is limited to Imogen, and she's currently in Kos getting very verrrry drunk with a group of her fellow Catholic schoolies- which makes her uncontactable. And she gives disastrous advice anyway.
Dear readers. Want to help? I'll do anything, tell any stories, compose some sort of haiku, go into work on time, anything in exchange. If advice works.

Ongoing adoration Tobyx x x x x x x