You see him on Tibb Street with his boots high on his calves, your red scarf trailing behind him, not quite touching the pavement; you see him with his collar turned up against the cold, and his hands hidden deep in his pockets, and you also see his refusal to huddle in against the cold, face bared to the elements. He still doesn't notice you walking behind him as he hurries to the cafe where you're supposed to be meeting. You check your watch; he's late, and you're even later. You see how he checks out the cafe in a single glance, registering your absence, then you see him stand in the queue with his head slightly angled, you see him lean in against the counter, conspiring with the waitress with the jeans and the over-the-knee boots, blithely ignoring everyone in the queue behind him. You see him lean over the counter and touch her hand, whispering and making her laugh; she pushes him away gently, and he walks off, and you know his order will get priority in the busy kitchen. He goes to find somewhere to sit, and when he stretches you see that his belly has flattened and tightened, and you wonder whatever happened to that beer belly he'd been nursing with such lack of embarrassment and you think, for just one moment, that maybe it's because... and then you push the thought away before it has time to form fully and push the door open.
You see him in the morning light in the studio flat and you see him preening, you see him waiting impatiently while you refuse to get up so early, you hear him put the music on loud and dance about, until you finally give in, get up and teach him some ballet, and you see him intuiting a move that, if you remember correctly, took you hours to learn and you try to sulk and he won't let you and insists you teach him something more complicated, so you try a lift, and you do, and it works pretty well, except he lets you both fall back onto the bed, and you push him away. You see him through winter, through spring, through summer, and everytime, now you think of it, he seems larger to you and more magnetic, and you're at a loss to explain what's happening.
You see him steal your beret, and once you see him wearing it out and you compliment him and he walks past laughing softly but he doesn't pause to say anything back and all those times he doesn't even look in your direction and acknowledge your presence you feel a little bit lonelier, a little bit more lost, and you want to ask him if he ever met someone he likes more than himself, but you think you know the answer and because the answer might strike a resonating chord you don't ask, and then suddenly, another time, he'll run across the road towards you, arms open wide and you begin to think maybe you were wrong; and you wonder exactly where it was you went wrong, took that misstep, you know there's something missing but you can't work out what it is, and you begin to feel slightly scared and confused, and then, one day you see him practising one of the dance moves you taught him and he jumps shyly when he notices you watching him, brusquely demands you mirror image a dance step and you comply because you love seeing him intuit ballet, it's like seeing yourself, and you want to move, break the double image but you can't and you realise you've always been the others double, a shadow of the other, and you laugh, but later when he moves away, a quick kiss goodbye, the light is gone, and you stand out on the balcony alone that evening watching the city without really seeing it and you realise just how much of yourself has disappeared. And then you hear him letting himself back in, coming straight to where you are, and you put your mask back on, smile and laugh at him, and he's quiet and he watches you, and he comes over and wraps his arms around your waist and says, Cupcake, I get the feeling you're standing on a ledge, looking down and you feel your mask shattering as you stare out at the city lights through the window behind him, and you remember you never could keep it in place around him, and you realise the light you've just been staring at has cast a shadow of the two of you together.

I should be hiding under the bed around about now.

Men I am hopelessly, irrevocably and, in pretty much every case, embarrassingly attracted to.

Jimmy Carr,

Stephen Fry.

Craig Charles.

Alan Davies.

Jonathan Ross.

Yukihiro Hyde.

Rhys Thomas.

Will Self.

Llife’s confusing, isn’t it? Like, how to tell if the milks off, or is it the week for the recycling to be collected. How to tell if you’re awake or not, or, my main concern this week, working out the breed of bloke you fancy.
Sexual desire is a pernicious thing, far too dependent on no more than the angle of a smile or turn of phrase, and frequently completely independent of any of the other qualities you would generally desire in a lover. I have male friends who are absolutely wonderful; funny, cute, clever - everything you could possibly want in a boyfriend. So, thinking beyond the obvious (i.e. I’m a fool) why does the thought of sleeping with them make me shudder and want to hide under the bed?

I'm a little jealous of my little sister. Being, as we know, a pretentious ex-boarding schoolian, I missed out on a whole bundle of the stuff she's up to (no, I don't mean things like the blowjob-in-the-park incident), things like traveling about in a pack.
I find this quite interesting; she's fifteen, and spends roughly all her time with a group of about ten mates; they're a nomadic bunch, settling in different houses until whoevers parent is at home loses patience and slings them out on their respective ears to find somewhere else. They descend on a house like locusts, eating everything in their path - and boy, can these kids eat - and enveloping everything from laundry to cats to small children in their wake.
But yeah, I'm a little jealous. And all this means the house does not, as such look unlived in, even from the outside.

This morning I was sitting out on the front steps with Joel sharing a smoke when we were approached by a man wearing one of those hats with the flaps (you'll know what I mean. I want to call it a Russian hat, but thats not factually accurate. And I'm all about that.) he hovered by us for maybe a full minute while we stared at him. "Um, I've been observing this house for some time," he said, "as it appears to be unoccupied. And then I saw you just now, and, well. I think it's such a nice house, and it seems a shame for it to be left in this condition... do you know if its for sale at all?"

Now, this house is currently home to six murderous cats (currently they're mostly focusing on shrews, which is fine. Have I told the story of coming back from uni, collapsing on the couch, only to encounter a cold dead squirrel staring up at me?) two extremely noisy dogs, me and Joel (my mothers away again, and I've been landed with les enfants. Which is fine. It's almost Christmas. Bribery's the name of the game) Fiona and her pack, Theo and his mates. There's also full scale electrical work being done so workmen are in and out of the house at all hours, the postman visits everday, as does the milk man and Janet the cleaning lady pops in at least once a day "I was just passin', lovvie" to make sure I haven't left the gas on/ let Theo drown himself in his night time bath/ introduced Fiona to tequila/ turned the house into a crack den/ sold my siblings into white slavery. That sort of thing.
The house is not, as such, bereft of inhabitants.

So I've been trying to work out exactly when this man could have been watching the house. Any time from four onwards its dark and the house is blazing with every light left on, the TV blaring away, several different types of music doing combat from respective rooms, and someone's guaranteed to be sat out the front sneaking a kiss or a smoke.

"I should get back in," I said, standing up and doing the I'm-so-cold dance. "Make sure Fi isn't using Theo for pin the tail on the donkey again."
Joel stood up with me and wrapped his arms round my waist, drawing me close. "They'll be fine. About time the kid learned to stop pimping himself out for sweets, anyway." His hands were sneaking up under my top.
"OK, point taken. Now stop that. You're poaching."

When can he be watching? The dead of night, I thought. But no; someone's guaranteed to be burning the midnight oil, be it me or Joel, or Theo in the aftermath of a nightmare. And then the kids are in school (for which I have a newfound appreciation) so they're up and bopping about for half seven (everyone in my life is great in the morning, waking up all bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to take on the world, or at least eat breakfast. I can't eat until lunchtime, and my inner brat lurks dangerously close to the surface until I get some coffee). Fi hops on the bus, which comes for her right outside the front gate so she's easily seen hovering by the road each morning. Theo gets walked to school, I come home, let the electricians in, go to sleep. Wake up, collect Theo. And the cycle begins again.

So when on earth has he been 'observing' the house?

And is it just me who finds this slightly creepy?

Have you ever tried to warm your hands by gas stove? My advice would be, don't.

Being a lazy wench, I was boiling eggs over the biggest ring on the hob, with my hands above it to warm up. And I now have second fucking degree burns on my right wrist, courtesy of my silver bracelet.

I am noor a happy bunny.