Summary of today

Him - Hello there! What are you doing?
Me - Not so much. Eating cheese and crackers. Singing along to the radio.
Him - At the same time?
Me - Yes. But not right now, obviously, because that wouldn't be pretty. Or practical.
Him - Hmm. What kind of cheese?
Me - Tell me, sir, are you drunk?
Him - What? No. Why?
Me - I have this theory you see, that you only initiate conversations with me when you're drunk.
Him - No, I'm just bored.
Me - Now, or whenever you decide to talk to me?
Him - I'm not sure. Which is likely to get the most mileage out of this conversation?

I am feeling all warm and tingly inside

I am having the worst day of my life, but this is ok because I have just painted my toe nails and the sun is shining. Outside, that is. From the window I can hear birdsong - no, really - and I can see a leaf being blown gently along on the grass. I will drink jasmine tea and sit in the window sill and do nothing but sit with the window open and bask in the spring breeze and the smell of jasmine.

I've just noticed the leaf is actually a bit of litter. That's actually much more appropriate, much more fitting. Means I no longer feel compelled to open the window. I am much warmer with it shut, and I find sitting on the floor oppsite with my beautiful silver laptop in my, uh, lap, much more aesthetically pleasing. And practical.

Despite having had the worst few days of my life with today as the absolute low point, it is ok, and do you know why that is? Because I am feeling happy. Content. This morning, I woke up trying to cuddle a viking helmet, and nearly put out an eye on one of the horns. There was also a Spiderman doll. The world was mostly dark, which struck me as odd, because I was pretty sure it had been daylight when we got in. Trying to sit up, I banged my head on what turned out to be a large chalk board with the words 'LAYDEEZ NITE!!!!' still clearly visible.
I wonder where it was stolen from. As a general rule, I do not steal things when drunk. On my left arm are the words 'BEOWULF UND THUNDER'. I have no idea what this means. I also have two pink hair extensions. I have no idea where they came from. Or when, actually. I'm not sure I looked in a mirror yesterday.

Rosie has just come in. She did the whole inadvertent inhalation of coffee through her nose at the sight of the aforementioned trophies leaning against the wall.
"You should see what I woke up with," she said.
I think I shall defer that delight, I told her.

She then completely failed to leave the room before throwing up, instead choosing to utilise the sink. I hope she is feeling appropriately embarrassed about this, but I cannot ask because she has gone out. I have relocated to her room, where the smell of vomit cannot follow. Rosie has just come back in, looking decidedly wan, and wielding a large carrier bag. I have just been presented with a plunger, which I feel she should keep, a pack of blueberry muffins, a bunch of flowers and some aspirin.

Now thats friendship.

And I don't think I fancy her anymore, either.

Communist Party (Party)...

... Is one of the best party related puns I've heard all year, so of course I'm going. Like the teenage werewolf party of yesteryear, this poses me with the same dilemma. Fake hair. To wear or not to wear?
It's either that or go as Gloria Steinem or Patty Hearst. The hope of all the girls is that they'll be chatted up by that icon of cool, Che Guevara, as opposed to a hairy Stalin or a Mao.
Fake hair and military cuts aside, the key accessory is going to have to be the totalitarian persona. And this got me thinking. As I write, I am recovering from a hectic week of goodbye* dinner dates and impromptu partybashes, so I'm feeling a little run down - I still have glitter eye make-up fading around my eyelids - as such I've decided that today is a day for not leaving the flat and drinking jasmine tea. That being so, I am wearing a jumper my grandad had intended to throw out way back in 1983 but thankfully never quite got round to doing, and a pair of my old ballet shoes. Why is that? And why would I be in no way embarrassed to duck round to the store for ice-cream or run into one of my exes?

The ballet shoes, aside from being frightfully in fashion, are real. I wore them for Swan Lake, and they're battered and worn and terribly comfy and oh-so beautiful. They make me feel very pretty. The jumper, however, considerably less so. It's a fading grey colour, and comes down well towards my knees. Pretty is not how it makes me feel; cute, though, might just sum it up. I am a hopeless fashion victim. And by that I mean, I can people watch for hours, perfectly content to just let the cut and colour of their clothing choice wash over me. What is with that?

Nothing is quite so cool right now as sporting a £100 pair of shades that remind one of nothing so much as those glasses your grandmother wore, complete with neck cord, and a jumper that should have been consigned to the bin well before the time of David Blunkett's first resignation. Everybody looks a bit silly when they do retro. Everybody. But there's nothing cooler than looking like you're slumming it a little; in a conscious fashion, that is. When I do get round to leaving the flat later today, I shall don a head scarf and a smidgen of lip gloss. My pink nail polish accidentally matches the shoes, and I am wearing leggings.

Leggings. I ask you.

I know. But. I have a much lower level of scepticism for leggings than I do skinny jeans.

And now for the twee ending. The real accessory for all of this? Confidence. Confidence is totally cool.




* More on which later.

I have decided the original contents of this post were too disgusting to retain.

The nub and thrust of it all is that I am now experiencing frostbite induced by my doctor, and it hurts.

Playing by colours

Stuart had started pretty well, managing to beat me to Old Kent Road and Pall Mall through a twist of cunning involving a race car and the number six. But, after some minutes, many shots of vodka and lots of hard bargaining I successfully managed to become financially solvent owner of the trendier hotspots of our great capital, leaving him nothing to do but gape in awe at my extensive knowledge of real estate and my no nonsense attitude to slaying all possible competitors that might dare to stand in the way of me getting my hands on the land that I feel I thoroughly deserved to own and make lots of paper money off of. It would appear my boyfriend is a bad loser. Sensing his imminent defeat somewhat belatedly, began to insist that regeneration of the less desirable areas would one day be worth a fortune. And, he told me, breathing vodka and chocolate breath on me as he tried to kiss me into resale related submission, they were pretty colours. Of course I should just swap my ugly blue properties with him, let him do me the favour of taking them off my hands.

Ordinarily, the sheer aesthetics of the situation would charm me into conceeding. But. This is Monopoly.

The game was drawing to a close and Stuart, looking mildly perplexed at just how seriously I took Monopoly, whimpered off to the kitchen to open the next bottle of celebratory vodka I was owed he owed for such an embarrassing defeat -I was thoroughly into my new role as hard-hitting property mogul, which, as he rightly pointed out, would make him the housewife.
Which is niiiiice.

All the glamour has gone out of being caught in lifts in this day and age

There was a power surge, and the lights flickered, once, twice, and cut out. We were between floors at the time, and a steely silence descended, just for a moment. The lift was full, about ten people, all of whom seemed to be alone. There was a long moment, where we all just stood around, isolated in the darkness, then suddenly the inside of the lift was lit - the power not having come back on, our companions seemed to have decided to create their own. Ah, modernish technology.

Let there be light, said the Lord. Let there be less of it, say the EU leaders of this hemisphere.

Just what is it about getting stuck in a lift that prompts people to call their families/ significant others? I swear one man was calling his limo driver, but my Japanese is sucky.
I ventured a quiet, "Joel? Is that you holding my hand?"
"Cupcake, is that you leaning against the door?"

Ah. We reshuffled. "Joel, was that man talking to his driver?"
"Aren't you claustrophobic?"
"Nope. Where did you get that from?"
"I'm going to be sick. Do you think we could prise the doors open?"
"Look, if you're claustrophobic just admit it. Anyway, thats quiiiiiite probably not a great idea. Aren't we between floors?"

"Have you got a swiss army knife?"

Because of course I carry small knives around with me all the time.

The inside of the lift was still dark, but there was a slightly suspicious scraping noise coming from the door.

"Joel! Stop that! Just sit and leave the door alone."
"I have to get out."
"Look, the last time you didn't listen to me, we almost got arrested. Remember?"
"Oh come on, there was no sign saying I shouldn't climb up the war memorial."

*shrugs* ADHD.

He went on."And who are you talk, missy? The last time I did listen to you, we wound up on a train to Fukuoka."
"Mmm. Well, even between us our Japanese isn't going to stop you getting arrested by the security guards for vandalising the elevator. And believe me when I tell you I won't even try to help you."

Another silence fell. "Um, Cupcake? Do you reckon they speak English?"
"Why, do you think that'd make you getting arrested as soon as the power comes back on any less socially awkward? Anyway, I think we're beyond that stage in our relationship now."

Someone giggled from another corner.

The lights came back on and the lift jolted back into motion; just after he'd started trying to persuade me to climb up onto his shoulders and look for a roof hatch. Or something. Movies do terrible things to a boys mind, don't they?

This mornings little adventure was considerably less exciting; possibly because it was daytime and my companions were all over sixty.

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

Now, I have a very important question. Do I go to Spain and learn Spanish, or Korea?

Running with scissors

I won't be recreating the wheel when I say there's something intimate about driving down a motorway in the dark.

Me and this boy never have silences. But last night there was an uncomfortably long silence, and I noticed he was throwing covert glances my way. It was all going to end in tears really, wasn't it? Allow me to be frank and describe our relationship du jour like a really wet floor when you're wearing new shoes. One step out of place, you know from experience, is all that it will take for you to go tumbling. The kind of tumble where you really hurt yourself, the kind that leaves a big wet patch on your clothes, so that even after you've picked yourself up and brushed yourself off, everybody who sees you can tell whats happened from just a glance.

"I need to take you home," he said suddenly, after several false starts.
"What? Darling, I'm dossing with you, remember?"
"No, I need you to go to Stuart's."
"No! We made up and its sort of lovely, but I'm keeping my distance for a while."
"Look," he said, slowing down and weighing every word, "I've just realised something I'm feeling, and... Just let me take you to your boyfriend."

Long silence. His hands on the wheel were turning white at the knuckles. I was watching the lights of the cars tearing past and sitting on my hands.

"Oh fuck. I'm sorry, but I'm going to say it, Imogen."
"Don't say it."

Another long pause, in which there was aimless driving, and I thought he'd listened to me. And then he decided to take us through a carwash.

"I still love you."

I went white and did my world renowned goldfish impression. Mouth open, lots of blinking.

"Joel, you can not be doing this to me."
"Do what?"
"Yes, ok, I... but there are other people involved now, and... I... well. Oh no."
"I have spent the last year wondering why I ever broke up with you. I have to say it."

I spoon-fed him the Imogen Clarke Relationship Theory; Part I - Specifics.

"Im, I can't stand seeing you when you're not happy, with those big green eyes. They go all wide when you're feeling sad and--"
"Stop it."
"I have to ask. Are you happy?"

I don't know. I'm either at a towering high, a maudlin low, or totally mono. Emoting beyond that gets difficult.

"Say you like someone, I don't know, let's say six out of ten, where ten is good and one is bad," I said slowly, watching the soap suds glide across the screen and weighing the value of every word in my quest for clarity. "Thats not enough, is it? I mean, there's the other four, and--"
"-- I'll give you the six," he said, twisting in his seat to watch my face, "but then there's how we got there, and why, and all the little binding stuff, which is at least a four--"
I folded my arms and slumped back in my seat as he continued twisting my analogy. "You bastard. You did this on purpose so I couldn't get away."
"Get out of the car," he snapped, the sudden change in tone making me jump.
"Pardon?"
"We're going to do some cleaning," he said, voice taut and brittle, easing the car out of the car wash as he spoke.

Does he know how to win a girl over or what?

I hovered and I watched as he cleared all the rubbish out of the back seat.

"No, Im, come here, give me a hand."
"What?"
"This is the little binding stuff. You know when you go through a really bad break-up--"
"--Yes. I do know, as it happens, Joel."
"-- And you do all the little things, like drinking good wine, eating expensive ice cream and having a long bath - it's not an end in itself, but they all add up to the end result."
"Are you sure a bad break-up analogy is the way to go here? I'm still recovering from your efforts last time round, buddy."

He shot me a bratty look, then shrugged. "The point, Cupcake, is, I'm going to be chivalrous and let you have your six. For now. But... little binding stuff." He came round to where I was leaning against the car and gave me a kiss on the cheek, morphing seamlessly into his best Best Mate pose. "Now, let's be off," he said, flashing me a smile over the top of the car.
I got in, and slid him a little sideways look. The thing with this boy is, he shifts so effortlessly between facets I never know quite where I stand. Which, generally speaking, is great. But then he goes and does feelings at me. And when I'm being poached, I get a touch pissy.

"So, Joel darling. Just how is Sarah?" I haven't met her, but that would be his girlfriend. "How much are we talking there?"

"Don't do it."
"No, do tell me. Three? Four? Go on, I want to know."
He shrugged. "Two or three. I guess. What is this?"
"Second degree."

He didn't say anything, but the road suddenly became the most interesting thing in the world. I ignored him for a while, head still reeling, then gave in - I've been giving in to him ever since I can remember - and turned to look at him. He was biting his lip, hands, in regulation ten two position on the wheel, were turning white. Blue eyes wide.

I sighed. "You," I told him, reaching out and touching his arm, "are complicating my life."

"Mr Rockford? You don't know me, but I'd like to hire you..."

And earlier this evening, I changed a tyre.

Actually, thats not, if we're being picky about it, strictly true, and won't come as a surprise to any one. Joel started looking worried half-way down the one way street we may have been going down the wrong way, because, y'know, it was one o'clock in the morning, and we may have been a little, ah, directionally challenged. The worry, as it turns out, had nothing to do with the lost thing; what I thought was a bad patch of road was actually a spectacularly shredded tyre.

Five minutes earlier; in a fit of girlish petulance, Imogen switches off the satellite navigation system.
Twenty seconds later; "Cupcake, where do we go from here?"
"Right after the traffic lights."
"And then...?"
"And then you'll have to pull over and reprogramme the sat nav."

We traversed the heady wilds of the one way street and pulled over; he popped out of the car in a hot second, while I leaned back and switched the radio on.

You know you're doing badly when you catch repeats of Radio 4 broadcasts.

It was that thought that got me out of the car, more than the muffled swearing that was coming from ballet pump level.

"Can I help you, darling?" I asked, all sugar and spice.
There was a long pause and he froze in the act of slamming the boot. "I'm sorry Cupcake, but did you just offer to help?"
"Right, fuck you then." I could always just listen to Radio 1, I figured. No need to be suspiciously nice, or he'll be wondering about your motives. He's a twat like that.
There was a slamming sound behind me. "Sure, why not?"

Bad cat.

"OK, so what do I do? . . . No! Joel, take this for a second, I think I've just smudged oil all over my cheek . . . Has it gone? Do I look like I'm trying to win an Othello look-a-like competition?"
"You would say yes, but I think right now you're looking more like a tousled kitten."

Huh.

"Right, that is it. I have oil in my hair, and I'm not playing any more."

He took over. I turned the radio up and leaned against the car; sulking, as it turns out, works far better with Womens Hour or The Archers as a background; Hiphop just doesn't quite do it when you're going for petulant.

The car was all better within five minutes.

"There's something really quite macho about changing a tyre," he said, smirking at me. "Particularly in your company. Now, what else can we do that'll make me feel like a Real Man? Any mice you'd like me to catch for you?"
"I'm homeless! Unless we go with the whole 'All the world's a stage' thing, in which case you may well be feeling macho for quiiiiiite some time."
"Right, something else then, I haven't got much time." He checked his watch while over taking a lorry. The daredevil. "I guess we can spare five minutes before we should head back; what else is there? . . . Hmm.

Imogen, may I ravish you?"

And we build our house of cards and then we wait for it to fall, always forget how strange it is just to be alive at all

We were so wet from the sudden downpour that almost as soon as we'd been reintroduced to the concept of warmth our clothes began to steam and our hair began to frizz. Out and up. Ruth went to order coffee - a definite occasion for mocha, we both felt, and cake; but just the one piece between us, because things hadn't gotten so bad we were going to commit that social faux pas of having a piece of cake each. Thats very spinsterish behaviour *grins* I went off to lay claim to a pair of big purple armchairs and did the whole arduous task of shifting empty cups onto someone elses table, "Could you just take these for a second please? Super, thanks," * while ignoring the water pooling at my feet. Not like I could feel it anyway, right?
Ruth came to join me, we swore a secret pact that if anyone asked, we were, like, so not drinking chocolatey coffee. Just in case; the spinster boundary has some blurry edges **. We were beginning to look slightly loopy, giggling and whispering and obsessively trying - in vain - to smooth our hair down, and felt the need to resort to desperate distracting measures; What, she asked me, Is your favourite Renaissance stage direction?

He brains himself against the cage. She runs lunatic. Exits pursued by a bear. Endless fun.

She was sitting at a slightly scew angle, so she could 'watch the talent coming through that door', so she caught sight of him first, standing framed in the glass doorway; Is that Stuart? she asked me, taking advantage of my momentary dither attack to swallow half the cake in one swift swoop of the fork. I don't know how she does it, but I suspect it takes years of practice. He walked past us, shaking water from his hair as he walked to the bar; Ruth called him back - Stuuu-art! she called, long and low, and back he came.
I put my hat on, hair tucked up out of sight, and squinted up at him past the brim. "Hello lover," he said.
"Hey yourself," I said, cheeks slightly pink, before morphing into my best society hostess. "Now, Stuart, you simply must join us. Ruth and I know one another far too well, and we've exhausted all safe topics of discussion - soon, like it or not, we'll have to resort to talking politics. And we're far too sure of the other to traverse those waters safely."
"Uncertainty is the natural human state. What makes you think you're so special?" he asked, eyes glittering, his face pale from the cold, hard and motionless from something else, before turning on his heel and walking back out into the rain.

There was a very long pause.

"I forgot he did Philosophy in his first year at uni," I said, throwing my hat on the table and hiding behind wet tendrils of hair for a second. Then I apologised to the people on the next table for *forgetting* them with the empty cups. They were lovely. Very polite. I apologised, they apologised that I was apologising and I apologised for disturbing them, and they apologised for me feeling it necessary to apologise for disturbing them.
Hey, apologising worked social wonders for hundreds of years; Look, I'm sorry for colonising your country...

Then Ruth went and bought that second piece of cake.

"So, Renaissance stage directions," she said, as breezily as one can with a plastic fork in ones mouth.
"Hows about, 'Enter Giovanni with a heart upon his dagger?'"
"Hows about no?"
"Hows about, 'Enter Vindice with the skull of his love dressed up in tires?''"
"Oh, you're no fun anymore, dolly."



* Sometimes I can't help myself. I want to know how far strangers will let me impose. The answer to date is amazingly far.
** Have I killed it yet?

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

I started writing this about a month ago, and only just rediscovered it while brutally thinning out all the Almosts lingering in my Word folder. I'd finish it, but I've lost the mental thread, forgotten where I was going with it. You know how it is *grins*

You’d be forgiven for thinking, upon first meeting him that this is a man who’s never listened to, never heard; with his habit of standing just that bit too close for comfort and talking just slightly too loud and with too harsh an edge to his voice. He is the first agnostic man I ever met; his agnosticism, in its ceaseless drive to avoid being noticed, to remain unknown borders on being a religion in itself. Again, you’d be forgiven for thinking this man has taken the lesson of Sunday school to heart – his deferential pose seems to echo through the ages the old, old message of Fear of God. Yet this isn’t it; he strives to remain unnoticed and to seem unimportant with the overall aim of avoiding bringing himself to the notice of whom, what, whatever, languishes Up There.

He seems unimportant. You’d be forgiven, by him with his slightly overbearing laugh and maybe by greater powers who applaud the ingenuity of his approach in a similar way to myself, for thinking this on first meeting him.
Yet he calls forth an odd sort of grudging respect from me, being the most spiritual, nay, religious, man I have ever met, despite all the oddities, the passing up of golden opportunities just to avoid notice – he didn’t, he assures me with an air of one making an obvious point to a slightly slow pupil, marry the love of his life. Why, I asked him quietly, sitting at his feet while he drew heavily on his pipe and stared into the blackened fireplace. Because, he said, she was too beautiful not to be noticed. It was what she was. I couldn’t ask her to change that.
One word gambols to the forefront of my mind when I spend time with him. Hubris. In The Persian Boy by the super Mary Renault the Greek gods are described as [roughly] being so full of arrogance and jealousy because they are modelled on arrogant and jealous men.

Shades of grey

Try as I might, the words 'What A Complete Fucking Cunt' leap, gambol, stroll, whichever, into my mind, unbidden. And I really really wish they wouldn't.

The scene: the white house of doom where the social climbing step mothers of this world live. And my daddy, obviously. Silence rings through the house, echoing pervasively through all the white rooms, uninterred by the white furniture or the silver mirrors scattered liberally throughout. Dinner is punctuated only by the cadence of silver cutlery scraping upon white china, the table so quiet the fizzing of coke in glasses sounds loud to the drinker. Drinkee?
I imagine the kind of silence that echoes with weight, the kind you experience as a child; that sense of utter menace you feel when you finally push a little too much, step too far beyond the carefully marked white line, and an irate parent sends you to your room, to be 'dealt with later', where the silence is heavy and oppressive with guilt and the dull thud of your heart.
Later; the television is on, the dulcet tones of Noel Edmonds blare out of speakers as they both watch unseeingly, for perhaps the first time ever. Even the grating voice of useless female contestant A with a latest 'strategy' to 'win' seems to gain body in the silence in that house. The sound does something to bolster courage while at the same time failing utterly to raise spirits. Or spirit. A large hand, elegant manicure somewhat at odds with the abundance of freckles, reaches out towards the remnote control lying in the gulf between them on the white sofa. She hesitates, hand hovering for a moment longer, before it dips, takes the plunge. Drops the stone into the abyss.

"Are you going to leave me?" she asks, quietly and levelly, still staring at the screen, heart no longer pounding.
He turns towards her, one knee on the sofa. "I don't know," he says. "I'm still thinking about it."

______________________

Clearly I am now about to bring all this round to relate to myself. I do not like Rose. Last time I saw her she called me 'Turkish trash', which was certainly a novel experience, visibly and verbally joined the ranks of those who refuse to take me seriously because of my accent and my education, informed me I was certainly my mothers child in that I was a total 'selfish fucker'. I was washing up at the time, this being about six thirty am, and, this being me, I ignored the tirade. Actually, I thought it was washing over me; until I realised I'd accidentally smashed an elegant but ridiculously overpriced wine glass while not being bothered in the least. I maintain what I was actually bothered about was my fathers inability to step in at any of the available junctures.
Last time I saw him was about fifteen minutes later, by which time I'd packed my things and was standing in the doorway, shaking a little, blood snaking its way down my wrist from the glass. I kissed him goodbye, steadfastly refused to let him even try to apologise for her, or bandage me up.

Ah, September. A-fucking-h*, having to soak teensy tiny shards of a £50 wine glass from ones palm and inner wrist** while completely submerged in the belief I wouldn't see him again. Was I over-reacting? Perhaps; and Stuart, he of the totally functional family, thinks so. But, my brother hasn't seen my daddy since they got married seven years ago.
So maybe not.

Regardless, I feel terrible for her. Not the divorce; the fact he's decided on it, and isn't telling her until he's sold the house and done something complicate involving stocks and shares she can't get her grubby divorce court hands on.

Admirably mercenary. Frightfully callous, to the extent even I'm going 'ouch'.






* Work with me here.
** Actually, it won't come as a surprise when I say Joel did it. Left to my own devices, I'd probably have ignored it until the whole infection thing made digging around in open wounds for little slivers of glass seem like a soft option. Lots of swearing.

Hilarious misunderstandings abound

About a month ago, I went out for coffee with my mother. There was a slightly awkward silent moment as we both stared out at the rain cascading off the canvas shelter at the front of the shop in a manner not unreminiscent of Niagra Falls. I waited a moment longer for her to offer me a lift to the train station, and when it didn't come I shrugged my way half into my coat, simultaneously downing the last few dregs of my cooling coffee, before giving up and standing, smoothing the coat round my knees. Goodbyes were said, physical contact was desperately avoided, and I turned to leave, hand on the door, chin tucked into collar. Rain related frown firmly in place.
"Imogen," she called, hastening towards me. "I, just, uh..." and thrust something into my coat pocket, looking more than duly embarrassed.
I, of course, assumed it was money.
"Gee, thanks Mum." Another pause and an expectant look. "I'll use it well, I promise," I said, smiling at her before rushing off to catch my train, the downpour efffectively taking my mind off it.

Cut to last Sunday. More torrential rain, the coat came out again. I was on the Circle line, slightly damp and shivering, standing with my arm looped round one of the yellow poles, when I absent mindedly put my hand in my pocket, encountering my mothers gift.

Let us establish here and now that my hands were numb and I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between a clothes brush and a strip of velvet at this point.

I wonder how much she gave me? I thought, pulling it out and looking. Before sort of half screaming and accidentally throwing the condom away from me in the shock of recollection.

Thanks, I'll use it well I told her. Oh. Oh my good lord.

Decorations and that

I hated the rug on sight and made no pretence otherwise, but, six months in, I'm growing rather fond of it. Over exposure, maybe. I was lying on my back, head tilted to one side as I played with a remote control car and focused idly on steering it around Stuart, who was sitting on the floor leaning against the sofa, explaining the concept of Sky Plus ("One watches The L Word with the sound turned down you see, babe") and how very necessary it is for him to have technological toys lying about ("I'm a solicitor," he said, "my claim to manhood would be in shreds without all the superfluous baubles"). He waved his hand idly, taking in the room with its gadgets, toys and baubles, and me. My hand slipped on the remote, the red car smacking into the wall, and he smiled at me. Inching his way across the wooden floor, he kissed my neck and waited for me to comment, leaning back on his elbows.
I slid him a sideways look. "So does this make me one of your baubles, then?"
"Why, wouldn't you like to be?" he asked, twirling a strand of my hair.
I leaned back, just enough to pout at him petulantly, just about managing to smother the growing urge to smile at him.
"Surely you don't really think that?" I piled on the accent, heavy and thick as poured cream and gestured at myself with a wide sweeping motion much beloved of Shakespearian characters in full monologian flow. "Look at me, Stuart. I am quite clearly much too useful to be just another ornament."

Manipulating Toby

"Invite me out to dinner?"
"No! I am so not falling into that trap again, wench."
"If you do," I said, twiddling with a curl of hair and watching his face, "I’ll tell you who started that oddly persistent rumour about you and that bloke from the campus coffee bar."
"Which one?" he asked. Hedging his bets.
"The one with the tongue piercing and terminal acne."
He was horrified. "There’s no such rumour!"
"Ah, but there will be."

I flicked a Skittle at him, sort of by accident. I'd meant to wait until his next refusal.

He threw up his hands in mock defeat. "OK, fine. How does eight sound?"

Childish. I win.

Friday

When I was a kid and had even less idea about the ergonomics of the world than I do at this moment, I wanted to be a space princess and wear tight clothes, have big breasts and wear high heeled thigh length boots. This is all the reasoning that was behind my career choice.

More recently, I have decided to put all the blame for my reluctance to find gainful employment on this. I mean, what if I have a real job, start at the bottom of the ladder, start climbing and start being less bothered with the dull beginner stuff, and then the intergalactic princess spot comes up with a vacancy?

Exactly. Thank you.

So for the time being, I am working in a pub. This is thrilling, as I was high at the time of choosing.
"Are you high?" the guy behind the bar asked me.
"If it's not Thursday," I said, leaning on the bar and flashing cleavage, "I'm totally trashed."

I got the job. What I didn't get was any idea of what kind of pub it was, what with it being a spur of the moment decision caused by the fact I've forgotten how to write a cheque and a temporary chemical imbalance.
It's, like, totally an old man pub. And there are only so many times I can smile and laugh when someone adjusts their teeth and says, "If I were fifty year younger, I'd so ask you out." One man asked me if I was 'doing anyone'. I actually shuddered, so hard I spilled half a pint.

"Hey, how you doin'?" he asked. "You know you walk like a model?"
"Does that line work on anybody?"
"I can see its working on you," and he sort of leered at me through his eyebrows, when one of his drinking compatriots stumbled into him, delivered his speech, then threw up.
"Hey girl, he puttin' the moves on you? You should do 'im! I used to live in the flat opposite 'is, and I could, like, hear 'is wife screamin'. Through, like, the walls."
"Do you know him?" the first pensioner asked me.
"Oh yes, of course. I figured more *guys* would hit on me if it looked like I had friends, so I hired him." Long pause. Overwhelming urge to ruin the sarcasm with clarification. "Look, I'm bored now. Excuse me, I have pints to pour."

I'm not coping terribly well with people the same age as my own grandparents perving at me and asking me out. I was bitching about my more recent trails and tribulations to a mate who's been barmaiding for many a day.
"Well why not?" she said.
"Why not what?" I asked, utterly utterly lost.
"It's not like you care if you get fired, so why not do one of the guys in the bar?"
"Because they're not guys. That's the whole point. I'm not sure where they boundary is, when they stop being guys, but I'm pretty certain its a fair while before they start getting fitted for false teeth. And anyway, did you not get the part where I said they were all at least sixty?"
"Well what can I say? Stud muffins with no teeth turn me on," she said.
I copied her usual concerned disapproval. "Are you high?"
"Are we role playing? Oh, god, I'm channeling you." Long pause, accompanied by a sudden swatting gesture with both hands. "I don't want to be you!"


Never underestimate teeth. Teeth are very important.