A Melodrama Of Manners

Le scene.

2007-12-18T01:23:00.000Z

I remember when Joel was too busy to get his hands up my top to be mean to me, but apparently he's trying a new tactic now.
And I walk straight into it, every single time.

Me: GoogleEarth is actually amazing.
Rosie: I know! I mean, I can see my French house, and my parents' place in Guadeloupe and -
Me: - Yeah, and you can see the buildings in New York in 3D. Seriously, why would you bother going there at all?
Joel: Because pictures are different?
Rosie: Are they though?
*Talk over my head*
Joel: Think about it like this - Imogen could in theory, spend her nights sitting at home looking at pictures of white wine in plastic cups and pretty boys with gravity defying hair, but I kind of doubt she ever would.

I don't really know clouds at all. Daejeong.

2007-10-17T04:21:00.000+01:00

I never quite got used to crawling through the attic. The windows were irretrievably caked with dirt, casting murky shadows across the dark room, in swirls that showed at some point, someone had tried to clean them. It was hopelessly dark. I'd go up from my bedroom, clambering up on my elbows. Once up, I'd sit with my legs dangling through the hole, eyes shut, for two renditions of Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, until my eyes adjusted. Like I said, I never quite got used to it; my heart would pound and my mouth would go dry. Once my eyes had adjusted - sightless as nightmares - I'd bolt through, often in such a hurry I'd scramble through the eaves on my hands and knees, with no further goal than to make it through the dark and into the light.

My. How very biblical.

I spent every free moment that summer sitting up on the roof. The roof formed an M shape, and the hatch opened out in the middle V part, which sort of flatttened off towards the tip, forming a comfy space to sit. I'd lean against the sloping part of the roof and read, or I'd lie flat on my back and watch the clouds.

It's been a long time since I whiled away an afternoon picking shapes oout of the clouds.

I went on a temple stay, while I was in Korea. Its something I'd had organised for a while - spur of the moment choice, heavily influenced by a desire to spend some time in Seoul and see some of the surrounding area - and then I successfully forgot about it until my plane tickets came through the post.

It was all very exciting. I thought they were a gift from a mystery admirer who wanted to whisk me away for a weekend of consolation sex and champagne, but obviously not.
What I got, though, was a week of meditating and Buddhist teaching, followed by a spontaneous fortnight worth of wandering around Seoul, where I got slapped round the back of the head by an old lady.

The temple stay was amazing. There was a question and answer session on our first night; we sat on the floor with cups of lotus flower tea, and I waited, and I listened, and I got all introspective and curious and asked, "What are we doing here?"

The question was roughly as out of character for me as the rest of the trip.

He gave me a wide beautific smile and said, "We are drinking tea."

Either that was a linguistic glitch - which I doubt, his English was better than mine, lots of multi-syllable words - or a hint to live in the now. Which is my default position, and unfailingly gets me in trouble.

But, for perhaps the first time in my life, I decided to take him at his word.

South Korea, chopstick master class and new friends. Japan, hot springs and a wedding invitation. Russia again, Petersburg and Moscow, a broken wrist. Eastern Europe, backpacking across Poland. Woring in Spain, au pairing and bar work, La Coruna and Madrid, some remembered kisses. Came back briefly as documented, month of absolute unlimited debauchery and good memories before the itchy foot syndrome kicked in. Ran out of money in Italy, where I discovered a side to the country I'd completely missed last time I was there - travelled up from Venice to a small town just up from Rome by public transport and plain luck, and was told that, actually, Italian men aren't rude in the slightest, because if I wasn't so pretty they wouldn't stare, so really it was all my own fault. Concentration camp hop, week of absolute sobriety. Switzerland hike, Oktoberfest, Bulgarian spa, herded sheep in Toulouse, helped thatch a roof in Hereford, helped break apart an interior wall in Hackney-
"Are you sure this is ok? I mean, that's a LOT of building going to come crashing down on top of us if we fuck up."
"Dolly, it's fine. Trust me. Just think about how much lighter it's going to be in here without this wall."
A good excuse if there ever was one to hoist a mallet and start swinging.

Which brings me, pretty much, to where I am now. Which is working in a call centre in Old Street, living in highly embarrassing circumstances in London Bridge and trying to scrape enough money together to move into a flat, pay off my overdraft and be able to stop living off soup and reduced Sainsburys food.

It's certainly something of a comedown for a North London princess such as myself.

I'm back at my mothers' place, house-sitting for a few days, and in a fit of inspiration borne from the fact I'm not smoking this week had me scrambling up into the attic and out the window.
As it turns out, I'm not scared of the dark any more.
It looks like nobody's been up there since I was a child, a good many years ago now - the window was jammed shut from dust, cobwebs and general neglect, and by the time I managed to cajole it open I'd forgotten it was still daylight outside. The light pouring in around the edges of the window made me blink a little, and fall back a step.
I'm not sure I like metaphors.

And on some days that were the very finest of all days she could feel only sunshine and see just a strip of blue sky.

I spent the afternoon lying on the roof in the delicate Autumn sunshine, alternating reading some of my favourite books from my teenage years - sometimes, a little humourous comfort reading is essential to ones emotional survival - with just lying back and watching the clouds pass.

Bringing class where class has never gone before

2007-06-29T10:29:00.000+01:00

Second day in Madrid - the scene.
Imogen is sitting in the beautiful hostel lobby talking to her mother on the phone. She is in a very good mood. Her mother is notably not finding the following exchange amusing in the slightest.
Imogen: So yes, so we're engaged and I'm going to marry him and we'll have lots of little unemployable Polish plumber babies of our own.
The Mother: Imogen. Are you pregnant?
Imogen: Yeah, the abortion laws in Poland are a bit odd, so we figured we might as well factor multiple small children into our plan for future bliss, because he's been married about five times before, and says that nothing ruins a marriage more than the unexpected. Or a free thinking wife.
The Mother: You're coming home, right now.
Imogen: Yeah, he wants to meet you, too, but I told him to wait until after the wedding, because then we may have a small child all of our very own, and then, you know, you could do the whole babysitting thing.

Is it at this point Imogen becomes aware she is being stared at in an utterly brazen manner by a hot bloke wearing the same Led Zeppelin t-shirt as her and a pair of skinny black jeans. Not unlike hers. She terminates the conversation - I must leave off now mummy, she says, ignoring the screeches from the other end. She wanders over towards the lobby vending machine that spits out a can of San Miguel for one euro. Turning away, she is caught by the hot bloke.
Hot Bloke: Was that your mother?
Imogen: Yeah. I had a spare half hour and I like to keep her on her toes.
Hot Bloke: *pauses* You're really fit and I fucking love your sense of humour.
Imogen: Oh. Nice t-shirt.

Ten minutes later. Imogen ad the hot bloke are dancing. The hot guy is coming across as more and more stoned. They are talking about one anothers travel plans.
Hot Bloke: I'm just here for a few days to see Bad Religion play.
Imogen: *scrunches nose* Oh. Right.
Hot Bloke: *catches nose scrunch and enthusiasm* They're awesome! Hey, are you up to much tomorrow night?
Imogen: No plans. No plans for tomorrow, no plans for the next few months.
Hot Bloke: Nothing at all? Hmm. Need somewhere to crash?

Imogen agrees. They book her flight back to London there and then.

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

This was, like, three days ago or something, and now I'm back in London - Holloway, to be more precise - and living with the hot bloke, who from this point on shall be known as Johnny.

It's all very surreal; that first night we went wandering all over Madrid at four am in search of somewhere to have sex (note; on the concrete floor of a building site underneath the lowest tier of scaffolding, might be handy and well hidden, but if you end up on bottom due to limited head room, your back is going to be scratched to shreds and you will, wandering back home through the city at dawn in your white summer dress, look like a rape victim).
By contrast, my first night ack here I was persuaded to go wandering around Holloway with him at four am in search of lemons, toilet paper and cayenne pepper.

Weird things always happen when I try to quit smoking.

We're getting maaaarried in the morrrrrning

2007-06-21T10:54:00.000+01:00

I rather fancy the idea of being a divorcee before I'm twenty-two, I told her.
What are you talking about now?
Oh, yes. Didn't I mention I not only got unceremoniously dumped, but also jilted? At the very altar, so to speak?
What on earth are you talking about, Dolly?
Oh. So I forgot to tell you we were going to get married?

I had it all planned. Hallo, I'd say at those awkward family gatherings and when meeting up with old friends. Did I mention I got married at the weekend? And then I set to work pursuading the groom-to-be, which took remarkably little effort.

Toby said he could think of more sensible jokes. Yes, but with the same amount of comedy potential? I asked. He went on to suggest a plastic flower that squirts water at people, or an electric shock ring.

At this stage, I rather feel I have nothing to lose. Anyone fancy getting hitched? Tickets for Las Vegas, booked and paid for by the absent original fiance. Suitably seedy registry office affair intended, and non-negotiable. Bride-to-be is twenty, a size eight, brunette and a good catch. Even if the original groom-to-be is of a somewhat different opinion.

I used to be a feminist. No point anymore now I'm engaged.

"The great cat burgular of Santiago de Compostela"

2007-06-17T17:23:00.002+01:00

The longer I know you, Alice told me switching from sympathetic to grumpy in a heartbeat when she realised I was focusing on entirely the wrong aspect of the story, the more of a caricature of yourself you become.

I have been mugged four times in the last year.

Thats a nice statement to stand alone, isn't it? First time - Nepal, last summer. I wasn't too embarrassed about it, as he was much bigger than me. I instantly threw myself into exploring all the dramatic outlets of the situation - in terms of police, emails home to friends and family alike, a trip to get what Joel refers to as a Refill but I prefer to term Getting a New Passport, which felt uncannily like I imagine applying for a bank loan would feel, complete with suspicious glances and difficult questions about What I'm Doing With my Life.
The second time was in Yemen last Decemberish. Not very exciting; no verbal interchange, no split second moment of eye contact compounded by heart stopping panic as you wonder exactly how much this is going to hurt. But one knife that struck me even at the time as being somewhat bigger than necessary. But, in all fairness, a pair of nail scissors waved in my general direction in a threatening manner would probably have had me handing over my handbag.
My bad. My tendency to wander around the less touristy areas of a city gets me into trouble fairly often.

I rather felt, at the time, that I was becoming quite the connoisseur of varying mugging techniques. I mean, twice does seem like quite a lot, doesn't it?

I was mugged again in Seoul a few months ago (post on Seoul - intense - and the Buddhist temple retreat - uncharacteristic and a half, but very cool - is forthcoming) by a very big man with hairy knuckles who used my hair to good advantage as leverage to bully me out of my Manolos and my money.

I felt rather like Carrie Bradshaw, except I wasn't in my home town and got to walk home in my barefeet. Ten minutes, but nonetheless.
My fucking Manolos.
Five minutes later, I fished a cigarette out of my jacket pocket and lit up. Nerves, you know. I smoked a lot when I was first learning to drive - high stress situations, both of them. Feeling less like crying I did another inhale - and got whacked round my head by an old lady looking downright furious. I choked on the smoke, had a slight panic attack, then realised my social faux pas.

I found, in the aftermath of that day, a huge amount of dramatic resources to exploit, finding the possibilities endless - you know; teary victim, outraged label queen, indignant fashionista, wry amusement, dry acceptance.

And then, very much more recently, I was in Santiago de Compostela and I got, if you can imagine this, mugged. A-fucking-gain. This time wins hands down over the others though; he was very pretty - I'm a bit cross that about that. Men that pretty don't come along everyday. Or rather, they haven't since I started working in a teeny tiny Galician village you'll never hear of, near Pontedeume which you might hear of one day, near La Coruña. Which is Google-able. Because the only men who've hit on me in the last four months were old men in the street, various inbred looking blokes from the village and the elderly caretaker. More of whom later.

So I'm understandably a bit put out that when a beautiful man does pop up in my sphere, he wants to steal my money.

But, to be fair, girls with character flaws like mine will always have the potential blindspot that makes them likely to give guys who look quite that beautiful all their money.

It's ok. I'm used to it now, I told my mother. I normally adhere to the 'Never tell your mother anything' rule, but . . . dramatic possibilties, you know. He was very gentlemanly about the whole thing, letting me open my purse and just give him the money. Which saves me the whole fuss and bother of canceling my plastic collection. Again.

I hate that this has happened to me so many times I can judge Gentlemanly Mugging Behaviour. Marks out of ten - did they take anything unnecessary? Did they have obscene amounts of body hair on their fists and, perhaps due to some hitherto unrealised hatred of those with decidely less body hair, feel it necessary to inflict pain upon them by tearing out a handful of their own glossy locks? Did they have a very big shiny knife that was waved in your vague direction that means you can't quite remember what they looked like but are pretty sure you could pick the knife out of a line-up?

I hate to admit it but Alice may well have been right. A variety of reactions that I can pick and choose from has always been my default position. It's all to do with defining a sense of self, something I'm working on.

Wallowing in my gaping character flaws

2007-06-15T19:48:00.000+01:00

I remember thinking I was a people person. These days, I have absolutely no idea why.

JOEL: I don't think you're going to be happy with anyone.
ME: So, what, your advice is…? Shack up with someone I’m not happy with and be happy?
JOEL: No, my advice is much more subtle than that, Cupcake. *steals cigarette* Stop being a twat.
ME: *meaningful pause* Well, gosh, why didn't I realise that was the reason? Thanks for being so succinct.
JOEL: I am trying to help you out, you know. You always do this, conjure up some tiny little flaw which you then use to push people away.
ME: Oh fuck me, we've progressed to people? Like, in general? I thought we were talking about boyfriendlies. *fliches cigarette* That must be why I've had trouble following your train of thought.
JOEL: *pissy look, snatches fag back and puts it out* You have a history of this.
ME: Why are you pissed off? OK, OK. *raises hands in mock surrender* Just be sure to let me know when I decide to push you away, then.
JOEL: You're just annoyed because you had the perfect person, you panicked and you blew it.
ME: What are you talking about? He finished with me. Remember that tiny little insignificant detail?
JOEL: We're not talking about him right now. You know you pushed him into it.
ME: *ignores him, lights up, tries not to throw a tantrum* I liked you much better when you were too busy trying to get your hands up my top to psychoanalyse me.
JOEL: Just admit he was the perfect guy for you, get back with him, and then I'll get back to my default position.
ME: *finally realising I'm in over my head* He is so NOT perfect.

Reasons why - I am au-pairing. In rural Nw Spain. Oh yes I am.

2007-05-26T13:16:00.000+01:00

Because you have new boots and a broken heart, because that last big heist didn't go quite to plan, because you accidentally unleashed the forces of darkness, because you can see for miles up here, because you can hear echoes and want to gain perspective, because you want to know just how loudly you can sing, because you want to do a pirouette standing on top of a large sticking up stone on top of a mountain, because you can go days without seeing anybody, because you need to keep moving forward, because the hound of the Baskervilles is on your tail and you sure ain't no Sherlock Holmes, because your boots are dark green and flat and leather and you can wear them with a long warm dress that fits in all the right places and pretend you're a Toast model, because you've spent too many days hiding under the sofa craving toast, because your liver can't handle anything else, because you have new jeans that need wearing in, because you can, because running for the hills has become a default position, because for the first time in a long time you can do this without feeling bad about the people you've left behind, because you've lost your eyeliner, because you think you've lost all your confidence, because you hear fresh air is good for mending weeping wounds, because you can feel yourself closing back up again, because you want to run until your lungs burn and your cheeks turn pink, because someone once told you that in their dreams sheep are heroes, because you want to stop and stare and leave the habitual asking questions part of you at the bottom of the hill for later, because you're damned if you're going to go back there again, because you'll never come back here after this one last time, because pirates have big swords and sharp parrots, because just for a little while you want to be transparent or opaque, either one will do, but you want to stop living as a reflection.

We must all still work these things out for ourselves.

Class snobbery. Grin.

2007-04-16T12:30:00.000+01:00

I remember my boarding school has a very interesting take on volunteering. Yes it did. I heard a little while ago about that lovely spot where people's sat nav systems try to steer them off the edge of a cliff, all in the name of putting a new spin on reaching ones final destination. This reminds me of back in the day, when we (ie, a select few) were roped into helping out with the school Open Day. I think there were about three of these hallowed events a year; the whole school would go into lockdown - all vaguely inappropriate posters would be torn from walls by irate masters, the hilarious Six Inch Rule was firmly enforced, and miscreants would be forced into penal servitude.
Just in time for this particular open day, we (select few, again. Sigh. Do we have to do this everytime?) got caught drinking. Scandal, you might well say. We acted as buffer for the usual tirade, then, perhaps noticing our eyes glazing over as result of somewhat tedious repetition and gin swigged straight from the bottle, were enlisted for the Open Day grounds team.

Fuck, was the universal (sigh. Select few) concensus.

The next two days were spent scrubbing *hilarious* notes off of the inside of toilet cubicles and pretending to be hard at work peeling gum from the bottom of desks. Ick. We were very hard worked. Much absued. This was somewhat unaccustomed exertion. The afternoon before Open Day officially commenced, us select few were given the job of arranging cones around campus, from the school gates that were only ever opened so invitingly wide for these occasions where prospective parents would, ideally, decide to fork out upwards of twenty grand a year into the coffers of the school, to the designated parking areas. We were a little bit drunk again by this time, that having proved to be the only way to come through the indignity of going against all our years of training into being good at exploiting the exploits of others and claiming it as our own - such is basically what we were taught. And how to carry such theft off with grace and aplomb.
Essentially, physical work was, is, whatever, something of a task for the lower orders.

We decided to move the cones from the pre-ordained path, carefully drawn in pink highlighter on the detailed maps of the school grounds that were given to each of us. Casting these aside with nary a guilty thought, we, shielded by the rapidly falling dusk, moved the cones so they lead prospective investors on a very round-about to the lake. And no further.

We actually got away with it. Which made a bloody nice change. Vandals! was the cry in the corridors, as pupils rushed about measuring their own skirts (this os clearly the girls. You didn't think members of boy and girlkind slept in the same dorms, did you? Heathens *smirk*) and applying make-up in a way we all excelled at; perfecting the art of putting on make-up so subtly thats nobody can tell you have any on. Us select few over slept quite drastically, missing breakfast, but not oversleeping enough for our nocturnal activities *grin* to become apparent. And, lets face it, this is me. I have never been good at getting up before lunchtime.

As we shuffled out, blinking, into the light, we were greeted with the cheery sight of one long traffic queue, tailing back out of the gates and lost to view. We walked around a bit, trying to look like we'd been there the whole time, honest, and confused. Confused was a look we all mastered back in our first term. Turned out, one of the parents had actually driven his car into the lake; the collective thought was, is it normal to put quite that much faith in external things?

And then it occured to me, Isn't that exactly what they were doing sending their kids to public school?

So, anyhow, what I'm wondering is, that sat nav thing. How close to the edge were these people before they decided the system must be wrong?

Oh stay home my lad and plough.

2007-04-14T01:03:00.000+01:00

The rumour mill had it right, for a change. I heard the whisper, caught the worried glances sent furtively my way, and refused to believe it. I got up and walked out, away from my friends, made my way to his building. I had a key, let myself in, and everything hit me all at once, feeling exactly as if he had sent my whole life supperless to bed.

It came out of the blue, like one of those winter showers that chills you to the bone, the effects present long after the rain has stopped. One day you are, awfully, content, and the next day it's all swept out from beneath your feet.

He still seemed to be present, as I trawled desperately through the dark flat looking for reason; it was as though I might turn around and see him sprawled on the couch, the white cat curled up on his chest, his fingers absentmindedly knotted in her long coat the pose I'd seen him fall into so many times before. He'd taken practically nothing with him, everything was still in place, with the addition of the word SORRY written, incongruously, on the dishwasher with fridge magnets. The childish overtones made me laugh, a short harsh shocked sound; the boy never apologises for anything.

"I had a feeling if I didn't try everything, my life would be wasted," he said to me later. "You understand about boredom, don't you, Cupcake?"

Taped to the tap was a photo of him dressed in regulation khaki. I took the cat with me when I left.

Summary of today

2007-03-27T16:17:00.000+01:00

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

2007-03-27T10:33:00.000+01:00

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)...

2007-03-25T12:30:00.000+01:00

... 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.

2007-03-23T15:06:00.000Z

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

2007-03-20T00:40:00.000Z

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

2007-03-19T16:16:00.000Z

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

2007-03-18T05:52:00.000Z

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..."

2007-03-15T02:39:00.000Z

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

2007-03-12T15:39:00.000Z

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

2007-03-12T00:56:00.000Z

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

2007-03-11T21:15:00.000Z

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

2007-03-07T14:37:00.000Z

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

2007-03-02T09:51:00.000Z

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

2007-03-01T18:14:00.000Z

"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

2007-03-01T13:36:00.000Z

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.

Life under fall-out conditions

2007-02-28T15:59:00.000Z

I grew up in an isolated farmhouse in South Wales; a teensy village called Llangattock, in fact, although I gather it's a little larger these days. I was ten years old when I fled to boarding school, returning only under protest for holidays.
Of all my memories for this period, the most powerful is full of unpleasant sensory imagery - to me now. As I recall, when I was a child I found the prospect of snow somewhat thrilling; the texture, the colour changes it could bring about in skin, temperament and landscape. The possibilities.

I loved, and still adore, ice-skating. The first time I went was with my father; I remember standing nervously by the side of the rink, swaddled in layers of hand-me down jumpers, with my mouth half open beneath the knit cap as I watched total strangers glide across the ice. I spent the usual hour or three falling down in between alternating my death grip on the wooden rail or my fathers index finger. I must only have been five years old, six tops. I got a little ambitious after managing a complete lap of the rink without taking a tumble, and asked, "Do you think, if you skated long enough in one place, you could make it like nobody else had ever skated there?"

I still feel that. I loved snow for exactly the same reason; but our love affair had a life expectancy totally dependent on my childhood.

My particular memory of snow, however, is from the winter it snowed so hard we couldn't leave the house for a week. The front door was frozen shut; we were climbing in and out of the windows all week. I used to do that anyway, because I was a decidedly odd child, but this was legitimate clambering across window sills, and it was almost as thrilling as snow that came over the tops of your wellies and weather that froze the big duck pond over to the extent we could skate on it; in trainers or riding boots or wellies, and with one eye cocked towards the house. Because that was considerably less legit than the windows.

I have never been an early riser. That first morning of snow I was woken by the onslaught of my two big brothers, armed with snow scraped from window sills and shoving it determinedly down the front of my blue and yelllow checked pyjamas. This first day, I was the victim, coming awake with a start and a handful of Russian swear words - established for the simple reason neither of my parents understood it. I've since heard most children choose French for this, but my question is, why? Russian is the greatest language ever to swear in, and there are so many options. I nagged and begged and cajoled many many of these choice words and phrases out of the Russian au pair, alternating between tears and sweetness until she agreed. Surprisingly, she wasn't hugely keen on my mother. I was five years old. After that first morning, I learned once and for all the value of forging alliances.

Through my determined machinations, I didn't fall victim to ambush again that week.

Now, consider the state of my dander.

2007-02-26T21:54:00.000Z

This evening, I have been forcibly brought to the conclusion that all the people I know who are 'even vaguely' feministy* disapprove of my tendency to sit on the floor.
To be more specific, they deplore my predilection of sitting on the floor by the arm chair** my boyfriend might be sitting in, on the rug I've been bitching about since day one, close to a fireplace that may or may not have a fire raging within.
It just doesn't look good, they say. You're the arrogant thespian, one said, charmingly I feel, so you know about the importance of visual leveling in revealing the inner working of the characters. Subconsciously, you clearly think he's more important than you, and I feel you have to come to realise this. And another, addressing Stuart, why the fuck do you get the seat? Why the fuck do you let*** her sit on the floor?
Left to my own devices, I will sit on the floor. Give me a room with a chair, a rug, a book and a fireplace and I'll be content curling up as close to the fire as possible until my skin starts to crackle and burn and I run out of reading material.
Once upon a time, I missed a General Studies exam when I was in college - definitely back in the day - in favour of staying home by the fire and reading, if memory serves, War and Peace. It was certainly more useful to me, even if I did get a U in the overall A-level. My bad.
Give me a room with just a chair, a rug and a book, and I'd suggest, now I've been trammelled into thinking about it, to look for me at knee height, with my legs curled under me and my back leaning against the chair.
Whether the chair is filled or not makes no difference, but since people have been objecting not so much to me sitting on the floor but to me quite clearly sitting at somebodys feet, I have to defend myself on another count. And it requires introspection. God, how dull. I am entirely too given to erecting emotional blockades at the drop**** of a hat to allow myself to do what I want to do without thinking about it first; actually, that's not quite right. I'm too impulsive for that to work out on any level, so let's go with the specifics. I'm quite a touchy-feely girl, something which, like, totally***** stems from my mother being a complete she-wolf who practices emotional terrorism like she's going for gold and not giving me enough affection/ attention as a child. But I don't really let myself indulge these touchy-feely tendancies.

Except, y'know, with people I'm boffing and have been boffing for long periods of time.

Six months or maybe thereabouts in******, and I've been sitting on the floor, by whichever chair he's sitting in - generally, lucky for me and my reluctance to be importune and ask him to do something for me, this is the one closest to the elecky fire - leaning against his legs with my arm round them.
Like a pet one of them said. My. Blood. Boiled.

It's nothing to do with my subconscious desire to subjugate myself to the Man and very much out dated social values. Nothing to do with my letting the side down, as one of them put it, as women like you she went on to say, would cast the whole feminist movement back a century. Oh yes, because of course the fact I like touching someone I care about isn't the real point here, it's quite clearly an expression of my very very well hidden inner belief that I'm just a girl and should defer to the man in my life.
Oh, please. If I'd been a cat, my hackles would have hit the rafters, and hissing would be a very real option. Instead, because I'm too emotionally stunted, I stayed sitting on the floor and took pity on Stuart who was looking utterly pissed off and uncomfortable and told them to get the fuck out. Postponing the rest of the argument for another day. Then felt the need to write it down before bedtime, because writing stuff down is how I get my head round things, it adds high definition to previously unclear footage. I can read what I've written and know exactly what I am all about.

It's all very much to do with the fact it just makes me feel better. Comfortable, comforted, whatever. And any discomforting psychological analysis of that can fuck right off. And I'm sure the rights of the subjugated female can be better protected elsewhere.
I'm very much of the newly encountered position that if I can touch him without curling up in his lap to do it, which strikes me as very unpractical if I were to do it for hours at a time and also a little too PDA (when company is present, of course) for my liking, and if I can do it while maintaining my habitual motion of eschewing furniture for the floor, then I'd call it more a previously totally unconscious act that makes me happy without compromising my previous stance regarding seating arrangements.

* Actually, make that, 'totally fucking bonkers'. We are not amused. Feminist was their word, not mine.
** It's a bachelor pad. Lots of arm chairs. Totally designed for the family that is the clan of the single male.
*** And I'm seeing just a smidgeon of hyposrisy right there. Huh, let me indeed.
**** Add 'tilt' and 'possible slip' to that.
***** American accent duly inserted for those last few words? Good good.
****** He's more romantic and less of a slut than I am, so he reckons its longer than I'm giving it. I'm also less decisive than he is, so I just sort of compromised and went for a half way mark that I'm not about to defend because no jury would acquit me if monogamy was, like, a decisive marker.

Puppies.

2007-02-24T20:31:00.000Z

"You?"
"Yes."
"You?"
"Yes."
"That's huge! You're, like, a mother. You're, like, married! Omigod! *long pause* Hang on. You?"
__________

"Babe," he said, with his arm slung around me as we walked to the bar. "How about we get a puppy?"
I sort of sputtered rainwater. It was beautiful. "A puppy? The small furry kind that eats shoes and books?"
"A puppy. Yes."
"I think you could have a puppy, and be a wonderful parent. But me? As well? Really, really not so much. I'm mean, I have a bipolar bitch scale and I'd have to murder it if it chewed any of my things." There was a long pause, which I decided to fill before his thought process reached the, My girlfriend really is slightly odd, stage. "Oh come on. No court would convict me."
"How can you not like puppies?"
"Of course I like puppies. But from a distance. In fact, I feel every partybash should come with a puppy, just so the host doesn't feel obliged to keep the person sitting by themself on the couch company. And so they have something to keep them looking occupied, keeping people from thinking they're socially inept. And holding a puppy would make someone more approachable, I guess... But actually, thinking about it, I'm not sure I'd advise cuddling a puppy on the couch for the whole evening if you're just after sex. I mean, a puppy is a very, well, easy child substitute. Semantics." I said, swiping at the rainwater inching its way down my nose. "If you want a puppy, get one. I might even babysit from time to time, but... we cannot get a dog. I mean, I'm not sure there's enough We for that. There's definitely not enough Me, but I'm pretty sure there's enough You."

He smiled at me and tugged at a straggling piece of hair. "Are we here again?"
"No, this isn't me locking you out. But, a pet? Please. I can't see myself as ever a dog owner. You'll have to find some other way to satisfy your paternal urges. Or you can come to grips with the idea of it being just your dog. But I guess that would make you a single parent, which I hear is tough."

He pushed the hair back behind my ear where rain drenched hair belongs.
"Ah," I said. "You've already paid for the thing, haven't you?"
"Sure have, doll."

Pause.

"Oh, right, fine. Call it Manet."

No. Not so much.

2007-02-23T17:39:00.000Z

"What happened to the blonde?" Lewis asked me. I frowned at him for a moment as he sort of stroked clumsily at my hair, then decided to forgive him; he's moving to Dubai next week, and I anticipate something of a shortage of blonde locked girls.
"I haven't been blonde in weeks, love. But it had to go, it was rousing too much speculation."
"Like?"
"It was unfavourably likened to a mermaid. Oh, and I got called a sloane."
He laughed. The bastard laughed. "Let's look at this, shall we babe? I know your mummy has the pony thing going on, so I know you can ride--"
"--but I don't."
"--You had peroxide blonde hair, and you own a pashmina--"
"--that's not fair! You can't discriminate against me because of that! I defy you to find a girl who doesn't!" Slightly over wrought.
"You took your hair straightners to Yemen with you--"
"--Yemen. Not, ah, Rock."
"--and you went to public school, and are, safe to say, pretty much a Londoner."

I made a conscious effort to smooth out the frown lines. I refuse to turn into my mother.

"This isn't a bad thing though."
"And how, sir, do you work that one out?"
"I thought the blonde look was dead nice. *pauses* It reminded me, you know Phoebe?"
"Um. The one you hooked up with? The high jump champion who superseeded me when I was relieved of my position as Head Girl."
"Yep."
"The one who had ring worm?"
"Um--"
"--and announced her lesbian status at the end of year ball while on stage with the gym mistress?"

Ahh, high school friends. Much appreciated.

Yes. Do let's bring that up as much as possible.

2007-02-19T23:11:00.000Z

I'm not sure they were ignoring us so much as we were just failing to register with them, while they debated the respective merits of those, uh, you know those things you get in airports that are either flat escalators or moving pavements? Those. And my amazing lack of technical knowledge has spectacularly just ruined all semblance of sentencical flow.

"Hellooo," she called, long, low and drawn out. No response. "Hey!" she tried again, on the bring of losing her temper. "Did you know Imogen's not wearing any knickers?"

I am not, however, going to talk about my breasts.

2007-02-19T22:49:00.000Z

I have of late - but wherefore I know not - come to a decision about my ongoing indecision to take up a place of permanent abode.
One reason for this would be laziness, pure and simple. The other is that I am a slatternly house keeper, but this is not news. The main reason for this is that I have a lot of clothes. Which only becomes a bad thing because I hate doing laundry. Pure and simple. Except today I ran out of clean knickers and was therefore forced to abandon all my plans and spent the day in penance: in pyjamas, eating ice-cream out of the container like the slatternly house keeper I appear to be.

"So how was your day babe?"
"Um. I watched the whole first season of Buffy and I finished the cheddar. And I ate half a container of ice-cream."
"That good, huh?"
"Absolutely. Did you know there's an actual Techno Pagan in Buffy?"

There was a bit of a tangent there for a while. Much mirth. Where do they come up with these things?

But knickers. That's what this post was about.
"But what do I do? I'm all out of clean clothes. How do you still have clean clothes to wear? Have you been doing laundry without me?"
He lobbed a bit of satsuma at me from his place of safety behind the breakfast bar.
"Hey! If you get these dirty, what, may I ask, will I be wearing then?"

*pause*

"Oh. OK, fine. I'll do some laundry."
"If you're still hunting for a place to live that isn't here--"
"-- I haven't decided." *folds arms, waits*
"-- maybe you should start considering answering one of those more creepy flatmate ads? You know, Female flatmate wanted. No rent required provided she's willing to walk round naked, sort of thing."

I was eyeing the remains of the ice-cream at the time, and it struck me that maybe putting myself in a place where I'd be naked a large proportion of the time might not be to my advantage. Particularly if it was just my sheer bloody mindedness that got me there. There was another pause while I mulled over my options.

"Maybe, maybe I'll just buy some new clothes. How about that?"

At the time I may not have been wholly serious. But I'm begining to worry about my waistline - another day alone in the flat and Stuart might come home to find his girlfriend crouching on top of the worksurfaces with wall tiles sticking out of her mouth. And then the game is up.
Mail ordering some new clothes is seeming more and more like a possibility every moment.

She's from Poland, to be fair...

2007-02-18T13:07:00.000Z

I sauntered over to the car taking advantage of the ridiculous hour* to cross the road without looking and said "I've just had an epiphany."
She leaned across and opened the door for me. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" she asked. "I hear they're bad for your heart."

* 4am. And not by choice. It's tough trying to be a social recluse with friends.

Is it any wonder?

2007-02-05T22:59:00.000Z

I was nine years old when I stumbled upon the book Death, Dissection and the Destitute while going through the book shelves in search of Treasure Island. It was certainly a grand coming to terms with what my mother as Dr. and head of department deals with on a daily basis. I sort of waved the book at her at the time, expecting admonishment and an apology- and she told me to read it, because it was 'utterly fascinating.' I flicked through it. Lots of long words. Lots of mental images that haunted me for years.

I thought that this moment in all its rather gory glory (sorry, sorry) couldn't be topped; but actually it turns out I was wrong. My mother is currently applying for a pay rise at her hospital and has left little written notes to herself scrawled on envelopes around the house -
Reason to grant this No. 2: Have identified weakness in departmental and trust protocols for handling the bodies of dead patients.

This time my coming face to face with her job doesn't come complete with pictures, so you'd think it would be monumentally less vivid. You'd be wrong.

I did, of course, have to ask about this. I don't care if it turned up again - they lost a corpse on its way to the hospital morgue. They. Mislaid. A. Corpse.

I hate my imagination right now.

__________________

Two week hiatus. Back soon.

There's a guy been awake since the second world war

2007-01-29T12:59:00.000Z

"You're hurting yourself," Joel took the comb away from me and started to fix the mess I'd made. "Do you remember when we were kids, and you used to get grounded all the time for refusing to let your mother comb your hair?"
"I remember you getting me grounded for a lot more than that. What about it?"
"You used to hide under the bed rather than let her do it."
"I only stopped when I gave myself concussion by banging my head against the bottom of the bed." I looked at him in the mirror, and he smiled at me for a second.

"But you have a choice," he said, still combing my hair gently, "I guess you can either hide under the bed, or work through the knots."

2006-12-18T10:18:00.000Z

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.

2006-12-14T10:04:00.000Z

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?

2006-12-12T02:19:00.000Z

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?

2006-12-06T01:43:00.000Z

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.

2006-11-27T14:43:00.000Z

I was sort of hovering in the kitchen, debating the relative merits of white wine vs slightly stale prawn crackers (part of a much wider debate currently raging between liquids and solids) when Stuart rang.
"How are you babe?"
"Having a dilemma. What do you think, white wine or prawn crackers?"
"Isn't it 10am with you? It's just a suggestion, but hold off the wine for another two hours at least."
"But, if you were to open a bottle of wine now as well, then that would have us drinking at the same time. Which would take some of the stigma of drinking at breakfast off me. Somewhat."
A pause in which I could tell he was trying not to roll his eyes.
"No. So what are you doing?"
"Trying to open this bottle. You have any idea how hard it is trying to use a corkscrew and hold a phone?"
"And carry out a conversation at the same time?"
"Don't be rude."
"Hang on, since when were there prawn crackers in my flat?"
"I'm not at yours, I'm at my mothers. It's great fun."
"Really?"
"No. I'm hungry. And I can't open this bottle."
"Why aren't you at the flat, eating real food?"
"Because I don't live in your flat."
"You were too living there until a few nights ago."
"Non, I was visiting until a few nights ago. As a guest. That's different from living; the first implies sex, the second committment and wardrobe space."
"I guess I can clear out a few shelves."
"Now why would you do that?"
"I'm not entirely sure; I think it has something to do with wanting sex five nights out of seven."

My boyfriend. What a charmer.

2006-11-25T23:47:00.000Z

Bristol-Myers Sqibb is (are?) running a click-if-you-want-to-donate website promotion to fund AIDs research. $1 per click.

Here.

General distaste for all them giant evil phamaceutical companies aside for just a moment, you know what to do.

2006-11-24T00:24:00.000Z

A handful of days before Stuart abandoned me in favour of Australia, I spent the afternoon with Alice, as she helped me keep away from Stuart's place, and, more importantly, guys day.
"Whats your plan for the day babe? A few of the guys are coming over later, if you fancy stopping in with us?"
"Guys day? I think I'll give it a miss. Thanks though."

Ten minutes later: "Alice! What're your plans for today? Nothing? Good. It's 'guys day', and I need someone to play with."
"What, you don't want to stay in with the guys?"
"Now why on earth would I want to do that?"
"However will they cope without someone's tag along girlfriend there to hand round the beer and order pizza?"

Nine hours later: "Thanks for rescuing me Alice. I'll see you Monday, yeah?"

Ten minutes later: "Hey! Hows it going?" *wades through discarded cans, bottles and cardboard pizza boxes to kiss Stuart hello*
"Oh, hey there missy."
"Imogen!"
"Yo, hows it hangin'?"
"Hey doll!"
"Alright Im?"
"Alright sunshine?"
"Hiya stranger!"

*Everyone turns back to the game, except Stuart*

"I like your hair babe... what colours have you had done?"
"Pink, blue, purple I think. He got a bit carried away. So it's a keeper?"
"Sure thing" *pauses* "Can you pass me a beer? Fridge, bottom corner." *passes beer wordlessly* "hey, does anyone else want another beer?" *noises of assent from all round*
"Babe? Could you get that?"

Going mad by inches

2006-11-22T12:00:00.000Z

I'm staying at my mothers, and I'm in the house, on my own, for the third day in a row, and I'm experiencing the dramatic failure of my ability to keep myself entertained- I've watched all the current episodes of both Torchwood and The Office and am making a start on Doctor Who, from Cap'n Jack's entry onwards (John Barrowman, far far far too enthusiastic for me, but Captain Jack? Oh my good lord but he's hot).

I've also made a cake I have no intention of eating and am on my sixth cup of coffee.

Oh, and I woke up at half seven this morning. God's justice. It really is amazing what you can accomplish by getting up before mid-afternoon. Oh, if only there was anything to acomplish. Literally. Anything.

I'm so bored I can't stand myself.

If you'd like to tell me something good, something interesting, something fun or funny or even peculiar, I would be very grateful.

Failing that, I'll take up knitting. Or teach myself croquet.

EDIT: 13:03
Exactly how bored would one have to be to play croquet on ones own?

2006-11-18T00:59:00.000Z

Last night I had what's possibly the outing of all outings- of outings up North, anyway; London outings have amongst them one of the S Club Juniors trying to pick me up; how can anything beat that?
(Incidentally, I was unbelievably upset when I found out who it was- he sent someone over "Excuse me, miss? I'm representing someone who'd really like to be introduced to you..." that sort of thing. So of course I went, thinking, Robbie Williams, Johnny Depp. Those sort of lines.)

So last night we were curled up in a corner of one of my favourite places, the Mint Lounge (one time burlesque club, but that proved too risque for the Mancunians, so no longer).
I was sulking as a result of a foray into another club- "You look like you need a Screaming Orgasm!" the over friendly guy at the bar said, grinning manically. "Um, no. Thanks though." I turned away and asked, "Just how soul destroying do you imagine it must be to have to ask every girl who walks in here if she wants a hilariously named cocktail?"
"Cupcake. You are such a brat," he said, slipping an arm round my waist and kissing my cheek. Then he leant round me, "Actually, I think she'd be more than up for that Screaming Orgasm."
"No!" I interrupted before he got round to asking the guy if he was free. "White wine would be good though, thanks."

Then a guy came wandering over and, sitting by Joel, murmured something indistinct.

"What?" Joel yelled over the music.

"Uh, hi, I'm *insert name of choice here as I have forgotten it*."

"Hi, I'm Joel..."

"I just wanted to say mate, like, your really hot! Like, don't you worry mate, its safe cos I'm straight, but I'd so do you if I wasn't!"

I poked my head round Joel's shoulder and smiled- "Yes, that's fabulous mate, but is it safe for you?"

"Uh, what?"

Joel gave me a pissy glance, then ignored me. "Right. Thank you."

"Are you, like..."

I leaned over again, but before I could say anything, the stranger chimed in with- "I really wanna kiss you!"

I choked on my wine while trying not to laugh- smooth, very smooth. Both of us.

"Uh, no. No. Sorry, I have a girlfriend and I'm not gay..." Joel said, trying to throw his arm round me. I moved away; he can get himself out of his own corners.

The stranger twitched, visibly- "Mate I'm like, in a band? A big one?"

Impassive faces all round- well, actually, that's not true in the least; I sniggered and then bit my lip.

"Yeah, so am I," Joel said.

What a fibber that boy is. I leaned over to tell the stranger that, "I'm sure we could come to terms. Just how famous is this band of yours?"

And then I noticed his ear piercing.

Now, I'm no piercing snob- my ears and one nipple have born (it was a mistake. I was drunk, she was a) hot and b) a piercist in training and c) very persuasive about it) testimony to this, but... I have two pet hates- three, if I'm being unusually harsh. These are as follows; tongue piercings and those things, I'm not sure what the technical term is, but when people stretch the initial ear piercing?

*shudders*

Worse than fishnet, let me tell you.

My other pet hate, piercingwise, is bullrings. No no no. Just no. Never acceptable.

But, to get back on track, this guy had his left ear stretched to the point where I could quite easily see the other side of the room through it- well, if the room wasn't engulfed in a cloud of smoke, anyway.

The stranger smiled then. "Very"

"Oh?" I asked. Bored now the comedy value had worn off, I went back to exchanging smiles with one of the bouncers across the room; I have a short enough attention span when left to myself, but his piercing had done him no favours, at all- pity, cos it must have hurt lots.

Joel obviously decided then he hadn't had enough alcohol to deal with the whole shebang, filched my glass, downed its contents and then did what he assures me any normal person would do in the same situation- he glanced at his (watchless) wrist then slapped his head, like he'd forgotten an appointment. Then ran off and hid in the loos.

Yes, that's right. What sort of idiot has an appointment in the loos?

The stranger followed him, happily leaving me his drink- "Do you want this? I don't think I'm going to need it," he said.

2006-11-13T19:12:00.000Z

It's that time of year again; the last of the yellowing leaves are clinging desperately to certain trees, giving a slightly shabby and decadent air to streets that, in every other season, would instead be described as respectable. I always associate this time of year with coal fires and steaming clothes hung before the fire to dry, and with toffee apples and chestnuts; despite not liking either one. Joel did, and so they're laced with my consciousness. This time of year also heralds the start of the Christmas rush; I'll be out in the street whether in Liverpool, Manchester or London and if I run into a crowd, I think "Oh, nearly Christmas. Better not leave present shopping til the last minute again!" in the sort of mock jovial tone I always use, unintentionally, when I talk about Christmas. When I think of winter I see drab, overcast weather, but when I think of Christmas? I see clear skies; I see walking through Piccadilly Gardens clad in silly hat, scarf and coat, mittened hand held tight by my companion, our breath rising in clouds before us.
Memory is instant coffee and smoke. He was there with me, Starbucks and cigarette clasped in the same bare hand, the other never letting go of mine for an instant, not even when he misjudged the coffee:tilt ratio, getting the drag on his cigarette but losing half his coffee to the street beneath our feet. On that night, we had the whole place almost to ourselves.
I was cold, hurt and lonely, not wanting to go home, so we spent those early hours of the morning outside, sitting by the fountain necking vodka and smoking excessively, talking, talking, talking. He invited me back to his, "Everybody's gone home for Christmas cupcake, we'll have the place to ourselves," and the usual connotations weren't there, everything we'd been torturing the other with for the last few weeks. I went, and eventually I fell asleep on his chest, the first time in days. I woke up on the sofa with his arms wrapped around me as he slept, his cheek pressed against mine, and everything made sense, because I wasn't cold or hurting or lonely.
I just lay there for a while, while he radiated warmth. He smelt of smoke, the kind of smoke you get from a wood fire, not tobacco, and, under that, expensive bubble bath. Everything I love. And I realised, that everything we'd said, everything we'd done didn't mean we didn't love one another, or that we wouldn't be there when the other was cold.

"Do you love me more than the wallpaper?" I asked, batting my eyelashes

2006-11-13T15:37:00.000Z

A little while ago I posted a picture here of my good self, most notable for a) the blonde locks and b) the hideous hideous wall paper. Anyone remember?
Good, because this is, is fact, relevant.

I'm currently dossing at Stuart's flat- and he really is being remarkably good about both my current late night obsessions; volunteer work in Mexico and the whole novel writing frenzy. But really, either the wallpaper goes, or I do.
It's that simple. Not all of it, but some, is... check- "My mother chose it when I moved in," he said.

Bloody straight men. I might have to marry him just because thats the only way in hell I'll be allowed to redecorate. And keep a roof over my head. Otherwise, anyone want to offer me floor space?

2006-11-09T20:25:00.000Z

What's happening in Mexico or Syria at the moment? Ideally I should be living like a monk and saving saving saving so I can go find out.

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

And then I started playing with GoogleEarth. It's all very marvellous, isn't it? I mean, one needn't actually go to all the effort of travel when you can just sit at your desk and look at the pictures, read the footnotes.

And then I made the mistake of mentioning this to Stuart. "Isn't that roughly the same as expecting you to sit in with a photo of a bottle of vodka and some cute guys?" *pause* "I don't think it'll ever take off... this whole not taking off thing you're talking about."

2006-11-06T18:34:00.000Z

A slightly raucous drinking session recently lead to the conclusion that I had the education of an early twentieth century public school boy, from the study of classics to the wearing of the grey stockings and the grey hat. That being so, and I can't deny it however much I may wish to, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to know that my homelife as a child wasn't exactly normal either. We had a cook, a cleaner, a live-in nanny and a gardener, who, like all gardeners of the time period that I've ever read about, had a shed at the bottom of the garden, in which There Be Dragons.
We were allowed in his shed by invitation only. I remember plotting a coup with my to older brothers; the plan was to barricade ourselves inside one afternoon- but we lost our nerve. If memory serves, we snuck down the far corner of the garden and, in deadly silence, each of us twitchy as three twitchy things, opened the shed door- at which point we lost our nerve and fled. He was off with us for days after; again, if memory serves, this event fell around the time of the village fete, where the Clarke family traditionally did Something. My oldest brother, James, entered a batch of brownies that never made it to the fete, being eaten/ fed to the ducks on the half hour walk there. Being the only girl and the cooks favourite, I entered a sponge cake, and won second prize for it- I took it home with me and delivered it to the shed, rosette and all, in what, if you take my age (five and a bit) into consideration, remains one of my most elaborate apologies to date.
Crossing him lead to dire fates, such as not being shown where the birds nests were, being told on if we went climbing the trees, and not being given the pick of the crop; you could measure how high up in his favour you were by whether it was you he gave the first few raspberries to or not. He'd give us cucumbers from the greenhouse, and egg shells. I never could tell duck eggs and those of birds apart once they were in the pieces a hatching will inevitably render a beautiful eggshell to (and here, for some reason, two things pop into my head. Firstly, Margaret Attwood's The Handmaid's Tale, "happiness is an egg", and also the phrase "you can't make an omelette without cracking eggs.")
If invited, one could go into his shed and keep him company while he worked. Sometimes we'd sit in silence and I'd watch him weaving twine together (for the life of me I can't remember what he was making or what he used it for), his hands, twisted with arthritis following the pattern easily, if not as deftly as he had done. He taught me how to whistle using two blades of grass, and he'd tell me stories about his childhood. He was a gruff character, easy to offend but quick to forgive, kind and more than kind to the children who pestered him, getting under his feet as he worked. I think he's one of the people who shaped me most as a child, this man who's temper would flash, sudden and unexpected as lightning, and over just as quickly.
He had a limp that we accepted, as children do, as just the way of things- it was only much later that I learned, from another source, that it was a remnant from the war. I simply can't understand this silence of old soldiers. In the way of spoiled children with over-active imaginations, we'd tell one another stories that featured him- in one he'd be a character not unlike the farmer in Peter Rabbit, in another he'd be the dashing war hero- and I think, looking back, that it was the dashing part of that that made us laugh the most.

I heard today that he died last night, Charlie Hamilton.

I hate the memory of us giggling at him.

2006-11-06T12:53:00.000Z

Get rid of an unwanted character by having him pressed ganged into the navy. Bonus points if the story is not set in southern England during the period between the Tudor era and Napoleonic War, said one of the forum threads.

And thats how I'm going to stop that bloody minor character from hijacking the plot. I don't, as such, have one yet, but I know what I want does not centre around someone who keeps arguing with me and won't do what they're told. But I can't see how he'll get out being press ganged, since I don't know anything like enough about the navy to get him out of trouble.

And yes, since you asked, my veneer of sanity is slipping.

2006-11-04T21:21:00.000Z

Because I'm in such a good mood, I bring you-
Things I hate.

1. James Blunt.
2. Texas. Went there once. Someone bit me.
3. 'lol'. 'nuf said, I think.
4. The Palace theatre, Manchester. I don't know why, I just do.
5. Name games.
6. Apples with a deceivingly crisp outside and a fluffy centre.
7. The phrase 'significant other'.
8. Ditto 'other half'.
9. Significant others who buy me teddy bears. Just what, pray tell, am I expected to do with them?
10. Girls who describe themselves as 'sassy'. Put your waps away.
11. People who don't like the word cunt. Stop being such a girl about it.
12. Margaret Attwood. I made a complete twat out of myself in front of her recently, by dint of going with bog standard "I love your work!" that I use as opening lines when meeting famous people. Generally goes better- see Will Young, Stephen Fry, Brian Molko and... well, on with the list.
13. Artfully posed photos on MySpace. Look, we all know that just because tilting your face down and looking up at the camera makes you look cute in that picture, its a sure sign of a minger. Just accept it and stop plastering pictures of yourself all over t'interweb.
14. MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and all these other things people are obsessing about. With the exception of YouTube.
15. Looking in the mirror when drunk.
16. People who insist on taking photos of you when drunk/ hungover.
17. People who spell their names wrong. "Hi, I'm Christopher," he said, "with a y and two f's." Fuck off. It's not cool. Ditto 'Sophi' 'Tobie' and 'Linzi'. Just don't do it.
18. Miss Selfridge, New Look, Claire's Accessories and other cheap and nasty high street stores.
19. What's happening to Abergavenny at the moment. Bloody chain stores taking over.
20. Health warnings on cigarette packets. Yes, I know it's killing me. Something has to. Anyone else feel like they're being picked on by the government just a teensy bit?
21. Pensions forms from my bank. Three in as many weeks? Pack it the fuck in, or I'll move.
22. Wagner.
23. Being sneered at in Waterstones when I asked if they had a book in stock- so what if it was fantasy? Work on your attitude.
24. Pregnant women who smoke. And people who swear in front of the kiddies.
25. People who refer to girlkind as 'chicks'. Ditto 'bird'.
26. Men who call you the morning after- generally the ones you really really can't remember- and sing to your voicemail. Not cool.
27. Leaving voicemail messages. I go all old english- Alright chaps? Jolly good. I'm posh anyway, but... sheesh. Too much.
28. Being called 'posh totty'. And the assumption that because I went to a Catholic boarding school that means I'm up for anything.
29. The assumption that because I have biggish boobs and we're at a party I won't mind if you touch them. No.
30. Belly bars.
31. Girls who pretend to like football to get a guy to like them. Just wear a padded bra and be done with it. Men really aren't that complicated.
32. People who cry when they get drunk. Ditto people who wander around saying "God, I'm like, so drunk!"
33. Holding peoples hair out of the way while they throw up. Do it yourself.
34. Little chavs on street corners who demand sexual favours. Then throw milk at you. Has been known. The milk, I mean, not the actual happening of the sexual favours.
35. 'Significant others' asking how many people you've slept with. Do you want me to lie?

Fuck me, I hate a lot of things.

2006-11-04T19:38:00.000Z

One of my minor characters is trying to take my plot hostage.

In other news, I can't decide whether to make my main character a member of boykind or girlkind. Girlkind will stop me from subconsciously hijacking a character from one of my favourite novels of all time, but boykind will set things up for a series of exchanges that I really, really want to put in.
But, if I make Nevin a her, I can describe pretty clothes and girly colours. It's a tough call, although I guess I could make him pretty lavender, which would solve the clothing problem...

Number of cigarettes smoked: 36
Number of said smokes shared: 28
Number of cakes baked: 4
Number of times I've checked in here: far too many to count.

2006-11-04T15:27:00.000Z

Packs smoked: 1
Hours been awake: 2
Hours spent procrastinating: 2
Minutes spent panicking: 4
Amount of times I've read the words "to be on target I must have written 9,000 words by Friday evening": 7
Number of minutes before Stuart gets fed up of me whining and kicks me out on my ear: I have my bets on ten.

It's looking increasingly likely I'll have to start posting my pathetic scraps of novel just to keep on track- so, this evening I plan to post a goodly chunk.

To be on target by the end of today I must have written eleven thousand words.

Fuck that.

Dating Mick Jagger

2006-11-03T23:09:00.000Z

She came up to me in the bar and caught me staring after him as he left. "Like, omigod, he is so cute!"
I remembered to close my mouth, and giggled. I fell into a nasty giggling habit during high school and have spent the last few years trying to work it out of my system- six months ago I'd have said, I'm Not a Giggler (not to be confused with me saying I'm Not a Smoker, which is an entirely different kettle of fish) but times change.
"I know."
"Have you... I mean, have you got a photo?" I nodded, blushing slightly- blushing at the drop of a hat came part and parcel with the whole giggling thing. "Um," she went on, "do you think I could have it?"
"I beg your pardon?" I spluttered, spraying a mouthful of Cosmopolitan across the bar.
"And could he... Well, would you get him to sign it for me?"
"Forgive me if I'm right, but you want a signed photo of my boyfriend?"

I told Stuart later. "Well, can you blame her?" he asked, stretching lazily on the couch, black shirt unbuttoned. "I mean, I am quite attractive."
He caught me staring and I felt myself turn pink. "Do you want a drink sweetie?" I asked, fleeing to the relative safety of the kitchen area."
He waited for me to come back, before "You know, I quite like this blushing thing you've got going on these days."

2006-11-03T15:31:00.000Z

Self punishment comes in many different forms, and this month I've decided to do it on a whole new format- by participating in National Novel Writing Month.

50, 000 words by midnight on the 31st.

Brace yourselves, I'm going to be a bitch for the next month.

EDIT: It's now twenty to one in the morning, and I have changed my mind about my novel. I had characters, backgrounds, motivation and context for them, not to mention sort of a plot floating about in my head, but I've decided to cast that all to one side in favour of...
precisely no storyline, no background for my characters, no context or motivation for them- not that that matters since I have no plot, absolutely fuck all for them to be doing. I have, however, drunk exactly seven mugs of coffee. I have eaten three Ferrero Roches, and I've reached the stage where I no longer care that the chances of me spelling that wrong are high. I have had one heated debate with Stuart about whether they're posh or not- a debate that collapsed around my ears when I realised we were both batting for the same team. As it were.
Oh please, they're not posh.

In terms of the novel that I now have twenty-seven days left to write, I have one A4 page. That I intend to post. Maybe. I'm also seeing an overwhelming lack of a social life looming due to my masochistic insistence that I will do this, and do it well, god dammit, a probable diet consisting of coffee and chocolate, and an excessive amount of blog posts.

2006-11-02T23:31:00.000Z

I have a series of increasingly hopeless addictions, but none moreso than my addiction to a certain Chinese soap opera. This is something I do remarkably often, admittedly in different forms- I'll obsess about the guy I saw on the train (in this example it's Stuart, but generally they remain strangers) with the braces (as in clothes, not teeth) who pulled a decidedly battered £5 note out of his left shoe to pay for his train ticket, or the paintings of the fat women in the Whitworth art gallery (but their virtues have been extolled in this book, so I'll pause my obsessive admiration there).
So, this soap. It follows a similar trend to all my other obsessions; I've only seen it once, it pops into my mind at odd moments, I have absolutely no idea what its called and I would do an awful lot to be able to see/ get hold of it again.
Basic storyline of the episode I caught; boy and girl are dating, boy has a valve in his heart that he allows to take over his life. Boy is slightly uptight. Girl is flighty and odd, a good contrast, and she draws him out of his shell a little. Boy doesn't tell her about heart problem. Girl finds out from boys ex-wife and episode ends.
Whereas the current storyline in Eastenders is what?

This has deeper undercurrents than it might seem, and I'm going to write everything I've wanted to write for the last ten days and hope and pray he doesn't find my blog- on that note, anyone think I should change my name- or at least his (don't suggest Tick, that would be tasteless and I've already considered and rejected it. For him, that is) and go for a pseudonym? Suggestions welcome.

In terms of real life rather than a single episode of a soap opera that's currently haunting me, Stuart was born with a heart problem, all very long and complicated, and undoubtedly something I'd have focused on if he'd been the one telling me, but his mother, adore her as I sort of grudgingly do, just can't cut it in the attention keeping stakes. I think the story was an attempt to warn me off, as well. The long and short of it was that he's had numerous operations on his heart. She didn't mention, and I'm not sure if she knows, that he's working himself up into a knot about it; a knot that means he pushes me out of an embrace within the space of a heartbeat, that means we don't curl up on the couch together, that means he didn't fucking tell me.

In Ellen Kushner's latest offering one of the more multi-dimensional characters simply adores being touched; he revels with contact and attention, sort of relies on it to maintain himself. (I think; I could have described that better, but I haven't read it in a while due to the book being awful as a whole, so take that with a pinch of salt. You get the gist, and I might change it later if I can be doing with going back to my source material.) At the risk of sounding hideously Anita Blakeish, in the context of our relationship this would be me. I adore being touched, just as a general thing; it makes me feel confident and attractive; all it takes to make me happy. Although I hadn't really thought about it until fairly recently. But yes, I am quite a touchy feely person.
Being quite as misguided and rubbish as I am, I just assumed from the start that he didn't like being touched and figured he'd work through it- you hit twenty three and people are going to assume you've let someone touch you at some point since your late teens. That can't just be me? I booked him a massage for his birthday- and he hit the fucking roof.

But the problem's more recent than that. Somewhere inbetween his very public tantrum and my next oh-so-ingenious idea, I met his mother, sort of by accident on his side. He promptly abandoned me with her, "Ah. Mum. Imogen, this is my mother, mum, this is my girlfriend and oh dear is that the time?" which lead to an awkward pause as we both gaped after him as he strode off down the street, and then, "Now you simply must come for coffee, I don't often get to meet Stuart's beaus." She shuffled me off to Cafe Nero and told me about his heart, its issues with him and his most recent op, about a year ago and let me know she thought I was a bad match because "Dearie, I don't want to be rude, I'm sure you're a lovely girl, but someone like my son, well, I don't really think you have the strength of character needed to handle something like this".

This boy doesn't really let anyone in, and I had a bit of a hissy fit about that and decided that I want him to let me in. So I called him about a week after we'd managed to get over his reaction to the massage and told him we were having a pyjama party at the end of the week, "Keep Friday night free, we're having a girlie night in. You rent the movies, I'll bring the ice-cream and nail polish". He laughed, played along with me while I was planning, adding to it like people do when spinning fantasies of their future together.

For the first time in my life I arrived on time, laden down with three different flavours of ice-cream and compulsory sleepover kit; makeup, hair straightners, cute pyjamas. I leant on the door, cursing my new career as pack horse and sort of knocked with my elbow. Then gave up, dropped everything at my feet and let myself in, weaving my way through the dusky half-light in the flat, guided by the light snores coming from the bedroom. I found him in his work clothes; jeans and black shirt, curled on his side with the covers on the floor; surrounded, as I found to my peril, with cast aside shoes and a hairbrush. He'd unbuttoned his shirt before falling asleep, and my eyes had adjusted to the dark, just enough that I could see the scar running down his chest; I guess the reason why he's constantly playing with his collar, always louche with the top one, two buttons undone, but never showing.

If his mother hadn't told me I think I'd have passed out there and then in shock. But she had, and I was beginning to understand a lot. I curled up next to him on the bed, hands clasped together under my cheek as I just lay looking at him.
I woke up to full darkness in the flat and his arms around me. We just lay together for a while in silence, listening to the ticking sound emanating from his chest, and I realised why he kept pushing me away, locking me out.

We got up and had our sleepover, from the ice-cream to the movies to the sharing of secrets in the dark, admittedly in the wrong order.

And now all I'm left with is a nagging listlessness when it comes to english TV- you don't get stuff like this in Coronation St or even in Neighbours, world tour or no bloody world tour.

2006-10-25T12:19:00.000+01:00

Just now on msn messenger.

Me: So how goes the great seduction?
Paul: what?
Me: You know, the affair to remember, the fledgling relationship.
Paul: this is possibly a reason y u dont hav a boyf
Me: I beg your pardon?
Paul: u spk in riddles..
Me: Fine. Hows it goin with your 'chick'?
Paul: Hows what goin?
Me: Oh dear. Fine, did you 'get your end away'?

That's not a riddle at all.

2006-10-19T19:29:00.000+01:00

"Hey, hows things? My names Imogen and I'm here on behalf of *said charity*. I'm raising awaremess in the community today, and fundraising as well--"
"-- Don't you try and tell me about *I refuse to type it again* my girl, I'm eighty two year old and I think I know more about them than you."
"Yes, but they've been around even longer than you. Have you heard of our--"
"Don't patronise me! And *screeches* I'm not deaf, luvvie."

Huh.

My general approach is, to be blunt, to flirt shamelessly with whoever answers the door, as I have next to no interest in the aforementioned charity, and, as such, haven't learned the facts and figures needed for the job.

So I flirt my little heart out, and this is bobbins. Of the first water.

Until- "Oh, don't you bother flirting with me babe, I'm gay."
"Yeah, I know. So, about St John..."

Or- "I've slept with a girl from every continent", he said.
"Oh. Right. So anyway, I'm sure you're aware St John is a charity..."
"Except from, ah, are you Australian? Kiwi?"
"Fuck, no."

I have absolutely no idea what I did to deserve something like that *mentally apologises to hilarious Oz housemate*

Obviously, the whole fundraising thing gets rather dull, so we, the fundraisers, make up little tasks to get us through the day- like dancing. The trick is to do a dance on every door on a street without being noticed. More recently, we designed our own charity; the one we'd all fundraise for, given a choice.

Take this with a pinch of salt- I've heard enough sob stories about dead family members, and how the remaining family's charitable output goes to cancer charities, so we created our own.

Cancer relief.

Just picture the scene- Hey, hows things? My names Imogen, I'm here on behalf of Cancer Relief- surely you've heard of us? No? Well! *incredulous look* we're a relief charity. For cancer. I'm sure something you will know is that there are millions of cancer sufferers worldwide, and we work to cure them. For good.

A remarkable amount of people will sign up here.

Ah, wait! We do this by the simple means of placing a piece of complicated modern technology imported from Zimbabwe to the sufferers forehead, and by the simple means of pressing a button we end their suffering. I'm sure you wouldn't want people suffering from an entirely random illness that could strike down anyone *meaningful glance* to have to continue suffering just because we have a shortage of funds?

No? Great, so your neighbours have been helping us out with the equivalent of three or four pounds a week that comes out in a once yearly sum, how much can you do?
Not that much? Oh, I'm sure the cancer sufferers will understand, some people just can't afford to help.

Disclaimer: Not that I think cancer is funny. Nor do I put pressure on people to give the charity I was working "on behalf of" more money than they can afford to give - which also explains why I've been paid a pathetic amount for the last six weeks, due to the whole being paid on commission thing.
My only excuse for the existence of Cancer Relief is that I'm bitter, and slightly sleep deprived. And have been living with a group of fantastic people in the same emotional state.

More to follow, but in the meantime I have to go salvage some food from my mothers' kitchen.
Is there anything quite as depressing as finding six bottles of milk in the fridge, four of which have gone off? And the other two have yet to be tested, because I'm not sure my caffiene addiction will be able to handle it.

Don't even get me started on the state of the other, formerly solid, contrents of the fridge.

2006-10-01T22:44:00.000+01:00

So this job I managed to land myself, you know what it is?

Promotional fucking fundraising.

Yes, that's right. So if a rather small member of girlkind with a bad cold and a funky hairdo with rainbow streaks in knocks at your door and asks for you to help out ~~St John Ambulance~~ the charity she's working on behalf of, you'll give her money, right?
Because she gets paid on a commission basis. And she needs to be paid lots, because she has a shoe fetish.

And I've just discovered the shop just round the corner from where I'm currently living (I was going to tell, but then I'd probably get fired, and I need the money. Frankly. I mean, I signed a contract saying I wouldn't talk about any of it, so it must be followed. *yawns*) sells bottles of wine for £1.50- not that that has anything in the slightest to do with me being rather penniless at the moment.

But it's uncouth to talk about money, and thats not what I've wrangled internet access for. As such.

My job being what it is- what? I know, I know, it's crap, but it pays pretty fucking well- I work a six day week, nine hours a day *mutters slightly incoherently under breath* so essentially, I meet lots of people.

And people are weird.

As in, I met a woman yesterday who told me she believes in mermaids, because they make sense, evolution wise.

And someone else told me blue wasn't my colour, which is a very valid point, but I knew that already.

And someone else thought I was a prostitute, somehow not noticing my ID badge with very attractive photo and hideous charity sloganised blue t-shirt. "Don't talk to me," he said. "I'll pay you what you ask, but don't say anything."

*grins*

But it's not all bad, and I want to get some of these things down before I forget.

One lady- rather lovely, invited me in and gave me hot chocolate and biscuits- told me some of her family history, which I love. Her Grandmother was Basque, and forced to flee Spain during the Civil War (I think. I'm sketchy on this point, so if you want to poke me in the right direction spelling or history wise, knock yourself out). However, comma, being a baby at the time, her parents doped her with opium, put her in the false bottom of a cask of fish and snuck her out of the country.
And settled in Wales and married into farming stock, which is quite a weak end to what began as a rather swashbuckling bedtime story Toby would be proud of.

More equally thrilling tales of life trying to exhort people out of money to follow- but not for a while yet, not having internet access where I'm living, and not being paid for another month *cue mental swearing* I'm not spending pennies on an internet cafe that could go on one of those rather delish bottles of cornershop wine. Or nicotine, or food, whatever.

But I have other stories! More brilliant family histories, far far too many tales about ambulance response times and messy pregnancies (I wish people wouldn't overshare in that particular direction), an ever looming trip to the dentist (tomorrow. I expect commiseration and a two minute silence at 2pm), a case study of the local Ladies Only gym ("No men! No mirrors! No lycra!"), my hilarious Australian housemate ("Cemetaries are just so fasinating, don't you think?") and the Other One ("I can't wait to get married- so I can just eat dinner, have sex, go to bed.")

Oh, and I'm currently metaphorically sort of dating Mick Jagger.

Rock Bottom..

2006-09-17T11:26:00.000+01:00

... has been duly hit. The intellectual highpoint of my week?

Tom: *giggles slightly to himself as he fishes a Penguin wrapper from down the side of the couch* Ah. Listen to this- Why do Penguins carry fish in their beaks?

Chorus: *warily* Go on...

Tom: Because they haven't got any pockets.

*shocked pause*

Flick: Oh dear.

Me: They're just not trying anymore, are they?

Tom: Did they used to be better than that? Or have we just reached maturiosity?

Me: I like to feel we've all reached sophisticosity, which is the important thing here. But maturiosity? *starts biting nails*

Flick: No, we need another few years yet. *coincidentally, her hair was in pigtails*

Tom: So why aren't they funny anymore?

Flick: Never funny.

Tom: *thoughtfully* Is this like how yo-yos and pogues aren't fun anymore?

Me: Hang on... *fishes Theo's yo-yo out of bag* I always assumed yo-yos would be fun, but my mummy never bought me one of those singing flashing ones, so I gave up. *tries and fails to do something with it*

Tom: *takes yo-yo off me and starts doing complicated things* I always thought the fun part was getting it wrong. *spends next hour playing obsessively with it, while we recall old Penguin jokes*

Q. What kind of fish do penguins eat at night?
A. Star fish.

Q. What kind of music do penguins listen to?
A. Sole music.

See? Never funny, although it took us most of the afternoon to work that out. Did they ever try?

*horrified pause*

Flick: Oh my word. Shall we move on?

Me: I feel like a pillar of strength has been toppled.

Flick: I'd offer you a tipple, but you're still looking a bit green 'round the edges.

Tom: You know what else sucks?

Me: Vacuums?

Flick: *giggles behind her hands and puts on lisp* thounded like a DIRTY quethtion.

Me: *throws cushion at her, as she stares pointedly at me*

Tom: Well, OK. But you know what metaphorically sucks?

Flick: *sniggers endearingly*

Me: *throws another cushion* Black holes?

Tom: You know what isn't cool?

Chorus: Lava?

Hee. I like to think we've reached maturiosity.

2006-09-16T13:54:00.000+01:00

When I was younger- we'll say six or seven- me and my best friend used to take it in turns to be poorly at school. We'd spend break time hanging upside down by our knees from the railings, or rolling down the hills. Sometimes, we'd run in circles until we fell over, or we'd eat our apples and down our milk quickly quickly quickly under the impression it would make us ill. Whatever we did, we did it with the goal of leaving school, going home.

Fourteen years on (god, now I do feel old. I really really hope that I've counted it wrong. Has been known) I still make myself dizzy sometimes, but in a different way and for a different purpose. I read somewhere that the difference between a fear of heights and a fear of falling is all the difference in the world; and I have the latter- it took some pretty hefty hands on experience that I have nightmares about, but I now know I'm definitely scared of falling. Not falling as in, y'know, over, but from. Something.

So when I'm scared about something, for instance, oh I don't know- starting a new job? Just to pluck a random example that has nothing to do with what I'm doing on Monday, I imagine the world.

Not as weird as it sounds, have faith. In the words of a friend- and this should have been consigned to the dead jokes list by now, as we killed it and danced about on its remains- the 'worlds like, quite big place, innit.'

So I picture the whole thing, and when I do it I feel myself falling again- it's a guaranteed way to make myself vaguely dizzy and go red (I use it on stage when my character needs to blush. But thats for another time), and then I feel insignificant. If you will, it's a way of distancing myself from the worry at hand; making it seem insignificant.

Which it is, really.

Once I think about things like this, doing things like starting a new job or- eventually- throwing everything over and going travelling, or pretty much anything else on this list.

And a few more things, like never ever using the word 'cunt' in front of my siblings again, no matter how hard I've stubbed my toe on the bloody impractical marble stairs.

And seeing the Scissor Sisters live, and, and, and... so many things! Including open up to people.

*pauses*

Back on track. When I look at things this way, nothing really seems like a biggie, which helps. Somewhat.

2006-09-15T10:20:00.001+01:00

During school holidays, I used to sneak out of the house the same way- out of the window in the spare bedroom, onto the garage roof, onto the bins then make a bid for freedom.

The girl has no luck at all when it comes to things like sneaking out, giving the occasional blowjob. Unfortunately for Fiona, I was sitting out on the front steps at the time engaging in my first ever cigarette kiss- with Joel, of course- and she got busted.
The front steps are in a perpetual shadow, so she didn't see us, and I was inclined to just let her go and ask about it in the morning, but Joel temporarily stepped in as babysitter- he seems to think I'm the worst possible choice my mother could have made, regarding keeping an eye on her kiddies while she swans about the motherland.
"Is that your sister?" he hissed at me quietly.
"Um. Yes. Do you think she looks like me?"
"I remember, you used to sneak out that way too. Has your mother never caught on?"

I was a lot more creative than Fi though; it's impossible to climb back into the house, so Saturday mornings would inevitably find me up and about at dawn, bringing in the milk/ eggs/ with a headache that meant I'd had to go for a walk- whatever, but I'd always have managed to lock myself out.
Looking back, I have no idea why she never twigged; normal people do not get dressed up in Saturday night gear (for a more accurate image, think underage clubber) at that hour of the morning.

He stood up and yelled after her, "Fiona! Get back here right now, missy. Where do you think you're going?"
Oh dear.
So back she came, sullen and muttering under her breath, but my attention was mostly caught by her outfit. "Blimey Fi. Are those my boots? And my dress as well?"
Whereas I think Joel was staring at the way it fit her, because he started laughing. "Do you have any idea what you look like?"

Now, I get mistaken for a prostitute fairly often- I'm not sure what it is about me, but there's something that makes posh hotels bar their doors to me- 'Miss, we dont have that sort of thing here.' That kind of thing.

So I jumped in, quickly. "Um. Darling, I'm not sure that dress--"
"What do you think?" She asked, twirling slightly.
"You look hot."
She preened.
"But you're a bit too.. well, maybe just a touch too big for that dress, sugar." She stopped preening abruptly.
"But if you want to go out, go ahead. I won't stop you."

Success! She didn't go.

-----------

And then this morning I met her boyfriend. He came to call for her while I was out flirting with the postman; which essentially means I had him all to myself for about half an hour- well, until Joel chimed in.
He stuck his head out the kitchen window and asked the poor boy what his intentions were. Fi's boyfriend looked blank- he clearly hasn't been reading enough staple English literature- so Joel expounded his theme. "What are your intentions, sir?" He asked again. "Will you behave honourably or... dishonourably?" His voice dropped to a dramatic hiss on that last word.

And then Fiona's bit of rough surprised me.

"Why, you mean I have a choice?"

2006-09-13T00:18:00.000+01:00

I'm in a bit of a snit, because I got my first rude comment. And no comments afterwards. And it was a post about my current neuroses, and the bitchy remark made me more neurotic (yes, it's true I don't deserve Joel, I believe I said that in a slightly wordier fashion. And please, write I not i, otherwise I will be forced to hate you and laugh and laugh until you arrive in the special circle of hell reserved for people who don't capitalise the first person singular). Which all makes perfect sense, yes? Oh, and Blogger's been a bitch.

I have a Batman action figurine who travels everywhere with me- as in, he moves house when I do, rather than I keep him in my handbag for emergencies. Actually, what kind of emergencies would those be? Theo is very attracted to this toy; presumably because I stupidly told him it was off limits, so he keeps filching it from under my nose when my attention is focused elsewhere.
Because, while I am on holiday and have nothing better to do, I haven't quite reached the stage where I obsess about the whereabouts of one of my toys. Ahem, ornaments. Models. Collectors items. *gives up*

This Batman toy is the most flexible figurine I've ever met- and I've been disillusioned in this field ever since I broke my Barbie's legs during a fit of boredom in the back of the car on a trip to the seaside. But Batman is not only poseable, he's also a very stalwart guardian- currently he's set to guarding the printer; presumably that's where Theo was when his fickle-o-meter ticked away from him.
The printer being on the floor, Batman has discovered a new nemesis. The cats, who artlessly topple him from his perch with a flick of their tails.

It's tough being a superhero when you're only six inches tall.

2006-09-10T18:52:00.000+01:00

Well fuck me. I got the job.

EDIT: I can't believe I managed to persuade someone I was employable. Cannot fucking believe it. Even if they did ruin it slightly- "At W and Partner we believe it's not about how good you are, but how good you want to be."

Which is clearly tosh. Maybe it applies to the other candidates.

2006-09-05T19:08:00.000+01:00

This evening I have to create a CV.

This is posing a problem, as I have no relevant employment history- being a Christmas Elf for Lush notwithstanding.

And no hobbies to speak of, as I have been informed that getting drunk, dancing on the occasional table, sleeping with most of the more beautiful people I meet, satisfying each and everyone of my hopeless addictions, putting myself first, falling off my high heels, behaving like the arrogant yet insecure thespian I am, writing the odd article for the local rag, watching too much anime, pretending to be Carrie Bradshaw, being an inactive member of Amnesty International and capitalising on the credit I got from them when I was sixteen, being posh and just generally being a brazen hussy are not things I should inform potential employers about. If I want them to hire me.

I wouldn't hire me, to be fair.

I have an interview tomorrow.

Which is a good start, finance wise.

2006-09-02T21:45:00.000+01:00

This morning my mother went back to the motherland, leaving me alone- and ostensibly in charge of- my younger siblings for the next two weeks.

Which in short means I've spent my Saturday evening cleaning out the kitchen cupboards. Ten minutes in I rang my mother-
"Anne**. I've just found a packet of soya mince dating from 1999."
"Oh. Has it gone off?"
"Well, presumably. I'm not opening it to check."
"Don't throw it out, kızim***! Just put it to one side and I'll look at it when I get home."

Urgh. I threw it out- along with pretty much everything else, even the box of ready mix semalina from 1995. It does, however, make a very good threat when it comes to keeping the dear children in line. My little sister, Fiona, is being contrary- something along the lines of "you're not my fucking mother, I don't have to listen to you." But her attitude has improved somewhat, after I promised that some of the food from the back of the cupboards will end up in her meals if she doesn't listen to me.

And really, what do you do when an irate parent hauls your fourteen year old sister home, after catching her giving her son a blowjob in the park?

Well, I laughed. Apparently not the right response.

And then I rang my friends to spread the word- I feel it's my duty as a) a good sister and b) the one she's been abusing all day to make sure this story doesn't creep under the woodwork. But one and all, they were slightly shocked- "Oh my god, so what did you do?" they asked me. I'm going to do anything. Except snigger about it from time to time.

I mean, most people don't get caught, so I kind of feel sorry for her. When she's not being a little bitch in my general direction. How old were you, the first time you did anything like that?

** Pronounced ann-ay. Turkish. Means mum.
*** My daughter.

2006-08-31T12:35:00.000+01:00

"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.

2006-08-29T15:16:00.000+01:00

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.

2006-08-27T13:26:00.000+01:00

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.

2006-08-26T00:56:00.000+01:00

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.

2006-08-24T11:25:00.000+01:00

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

2006-08-17T23:15:00.000+01:00

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

2006-08-16T13:07:00.000+01:00

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

2006-08-01T02:04:00.000+01:00

"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

2006-07-31T00:26:00.000+01:00

When I was a child, a man tried to accost me as I walked to my friends house (his parents owned the village sweet shop, it was great). He pulled over and asked if I'd like another yo-yo, a better one than the one I was playing with. Inclined to say yes, he told me I'd have to go back to his house to get it though. I had one eye on the church clock- inesrt your own Catholic joke here- and told him thanks but no thanks (actually it was more like ta, but nah. Can you guess where I grew up now?), I had to be going.
It never occured to me at the time that good children don't talk to strangers. When I got home that evening my parents nearly had kittens "you spoke to a stranger!?" was their first reaction, followed by "just what were you thinking!?"
I think, if memory serves that the next week someone offered me a lift home from school, to get out of the rain. Of course I took them up on the offer. All this just proves that perhaps I never learn.
Tonight I got into an illegal cab with a group of strangers all of us heading in the same sort of direction. The driver got lost- such a surprise as his English was roughly as good as my Italian (pathetic and extremely limited) and all this came flooding back to me. If he'd taken us to a backstreet alley with the intention of selling out internal organs on the black market I might then and only then concede my parents were right to warn me about strangers and cars "you don't get something for nothing!" was a common saying of theirs, but I'm trying my hardest to prove them wrong.
I realised half-way through our round-about trip round East London that I didn't have any cash on me. And the other people sqeezed in the cab with me just waved me off "nah, no problem mate"and covered it between them.
Obviously not locals, I thought as I tried to place their heavily accented twang.
Ah, OK. Australians.

Toby x x x x

2006-07-29T21:35:00.000+01:00

I have to be quick because I'm going out - and I have to leave before one of my new flatmates comes out of the shower. Somehow, she hasn't noticed... How do you NOT? Regardless of her misguided affection, which is beginning to border on scary, I'm DETERMINED to post everyday until I leave. On Wednesday. And I SHALL do a farewell dawn post before I leave. I know today's installment is pathetic, but at least it's here. And it's a genuine query!
Ready?

How many is too many?

Muchos Loveos Toby x x x x x x x

2006-07-28T13:22:00.000+01:00

Imogen's fucked off on holiday. I've just come off the phone to her and at this exact moment she's getting extremely drunk at Manchester airport " 's medishnal," she said, "'n' 't'll make the flight shr't'r." Anyone noticed how when talking to a drunk person, talking normally becomes an effort?
Unfortunately I'm not about to go jetting off on holiday; that's next week. Meaning I'm currently at work. My boss being a nazi he might actually.. not be very happy if he finds me doing this, so I'm posting something from her dusty archives. It's a meme, but with a difference.

Love Toby x x x x x x x

Whats your Favourite colour? Pink. With just a hint of pink.
Your favourite chocolate bar? Unfortunately, it's boy chocolate- Yorkie bars with biscuit and raisins; I don't mean it's boy chocolate because of the adverts, but because they're inconveniently large, which makes eating them in public difficult; dribble tends to happen, or bits get stuck in your front teeth or... Anyway, you get the very vivid picture, I'm sure.
What age would you like to stop/live forever at? With my twentieth birthday looming, I'm going to say nineteen, but eighteen would also be acceptable at this point.
If you could live anywhere else in the world other than England where would you live? Tough call, I've only ever wanted to live in London. But somewhere in Latin America; I never reached there on my gap year, and I want to go there. Now. Please.
What is your dream car? Red. Cute. Fast. Car breeds mean nothing to me, but I have a fairly clear idea of what I do want, I feel.
What type of jewelry do you prefer wearing? All of it. All the time. Well, OK. I like rings and earrings best.
Baths or Showers? Showers; I'm off of boarding school, remember? Baths were half full and tepid, and you had to fish hair out of the plug before you could use it. So showers, lesser evil.
If you could be anyone else who would you be? Cate Blanchett, Déah Miranda I guess. But on the whole, I quite like me.
If you were a farmer what would you farm? Potatoes and onions, because I love them and then I'll never run out. Of course, I might have to learn how to cook, which would probably help. Actually no, I'd farm something minimum effort. Maybe tobacco? I'd save a small fortune
If you were any kind of wood what type of wood would you be? Mahogany; expensive. Or oak, actually. J'aime.
Who was the nicest stranger you can remember? This has to go to the Big Issue vendor a little while back; I'd broken my ankle, and failed to realise that sitting down on the grass would make getting up near impossible, and he helped me up. Failing that, the guy in the queue at Music Zone, who told me he loved my hair- when I told him I adored his bracelet, he dragged me off to Claire's Accessories so I could get myself one. Or the Australian who gave me some weed in return for a wedge of cheese last summer during my birthday picnic in Hyde Park. Or the bouncer who let me into my first ever club, despite it being obvious I was underage.
What would your dream compilation be? (max. 15 tracks)
1. Nine to Five- Dolly Parton 2. When My Boy Walks Down the Street- Magnetic Fields 3. 14 Hours- The loveGods 4. Follow the Cops back Home- Placebo 5. Soft and Warm- Mothers Sisters daughters and Wives 6. Everybody's Fool- Evanescence 7. Last Goodbye- Jeff Buckley 8. Hey Sailor- The Detroit Cobras 9. New York City Cops- The Strokes 10. American English- Idlewild 11. Crows- Modey Lemon 12. Hurt- Johnny Cash 13. Soul Food- Leela James 14. Starman- Seu Jorge 15. Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground- The White Stripes
Your dream festival would be...(11 bands/artists)
1. Jeff Buckley 2. David Bowie 3. Modey Lemon 4.Fun Lovin' Criminals 5. Maximo Park 6. Placebo 7. Jimi Hendrix 8.The Zutons 9. Roisin Murphy 10. The loveGods 11. Jose Gonzalez
Shock! Horror! You dropped your iPod down the toilet, what do u do? a) flush it b) cry c)delve in after it and claim a new one on the insurance d) swear? c and b and also d.
In your opinion what is the worst film? There are quite a few contenders! But. Waterboy.
If you could be any character from a film which character would you be? Girlwise, Clementine off of Eternal Sunshine, Boywise, Ernesto off of The Motorcycle Diaries. I have a crush. Actually, I have a lot of crushes. I am officially crushed.
Your 5 favourite films: Edward Scissorhands, The Motorcycle Diaries, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Pride and Prejudice (the original) and The Royal Tenenbaums
If you were in Lord of The Rings which character do you think you'd be? (N.B. not who you want to be who you are most like). Ouch, what a question! Considering I fell asleep when we went to see the marathon all three films back to back (yes, I know, but I was bullied into it and there was a promise of Blueberry muffins) and read the books when I was eleven, this is more of a history question. But, I'm going to say probably Sam, I wouldn't let my friend starve or go alone either. And knowing my friends, they'd haunt me if I did.
Describe your perfect partner; fun, smart, surprising, interesting, social butterfly, secure, and they also have to read. Books, that is- FHM or Zoo or Cosmo or whatever, don't count. Boywise, they'd also have the magic blonde hair and blue eyes combo, but girlwise, they'd have shortish hair in a gravity defying style- I may have explained before, but I like boykind. I like girlkind too, of course, but it's different- personality and relationshipwise, I like boys best.
Guys; are corsets sexy or cheap? Girls; would you like to try a proper corset? Yes I'd love like to try one- as long as noone expected me to do anything other than lounge about trying to learn how to breathe. And probably bitching. Loudly. And old dresses too. With a fan, and also a ladys maid.
Would you change yourself for someone else? I'd like to say no but that's not true. As such.

2006-07-25T12:35:00.000+01:00

You are cordially invited, the invitation read, to my twentieth birthday party, to be held at ***** Farm. Directions and travel information will be proved once I receive replies. You are all welcome to stay the night as I realise transport may be a problem; however due to limited farmhouse space you will be requested to sleep in the surrounding barns. Blankets will be provided if the night turns cold.

Last time I slept in a barn I managed to manouver myself under a tractor in my sleep and woke-up covered in a layer of oil and cobwebs, with many legged things crawling over me.

And I overslept.

2006-07-21T15:17:00.000+01:00

Last night was spent applying for jobs. All the jobs.

Although, in retrospect I'm not sure how impressed people are going to be by the various answerphone messages and emails I've left in my wake- think they'll take an application that came in at 2am seriously?

Someone did though- I think they were pretty desperate too. I was rudely awakened at the crack of dawn by a phonecall offering me a job. Except then they didn't call me back like they said they would- my first thought was; great, they're doing what I'd do in their position- ring the person who applied for a job in the middle of the night back in the early morning.
Light relief.
Then I realised that my just-woken-up-with-a-hangover-someone-please-get-me-water-aspirin-and-a-cigarette attitude probably didn't inspire confidence; so they can't have been suitably desperate.

And I wouldn't employ me either, frankly.

I probably shouldn't bother applying for permanent jobs, 6 month contract jobs, PA jobs... but I am desperate. I want pennies, lots of them- I'm getting card withdrawal.

And I might have sunburn.

But. I could be Julie, who has strategic sunburn borne of falling asleep on a bench after a night out in Glasgow wearing fishnet tights and a top thing with fishnet sleeves, and waking mid-morning to some seldom seen sunshine.

I have mucho hate for fishnet- my mother has a pair of fishnet tights. That's not, as such, nice, now is it?

*shudders*

Moving swiftly away from that, I'm wearing some very pretty underwear and some wonderful pyjamas- the first is Kylie, the second's off of Topshop, and I had my hair done this morning- I think it's beginning to recover from the blonde phase- so things aren't all bad. I have the house to myself for most of the weekend (except for Sunday, when penance must be paid in the form of accompanying my mother to Tatton Park's flower show) and Joel's coming over to keep me company tonight- I've been steadfastly refusing to call him after the Teenage Werewolf partybash debacle, but hopefully things'll be resolved the way I want them to be.

No, I'm not sure what that is yet, but I imagine I'll work it out tonight.

I'd ask for good luck wishes, but I am zen.

There's also a blackberry and something smoothie in the fridge, and there are carrots, and lots of coffee and milk and I've just eaten a blueberry muffin. So all is well in the world, for now.

2006-07-20T02:51:00.000+01:00

Reading Festival.

This seems like an apt description- but I'm not going (ha! yes! double yes!) as I don't do outdoor things; mud and wellies and fields and camping and portaloo things and everything else vaguely music festival-esque I do not do.

Which is wonderful- I was bullied into going last year, but it falls just after my birthday this time round and I've begged off on the grounds that turning twenty is traumatic enough (I'll be in the pub drinking steadily for the week before and after) without being forced to wallow knee deep in mud with hairy sweaty people listening to music I have no interest in listening to and standing in a crowd I have no interest in standing in while the people around me sway slightly- whether due to heat stroke or the buffeting effect of wind- trying to see over people's heads, missing the best bit (ie last year when Maximo Park's wonderfully sexy frontman took his shirt off AND I MISSED IT), drinking alcohol I wouldn't normally drink but been driven to by the extremity of tediousness and being stood on by people wearing New Rocks or standing on people wearing sandals, going home with either rain scold or sunburn and having my worldly possessions (in this case one of my shoes and a tin of wine- yes! I know! tinned wine!) stolen.

The fact that last year I also made friends with a couple called Larry and Starling by dint of mistaking their tent for ours and engaging in a spot of drunken gatecrashing at 4am does not make up for the myriad short comings.

I'm so glad I'm not going you wouldn't believe.

2006-07-17T11:26:00.000+01:00

I seem doomed to never sleep alone again; and this has nothing to do with my sex life. I'm back at my mother's house; and my little brother will not leave me alone.

At all.

Last night I woke up to find him wriggling his way in between the covers- "I had a nightmare Mogcat"
"Pardon?"
"I had a nightmare."
"Yes, I heard that bit sweetie. What did you call me?"

Blah. He's just learned how to spell my name; he's currently pronouncing the 'g' bit with a 'g' sound, not a 'j' one.

(Incidentally, his teacher's a complete and utter prat and fool of the first water; when doing a story about his thrilling weekend, he asked her how to spell my name and she told him to change it, because she didn't know. Just how difficult is it?)

iMOGen; he wrote it out for me- in eyeliner on the window- just in case I wasn't keeping up. He's been spending entirely too much time with my mother; she's very good at spreading the patronising bug.

The 'cat' bit is not entirely unfounded, and might make sense to an eight year old brain- my cat is also refusing to let me sleep alone.

Which would be fine, as it's all very well and cute, except the one- imaginatively named Felix- wakes me up before dawn to go hunting (I imagine, from the amount of partially dead things he keeps bringing into the cottage) and the other- Theo- wakes me up at actual dawn. He's very keen; back in the day I'd get up at the last minute to be on time for school, but he's up and about a good three hours before school starts.

But, being so blonde and cute- I have a weakness for blonde people with blue eyes, I let them walk all over me- when he wakes me up and asks nicely for me to make him breakfast, I do it.
Which surprised even me; I don't make myself breakfast- on the grounds that it's too much effort- but all he has to do is bat his eyelashes at me, and I'll look up Delia's wishfully entitled Idiot Proof Guide to Pancake Making.

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

He got his school report on Friday; the summary reads - Theodore is a wonderful addition to our class, he joins in with all classwork and is a vocal member in group work. He will go far.

My school report for the same year (3) read - Imogen has a delightful sense of humour but needs to curb her impulsive side.

But it's a good sign; he can pay off all my debts (ie my outrageous student loan one) when he's rich and doing more than I'm going to do with my life. I could even be the spinster sister who gets up at dawn to make him pancakes and walks him to school/ work wearing enough makeup not to embarrass him in return for a penthouse apartment in central London.

I am indeed at the beck and call of an eight year old.

I agreed to walk him to school this morning along the scenic route- through the foresty bit while wearing flipflops and a skirt; my legs are now completely covered in insect bites.
And my right thumb, for some reason.

I'm still learning to curb my impulsive side.

2006-07-16T14:22:00.000+01:00

Wandering up the pavement towards Sam the party host's place, my phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Stop."
"Katy?"
"Yes. Stop."
"Yes, but why?"
"I have a water pistol in my bag, and I'm not afraid to use it!"
"I spent hours straightening my hair, don't you dare!"

I don't know why I bothered getting all worked up; she missed spectacularly and someones petunias got a thorough watering.

We went in together, and I went into little raptures of delight over the rampant glitter (red and black) and the fairy lights scattered through the house.

Sam came over- "Im! Fabby to see you babe *air kisses* whats the news from London? Seen Queenie lately?"
And force fed me chipolatas with lashings of tomato ketchup- yum.
I'm a bad vegetarian.

"What's that smell?" I asked.
"Oh bloomin' heck, not again," he said, racing off towards the kitchen.

"What was that about?"

Flora joined in "oh, some people in the kitchen keep trying to cook pieces of sausage in the chandeliers."

Ah.

"Is it working?"

Dance dance, achey feet, pause, dance dance, trip out to the garden to cool down.

Joel made his way over to me, taking forever to do so- in flirt terms, he's worse than Toby. When he finished dancing with every reasonably attractive girl between the kitchen and me he stumbled out of the french windows and gave me a big hug- and I got death looks from half the girls in the room; they needn't bother though.
"I missed you Cupcake," he said.
I've only been away a week!
He looked all sad and gave me a cuddle, then stole some drinkies for us from a group of girls loitering in the corner near the open windows wearing obscure amounts of fake fur; to the extent I had to pick stray floaty bits out of my drink- before thinking better of it and casting it aside.

In fake fur terms, you off of blogland were right; while funny, extra hair does not enable a girl to pull.

Can't imagine why though.

------

The early part of the night was a big let down. I finally managed to get with Liam, who I've been vaguely lusting after for years- and he was rubbish.

"If I'd known you liked him, I'd have warned you," Anya said laughing as I tried to hide behind her.

------

Come 3am people started leaving in dribs and drabs, and as those left started arguing over who'd sleep in what corner I wandered outside in search for a fellow nicotine addict I could beg, borrow or steal a cigarette from- so, I managed to miss the sleep negotiations and found myself standing alone in the living room, all lights turned out and snores emanating from various corners.

"Hey," a quiet voice called from the next room. "I snaffled the couch, do you want to sleep here?"

Steady on sugar, I'm not that kind of girl.

"Cupcake, stop messing about and get over here."

-------

Now, I'm just on very touchy pins about whether this means we're going out or not.

2006-07-13T19:07:00.000+01:00

Would you like to know what I've spent my whole afternoon doing?

Of course you do. No, really.

Skirt?

No, trousers.

Skirt.

Dress?

Trousers.

No, dress.

Which shoes?

Is black lipstick going too far?

But now I'm ready and blogging so I'm not tempted to go back and get changed again. I have so much black eye make-up on that blinking's beginning to feel like an aerobics class and I still have to work out how to leave the house without my Mother seeing me, as I look not unlike a person who's favours are somewhat purchasable.

I'm actually looking forward to this partybash; it's like being fifteen again- back in the day, every house party had a theme; ice princess, fish, regression, flora, 70s, morning, regency, rock, 1984.

Oh, and there's one with an Austrian theme coming up in about two weeks, which should be hilarious- think, The Sound of Music.

Lederhosen ahoy!

And Heidi. Heidi's set in Austria, right?

Wrong? Pray tell.

But moving on. I shall report back in detail, and share snack stories- the fish party came with fishfingers and carrots artfully carved into vague fish shapes, and this party is being held by the guy who hosted that one.
And after that partybash they were picking up bits of fishfinger from the chandeliers for weeks; I have high expectations for tonight- I mean, what will the snacksies be?
Severed dolls heads with that fake blood stuff you get at Hallowe'en? Or raw leg of lamb with ready prepared teeth marks?

The possibilities are endless.

2006-07-12T23:18:00.000+01:00

I may have said it before, but boarding school girls are not, as such, normal.

Had you noticed?

To prove this, I'm celebrating no longer being in the White House of Doom and Gloom by going to a Teenage Werewolf party.

Yes, that's right. But, in my defence, I'm making the most of still being 19- it's the person hosting the partybash I feel for, as she's clearly having some difficulty accepting the fact that she's not an August baby and therefore is twenty and not exactly a teen.

So the partybash dress code is going to run high on black and fake fur- and I have a question for you, dear readers.

Should I go for the comedy effect of monobrow and sideburns artfully formed with fake fur, or should I go in werewolf chic and wear black with just a hint of black?

2006-07-07T16:31:00.000+01:00

I missed the fucking train to Abergavenny- not the good kind of missing, when you realise you're running late and might as well kick back somewhere nice, but bad missing. I arrived at the platform to witness the fucking train departing before my very eyes.

I fucking hate public fucking transport, and with good fucking reason.

*breathes*

So when was the next train? An hour away. Fan-fucking-tastic, I got to spend an hour in one of my least favourite places; a train waiting room, with nothing to entertain me but my iPod and a full pack of twenty cigarettes- and, the waiting room being unnecessarily close to Millie's Cookies, I also spent the hour exercising self control.

I'm amazingly bad at that, but I chain-smoked myself into ignoring the enticing cookie smell.

Feeling a little dizzy I clambered on board the next train, and settled down in a reasonably empty carriage. Curled up in my seat, arms wrapped tight around my legs I leaned back and willed the journey not to take too long- travelling time is weird; you look at your watch, it's 10am. An hour goes by, you check your watch again, and it's 10.15. Anyway, so dozing off in my seat, iPod still going, a gentleman came over to "chat".

Chat indeed.

I'd passed him on my way down the carriage, noticed; ugly; and moved on. But he moved so he was sitting opposite me- and then felt it necessary to tap me on my shoulder, when the Blondie thundering in my ears didn't allow me to notice him immediately. And THEN he insisted on talking to me.

Why on earth do people even bother?

"I saw you smoking on the platform. You really shouldn't do that, it's bad for you."
"Really?"
"Oh yes, of course it is."
"I hadn't noticed."

-pause-

"You know, coming from me, that's not on."
"Isn't it?"
"Look" and he dragged a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
"Nice."
"Do you want one?"
"No."
"Are you sure? They're different to yours."

-pause-

And then he said it, the most hated phrase of all time.
"Cheer up babe, it might not happen."

-pause-

"So, y'no, are you alright?"
"Not really."
"Oh yeah? How come?"
*sitting up and looking at him* "I stopped at my boyfriend's last night, I'm knackered."

Triumph, surely?

-pause-

"So, where are you heading?"

"What music are you listening to?"

-pause-

"Have you seen them in concert?" he asked.
"Blondie? How old do you think I am!?"

I made a break for the toilet, dragging all my stuff after me, then found a seat in another carriage.

And he did, of course, change at Cardiff with me.

He crossed the platform towards me. "Say, babe, we were getting on pretty well earlier, don't you think?"
"Were we?"
"So, can I have your number?"
"I have a boyfriend."

-pause-

I dragged my stuff towards my next train; Abergavenny bound, and he followed me.
"What?"
"Say, can I have, like, a hug goodbye?"

Argh.

2006-07-06T13:48:00.000+01:00

Having been well brought up *cough* I always offer my seat up to old people and pregnant women. This morning as I made my way back to the flat all bright eyed, bushy tailed and still rather drunk after no sleep but lots of time spent with lots of lovely friends, I offered my seat up to a pregnant lady on the tube.
She looked shocked, then took me up on the offer with a smile. She got off before I did, and I angled my way back into the newly vacated seat with hard won skill.

In a move like mine yesterday but with a little smile rather than whatever my facial expression was doing yesterday, she turned back, leaned closer to me and said- "I'm not pregnant. Cheers for the seat though."
Oh, my. How embarrassing.
I love it though- you just would wouldn't you?

I'm having flashbacks to that time in Mothercare when I asked the lady going into raptures over baby shoes when her baby was due.

Blah. I might just stop being nice in future.

2006-07-05T13:39:00.000+01:00

"How can you be girly AND clumsy?" Matt asked me, staring at my legs with enough intensity to make me feel uncomfortable, were they not covered in scrapes and scratches and bruises. And were I not an attention whore.
"I fell down the stairs."
"Right. What were you drinking?"
He knows me so well. "Oh you know, pinot, battery acid, the usual."

"White wine then?"

-----------

The scrapes don't pass unnoticed, which is a shame at this time of year, where pressing social engagements (ie, saying goodbye to everyone before I fuck off to Abergavenny on Friday) mean frequent leg exposure, with the aid of beautiful strappy sandals and short dresses.
My iPod battery dead, I was forced to listen to those around me on the tube, rather than more exciting and less mediocre things, like Placebo. So much love for Placebo at the moment.
And I kissed Brian Molko once upon a time, too.
I swished my way into the carriage and ended up standing for the whole three stop trip, when I noticed a little murmuring- charming things like cat, tramp, allergies? and also, how?

They were making me feel common, and my patience- a pathetic excuse for a virtue at the best of times- snapped on hearing the word 'tart'.

I looked at her, with her last seasons Versace teamed with last years Marc Jacobs and smiled ("be rude in a charming and engaging fashion").
"Yeah, I look like I had it off in a bush, don't I?"

-silence-

I changed at the next stop, and had the same thing; rude, tactless stares and whispered remarks. Patience frayed, I turned back to the nearest whisperer just before we came to my final stop; "Yeah, ok, look. There was nowhere else to go so we had it off in a bush."

I hate being made to feel like a commoner, especially when it's unfounded. I'm perfectly good enough at making myself feel cheap, I don't need the help of strangers.

And on this occasion, I really had fallen down the stairs.

2006-07-05T01:49:00.000+01:00

Posting and commenting looks set to be a tad on the sporadic side for the next week, as I move house (we're moving out on Friday and as yet have no idea where I'm going. Anyone have a luxury villa somewhere hot and some friends they'd like to lend me if I promise to be nice and charming and engaging?). I'll finish the Dartmoor tales another time- next week, I promise, but I was right; I did lose my job.

Yay!

Right now though, I have to pose a question that's been bothering me for, ooh, about a three hours now.

Scars.

When I'm tallying the number of scars on my body, I always leave out a certain set- the ones on my feet.
My penchant for high heels and also slatternly lack of ownership of any flat shoes apart from flip-flops means my feet are like the walking wounded.
I don't heal cuts very well at the best of times- absolutely everything scars; I have little white marks on my arms from enthusiastically itched midge bites, and a couple of cigarette burns, which are, I guess, slightly more excusable scars.

But my feet!
There's quite a list, from the marks working their way right the way round my very lower leg- still in the red stage, but I'm living in fear they'll also scar eventually- from a nasty cheap pair of wedges, to the gash between my big toe and its neighbour is still healing after a spot of over-enthusiastic walking in flip-flops. My cute pink shoes have this nasty thing where they curve inwards at the top at the back, causing mucho blisters and general pain, and my boots have been known to give my those lovely blisters one gets, on the bottom of my feet.

Ouch indeed.

So, I spent today sprawled out in a carefully arranged heap in the park- at perfect shoe level, you'll notice- and I didn't see a single female without these marks of distinction.

Can you prove me wrong?

My inner feminist tellls me this is bad. Bad bad bad.

But.

Shoes are just so pretty! Worth every moment.

Off she goes lalala

2006-07-03T01:30:00.000+01:00

My part time job at the local paper proved spectacularly dull, so I quit, having had my fill of writing articles about ice-cream vans and their sinister intentions vis a vis the waistlines of the nation's children or about local sporting events. Becoming unemployed brought a temporary feeling of both independence and- due to both pay day and a parental guilt cheque, a feeling of, well, giddy euphoria and carelessness brought on by actually having money to waste.

No comments about outrageous shoe purchases please.

So I spent money, got very drunk very often and bought new clothes- a bad idea when I'm moving out of here this Friday, and moving things about in black bin bags and cardboard boxes is a distinct possibility.
Then I got another job, waitressing. This won't come as a surprise, but I'm spectacularly bad at waitressing.

"Clumsy!" He snarled at me, as I tipped the contents of one plate at such as alarming angle as to disarry the carefully arranged contents.

"Be careful!" He hissed at me again, as he propelled me out of the kitchen, plates stacked high, and pointed me in the direction of the table.

I worked a fifteen hour shift: Friday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday. And tips get pooled. Tuesday evening I worked extra time; the new waitress hadn't shown up, and the place was packed. I worked on autopilot, smile fixed, hair slicked back (I can't describe how much I hate having my hair back out of my face) and ignored my aching feet- my black shoes give me blisters. On the way out I gave up, took my heels off and walked back to the flat barefoot, carefully avoiding discarded gum, cigarette butts and glass.

Joel met me as I leant against the door, scrabbling half-heartedly through my bag looking for keys; as he opened the door I stumbled through and landed in a dusty heap on a pile of curtains. He glanced at the clock; "Cupcake," he said, helping me up, giving me a hug and snatching up a cup of coffee from the shelf behind me- people who can multi-task simply amaze me. He wandered back through into the kitchen and I collapsed in a bedraggled pile on the sofa, ignoring my dirty feet, dishevelled hair and aching head, and fell asleep.

I woke up to him poking at my new ear piercing, "cupcake," he said again, "you need a holiday."

"Mmmf." I turned away and went back to sleep.

I woke up a few hours later to full dark, and Joel leaning over me explaining how he wanted to go away, that some friends in Dartmoor were expecting a visit.
And that he'd already packed for me.

He's just so bloody confident.

I ignored him and just went back to sleep- but in bed this time, rather than on the sofa. Then, got up on Wednesday and did the same shift- and the new waitress didn't show up again. I stayed on, pocketed all my tips with nary a guilty thought, then went back to the flat and agreed to run away from it all; something the boy does spectacularly well.

Foolishly, I didn't think to check what he'd packed for me- more on which might come later, but really, how many hats does a girl need? Much as I adore them. And how could he not realise I might want more than one pair of shoes and- this is the key thing, I think- how on earth could he not be aware that underwear simply has got to match?

So we went to Dartmoor, and slept on the train.
More to follow.

Ceci n'est pas une ducky

2006-06-29T20:36:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-28T11:01:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-27T22:52:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-27T10:16:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-26T19:08:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-26T13:36:00.000+01:00

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?

2006-06-25T23:47:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-25T12:44:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-22T12:58:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-18T18:48:00.000+01:00

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.

2006-06-18T00:05:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-16T13:02:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-16T06:24:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-14T22:52:00.000+01:00

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?