Le scene.

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.

Summary of today

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

I am feeling all warm and tingly inside

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

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

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

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

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

Now thats friendship.

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

Communist Party (Party)...

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

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

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

Leggings. I ask you.

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

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




* More on which later.

Playing by colours

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

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

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

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

And earlier this evening, I changed a tyre.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bad cat.

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

Huh.

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

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

The car was all better within five minutes.

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

Imogen, may I ravish you?"