It’s retrospective time, people of blogland.

Nye 2003: a mirthful event, spent at home, partly in the bathtub, partly in bed. On my own and pining for a distant girlfriend with whom I had Life Plans and Hopes.

Nye 2002: a joyous event, spent in a girls’ club with my friend Odd, dutifully clubbing and eyeing up girls. It was also a First Date with someone I can only call Superbutch.. Superbutch got riotously drunk, loud, possessive, brash and argumentative. Odd got riotously drunk, loud, flirty with Superbutch’s friends, as well as argumentative. A fisticuff was narrowly avoided. During the cab ride home, Odd puked up half the contents of the bar as Superbutch was sending me drunken text messages. The cab driver chucked us out in indignation. I tried to make myself feel better by thinking I was earning big motherfucking karma points for breaking up fights as well as wiping the puke off Odd’s face. All in all, a fruitful evening.

Nye 2001: a jolly event, in a bar on the other side of the Channel, in the delightfully named Trouville. I got drunk on bad champagne, almost fell into the canal, got into an argument with someone very mean I’d just met, wanted to go back and drown myself in the canal, was talked out of it by my girlfriend. I think I fell in love there and then, as she was holding my hand and a bucket and telling me it would all be fine in the morning. I can’t resist kindness, you see.

Nye 2000: a cheerful event, at home with my mother. We went to bed at 11pm and got up early to go climb a mountain.

Nye 1999: a jovial event, in the middle of the Sahara. I didn’t wash for six days, but Christmas and nye were successfully avoided. *Note to self: why am I not doing that again?*

Tonight I am invited by someone I don’t know very well to go to a house party held by someone I don’t know at all. I might flake pitifully.
Happy 2005, y’all.

Oh well.
Hello, internet. I am back from the place on the pictures. First let me get this out of the way :just like the rest of the world, I know all and wept about the Tsunami and the half million people swept away, but I won't talk about it. It seems cheap somehow, so here's not yet another blogger's lament. So give money. that's it.

---

This blog is one year old today. Go blog! I gain some satisfaction from the idea that I've kept it up for this long. I thought I'd never have anything to say. Now I know that I don't have anything to say, but that it doesn't stop me from saying it.

---

Around 3.30 am, I dreamt that punctuation had been abolished by governmental decree. There were no more dams in logorrhoea's way. It was only a short dream, but I woke up in a cold sweat.
I didn't want to come back.

Update on my slow Days

Disappointment
Today it snowed for nearly three hours. I watched the flakes from my bedroom windows, waiting for the build up before I could run out in my mummy outfit and be merry; but each flake melted as it touched the ground.

Distraction
Over the past two days, I read for over 18 hours : a detective novel involving an accordion player, two prostitutes and a medievalist; a treaty on the epidemics of plague in Europe; and a book entilted ‘the perfect masochist’s manual. All this alowed me to ignore Christmas as comfortably as possible.

Delay
I have oodles of things to write about my mother, but I woudn’t even know where to start, so I’ll keep it for some other time.

Dream
I dreamt that I was in a hospital losing a considerable amount of blood; doctors assured me that it was because I had swallowed a spoon. I was adamant that such a thing was impossible since I didn’t not use sugar or milk in my tea, therefore never needed to stir, therefore did not use spoons. The puddle of blood around me was spreading; then A appeared and told me she was going to the beach and I could come along if I wanted. I hesitated because a) I had no towel and b) I was still hemorraging, but I tagged along anyway, then I threw up into my beach bag. She went on and I just sat on the ground and cried. When I woke up I had a sore throat, so now I’m not sure about the spoon aspect.

Delivery
Just as well that yesterday, Pope John Paul II delivered his annual urbi et orbi blessing for Christmas. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling better already.

Story time

This is the most dispirited Christmas I’ve ever spent.

So here is my Chirtsmas story, especially for you people of Blogland. On a good day it’ll make me feel all warm and fluffy inside. On a bad day it’ll make me sneer. Oh, and it happens to be true. But anyway; here goes:

1.The place :
the countryside, north of France; an endlessly flat land, stretched all the way to the horizon. You expect cows, or at least cabbage fields. There are none, because.....:

2. The time: 1915, the coldest fucking winter since.. since at least the Franco-Prussian war. The one before the one I’m talking about. They’re not called Prussians anymore, but the enemies speak the same language.

3. The cast: German soldiers on the one side (the guys with spiked helmets downing bad beer)
French soldiers on the other side (the guys with the rounded helmets swiging crap red wine)

4. Synopsis: They are on either sides of a demarcation line. Helmets are either pointy or rounded, but trench foot is a constant. Both sides are intent on anhiliating each other, because this is what wars are about, and it is war. Until then, they spend their days and weeks crawling in mud, fighting rats for bits of stale bread, and playing cards to try and forget the infinite boredom and the certainty of death.

And then it’s Christmas eve, even in trench land.
Some say that the Germans start singing first. I can believe that, since the French are not known for their musicality. But somehow they join in. And a truce is called, people!
It is said that gifts are exchanged - lumps of coal? tin mugs? dead rats? who knows. And later, they play a game of football. That can’t be easy on the trench foot condition. (Can you imagine kicking a ball with rotting feet wrapped up in rotting bandages and no shoes? But that’s me spoiling this magical moment with my cynicism. No wonder A could’t stand me. Stop digressing. Sorry.)

And the following day, they go on trying to slaughter each other.
Oh, bless.

5. Morale of my story: So now I better stop moaning about my Christmas/life/lost love. At least I don’t have trench foot, and no-one is forcing me to play football wearing a spikey helmet. So now I’ll go swig some Vendanges Tardives Gewurztraminer 1995, which is the God of all wines.

Two pence-anthropology / Chapter I, France Of the Middle

#1
There is here, and there is the rest of the Western world.
The rest of the world is far, beyond the mountains; it’s a long donkey ride into the unknown. In many ways, this part of the world still has to catch up with the most daring advances of progress and civilisation. For instance, the people here have not been sartorially enlightened.Everywhere else but here everyone and their mother and wearing a poncho; not here. Perhaps because it’s so freaking cold here, the outfit of choice for Winter makes everyone, men and women, look like sexless mummies. Fortunately, there are secondary sexual signs to distinguish the sexes. Hair.
#2
I am counting; the number of women over the age of 50 with crimson hair is alarming. I am yet to come up with a theory about it. Zabélie blames Tchernobyl. I am not so sure. No matter what, I am saddened to count my mother as one of the victims of the Crimson Menace. Isn’t it sad when someone close to your heart ends up a statistic?
I wonder if I’d like to see more ponchos and fewer pillarbox-red heads.
#3
Dogs. Are everywhere. There are two kinds: in the posh area of town, they are small, yappy, overfed, and they come with tartan bows and little coats and matching ageing, female, well-off owners.
In the town center dogs are large, underfed and hostile, held tight on their leash by equally underfed and hostile, multiply-pierced people. Those people would like to think they’re punks. They conglomerate to get drunk on Kronenbourg (punk beer) around bus shelters or on the steps of the cathedral, and scare the shit out of the middle class females. Sometimes the hounds take a bite out of the pampered little bichon frisés; for fun. Or perhaps they are genuinely underfed.
No matter the breed or social status, dog owners won’t stoop to pick up their pet’s turds. Fortunately, the cold freezes them solid, so not much damage is done if you inadvertently kick one. On the other hand, I remember a hot day in July.. But better not summon ugly memories.

I really wish it would snow and people would stay the fuck home and stop walking around buying stuff they don’t need. Merry Christmas my arse. I’ll have a glass of water and a dry cracker tonight.
Love you all.

Home
I have to go home periodically to renew my sense of horror.
Carson Mc Cullers

I have transported my neurosis and myself to France for the Christmas holidays.

1. My mother had 'sorted out' my belongings (see previous posts) so I'm feeling more like a stranger in my old home than I've ever done. She has also smoked all the pot that my brother had left. She claims it didn't do anything to her. I'm not sure I buy that, since she is currently painting a mural of camels' heads in the downstairs bathroom.


2. Precious train moments #1
An uneventful journey. Twenty minutes after departure, I offer one of my glossy magazines to the fidgety man with brutal halitosis sitting on my right, in the hope that it doesn't encourage him to breathe through his nose, it will at least sedate him before we get to Paris. Across the aisle from me is sitting an old man; he is echoing every announcement made by the train crew. 'Sandwiches! yeah! Paris Gare du Nord! Ashford! Yeah!' The unsuspecting younger man in the adjacent seat has put on his headphones.'Hey, whatcha doing? 'I am trying to.. I'm listening to some music.' 'I want to do that too.' Not betraying any surprise or irritation, the young man offers one of his headphones. His companion starts belting out onomatopoeia. 'Just listen', the young guy whispers. Later the old man falls asleep, chin on chest. I do no laugh; I am in awe of the patient passenger. I think I envy him a little.


3. Precious train moments #2
A night of January 2002, a South West train is taking my girlfriend of two weeks and me from Southampton ferry port back to Victoria station. The carriage is empty but for a couple of sporty tracksuit bottomed types with generic/matching haircuts. Perhaps we're bored. We kiss; or rather we play at kissing. No, I kiss, and she plays, pulling away with a smile that means to be teasing. Our hands slide under layers of winter clothing. I am intent; she is too, intent at playing. The ticket inspector winks at our intertwined limbs. The game resumes. She stalls, giggles, teases. By now I have lost all sense of humour and only yearn for a frantic fuck - here, anywhere, who cares about the spotty guys five seats away from us, they’re asleep anyway, shut up, come here, hey, come here, why are you stopping? The train pulls into Victoria station hours after midnight and the last tube. On the night bus to her south London home, she falls asleep. As her head rests on my shoulder, I peer out for clues, I don’t know where we are but we can’t miss the stop. It was a game, I tell myself. Soon I will understand that this game is all she is capable of. Those two hours on the train were the most erotic/terrifying we ever had together.

4. It looks like it might snow tonight.

Forget bath salts- All I want for Christmas is this


EVIL CASTLE LAIR - ULTRAMODERN COMFORT WITH AN EVIL GOTHIC FLAIR!
Sure, everyone wants a castle lair -- they're cool, scary, and a lot more fun to torture people in. But they're also cold, damp, expensive to maintain; and it's impossible to fit a proper Genetics Lab or Pleasure Pit into those little stone rooms!
That's why Scaramanga & No S.A., the world's leading Evil Architects & Contractors, have introduced the VLAD TEPES SERIES EVIL CASTLE LAIR. It's a fully modern and functional lair built within a castle-shaped fiberglass shell, that looks so real it even fools English Heritage. Includes Master Bedroom, 3 guest suites, 4.5 bath, Grand Ballroom, computer center, medical center/torture chamber, indoor pool, servants barracks, home theater system, Wild Boar Feeding Arena, missile silo, and central air. Includes convenient, obvious self-destruct mechanism.
Price: Starts at US$99,999,999,99 from Villains supply. For all your villain needs.

dis·trac·tion (d -str k sh n)
n.
1. A condition or state of mind in which the attention is diverted from an original focus or interest.
2. Separation of bony fragments or joint surfaces of a limb by extension.

I’m trying my best for definition #1. Partly because #2 sounds rather painful.

a. Diversion
I read ten lines, write a paragraph, pop bubble wrap, make tea, pop more bubble wrap, drink tea, change an adjective in the paragraph, forget to wash the cup, pop more bubble wrap, put socks on because it’s getting very cold, make more tea, pop more bubble wrap, read ten more lines, delete my paragraph, forget to drink the tea, pop more bubble wrap, put a jumper on because it’s really very cold, make more tea, open a magazine and stare at the ads, drink cold tea, try to wrap the cat in the popped bubble wrap, try to locate a clean mug for tea. The cat won’t stay inside the rolled up bubble wrap. The paragraphs are all crap, I drink too much tea, and dark thoughts come back and pop, pop in my head.

b. Original focus.
I don’t know how much more of this I can handle. I really don’t.

A big step forward for me, a very, very small step for humanity

I’ve finally started on my French blog. This time it won’t just be a haphazard accumulation collection of random things. I even have a structure for it.

J: ‘So you’ll be writing in French, so you can say things like: oh that guy I live with is a pain in the ass, I can’t wait to be moving out, and you’ll be using slang or the imperfect subjunctive cos I haven’t learned it yet. You will, won’t you?’

No, it’s not going to be like that. But I’m still looking forward to it.

Don't say you weren't warned
I was innocently perusing some French sites trying to find out how to while away my time next week when I found this.
So now we know. The dirtiest people on the planet, huh. Well, in my case it really depends on how dirty people will let me be. I don’t want to brag.

Children's Books That Didn't Make It

1. You Are Different and That's Bad
2. The Boy Who Died From Eating All His Vegetables
3. Dad's New Wife Robert
4. Fun Four-Letter Words to Know and Share
5. Hammers, Screwdrivers and Scissors: An I-Can-Do-It Book
6. The Kids' Guide to Hitchhiking
7. Kathy Was So Bad Her Mom Stopped Loving Her
8. Curious George and the High-Voltage Fence
9. All Cats Go to Hell
10. The Little Sissy Who Snitched
11. Some Kittens Can Fly.
12. That's It; I'm Putting You Up for Adoption
13. Grandpa Gets a Casket
14. The Magic World Inside the Abandoned Refrigerator
15. Garfield Gets Feline Leukemia
16. The Pop-Up Book of Human Anatomy
17. Strangers Have the Best Candy
18. Whining, Kicking and Crying to Get Your Way
19. You Were an Accident
20. Things Rich Kids Have, But You Never Will
21. Pop Goes The Hamster & Other Microwave Games
22.The Man in the Moon Is Actually Satan (Jarnocan's favorite)
23. Your Nightmares Are Real
24. Where Would You Like to Be Buried?
25. Eggs, Toilet Paper, and Your School
26. Why Can't Mr. Fork and Ms. Electrical Outlet Be Friends?
27. Places Where Mommy and Daddy Hide Neat Things
28. Daddy Drinks Because You Cry

I really don't like this

1. There is an undercurrent of anger and despair flowing right underneath the surface. I think it’s always been there, but it’s risen in recent months.

2. I am afraid I am going to snap. Lose my shit if someone is mean to me; start bawling if someone is nice.

3. As a result, I withdraw. It’s not fair to snap.

4. I’ve postponed a date that was planned for tonight. She’s cute, bright, stylish. But I feel too caught up in my internal vicious circle monologue to be available even for a date. I don’t feel I have anything to offer.

5. To break out of this internal vicious circle monologue thing, I should really go out on dates. Back to square one.

6. Why did I resist the urge to throw the loaf of bread against the wall? The worst that could have happened would be funny shaped toast. And maybe it would have made me feel better.

7. I am losing some friends. One part of me thinks they’re right; why should they stick around someone so caught up in her own misery? I brought it upon myself. A smaller part of me thinks friends stick around no matter what. Ah, the great myth of female friendships.

8. I hate self-pity. So what d I do now? Watch tv, I suppose.

I’m not staying long.
1. Last night I dreamed that I was on my way to perfecting the recipe for chicken feet jam.I wonder what that one means, then.

2. The leering marathon is going well, thank you. 9 episodes of The L word down, 4 to go. I have just watched Shane have sex on the floor with Rosanna Arquette’s character. It really, really cheered me up. Who whispered vicarious?

3. Finally, if you understand French, go here. It is my very lazy but very funny friend Zabélie’s blog.

Chicken feet jam.
*shakes head* I don't know.

Here comes the recommended hiatus
Please excuse me for a few days; I am currently busy obsessing. I am having an L word marathon. The complete first season, brought to me by J; he is catering endlessly and mercifully to my vicarious-living-as-a-way-to-recovery method. I don’t know if the method really leads to recovery as such, but in the meantime the tears I shed are over the fictional lives of fictional people. Who happen to be sexy, although somehow airbrushed, and make a nice change to the bridge trolls I saw on Saturday night when I was out with Jacqui causing a ruckus in ladies’ bars. Pah, not really; we were incredibly well behaved. But I digress: bridge trolls were my point. That’s what I saw. It made me sad. Beer-swilling graceless creatures with bad haircuts and white trainers. Or hipsters in cliques. I’m off to watch episode 7 now. I don’t think I’ll write a review, I just like to leer. Thank you for listening.

Put succinctly

1 I saw Margaret Cho on Saturday night.
2 small venue, about a hundred people.
3 She kicked ass.
4 Jacqui and I didn't linger at the stage door. Too dignified to be groupies, you see.

I’m a bit bored with this. I’m also despondent, lonely and cold. Possibly bored with being me, too.
I’ll come back soon.
Feel free to talk amongst yourself.

Good night.

Clearly, Attention Deficit Disorder

Two occurrences that almost made me cry:

1. At lunch time today I lovingly and reverently cooked some Trofie (for the gastronomically challenged, that’s a traditional pasta from Liguria). Posh pasta usually takes 300 times as long to cook as normal pasta, so I stood over the pan stirring, took the pan off the hobb as soon as the trofie was perfectly al dente, and added carefully chosen ingredients.
It’s only after I had sprinkled the exact amount of parmesan out of the little plastic shaker thing that I noticed the little green dots. Mould. Mouldy parmesan.
So after throwing my fork across the room in a fit of despair and rage, I did what any self respecting cook would never do, I washed my pasta under a stream of lukewarm water.
It really wasn’t so good after that.
But I didn’t cry.

2. Yesterday in between work and a work function I had exactly half an hour to squeeze in some Christmas shopping. The product of my (frantic) Christmas shopping was in turn stuffed into a plastic bag. A plastic bag which I have left. Somewhere. Bus. Street. Bus stop. I have no idea. I think I am going to cry after all.

At this point I would like to blame mulled wine for this sudden drop in attention. I would also like to blame the box office that still haven’t sent me my pair of tickets for tonight’s show, as well as Christmas shoppers all over London, parmesan makers that don’t print sell by date on plastic shakers, and exes you can’t get over and spend time crying about on the bus. It’s all their fault.

I have no idea what to wear for tonight’s show. Cos, tickets or no tickets, I will get us in, I swear. Oh, it’s Margaret Cho. Yay!

Tis the season to be jolly

-I’ve tidied up your closet, and the drawer under your bed, says my mom.
-You have? [mind races as to what she may have found in there.] You have. Ok.I can deal with my mom stumbling on my things. I am an adult now, aren’t I?
-There’s so much strange stuff in there, and I needed space to put away my summer things, so I got rid of some of your old stuff.
- Can’t you wait til I get home and do that myself? And how do you know what to throw out anyway?
- -Oh, but I’m not throwing anything out. Guess how much I got for your old pairs of goth boots?
- My boots. You didn’t. They were relics!
- Well it’s not like you were going to wear them anymore.
- Maybe I was!
- Oh well, they’ve made someone happy now. Maybe they were putting a show and needed costumes. And! I managed to sell your stereo! First I used the speakers to put flowerpots on, but I thought they were still good, so I took them down to the flea market too.
- What am I going to do for music now, then?
- There’s always my cd player
- The old piece of shit in the kitchen. Right.
- So when you come home, you might want to think about what to do with the huge stack of magazines. Oh, and, there’s that bundle of exercise books all tied up together, I didn’t have a look at those, but we can have a bonfire when you’re here.

At least I was spared the ultimate humiliation. That carefully tied up bundle of books are my early teenage diaries, complete with details of sorrows and tears and crushes and ponderings and tampax experimentations. Not pretty.

I wonder why the sudden urge for clearing, and why my room.
Everything else in the house remains untouched. My brother’s room in particular is a mausoleum of his 19 years of life. Books on the foreign policy of Guatemala or the changing geographies of the Finnish-Russian borders or a political and historical assessment of the middle East; his posters of tennis players; and his collections: coins, notes, vials of sand from all the deserts of the globe, cigars, 19 Century lead soldiers.
I never collected anything, and I’m still alive. Maybe that doesn’t grant my old room any sort of special status. I’m not really bitter about it; but I am considering the bonfire. Except that I’ll be the one to do away with my stuff. Get your matches ready, mom.

And this is why I turned down that $70 Million contract

‘How are things at Megalopolitan pictures ?’ asked Sir Ambrose.
‘Greatly disturbed. We are having trouble with Juanita Del Pablo.’
‘Luscious, languid, and lustful?'
‘Those are not the correct epithets. She is – or rather was – ‘surly, lustrous and sadistic.’ I should know because I composed the phrase myself. Miss Del Pablo has been a particular protégée of mine from the first. I remember the day she arrived. Poor Leo bought her for her eyes. She was called Baby Aaronson then –splendid eyes and a fine head of black hair. So Leo made her Spanish. He had most of her nose cut off and sent her to Mexico for six weeks to learn flamenco singing. Then he handed her to me. I named her. I made her a anti-fascist refugee. I said she hated men because of her treatment by Franco’s moors. That was a new angle then. It caught on. And she was really good in her way, you know- with a truly horrifying natural scowl. Her legs were never photogénique but we kept her in long skirts and used an understudy for the lower half in scenes of violence. I was proud of her and she was good for another ten years’ work at least.
And now there’s been a change of policy at the top. We are only making films this year to please the league of decency. So poor Juanita has to start at the beginning as an Irish colleen. They’ve bleached her hair and dyed it vermilion. I told them that colleens were dark but the Technicolor men insisted. She’s working ten hours a day learning the brogue and to make it harder for the poor girl they’ve pulled all her teeth out. She never had to smile before and her own set was good enough for a snarl. Now she’ll have to laugh roguishly all the time. That means dentures. I’ve spent three days trying to find a name for her. She’s turned everything down. Maureen there are two already. Deirdre – no one could pronounce it. Oonagh- sounds Chinese. Bridget – too common. The truth is, she’s in a nasty temper.’

From The loved ones, Evelyn Waugh. Read it. If only because you’ve watched all four series of Six Feet under and miss the atmosphere of funeral homes.

Real intellectuals play board games part II
Some time ago, some clever American bastard came up with Ghettopoly.

'Pimp up your stable of hos, build crack houses and projects, do a drive-by, get the whole 'hood addicted to crack- collect $50! Only the hustlers with the tightest game will win!'

To ensure that players stay true to the game, player game pieces include: Pimp, Ho, Uzi, Marijuana leaf, a Basket ball and a piece of crack, and of course counterfeit money and two dice.
Apparently the overrated overpriced shop Urban Outfitters carried the game was instantly boycotted by the NAACP. Fair enough. Now in the pipeline are Hiphopoly and Redneckopoly. 'It draws on stereotypes not as means to degrade, but as a medium to bring us together in laughter; if we can't laugh at ourselves, we'll continue to live in blame and bitterness', said the infinitely philanthropic creator of the game.

Personally I would never shell out anything for any board game; Scrabble makes my face go numb and I can't sit in front of Monopoly without going into severe convulsion. Last time was New Year's Eve, 1993; I lasted ten minutes, and was later found racing around in the snow in a tshirt, and that had nothing to do either with the sangria or the funny cigarettes. Really. But where is my point? Oh yes. Here it is, sort of: still I confess that the thought of that game made me chuckle. It's just a funky board game, right? There isn’t much difference between that board game and what is glorified in hip-hop lyrics and music videos, right? Wel, I don't know. Not so sure. What do you think? Would you be upset by Jewnopoly? Asianopoly? Scottishopoly? Gaynopoly? Would I be upset if it were Frenchonopoly instead? Maybe, in true French fashion, I would rant for half a minute, consider educating the ignorant masses for another ten seconds, then just shrug it off.
The truth is, I probably would get upset. I do have a history of getting disproportionally upset by the jolly shovelling of stereotypes about the French. Or about any nationality, in fact. But that's another story altogether. Maybe some other time.

I told you, I never liked board games anyway. I think I'll go back to my original Christmas presents ideas:

A rude cross-stitching kit
The guide to how to shoot rubber bands
My face on a grilled cheese sandwich

There is no emoticon for the way I’m feeling today.

On the way back home from the cinema, I pass:

· a couple dragging a heavy bag and dumping it into the river. Late at night. It probably isn’t really a body, because these things only happen in films. Still, I walk faster, just in case they have a heavy spanner/knife/hammer and a spare bag.

· a dog kennel with a ‘for rent- £180 a week’ sign on it in someone’s front yard. When I go back later to take a photo, the sign’s gone. I guess it was too good a bargain in this area of London, someone’s already grabbed it.

---

. Maybe I shouldn’t have watched the Office Christmas specials. (In hell, it’s Slough every day.) I think the perspective of another Christmas spent with my mom pretending to ignore Christmas is crushing me already. We’ll pretend to ignore it together and make chit chat about this and that and the subtext will be about everyone we/she has lost and how she’s only got me left and how far I am.
Yuck.
Maybe I just have an iron deficiency. Maybe I’m just hungry. Or dehydrated. Or bored. Can’t always tell.

---

Another recurring dream, people of blogland: I dream that I do the splits. Clever explanations in the comments section, thank you.

Misdirected romanticism, anyone?

'Romeo, Oh yeah, I used to have a scene with him. (Juliet)

1. Maybe 8 months ago, I opened the case where my glasses live when I don't wish to see the world around in too much focus, and saw, stuck to the lid with cellotape, a pink fortune cookie slip that read:

You or a close friend will be married within a year.

I believe it was A's fortune cookie; in any case, she put it there.
Out of some sort of superstition, I kept it when we were together. And kept it when we weren't.
It's still there; and I won't peel it off.

2. Was it also superstition when I put A's name down on my life insurance form? [see footnote #2] Perhaps it was. In any case, should I get flattened by a double-decker, she will still get a year of my salary, which could get her a (second hand) bike to replace the one that was stolen and probably sold on Craig's list to someone else who had their bike stolen, etc.

It feels almost vengeful and spiteful and mean to go and take the step to cross her out, just like re-writing your will to spite your estranged wife, or something; Yet, and how I know this! it's incredibly dumb of me not to. I will get round to it. Eventually.

---

[Footnote #2 :Last time I promised footnote #1 but never delivered, it's still in gestation. But here is F#2: yes, I have life insurance; don't ask, it's a work thing. I'm not that organised]