Things to not do in times of Break up Apocalypse

Look at pictures/read letters/reminisce and cry.
Stare at very pricey and obviously non-refundable plane ticket and cry. Not because it was pricey, but because it won’t be used, and it embodied all your hopes.
Dwell on the notion that no one, ever, can live up to her.
Break useful household things that a little superglue won’t fix.
Wish that there was some sort of relationship superglue.


Things to do:

Purchase pile of thick engrossing novels for that instant vicarious feeling of having something to get up for.
Remember to eat from time to time, and not just pre-digested slush or cereal.
Not assume that friends don’t care. Of course, some will say that timeisagreathealer, and that youllgetoveritsoon, but the proper friends won’t.
Remind yourself constantly that It wasn’t working, wouldn’t have worked, can’t work, won’t work. Try and believe it a tiny bit more. Try some more.
Try and sell ticket on ebay to some homonym who also shares your date of birth and passport details.

Camouflage

I spent yesterday dressed in a black ninja suit, a matching balaclava and pair of goggles.
In the rain, amidst a horde of testosterone-fuelled adolescent boys. And girls, trying to be equally tough, or stupid, depending on how you look at it. Here’s some of the things I learned:

- You are not allowed to climb a tree and stay there for the entire game. My plans at being the sly sniper were therefore nipped in the bud.
- Injuries sustained by paintballs are 2 inches wide and concentric in design.
- They turn into dark purple bruises that can be proudly exhibited to friends and family.
- Even when you put your hands in the air as a gesture of surrender, some people will still shoot you. In the back.
- There is no court martial on paintballing camps. All the idiots go home free at the end of the day.

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Today is the first day of my summer holiday and I have a terrible vacuous feeling, coming with the very likely end of my relationship. All the hope and expectations attached to it are now dissolving; all the memories, bad and good, are to be stored away.
My response sways between staying in bed in the dark for a few weeks, and cleaning the flat in a giant wave of denial.

It’s losing hope that makes it so bad.

Friendship

"Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person: having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them out. Just as they are - chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away."

George Eliot

My mother wasn’t exactly a hippie.

In May1968, when a seething hive of French students were busy growing their hair and starting a revolution, she was sporting a respectable hairdo complete with metal pins, and trying for a law degree. I believe she even owned a twin-set. Whilst her contemporaries were busy theorising compulsive shagging, she was living with her mother and her mother’s lodgers. I think she stayed at home a lot. She didn’t go out much to meet men; as it happens, home was where she met my dad; he was one of the lodgers.
My mother got married in a thigh-length off-white macramé wedding dress; my dad borrowed a suit for the occasion. The other lodger was a witness; but he’s since been a minister, so it’s ok.

Later, much later, when everyone had cut off their hair, after my dad had grown his and subsequently lost most of it to the practice of politics, after he’d run off with a female fellow socialist with freckles, my mum made a lampshade out of her wedding dress.
Then she met my stepfather.
He wasn’t exactly a hippie either. That is to say, he wouldn’t smoke pot.
However, within one week I was familiar with his own brand of ecological idiosyncrasies.
He held the very green belief that washing powder was evil.
In fact, washing machines were evil. To this day I believe that he doesn’t own one. He would use (cold) water from his well (dug with his own two hands in the garden) into an oversize bucket, shave some economy soap into it, and stir with a large stick. Repeat twice, and hey! His bed sheets were still grey. But ecologically washed.

Shampoo was evil too.
Therefore, rainwater was collected in various receptacles, placed on the balcony.
Some days, twenty years later, the pungent aroma of nettles macerated in rainwater for six days still lingers in my olfactory memory. The green mixture (in a smaller bucket than the one dedicated to clothes-washing) would wait in our kitchen, always at room temperature, before rinsing his proud locks.

I got a slap the day I mentioned acid rain.

I wished my mum had been a hippy, rioted and erected barricades, slept around and got her attraction for dirty long-haired guys out of her system before I was born.

Next time I might tell you about the dried up henna all over the telephone, as well as the Sock Recycling.

Look at me, I’m socialising!

I spent Sunday night in one of my favourite Old Man’s pubs in Soho with my friend S, drinking beer and eyeing up bartenders. The short pony-tailed one in particular was to his taste; on our way out, he held his breath and went to introduce himself.
Afterwards he was shaking, so we had to walk into another pub and get him a drink to calm his frazzled nerves.

In the second Old Man’s pub, he recounted this not so-ego-enhancing anecdote: on some night out with friends and a potential date, he got so..impressed with the said potential date that he felt some stirring in his lower regions. He excused himself, stood up, probably just that tiny little bit too close to the table, and knocked over his drink. Without using his hands.
Only the girl noticed; she squealed.
They never went on a date.

Inhibition

The sale is on; I wish communal changing rooms were abolished.

Snippet

Heard from a colleague today, concerning the train drivers' strike :

'So, if they're asking for a four day week, does that mean that on the fifth day we'll have to make our own way to work?'

Well, it did come from the same person who, some months ago, asked to a roomful of very proper, very dignified people what 'to emasculate' meant.

(I work amongst very proper and very dignified people.)

"Do you have a flaaaag?"

England is out of the Euro 2004.
Hurrah!
France is out too.
Hurrah!

Before the England/France match, I was literally defied by workmates, as obvious representative of my country of birth, whose collective arse would be kicked.
I shrugged, because I didn’t care either way. I don't think they believed me.
After the match, I was asked if I was triumphantly glad about the unbelievably unfair outcome of the game, and if I thought that Zickam was better than Becdane.
I shrugged, again.
As far as I am concerned, if some on-pitch spontaneous combustion occurred to any of the long-socked, nylon-clad overpaid men, I probably still wouldn’t care.
The good thing is that now my upstairs neighbour has finally shut up; and the little white and red flags that were gracing just about everything have disappeared overnight.
The flags are one of the aspects of my dislike; as soon as flags are flying, regression’s in the air. Although I feel nothing but mere disinterest in twenty-two sweaty guys kicking a ball, I wish them no harm; I just wish the whole thing wasn’t turned into a feast of patriotism.
It makes me sad.
Off to think about why flags make me sad.

I’ve always had that fantasy of turning into the incredible Hulk.

My girlfriend says she would let me beat someone up for her.

I am so sorry to have to respond to this wish with a humble offer of kicking her opponent in the shin. Then running away. I’m a fast runner.

I am told, however, that, on a good day, I can look fairly mean. Strangely, it has brought me my fair share of positive attention in the past, from potential lovers who foresaw much promise in my general demeanour. Perverts. Games aside, I also have to admit, at the risk of sounding like some psycho on the loose, that I have in the past physically dented two assholes that had gingerly overstepped the mark – but I knew them, so that was different.
And now, Girlfriend would like me to be the physically assertive type.
I don’t really know what to do about that.
I do tend to avoid conflict with strangers, especially if it involves potential tooth loss. Furthermore, on my days of depleted hubris, of which there are many, I almost wish she would protect me from, let’s say, the obnoxious teenagers crowding the top decks of the London buses. She seems to have a nearly endless supply of cutting repartees, whereas I am good at thinking something up much, much later, when it’s too late. Around here, her accent is also far cooler than mine; I can’t help but think that it helps. She’d be a much better fighter, too.
I hope she’ll make do with a dour expression.

Archeology

I don't have the slightest idea how on earth I stumbled upon this article on a trove of ancient Chinese bronze dildoes being discovered in a Han dynasty tomb:

Archaeologists say the dildos uncovered in Xian could have been used by eunuchs.
They also say palace maids may have used them on sexually-deprived imperial concubines.

Ah, I could really do with a palace maid.
Forget the palace; a maid will do.