Oils

1.People of Blogland, I’ve come back from Home with a sufficiently renewed sense of horror and a suitcase full of life basics: paperbacks, new socks and a bottle of Gewurztraminer Vendanges tardives.
I also carried, carefully wrapped, a painting.

2. Blogfolks, did I mention that my mother is a painter? Not professional, no, but she’s good. (I have tales of naked hippie communes/painting courses I had to tag along to as a child. Some other time.)

3. Excuse me, Miss. Does this item belong to you? The Custom security man asked as I was boarding the Eurostar.
Yes….?
Was it a gift or a purchase? Would you mind unwrapping it?I laughed.
No, it’s not a precious work of art freshly nicked out of the Louvre, which I’d try to sneak out of the country.. actually you’ll clearly see it’s pretty much got to be mine.
Oh, I see, you modelled for it, he smiled.
Well, yeah. And this is my grandmother, and this is her kitchen.
4. My mother was positively chuffed.

5. Look, blogfolks, this blog is two (2) years old now! Happy birthday, blog. Oh, and, the best new year’s eve to you all. Mine looks promising. Special Lady friend, amazing food, and, well, yes.

Yes, I do spend Christmas with my mother

1. So.
I think this year we ignored Christmas with even more than our usual helping of oomph.
No tree, no cards, no family, no turkey.
I sat by the fire with a book and sipped some fuckingtastic wine.
Then in bed by 11pm on Christmas eve.

2. But!
Around 3am, some rustling-tumbling-scratching woke me up.
Mmm. Closed door. Still, it looked like a ‘the cat brought in a mouse’ situation. I jumped out of bed, put on my riot gear (a tshirt) and investigated. One by one, I lifted every piece of furniture for the cat to pounce. The mouse was found, delicately seized between sharp teeth, and released for more fun and games. I gave up around 4am, left the situation, and slept on the sofa.

3. As I type, we have no idea of the whereabouts of my nocturnal christmas present. it could be anywhere. I dare not sleep.

4. Merry bleeding Christmas to me.

Crunch, crunch, crunch

1. Yesterday, Bloglanders, I huffed and puffed and climbed one of those snowy mountain/volcano things we have around here. Up and up and up a narrow path under white trees, then out into the open ,1200 or so metres high with a view all the way to China.
I’d left the fog lower down, in the valley.

Then I came down, mostly on my ass.

It was well worth it, partly because after that I hardly spoke another word for the rest of the day.

2. I almost forgot to wish you a merry christmas, if you’re into that kind of thing. So, yes.

Still, nevertheless, but

1. This morning my therapist was wearing a pair of those slouchy things that are half socks, half slippers. With anti-slip soles. Chromatically, they blended perfectly into his usual range of grey blues, possibly carefully chosen so as not to distract his clients/patients. Still, I was distracted. I didn't say anything, it surely would have been analysed. I wonder if he was testing me?

2. Later on, the assistant in the Shody Bop referred to me as ‘Sweetie’, and I was still wondering about the half-socks half-slippers so it took me a few seconds to realise that was me. People don’t usually call me sweetie, but I still turned down the Christmas special gift pack. Nevertheless, I’ll be smelling of lavender later on.

3. This feline orphan of ours is growing at what I think is commonly termed an Alarming Rate. Bloglanders, have you ever tried putting on a duvet cover with the help of a kitten with ADHD? I have, and I think the kitten is still in there somewhere. She’s also right in the middle of the Buoyant Child phase, and some of it is exhausting. But! I’m going away tomorrow for a week, so with some luck I might completely miss the Jaded/Aggressive Teenager phase.

Pawn

-Play ! Play ! Play !
-Just a sec, Francis, we need a rest.
-A rest? But I need to play, it’s essential for my future development!
-I know. But lemme sit down for a second.
-If you don’t play with me constantly, my behaviour will exhibit pathological traits later!
-Just chill for a minute, will you?
-Play now! or I’ll be fucked up in the head!
-Look, the whole kitchen floor is covered in bits of string and corks and little balls just for you to play with. Just pounce on that for a while. Not my hands. Nooot my haaaaaaaaaands.
-Play! I was abandoned, you know!
-………...
-I was a child of the streets! If you don’t pay attention to me, I’ll go back down the infernal spiral of negligence, possibly juvenile delinquency!
-Why don’t you climb up the curtains? Play with the bits of coloured paper? C’mon, pounce, jump, trash. This is how people make confetti, you know. We can sell them later to carnival organisers to help you earn your keep.
-Do your duty as a parent! Or I’ll call Battersea and they’ll take me back!
-Francis, where do you get all this energy from?
-Oh. I drank some of your coffee earlier. By accident.

Festive?

1. I never thought that one day I’d post pictures of kittens on this blog – or on any other- but what can I say, bloglanders, I go overwhelmed by a tidal wave of feline cuteness. Sorry about that. I’ll try to curb it from now on, or you might get cavities, and it’ll all be my fault.

2. People of blogland, I’m on holiday and a day earlier than planned, too. Yay! Earlier I couldn’t decide if that was a good or a bad thing; J, who knows me better than if he had knitted me, thinks it’s probably bad, since I’ll have more time to fret over the fact that I’m not enjoying my time off as much as I should, and I only have a week left, and I better start enjoying I right now, etc, and, he’s right. I’m hoping to take lessons in chilling from our new feline recruit. She can fall asleep across a row of hangers in the pantry, you know.

3. In my pre-holiday zen, some things still manage to make me want to pull out my nose hair and scream: at a play based on a Jane Austen novel a few days ago I was asked if ‘the language wasn’t too difficult for me’. A few hundred (possibly arrogant) retorts flashed through my mind but I just smiled sweetly. Where did she think I learned English from, fortune cookies? Ah well. I know; it doesn’t matter.

4. Presents. Presents. Problem. So far, I have purchased one (1) item, for my mother, and returned to the shop to buy the exact same thing for myself. I am aware of how wrong this is, especially from a psychoanalytical/financial/organisational point of view. I have three hundred different ideas for my Special lady Friend, 297 of which I cannot afford.
J will probably get Lego.

Damn paparazzi


I'm so cute I can get away with just about anything.


Now, Bloglanders, I can't stay. I'm needed for a major play session.

Ok, but just a minute then

1. People of blogland, today is the day when little Francis is coming home. She’s had all her jabs and everything, and she’s been told we’re coming; yay!
I only have a minute – call me boring but I made you a promise and promises are made to be kept.

2. Last weekend my Special Lady Friend borrowed her housemate’s almost brand new lesbian porn DVD – we don’t know where she got it from, except from ‘abroad’- in order to spice up our evening. Not that there is anything wrong with our usual way of passing time: I pick on her, she fights back, we fall to the floor wrestling, I try to pull out her nose hair, she breaks my arm; it’s good clean fun.
The filmDVD was entitled ‘pink velvet 3’ and we could barely contain ourselves because it had a plot. Oh, and it was lesbian porn, too.
A plot!
All I can say is: ouch.
Those long, painted pink nails.
That went into places they should not under any circumstances have gone into.
The close ups.
We covered our eyes and I squealed like a clubbed baby seal.

Anyway, I think we watched 50 minutes of it and decided that we could do so much better.

3. I have to leave you now, Francis is waiting. Pictures of her furry loveliness will follow.

About 40% mohair

1. Bloglanders! It has struck me that The Perfect Christmas/Birthday/Whatever Present for just about every single person I know is a homemade hand-knitted pair of socks.
Yes.
You know it makes sense. Who would be foolish enough to not jump for joy when given a proper pair of socks? Personally, I would kill for one, but I have a grandmother firmly determined to keep me on the right side of the law, and she is knitting as I type. Of course I can’t knit, but I’m writing it down as part of my personal development plan for 2006. In the meantime, I’ll just buy people craptrinkets and books as usual.

2. I wonder if little Francis, alone in her glass cubicle in Battersea Dogs and cats home, is counting the days too. Probably not, because she’s only a kitten and she hasn’t learnt to count yet, but if she had she would know that we shall be picking her up on Saturday morning, and that is three days from now, and I cannot wait. On Thursday night J and I have got a date to make her a little house out to hide in of a cardboard box. Yay!

3. Next time, people of blogland, we'll broach the topic of long nails in lesbian porn flicks, but first I need a drink.

Public announcement

1. The dark side of cookies has now crumbled.
I have a list of pusillanimous reasons, don’t ask.
The new title, ‘Never too tired to tango’, is what my middle name should be, according to J.

2. We’re getting a little Francis on Saturday! Francis is 9 weeks old, grey and fluffy with white socks and carefully made-up eyes. She is gorgeous. We think she’ll be very happy in the House of J and Y, as soon as she’s had her vaccinations. Yay!

What’s in a name Part Deux

1.The cat lady came to visit, so I wore my fluffiest, most caring and respectable jumper.
We got approved, but we had to jump through loops first.
I knew I had her when I said that I’d rather give my child away than my cat. I do think she understood it was a joke. I don’t have a child.
J surpassed me in the nodding, agreeing and smiling stakes, though; but then he usually does. It’s a gift he has:‘You know how when you want to get cash out of a machine, you need to press the right buttons? well I kind of see it a little bit like that with some people. It’s not really lying, because I’m genuinely quite nice underneath’, he said after she left.

2. Later on we made a tentative list of possible names for our future feline; so J stood by our bookshelves and called out: Seamus, Francis, Flan –I’m not calling my cat after a type of dessert - Plato – Plato? No way, that’s so pretentious, I exclaim. Oh yeah, how is that less pretentious than Francis? And you said yes to Francis. No, Plato is more pretentious.
Later still we are browsing the list of Nobel Prize winners, because this is where socially ambitious parents get names from if they want to give their offspring a head start. Victor, Ernest, Edouard, Hakan. J rather likes Hakan….up a fur ball, he chuckles.

I’m afraid he’s not taking this matter very seriously.

Oh, and, that's me.

AAA

I knew I had to call in sick this morning: I am so tired-drained-I-need-my-batteries-replaced-exhausted that if my toothbrush wasn’t electric I simply couldn’t have mustered the strength to brush at all. And that, people of blogland, is a sure sign of exhaustion. Thank the Lord for Sonicare and my lovely pale pink gums. And anyway, I can’t work, I have to get this house in order, because we’re expecting a visit from the Cat Rescue Place Lady, and we need all the approval we can get if we want to adopt a moggy. I’m a bit nervous. Should I wear an angora jumper to make me look respectable, warm and caring? And refrain from making jokes like ‘we ate the last one with seasonal mushrooms and made a cool furry hat with his pelt, would you like to see it?’ Perhaps even offer her a cup of tea?

Linguist

How do you say ‘to fancy someone rotten’ ? I ask Luis, my Spanish teacher.
‘Gustar’, he replies.
I'm disappointed. I wanted something more colourful.

For the next ten minutes, he won’t meet my eyes. I wonder if he thought that was a hint.
Oh shit.

Fluff

1. People of blogland, thank you for your kind comments of the past week. J and I were reflecting on this need we felt for letting others know of our sadness at losing our fluffball; working in a nerdy, blokey kind of place he was nervous about letting on that he was sad, for fear that someone would laugh, or sneer, or shrug.
I have been more fortunate, in close contact with kind people who instantly admitted how devastated they would be if their own moggy died. Validation, if you will. I will.

2. Our house has felt empty this past week, and now that the cat hair has been hoovered off the living room carpet there’s only a shredded basket in the corridor as proof that there ever was a feline ruling over this place.

3. We are debating; a visit to the local cat shelter is in order; we have a good home to offer. But we don’t know when we’ll go yet.

4. Sid the vicious cat from next door is already prowling our garden, shifty bastard, trying to conquer his arch-enemy’s territory. I can’t spend all day by the door with my water pistol, you know!

5. the thing is, when we go to the rescue centre, we’ll probably want to take them all home.

Chavo, March 14 1999- November 22 2005

1. It’s been a tough day, people of blogland, and the mantra ‘it was only a cat’ hasn’t helped none.

2. He was a wee fluff ball when he got him as a kitten. On the train back from Wimbledon, he was poised; poised but cold. I took him out of the cat carrier and held him inside my jumper. He stopped shaking then.

3. ‘What’s his name?’ a couple of blondes asked. ‘Gustave’, we replied. ‘Good stuff?’ they guffawed. ‘Can we have some?’ It was Gustave -later nicknamed Chavo- because J and I agreed on Flaubert and Malher.

4. Chavo had a good cat’s life. Six and a half years of it. He had a few fisticuffs with the moggy from next door -the one we call Sid because he’s vicious; he also had to move house once, a traumatising event after which he hid behind the washing machine for 24 hours. Not bad.

5. Over the last week, Chavo grew a fat belly. So fat that he was getting stuck between the bars on the staircase. We grew worried. I told him I’d take him to the nice vet lady and forgave him in advance for getting explosive diarrhoea (his favourite vet surgery trick.)

6. Gustave was dying of congenital cysts wrapped around his liver. They had been causing his liver to bleed, which was filling up his belly. I had a choice of taking him home post-surgery and watch him die within days, or two weeks at most, or not letting him wake up after the op. I didn’t think it fair on him to have to be in pain just for the sake of us saying good-bye. So we never did.

7. It was only a cat gorgeous, sweet, lazy fluffball.

8. Sorry about the mood, bloglanders. But this really sucks donkey balls. Hairy ones.

Traducción

People of Blogland, those of you that have been following will know that I have been brushing up my extremely dusty Spanish. Amongst my efforts I am working my way through some amusing verb drills/translation exercises. Here are today’s gems of lexical and syntaxic beauty:

1. Tell me my friend, are you depressed? (estar)

2. He admits (admitir) that sometimes he takes a nap at work but he does not admit when he makes a mistake (un error)

3. They (fem plural) are in a bad mood (estar de mal humor) because the television set is broken (estar dañado) and therefore (por eso) they are bored.

4. Hamburgers and French fries are very popular in the United States (en los Estados Unidos)
And my favourite:

5. How much truth do you possess? (la verdad)

I’m having so much fun. (pasarlo bien, diverstirse.) Although I still don’t know how much truth I possess. Do you?

In other news, I'm having a kick ass week end with my Special Lady Friend, thank you very much. We made risotto, too.

It’s –3°C out here you know

1. I hope there’s some entity somewhere counting up karma points.
I hope that the karma points-counting entity knows to add big fat negative karma points to the bus drivers who shut the door in your face and drive off just out of meanness, and leave you cold and tired and laden with grocery bags and wanting to cry because you’ve hard a hard day, and now you have to wait another half hour for the next bus.
Big fat bad karma points.
And good ones to me for not throwing my eggs at the bus windows, as I was very tempted to do.

2. Chavo the cat and I have another thing in common besides messy black hair. Both our stomachs are rounding up for winter, or so it seems; to the point that I’m getting rather worried at his sudden diamond shape. Recently, he’s been waddling. I hope he doesn’t explode.

3. The woolly socks knitted by Grandma are calling. As is my bed and a good book. I know, I wear socks in bed. So?

Almost a regular Monday

1. The disembodied female voice in Glamoursmith Bus station purrs: Bus number 367 s now boarding from gate 4. The lady clearly has higher aspirations than measly bus stations. Then, for added urban grittiness, she adds: gate 4. Yo.

2. I grab the daily free dose of utter shite that is The Metro, and peruse the article on Pete Doherty. How can a junkie look so fat? What do they cut his crack with, pork pies? I’m dumbfounded.

3. I am attending a one-day conference about my job, with 40 people who do what I do. Strangely, I feel no kinship. I’m very polite to the lady on my left, though. People don’t expect me to be polite. I like to watch their face change as they realise I’m actually quite nice.

4. I sit in the dark with my Special Lady Friend to watch Broken Flowers. At the end as we’re queuing up for the toilet, an old lady with her white hair in a bun strikes up a conversation with us about the film. She found it exceedingly slow. I enjoyed the slowness.

5. Later on we have steak so good it’s stupid in a cute little Soho restaurant. At the table next to us are sat a man in a grey suit as well as his late fifties, and a much younger transvestite in a clingy fuchsia dress and matching leg warmers, worn over turquoise high-heeled court shoes. Odd couple. We steal glances while pretending to look at the decoration, and then we hold hands over the table. If they can, we figure we can too.

List

People of blogland, I have been busy not blogging. Instead, I have:

- Worked long hours, propped up by coffee; which in turns means no sleep when it’s time to sleep, and very small and puffy eyes the next morning at the beginning of more long hours, so that more coffee is needed, etc. Repeat for 5 days.
- Been trying to circumvent a cold with copious amounts of vitamin C, which also means I can’t sleep when it’s time to sleep.
- Felt a little sorry for myself, a little mushy in the head, and remembered it’s de rigueur in November.
-Tried to stop listening to the news to lower my blood pressure, and failed.
- Wondering where the following things are going: money, clean mugs, time, tins of cat food.
- Tried to stop sounding English in my Spanish class. Instead, I now sound French, which I hope is an improvement of sorts. Perhaps.

This weekend, I plan to sleep in, have a long bath, and wrap myself around my Special Lady Friend. I hope she won’t mind.
Thank you for stopping by!

I have a very harmonious home life part deux

Saturday, 2pm in the Y household: time to try and make my face look presentable before I venture out and meet the world and my Special Lady Friend.
This is going to be a coffee and makeup day, then.

-I can see that your efforts are highly effective, says J, hovering near the bathroom door.
-You’re only saying that because you’re envious. You’d like to play with makeup too.
-Play? You’re not even being creative. Why don't you draw a big circle on your cheek? Or you could at least draw little dots under your eyebrows like Bjork.
-This is not about being creative; it’s about looking vaguely human. The antithesis to the adage that old Goths don’t die, they only need less makeup. Leave me alone.
-I can’t leave you alone; I really enjoy witnessing this level of optimism.

A little support at home is always nice.

Non sequitur

I’m a bit aimless tonight, blogfolk.
I have :
given the cat his winter haircut;
tried to mend a pair of torn fishnet tights – and that’s impossible, but I’m cheap this week.
Read a couple of short stories by Neil Gaiman
perused my favourite blogs;
refreshed the opening page of this site to see what cuteness it could come up with each time and laughed, mostly. C’mon, girls, less attitude; smile and make your bum jealous!
Tried to call my Special Lady Friend to check if she was still willing to get on a train and leave London with me tomorrow afternoon – we’re paying a highly important social call to Lady J for her birthday, you see.
Cancelled my TV licence direct debit.

I think I’m a bit bored.
Now it’s properly dark, so in order to alleviate my aimlessness, I might mosey on down to the riverbank and watch the pretty fireworks.

R.I.P

1. We did own one of those TV set things; it sat there in the corner under a layer of dust; then on Sunday J turned it on and it imploded. There was smoke, too.

2. Oh well.

3. As soon as I cancel the TV License direct debit, though, I’m sure I’ll feel the unfightable urge to watch something. Anything. What to do?

Oh.
People of blogland, last night I dreamt that my Place Of Work had decided to tighten up the dress code (as it is, it hasn’t been changed since 1901) and issue a list of Appropriate Under Garments.

Long brown knickers and matching tops.

So with my sternest face, I declared that is was really taking things too far and that I was quitting on the spot. Then I marched out.

It’s one of those nightmares I can’t properly shake off, though. Perhaps because it’s only one shade away from reality.
Do you know, last week, a workmate was told off because her skirt didn’t quite cover her knees when she sat down?

(I know.)

Sometimes, I bake

You know these brownies you gave me the other day ? asks Abi.
The special brownies, yes of course, I reply.
Mmmm. The Special Brownies. I didn’t realise just how special they were, she adds.
But I told you! I said: here are some Special Brownies. I did!
… so, on Monday I went home for lunch, and I wanted something sweet, you know? And I thought, perfect, chocolate brownies…

By this point I’m biting my fist trying not to laugh.

..right, so I took a bite, and thought, oh these taste a bit funny, maybe they’re off, but I won’t say anything, I don’t want to hurt Y’s feelings, and I drove back to work, and all of a sudden my hands were HUMONGOUS….

I nod, laugh and cry at the same time.

….I had to put my head down on my desk, and someone said ‘you look like you’ve smoked’ and then it clicked; and I had two meetings in the afternoon, and you know how hard it is to not giggle when you’re stoned?…

Tears of joy are running down my cheeks.

..so, when can I have some more?


Finally, my talents as a baker get the recognition they deserve.

There is a new coffee machine in the House of Y

Yesterday, people of blogland, J got himself a new, state-of-the-art espresso maker thing, with shiny parts and foaming implements.

(I’m not sure I’ll get permission to use it.)

This afternoon, after much fussing, he made me a latte. I should say he designed, created, perfected a latte. I had to bow before I was allowed to drink it.
It’s a professional one, you know, he said smugly. Just like in real coffee shops.
Would you like my loyalty card? After ten cups, you get a slap.

I have a very harmonious home life.

Sweet grapes

People of blogland, I have to tell you about last Sunday.
My Special Lady Friend was visiting. I’m very fortunate, because she often visits. If I plead and wring my hands in a sufficiently convincing manner, she even spends the night. (I won’t tell you what she agrees to do when I get down on my knees.) So, yes, my SLF was visiting, we were in the middle of some serious hanging out, when she foraged into her bag and said, casually – oh by the way, I have a present for you. Before I had time to do my usual little excited dance she’d pulled out a bottle – I might not be materialistic, yet the word ‘present’ is nearly pavlovian- ‘Here’, she said with studied nonchalance.
I gasped.
How?
Where?
Wow!
I nearly got down on my knees then, you know.
Vendanges Tardives, the best goddamn wine in the whole world, people!
She’d found some.
She made it sound like it was easy. Just something she’d picked up after work.
After I tied her to the chair and threatened to torture her, I got the whole story. She’d been trying to trace it for weeks, had ordered it online and had just gone into an infinitely posh shop to collect it.

We drank it then we went for a walk along the river.
We met six months ago, you know.
Santé.

Today’s Life Lesson

When frying potatoes in a shallow pan for lunch, it is not wise to attempt to stir said potatoes when in the nude, just because you’ve just had a shower and are trying to multitask.

Mater

1. One day when my brother was 6 or 7, my mother found a little booklet under his pillow, with the title ‘Girls that I have loved’.
Inside were four or five names, the inevitable hearts. She laughed and showed it to me. I didn’t laugh. I made her promise to put it back where it was and never, ever mention it to him. Even when he’d grow up to be 20, 30, whatever – just, never.

2. My mother has never been good at either respecting her children’s private life, or taking them seriously. Growing up was a painful business. I will always remember my 12th Birthday party, when she came back from the shop with a packet of sanitary towels and placed it on my dresser with the words ‘you’ll be needing these soon’. In front of all my friends. She didn’t want to humiliate me; she tried so hard to play it down she made it huge.

3. You’re right, in Californian psycho lingo, I think it’s called a lack of boundaries, or something.
She would read my letters instead of ask questions, then bring up the finer points at dinner: ‘what’s that about buying condoms?’ she’d drop, out of the blue, with a snigger. She would smirk a bit, use euphemisms. ‘That boy friend of yours’. I learnt to keep my letters well out of reach; and not under the pillow.

4. There has been progress though: from never knocking before coming into my bedroom, she now gives a perfunctory rap, and immediately barges in. Just before you ask if I’m still living at home, no I’m not; I left 12 years ago, and burnt all the old letters.

5. Six months down the line, I still haven’t told her that, yes, I have met someone, and that it’s good. I wish she would ask, but she doesn’t. I can’t just volunteer the information. I’ve tried. I’ve done role-plays. How can I drop it casually enough, but not so casually that she doesn’t smirk? Why doesn’t she ask, for the sake of Pete?

6. It’s the sniggering. It’s the euphemisms. I could defend my brother, but I can’t seem to be able to defend myself from her embarrassment at realising that her daughter has a life.

7. Six months, and it’s good. Mom, can you hear me? And no, it’s not a man with a good job, who knows lots of things and can teach me stuff.

Kind of domestic

1. Today, people of blogland, I bunked off work. This responsible, adult professional was sitting in the kitchen having her breakfast at 6am this morning, and just could not do it. The energy and the resolve failed me. And the mist was holding promises of blue skies and autumn sunshine later on. So I blamed it all on the Lurgy and slithered back into bed next to my Special Lady Friend. She also bunked off, and later we went for a walk in the autumn sunshine. I’m trying hard to not feel guilty. I don’t like lying.


2. In an attempt to compensate, I made pancakes, and put a lot of effort into my Spanish homework.

3. People of Blogland, I have to go. I have to phone my grandma and thank her for the long, long knitted scarf and the matching socks she sent me by post. She said knitting socks was boring, but she’d do it for me (I’m her favourite granddaughter) in pure new wool. I’m sure they won’t smell for very long. It’s the new wool, you see. It tends to smell of wet sheep, barns in winter. Lovely.

4. One day perhaps I'll tell you about my grandma, because she's worth it.

Today’s highlights

1. 6.45am; just out the shower, I slither back into bed next to my Special Lady Friend. The room is hot and so is she. She doesn’t complain that I’ve pulled back the covers. I have 15 minutes before I have to leave home. Yay.

2. 6.45pm; at the end of a 2 hour 15 minute meeting, we reach the bottom of the agenda and ‘any Other Business’; buttocks clench up, breaths are held, but mercifully no-one pipes up. At this point one of the Work Trolls usually launches into a 15 minute diatribe about the lack of staples/ the state of the staffroom, but today the trolls aren’t in. Yay.

3. People of blogland, I can’t wait to go to bed.

Uncomfortable

1. I swirled around the Petit Bateau shop, frowned at the price tags and left promptly. At the cross roads, an unknown woman in a mini skirt ran up to me – excuse me, she said, looking me up and down. Yes? Excuse me, she added, breathless. Yes? And then I realised she was the shop assistant, running after me. I’d left so promptly she thought I’d nicked something. Faced with my icy glare and raised eyebrow, she retreated. No, nothing. I waved off her crumb of apology and walked away like an offended queen. I don’t know what was stronger, the indignation, the shame of being suspected, or my total and utter inability to shoplift. Perhaps the thing that made me look shifty was the fact that……

2. …I walked around all day with a massive hole in my tights. In the crotch. And that’s the kind of uncomfortable situation that you cannot fix in public.

3. I have to go now. There is Spanish homework to be done.

Ayer, gasté tiempo en mi clase de español.*

1. Hola, la profesora says as she enters the room in a tidal wave of books.
‘She’s a character’, George on my right whispers. Really Spanish.
I consider the tall, gangly woman, the trousers at the ankle and the too-short sleeve, the wiry shoulder-length hair and matching grey cardigan, the yellow socks, but I can’t see how the teacher is really Spanish. In fact I remember having an English teacher at school cut out on the exact same pattern..
It’s a look, you know.
The pile of books crashes to the floor. The six of us look at one another, half amused, half worried.

2. Communicative grammar, she says in heavily accented English, is about learning grammar in context. She seems to have forgotten about the books, doesn’t introduce herself, doesn’t seem to care about our names. I was all poised, ready for the customary speech about my likes and dislikes, pets, favourite colour, shoe size and possible allergies. She’s clearly not interested. On with a military-style drill. Communicative, then.

3. So we’re practising the perfect tense. Sally next to me claims to have eaten a pussy last night. For a minute I believe she’s saying she’s talking about oral sex, and cheer silently inside both at her linguistic prowess and her candidness; but it transpires that she merely got the verb the wrong way round and fed her cat. Disappointment.

4. We’re subjected to 3 hours of an intense lack of organisation and focus. Clearly this character never plans a lesson, and has no idea how to engage her students. This is going to be a struggle. La profesora gives us homework for next week and offers to prolong the class by 15 minutes, but we all have somewhere to be.

5. ay ay ay ay, amigos. Wish me luck.

*yesterday, I wasted time in my Spanish class.

Cartwheel

1. September, 1979, Wednesday morning.
I’m plaiting my long blonde hair, carefully, symmetrically, making sure the parting is impeccable and the bangs just right. I pause and look at my reflection in the mirror; I consider adding little red bows. This afternoon is important, I’m going to my very first gymnastics class. I wonder if they’ll like my hair.

2. Wednesday afternoon.
The gym is crammed full of 5, 6, 7 year olds wearing red leotards and white gym shoes. No one gives a shit about my plaits and their little bows. I can’t even do a cartwheel yet, I’ve so lost my edge. I can’t bear the thought of not being special but I won’t cry. When I go home at 4, I’ve lost the bows anyway.

3. October, 2005, Tuesday morning.
What to wear, what to wear. This afternoon, my Spanish class is starting.

4. Some things never change.

1.Yesterday, people of blogland, I went to see You and me and everyone we knowwith my special lady friend, and I don’t know which bit I liked best; it reminded me of Punch Drunk Love, but better. I developed a little crush on Miranda July’s gangly, awkward, neurotic, quirky character.

2. Then we walked around Covent Garden for a bit, and over the bridge to the South Bank, racing through the autumn air.

3. I’m at peace and happy, although the inside of my nose is black with fumes and general London pollution, and I’m wondering what I could hose it all out with.

4. Last night I dreamt that I had two cats, one called Science, one called Religion. They kept fighting a lot. As I woke up, I laughed at my 20th Century dream.

5. I'm off to wake up my Special Lady friend. Have a good day.

I don’t have a title today

1. 8.31am. Where are those piano fuckers, I bellow, a toothbrush in one hand and a shoe in the other. They were meant to be here by 8.30 and I’m going to be late.

1. 8.32am. The doorbell. It’s the piano people.

2. 8.35am. J’s steel-framed upright piano and heirloom has been prised out of its corner, and wheeled out the door in under 4 minutes, without a grunt. The piano is off to a good home.

3. 8.36am. I start bawling uncontrollably, much to J’s surprise. It’s nice to be reminded of how soppy you are, he says, offering me a hug.

4. The cat has darted out the house, sulking. He doesn’t like it that the piano is gone either; he used to have so much fun running down the stairs at full speed and crashing into it head first. It would make a lovely muffled musical sound, too.

5. 8.45. I’m still bawling my eyes out. It’s not even mine! I can’t even play the damn thing! I put my other shoe on, finish brushing my teeth and leave the house. The Italian-lady-next-door is out gardening. Today is full of challenges aready.

Eliza, Eliza, do not mess with me

1. As a desperate attempt to keep my straying cat at home, I have roasted a chicken, and draped a warm and comfy Moroccan camel-pubes blanket over the sofa. He’s now reclining in comfort, with a full belly. Italian-lady-next-door, do you only know who you’re dealing with? I shall not lose my moggy to a superior feeder, even if it means I have to sit on the hard floor and eat raw turnips.

2. ‘Do you know how ladies in Florence kept their men at home? She asks. Well, every morning, they’d serve their husband a home-made poison, and every night, they’d give him the antidote; so any straying husband would have a very, very uncomfortable night.’ That’s a line of dialogue from a film I watched last night, people of blogland. The Italian-Lady-next-door – she’s called Eliza- does not know that I have my eye on her. But I’ve got to be careful, it’s what the film said.

3. The doorbell goes at 6.30. I can make out a plump shape behind the glass. It’s her! She’s coming to taunt me, wink at my cat, perhaps! Then they’ll probably leave together, pointing at me and laughing.
As I open the door, I’m a perfect picture of dignity and aloofness.

4. But the Italian-lady-next-door is bearing gifts. Hard, tiny green apples from her tree, and cat food! She’s bringing me cat food! Is it a truce? Is it a trap? But why?

5. ‘You’ve been trying to steal my cat away from me’, I do not say as I thank her profusely and close the door.
I’m confused.

Cheat

Like a husband coming home late smeared in some hussy’s red lipstick and smelling of cheap fragrance, my cat has been returning home smelling of fish.

I’m clearly being cheated on here.

Who is the mermaid luring him away?
Perhaps it’s the old Italian lady next door, the One Of The Gigantic Knickers.
Anyhow, the moggy’s got it coming. I shall craft a little pendant thing with the words ‘Do not feed me, I’m a greedy, lying, cheating fat arse’. and possibly make little flyers for people’s letter boxes.
Feel free to place an order if you have a similar kind of spouse.

I have other things to report, people of blogland, but there is coconut cake to be had, so farewell for now.

C is for Crush

People of blogland, sit tight: tonight I’m going to tell you about a few of my unrequited crushes. Just because I can. Just don't tell my Special Lady Friend, ok? This is just between you and me.

Crush #1, 5 on the Richter scale, Circa 1990
Oh, that one. Oh yes.
This one got me out of bed every weekday for a whole school year, you see.
I don’t know what it was; the ponytail, the blue eyes, the make up, the carefully studied androgynous goth/grunge look, the one earring. I was inspired; I read so many books that year. My friends said he had greasy hair, but I didn’t care, he was a lovely school librarian.
About three or four years ago I was home and I saw him down at the swimming pool. He was balding and had a mean potbelly. I swam to the other end of the pool.
I’m so over it.

Crush #2, 8 on the Richter scale, Circa 1978-1985, and for this one I can provide a picture:
With her Christmas bonus, my mother bought our first TV set, and at dinner time I watched Albator.
Right. Pirate. Long hair. Scar. Black clothes. Big knee-length boots. Rebel.
Sometimes I couldn't even swallow my food properly.
All I can say is : there is no way Albator was really a guy. Pirate, yes; girl pirate.
Seriously, look: hips!
What am I saying, 1985; I’m still crushed out.

Crush #3, 9 on the Richter scale, circa now:
This delicious creature is called Bebe, and she’s a singer and she’s Spanish. Oh, the beautiful extremeno accent, the lovely way she has of skipping over consonants, the hand gestures, the voice, the eyes, the everything. I’ve gone all weak at the knees just watching one of her videos.
In fact I’m feeling a bit queasy now. It happens when I get all crushed out on someone unattainable.

I don’t have a punch line, blogfolks. So now I better go and have some alka-seltzer.

Familles je vous hais, etc

1.Blogfolks, you probably have one of those too.

A cousin, sibling, whatever, just a year older than you, or, worse, younger and cuter, or and brighter and more attractive, with better grades at school, blonder hair, a better job, a sexier wife, a bigger car.
When you’re 6 your grandmother tells you about his impeccable manners; at 7 you know about how he can do a 6000 piece jigsaw all by himself (and you can’t), at 8 he’s a fencing champion( and you’re not), at 18 he’s got a rich girlfriend (and you’re a retarded goth), at 24 he’s getting married (and not you, and you’re not going to the wedding), and now he’s an engineer, and although your grandmother is now dead and can’t bust out the wedding pictures, you still think you’re just not as good.

Don’t you?

2. I have one. He’s been the plague of my life so far. Bigger, brighter, with shinier teeth, bluer eyes, an example to follow. Better at maths. (because being better at languages doesn’t count.) Better at sports. (because being better at friendship doesn’t count.)

3. ‘I saw Adrian yesterday’, my mother says on the phone. ‘He says hello.’
I bet he didn’t really.
‘you know what? He reminds me of George Bush.’
‘How so?’ I giggle.
‘Well.. Good hair, expensive clothes, a well-paid job, but really I think he’s an idiot. And he’s so fake.’

4. And this is another reason why I love my mother.
Wouldn’t you?,

30-something handed me this stick – it’s called 7 things.

Seven Things I Plan To Do Before I Die:

Plan? Me? No.

Seven Things I Can Do:
1. chew and walk
2. rub my belly and my head
3. pancakes.
4. Cartwheels.
5. origami in the shape of female genitalia
6. I’m a mean cuddler, but then I did learn from the best.
7. Pee very, very far. (I always won every competition.)


Seven Things I Can Not Do:

1. The splits. I used to, and now I can’t, although I have recurring dreams about it. I wonder what it means. *paging Dr Freud*
2. Wear odd socks.
3. Sit through a film in which a character is being treated unfairly, even if I know s/he’ll get even at the end.
4. Bear the sound of sports commentaries. I just get a rash.
5. act interested in wedding/sprogs pictures.
6. j says ‘tie your shoelaces’, but he’s grossly exaggerating.
7. eat a prune without farting for the next two days.


Seven Things I Say The Most:

1. Putain de bordel de merde. That’s a combo of 3 of the rudest French words you can get, and it’s very, very satisfying to utter. Try it.
2. It sucks donkey balls.
3. ay ay ay!
4. Bollocks.
5. Bring it!
6. Ok, but don’t yell.
7. mon gros matou chéri que j’aime - but only to my cat.

Seven Books I Love:

1. The heart is a lonely hunter – Carson Mc Cullers
2. They call me Mad Dog – Erika Lopez
3. Plateform –Michel Houellbecq
4. Slammerkin – Emma Donoghue
5. The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
6. Au Bonheur des Dames – Emile Zola
7. Exquisite Corpse – Poppy Z Brite

So, that was nearly impossible.
I left out ‘ 7 things I find attractive about the opposite sex’ as well as ‘the same sex’. I don’t know why.

Trivia

1. Blogfolks, I had to shave my forehead today.

Not in a cool Goth shaved head kind of way. No. I had accidentally dyed my forehead black. So I scrubbed and scrubbed, with soap and more soap and various products I found- I drew the line at bleach and toilet cleaner.
I should have known- the hair dye box said ‘Blackest Black’. None of that ‘Kinda Black’, or ‘Half assed Black’ rubbish.
No.
‘Blackest Black’.
If you find anything blacker, you’ll probably die. No pun intended.
I want to write to the manufacturers and suggest ‘Black, Goddamnit’ or‘Motherfucking Black’.
So anyway. Forehead. Horror. Desperation. I’ll never be able to leave this house again. Scrub scrub scrub.
My skin turned an interesting shade of grey, but eventually regained its Caucasian pallor, with added shine.
The little hairs, on the other hand, remained obstinately black. I didn’t even know I had hair on my forehead!
So I shaved them off.
There’s no punch line, I just wanted to share. I know there’s more important things going on in the world, leave me alone.

2. I’ve gone back to work; it’s the end of life as I know it. Fortunately, last night my Special Lady Friend came over and helped tip back the work /life scales. She’s taking me away next week end. Or is it me taking her? I’m not sure. I know it will involve the sea, good food and sleeping late.

3. I’ll leave you now because I have to bleach my moustache. Thank you for stopping by.

Fairly atavic, or this fire in my belly

1. -I can reschedule the delivery for tomorrow, which means you’ll have to be at home for it.
- Yes m’am. Whatever you say, I’m at your mercy, Ye Parcelforce Power. I bet she has hair bleached yellow.
- So your parcel could be delivered anytime between 7am and 7pm, she says gleefully.
- Oh aye, I nod down the phone. I don’t want to risk her wrath and see the whole thing collaspse. Still. I bet she has her hair scrapped into a bun with that little bit hanging on her greasy face. And gold hoop earrings.
- So you have to be at home all day, she adds. This time it’s bordering on the malicious, chavgirl.
- I’ll make sure I set my alarm in plenty of time and then I’ll wait behind my net curtains for your messiah-like delivery man, I don’t say but I really wish I had because it would have been far cooler than just u-huh-ing down the phone, then thanking her politely for being patronised. So today, I’m stuck at home fuming again.

2. See, people of blogland, yesterday it wasn’t only the gods of parcel deliveries that were against me. Trains were too. As a result of South West trains’ extreme and untimely deviousness late last night, I took my special lady friend to places she’d never been before, and I don’t mean metaphorically. Effingham?? It doesn’t even exist. Finally we managed to get to my home and it was so late that all we had time for before falling asleep was a cuddle.. Trains, and chocolate vending machines which ate my last 20 pence. All day I mentally composed wrathful, vitriolic letters of complaints to the Higher Powers, and imagined replies of abject, crawling apologies that I could wave at people and frame. As well as free travelcards and endless chocolate bars.

3. See, most normal families know those times (Christmas, Birthdays, First Boyfriend’s visit) when you bust out the photo album and reminisce. In my family, we do most things differently. Instead, my mother keeps a thick folder of complaints letters that she has sent over the years. It goes back to 1969, année érotique for some, but to my mother the year she discovered the superior pleasure she could take in unleashing her rage at the same Higher Powers that pissed me off all of yesterday. At Christmas, we bust out the Bitching Folder and we giggle. My favourite letter is perhaps the June 1978 one, great year for gold lamé platform shoes with tiny straps. Straps that broke with the first step out of the shop; bum on floor and bruises, argument, scandal, perfectly delightful letter, 2 free pairs of shoes.
Result.
There are scores of other letters all legitimate, to gas people, mail order companies, wine sellers, supermarkets, plane companies. Over the years we got lots of free coupons, but she has never managed to get free flights.
Yet.

4. I don’t really know what my point is today; except that if the Pratcelforce powers don’t turn up with my stuff before 7.01, I have a letter coming. It’s brewing already. I have about a dozen really cool adjectives ready.
Blame it on atavism. J thinks it’s pointless and ‘such a Y thing to do’. I don't care, it’s cathartic.
And, sometimes, it gets results.

Oh, who knows anything anyway

1. It’s not that life has been quiet at the Mansion of Y, people of Blogland. Oh no. In fact it’s been a positively frantic six days, six days and already my fingers seem to have forgotten how to navigate this keyboard. Lots happened in the real world. I had fun and frolics and witty things were said, but I didn’t write it down at the time and now it’s too late.

2. I could tell you about what I’ve been up to with my Special lady Friend this past week; but then you’d sigh and wish your week too had involved candlelit, musty subterranean winebars, picnics by the Thames and extremely potent pot brownies consumed during – thankfully- a 3 day bank holiday week end. Yes. I could. But I won’t.

3. Today the cat and I are sulking in our respective corners. He because he got another asymmetrical haircut earlier; I because I have been awaiting the arrival of the ParcelForce man since 8am this morning; It’s now 6.19pm, and I’m irritated. I tried ironing; there’s something strangely soothing about the gliding, steaming iron on 300 threadcount linen pillow cases; perhaps it’s the smell of lavender, perhaps my troubled soul finds solace in smoothing out crumpled shirts. Still, a pile of anally pressed linen later and two tall glasses of Pimm’s and lemonade, and still no Parcelforce delivery man. This inebriated domestic goddess’s nerves are frazzled.

4. Pah. It’s all I’ve got to say for myself today. Too much sugar, not enough exercise. Thank you for stopping by.

Slices of domestic life in the House of Y

1. So yesterday, people of blogland, I made polenta. It’s this newly found enthusiasm for cooking, you see; all of a sudden, I can do it, and the finished product is usually rather good. I think. Except for polenta, which is fucking boring.

-J, I shriek, polenta is fucking boring.
-I know, he replies. He doesn’t know, of course, because he lives on tatties and slices of I can’t believe it’s not cardboard smothered in peanut butter; but if he pretends that he does, he thinks I won’t force him to try it.
-How do you know?
-Err.. my dad used to grow it in the garden. And frankly, if I see one more polenta, I’m going to e-x-p-l-o-d-e!
-Yeah. Anyway, it tastes of nothing, what can I do with it? I should phone my mum and ask.
-Why don’t you just google it? This way you don’t have to talk to anybody.
-No, I’ll phone my mum.
-Oh, she knows more than google, then, does she, he asks in that dangerous tone.
-I prefer the human factor.
-And how do you think all the stuff on google got there in the first place?
-My mum put it there!
-Exactly.

I don’t know who won, but even the cat wouldn’t eat the polenta. Next time, I think, cheese. Then you can all come for dinner.

2. I think the best way to not fall prone to a severe post-holiday depression is to start planning the next one. All I can say is: so many places, and if enough time, so little money. So now I’ll sigh watching the rain diluting London, and I’ll go back to reading Ulverton by Adam Thorpe, because it’s really really good.

3. Last night I had a date with my Special Lady Friend. We figured out that this was our fourth one. I don’t have anything to report except that I’m grateful for her excellent company, warmth, wit and kindness. (And she’s really hot, too.)

That’s all I have to say for myself today. Thank you for stopping by.

This is only for Edith Finistère

I’m sorry, Edith. You’re right. It’s false advertising. The promised cookies haven’t exactly been forthcoming. So I give you: Chocolate Chip Cookies, the recipe. And no talk of flaps or islands for a while.

INGREDIENTS:
· 1 cup butter, room temperature
· 3/4 cup granulated sugar
· 1 1/4 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
· 2 eggs
· 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
· 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
· 3/4 teaspoon salt
· 1 teaspoon baking powder
· 1 teaspoon baking soda
· 2 to 3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
PREPARATION:
In large mixing bowl cream butter and sugars until light. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
Sift together the flour, salt baking powder, and soda; stir into the first mixture, blending well. Stir in chocolate chips.
Shape into balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter and place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake in a preheated 350° oven for 8 to 10 minutes, or until edges are light brown.
Makes about 4 to 5 dozen cookies.

Alternatively, Betty Crocker makes a mean Brownies mix. Just add and egg, water, oil, and chopped walnuts. Wonderful.

Bertha the muse of blogging is away on holiday.

Seriously.

Go here. It'll take a minute to load, but it's seriously worth it. Seriously.
G'wan. You'll thank me for it. I promise.

Withdrawal symptoms.

So, yes, I admit it, it was Lesvos we went to. I say Mitileni, but really you and I, people and Blogland, know that it’s Lesvos. Greavsie totally blew my cover.

Anyway. Withdrawal symptoms.
I think I may be having them, people of blogland. Seriously. It’s serious.

Ah, the simple life on Lesvos. Ah, the Sappho Guest house and its sunburnt guests in various states of undress! Ah, the measly trickle of cold Lesbian water in the shower! Ah, the tiny gravy granules-like stones from the Lesbian beach that hide in your crack, get carried to the bathroom/bedroom, then pepper the floor for days! Ah, the ‘Unleash your creativity with other like-minded women in a safe environment’ workshops!

It’s just not the same here you know.
All this middle class London comfort, and not the tiniest workshop on how to write bad poetry about orchids or how to worship your vulva.
I might sulk.

Therefore, I’ve just stood in the bathtub and washed from a cold trickle of water; afterwards, I covered the floor in Bisto granules, for more authenticity. Later my lover is coming over, so we can play the ‘find the granules in your crack’ game, and then unleash our creativity together, in a very Lesbian way. Just like on the island. Yay. That’s how we treat withdrawal symptoms in my world.

There seems to be a pattern

1. Wake up to the yells of the fishmonger outside the hotel yelling things about calamari in Greek.
2. Shake your fist at the window and utter one of the ten Greek words you know: malaka..
3. Retrieve bed sheet from floor and wrap around naked self, toga-like, in a futile attempt at covering sweating nakedness.
4. Put on sunglasses.
5. Open shutters and breathe in calamari/sea smell.
6. Emerge blinking from whitewashed bedroom.
7. Stumble on cats #45, #73 and #47 that are currently lying down in the corridor, blending in with the carpet. Make your way downstairs.
8. Step over a score of lesbians sunning themselves in various states of undress on the deck. Swap glasses for darker ones so they can’t catch you leering/staring/sniggering.
9. Sink into one the chairs overlooking the unrelenting expanse of blue.
10. Eat yoghurt with honey, fruit and the ubiquitous hardboiled egg, surrounded by felines #64, #69 and omnipresent #45. Later, to simplify things, we’ll call them all George, except for a bit black moggy I’ll name Moriarty, and a skinny one that’ll become Hercules.
11. The stray dogs will also be called George.
12. Cover body in SPF 20. Swap homemade toga for bikini and elegantly wrapped sarong.
13. Go to naked beach and lose the whole lot.
14. Paddle. Fall in. Swim. Read. Swim. Tan. Get the little rocks out of your crack.
15. Decide to go back to the room and take a ‘nap’. Get little rocks out of your lover’s crack.
16. Spend the rest of the day swimming, attempting showers under a futile trickle of cold water, sitting by the sea, drinking ouzo, stumbling over Georges, reading, or listening to Jacqui, like in this particular extract:

I find that when I go on holiday I forget how big my breasts are. They’re around, but I forget. I think I’m a B cup. In real life I know that I’m a woman of substance, but here I don’t give a toss. They are falling out of my top, oh well. That’s going to end up on your blog, isn’t it. Better keep quiet.

All in all, a holiday well spent.

1. People of Blogland, I’m back from Helas. Tanned and slim, because of the food poisoning. Oh well, I hadn’t thrown up since 1993, it was time.

2. Day one: I think we should keep a diary, I say to Jacqui.
Yeah, she replies. You write it and I’ll make the odd witty comment.

3. As it turns out, we were far too busy to write anything at all. I might have fascinating things to report, but first I have to get over the food poisoning, sleep for 24 hours, and then we’ll see.

Oh, Lard.

Bollocks to this

I'm going to the sea.
Back next Thursday.
Do talk amongst yourselves.
Love you all.

Ps : I'll bring back naked pictures of Jacqui. If we can get her drunk enough.

4 days to go, or Instructions for people who will be by the sea with me

1) No-one, under any circumstance, is allowed to make even a single joke involving sharks. I watched Jaws, you know. It took me years to recover sufficiently to be able to go paddling in the ocean again. I still have panic attacks in swimming pools. I have been known to jump out of the bath suddenly. On a bad night, I can’t sit on the toilet alone. Few friends can cope with such a difficult request.

2) Please do tell me if I am about to sit on a jelly fish. I did that in August 1999, and it hurt. ‘Mummy, mummy, why is the lady sitting on a jelly fish?’ I heard the little boy before I felt the sting. I had to pretend I found it funny too. Yes, the tears running down my face were pure mirth. The same day I was stung by a wasp that had found its way under my shirt, while I was driving at 90mph on the motorway. I'm sorry, Animal Kingdom; I really don't know what I did wrong?...

3) Do remind me about lack of SPF and its direct corollary, burnt nipples. Enough said.

4) Do remind me that I promised to share the inflatable crocodile. I can get very infantile that way and forget that I should share my toys. Therapy is helping, but I'm not 100% there yet.

5) Don’t forget to take pictures of Jacqui as soon as she steps out of her sarong.

6) yay! all of it.

That’s pretty much all I have to say for myself today. I’m so idle my few brain cells have started to self-destruct, just to have something to do.Thanks for stopping by.

Propitious
(Summer 2002)

A silky sultry night, and this airport motel with a white double bed. She emerges glistening from the shower cubicle, but she won't let the towel slip off, even in front of me, especially not in front of me. Night clothes on, she lights a cigarette by the open window. I wait, on the double white bed. Silence or maybe cicadas outside, it's the south of France, and wafting smoke. Tomorrow she'll apologize, it was a ground floor room, she could well have gone out for that fag. I wait; and I look at the room, the bare white motel rooms. Neutral, so propitious, it could be.. I have visions of motel seediness and illicit affairs, you know? Tonight is sso so hot; silky, sultry, so, I wait. You never know.
She turns the TV on. She chooses Bruce Willis over Isabelle Huppert. I wait. She likes films with car chases. Later she grows tired of the flickering and switches it off. It sounds like we have neighbours upstairs, is that their kid trampolining on the bed? Bounce, bounce, bounce. What do we do now? No, wait - that's no kid bouncing, what we're hearing is an Olympic sex session. There is some rough fucking going on upstairs in room 12, and I could definitely do with some of what they are having. Sorry but I have to turn the TV back on, I can't listen to that she said, disgusted. (I have hidden the remote under my pillow. Devious.) That's enough to put anyone off sex forever, she says. Gross! I say nothing. There is nothing to say. Did you pack your earplugs? Can I have them? she asks. Then she sleeps. If I smoked, I'd go out for a fag. Better than nothing.

People of blogland, now is time for me to read stupid books from the depths of my hammock; eat half a melon for breakfast; sit in the grass til sunset and listen to the cicadas. For I am holidaying in France. All other activities will be minimal. I've even switched off the 'libido' button. Do talk amongst yourselves, etc. Love you all.

PS : It's really quite hot, you know.

Love thy pussy, love thyself

Abi says , If I were going to have any kind of plastic surgery, I ‘d get a porn star pussy.
What’s one of those? Kerry’s bemused.
You know, when everything’s in the right place and everything.
How do you know that yours isn’t?
Because.. I’ve looked?
You have? How?
With a mirror, silly.
More bemused looks.
Me too; I have a hand mirror just for that purpose, I pipe up.
Kerry’s mouth forms a perfect ‘o’.
That’s because you’re straight, Abi says. Straight women don’t look at their pussy.
They don’t? I chirp. I thought every one did. Maybe not. It’s like that scene in The color purple.
Abi nods vigorously.
Kerry hasn’t read The Colour Purple, but she’s seen the film. The mirror scene didn’t make it onto the screen.
Abi offers to have a look at Kerry’s and tell her if she has a porn star pussy or not. Kerry declines.

Now that I think about it, I think I have one those, actually.

It’s sex, but not as we know it.

1) I’m early for my appointment. I stand by the lift. Why do people think that if they keep pressing the button it'll make the lift come faster? That works with women...NOT with lifts.

2) I stride into the waiting room, (callously) hoping that a sexual health clinic might be excellent blogging material. But there’s no-one else there; the pile of magazines and basket of help yourself! Condoms and dental dams are all mine for the taking. Strawberry? They only have flavours I don’t like.

3) the (gay) Nurse Practitioner is.. let’s say I could put her in my pocket, she’s that cute.

4) -While I get the room ready, would you mind reading through this leaflet on sexual health we’re working on? Feedback would be great, she says.
-Sure.
-We’re rewriting it because the old one had quite a lot of slang words and people didn’t like it.
-Oh, I smile. Maybe you should have different versions for different members of the public. Colour coded, so they’d know what level of slang they’re getting. Baby pink for ‘your lady garden 101’. Crimson for ‘Love your pussy, love yourself’. Deep purple for ‘your cunt and its tribulations’.
I’m high as a kite and very very anxious, I can’t seem to be able to shut up.

5) Later, confident in the knowledge that all is well with the lady garden (baby pink version), I run down the stairs (lifts, pah; don't come fast enough).

6) what if some day I run into cute NP Jenny in some dyke bar?
Hey, have we met? You look familiar. She'll already have a whole file on me!! Maybe she'd start reading it out at the bar. Screened for chlamydia, gonohrrea, HIV, B.V, thrush and syphillis'. Mmm.

6) To be continued.

What’s in a name, etc

1) At that time I wanted a girlfriend called Chris. Chris. A pebble of a name, smooth on the tongue, with just a hint of sharpness, and ambiguous enough for those who don’t need to know better (work, grandmothers, postman.). ‘What’s your boyfriend’s name?’ ‘Chris’, I would have said with just a shadow of a smile. Yes, I would have liked a girlfriend called Chris. I didn’t know any Chrises. Now it just strikes me as boring; or rather, it doesn’t strike me at all. I won’t give a Chris a second look.

2) Ok, I say, let’s say you have amnesia, you have forgotten your name and you can pick a brand new one for yourself. Don’t say ‘I don’t know’, just pick one. I’m in a bossy mood.
I’d have to think about it, she replies.
Cop out. Think now. Long? Short?
Short.
Girl’s name? Mildred? Margaret? What’s worse than Mildred? I know what’s worse. Molly. Especially because in French ‘molle’ means ‘limp’. It’s all wrong. That’s a million times worse than anything. In my first year English class, we had to have English names; my teacher called me Molly. I had a little card with Molly on my desk. Scarred, I am. In the second year we could choose. I had very little sense then, I picked Tracy. So. Boy’s name? Either?
Not a girl’s name.
Of course not.
We call my dad Joe, but that’s not his name.
Oh?
No. His name’s Alexander.
Of course. So you could be called Charlotte, and we could call you….
Brian.

We settle for Brian.

3) Maybe people called Dave have a better chance of pulling than those called Trevor. Maybe Alex is more desirable than Edna. Or Brigid, which spellcheckers change into 'frigid' if you're not careful, and that's unfortunate. I don't really have a punch line and it's lunch time.

Time for a Brazilian, or There are no mirrors in the jungle.

1) People of Blogland, in three weeks’ time, I shall pack my flipflops and a pile of books and propel myself to A Greek Island in the company of Jacqui (hello Jacqui!). I’m so excited I could pee myself, but I won’t, because I’ m a lady. Our plans are to swim, eat melon and read books.

2) Strangely enough, at exactly the same time, my lover and a friend will be propelling themselves to The Exact Same Greek Island. So, not exactly together, not exactly apart. In different rooms, though. Therefore I wonder how much light there will be on the beach at night. I wonder if there are any tips for getting rid of sand that got into places it shouldn’t get. Again, I’m so excited I could pee myself.

3) It’s this time of year when one has to purchase a Swimming Costume. My lover can casually fit her cute arse into size 10 bikini bottoms and add ‘ I don’t wear tops anyway’. Some of us find the process a tad more traumatic. Some of us were considering this:

4) WholesomeWear is a modest line of clothing for ‘wherever’. Swimwear that ‘highlights the face, rather than the body’ includes a garment with bright colors at the neck and shoulders to draw the eye to the face. The loose fitting outer garment limits cling and adds modesty and style.

5) Now doesn’t that sound good. Oh, look, I can choose between ‘skirted swimmwear’, ‘slimming swimwear’ and ‘culotte swimwear’, for the more active swimmer. Goody.

6) Alternatively, I could ignore mirrors for the weeks prior to my departure and reinvent myself as anything I like. Ask an antelope what animal it is ; ‘Me? I’m a butterfly! If one of them big stripey tiger things comes at me I’ll fly away’. Cos you see, there are no mirrors in the jungle.. I'm a butterfly.

7) That’s pretty much all I have to say for myself, because I’m hungry. Thanks for stopping by.

I just don’t know

1) As my train slows down, then stops in a tunnel, I wonder. What if; what if we’re stuck in here for long enough for people to freak out; what if some bit of the trains explodes; who in this carriage will scream first? Would I scream? Who will jostle and trample and push and shove and kick and pull and shriek? Would I jostle and trample? Would I push and shove? Or would I simply stay seated and feel cold absolute fear take hold of me? Scream and push and shove is for other people – I mean, I don’t even dance or sing at concerts...I stand there mesmerised and watch.
I don’t know.

2) Discovery: my bin liners are scented. No but really, they are. They smell of Fresh Something. Never in my life had I even imagined that some bored bin liner manufacturer somewhere would come up with such an idea. I was already in awe of scented panty liners and tampons – no, but really- but bin liners? I don’t even have a word for it.
I don’t know.

3) that’s pretty much all I have to say for myself, except that I’ll be on holiday tomorrow, and this prospects makes me positively giddy.

X is not just for xylophone

1) ‘Hey, where are you from?’
I give him three guesses.
‘Scottish Highlands?’
‘No’.
‘South Islands?’
‘No.’
‘Ok, say something else…. Say something!’
It’s becoming a challenge; of course I don’t want him to guess. I blather on, trying hard to make my accent impossible to place.
‘Not British?’
‘No.’
‘Israel?’
‘No. You’ve had your three guesses. French’.
I brace myself for the inevitable, and the inevitable comes:
‘Ah! Run away! Run away! Your people did it because we won the Olympics!’
He means the bombs, of course.
‘Oh, c’mon. If my people had done it, they’d made a much better job of it. And you haven’t won the Olympics, you’ve just signed up for a massive 20-year debt.’

2) Maybe the time has come to pretend to be Belgian. Or Swiss. Or Luxemburger. No one hates Luxembergers. Just so I never get to hear ‘if it weren’t for us you’d be speaking German right now’ ever again., or ‘we won against the French’ like it’s a war. Only in your head, because you need an anal massage.

3) I had a #3 but I’m too tired and grumpy. Still, I wonder if Luxembourg gives citizenship easily.

P is for paralysis panting

1) At 5pm yesterday I finally turned the television and the radio off and decided that I had heard enough emotional media crap for the day, seen enough pictures of ambulances and bandaged faces and buses torn open like cans of catfood; and my lover came over, through streets devoid of traffic, peopled with hundreds of idle workers talking in quiet voices.
So she came over..

2) Time to shake off the paralysis and live, for fuck’s sake.. Conjure up a bubble and be safe; forget, that her (highly cynical) job involves using and selling yesterday’s events; forget that I’d bawled earlier in the day.
Live, and run to the station to meet her, and sweat and pant a bit because I can’t run for more than three minutes; smile, and hug, and eat and drink, and shed our clothes, and fuck, because it’s life, and life has to win over paralysis.

3) Later after sweating and panting some more we lay entangled, paralysis fully at bay.
- no but seriously, what other grown up activity can you thoroughly lose yourself in? I ask.
The answer comes as I barely hit the question mark:
-Football!
- Ah. Of course. Should have known.
She laughs.
- This is blogging material, you know, I threaten.
- So now I’m blogging material. I see.
- Honey, everybody and everything is blogging material.
- Even this? And this? What about… this..?
Breathtaking. Can’t possibly blog about it.
Personally, I think it beats football anytime.

I’m angry.

‘If you have pictures of the bus’ top being ripped apart, do send them to us’, says BBC2.
‘Let’s hear the tales of survivors’, they say.
‘A couple is reunited after the blast’

They don’t need to tell us how to feel.
They don’t need to tell us if we should cry.
And they shouldn’t ask for pictures of the wounded and the dead and people running away with blood on their face.
It’s obscene, more obscene than donkey porn.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got to say for myself this morning, except that my friends are all in one piece and I better call my mom. Then bawl, or something.

Cherry bomb Part One

1. Because it’s cold, I’ve had to have three desserts tonight. Look out for headlines in tomorrow’s newspapers: ‘Girl explodes. Cherries suspected.’

2. Saturday night's storm was only a little one. I blame the gay day and the gay beer and the infinitely cute lesbians in kilts, which distracted me and affected my vigilance. On Sunday, we made up over a bottle of mineral water, and tried to define the terms of our non-relationship relationship; then we went to our respective abodes, perhaps to confirm, solemnly, the fact that it’s not just about shagging.

3. It’s not just about shagging, you know.

4. But it’s not a relationship.

5. I wonder if she’s got a kilt…

Cherry Bomb Part Two
or 'TMI, sometimes'

- B, I say, I’m going to have explosive diarrhoea. 1 kilo of cherries.
- Nice. Thanks for sharing. Who said romance was dead?
- Romance IS dead. It was acquired in a hostile takeover by Disney and Hallmark, homogenised and sold off piece by piece.
- Such cynicisms in someone so young, it’s heartbreaking.. I need a card to make me feel better. A personalised one.
- Oh, honey, I’ll make you one, to go with the apron I’m going to knit for you, remember?
- Just make sure it has a pocket, so I can carry the card with me always… and stop it now, you’re scaring me.
- Hey, you’re the one talking about romance.. I don’t want romance.. therefore I share information about my ‘splosive ass. It’s a preventive measure.
- Commitment phobe.. and there’s me, going through the yellow pages.. .remov.. can’t spell U-heals…joke!
- HAUls. U-Hauls. Page 56. I got it book marked.
- Where is my inhaler? Crash cart, anyone?
- But seriously.. winter wedding maybe? You’d look so good in black against a back drop of snow.. and we could have little flower girls dressed as fairies.. or maybe big flower boys dressed as fairies.
- Oh no. eek.
- Hey, you were the one in a wedding dress on Saturday.
- This is an automated message service. Freda isn’t available at the moment; she’s rounding up the chickens and goats for sacrifice. 23.30 Friday. Don’t be late. Anyway, I’m sorry… Do I know you? Where did you get this number? Stop hassling me.

Clouded

Yesterday, people of Blogland, was pink Saturday, which I had forgotten all about; that says rather a lot about my wish/inability to belong. Pink Saturday is when the million gays put on either their leather outfit, sailor’s suit and stick feathers either onto their head or up their arse, march for a while, then proceed to get drunk gaily together on Soho square -which is roughly the size of a Jacob’s cracker- til nightfall, then go to gay parties. There are two other pink Saturdays this summer in London, which confuses people. The march, which is free; then there is the Big Gay Out, which isn’t; then there is the Soho pride, which is a big mess but apparently the most fun of them all. So now you know.
Did I mention I had forgotten all about it?
I was busy sampling different kinds of absinthe around London Bridge with a tall blonde, then our minds obviously clouded, we said in perfect unison ‘pah, there won’t be anyone in Soho, they’re all in Hyde park for the live 8 thingy. Let’s buy some beer and have a quiet drink on Soho square, a bit like tramps’. No wonder that absinthe thing is notorious for making people crazy. Soon we were surrounded by leather outfits, sailors’ suits and all kinds of feathers; we stayed and watched and drank.
Then it turned out that there were past dates and friends and acquaintances on the Jacob’s cracker, as well as my lover in a wedding dress and some of her friends, and we all met up and I got gaily drunk and started talking to everybody and then it was nightfall and my tall blonde friend was hungry and since this was supposed her day she and I left to go in search of sustenance, and now my lover is extremely pissed off with me and I don’t know what to do.

Perhaps I should have forgotten all about pink Saturday properly, and none of this would have happened.
I suspect that today, people of blogland, will be Morose Sunday, and will chiefly be spent in bed with the cat.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got to say for myself.

Let me count the times

Sometimes things just blurt out, I can’t seem to help it – or want to:
- This morning in my meeting I was daydreaming about having a threesome with you and another woman. It’s not a question, or a proposal, just saying how I spend my working hours, you know. Daydreaming.
- Nothing wrong with threesomes.. she replies, cryptic.
It’s not a proposal. Honest.
I smile.
- Four is problematic, though, she adds. Even numbers never work, people pair off..
- Four??? What do you mean, four?? I gasp.
- Yes, four. What?
- You harlot!!
- Yes; anyway, it never works. 5 is.. different. But I’m not a harlot!
- That ain’t right.. oh no.
- What ain’t right? That I’ve slept with more than 3 people at the same time? It wasn’t a regular thing!! Only done it once or twice or something..
- No, what ain’t right is that I haven’t. Anyway, doesn’t that qualify as an orgy?
- I don’t know what the qualifying number is for an orgy, but if you think 5 is then it more than that probably is.
- I like to put my labels on things. So, shall we take this one there home then?
- I think she’s straight, you know.
- Pah. Straight girls are like noodles anyway: straight until you get them wet.
- True.

Just a fantasy, of course. We’re not harlots, you know.

I never thought that one day I would break into a sweat in a museum.

This afternoon, J and I went to see this at the V&A, because it sounded good; and it wasn’t really that good, apart from the room right at the end before they cunningly ensnare you into the shop-trap and try to sell you crap, like in all museums. I don’t know about you, but when I walk into an exhibition, I put on my serious, almost respectful, I’m-expecting-to-be-enlightened mood.. I think I even squint a bit. But today, in the last room right before the shop full of crap, we could play. Do you know those big; big bouncy balls with tits to hold onto, the ones you sit on and bounce, bounce, bounce? And bounce some more, til you laugh so hard you fall off? So J and I bounced, bounced, bounced through the exhibition, and no-one even stopped us. J fell off.

The rest of the exhibition was rather crap, but we also had a mean game of ping-pong and tickled each other with feathers. We left rather sweaty and dishevelled, especially me, because J doesn’t really have any hair to dishevel.

That’s pretty much all I have to say for myself today.

Wimblewhat? Or Theory #567: lesbians and sports

So, do you like tennis? she asks.
No, I say. Most spectator sports bore the shit out of me. Wait, that’s not quite correct. All spectator sports bore the shit out of me.
Have you ever played tennis?
Yes; too much running and grunting. Not ladylike. Being a creature of airy grace, I much prefer badminton.
Oh. I played tennis for years. Yes it is a game of running but I don’t recall ever grunting. I have a disturbing memory of playing badminton with my family as a young girl. My dad fell over trying to get the shuttlecock and in the tumble one of his balls squidged out of his shorts. I have been traumatised ever since and can no longer play or watch the sport.
Oh, the trauma!!
Yes. I think this is why I’m a dyke.

I think there should be a warning on the shuttlecocks tube thing. ‘Playing this game might result in childhood trauma.’ Or more to the point ‘ Warning: Playing this game when not wearing tight enough underpants might affect your daughter’s sexuality.’

I can’t decide if that means sports is bad or you or not.

Gargantuan, still

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1) Oh, Richard K Juarez. Darling Richard K Juarez, with the beautifully multi ethnic name, virtual embodiment of the cultural melting pot that is modern America, Richard! Thank you for your offer, Richard. Mind you, in those emails it's always 'Elizabeth Alonzo', 'Louise Lu Chang', never the other way round. No Consuelo Rogers-Smithers. Or Juan Jose McLeod. Some kind of social graduation through your first name. If I ever have a son I'll call him Pedro. But I digress, Richard. Do you mind if I call you Richard?

2) Thank you for your offer anyway. If you only knew how much I do not need those, you'd wet yourself. No, but really.

3) when I click the link it says ‘how to become the best guy for her’. Ah; Richard, Dickie baby, I don’t think she’d like that much, you know.

4) Following my latest post, however, I was wondering if you had anything for gargantuan appetites? Cheap cake-burning pills? Might need those soon. Or possibly, pills to stop me from behaving disgracefully in public parks on very hot Sunday afternoons? I know there were shrubs and things and that I don’t think anyone saw just for how long I had my hand down her pants, but still. A disgraceful behaviour at my age. But I digress.

5) and anyway, if anyone saw us, they didn’t say a thing.

Ganet

1. Breakfast: tea and toast
Lunch : soggy lettuce, parsnip soup, slice o’ ‘I can’t believe it’s not cardboard’ bread, tap water.

2. On the way to work I was dreaming of fluffy pancakes with maple syrup; then throughout the morning it was crusty baguette with goats cheese, juicy white flesh nectarines, coffee éclairs; then as lunch approached I conjured up images of rare steak with shallot butter and sautéed potatoes washed down with a chilled rosé d’Anjou. The afternoon was devoted to ideas of tomato and olive oil bruschetta, then rhubarb crumble and perfectly ripe strawberries.

3. dinner, goddamnit: every single of those things til I burst, twice, and I don’t even care.


4. I wonder what’s going on, though. I’d like to read this as the very outward sign of my newly-found appetite for life, or something; I can’t think of anything I have to compensate for right now, besides the fact that work underfeeds me..and yes, I ma getting some, so it's not that either.

5. There’s no punch line. I’m too full to think.

Tart

Half an hour after she’s arrived, she hands me this little parcel with cake in it. Like it’s no big deal, in fact she almost looks embarrassed. It’s not just any cake, it’s a pink box with a ribbon around it, from that posh place, Pâtisserie Valérie on old Compton street. The other day I was leering at the chocolate creations in the window. After I’ve done my little dance and squealed like a girl, I grab a spoon. It’s perfect: a light pastry casing with the thinnest layer of chocolate, fluffy cream, huge juicy raspberries. It shuts me up for five minutes.
As if she needed to get me cake to get into my pants…

Purposeless

1) I know. Distinct lack of update. But you see, this is what happened, and I'm not making anything up or anything:

2) I was kidnapped by strangers, thrown into the back of an unmarked white van and driven, bound and gagged and kicking, to an unknown location. 'No! I shouted through the fitly rag covering my mouth, You can't ! I have responsibilities! I have a readership! Of at least 30 people! I can't leave them without an update on the wondrous life of Y! And who will feed the cat? I kicked and thrashed in spite of the bondage white tape binding me. Then one of my kidnappers, breathing a lager and vinegar crisps kind of breath, said that a bunch of fed up readers had in fact paid them good money to kidnap me, tie me up, gag me and throw me into the back of that white van, and that later on I would be sleeping with the fishes, as they say in that movie. Oh, I said quietly. Fine. If I come out of it alive, I promise my blogposts won't expand on the shiny happiness that is my daily existence. Later on I escaped, because I was brought up on Nancy Drew and I'm incredibly resourceful. On that note, I 've always wondered why in the French translation she is called Alice Roy. Mmm? Anyone?

3) I'm so lying. The white van, the lager and vinegar crisps breath, the gag, the kicking, the fishes and the money are all inventions. The bondage tape, on the other hand..

4) I have spent most of the week being bored at work, so bored that I have tried to finish all my sentences with "In accordance with the prophecy." People didn't react, so I considered stapling myself to my desk for excitement. Or stapling someone else to my desk. Or as often as possible, skip rather than walk. Or write in a colleague's planner, in the 10am slot: "See how I look in tights." In my book, if it's not forbidden, it's allowed.
Just bored.

5) last night I dreamt that the French president was dead. Mm. Interesting choice of embodiment for my father/autority figure. What do I do now? Organise elections and find a new one? Suggestions, people of blogland, please.

6) I'm being ridiculously happy.

So much to do in London on a Sunday afternoon

1) I gave the
non sexual vegan and vegetarian gay group indoor veggie picnic

(as advertised in Time Out, do check, I’m not making it up) a miss,

2) and dragged my lover to a dark room for 153 minutes

3) to see Kings and Queen, which features a large number of unhinged people with anger management issues, and queasy camera work, then

4) later, back outside in the bleak June afternoon we were slightly dispirited so

5) I took her home and to bed, and drew the curtains because otherwise my neighbours get to know precisely what I’m up to and

6) this morning all I could think about was when I flipped her over onto her stomach and

7) I couldn’t concentrate on my work at all.

Confession

She says: sometimes you only have to look at me.

I think: I know.

She writes: I have to go to a meeting now , where I not only have to participate ... I have to be pro-active .... problems & solutions and stuff ... be answerable & make sense ... make notes & implement things .... justify myself and be accountable .... and I’m still wet .....

I think: so you should be.


It’s a form of power, isn’t it.
And I have to confess I’m enjoying it.
At this point, I have to be honest, step off my proud pedestal, and add that it’s shared and reciprocal.

Adventures in gayland

1) I work with a somewhat cute guy in his late thirties, nice eyes, bright smile, impeccable sense of dress, and unmistakably camp mannerisms; not gay, no, ever since he was 15 people have been asking him, but he’s straight, although not in any kind of a relationship, and waiting for The One. (noun, feminine singular)
Although those two things are unrelated, Michael is a born-again Christian and cycles to work. Nice legs, I chirp. Thank you, he gushes. Not that nice, really, I was wearing a dress for a fancy dress part once, borrowed from a friend of mine.. dreamy blank. It was a very nice burnt orange thing, very unusual, perfect cut. I smile and refrain the urge to wink knowingly. Not gay, just a cross dresser, then? After a pause, he adds: I wish I had seen her in it, though. The afterthought doesn’t quite ring genuine.

2) The person sitting three seats away across from me on the tube could either be a very cute, delicately featured 16 year old boy, or a very short-haired lesbian. I stare. I can’t help but stare. I look for clues. Impossible to tell from this distance. Then she looks up from her book and returns the stare. I don’t think a 15 year old boy would hold my gaze this steadily.eventually I’m the one who has to look down.

Update : the Week End by the Sea

1) Contrary to what Greavsie's (anxious? hopeful?) line of questioning might have led you to believe, people of Blogland, I am not still stuck in the shower. When I said that it did indeed fit two people, I meant in a graceful, photogenic kind of way. Not stuck.

2) No I did not catch any crabs…

3) But we did a lot of eating out….

4) I suspect that in the Big Book of Lesbian Mythology, a weekend by the sea with your lover falls into the chapter entitled 'Possibly Pivotal'. This one was delightful; yet this breezy, one-day-at-a-time policy we're implementing (no U hauls, no marriage proposals, no shared felines, and absolutely no matching accoutrements) means that it was just that.. a week end by the sea with my lover.

5) Strolls in the cold wind, seashells on the seashore, seagulls splatter, greasy fish and chips; and smoking hot sex.

6) sex in the shower is definitely not one of those overrated things that you try once, get bruises from, just for the sake of having done it . Unlike the back of cars, or skateboarding ramps, or cemeteries in December, or phone booths, which were all a bit of a disappointment.

7) on the train back to London, she leaned over and for a few seconds rested her head in my lap; I couldn't decide if I wanted to stroke her (very short) hair, or bite the back of her neck. I only did the former, but only because there were people watching.

8) Yes, I would definitely go away with her again.

J didn't bludgeon me to death with a hammer for eating all the rhubarb crumble

1) in true blogger style, on Friday morning I should have posted 'Bollocks to this, I'm off to the seaside' but I didn't have a minute.

2) I went off to the seaside.

3) The shower did fit two people.

4) update tomorrow. I think.

Scruples versus need

"My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate."
-Thornton Wilder

1. Since this morning when I got up at stupid o’clock I’ve eaten every single sweet thing I could get my hands on.

2. Should I eat the second (and last) Rhubarb crumble? Technically it isn’t mine, it belongs to J.

3. J doesn’t know that the second (and last) Rhubarb crumble belongs to him.

4. So I could just eat it and cunningly hide the packaging.
Perhaps he’d never find out. Perhaps he would find out and forgive me in my hour of need. Perhaps he would bludgeon me to death with a blunt hammer.

5. J is reasonably calm, but is prone to violence if dessert is involved.

6. Fuck it, I’ll take my chances.
And hide the hammer.

Here and now

People of blogland, just now I took a moment to contemplate the many delights of
dating
seeing
someone who actually lives in the same city as I do.

No more life put on hold for weeks and months.
No more of this incessant waiting, for the next phone call, the next email, the next flight there, and losing sleep over the next argument, the next misunderstanding that arise out of not being able to see each other, the next flight back.

I’m all giddy with being able to live in the present.

People of Blogland, I have some serious questions.

1. Is there a cut off age for making out in cinemas, and if yes, what is it?
2. Have I been suddenly rewired? How else can I explain sudden explosions that happen whenever I put my hand under my lover’s tshirt?
3. Is it so wrong to whisper filth into someone’s ear as the opening credits for ‘Downfall’ appear on the screen and everyone else is bracing themselves for a harrowing war film?
4. In this B&B by the sea we’re eloping to at the end of the week, will the shower fit two people?

Such a hard life.

Curiosity killed…, or Text messaging with my lover.

So, what are you up to tonight? I ask, nonchalant as ever.
I’m in a pub- with a girl from the internet.
Oh.
She’s on a flippin’ date, that’s what she’s doing tonight.
Crap.
Of course I have to play this one down. Nonchalance, nonchalance, where did I put it… .. can’t find it…. quick, say something..
Oh. I hope she’s fugly. And a crap conversationalist. I’ll leave you to it, then.

I lie down on my bed, half sulking, half smiling.
It’s hurting a bit, tugging at me, prickling my skin.

I’m savouring the slight heartache.

I decide to get up, have a beer, and write a blog entry about it.