Blogfolk, I'm away.

Normal service will probably resume on my return, when I choose to ignore the eve of the new year too. In the meantime, happy Winter solstice, Christmas, whatever it is you celebrate. Or don't. I'll be here drinking wine by the fire and reading old books. Be well, and don't eat too much.

Surprisingly, things are really not Like They Used To Be

1. Look, bloggers, at the mess that is Soho and especially the once-upon-a-time gay microcosm that is Old Compton Street; as if the weekly hen parties from South Bromley weren’t enough to cope with! At this time of year the place is heaving with herds of very straight, very clueless people out on their Christmas work do, gawking at the gay homosexuals like they’re in a gay safari. And the jokes they crack! Are not funny.
My Special lady Friend and I didn’t stick around for too long; it was a clear, crisp night, perfect for walking away from the very full bars.

2. this cat of mine is a disgrace, a renegade, a taint on the name of felines everywhere. Or is my education?
-Pancho, look, here’s bits of real chicken for you.
-Miaow.
-What, is it too hot still?
-Miaow!
-Not enough salt?
-Miaow..
-It needs to be cut into smaller bits?
-Miaow.
-What do you mean, sushi? You’ve never even seen sushi.
-Miaoow!
-Fine. I’m taking the remote control away from you., that’s too much daytime tv, missy. And anyway, what happened to the gratitude cats owed their masters?
-Miaow!
- I’m not making it up at all. In my days, cats dreamt of sucking on a dry chicken bone. So eat up.
- Miaow!
- I know you were abandoned at birth….Sure, I’ll hold it up for you so that you don’t get your whiskers dirty.

And gratuitous violence for all

1. Bloggers, in this season of good will and general cheer I had the sudden impulse to make a list of all the people I’ve had, throughout my not so short, not so eventful life, reasons to wish bad, bad things. Just to take it all down a notch.

2. To the random guys in the street who ever had the nerve to come up to me and call me ugly, just because they could without fear of retaliation; just because they were male and that in a certain brand of French youth culture, it’s a very cool thing to do, to those I wish explosive, uncontainable, volcanic diarrhoea in a public space. On a white pants day.

3. To the bloke who got out his rifle and shot at the random passing car that day of March 1979, I wish spontaneous combustion. What an aim you had, though, or did you miss? We couldn’t tell, the bullet went neatly in though the back window and out again right in front of my face. Shame my mother had the poise to drive away as fast as she could, or you would have had the chance to have another go.

4. To the man who pushed us into his car and sped along the empty road saying he was going to kill us, just for kicks, I wish that your worse nightmare comes true and that your hair falls out overnight; and I wonder, what took my mother so long to divorce you?

5. I think I might be too nice.

6. Bloggers, did you notice? I don’t wish any of my exes any harm.

W is for…

1.Bloggers, strangely, I don’t even mind it’s nearly Christmas. I’m in such low spirits that all it means to me is the end of work and the warm womb of my mother’s house to stay in, silent, for a week.

2. There will be a three-coloured, big-pawed cat for company and a pile of logs for the fireplace, woolly socks and old books from my teenager years to read again. In the early evenings, my mother will appear out of her ‘painting studio’ with a bottle of Alsatian wine and say: let’s not let it get us down.

3. It is everything, it’s Christmas that we don’t celebrate, it’s the sum of losses and anxieties about what remains. It is what we face everyday and the fact that it could be worse. It is the loneliness that we both live in; she because she feels she has failed to build a proper family, I because I have been so afraid to fail too that I chose to not have one at all.

4. We’ll drink by the fire, wishing it could be colder and that it would snow, or if it is, that it would snow harder, for the whole night; for added womb effect. It’s so satisfying when the airport has to close down and the buses no longer run! The best times are when cars can’t drive up our road, then it gets truly quiet.

5. One morning, clad like the Michelin man, we’ll walk up a mountain. It’ll hurt my lungs because I’m not used to it anymore. I’ll want to enjoy the scenery and be moved to tears but I’ll be so worried about not enjoying it enough that I won’t, really.

6. As usual I’ll get back to London the day before New Year’s eve, with neither plans, nor wanting to make any, and I’ll relish letting myself into an empty house. The candy of feeling sorry for myself! It is my tradition. This year, the Special Lady Friend situation isn’t looking too good, you see. It’s likely to be my fault. Added sweet bitterness to the candy.

7. I’m still young, have four limbs, eyes that see, a job and a place to live, and five different sets of bed linen, damnit.

Today







Pale blue: time spent working in a grumpy, tired mood.

Grey: time spent looking forward to going home and collapsing.

Dark blue: time spent wishing I could have five minutes off to go out and get myself a cup of coffee.

Green: time spent sitting on the staircase back home, contemplating sleeping with my boots on just because it’s such a fuss to take them off. But then if I did that I would not be wearing clean socks tomorrow, which is simply unthinkable.

Christmas presents suggestions- #1

A pair of goggles for when I need to cut up an onion. Or a shallot. Or anything else that’s violenty tear-inducing. My eyes are still smarting from tonight's dinner; my big mistake was to start cooking before my SLF turned up. She usually carries out the shallot-cutting chore with grace and without tears.

Tuesday night is Shrink Night

"But that’s perfectly normal behaviour, Y".
"What have you just called me? "
"You’re just like everybody else", he adds.
"Look, I’ve always been nothing but perfectly nice to you", I do not say because after three years and thousands of pounds, I know better than to defuse.
"I have a headache", I do say.

He gets up and dims the light a little.

I feel guilty.

"How does it feel to have someone do something for you?" He changes topics with a half smile.
"Don’t like it. It means I owe them, you, people, something. Even if it’s just a thank you."
"How does it feel when your special lady friend does something for you?" That guy is paid to be insistent, and it makes me fidget.
"Well, that’s ok actually. Because if I let her, then in a completely effed up way, I owe her, therefore I’m giving her something. And she’s good at doing things for me, and never makes me feel like it’s a huge favour. So it kinda works out. "

I don’t know if in the long term it’s really going to pay off knowing that I’m an overly self-reliant, ungrateful cow.

I suspect I’m too tense for what I’m about to do.

Today, bloggers, I was foolish, I said yes! to ice skating, breaking a vow I made after the last time. Years ago, when I was fearless and supple and I clearly didn’t know how else to cause myself harm (drugs were too expensive), I used to ice skate twice a week at the local ice rink with an equally supple but even more fearless friend. They’d play young people music and we’d get high on the ice and the smells and the sheer physical effort of it. Of course one day they were playing something by the Beastie Boys, someone got excited, pushed me and I went flying across the rink, and splat! smashed various parts of my body. No, I didn’t get back on the bleeding proverbial horse immediately after the fall, I was broken, I’ve told you. The Beastie boys have made me hyperventilate since then. Today, clearly in an attempt to finish me off after all those years, the same still supple and fearless friend is dragging me skating. I considered full body bubble-wrapping.

Kneepads – checks.
Gloves – check.
Woolly hat – check.
Flask of mulled wine – check.


I’m ready to go.

It’s been nice knowing you.

Only vicariousness will save me

Bloggers, I’ve been out-bleaking myself these past few days, especially during the 2 -5pm daily black hole. Or at 5 in the morning on weekdays when I stare at the clock, only 50 minutes left of sleep, quick, sleep, sleep, why am I not sleeping yet? Today I wanted to distract myself by stripping my bedroom wallpaper, rip, rip, bit by bit, in long satisfying ribbons and wet plaster smell. Not gratuitously, you understand, but with higher decorating aims in mind. It’s little projects that keep me breathing, you see. But the only paper stripper thing for sale in the ironmonger shop costs an unjustified £6.99. I had to change my plans: I finished reading Isabel Allende’s ‘El Zorro’ instead, and entertained vivid fantasies of masked caballeros. I got goosebumps, bloggers! Read it, and see if the part when he meets buccaneer Jean Lafitte in the Louisiana bayou doesn’t keep you up at night! Goosebumps. But then again, I am feeling ideologically/romantically starved, or perhaps lacking B12, vitamins and minerals. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference. Now, would you like to know what I had for dinner or what dreams I had last night? I didn’t think so.

Either a teenage moment, or a fairly rare disease

I don’t know what it was; yesterday I stared at men’s hands; the nice hands of the shop assistant who was wrapping up my purchases, then my hairdresser’s tan, muscular arms. I was staring at him in the mirror, so taken, somehow wanting to bite. Perhaps a strange case of misspent lust, perhaps the onset of rabies, I don’t know, time will tell.

This afternoon I was extremely sophisticated in an upper middle class hippie kind of way, sipping a soy milk latte and nibbling on a spelt bun, do you hate me? And checking out people’s asses from my vantage point. How disconcerting, I said to my soy latte companion, this week I’m finding men sexier than women.


He was ignoring me, so, slurping, I went off into a reverie about vague malecrushes I would now like to share with you. I tend to go for tortured, self-deprecating French singers/songwriters with messy hair.

Wouldn't you? I know I would.

This shampoo bar will last longer than most relationships, they said

Today, I’m mostly shaking my hair, because it smells so good! It’s that new shampoo bar I bought on Saturday morning; at times, for a whole minute, it distracts me from that whirlwind of fears about Where am I going and why bother? A whole minute, several times a day. I’m telling you. It was well worth the 3 quid. I know what my problem is: my problem is that I was born two generations too late, I don’t have ploughing and milking and general farming to keep my horizon low, and therefore I worry. But, had I been born two generations ago, I would probably had greasy, smelly hair, and I would be dead by now, so this is a stupid idea.

Yes, I am

Next to me on the train is sitting just another 14 year old, wearing one of those mini skirts that I wish I could wear, but I can’t. She’s on the phone: Mum, mum, my battery is about to go. Clearly something’s up, my reflex is to lend her mine, if it’s an emergency, but the battery hasn’t given yet. Mum listen, I have no battery left, can you please come and pick me up at the station? ….it’s pouring. Well, it is here. I look out at the perfectly dry afternoon and just because of the lie and the whining, I hope her mother won’t pick her up.
As I get off the train, the deluge begins. I feel a little bit bad.

I have secret dreams of moving into my grandmother’s house in the middle of nowhere. I’d chop my own wood and not watch the 8 o’clock news on any of the six tv channels. I would only have a shower every other day in winter because there is no heating in the bathroom. I would have two dogs and go for walks on frosty mornings and miss big cities.

I have secret dreams of being a 27-year-old middle class American female, and living with my husband in a tiny northern Californian town. Our house would have a fireplace and a hot tub and it would smell of woods and we would drive our suv to go grocery shopping, and rent movies on Friday nights. We would probably have two kids, and I would worry about what school to send them to.

I have secret dreams of moving to a Spanish village, and cursing the heat six months in the year. I would grow my hair and go out in the evenings, and be the foreigner who knows all the slang words and who shuns other foreigners.

I have secret dreams of leaving, always, no matter where I am.

I’m training for when I’m old, talking to squirrels in the park. Just to make sure I don’t mix them up, they’re all called Damien. Yesterday I was walking home and Damien was sitting on a high branch, screaming like I didn’t think a squirrel could scream. I don’t think he was shouting abuse at me. What to do, what to do? Squirrel in pain? Squirrel tantrum? Along the path I met another: Quick, Damien, I said, your friend over there needs help. He darted off like a squirrel on a mission, and I pretended there was such a thing as a squirrel solidarity network.

I blame the stars, or perhaps the people who write horoscopes. Don’t they realise the damage they cause? More than parents even, but it’s so much harder to bring that one up in shrinking sessions.
I have grown up believing that, as a Gemini, I was easily sidetracked, unable to concentrate on one thing for too long, starting new things and dropping them in less time it’d take to say ‘pea brain’. And now look at me! I’m obsessed. I won’t read, watch, write anything if not in Spanish. My single-mindedness is taking me by surprise.
Of course the down side is that now I’m having trouble with English. Lo siento.

Last week passed in a blur of work. Mostly. Have you noticed how I’m not blogging, bloggers? That’s because I’m too busy working and going to bed early in order to be up at stupid o’clock the next morning.

On Sunday night, while I was making crêpes, J was standing in the kitchen playing sad tunes on his accordion to try and make me cry. It worked. It always works. I’m easy.

That’s it really.

Don Limpio

And.. into the tunnel again! Work has started again, nights are shorter and in the morning I can’t just sip my tea reading my book with the cat curled up inside my pyjamas. It’s up at stupid o’clock again, and wearing clothes that match, and why do I seem to sweat only when working?
When last week ended, everything was noisy; all I wanted was to sleep, alone, and be quiet. Since so much of my job involves talking with, to and at people, there are times – at the end of every day for at least half an hour, in fact- when just saying one sentence becomes physically painful. It’s the Daily Grump. I come home, slump, and to disconnect a little, I read whatever light reading there is in the bathroom: the august issue of PSN (the magazine of HM Prison service), comics, the Little Book of Complete Bollocks. Or I listen to history radio programs.
When last week ended, everything was all over the place, grimy, unbearable; I hurt my girlfriend’s feelings when I chose housework over seeing her.
As soon as the Daily Grump is over, I should call her, since the house is clean now.

They say it’s September already

1. Blogfolks, I haven’t felt like blogging recently, have you noticed? I flew back from Greece, recovered from the bumpy landing, and threw myself into the Sunflower Project (painting the kitchen yellow, in order to not think about going back to work.) My Special Lady Friend came to help with the second coat.
I like it that she’s better at it than I am.

2. The day of the second coat, she was wearing a ring, a thick silver one. I’d never seen her wear a ring before. She has nice hands. I stared and stared and when she realised I’d gone quiet, I was blushing.

3. Now the paint’s dry; I slept for three hours the night before going back to work. Tonight all I’ll manage to do will be sit in my sunflower of a kitchen for a while, perhaps eat a slice of J’s carrot cake, listen to Joaquin Sabina, find out if my SLF would let me take her out on a date tomorrow to see Volver again, and go to bed early.

Buenas noches.

The sea, the sea

Kalimera !

1.I know and mispronounce six and a half words of Greek, but it seems that the Greeks are used to it. I feel useless and cheap, a member of the colonialist Easyryan brigade. Which I am, I suppose. But it’s that or not buying any fruit.

2.We thought we were going on a retreat, desert island style, but as it happens we have neighbours. Our favourite is about 12 years old, an overgrown cub, chubby, already double-chinned, equalled in loudness by the friend who calls him out from the street:
-Adonis!
….
-Adonis!
…
-Adoniiiiiis!
The poor boy has a lot to live up to with a name like that.

3.We almost didn’t leave London. The day of our departure coincided with what will certainly go down in airport history as The Big Mess. After being searched, we had to abandon all hand luggage. My SLF had to leave her cigarettes behind; I was quietly rejoicing until they also tried to take my food away from me. (Never were 2 Berliners eaten in such haste.)

4.Our flat has a sea view, and was described by the letting agent as ‘romantic’. We can see many reasons for that epithet:

- there is no television (we have to talk to each other)
- the curtains have lacy bits on them (how they float in the sea breeze!)
- there is nowhere to sit apart from the bed. (it’s very cosy)
- the toilet door doesn’t close (we have bonded)

all factors which, without any doubt, will do wonders for bringing a couple closer together.

5.Time to go and swim a little, perhaps float on the Inflatable Madness; then smile a lot and point in the fruit shop.


Ah, the sea. I watch it, sleep by it, swim in it, breathe it in, drink it (but mostly that's when I'm not paying attention).
I do hope that the guy who walks along the nudist beach casually holding a camcorder with the red light on and pointing at the naked lesbians doesn't drop it in the water by accident.


Back on Thursday. Be well!

Looks like I’m back

1. I miss..

Trying out all the bars in Granada, and dining on the tapas they bring you with every round.

The breathtaking black fake marble grandiosity of my flat’s bathroom, complete with gold fixtures and, right above the bog, a scene out of the Greek mythology, exquisitely rendered in (more) gold, red and blue.

The hours spent sprawled on the velvet sofa, late at night with my Italian flatmate, drinking beer and watching Spanish TV. It was just too hot to go to bed before 2 or 3 am.

Bitching about said velvet sofa that you end up sticking to in that hellish temperature– que putada es este terciopelo que te pega al culo.

Having an excuse to have ice-cream instead a proper dinner.

Getting hopelessly hooked on chat shows and ‘Cita rapida’ (blind date).

Starting to do our ‘homework’ after 1am and a few beers. How inspiration flew! I have rude poems to prove it.

The neighbour’s Sunday morning mix of flamenco and heavy metal. It does exist.

2. I don’t miss…

Waking up drenched in sweat at 3am every night and having to take another cold shower just to bring my temperature back down – to make sure that I’d live to see another day. Exaggerating, me? Never.

Daring myself to sit out on the balcony and trying to forget I’m terrified of heights. Then running back in.


3. London is boring, polluted and cold, therefore my SLF and I are off tomorrow for two weeks. There will be lots of swimming involved. Be well!

1. Bloggente, I'm coming back to England on Saturday. Not that it makes any difference to you, but to me yes, since it'll allow me to stop sweating to profusely for at least a couple of days.

2. I'm having trouble with English at the moment, so only popping in to say hello. Hello!

3. Now for homework I have to write a story de que te cagas for tomorrow, so I better go find something to drink, just to make sure that the muse doesn't fail me. It's worked wth every single piece of homework so far. The poem I wrote for today was de puta madre. Really. Want to read it?

Hasta luego, chios y chicas.

Blogfolks, hello.

1. Did you know that quite a few places around here were named by English people? Thought so.
Well, In Seville, there is a square called Plaza Foconeh.

Foconeh, I frowned.
That doesn´t sound very Spanish.
Or English.
Or Arabic.
Or anything.

And then I saw the light.
Four corners !

¡Por supuesto!

Well, it made me laugh.

2. Apart fom that, just the same. Drinking, sweating, not sleeping because of the heat. Not shopping. I promised my SLF a cowboy hat before I left, but there aren´t any. I thought I´d buy some shoes, but there is no way I could take more than one step in anything that passes for shoes around here. I feel so... sensible! so.. German!

3. I´m being kicked out of the building, so farewell. It´s 6 pm, and 38 degrees out there. Wish me luck.

Gente del Pueblo de Bloglandia, parte II

Still not dead. In fact, I have been :

1.wondering. How are the pavements in Granada compatible with the shoes that the women wear? Marble pavements. Shiney. Slippery. Deadly. Shoes: high heeled, hoochie mama shoes with heels like this. Do they have a special section in the ER for heels/versus pavements conflicts?

2. eating melon, watching Mujeres Desperadas, drinking beer at night on my lonesome, reading books about corruption and drug trafficking in Málaga. All at the same time.

3. Waking up at 2 am with what can only be described as a Glorious Nosebleed. After two hours of sticking my head under the cold tap/in the freezer it finally subsided - just when I was starting to wonder what the emergency number was and if the ambulance people would hit me across the face for calling them for a nose bleed, however deadly it was. That made me laugh, and then the bleeding started again. Since then I am keeping exta ice in the freezer for when the next one strikes.

4. contemplating flamenco lessons. Then deciding not too. No deodorant can withstand that kind of heat. None.

5. Contemplating going to mass on Sunday morning. To alleviate boredom. Nothing else is open, you see. I supect my SLF will try to talk me out of it. It´s so good to know I have support at home!

6. walking around, but only after 7pm. Went up and down the old Arabic quarter of the Albayzin, and only met one cat, lazily stretched across a forged iron balcony. We chatted a little; his Spanish was better than mine so I said my goodbyes and went on for more adventures. Mostly, I bought a melon.

Este verano, el calor me la suda.

1.When the temperature reaches 42 degrees, being hot becomes an occupation in itself.

2.Everything you do revolves around drinking water, buying more water to drink, eliminating water by every single pore in your body, buying more water.

3.The only way I get some sleep in my non aircon flat is by having a cold shower right before bed, then getting up half an hour later, putting on a tshirt and going back under the cold shower. Between that moment and the time my tshirt has dried up, I can easily get an hour's sleep.

4. I am slightly worried about fungus, but probably unduly. I'll let you know. Now I really need to go get some water.

!Gente del pueblo de Bloglandia!

Today I would like to offer my 'Lose 2 kilos in two days' diet.

1. Book yourself a flight to Granada. On a Sunday night.
2. get sick with nervousness before flying just to ensure your trip preparation acts as a mild laxative.
3. Do not pack any food.
4. When you land, check that, as you thought, there isn't a single food shop open. Anywhere. Crash until the morning.
5. Stay in an empty flat with two Germans who won't talk to you or offer you any food. Why would they?
6. In the morning, wake up late and rush to your first class. Without breakfast.
7. Make sure you have signed up for the intensive course, meaning you'll be studying Cortazar until 2pm. At which time foodstores have closed.
8. resign yourself to the fact that a temperature of 41 degrees is too much to even entertain notions of food. Go and have a nap.
9. At 5pm, weak yet resolute, venture out in search of a supermercado. Bingo!

Damn, people, it's hot. This morning the temperature dropped down to 36 degrees. It felt almost cool in comparison.

Sweatily yours,
y

!Gente del pueblo de Bloglandia!

Today I would like to offer my 'Lose 2 kilos in two days' diet.

1. Book yourself a flight to Granada. On a Sunday night.
2. get sick with nervousness before flying just to ensure your trip preparation acts as a mild laxative.
3. Do not pack any food.
4. When you land, check that, as you thought, there isn't a single food shop open. Anywhere. Crash until the morning.
5. Stay in an empty flat with two Germans who won't talk to you or offer you any food. Why would they?
6. In the morning, wake up late and rush to your first class. Without breakfast.
7. Make sure you have signed up for the intensive course, meaning you'll be studying Cortazar until 2pm. At which time foodstores have closed.
8. resign yourself to the fact that a temperature of 41 degrees is too much to even entertain notions of food. Go and have a nap.
9. At 5pm, weak yet resolute, venture out in search of a supermercado. Bingo!

Damn, people, it's hot. This morning the temperature dropped down to 36 degrees. It felt almost cool in comparison.

Sweatily yours,
y

Repeat after me: ¿Dónde está mi pasaporte?

I’m leaving on Sunday! I’ve started my mental list of Things to Bring with me to Granada.
Spanish slang glossary.
French-Spanish dictionary.
English-Spanish dictionary. Just to make sure.
Extremely cool-looking sunglasses to hide behind and watch people.
Strappy tops and other minimalist garments (38°, people).


2. I’ve also started fretting pretty much full time now. Will I cope? What if the Andalusian lack of consonants really really throws me and I have no idea what they’re talking about and I can’t find the words to respond? Words are my crutch, my insurance, my passport. I’m not pretty enough for people to like me if I don’t talk, you see. I need words, I need speech to flow freely out of my mouth, or I feel like an invalid.

One of my (very distinguished) university professors accepted, at the pinnacle of his career, to lecture for an academic year in some L.A college. He lasted two weeks; everything was just too frightening. The food was wrong –eg, neither French, nor English.). The people behaved strangely (neither in a French, nor in an English manner). He kept getting the wrong impression, getting the rules wrong. There were huge whale-like places called malls instead of civilised town centres. He had to drive everywhere. One evening, he was picked up by the police for walking around his neighbourhood in a city where no one walks. They thought he must have been some kind of illegal immigrant.
At least, he had the words to talk himself out of the police station, hand in his resignation letter and fly back home.

4. Note to self: make sure I look around carefully as to get the rules right. From behind extremely cool sunglasses.

Montagne russe

Minus
My Special lady Friend has been in a bad mood for the past two days, and I didn’t manage to make it better. Nor did I really have the time or the energy to try harder because work’s been a bitch.

Plus
Today, someone at work who likes me gave me various Italian delicacies in a basket, and a bottle of champagne.

Minus.
Italian food. Perhaps it was a subtle way to allude to the world cup final?
I don’t like champagne.

Plus.
I don’t give a rat’s arse about football, and if you add Crème de cassis to a glass of champagne it’s a drink worthy of the gods.

Minus.
Yesterday, someone I know lost three fingers in an epileptic fit/freak hairdryer accident.

Minus.
She is was a pianist.


In my most childish, impossible, fairytale daydreams, I’m always a healer. Of moods, bumps, bruises, breaks, pains, and of lost fingers. Once I read somewhere that wishing for magic was one of the signs of depression. I do it all the time! Don’t you?

The Pink Badge of Gayness

1.People of blogland, something disturbing is happening – Abi wants to take away our gay badges for not staying out on Pride night!

2.After all there were thousands millions of gay homosexuals revelling around Soho square that night, clad in gay rags/gold leather hotpants/matching suede lederhosen, and we could have been two of them for a little bit longer!
I can tell you what happened, blogfolks, it was the gold leather hotpants, I just had to take my special lady friend home.

3.Therefore Abi wants to remove our pink badges of gayness from us.
What she doesn’t know is that we went home to do further gay things, which also involved lederhosen.

4. What did other people do?
look after a drugged up ex. (Perilous behaviour factor: 2/5)
kissed an ex. (Perilous behaviour factor : 9/5)
proceed to have a fight with an ex.(predictable behaviour factor: 12/5)
received the obligatory apologetic 2am phone call from said ex. (pathetic behaviour factor: 5/5)
got dumped. On Pride night. (duh factor: 22/5)


5. Perhaps Pink badges of courage shouldn’t come with compulsory drunkenness.

6. We don’t care. We’re way gay.

Pilgrimage…

1.Last night, I dreamt that Britain’s pigheadedness reticence to join the euro was the result of occult lobbying on the part of a group of cashiers from bureau de change around the country. Something about fears about losing the business of millions of holidaymakers en route for Málaga.

2. Why the dream, I asked myself; and myself answered: perhaps because I have to jet get the train over to France tomorrow morning; and in the little purse where I keep my real money, there are only 2 euros left.

3. What can I get myself for 2 euros, blogpeople? I don’t know! How do I know how much things cost anymore?! I leave my country for a mere 13 years and hey, everything’s different. Government. Currency. The National Front’s score in the presidential elections. The price of beer. The price of espresso.

4. When I was an impoverished student (not impoverished as in ‘I’ll be paying back my loan down to the 13th generation’ like over here, since higher education is pretty much free in France), an espresso was the cheapest thing you could order in a café. That was around 5 francs –50p- at the time, and I wonder how I didn’t suffer from caffeine-induced tremens between the age of 18 and 22.

5. Sometimes we would splash out on something really special – half a pint of Guinness.

6. Next time if you’re lucky I’ll let you know how much an espresso is in Lille. I might also tell you why I’m going there, although it’s a really personal story; you and I don’t know one another that well.

P is for..

Blogpeople, have you had a good Saturday? I have. This morning I set out to meet up with my Special Lady Friend and be Proud. We were Proud for a few hours but mostly we people-watched from a Perfect Vantage Point (a bench in heaving Soho square.) There was very little leering involved, and it mostly involved gay homosexual boys rather than girls. There are some couples out there I would gladly watch, let me tell you that. Later on I panicked a little when we almost got swallowed up by a forest of sweating torsos; I let my SLF lead me by the hand and tried to banish any thoughts of crushing and crowd-induced dismemberment from my mind.
People of blogland, my Special Lady Friend missed the England-Portugal match to hang out with me! She must really love me. I did push her into a pub to allow her a token five minutes of footbalistic action, but I spoilt it for her by repeatedly nibbling her earlobe, at which point she gave up.

(Un)comfortably numb

This morning

-I’m just… bored, I blurt, looking at my shoes.
-I don’t believe in boredom, he says.
-Fine. I’m lazy, then.
-I don’t believe in laziness either.
-As it happens, I agree with you. But I’m being morose, and I need a word to explain that I’m not doing anything with my time. So if I call it laziness, at least I take full responsibility for my lethargy. I don’t want to blame anyone else for it.
-There’s no such thing as boredom. It’s only lack of stimulation. Where do you get yours from?
-Myself. Or at least I should. But I’m not. I don’t want to relinquish responsibility for my limbo. What if I traced my lack of stimulation to someone else, what shall I do then? Cry, have a tantrum, eat a cookie?
-Then maybe you could see it as a mechanism that you can undo; then use all the stored-up momentum that hasn’t been released because you didn’t get the stimulus.

Over the past two days, I’ve been sleeping a lot, and looking at the clock when awake, to check how long til I can go back to bed.
I don’t like getting people worried.
I’m lazy.

People of blogland, I'm bored, so are you, I'm boring, so is this, therefore this blog is dead, or at least hibernating. I'm thinking nothing, doing nothing, I have nothing to say. Bye.

L is for..

The pettiness!
Yesterday I tried to open an attachment sent by the school I’ll be attending in Spain. The firewall at work wouldn’t let me. It called it inappropriate. Just because it’s entitled ‘Oral self-assessment.’
Just.. please.
Oh, I don’t know.
This time of year for me is some kind of limbo. I have things to do, places to go but work keeps me tied for another month. I’m grumpy. Ask my special lady friend. Today especially has been a strange mixture of boredom and laziness; there will be mjitos later on, so things should improve. Do come over.

Emulsion

Blogpeople, I hope you had a good week end too and that you didn’t complain about the heat, not even once. Did you have a picnic? My Special Lady Friend and I did. Then we painted my bathroom and we almost ran out of paint. That wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t insisted on painting her eyeball, but she has moments like that. Once we were done I suggested she put her signature in a corner – it was her baby too- but she didn’t need to- she’d left a footprint on the windowsill, something to always remember that moment by. I’m being grateful.

Silly socks

Last night my Special Lady Friend and I were sitting on the step outside. I was stretching my toes, just freed from the stupid girly shoes I wear for work. We’d just opened a bottle of Rioja; Pancho the cat was waging a trench* war against Sid the neighbour’s moggy (we call him Sid because he’s vicious), life was good. Yes. Then, seemingly out of the blue:

You have goose bumps! I exclaimed.
I do, she smiled.
How come?
Well.. football. The world cup is starting on Thursday.

I thought I was the one giving her goose bumps, but seemingly I have competition in a bunch of men wearing shorts and silly socks. The next five weeks are going to be interesting. I cannot abide football, you see. It’s not a point of contention between us as long as she doesn’t wear loud nylon shirts or display flags. Flags! They’re on my list of obsolete horrors right after army uniforms. I reckon they should do away with national teams anyway, and call them after animals. The Weasels against the Silver-haired rabbits. Or is that specie-ist? Specist? Or foodstuffs. The Crispy Waffles against the Broiled Cutlets. Although of course vegetarians would have little choice as to whom they’d support, so that’s silly. I’d rather watch Mexican Lucha Libre any day, mostly because they have fan-ta-stic costumes. Football. Can’t stand it. Possibly because as a child I had to spent too many of my Sunday afternoons on a football pitch – well, outside of it really- because my brother/dad/uncles/dad’s mates were playing. I can’t even pretend to care. I do hope England will lose, and soon, and spontaneous combustion of the French team would probably make me merry.
So, yes, competition.
Luckily, I have ways of competing, and of provoking lots of goose bumps.




*a hole was dug for two rosebushes that still haven’t arrived. It’s currently being used as a trench/toilet.

What does it mean # 483

1.I dreamt that this blog had been hijacked; it was now called www.communist.12. Why 12? No idea. It still looked like it does now, but instead of my ramblings were eulogies of dead communists. I was tracking down the hijacker and shouting: ‘ How could you do that? I’ll kick your ass; I have the tools and I have the people.’ Do I?..

2.Blogfolks, it’s true that this blog deserves to be hijacked; it’s not like I’ve been writing much of late. Too much has been happening in real life, you see. Forgive my mysteriousness. Is that a word? I don’t know.

3.I have been, in no particular order: getting used to my mother’s new face; painting the bathroom walls; realising to what extent decent medical care in the UK is for rich people; reading Spanish crime novels; trying to figure out how to wean myself off therapy; eating olive and almond paste on toast; counting the days til I’m off to Granada; wanting to buy green shoes but not finding any; feeling incredibly lucky that I have a few fantastic people who really love me. Yes.

That’s all. That’s a lot.

Pebbles

1.One day my Special lady Friend will write in her diary: "And that’s when I started to hate her", and she won’t be referring to my cooking but to the fact that I forced her to walk all the way to Brighton town centre from the marina along the wind-swept beach.

2.She’ll also add "she wouldn’t even let me take the little kiddie train, the cow". I sadistically ignored the yearning in her eyes. We walked. And walked.

3.We browsed shops full of long, flowing garments but bought nothing since none of us want to start out own religion. So we had pie and mash instead and went home on the train.

4.My mother is coming over tonight for a week, and I can’t even start telling you what it means, people of blogland. Perhaps I’ll try, next time. Until then, be well.

I'll go, if only for the L word action figure

NEW YORK CITY, NY - In an attempt to generate revenue for the struggling New York non-profit organizations, the Lesbian Herstory Archives and Gay Men’s Health Crisis today announced that they have joined forces to open a fast food chain in select cities across the nation.
Natalie Barney’s Beanery© will serve “convenience food with a conscience” and attempt to educate diners about gay and lesbian culture and history in the process.

Breakfast and lunch menu selections include:
• Francis Bacon and Egg combo
• Pancakes with Robert Mapplethorpe syrup
• The Leslie Feinburger
• Vegetarian Phrancfurters
• All-Beef Jumbo Barney Frankfurters
• The Harvey Milk-shake
• Sugar cookies with Annie Sprinkles

The Beanery will offer a special Empowerment Meal for kids, which includes hormone-free milk, a junior Feinburger, and an L Word action figure.

read the rest on fakegaynews.com.. you know you want to.

I got mail, or Just bear with me for two minutes

1. My grandmother’s spelling was never good, because she left school at 12. I suspect she takes her vitamins before writing me a card. When I moved to England she asked for a set of pre-written labels; she wasn’t sure she would be able to replicate my address. It had too many funny words in it, like ‘street’ and ‘London’. Today I received a card and like every time that happens I cried a little. She writes, in substance: "I think of you often. I hope you’re finding the strength to accept life as it is."
I think of her often.

2. My father usually forgets or ignores birthdays, because they call for a display of affection. I got one email, though, one day, three years ago tomorrow. It says something like this:
“On May 21st 19blah, outside the bedroom window I planted something. When your mother and I divorced, I took a cutting with me. I can see it now in my garden, it’s a tree and it’s done really well.”
Every time I think about it, I cry. I can’t help it, people.

3. People of blogland, I’m dehydrated; also I better go wash my face. I put fake tan Sunkissed Skin on this morning and if I don’t wash it off I’ll be all streaky. I can’t be streaky and older.

4. Tomorrow will also be my Special Lady Friend’s birthday, as well as Jeffrey Dahmer’s. I believe that this was the chat-up line I used on her when we first met, and she wasn’t even put off. Happy birthday to all of us! especially to those of us who don’t make a habit of keeping our lovers’ head in the fridge.

Paging Dr Freud

I wonder what it means.
See, blogpeople, it’s like this: my Special Lady Friend reads a lot, and I happen to have a large book collection, which I’m more than happy to share. When she’s done with one book, she brings it back and leaves it on the little table by the sofa.

I wonder why, since she got it from the bookshelf herself. It’s not like my bookshelves are so tidy that one dares not put a book back or anything.

Is there an implicit message?
Does she wish to engage me in some in-depth literary conversation?
Is it an attempt at eliciting approval of some kind?
And what is the best way to respond?

How I enjoy creating small pseudo-psychological enigmas for myself!

Scars

1. The first time my mother packed me off to day camp (because it was good for me) I was 6 and I got mumps. One of the group leaders shouted at me for being a big baby, but wouldn’t you have cried in a corner too if you’d had mumps?

2. It was my mother’s belief that nothing builds up character like camp. Day camp, summer camp, skiing camp, just camp. She herself had been sent to many camps as a child, and look at her! I felt deep inside that if camp had forged her character, I wanted nothing to do with it.

3. To this day she’s still knee-deep in denial about the shoeboxful of pathetic postcards sent to her own parents, dictated by the nazi camp leaders. They all go something like: dear parents, I’m having fun; today we had pasta for lunch. Last night we went for a hike and I hardly got lost in the woods at all. Then she would sneak in a PS : please send money and a file in a loaf of bread.

4. (I’ve kept the shoebox for possible blackmail opportunities.)

5. The second time my mother packed me off to camp, (because it was good for me) history repeated itself; I was forced to take a hike at night and I got lost in the woods. It was written, mother.

6. The third time my mother packed me off to camp, someone stole my brand new copy of the Famous Five and my packet of marshmallows. To this day I can’t think about this incident without clenching my fists. Fuckers.

7. Later came the Language Trips. She didn’t call them camps, because she’d taken a course in slyness by then. So she packed me off to England when I was 11, because she had done the same thing at 13 and she had decided I was precocious. The family I was staying with were great; in order to not embarrass me with language too sophisticated for my level, they ignored me and left my packed lunch on the steps for me to pick up on my way out every morning.

8. Afterwards, things got better, because I learnt enough English to go to McDonald’s and buy myself some food. I went to Dublin many times, decided I hated everything English; then I went to Cambridge and loved England again. I knew many host families; I was robbed of my pocket money and called a frog by the children in the family, and almost adopted in Cork. I had home- made apple pie and strong tea in Ireland, and fish fingers and orange squash in Salisbury.

9. That bit was good for me. Thanks, mum.

10. I’m packing myself off to camp! I’ve turned down the host family option, though.

Verano

1. ‘200 must-have accessories for summer’, it says on the cover of the magazine I found on the bus..
200? Do we really need that many? And do they think summer is going to last that long?

2. That’s just silly; there is no way I’ll be able to afford more than one accessory this summer, and that’ll be a pair of £3.99 plastic flipflops from TkMax. Blogpeople, I’m all booked up! A three-week intensive course in Granada by myself, and two weeks by the sea with my Special lady Friend. I’m all cleaned out, but very excited. A bit scared about Granada, too.

3. -Why can’t you research the place on the internet, then tell people you’ve been there? It’ll save you time and money, and you’ll be able to buy leather flipflops, says J.
- Because that’s what you do.

4. See, J’s parents worry about him working too much; therefore, in order to reassure them, he lies about going on holiday. In the past four years, he’s been to France (Paris, Montpellier, Chambéry) and saw the sights and sampled the local specialities. All that from the comfort of his bedroom, thank you internet!

5. But I can send postcards with real stamps on them.

Guilt

Delivery, yay!
The nice Tesco man is here
Hold on, whose are these?

I never ordered
Two packets of sausage rolls.
Some pensioner’s dinner?

I wait, will he come back?
No. Then the mystery meat
Will be J’s dinner.

I wonder if it’ll work on my Special Lady friend when she gets bored with me (eventually.)

When Pancho the cat gets bored, or sullen in that way that cats have mastered, all I have to do is go out the front door for a minute or two – take out the bin, for instance. Such display of joy when I walk back in! You’d think I’d been away for hours.

Tonight, I took the rubbish bags out one by one. I feel felinely cherished.

Blogfolks, happy May Day.

1.The inhabitants of the House of Y share a garden longitudinally with the upstairs neighbours. It’s either them or us, because of instant overcrowding. They have beaten me to it this morning.
2.Pancho the cat is getting increasingly neurotic at seeing hi garden invaded, no matter how much I try to explain that it’s cold anyway so we’re better off inside, planning holidays and making kedgeree.

3.It’s official: for next August, my SLF and I have found lodgings on a Greek island. Again. We have started making a List of Essentials, and that’s mostly books, and a corkscrew.
She blames me for developing her taste for wine.

4. While she’s away purchasing haddock and browsing the Rioja section of Sainsberries’, I need to get my ass in gear and make a choice of which Colegio de Español I want to attend in Granada. Anyone out there wants to come over and do an intensive course for 3 weeks? The idea is to progress from reasonable to un español de puta madre.

5.I’m having nightmares of staying in a host family, just like I did in England when I was 15. But that’s a whole blogpost of its own, including expletives.

Ribbit

-Look what I got for my birthday! she chirps.
It looks like the upper half of a dead toad, to which is sewn a piece of string.
Wait.
It is the upper half of a dead toad, big as my hand, dried and turned into a purse.
-Wow. Who got you this, then?
-A friend of my parents’. She’s from the Philippines.
-Is it a good luck thing? Was it wrapped? How did you react when you got it? I blurt out.
Yeah, it was wrapped, and I screamed, she giggles.
I ponder for a second.
-No matter what you do, don’t kiss it, it might turn into a prince.
-So, that’ would be cool, wouldn’t it?
-Don’t think so. He’d still be missing his lower half, wouldn’t he?

Blogpeople, let's have some music

It's the quitting smoking song
All the smokers cough along
If I can do it so can you
Just chew some gum and say fuck you!

It's the quitting smoking song
All the smokers cough along
If I can quit you can quit
Have fun and break some shit!

[Ok, people, click on song, then scroll down and click 'free' and wait a whole 10 seconds. Then enter the little code thing. Don't give up.
Then cough along.]

Cognitive surrender, or the comforting nature of pop music

1. See, earlier, I was sitting on that incredibly uncomfortable sofa I bought because it’s the only one that would fit into that 1.20m gap; just sitting and moping a bit because, because, I won’t go into it, but moping I was, and J was engaged in his Coffee Making Experience (20 minutes) whilst going through yesterday’s acquisition: a Roughtrade compilation of obscure bands, and all I wanted to do was to hear, not to listen to it, just to hear it, the Bangles’
a hazy shade of winter. I know, it’s a cover.

2. One day, I was 14, I saw a girl dressed like I wasn’t, and a little something exploded in me; I thought: right, this is it, no more anonymous denim, or random perms, or thoughtless striped sweatshirts, and the next day I bought black fishnets and boots, don’t laugh, blogpeople. It was a real start for experimentation, sartorial risk-taking, and obscure goth bands.

3. Pop? I would say with scorn. I don’t listen to pop. Pop is for those who don’t know better, pop is regressive, pop is sugar candy, it will rot your teeth. There is no mystique to pop, pop is SAFE. Look at me! I’m right there on the edge, me, and I read goth fanzines, and Lautréamont; at night I burn the edges of the lyrical letters I write to my goth friends, parchment-like, with red wax seals, and I make myself long velvet skirts I’ll trip over. I have kept a Cindy Lauper album, because the girl can dress, though.

4. Everything was new when composing my character. Nothing was pointless, too remote, too futile. There was such a thing as infinity. I felt fire in me, and some talent, too, and yearning.

5. I’m trying hard to avoid the word ‘exciting.’ Can you tell?

6. And now I can’t stay up at night anymore, and even Roughtrade compilations are too obscure and cutting edge, and often, I want to listen to pop music, safe, undemanding pop music, be wrapped in its cotton wool of cognitive surrender.
Sometimes, I also wear denim; I don’t write lyrical letters anymore. I read detective novels.

I’m lazy; but more than anything I think I’m scared.

I need to make a little something explode in me.

Today was not for farniente, today was busy, blogfolks.

In fact, I have serious questions.

1.Why is it always when I am up to my elbows in cat litter (cleaning, people, cleaning) that my face starts to itch uncontrollably?

2.Why do car drivers roll down their window before lighting up? Is it because they like fresh air, or because they don’t want to breathe in their on second hand smoke?

3. Should I book myself on that intensive summer course in Granada, Andalusia, considering the fact that Spanish people never sleep, whilst I can’t function on fewer than 8 hours’ sleep, and that Andalusians don’t pronounce their consonants properly?

4. How come my sudden, acute bouts of deep despair seem to be cured by any of the following realisations, and could I bottle them up and sell them?
1. Who cares, in 80 years’ time I’ll be dead anyway
2. there is some leftover cake!
3. I should do that bum-clenching pilates thing, that’ll teach me to be miserable. Aha!

5. Where should my SLF and I go for our summer holiday this year?

Lady of leisure

1. Mostly, I have been retrieving the cat down from the curtain rail at regular intervals. Pancho the 6 month old cat was spayed on Friday, and since then we are meant to curb her level of activity. But oh no; she’s never been so hyper, climbing up and jumping down like a monkey on crack.

2. On Sunday night, my SLF and I had a date; I took her to see Margaret Cho at her Majesty’s theatre. Before the performance we sat in the foyer detailing the audience: the Korean contingent; the young gay boys contingent; the gay boy with his mom; the lesbian contingent in their (surely?) clown outfits; the cast of Little Britain; the older gay man who disappeared into the toilet with the gay boy with his mom, but this time without his mom, are you following? Maybe that was his idea of a Mother’s day present; in any case, his jumper was surely his mom’s idea. The trendy lesbian contingent with the scornful expression. Us two. Then we filed into the theatre excitedly, and the show was good, and I do fancy Margaret Cho. She’s sharp, she’s beautiful, and she doesn’t shout too much.

3. Thank you for stopping by. Any ideas of what to cook for dinner tonight would be welcome.

Linguists, yes.

1. The English language, people of blogland, is crazy. Down, up, back, out, in. In which other language would we say that we ‘chop down’ a tree, then ‘chop it up’?
I rest my case.

2. I find that the use of the Spanish subjunctive is best reinforced through listening to pop music, singing along and flailing my arms wildly, preferably whilst cooking. ‘Why are you singing ‘adios libido’? Our sex life isn’t that bad.’ my SLF asked last night. I wasn’t, it’s just that ‘A Dios le pido’ was confusing her somewhat. Hey, I’m not saying good-bye to it, for spring is in my pants.

3. Feel free to sing along:

Que mis ojos se despierten con la luz de tu mirada yo
a Dios le pido
Que mi madre no se muera y que mi padre me recuerde
a Dios le pido
Que te quedes a mi lado y que mas nunca te me vayas mi vida
a Dios le pido
Que mi alma no descanse cuando de amarte se trate mi cielo
a Dios le pido

4. Yay !

Primavera. It’s not just a pizza.

1. Blogpeople, it’s Spring, isn’t it. This morning the sun was so glorious! I opened the back door for Pancho the kitten to sniff the air and venture a paw outside. Then we retreated in because of the hailstones.

2. Flowers! I don’t have any, because the daffodil bulbs that were lovingly planted were immediately unearthed by foxes and gobbled up. So if you spot a fox with daffodils sprouting out of its ass, do send it to me. We need to have a word.

3. My mother phoned! I can understand 75% of what she says. Her head is bandaged, she’s black and blue, she hasn’t had proper food since Tuesday; but she was about to go out and plant tomatoes.

Visa card versus 1500 miles

1. Since my mother can’t eat for the next two weeks or so, I thought I would send her something to smell instead; so, some random bunch of colourful flowers is on its way to her. I don’t think they smell of anything, because that doesn’t come into the description, but it looks pretty on the interflora site.

2. Do you know, blogfolks, that out of the bouquets and plants and flowers out there, the priciest ones are for funerals? I suppose people would feel too stingy and guilty not to shell out for a funeral. And it’s not like after the ceremony you feel like taking them home with you and use them as a centrepiece at dinner, or anything.

3. I’m finding that fact rather wrong, somehow. But then again; I’m feeling rather fragile at the moment, and I burst into tears typing the little note that gets stapled to the bouquet.

Blogpeople, do not think I have fallen asleep. Nevermind tangoing, I’ve been busy ..

…worrying about my mother, who’s had her jaw sawed up and rearranged in a different way. That was yesterday. It’s as scary as it sounds, but it’s a good thing. I think. Although I can’t see her, because she’s 2000 kilometres away and I’m here and it’s utterly useless being here when your mother is there having her face cut up, even if it’s by someone with a piece of paper that says he’s a qualified surgeon.

…hoping that she likes soup and compote and baby food, as she won’t be able to eat solids for the next three weeks.

…. churning things over and over in my mind, and not sleeping enough. Mostly.

Thank you for stopping by. Have you noticed it’s finally Spring? Hurrah. Be well.

Barely 70 % cocoa

Every year around the end of January, J sits me down for a serious chat – mostly to remind me that

1. Easter is just round the corner.
2. When it comes to chocolate, it’s not Quality, it’s Quantity.
3. to make sure he gets to live his Easter Experience to the fullest, he needs, in chronological order:

a. a practice egg about three (3) weeks prior to the actual event.
b. Another practice egg purchased by me to show my support.
c. The Proper Easter Egg (hint: quantity, not quality)
d. Any other egg I might be receiving in the course of my professional activity
e. The post- Easter egg(s), on sale at Woolworth’s.

The yearly Easter experience has now begun in the House of Y.

I’m here, under the tarpaulin

1. Blogpeople, I had a quasi-autistic weekend – ask my Special Lady Friend, she witnessed some of it, pobrecita. All I did was to sit on the sofa and stare straight ahead. At my book, mostly.
2. Today was bleak; it’s officially the last day of winter, I should be poised to step out of my wintery layers, like a butterfly out of its chrysalis! But I’m not; are you? It’s too goddamn cold. And bleak, did I mention bleak?
3. Also I believe I’m over informed. Perhaps I should stop listening to news reports in the morning; sometimes I have to sit down on the edge of the bath and cry some, you know. That can’t be a good way to start the day.
4. Therefore, This my new news source. Fakegaynews.com. Because real gay news is too damn depressing.

Christian Meteorologists Declare War on Rainbows
At a press conference following a White House luncheon with President Bush, lead scientist Bret Banger told reporters that his organization, Climatologists For Christ, had declared open season on the multi-colored spectrums of light as part of their commitment to eradicating “the homosexual lifestyle and all weather patterns that reflect it.”

iCrisis

1. The iPod pack includes those stretchy little foam covers that take about an hour to fit onto the ear pieces, but protection of my delicate ear canals deserves effort, and patience, a lot of patience. Yes! Got it. Lovely.
2. It takes Pancho the kitten under two seconds to remove the stretchy little foam cover, and to eat it. It’s obviously very tasty, if slightly chewy.
3. I have one left. Precious, precious stretchy little foam thing.
4. itunes won’t let me purchase tracks from the French store; the UK store doesn’t have what I want. Idiots. And then they wonder why people download music illegally? Should I be an Internet Highway(wo)man?
5. i'm annoyed.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

A is for aargh

1. A few years ago Charlie gave me a tshirt with the phrase ‘I have issues’ on the front. Even though that was before I started therapy, that was nothing new, therefore I wasn’t offended. I don’t wear it anymore, partly because my mother’s nicked it (I ‘m not 100% sure she gets the meaning of it, but it’s soft) and partly because it attracted the wrong kind of lesbians. The wrong kind for me, that is. I’m not into crisis seekers. Nope.

2. Still….Blogpeople, do you know what my problem is? I have a list of blogposts this long, all starting with ‘Blogpeople, do you know what my problem is?’ Ad infinitum.

In the series, ‘blogpeople, do you know what my problem is?’, tonight’s is: I’m competitive and I don’t like it. It’s a poison.

3. For example, let me tell you about my Spanish class. It’s my blog anyway, I can do whatever I want. I love my Spanish class! Especially since the only contender I had for top of the class has dropped out three weeks ago (and I have had no hand in that disappearance whatsoever.) Anyway, I have my final exam next week, until then I’ll be getting a rash, and if I don’t get ‘sobresaliente 2’, I’ll probably vomit.


4. In my first year of primary school, I carefully selected the boy from my class that I could spend the rest of the year having a crush on. The (unspoken) criteria were: a) he had to have cute hair b) but not as cute as mine c) he had to run the fastest d) but I had to run faster e) he had to have the best grades in the year group f) but not as good as mine.
I must have been a right pain in the ass; and the boy with the cutest hair turned out to be the class dunce anyway.

5. What’s the antidote for competitiveness? A nunnery? I’d probably find something. Who’d have the best hair shirt, perhaps.

6. I’m having a crap week. I blame it on Mercury, which is doing something retro that planets do, and which sucks, apparently.

R.I.P

Oh shit.
Ivor Cutler is dead. I’m sad.
That’s all.

Play, record

1. Blogpeople, today I felt like being ignored, so I went to Dixons, that emporium of all things technological. I urgently needed a camcorder tape, if you need to know, and that is strictly for professional use. (I haven’t broached that topic with my Special Lady Friend yet.) I love going to Dixons; the inevitable bunch of young guys with half a GCSE between them who stand around chatting always make me feel so welcome! (I’m a girl, girls have no business in Dixons, didn’t you know?) I try to take it as an exercise in self-assertion. Yes. I mentally gave myself 50 points for getting a shop assistant to the till under 3 minutes, with just a raised eyebrow and an insisting glare.
Then this afternoon, after being patronised by the bloke who lent me the camcorder, I gave myself another 50 points for not biting his head off and/or shoving his tripod up his ass, then I made a little movie with my brand new tape; that didn’t feel like the beginning of a new, more glamorous career, but it was fun nevertheless. I've always liked that word.

2. Now I am wondering what’s up with my Special lady friend; she’s not returning my random emails and she’s been sounding a bit.. a bit… something, recently. I hope it’s not me. Maybe there was no point in keeping that camcorder for the weekend after all. Better call her. Be well, all.

Mango Chutney

1. People of Blogland, my Special Lady Friend is making kedgeree and kicked me out of the kitchen, so it’s just you and me. (I was banished from the kitchen because I’m a mess around onions. I cry, and cry, and it’s not even cute.)
I poked my head round a minute ago just to check how I could make a nuisance of myself.
Say ‘Bromide’, I asked.
What can I say, I like the way she says it. It’s the way she rolls her ‘rr’. It does things to me that bromide itself definitely wouldn’t.
‘Brrrrrromide’, she complied with a smile.
‘I knew you loved me!’ I purred, and closed the door.
I reckon we should write a cookery book together. She reckons we should call it ‘Dykes’ dinners’. Do you think it would sell?
I poked my head around again; the smells are making me hungrier. She was crying: deadly onions. I opened a bottle of Sancerre. It’ll be a meal worthy of the gods, I’m telling you that much. Santé.

2. Blogpeople, my Special lady friend and I are both penniless, broke, skint, bust. I know why I am: it’s all those things I bought and/or ate in Paris, hotel bill and train tickets, on top of my general usual lavishness. (My SLF is seemingly broke because she purchased a new power drill.) So, no going out until payday, but that’s ok because it’s too cold anyway. In an attempt to bring this dismal, limp, fizzless February down on its miserable knees, the rest of today shall be spent the exact same civilised way it began: with copious amounts of good food and extremely dirty sex (if it’s not dirty it’s not done right). If I’m lucky, I’ll get a massage, too. I’m feeling very lucky.

Blogfolks, I’m starting to like Sundays.

Red Bush tea is not a stimulant

Blogpeople, have you read ‘The Number one Ladies’ detective agency’ by Alexander McCall Smith? The one with Precious Ramotswe, you know, solving adulteries and disappearances in Bostwana. Cute, simple, with endearingly candid characters. Is compulsory candidness a Bostwana thing? So candid that on a bad day I might say that he makes everyone sound slightly retarded. I reckon the book boosted the red bush tea sales so much that now even Sainsbury’s stocks it. And then yesterday my even-slower-than-usual brain demanded another easy read; so I picked up ‘44, Scotland street’. Well, in Alexander McCall Smith’s books, all the characters are…. ..endearingly candid.
(Today’s a good day.)

In other news, I have no other news. I hope you are surviving February and taking your vitamins, sleeping well at night and getting plenty of cuddles. Be well.

Bloglanders, how have you been?

1. I’m such a terrible girlfriend. I was unavailable for Valentine’s and eloped to Paris with another woman, then had a dream of wearing of gold leather hotpants. Now I’m back; broke and exhausted, and I didn’t buy any hotpants.

2. Bloglanders, my little stay in Paris with Charlie was good, and somewhat shifted my vision of my capital city. If I explain how it’ll sound like a cliché so I won’t. However, I still had the impression of being in a country whose language I speak with no accent, but whose popular culture is now foreign to me. Or the other way round.

3. Charlie is trying to be pregnant, and although her body is telling her one thing, Clearblue tells her another: nope. Therefore one night we went to the Louvre and looked at the Annunciation paintings, when angels were the Clearblue tests of yesteryear; except you didn’t have to pee on them at all! But there are only so many Virgin and babies you can take, so after a few dozen we left and had rare steak, chips and Côtes du Rhône.

4. We walked, gawked, and ate out way through Paris, so I probably wouln’t have managed any kind of hotpants anyway.

5. And now Charlie wants to go to Camden! I don’t know if she’s pregnant, but Jeeesus tap dancing Christ, does the woman have stamina.

It’s ok, I’ll rest when I go back to work next week

1. Yesterday we walked and looked at stuff, mostly. Then it was the Bermuda triangle of Topshop, and I thought I lost Charlie, but she found her way out! Phew. And today I managed half a Spanish lesson and came home for a nap.

2. Bloglanders, I’m still being a granny, and that’s not going to change, you know. Some people love me anyway. I think. Perhaps on making new acquaintances all parties should sign some sort of a contract; mine would include:
· Y needs her sleep, and lots of it, beauty or otherwise. 9 hours is standard, 10 preferable, 12 ideal. Do not interfere, or expect her to engage in anything where active participation is required on less than 7 hours’ sleep. In fact, Y’s motto is ‘All wakefulness is sleep deprivation’, which is a notion abundantly illustrated in the Bible of sleep.
· Do not expect Y to function on an empty stomach. Symptoms of subsequent severe malfunction will include snapping and monosyllabic responses as well as a total lack of interest in anything. Don’t risk it.
· On no account will Y ever do any of the following things willingly: go clubbing; enter a fast food establishment; listen to hip hop; wear a velour tracksuit or white trainers; wear lipstick; kiss anyone wearing lipstick; wait for a night bus in the winter months; watch a football match; gush over how cute babies are; eat pickled beetroot.
· Y is physically lazy. That’s the way it is. Now sign here and love her anyway. She's an ace cuddler, you know, and she can cook.

3. Ok. I need to pack, we’re going to Paris tomorrow, you know.

I’m a wimp.

My lovely friend Charlie finally landed on Friday afternoon after an 11-hour flight; after a two-minute nap she was full of beans again and insisted on dragging my sorry ass out to the pub. I hadn’t been out on a Friday night since 1996! Yesterday was spent running up and down Portobello market, and only the mulled wine got me through. This morning I’m haggard, a hollow shell of a girl, and when she rises she’ll be ready to take on the world, whereas I’m seriously considering doing some class A with my breakfast cereal.
I’d like to pretend that my sense of empathy is so overdeveloped that I take on people’s jetlag for them, but really I’m just a wimp; in a couple days this wimp is going to Paris for a while. I wonder if I can just sleep in a café while Charlie is running around with bright eyes and a perfect complexion?

Oh well

1. At 7am this morning as I was striding along Hammersmith road, my head still full of dreams of Frida Khalo (deep green and reds), I heard a horse neighing. A horse, in Hammersmith, I thought, shaking off the remains of the dream and looking around. But then I realised it must have been somebody’s ring tone; that was rather sad.

2. The rest of the day was spent trying to cram a week’s work into 11 hours, and having no time to pee. As I put my coat on to leave at 7pm, I did wonder if this was what life is all about; dreams of vivid colours, disappointment, and water retention.

3. Got home, got a cuddle out of the cutest kitten in the whole world, a glass of wine out of a bottle of rioja; good night, blogfolks. Do have colourful dreams. I know I will.

Sigh

1. Blogfolks, do you know what my problem is? I don’t like asking anybody for anything.

2. I blame my grandmother, who at 86 years of age chops up her own logs with an axe for fire, and forbids anyone to wind up her clock, even though winding up the clock involves standing on a chair, which itself has to be placed on the kitchen table. Every other day. We tried giving her one with batteries in it, but she gave it away for the village’s summer raffle.

3. I think all I want to say is, thank you Special Lady Friend for looking after me when I was ill, bringing me food and making me tea and bullying me into steaming my face at regular intervals. In exchange I’d like to wind up your clock, or something…yes.

4. Blogfolks, February is fizzless and lumpy and cold, even when you tango. Fortunately, an impending holiday complete with an imported friend, my SLF and my Spanish homework are keeping me afloat. (I like doing my homework.) Still, I can’t wait for Spring, can you? Thank you for stopping by, and be well.

That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

-Actually, I thought my name was Spam until I was 6. That was my dad’s favourite food, so that’s what he called me.
I look at my SLF in shocked disbelief.
-He what?
-Yep. Well, I didn’t know what my name was ‘til I went to school, she adds. When they took registration on the first day of school, I didn’t know what I was called.
-Right…. What do your parents call you now?
- No-one calls me by my full name; it’s usually Bren.
- Oh. You know, I found out the other day that ‘bren’ is an old French word for shit. Sorry. I shouldn't have said that. oops. That’s rather unfortunate.
--…..or it’s ‘B’. But from the age of 16 onwards people called me ‘Con’.
… and you realise that in French that means ‘cunt’, right?
-Perfect. ____________________________________________________________________________________

I don’t think it’s possible to beat that

1.Blogfolks, I was still thrashing under the clawed foot of the Dreaded Lurgy this weekend; various parts of me were hurting, aching or even exploding. Nasty.

2.Well, do you want to know what love is, blogpeople?

3. It’s when your special lady friend offers to rub your belly even though she has been (graphically, extensively) warned about the fact that such a thing will make you fart like there’s not tomorrow.

4. And she does it anyway, and she doesn’t even care, and she doesn’t even kick you out of bed.

Seriously

I know, blogfolks, it’s so last week to laugh at Goths; so sue me: ex-goths like me are perfectly allowed to laugh at the rest of the fold. And anyway, once a goth, always a goth, just ask Gregor

Also, they're just too easy. Easier than hippies, easier than punks. You can't find better targets than goths. I love goths with all my heart, I do.

Therefore, I just had to share this found picture with you; I mean, there is some serious gothness going on there. You have to sit back and admire it. I do. In a way. Especially the person on the left with the tambourine and the half-closed eyes manoeuvre. I thought I'd done some pretty extreme goth things in my days, but in the woods with a violin and a torch? Never.
Now I’ll go away and work on my power point presentation instead of picturing myself in long robes under the moonlight.

Here we go then

1. Chain letters, blogfolks. They’re pretty much an international plague, you know; we have them in France, too, and they also have spelling mistakes. In 1979 I was traumatized by the threat of the Evil Eye if I didn’t it pass on to 13 friends; in 1998 I declined to forward one on, along with my underwear size, in spite of the promise of 5 brand new pair of knickers. There has been countless others, but some friends still haven’t caught on to the fact that I’m not superstitious, and they keep sending them.

2. Memes, blogfolks. Is there such a word anyway? The little paperclip dude from Microsoft word doesn’t think so, and somehow I’ve learnt to trust his judgment.
On the other hand, If you add two acute accents as such: mémés, then it means Grannies, and that’s rather cute.

3. I think I was ‘tagged’ once and I obliged, because I was ill that day. And look! Blogfolks, I’m ill today too, stuck at home coughing and spluttering and feeling sorry for my pyjamad, flat-haired self. So let me valiantly grab 30-something’s mémé, breathe in, and try come up with something. Just because I like her, but don’t tell her that.


Four jobs you've had in your life: err. Youth camp leader. I don’t even like the youth. Clerk in a bank, me in an office with an obsessive hunter. Archivist person in a bank, me in an office with a married guy who wrote me a poem every day. International porn smuggler. Only one of those is a lie.

Four movies you could watch over and over: Delicatessen. All about my mother. Debbie does Dallas. Le père Noèl est une ordure. Only one of those is a lie.

Four places you've lived: much more south than here, then much more north, as well as near a river, and in a cave. Only one of those is a lie.

Four TV shows you love to watch: The L-word. Queer eye for the straight guy. I can’t think of anything else.

Four places you've been on vacation: Barcelona, San Francisco, Skala Eressou, Djerba. It’s all true, and not even remotely interesting.

Four websites you visit daily: Libération, Overheard in new york, as well as various blogs.

Four of your favourite foods: rare steak, tomatoes, rye bread, goat cheese.

Four places you'd rather be: somewhere bigger, wider, warmer, with a breeze and no headache.

Four albums you can't live without: Bebe, Pafuera telarañas(ay ay ay, mujer) ; Camille, Le fil; Placebo, Without you I’m nothing; Noir Désir, Des visages des figures.

Four to pass this mémé along to: well, if they have too much time on their hands or are stuck at home feeling ill, Sortof, Kiera and anyone else who may wish to do so and hasn’t yet, because, well, it’s been around. Good ole mémé.

I think I may have a fever.

P is for princess

1. I spent the weekend with my special lady friend. On Saturday, we stumbled in late at night after a perfectly delightful dinner of dramatically overcooked pasta at my friend Odd’s, and a drink and a half in a nearby watering hole with the gays. Then, conjuring up a cab, she took me home and put me to bed in crisp cotton sheets, under the blanket of large, cuddly cats.

2. On Sunday morning when I opened my eyes to a new dawn, she was wearing navy blue tracksuit bottoms.
Baggy, oversized, navy tracksuit bottoms. Men’s. With zips. Then she pulled them up almost to her armpits.

3. Of course, she did it on purpose. Finding mirth in my horrified expression. Blogpeople, I believe I was being tested.

4. I think I might have passed when I immediately slipped into her 100% nylon Brazil football shirt. I drew the line at wearing it for breakfast, mostly because footballnylon gives me a rash and yellow isn’t my colour.
I hope she isn’t holding that against me.

Huddle

1. 5pm: I’m standing, cold, waiting for a bus, any bus will do, why did I pick this ridiculously optimistic jacket this morning? I have an end-of-the-week headache. There is a small cluster of very lively pensioners at the bus stop. It’s cold, I huddle closer, maybe they won’t notice and welcome me into the group, perhaps even talk to me? I like old people, because I can be polite to them and smile and they won’t think I’m a mental patient. In the shop window nearby, a sign proclaims ‘Cold cans’. Yes, I’m thinking, this is exactly what I’m having right now. Finally the 275 takes me home, where J is listening to Britney Spears and playing with a kitten. I look out for scribbled hearts, but he must have known I was coming. ‘Don’t you want to take barbiturates for your head? ‘ he asks. I hope he means paracetamol. Or perhaps he wants to kill me.

2. 7pm: it’s warm and I’m wearing fuzzy socks. Where do normal people find the energy to go out on Friday nights?

I do hope to make up for the sobriety of my youth

1. People of blogland, you do look good for January, that limp, fizzleless month. I admire you. But enough about you, let’s talk about me. Yesterday was Wednesday, so I wanted to quit my job. By 6pm I was so tired with work I couldn’t spell wensday wenesday wfuckit anymore.

2. (What do you do you get such a lovely complexion, blogfolks?) Every Wednesday I want to quit. In fact every Wednesday I want to throw things, and run out and never come back again. Wednesdays are all kinds of crap. Thursdays ease off a little.

3. Today as things were easing off, an old man in a purple jumper asked me which bus I was waiting for, then immediately added: I’m not trying to chat you up, I wouldn’t want to cross your partner. Is he the jealous type?’ I cocked an eyebrow and felt mildly insulted that it wasn’t me he was afraid to cross. Not only can I not quit, but I don’t even seem to look remotely intimidating. Still it gives me an idea for when I’m retired and old. I can stand in bus stations and chat up unsuspecting youngsters. And wear purple, and spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves, yes.

Tender

Blogfolks, hello. You’re looking well. Today marks the 9th month my Special Lady Friend and myself started this…. this thing we’ve got going, and it’s good. So last night she came over, and distracted me from my Spanish homework (and I was learning how to say ‘ two guys gatecrashed a party, got pissed, started a fight, we had to call the police and the next morning they nursed a hangover in the local jail’.)
Then we had rare steak with wholegrain mustard, peppery green salad, and a bottle of Californian Merlot. I’m still working on getting her to cook naked with just an apron, but I shouldn’t have shared with her my burning oil/nakedness experience of a few months ago.

Vernaculaire and dairy products

1. I think your cat’s got the ‘ump, my Special lady friend says.
Yes. Pancho has got the hump, I concur.

There is a blank. The blank morphs into a pregnant silence.

It’s not the same with the ‘h’, is it, she remarks.
I was thinking the exact same thing. Thing is, if I say ‘ump’, people assume it’s a French accent. I just can’t win, can I.
Oh.

2. Blogfolks, I was going to tell you about this man I saw last night, who placed his half-eaten yoghurt on the railing next to me, went into and out of a shop, grabbed it back and finished eating it– in the middle of Victoria station; I mean, has he not heard of spiked yoghurt? But now it doesn’t sound so riveting. So, no. Thank you for stopping by.

Just like home!

1. People of Blogland, I was out on the town last night, and it was just like being in Paris! Really, it was: I was patronizing a cosy candle-lit gay establishment in the company of a lovely friend (all my friends are lovely, though) when I saw outside a gang of hooded youfs gathering, lining up and seemingly up to something dodgy, or stupid, or both. They were looking at the windows of said establishment, but apparently decided against starting a siege and started throwing stones at passing women instead, before moving on. It felt just like home!

2. Prior to that, I went shopping in the most expensive furniture and decoration shop in the galaxy, Heal’s on Tottenham court road; I was painfully reminded of my inferior financial and economic status. I did, however, find a belated Christmas present for my Special Lady Friend. I wonder if it’d have made a good weapon should the potential riot described in 1. above had actually unfurled. I think it might have done.

3. Last night I was trying to convince Abi (who is, although a tall blonde, very lovely) of the many merits of inviting her own SLF over to her place and cook her dinner.

Good wine? Check.
Decent glasses? Check.
Candles? Check.
Music? Check.
A succession of home-cooked, light yet mouthwatering dishes? Check.
A playful dessert? Check.
100% Egyptian cotton bed sheets? Check.

So the following section is dedicated to Abi. Thank you for stopping by, blogfolks.

MENU
1. Green lettuce with walnut and blue cheese (Stilton is fine). Drizzle walnut oil if you have some. Balsamic vinegar won’t work.
2. Today’s suggestion is to combine the hearty mushroom risotto with rare steak. You’ll need an onion, some dry white wine and mushrooms. I recommend Gallo’s risotto rice. A full-bodied red wine with steak, definitely.
3. Poached pears with homemade chocolate sauce (melt over a low heat, add vanilla and cinnamon), sprinkled with grilled almonds and a scoop of good vanilla ice cream. I’ll practice this afternoon and get back to you with details.
PS: Aprons are sexy.

All quiet on the front, I think

1. Blogfolks, tonight I broke up with my mobile phone company. Like for any other break up, I had pangs of what-ifs, I was submerged by feelings of guilt and regret. I wonder if the kind man at Orange thought I was actually sobbing; I didn’t explain that the squeals I was uttering were caused by a frantic kitten trying to climb up my leg for attention.

2. The frantic kitten has entered the pre-teenage phase, and I’m so relieved J is coming back from Up North tonight! I have a kitten-induced sleep debt to pay, and I shan’t be able to do that without his cat-entertaining skills. (He reckons that he finds it easier to do what the cat wants right when the cat wants to do it.)

3. I don’t know what else to say, people of blogland. I’ve promptly forgotten about my Resolutions, except for the fibre one. I’m being quietly happy, and a large part of that I owe to my Special lady friend. Are you getting cavities yet? Thank you for stopping by.

Oh no

#1. No more cheap wine, cheap socks or cheap shampoo. Life is too short for cheap shampoo. Or cheap wine. Or cheap socks.

#2. Paint the bathroom walls. It’s been Violent Blue for far too long. Life is too short for Violent Blue.

#3. Eat more fibre. Fibres. Life is too short for chronic constipation.

#4. Decide of a quota of clichés I can utter per day. Stick to it.

#5. Keep listening to other people even though they’re exceeded their daily quota of clichés. Keep practicing that pa.. pa.. patience thing.

#6. Keep the needles and thread out of Francis’ reach. Francis does not need to floss.