The Truth About Diamante

I have to tell you about the tragedy of my sunglasses. I ordered - in a sale, so we're talking limited stock here kids - a pair of purple diamante aviator sunglasses. That's purple and diamante. A perfect marriage! Now, I have never owned aviators, and despite the fact that I have no idea if they'd suit me, I was pretty psyched about them. Then my order arrived (I also ordered a couple of tops, a pair of linen crops, and a silk scarf for my hair), with no sunglasses. Maybe they'll follow, I thought, fretfully. Perhaps they've been specially packed, I mused, with futile optimism. But no! Some scrubber has stolen them in the packing plant! Their fabulousness proved too much to resist!

Well, that's not exactly what the email I received in response to my query said, but we can all read between the lines.

My search for a funky pair of sunnies continues. Bear in mind I do not want to end up looking like this:

Oh, who am I kidding? I love Nicole, sunnies bigger than her face, razor sharp shoulder blades, trying to sieve out the calories in that ice cream with her lips, and all!

Tuesdays with (not) Morrie

Fate has thrown the Foot Perv and I together again, and we are working the Tuesday late night, just the two of us. Do you think Cupid is trying to tell me something? In denying him any access to my toes, am I in fact merely playing hard to get, and will I one day find myself staring into those shark-like eyes, that fixed expression, with a mixture of admiration and simmering sexual curiosity? Nope, didn't think so.

*shudder*

FP was a surprise to me as he swapped shifts with Rarebit at short notice. Lila felt so sorry for me that she left me her copy of Heat magazine. So yeah - let's see how much work I get done tonight!

Babe Magnet

After weeks of being whined at by an obsessive Lea, Pete finally cracked and found his bollocks, if only for a brief moment. "I'm a bit sick of this," he snapped, throwing his glass across the garden into the pool, and stomped off to 'Nowhere' (the bench over a bridge at the back of the garden, which is a bloody stupid feature if you ask me!) Clingy Lea immediately followed him and continued her sulk. Pete then tried to comfort her but remained firm about her jealousy-induced accusations that he was changing as a result of hanging about with Aisleyne. But I've waited so long for Pete to show that one brief moment of fire in his belly! It's about blimmin' time Pete!

The poor luv, it can't be easy being fancied by three blondes with fake boobs... Be careful what you wish for boys!

I'm Not Dead Yet

Friday before last, something happened. It was something I'd spent a lot of last year dreading, avoiding, and concocting elaborate responses involving wire cutters, bogus psychiatric evaluations, and strawberry jam for. I had finally stopped looking over my shoulder and looked instead towards a bright future of nine to five drudgery (or eight thirty to five in my case), traveling the weeks and months spreading before me like a hamster in a wheel, it's cheeks chubby with the spoils of its toil. The treadmill was my life. I had accepted it, and life was, if not good, fair to middlin'.

Then it happened. My past reared its ugly head and forced me to confront the fact that my life as a hamster is in fact a sham. The treadmill was a double edged sword. I was running to get away from it, but staying in the same place all along. My dissertation supervisor emailed me.

What could this dastardly cad want with me? How could he cruelly abandon me for so long, letting me believe our rendezvous in his shabby little office, with its Rembrandt posters, its orange carpeting, and the little birds snaking through every detail - the artwork, the fabric, the verse of James Joyce - ripe with the symbolism of our cursed union, were over! Why, he only wanted a - the dirty words leave an acrid taste in my mouth even as I type them - a progress report!

Progress? You call this progress? One email in almost a year, I thought we had something together! I gave you everything I had! Yes, I discovered my tutor was a typical man, who did nothing but take, take, take, until I had nothing left!

This is really not panning out as a good enough excuse is it? *sigh* At least if I had indulged in some sort of torrid affair with him he'd probably have never emailed me again.

Now, I'm sure you, as grown up, responsible people, with a plan in life, ambitions, motivations, goals, etc. would have done the decent thing and immediately replied to such an email with profuse apologies and essay writing timetables and suggestions for meetings. I however, didn't actually read it until Monday. Then I talked about how I'd do a little work before I contacted him. Then I decided to contact him before I did any work. Then I didn't contact him because I'd have to do some work if I did.

I am ashamed at my lack of industry. But I just feel kind of bla, whatever, about my indifference.

Bananadrama

This post will make no sense unless you contextualise it with the one below...

...Are you with me? What a muppet eh?

Rarebit AKA Bananaman just rang me in work because he couldn't find his keys. I walked into the Staff Room and they're still stuck in the door of his wide open locker.

Can I just quote from his angry email from exactly 3 hours ago?

"It may be only a banana, but it's the principle of the thing. Next time it could be something else, or something of yours. Maybe we should all keep an eye on our possessions in the future."

There are no words.

When Eric eats a banana...

A while ago, I bemoaned the frequency of dull emails I receive at work. However, today a doozy of an email landed in my inbox and I just had to share it with you all.

From: (Rarebit)
Sent: Tue 13/06/2006 15:57
To: (Chica et al)
Subject:

Just a warning for everyone,

It looks like a banana I bought this morning for my afternoon break has been taken and eaten; maybe stolen is more accurate. It may be only a banana, but it's the principle of the thing. Next time it could be something else, or something of yours. Maybe we should all keep an eye on our possessions in the future.

Rarebit.

I cannot tell you how amused I am by this. My jaw literally dropped! Even more priceless is the fact that he sent it around to all the managers and our own manager has received complaints about the abuse of email privileges :P But here is the follow up...

From: (Rarebit)
Sent: Tue 13/06/2006 16:19
To: (Chica et al)
Subject:

About the banana...

It seems that 'Out to Lunch' sometimes provide free fruit. As my banana was in an 'Out to Lunch' bag, someone may have confused it with the free fruit...

It looks like I'm gona have to get used to 'banana' references from now on...

Cheers
(A much less angry, calmer!) Rarebit.

How can you be that angry about a missing banana? Oh, I'm cringing for the poor fellow. The staff here are going to be merciless. He tried to recall the emails but it didn't work, so he obviously regretted it. I'm embarrassed for him!

*giggle*

Summertime, and the livin' is easy...

So, my summer mission is to read more. I used to read so much for pleasure, and then with my course and everything, I just stopped, because everything I read was prescribed and I was counting the pages left to go and struggling to meet deadlines and stuff. I think my lack of inspiration may have something to do with this decline in reading for pleasure. Or maybe working nine to five really does just kill all my creativity. Whatever the case, I'm really going to make an effort. And it's not like I ever stopped reading, but I plan to make more time for it. I am currently reading Donna Tartt's The Little Friend, which I bought years ago and kept starting and stopping, putting down and picking up, so I dusted it off again last week and began afresh from the beginning. It took a little while for me to get into, because I loved loved loved The Secret History and perhaps expected to love this straight away too, but I'm kind of hooked now, apart from a few chapters that I just want to get through and get back to Harriet, one of the central characters. But on the whole I'm enjoying it. There is also a little boy in it called Hely (pronounced Healy), which I just think is the cutest name and may steal it one day - far into the future!

Not long before that I finished On Beauty, which I kind of felt the same about since I'm crazy about Zadie Smith's other novels, so it had a lot to live up to, but to tell you the truth I'd read her shopping lists if she published them. It felt strange to have a ZS novel set so much in the US, although there were descriptions of London like little signposts throughout.

I was very tempted to buy a couple of books in the Amazon Sale, and still might. Those pesky Recommendations lists are going to skint me! But working in a library does have it's advantages, as I've ordered Memoirs of a Geisha and Midnight's Children from the Literature library to read over the summer.

That's my side project. The main one is necessarily my dissertation, which I bravely (or foolishly, depending how well you know me and the likelihood of my pulling this off) am trying to get into some sort of condition to hand in to my tutor by September. You know, only a year since I last e-mailed him... You think he wonders if I'm still alive?

Oh, and then there's renovating the French house. I'm going to be quite busy, no?

Lonely Hearts

Tuesday Late Night with Foot Perv. This is The End Doomsayers speak of. However, I am determined to make good use of the time I am forced to spend in a stuffy library instead of being outside in perhaps the most glorious sunshine so far this year. Since it is so quiet, this is valuable thinking time to mull over a couple of quandaries that are at the forefront of my mind right now.

Firstly, is it better to take off two Mondays, or four Friday afternoons over the next six weeks? Two Mondays equals two long weekends, and two short weeks. But four Friday afternoons mean four excellent chances to shop, go for long lunches, early showings at the cinema, etc. I just cannot decide what's best. Maybe I should have one Monday and two Friday afternoons? Oooh, snaps for me.

The second dilemma is a little more difficult to solve, and that is how to find the perfect woman for Studmuffin. He is: funny, generous, geek chic with a passion for history. Lives life to Dewey Order. He wants: curvaceous Goddess to worship. It's terribly difficult to hook someone up with a man everyone thinks is gay...

*slobber*

Because I am supposed to be saving up to buy my own house, I am forced to sit in a dark room, rocking furiously back and forth, chanting 'there's no place like home, there's no place like home' over and over again, so that I don't buy this!

And I only want it because it looks pretty... oh, and maybe to play this one game I have :P

Pity the Fool

Is 5 o'clock ever going to come today? Not in a hurry is the answer. I have two and a half hours standing at an empty counter (we are hella dead this week), firstly with this woman who can be all right but is so self assured and shall we say, doesn't suffer fools gladly (that's me out then), and then with good old Foot Perv. What the fack did I do to deserve that?

I need to go and lie down in a corner somewhere.

Oh, and in other news, I am totally over Mr. Mybug! That was quick! Now I need a new one...

The title of this post works on so many levels :P

I have a PJ & Duncan song stuck in my head. That about sums my day up.

Bottoms Up

Okay so, the Boyf and I will have been together for seven years in a couple of weeks. Throughout that period we have had the same argument countless times, nearly broken up over it on a few occasions, and we had it again last night. Why is it that whenever I argue with him about this one thing, I feel like I am fighting for all those other times? Nobody is ever going to win this argument. He said to me that I need to put up with it, or not. That just drove me crazy. If it was that black and white, we'd be over, because all I wanted to do was scream NOT at him. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a big serious fight or anything and we'll probably get over it sharpish, but it will be added to that collection of old arguments I argue for the next time it happens. And that's pretty sad. It's like nothing gets resolved and I cannot let it go. I really believe that you teach other people how to treat you, and if you let somebody get away with something enough times, then they'll just keep doing it. But what can you do except walk away? I don't want to fight over something stupid, but I worry about this principle. And I know he's going to keep doing it. So do I want another seven years of that? One of his retorts is so infuriating as well, it's like well what will you do when we live together? (because the only power I have right now is to send him home when this happens.) And I just think, are you purposely trying to make me not want to live with you? Cos I tell you, considering it has been seven years I'm not worrying any less about the prospect.

Grrrrr.

Unlucky for some...

09011 32 33 13

For the love of God, call this number now and give this tosser the boot from the Big Brother house! Redial, anyone?

The Omen

Sooooo. Tuesday was the Futureheads gig, and sadly I was not there. This morning I sat on the bus with my mp3 full of Futureheads songs, kicking myself. On Monday I felt really ill, and after struggling through work on Tuesday, I just knew there was no way I could hack it. I tried to palm the tickets off on every sucker, and eventually thought of Lila, who was off. I text her offering them for twenty quid and she text back that she would love them as she'd been trying to get tickets but they were sold out! After work, the Boyf and I whipped out the A-Z and found her flat, where I buzzed her neighbour because I didn't have a clue what number she was. She went and had a jolly good time, despite the presence of lots of 14 year old boys, so it worked out quite well in the end! I went home and had a cup of tea and got in my pyjamas!

Because I expected to be having a wild night out, I'd booked the Wednesday off, and after enjoying 14 hours sleep (!) my body feels a little bit healthier, despite the fact that I was wide awake in bed last night until about four thirty as a consequence!

I can't effing believe it is June! Oh, and FYI, next Tuesday I am working a late night with Foot Perv, alone, and you know what date that is don't you? I think I might wear my Timberlands.

The more I look at the word 'omen', the less it makes sense...