Great, I thought. A whole keg of beer. Next Monday! The invitation said. Come to the apartment block meeting, get program credit plus... FREE ROOT BEER!
ROOT BEER? Piss off. That isn't the kind of apartment block I want to live in.
His name was Gianluca, and he was exactly the type you aren't supposed to like: bolshy, demanding, and uncompromising. He was the kind to push you to your absolute limits; he'd have you questioning your own self, experimenting with the ways he could disarm you with his blistering blue eyes and cheeky wink, juxtaposed against his quick-wit and debilitating honesty. Just as you thought you couldn't possibly take anymore of his tricks of the mind he’d have a habit of catching you as you are about to metaphorically fall, gently slipping his hand into yours as you walk in the garden. You’d meander in contented silence, the dynamic redefined by this new intimacy, until the games began again and you are more perplexed than you were before this small gesture of togetherness. He was exhausting, and confusing, and six years old. Six. Six year olds are my thing. I've run workshops on teaching six year olds. I have a job teaching six years olds come the autumn. I've done it...
An incomplete list of some things I call my 2017 achievements: - saw my first ballet, from the really cheap seats all the way at the back. - cleansed, toned and moisturised every morning, and every night. - bought furniture. - threw a really very good Christmas party. - refused to save the candles for best. - called my mother. - called my father. - interviewed a celebrity. - deleted Facebook. - stopped nannying. - maintained a relationship with the girls I used to nanny - and their mama. - took a month off. - bought £300-worth of sex toys all in one go. - went viral online for falling over. - said out loud that I want a baby. - received a case of wine. - got offered a horse and cart at the entrance to Soho Farmhouse. - went swimming in the ladies pond on the Heath when we had the heatwave. - went home for Easter. - went ginger, and on purpose. - hosted an event about mental health. - did my first lit fest. - took a day trip to Oxford. - saw Titanic at the Royal Albert Hall with a l...
The metre-and-a-half wide frame has hung empty above my bed since July. I paid a man to hang it. I'd harboured, to begin with, reservations about how my feminism and my employment of somebody else to execute the job dovetailed awkwardly, but after I hit myself in the face with a hammer one night, not understanding the difference between a nail at 45 degrees into a diving wall and a drill with a spiral anchor into a brick wall, I decided the most feminist act would be, in fact, to use my hard-earned feminist money to feministly delegate somebody better qualified to help me out - who yes, just so happened to be a man. I have never looked back. The room needed something above the bed - that's why I got the frame and had it hung - but I couldn't rush to fill it. It needed to be right. I didn't want a generic Ikea print: they can satisfy the dead area behind the door in the living room because that is a neutral space. Bedrooms - bedrooms must be ...
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ReplyDeleteI came back. And this is a sentiment to which I can relate. ;)
ReplyDeleteMichael- urm... thanks?
ReplyDeleteJen R- WOOOOOHOOOO! I'm so pleased you stopped by again. i would've made cake had I of known to expect you though.
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