I amaze myself. I really do.

What were those things called in Harry Potter? The things one could put thoughts in when they were swirly around the head causing problems? Dumbledore had one. 

No. I don't remember either. But I'd sell my used tissues and empty lip-balm pot to find out. Because muddyfunksters, I need to get me one of those.

I just got off the phone to my brother, who right now is on a theatre tour of Italy. The dickhead accent with which I delivered the last part of that sentence is implied. Early next year he has a flight booked to Kuala Lumpa, and from there he will most likely move on to South Korea. 

"How are things in Derby?" he asked me. "Fuck off," I replied.

Then I spent twenty full minutes reading an old Lonely Planet and staring at a picture of my silhouette in front of the Taj Mahal. My arms look fat. And that was delivered in the same dickhead voice I normally just reserve for my brother. 

I think being in my final year of study it is sort of natural that- you know, having a bit of something about me, and realising that I am not getting any younger (a 25 year old graduate? I'LL JUST SKIP RIGHT TO COLLECTING MY PENSION NOW)- I'm wondering about the whos and whats and wheres of what my next life will look like. And it's making me a bit nuts. 

I've spent the past 6 years shirking any sort of responsibility at all. I left school and went to work in Sri Lanka. I passed several very pleasurable but not altogether productive months in Cambodia and Vietnam, and Laos and other very pretty places in Asia. I spent way too much time at the exes chateau in rural France, watching months at a time drift by as I idly made plans to write but often just had another glass of rose instead (THAT'S THREE DICKHEAD SLIPS IN ONE BLOG POST. Bollocks.) There was India; that was fun. And various European jaunts. And I did dabble with a job and flat and car and relationship but it was never really me. Far too much like hard work.

Turns out, after all that soul-searching, I'm inherently lazy.

And now I am back in the YUK for the first time this year, memories of Italy and America colouring everything I do, but leaving me far too quickly, and this reality- THIS REALITY OF REAL LIFE THAT I KEEP HARKING ON ABOUT- is raping my face with it's screams of, "WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE, BITCH?"

Sort of like a really bad first kiss that is all slobber and tongue, but you feel too polite to stop, what with him having bought you that third glass of The Good Wine in the pub and all.

I read that Oprah does a sort of visualisation technique thing, where she rips out images and slogans that stand out to her in magazines and newspapers and then compiles them in a big collage. Then she sits back, presumably on a velvet-padded throne, and has a bit of a think about how all the images link together and what that means her self-conscious is telling her she wants from this life. Aside from another order of fries. 

So I've been ripping and cutting and tearing and I've stuck Richard Gere with a cigarette and Matthew Williamson's first kitchen and lots of images that obviously relate to my desire to become some horrifically well-known author to the side of my wardrobe, but in amongst those more obvious things was something a bit more subtle.

(Before you say it, I know. The most obvious thing is that R.G. is way too old for me... but the naked picture of Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard was already stuck near my bed. P.S. YOU'RE WELCOME)

Now, bearing in mind that as I logged on to my computer today my daily literary quote on my welcome page was from Nicole Krauss and had me choke on my own dry bile- 

"Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering." 

- like, just DO ONE, Nicole. Pur-lease.

Despite my initial reaction, I had to pay it some attention because lo and bloody behold what does this bloody new-age twollop visualisation chart tell me? Well if the images of laughing children and books on shelves and people knitting and nice sofa cushions by cosy fires are anything to go by that it might be time to think about... 

Gulp. 

Maybe staying put for a while? Maybe, just maybe, that secretly I want to just stay in one place for a while and maybe... 

and here comes the kicker... 

ready...?

With Somebody Special?

I know, guys. Remember that time my best friend called to tell me she was getting married and I replied with, "Oh! Well I'm sleeping with an 18 year old Christian boy with a girlfriend!"? 

And you won't remember the time I found out that my ex-boyfriend of nearly 6 years had proposed to my best friend from school after three seconds of dating because quite frankly I didn't want to give him the airtime, but the only thing I said to my friends that night was, "Don't let me sleep with the barman," as I downed another grande Peroni. But it didn't stop me considering his offer.

It's just what I do.

Admitting that having somebody to (and I can't believe I am saying this word either) CUDDLE up to sometimes might actually be quite lovely is akin to me saying that I really don't mind, actually, that F.Y.D. were booted off the X-Factor because HELLO? Everyone knows that is just CRAZY.

Urgh.

There is that dry bile again.

So. I considered what my sub-conscious needed from me. I decided to take a minute and declared to the House of Pastelle, "That's it! I'm done with messy, unavailable, unattainable, complicated musicians and artists and poets and bi-polars. I'm not going to slag it about anymore. I'll only have sex when I think he might be relationship material. And by relationship material I mean easy and happy and uncomplicated. Simple."

So of course I went out and pulled an artist ten years my senior who comes with more baggage that Beyonce and Jay-Z on the Boeing to the Bahamas. 

Which is really sort of reassuring, isn't it?

So. Keep Calm and Carry On. All is as it should be.