back up blog

I believe in the serendipitous nature of books. They come to you when you are ripe for their offers , like secrets looking for understanding ears, or eyes searching out the good in a very bad man. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera came to me four months into a yearlong vow of celibacy, and it came to me for a reason. Because yes. You read that right. The Vagina Girl ain’t having sex this year. I didn’t want to tell you, Internet, because I know that the moment I say ‘Look ma! No hands!’ Mr. Wonderful will present himself to me and I will have to cross my legs and eat another cream cake instead of shamelessly pursuing him as per my modus operandi . And I promise it isn’t a trick I’ve told the universe so that said bloke presents himself and then I can say ‘sod it’ and proceed to climb him like a tree like, huh ? What vow? No. I decided to opt-out of the game for a bit to do thinking about the decisions I have been making with boys for, oh, I don’t know . THE PAST TEN ...

Live on purpose. Promise yourself. Promise yourself you’ll try. Promise yourself you’ll conquer your kingdom. Conquer being the fun- est , conquer being the alive- est , conquer being the verbose- est , and conquer being the ENGAGED WITH FUCKING LIFE- est  you can possibly be. The basic stuff of the universe is a pure energy that is malleable to human intention, so don’t be a pussy:  declare your intentions. Find the door marked  Apprentices Welcome Here  and be a beginner. Start anywhere. As long as you start. Pay attention. Follow your heart and heed the omens. If we are always looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, we don’t see the brilliant glory of the sky. The best experiences are not when you find what you were looking for but when something quite different finds you, takes you by surprise, and shifts you into new territory. Allow yourself the privilege of change. Sometimes you have to be really bored before you can be really brilliant, but you...

In my whole life, the one thing I have never had a problem with is sleep. Fallen out with a lover? I’m not the one who lays awake looking at the ceiling for resolution. Big meeting tomorrow? It’s going to happen whether I allow myself those eight hours or not. Flight delayed by eleventy thousand years? Well this patch of floor by the bins looks like a great place to lay my weary head. Wake me when we’re ready to go. Nothing gets in the way of my z’s and me. Except last week. Last Wednesday night I tossed and turned and worried for most of the wee hours. And when my alarm rang, it felt like I had only just dropped off; it seemed an otherworldly impossibility that it was time to get up. I groaned loudly, and then was cross at myself because I have this thing about not having my first thought on opening my eyes be I WISH I WAS DEAD SO THAT I’D NEVER HAVE TO DO MORNINGS. I try to start with something a bit less final. On Thursday, my first thought was FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKSHITTITSARSEANDBOLLOCK...

INTERNET. Five weeks today I leave Rome. Five! 35 days. I’m not even sure how that happened, except that maybe I am because evidently the time has flown in a mass of crying in public over books, and eating all the things , and dating inappropriate men because that is the story of my life, and oh hey! Tradgi-comedy! I’M OVER HERE! The time also flew by doing things like farting in my Pilates instructor’s face. Some of you have asked if I went back. The answer is no. No, I didn’t. It’s probably for the best that I am going, since students are rapidly finding this blog. The first time I walked into class and an adult student said, “And so, what about your website?’ I turned purple and swallowed hard and said, ‘My website?’ I think my reaction was indicative of a guilty conscience, but it turned out that she had merely remembered that I had talked about writing online at a Media Group my friend ran. She was just being polite. Two weeks ago another grown-up student said, ‘I have been readi...

I’m sat in the café reading a collection of essays by Zadie Smith, and I just cried. Out loud. In public. Actual tears. Down my face.x I hit ‘send’ on the text to Calum. I don’t know what it was, but on that day I cried three times. I wasn’t even pre-menstrual or anything. Hours later he emailed me: I gave my number to a cute boy five minutes before you text me, and when I got your message I thought it was him- I was all like “Hmmm, it’s great that he is mad for Zadie and reads and stuff but crying in public at a book? And telling me about it?” I decided I didn’t want to sleep with him anymore. And then I realised it was you and so I changed my mind again so that is the end of my story. And then I was all, Calum! Hi! Remember me! Your friend who is obviously unhinged since she cries over academic essays in front of old men she has adopted in her imagination as her grandparents? And he was all, I saw a book yesterday called The Power of Yes and laughed at what a shit title is was and wo...

“You know what I want?” “What?” “A sandwich.” “A sandwich?” “Yeah. Made with that white bread that doesn’t have the crusts.” “Tramezzini?” “Hmmmm. With pesto. And cream cheese.” “In the same sandwich? Mixing it all up like that?” “Yeah. Mixing it up real good. Maybe get a little avocado up in there too.” “Oh. I like your imagination.” “It’d be so good. I’d take it all down.” “Then what…?” “Then what?” “Then what do you want?” “I want… tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. And on those tomatoes, I want a little sea salt.” “You do?” “Oh yeah. If I had cheery tomatoes, I’d take ‘em-“ “-I bet you would-“ “And I’d lay ‘em down…” “… Uh-huh…?” “And I’d slice ‘em open, one by one…” “God, that sounds good.” “Then I’d take a little sprinkle of that salt,” “Mmmmm…” “And I’d throw it all over. All. Fucking. Over. And then I’d open my mouth, and do you know what I’d do? I’d put them in. Put them all in. And I’d swallow them all.” “That’s so bad.” “So bad it’s good. And you know what else? I’d ...

“Laura. Do you believe in God?” “No.” Do you go to church?” “No.” “Do you believe in heaven?” “No.” He sighed, and My Pregnant Friend said, “Laura. If you are going to meet my very Italian father-in-law, we’re going to have to try this again.” It was my turn to sigh. “Are you sure he won’t just love me anyway, Britishness and all?” I asked. My Pregnant friend and her husband looked at each other. “No.” And so, as I downed the last of my strawberry Prosecco in the Easter Sunday sunshine, I was schooled on How To Be Amenable To Somebody Else’s Family. Somebody else’s Italian family. Somebody else’s Italian, traditional, conservative family. The rules? “Don’t tell him you aren’t Catholic.” “Don’t mention feminism.” “Don’t get into vegetarianism.” “Don’t talk about politics.” “DON’T SAY VAGINA.” Like I’ve never mixed in polite company before guys. Okay fine. I’ve never mixed in polite company before guys. We did introductions- Grandma, who makes the best fried eggplant in the universe, an...

It should have been a simple morning, a pre-café trip to the bank to explain that bizarrely, my bankcard doesn’t seem to be working at the ATM. In a restaurant, no problem. At the bookstore, a-okay. But as soon as I need cold, hard cash the machine refuses to accept my card. Won’t even read it. Turns it down like Roger Sterling and any woman over 20 years old. It’s probably entirely my fault. Since my bag got stolen I haven’t purchased a new wallet- I keep my change in a small coin purse and so, on the odd occasion that I’ve needed to take my card out with me, it sits loosely in the side-pocket of my bag wrapped in a piece of paper with the PIN written on it. It is scratched and pummelled, and thus apparently no longer works- so I figured I’d do three things: 1.      Get a new card from the nice people at the bank. 2.      Buy a wallet to protect the new card from the nice people at the bank. 3.      Memorise my PIN. INTERNET,...

This week I farted in my Pilates instructor’s face. My bum was raised on a foam cylinder, my shoulders on the floor with arms splayed either side of me, and my legs horizontal up in the air. We were told to raise our arses off of the foam cylinder by contracting our lower stomach muscles to propel ‘up’. Alessandro made it look easy. It wasn’t. He watched me for a moment, laughed, and then came to assist. The instructor stood at my raised legs, holding on to my feet and helping me move ‘up’. Once, twice, three times, and then he pushed me to lift higher with more force. As my legs went up and my stomach muscles contracted, and I was exhaling and inhaling and translating, the biggest- and loudest- flurry of air ever to have flurried anywhere in the history of flurrying exited from my bottom, approximately six inches from his nose. Embarrassed doesn’t even begin to cover it. Embarrassing doesn’t surmise with enough zeal the exact level of mortification, humiliation and SHAME, that farting...

I realised I hadn’t fully understood the core objectives- the ones underpinning the self-scribed methodology of my invented Wellness Camp - when I wanted to vomit. I felt sick because after finishing a Pilates class I dashed to the store to pick up a new pencil case- hey! I like pretty things!- arrived at the café two and half hours later than the optimum, and then downed a cappuccino, orange juice and croissant so fast that I ended up with the first sentence of this post because I dribbled down my front and knew I needed to tell the Internet about it. My ‘wellness’ checklist for the morning went something like this: - Exercise. Check. - Purchase fancy pencil case for fancy writing pen. Check. - Breakfast of caffeine, vitamin C, and unadulterated Nutella pleasure. Check. - Mind-enhancing literature. Check. But did I enjoy any of those things? Nope. Because I forgot, in undertaking my checklist of Good Things For My Soul, to take the subscribed pleasure in any of them, so intent was I ...