Darby & Joan: October 2013







Darby



I didn’t realise how much I’d missed you until you were lay out on my bed, spitting remnants of Cadbury Whisper as you yelled at me for picking a shit, depressing film with no plot, drunk on a bottle and a half of rose wine. I just has this moment of, God you’re my favourite.





You’re my favourite even though you shaved off all your hair for charity and are bald. As you met me from work that day, coming around the corner in a hat that revealed no hair line, just scalp, I thought crikey. That’s. Hmmmm. You’re not cute anymore. And that’s not being mean that’s just true. A bit like when I had you take my photo with the picture of Naomi Watts dressed as the Princess of Wales when we went to see Diana and I got cross that you couldn’t take a decent picture of me, and ended up snapping PHOTOGRAPHY JUST ISN’T ONE OF YOUR SKILLS, OKAY? That’s true, too.





We went back to your place and lathered up your head to get the bits you’d missed around your ears and down the back of your neck, and lemme tell ya: that shit is GROSS. I’d never touched a truly bald head before, and your scalp was so soft from where it had never seen sunlight that I swear I could’ve pushed through to your brain if I’d put enough pressure on my finger. 






Later that week you walked a marathon overnight for the same charity, an endeavour you tried to get me to undertake. I said no. We’ve started doing that we each other lately- being definitive. It used to be a game that we’d say yes to everything and see what story would roll out from it, but I think maybe it’s because we’re getting older that now there’s a lot more we’re saying no to. Not negatively, but more like really? You think I have time to train to walk a marathon? You think staying up all night to walk through Battersea is fun for me? It will probably rain. I like to be in bed by 11, always. No. No I will not walk 27 miles with you. In my defence I (probably?) wished you luck.





You stayed over that weekend, in my new house, and on the Sunday your feet blistered in a way I’ve never seen anything blister. The whole of your back heels were purple and pussing and every time you put them near my bed linen I screamed but it was too painful for you to put socks on but at the same even though I felt majorly sorry for you I also was super minged out.





I left you with my key as I went to work on Monday morning, and promised to see you later that evening. Then, on Twitter, I saw that you’d posted “Sitting on @superlativelyLJ’s bottom step on the verge of tears because it hurts so much to wear shoes only to find I’m locked in with no key”. I responded by saying GROW A PAIR AND LEARN HOW TO USE YOUR KEY, DUMBASS. I got a stream of text messages through about how you were using your key, but the bottom part of the door was locked. I was all, the bottom part of the door doesn’t have a key, that’s impossible, what are you even saying? And you were like, I’M SAYING THE BOTTOM PART OF THE DOOR IS LOCKED and I was all, well, the cleaner will be there soon she’ll let you out and you said: WHAT?! YOU HAVE A CLEANER?





Then you said, Yeah. The cleaner just climbed in through the window because she can’t unlock the bottom part of the door either. Again, I wrote back THERE IS NO BOTTOM LOCK YOU FUCKING BACKWARDS NOBHEADS.





I saw another Tweet that said “Homeless, bleeding, and a prisoner in my best friend’s home. Great way to start the week.” Which, baby: DRAMATIC. And then, “I feel a bit like the guy with broken legs in Misery being held hostage by his number one fan.” That made me laugh. Because if I could, I really would keep you locked up in my house so that you would always be there whenever I wanted you. That’d be nice.





You decided to hide in my room from the cleaner and get drunk, which seemed super sensible to me, and when I got home you told me that my new housemate had indeed locked the bottom part of the door, and it turns out Gary has a special key that nobody else has and he’d just wanted to be extra careful on his first morning out of the house. So you were locked in.





Oooooops.





Love you long time!




Joan x




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