Thursday 28 July 2011

‘If I Was My Heart…I’d Rather Be Restless’

Having set back on British soil a mere three days ago, I cannot help but be currently fighting the urge to get straight back on the plane and jet off to foreign climes…everything has annoyed and upset me in recent days…here is why…

1)      Airport Transfers – who the hell invented them?  In truth, I have never had an airport transfer go so terribly wrong.  You know the drill, you wake up ridiculously early and drag yourself around getting ready, to ensure that you are the required ’20 Minutes Early’ ready for Mr Transfer and his magical bouncing van; only for him to be ten minutes late to pick you up with no word of an apology.  Not only that, due to some hideous mix-up (and I am blaming the driver, he looks like he doesn’t listen to a word anyone says, whilst brushing his hair in the rear view mirror), we are then kept waiting at another hotel for another passenger…who does not exist…only to make us 45 minutes late for check in.  Lovemenot felt the wrath of my blows that day, the incessant finger-drumming on my suitcase, the nervous fanning of my passport as I thought I would pass out from stress, combined with lack of food (yup, no time for anything, thanks to you, vain, hair-brushing little tosspiece).  Thank the Lord we made the flight in the end, and that the transfers in England were somewhat smoother.  Otherwise I might have spontaneously combusted.
2)      Boys – enough said.  You go away for a week to avoid thinking about them, then one of them gets in touch, then effs off again, then you can’t stop thinking about that other one that you should not be thinking about anymore.  I’m exhausted from just writing that alone.  Trouble is, if it is so meant for me to be forlornly drifting about half-meeting time-wasters and forever wishing for the love of ‘im who shall remain nameless, then I’m really not sure I can be bothered with it all.  Perhaps I’ll abstain and make some sort of feminist stand.  Hmm...Oh…he’s fit.
3)      Slow-Walking people.  I have lived in London for near enough two years now and my patience has disintegrated to absolute zero; why hasn’t anybody else’s?  There we are, Lovemenot and I, filled up on Panini, trying to negotiate our way through Victoria station as if we were sun-tanned, maxi-dress-clad farmers, trying to herd cows with briefcases.  Not only are there queue-jumpers in the line to top up your Oyster, we are continually caught behind some idiot trying to ‘take in the view’ of the Underground; it took all my strength not to scream ‘Move, You Remorseless Bastards,’ so had to make do with nipping my suitcase wheels on their heels instead.
4)      Aside from the unspeakable goings-ons in Norway, it was devastating to come home to the news that Amy Winehouse had passed away.  A favourite of mine, her Back to Black album rarely left my CD player back in 2006 and I often turn to her beautiful, heartbreaking tunes for consolation and escape.  Such a shame to lose such a talent, especially as she seemed to be turning such a corner from her troubles.  I hope, wherever she is now, she is finally at peace.  We will always love you Amy, your music and legend will forever live on.


I suppose I should try and look forward with reasons to be perhaps proud, excited and cheerful, one would hope so anyway, what with it being July and hot at that, so here are a few highlights…

1)      Simultaneously purchasing a fast-outselling CD via the Paypal app on my phone, whilst negotiating the Baggage Reclaim at Gatwick.  It was tough, a challenge indeed but, yes, in a few days, one of the 50 remaining copies of ‘Death in the Afternoon’ will be winging its merry way to me.  Mr C, I implore you to be proud of me, just this once; such a feat takes both great skill and dedication.  I expect a firm pat on the back next time I see you, or a punch on the arm, which is evidently more your style…
2)      Not one to wish Summer away, except that I do, because I’m a Winter baby, the previews for AW11 look immense.  Nothing like a cinched silhouette wrapped up in winter woollens and military-inspired embellishment as far as I’m concerned; you can keep your sweaty, overheated underarms and grubby Frodo-feet, Summer.  Indeed AW11 is upon us, it’s all lady-like and power-dressing and it’s all in Marie Claire, Glamour and Elle – all of which were perfect holiday reads.  Lovemenot will be able to stock up on her Naff Jumper collection she has been fantasising about all holiday; whilst I am pleased to see Fashion’s obsession with Fetish and Goth is still very much in the picture.  Watch out Black Lace Urban Outfitters Mini-Dress, I’m a-comin’.
3)      I also really really really really want a vintage fur coat, I really really really want one…
4)      Bob.  Hmm Bob.  He was there, then he was gone, dived on the twat pile or so I thought; turns out he might well be back in the game again and, for once, through no twattish fault of his own.  One will not count one’s chickens, but Bob may well be the one to watch…
5)      One more blissful week off work…no need to handle the staffing issues, the looming Brand Day or the general custom I seem to be getting in my store for another week.  Jemma is up for her Birthday, I expect we’ll go and see Amy’s house and we’ve got a rather epic Friday night out to look forward to.

Anyway, that’s enough of my miserable drivel for today, I think they call it jetlag or something?  That’s what I’m sticking to anyway, despite the one hour time difference between Britain and Croatia.  Anyway, must dash, I will have more Croatian musings for you shortly, right now I have a date with a dice and I do believe it may be time to unleash my inner Christina Hendricks…..

RIP Amy Winehouse September 14th 1983 – 23rd July 2011


Friday 8 July 2011

Everything Was Everything...But Everything Is Over....

 So it’s really been a while since my last post, ah yes, the sweet memories of May…back when work was just a dim distant memory and the word ‘disciplinary’ was just a faint threat to my staff members, who continue to baffle me with their lack of consideration for either their job, or their manager.  It does appear, after all, that you really cannot trust anyone in your place of work, with money, with turning up on the correct day to work the correct shift, or even to tag items correctly, so that the expensive fabrics from which they are crafted will not reach the customer looking like a long-lost rag that has been dragged through every floor of the Oxford Street Primark.  Hmmph.  Rant over, and disciplinaries are no longer an idol threat, but currently a daily routine, especially for money-snatching little no-hopers; may you rot in your self-imposed hell with your manipulative boyfriend and his Ken-doll hairline.
June…it’s been the best of times, it’s been the worst of times.  The best because the weather has been awesome, I’ve been scouted to model for a slightly eccentric woman, who is currently putting together a photography exhibition and because I was ecstatic when ‘The Reverend’ himself, Jon McClure, tweeted back to my arse-kissing message of love from both myself and Mummy Musing (she rates The State of Things over the second album, I am torn) sending ‘Big Love to me and my Mom’.  Plus, I keep winning competitions, tickets to comedy shows, tickets to watch 8 Out Of 10 Cats, tickets to see Hey Sholay gigging, you name it, I’m winning it.  The worst?  Well, the Fantastic Mr Fox has turned out to be much less than Fantastic – more on that one later - plus, with June always comes the cold and hard reminder that in just one month’s time I will be one whole year older; not to mention that this month I was stood just feet away from lovely Jon Richardson and said ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to him, what a loser.
Now for more fables of The Fantastic Mr Fox and his fantastically disappointing, ahem, performance.  I do believe the last time I left you, I was all excited and girlish, looking forward to a proposed date in Highbury.  That date was alright, albeit not the romance of the century I was secretly anticipating.  He took me to a lovely Pizza restaurant and we discussed shabby chic decoration and The Vaccines (boring).  He was, once again, trying extremely hard to come back to mine in the afternoon; I am sad to say that I caved, I think I was much distracted with a Twitter competition from Off The Kerb that I had entered to win tickets to a comedy showcase, that sort of says it all really.  Cut to a week later and The Fox was on a random holiday in Romania, whilst Lovemenot was consoling me over my near-miss with Jich at the Comedy Store (see, I am literally winning everything), assuring me that there would be more chances for me to dazzle him with my sheer perfectionist-isms and my self-assured innate ability to be the one to make him happy.  I was, once again, laying focus on people just out of arm’s reach - very typical of me - as opposed to facing the issue that Tuesday’s time alone with The Fox felt, well, a bit weird and uncomfortable, not to mention, um, premature, complete with a lack of consideration for how the lady in question (little old moi) may be feeling.  I’m not one to discuss such intimacies in detail over my Blog, but I was shocked at the whole thing; 4 dates, one massive let down and, to make matters worse, I didn’t even enjoy cuddling him, and I am sucker for a cuddle with a man and his paunch. 
            Still, the weekend came and went, and with that went Miss Lloyd, on her merry way with an Indian takeaway and a rather stunning new pair of shoes that I wanted to covet.  Word on the street is, she has returned from her Magaluf getaway early; that’s what new love does to you, apparently.  The Fox was now back on British soil and sending me texts on an overheated bus, something about a fit new haircut and renaming himself ‘Lauro’.  I laughed a bit, so out for dinner we trotted again, only this time it was Japanese, which is a real issue for those of us who struggle to eat in front of people we find sexually attractive.  Tiger beer and conversation were both in full flow and The Fox returned my ‘Prestige’ DVD, which I had, to be honest, lost sleep over since it was swiped from my collection by his chubby hands; I blame it on an early college memory involving an ex-boyfriend keeping my Muse CD for over a year.  The Fox did also take it upon himself to ask some rather difficult questions about my ex-boyfriends, taking a real interest in the now-ancient Gally situation.  I was squirming in my seat as he questioned whether or not I really had liked Gally at all (I see, so he fancies himself as quite the psychologist now) and then questioned why there had been no relationship since.  Part of me wanted to tell him the truth just to wipe the smug look off his face, ‘yes mate, and thank your lucky stars that never even got off the ground, because I can tell you, if he were to swan in now, flick his hair and tell me he had thought of nobody but me ever since our eyes first met in that particularly un-busy bar on that particularly cold April’s evening, I’d be out of this mediocre Thai restaurant and on the first tube to King’s Cross quicker that you could say ‘but I thought we were going to get tickets for Derren Brown.’  The other, more rational part of me decided that The Fox’s new haircut was nice and that it was probably time to test the water with a ‘make or break’ dinner date…at my flat.
            The scene was set, the risotto was bubbling in it’s pan, Lovemenot and the Young Cherub had decided to stay at our flat and provide some sort of welcoming committee for The Fox.  I was pacing, not sure I wanted him to come over, considering every possible outcome, whether or not he would be presumptuous enough to bring an overnight bag, whether or not he would bite my lip again, because I really hate that.  Anyway, 8.20pm arrived, off I trotted to the station only to meet The Fox, and his overnight bag, halfway.  He met Lovemenot and Cherub and Stickels, he took control of the Ipod whilst I cooked and he talked, again, incessantly about Arctic Monkeys.  It was now far too late to tell him that I, in fact, think the Arctic Monkeys are really quite average and that I find it a travesty that their middle-of-the-road tunes have overshadowed other amazing artists from the Sheffield music scene.  Dinner was over quickly alongside the bottle of wine that I had bought as a back-up, being that my date had arrived with NOTHING.  Yes, that’s right, I was already resentful of the fact that I had rushed home from work, spent money on ingredients and had spent time preparing a meal, for The Fox to rock up with a bag containing nothing but contraception apparently.  What came next was another hideous attempt at intimacy that felt nothing but clumsy and passionless and ended, once again, prematurely.  Cut to an awkward two hours with no contact, whilst we were watching ‘Crash’ on the laptop, The Fox made up some excuse about needing to go home and that, my friends, was actually the last I ever saw of him.  I could not be happier about that last sentence. 
You see, there comes a point in the dating game, when you realise you just don’t want to carry on, the dates, the small talk, the pretence that you think t’Artics are ‘incredible’.  For me, that notion was sealed at about 9.30pm on that Saturday night; a night I had, perhaps, hoped would swing the other way and would put to rest my strong gut feeling that The Fox was never meant to be, but only drew me closer to the conclusion that I really could not be bothered to be in presence again, clothed or otherwise.  I didn’t find him attractive anymore, I wasn’t in the least bit excited by his company and cuddling him just felt so undeniably wrong.  I’m a very busy girl these days, and I know now that I’m not willing to invest my time into someone who doesn’t send my heart and mind racing.  I know what I am capable of feeling, I am capable of meeting someone at Old Street station and knowing, instantly, that they are going to have a profound effect on my life, only to kiss them on a moonlit, rainy evening on cobbled pavements some few months later, just the way I had always dreamed.  And it is memories like that, fellow musers, that make The Fox seem so small in the great scheme of things, and people like the aforementioned, so worth waiting for.
Oh well, the intimacy issues aside, the dates were sort of fun and it has taught me that, with all the things I am and all the things I want in a relationship, a 22 year old boy will not be able to provide me with them plus, there are plenty more bearded fish in the sea.  One, in fact, lives near where I work and, though I have yet to start the eye-sex I seem to so frequently enjoy with swept-fringed, sandy ginges, I have every intention of doing so, should I see his blazered, swaggering, toff-like, frame in the near future.  In short, he is HOT, I am picturing retro-inspired picnics in Regent’s Park and long, hot Summer evenings in his penthouse suite.  Note to self: stop making up personalities for people before you have even uttered a word to them, you know this does you ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD WHATSOEVER.  Whilst we are on the subject of men, one cannot bypass a mention on the rather gorgeous, checked-shirted, curly-haired man who shot a heart-stoppingly sweet smile at me, on the tube home from Writer’s Club the other night.  He was lovely, trudging about at Highbury and Islington station, rocking his head to his music (I would have guessed some 70s prog rock); perhaps I should have said something, only it was extremely late and he could have been a murderer.  Plus, he reminded me whole-heartedly of the unspeakable Dreamboy, and I am not yet so deluded as to believe that if you can’t have the one you want, make your own, cut to images of me teaching him to ‘speak like DB’ or, even worse, we bump into Dreamboy together, only for Dreamboy to look him up and down and say ‘Ah Emma, I always knew you were in love with me, that is why you used to stare so inappropriately and flirt like a hussy with my friend.’  So I left it, with a faint hope of seeing that smile again one day, when I am a bit more sane, perhaps.
            As this post is turning into quite the celebration of love, I should also mention that Lovemenot and The Young Cherub are officially In Love, actual real, slightly sick in your mouth love!  They’re inseparable, they share clothes, he has bought her a survival kit for when she stays at his house and they do the secretive-talking thing on the train when commuting together!  Of course Lovemenot is sky-high, which is fabulous, but it does also mean that as newly smug-lovers, they feel the need to share the loving feeling and are in the process of trying to set me up with someone at The Cherub’s house party this coming Saturday.  It’s not that I necessarily mind, but the subject in question, Random Northerner, has been raised as a potential suitor due to our shared love of Milburn, which could be dangerous.  But still, we’ll see, he is very nice apparently and has asked if I will be there (we presume ‘Milburn-girl’ is me).
            You’ll be most pleased to know that, since beginning this post, I have turned 27, and it wasn’t quite the crisis I was imagining.  There were lots of lovely messages, pressies and a very relaxed day out shopping with Lovemenot, having feasted on some of her lovingly prepared pancakes for breakfast.  It was also lovely to have a catch up dinner at the rather gorgeous Navajo Joe’s in Covent Garden on Saturday night with Miss Hayhoe and Miss Bascombe, having not all been together for a year now.  I did say no Birthday gimmicks, being all miserable and that, but I got a massive golden E balloon that almost made it home, had it not got caught and ripped on a street sign.  So nearly a week into the big 2 and 7, nothing much has really changed.  I still have a funny life, I still have the same face, I still have a half-finished novel and I still, evidently, can be the target of spots, as one has delightfully decided to appear on my chin this morning, ‘meeting a potential love interest tomorrow are we Em?  ‘Ave that.’  Thank you.                 
Anyways, I must go, I have a day date with Jon Richardson’s new book (in the absence of being able to say one word to the real thing), an evening date with an old friend and his new band, plus a need to make a decision as to what the hell to wear to this party tomorrow night, you know, just on the off chance that Random Northerner might actually be worth having more than just a Milburn-gushing convo with…

Mwah