Posted By Daisy
JANUARY is over. Hallelujah. I had two fabulous weeks on Christmas
holidays in Ireland.
By numbers, it went something like this:
Cigarettes smoked:
Too many (I fell off the wagon and had a cigarette in my mouth before my
suitcase hit the hall floor on arrival in my mum’s house)
Nights out: 10
(out of 14)
Fake fur, elbow
length sleeved, opera coats acquired: 1 (Thanks mum)
People who kissed me
on the mouth: 1 (a red lipsticked work-friend was delighted I was home and
landed a platonic smacker on me)
Resolutions made:
3 (Get one short story published anywhere this year; Be brave and remember,
nothing is serious really; Approach men I like instead of waiting and being
overly delighted by the eejits who approach me)
Bedroom bins puked
into after a night out: 1
Future events during
which I’ll drink Dark and Stormy’s all night long: 0
People I insulted:
1 (Sorry, BR)
Pounds lost: Half
a stone (with all the smoking and drinking, I didn’t feel much like eating)
Friends I met who
were having a rough time of it in the run-up to Christmas: 3
Bar counters sat at
on Christmas Eve listening to a lovely friend discussing something sad: 1
Bracing walks by the
sea: 2
Men whose girlfriends
were 3000 miles away on holidays who came up behind me and tweaked my waist
inappropriately in the pub smoking area, before asking me was I still single:1
Minutes spend talking
to that guy after the tweaking: 0 (I got out of there fast, realising that
if anyone else saw any hint of flirting, it would be me, the single girl, who
would be blamed)
Men I greeted as I
walked past them on a crowded dance floor who held up their ring fingers in a
panic and shouted ‘I’m married’ before whipping out photos of their twins on
their iPhone: 1
Previous moments I
had ever thought of that man in a romantic way: 0
Cosy bus journeys up
the west coast of Ireland at night: 1
Number of men kissed:
0 (disappointment)
Number of men chatted
to/ego boosted by: A fair few – yippee for Irish friendly men.
Then I came back to London. I felt shivery and exhausted the first week and thought ‘Feck London, it’s the same here as anywhere else, what am I doing with my life…..’ and other such cheery thoughts.
I was also slapped lightly with London unfriendliness on
the day I arrived home. Standing outside my apartment block, smoking a
cigarette, wearing my new leather cross-shoulder bag, I said ‘Hiya’ to a couple who exited via the
door beside me. They both looked at me strangely, said nothing and walked on.
As they walked down the road, I heard the girl mutter something and the guy saying
loudly ‘I swear, I never saw her before
in my life, I promise, I don’t know who she is, honest, I never saw her before,
I thought she was a courier….’ I may have caused a fight between a couple
by simply saying hi. Seriously.
The second week was spent hovering, washing, ironing,
spraying and moth balling every piece of clothing I own, after finding little
brown moths burrowing in my favourite fake fur coat (Both Google and
my mum told me to put it in a plastic bag in the freezer to kill the critters,
but I considered it a fairly major house-share faux pas – imagine, one of my
flatmates arriving home from work, whistling as they open the freezer to get
out their frozen pizza, and boom, a moth-eaten fur coat squashed in the meat
section – so, with regret, I threw it out).
On the third week, I felt better, and on the fourth week,
our 17-year-old dog, Benny, died and I cried on the tube while looking at photos of
him, and wished I was at home in Ireland. I wanted to get his bowl bronzed but
my mum refused, and then had a great laugh with the rest of the family, embellishing
the story to become ‘Daisy wants to store
Benny’s ashes in his open bronzed drinking bowl on the mantelpiece.’ Despite the
fact that the whole family has bite mark scars from him, we’ll still really
miss him.
Mainly minor issues, I know. But still. Roll on February.
Things I’ve learned over the past month:
- You don’t have to be the life and soul of the party. Sometimes, people appreciate you just showing up. Be brave and show up – you never know what might happen.
- Life can turn on a sixpence. Enjoy it.
- Men in their thirties can be strange sometimes.
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| 'Play it As it Lays' by Joan Didion |
My brother in law is working his way through this list of
books that promises to ‘change your life’.
Elevator Pitch:
Even though the book is set in LA in the late 1960’s, it still feels modern and
relevant. Two-bit actress Maria struggles with her failing marriage to a film
producer, her relationship with the vapid women around her, her constant visits
to her disabled daughter in a care home, and her languid days spent lying by
the pool or driving aimlessly down the freeway.
It’s a bleak, almost catatonic book where nothing
really happens, but it definitely portrays the languid life of a not-so-successful
Hollywood starlet.
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