Gosh it's been a long time since I wrote anything approaching a 'normal' blog entry, where 'normal' = general recap of the life I've been living outside my head, unburdened by mammoth discussions concerning my very mental state. Maybe it's time for a brief summary of things I've done and things I've learned as a consequence, NOT that everything in life has to be justified by also being a learning experience but that's a habit it'll take a while to shake.
So last Monday I had a top-up laser appointment at 5.30pm, which isn't nearly as exciting as it might appear to my male readers, although it does involve me lying nearly naked on a bed while another woman points a gun-shaped item at my nether regions while I writhe and moan, but honestly, it's not remotely sexual, I swear. I did learn that laser, pure laser, is much better than the stuff I used to have, which is called IPL (unknown TLA). IPL involves ultrasound gel and you come out all red and blotchy plus your skin is left all tacky from the gel, and it hurts like nothing I've ever experienced. Pure laser involves no gel and almost painless. Why would any salon buy an IPL machine when they could have a laser machine? Because one costs £15k and the other costs £55k. So that's fairly conclusive.
Then I went to choir and against my better judgment we went to the pub and I got home late. On Tuesday I met Em and we did a quick bit of shopping and then went for a drink and I battled with what to have in order to maintain my current dieting status (lesson: M&S nut snack pot should be illegal, and certainly marketing it as a healthy item is in violation of several trades descriptions acts, unless eating a handful of nuts and consuming approximately the same amount of calories as there are in a McDonald's Happy Meal is healthy), and then we went to Georgie's for the Christmas session of our book club, where we laughed a lot and played a hideous version of Secret Santa where the first person picks from the pile of presents and opens one, then the second person can either steal that one or pick another at random from the pile. Then the third person can steal either of the first two's, and so on. It's about as brutal as gift giving gets - particularly if some people are happy to steal while others feel uncomfortable with the concept. I came away with lovely white wool bedsocks from Accessorise: they weren't quite a white porcelain dish with rabbit figurine from Anthropologie, but could definitely have been worse. (Lesson: Prisoners' Dilemma - play hardball).
Then on Wednesday I went out with Grania for a catch up and we celebrated the fact that she is a brainbox and passed her fiendishly difficult exams, while many of her peers did not. (Lesson: she is cleverer than she thinks). Thursday we had a choir concert and I had too much to drink and took a duvet day on Friday, which I spent lying around until the afternoon when I got up and got ready for my ukulele Christmas party, an evening which began fairly sedately, continued at a noisy pub down the road until 12ish, then moved to a dive bar until 3 or 4ish, then moved via Boris Bike back home, holding hands as we cycled along in the bus lane, and ended up passed out, fully clothed, in bed after too much vodka. (Lesson: alcohol is amazingly fun but not in the long run. Actually, that can hardly be called a new lesson. What did I really learn...? I can stay up later if I drink spirits rather than wine. Useful.)
Saturday was a write-off - I was too tired even to watch The X Factor final, fell asleep on the sofa, failed to make soup and got a bit cross with myself for being unproductive. Sunday dawned clear and bright: I made the soup, tidied bits of the flat and was all ready to leave on time for the 3pm rehearsal when I applied my make up a little too enthusiastically and knocked my nearly-new glass bottle of foundation all over my black bathroom tiled floor, where it shattered dramatically, splattering its contents all over the floor, the side of the bath, the side of the sink, my brown suede boot, my tights, my dress, the shower curtain and the bin. Predicting that I might well return home, after the concert, slightly under the influence and perhaps needing to relieve myself as a matter of relative urgency, I thought that leaving my bathroom floor covered with shards of thick glass and Estee Lauder Double Wear was probably not the best idea. I thus hurried to pick up all the fragments I could see and then tried to mop up the foundation. It was not a success. In a crazed rush, I sprayed ready-mixed Tesco mopping solution all over the floor and went off to the concert, desperately hoping that my floor wasn't porous and that I wouldn't return to a streaky beige tile effect in the centre of my bathroom. (Lesson: haste makes absurdly inconvenient, expensive, tardiness-inducing waste.)
The concert went well, I felt truly supported by my wonderful family and friends, read my poem and a handsome hipster composer asked to collaborate with me in the new year. We all went to the pub, I ate mince pies, drank white wine and felt a lot of love. After closing time I took the bus home, found dried foundation all over my floor, pine-scented cleaning solution nowhere to be seen, either absorbed or evaporated, and realised something would have to be done before I could wee. I spent the thirty minutes around midnight in my stilletos and one-shoulder black dress, mopping hard with only partial success. Stupid stuff wears off my face after about six seconds in a gentle breeze but can you wipe it off tiles after a night on them? I certainly can't.
Em came over last night for dinner, we looked at photos and discussed ill-advised flirtations. Now I'm exhausted with 100 things to do at home, presents to wrap, admin to sort out, baths to clean, last week's Apprentice to watch, and I'm out the next two nights so I really should get an early one tonight, and what about my bank balance?, but what I'd really like is to get up the energy to go and see Pete's band play in Hoxton as I know it'd be a lovely festive evening. Muster muster muster. Droop. Snore.
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