Six days in April

Rage. I've done it again: left writing my blog for so long that I am now overwhelmed with information and feel as though I should split it up under subheadings. Maybe I will.

Cocksuckgate
Last Thursday morning I phoned my mother just before I got to the airport, to say goodbye and reassure her that I had not yet died, an almost-daily ritual for which she seems to be grateful.
"Oh, Jane, I'm glad you called," she said, solemnly. "I was just about to email you." She sounded close to tears.
"What's wrong?" I asked in a high-pitched voice that indicated my panic.
"Your... your blog, Jane..." she said. I wasn't much the wiser.
"What about it?"
"Dad and I... we're both... shocked."
"What about?"
"I can hardly say it... You used the word..." (I tried to scan my memory of what the offensive item could possibly be) "...cocksucker."
I roared with laughter.
"So?!" I asked. Mum was not reassured.
"It's awful, Jane," she said. "So vulgar. So... unfeminine."
"Really? Worse than fucking?" I asked.
"Oh god, yes," she said, emphatically. "So much worse than fucking."
I told her that I believe this is a generational difference, but she seemed so gobsmacked by my labelling the volcanic ash as something that fellates that I felt it necessary to do a straw poll on arriving in France. I asked around twenty people in their early thirties, none of whom felt that a cocksucking volcano is any worse than a fucking volcano. Of course, we all agreed that fucking and cocksucking are both vulgar and unfeminine, so mother, you are indeed correct on that point. But for any of my mother's friends, or indeed any others, who read this blog and feel that she has failed in her parenting duties as a result of my free use of profanities, I apologise. Only the good bits of me are a reflection of her, i.e. my skin that tans, my love of birds and my US citizenship. Everything else is my dad's fault.

France
So I went to France for Emily's wedding and it was one of those cominglings of beautiful people and beautiful surroundings and beautiful emotions and beautiful food that made me simultaneously joyous and painfully and continually aware that, of the youth contingent, and as a fairly normal size 14 gal, I was the fattest female there by about nine stone. I kid you not. I genuinely reckon I could have got three of the other wedding guests into each leg of my jeans. There were literally miles of smooth, slim, tanned thighs on show, and the men's eyes were, naturally, out on stalks. I could have collected the drool and irrigated southern Africa for a month.

To distract myself, I forwent my wheat ban and ate baguette, and I sunbathed and met tiny ponies. It was all going rather well until I got dressed up on Saturday afternoon for the wedding, and had one of those rare moments when I looked in the mirror and thought I had managed to make myself look momentarily bearable. To celebrate, I asked Kate to take some photographs of me outside for posterity. She snapped away for a minute or so and said she'd got some good ones. I retrieved my camera and looked at the screen. In the (approx.) six minutes since I'd put on my make-up in the bathroom mirror, the circumference of my face appeared to have inflated by around an inch. I briefly became convinced that I was the victim of a cruel pre-wedding allergic reaction but then I double-checked with Kate, who assured me that the photo was, in fact, normal and that I was looking at a picture of What I Look Like. This could not be true. Desperate for a second opinion, I showed Christianne the mutant image and was sorely disappointed at her distinct lack of horrified gasps or attempts to shield my eyes from the appalling aberration. On the contrary: it appeared that the grotesque image before me was not only fairly representative but actually flattering. Shortly afterwards, we got in the car and drove to the wedding, the other three girls chattering happily as I tried to come to terms with the realisation that I look utterly, utterly different to what I thought and that my fictional version was much prettier.

Of course, the weekend was not all about me. We had a fantastic few days in and around Mirmande, made all the more precious as the volcano had done its best to keep us away, and I made new friends and passionately loved my old ones. The bride was stunning, the groom's speech was excellent, the venue was magical, I didn't fall over on the dancefloor, the lunch the day afterwards was dreamy, my skirt didn't blow up in the wind and reveal my pants, the band were crush-worthy and best of all, I managed to get a mild tan which, as Kate continually stated, will "set us up" for the summer. Here's hoping.

Election 2010
What is weird is that I have voted. I posted it yesterday. Fortunately I haven't yet regretted my decision although I'm not denying that might happen between now and 6th May. I almost regretted my entire existence last night, however, when Sara, Rog, Grania and I sat through the most excruciating event ever at the Union Chapel. Instigate Debate was meant to be a cutting edge two-fingers-up at the mass media approaches to politics; the NME called it "the most important underground movement," which, if true, is enough to finish me off once and for all.

Invited speakers were Dame Vivienne Westwood; Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman; ex-Labour MP and current Green candidate, Peter Tatchell; ex-Mayoral candidate and LibDem hotshot, Simon Hughes; and Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt. Music was to be from the Magic Numbers, Shlomo and Rose Elinor Dougall, and we were promised comedy from The Amazing Tommy and the Weeks.

In reality, Dame Viv didn't turn up and nor did Jeremy Hunt - in their place we got the Tory candidate for Putney, a dumpy young thickie who tried admirably to compete with Tatchell, Harman and Hughes and got absolutely nowhere. The Magic Numbers turned out to be one-of-the-Magic-Numbers, which is a bit different, while Tommy and the Weeks were about as Amazing as a pavement. The host, John O'Sullivan, was a self-satisfied, shambolic, patronising blunderbus who encouraged the audience to ask questions and then ignored what they said and asked his own. He sneered at an intern who passed him a note during the evening, consistently called 'his hero' Peter Tatchell 'Thatchell', and introduced beatboxer Shlomo as 'one of the best rappers in the world'. The evening had an absurdly obvious LibDem bias which shat all over any concept that we were watching a genuine 'debate' and I was fully embarrassed to witness the politicians going through such a risible two hours. It was an unmitigated disaster. On the upside, Shlomo was great, but watching him work his magic in front of a stifled smattering of uptight politicos sitting in church pews was painful. £5 I would rather have spent on something useful, like Compeed or stamps. Meh. You win some, you lose some.

Right. Must go hang out my whites wash.

Chivalry: if it's not dead, should we kill it?

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I went to the top of my emotional rollercoaster and then plummeted down to the nadir of the metaphorical canyon that opens up in my soul every once in a while. Then I was fine, but just really busy. And now I'm still fine and still busy, but I can't leave it any longer to write or else no one will ever click on my blog again and I will feel abandoned and the canyon will come a-calling once again.

So. There was the boy - yes, the one I was emailing last week. Things with him are now over, so I am free to write as much as I like about him without fear of retribution. He was (briefly) lovely. Very, very good looking. And quirky and interesting. And he seemed to be extremely taken by me. Despite my best efforts to remain distant and coquettish (always my strong suits), he won me round by emailing the longest, funniest messages to me on a very regular basis, and always seeming to want to spend more and more time with me whenever we met up. Which was admittedly only twice. But, you know how these things can spiral out of control. I did all I could not to get excited, but at some point on our second date, possibly shortly before he initiated planning our third, I became really quite hooked on him. And I can identify the precise moment it happened. Reader: he walked on the road side of the pavement.

I hope for your sake that that phrase means absolutely nothing to you. For the lucky uninitiated, walking on the road side of the pavement is a pathetically archaic etiquette practice, whereby men walk on the side of the pavement nearest the traffic, ostensibly to protect women from the splashes and dirt thrown up by the horses and carriages driving by. Today, it is rare that a man walks to the road side of me. My father does it. So does my friend Donald. But it is unusual. And every cell in my brain knows that that is as it should be. It is a ridiculous practice. I mean, perhaps when it is pouring with rain, maybe then, it could be justified. But really - it's outdated and anachronistic, other synonyms - and possibly degrading. Yet, oh, it made me go weak at the knees. When he later gestured towards the wall seat at our restaurant table and said 'Ladies face the room', I practically swooned.

What is it with me and manners? On paper, I know they're ridiculous. They go against my politics, my ideas of female equality and my rational brain. And, as Sarah pointed out the other day, there is even something a bit artful about those moves, as though a boy knows too much, perhaps something a bit dangerous about chivalry, a warning sign?, although I think that depends on the boy. And yet, and yet - I love it when a man carries my bag without being asked. I love being helped on with my coat. I love being given the best seat. I love having the car door opened. And I love, love, love walking on the not-road-side. It's indefensible, I know - but I think it might be something to do with the fact that I am not petite, physically or in character - when I am made to feel like a lady who is in need of protection, even it is from the invisible mud that is not splattering from the carriages that are not passing us, it fulfills some dark need in my nature to be cherished. Sad but true. Am I evil? I'm sorry.

Anyway - so he walked on the road side of the pavement, and then he let me sit with my face to the room, and then he kissed me and then I went home and then the next day he said he didn't want to see me any more. Retard.

I'm fine now, really, and I have four - count 'em! - dates on the horizon. Obviously I swore off all men after the recent rejection debacle, in order to rebuild my self-esteem on my own, but as soon as someone else asked me out, my self-esteem miraculously returned to former levels and I am now feeling chipper and robust once more. It'd be lovely if my happiness didn't depend quite so much on boys fancying me, but hey, I'm a 31 year old girl with hourglass curves and lots of lovely dresses: it'd be a shame to let this all go to waste.