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Stupidity is Better October 29, 2006

Posted by Jen in : Journal , add a comment

I’m in a good mood today. The reason? Very simple. When I got up at 8.30 to make the first of my many morning cuppas, I had a lovely surprise. The little time-telling device on my ‘puter (aka ‘clock’) said it was only half past seven. Now, I knew the clocks were going back the last weekend in October. But I thought that was next weekend. Yeah.

Anyway.

Lovely bf is in a grump today. He accidentally woke up when I prodded him and asked if he was “ready for tea yet?”. And then he looked at his clock. His clever clock. The clever clock that knew the clocks were going back. So lovely bf thought I’d woken him up at 7.30. Not just Too Early, but Too Early on a Sunday. So there you are. A big grump and all because of a clever clock.

The moral of this tale? Too much cleverness isn’t funny. Nor clever. And ignorance is bliss.

Hurrah. I always suspected it.

The Joy of Shopping

Posted by Jen in : Writing Bits , add a comment

Well, yesterday was interesting. I actually had a ‘girlie day’, something I haven’t done for a very, very long time. Off to Brighton went Tina and I in our unsuitable shoes and with credit cards at the ready. It was one of many plans I’ve had to take Tina’s mind off her lovelorn existence generated by her ongoing 2-year involvement with a married bloke. Not a good idea. He has got nice teeth though, I’ll give him that. Mind you, so did the big bad wolf… hmmmmm.

So… shopping and extravagance it was then, though neither of us has any money. But it doesn’t seem like real money after a couple of drinks and an hour or two of tapas and sangria. Common sense went floating off into the neon-lit sky as non-essential goodies beckoned us. There’s something rather intoxicating about waltzing round an unfamiliar city. Especially when you have indoctrinated yourself that the good old Visa has a ‘target’ rather than a ‘limit’. I’m sure my bank manager won’t mind. “You’re worth it,” he’ll smile. I, in turn, will give him a twirl in my lovely new clothes, smiling winsomely. Oddly, this tactic didn’t work terribly well with lovely bf when I tottered in at 9pm. Funny, that.

The afternoon also made Tina and me experience lots of other sensations that we might otherwise have happily avoided. Like feelings of fatness, frumpiness and middle-aginess. Where do all those beautiful, funky young things come from with their oddly-placed piercings and pre-puberty bodies? Bastards.

So, today’s pampering has resulted in the following:

shit ideas

Early morning tears October 27, 2006

Posted by Jen in : Bits and Pieces, Journal , 6 comments

Racked with grief, the tears are sliding slowly but fully down my unwashed cheeks, plopping hopelessly onto the duvet. I am empty. Bereft. It’s finished. Over with. The final page turned.

I know I shouldn’t be quite so upset about finishing my Jilly Cooper novel but, crumbs, her characters are just so jolly marvellous. The cads, the glamour, the feckless (oh, how I love that word!) abundance of it all. And while the majority of tears are produced by my inner soppy date, I’m also pissed off that I can’t write as well as that. Bloody Jilly. I hate love her.

So, what to read next?? As P J O’Rourke said, “Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it”. Oh, what does he know?? It’s a little embarassing, of course, reading Jilly Cooper. But that’s the beauty of Amazon isn’t it? All one’s shameful secrets delivered in a brown cardboard parcel of ambiguity. And best of all, as lovely bf discovered some time ago, the one-click thingummyjig means they never ask you for money. It’s free, I tell you, free!

PS

Dear Jilly

Would you like me to review all your future books? As a result of being rather impoverished at the mo, I am available for £1.47 a week, plus a round of Marmite sarnies and a bit of a hug.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Lots of love, Jen x

Procrastination October 25, 2006

Posted by Jen in : Bits and Pieces, Journal , 8 comments

‘Hard work often pays off after time but laziness always pays off straight away.’

I can’t remember where I saw that but, crumbs, I am surely the crowned monarch of Putting Things Off. Well, not all things, to be fair, just the important ones. Like writing the rest of my novel, for example. I promised that I would have two weeks’ r&r after the final coursework was submitted and then I’d get stuck in. Stuck in good and proper, in fact. I even have this week off and have I done anything constructive? Nope.

Unless you count my listing clothes that no longer fit me on eBay. That was kind of creative, especially if anyone wants to buy clothes that are described as ‘cuddlesome’ or ’sort of an Angel Delight colour’. Thought not.

Tomorrow it is then. I will send off my shorties* to some magazines in a bid to get them published. As research during A215, lovely bf went through a phase of buying lots of those ‘Take a Break’ type mags. As research, I’m stressing here. Not for entertainment or suchlike. God, I have to say, they are truly bloody awful. If they like printing total rubbish and it’s what they really want, believe me I have PLENTY!

Tomorrow it is then… eek, the same day as I’m starting my diet. What bad timing eh?

* Shorties being short stories. Not pants. Well, they are pants. The stories, I mean. But not actual pants. Oh dear. You know what I mean. Don’t you??

Boredom, boozing and hoovering October 22, 2006

Posted by Jen in : Bits and Pieces, Journal, Writing Bits , 3 comments

Well, today is a rare chance to have a whole day to myself: I did three days’ work in one yesterday, meaning that my Saturday evening was spent feeling completely and utterly knacked out in front of the TV. No matter, I thought, tomorrow I will ‘do stuff’. Hmmmmm… the boys come back at teatime and so far I have done what is officially known as Bugger All.  Lovely bf is even more under the weather than the crappy weather. We have sadly run out of Lemsip so I am having to medicate him with Sake. Well, it’s warm and liquidy… must be the same, right? I’m gallantly assisting in the Sake consumption while watching Thursday’s episode of The Bill which isn’t quite the day of creative genius I had envisaged.

And it’s raining. Stinky Dawg’s tummy is making very peculiar noises that herald the fact that he has not yet been Officially Emptied. And he keeps staring at me. In a smelly sort of way. A way that means I will have to go slomping and sliding through the mud before I can continue doing bugger all. Sigh.

Actually, I am misleading you, dearest reader. I have, in fact - drum roll please! - done the hoovering. Not just normal hoovering but ‘real’ hoovering with the ‘thin end’. Behold the loveliness of the carpet. Despite my day of fannying about, I am the seriously proud owner of beautiful hoover swirls. Yay. Am a domestic goddess. Slightly tipsy one, perhaps, but… HOOVER SWIRLS! Who said domestic drudgery wasn’t fun?

Ugh October 20, 2006

Posted by Jen in : Bits and Pieces, Journal , 2 comments

What a day. Woke up with a stinky hangover and no emergency hangover food to hand. This can only be viewed as Not A Good Start.

There’s nothing worse than having to go to work with a red wine hangover really. Oh, actually, yes. There is. It’s going to work with a red wine hangover to discover that you’ve been brutally victimised handpicked for two hours’ American-style training on how to motivate new staff in the workplace. The new deranged enthusiastic training manager of the department store I toil for buzzed around the room, yelling as if she were on a stage and even (yes, I know this is hard to believe) whooped a few times. At 9.30 in the morning. ‘Woo,’ she bellowed. To her audience of three. Yay.

Two hours of this I endured before trundling back to my office which doesn’t now exist as it was demolished around me while I worked. Oh joy. Deep bliss. Fan-bloody-tastic. Never before have I arrived home from a day at work with ceiling in my bra…

To compound my woes, I rounded things off perfectly at an evening rehearsal with the Orchestra of the Undead. I think the average age of the members is, ooh, approximately 107? Quote of the evening, made by tartan-trewed conductor in her very ‘pawsh’ voice:

“It was all far too soft long before the end. You really must keep it up!”

Cue pathetic guffawing, sniggering and snorting from the flute section. Ah, things always perk up in the end.

Sun Rises in Dense Fog October 17, 2006

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Despite sounding like a fantastically obscure David Sylvian track, the sun did indeed rise in thick fog this morning. Bloomin beautiful it was too, the dense damp air glowing marmalade orange. It was rather like being transplanted into a Friedrich painting. Or an apocalyptic disaster movie. And all before breakfast.  The world is a most groovesome place at times.

Thoroughly Modern Manners October 16, 2006

Posted by Jen in : A215 stuff, Writing Bits , 3 comments

As I walked along Broad Street towards the dental surgery, I felt more nervous than I had on my first day there three months ago. Today, though, I wasn’t wearing my stiff blue nurse’s outfit that conveyed my identity all week. Today was the scariest day so far: the Christmas party. I’d been fretting for weeks about what to wear and, as I caught sight of my reflection in a vast shop window, I still wasn’t sure I’d got it right. I felt like a sixteen-year-old impostor on the set of Dallas. I looked ridiculous all dressed up on a rainy Saturday lunchtime, despite having spent almost a whole month’s wages on a cream fitted jacket with silver buttons and a long beige skirt. Was I wearing too much make-up? Were my shoulder pads too big? Did I look common? My mother didn’t seem to have a lot of faith in me.

‘Mind your Ps and Qs,’ she’d said as she dropped me into town. God, how old did she think I was? What did ‘Ps and Qs’ even mean anyway?

Appearing common was my biggest fear. I was also nauseatingly worried about going to the restaurant – I had no idea what would be on the menu, whether there would be rows and rows of cutlery to choose from and even whether anyone would talk to me. I had nothing interesting to say to any of them, how could I? I opened the door and walked, jelly-legged, up the three narrow flights of stairs, aware of the cloying smell of cleanness and mouthwash that hung in the air and seemed to become a part of me more and more every day.

I could hear chatter and laughter as I opened the door. I was the last to arrive.

‘Jennifer, there you are! Come and have a glass of champagne - we’re just getting warmed up,’ brayed Anne Forbes. She had the poshest voice of anyone I’d ever met in real life, like Penelope Keith in To the Manor Born but less like warmed honey gliding off a silver spoon. Anne was the hygienist and married to one of the two dentists in the practice. Her husband Tony was quiet, mumbling in his indecipherable South African accent and smiling that smug ‘look, they’re all my own’ kind of way that dentists always seem to have.

I took the glass of champagne. I probably shouldn’t have, I was only 16 after all, but I thought it would have sounded immature to ask for a glass of water instead. The slender stemmed glass in my hand made me feel even more awkward. Sip or swig? I sneaked a look at Kelly, the other dental nurse, and copied her healthy mouthful. I felt it fizzling down towards my tummy. The second gulp strangely found its way to my cheeks, making me warm and rosy-cheeked. I couldn’t remember the consumption of illicit cider during a school trip in August making me feel so tingly. I felt a different person as I drank champagne with all those grown ups.

The slow taxi ride through the narrow lanes to the Bistro Frère didn’t last nearly long enough. I had no idea what to expect but knew from listening to the conversations of our rich patients that ‘the Frère’ was something special. (more…)