Miss Labelled under…

So, it’s shameful, but there’s a new one. Mr E (because his whole career is the entertainment industry, specifically concerts). He has an interesting, sometimes scary past due to the industry but is oddly sweet around me. All of his friends think he is a fool because he acts so different around me. And Im getting a lot of negative attention from them for this.
A good majority of the fun started last Friday night when we attended the Arts Fest and continued to drink, dance, laugh, and be merry. On the way home I walked with one of our coworkers, and cofriend who told me that he was not at all pleased with how I was going on with Mr E. while being married. He told me that he didn’t approve and never wanted to meet my partner for fear of telling him what he thought of it and letting him know the “juicy” details. For starters, all I have done is link arms with Mr. E. in crowds, anything we had together died years ago…. THAT’S IT. And MR knows where I am and who I’m with, Hell he and Mr E spent long enough getting drunk on my birthday - things would have come out in the wash and I’m sure they’re both okay with it. It may be a tad misguided in the fact that its “safe” with coworkers and in a group, but fact nonetheless.

Saturday morning Mr E. picked me up at my apartment, while MR was at work, and we made what Dustin refers to as an “Adventure in Contraban” to pick up beer and fireworks. Again, MR knew where I was and who I was with - the wonder of text. And, again, nothing intimate. After the adventure he took me home so that I could get ready to go to the pool with yet another coworker (this ‘adventure’ as I choose to call them has fizzled because this guy changes his mind on an hourly basis and never follows through with plans we make). So I sat at home waiting for confirmation that once again he made better plans and left me behind. Giving up and heading back downtown to the Arts Fest where Mr E is waiting I get a phone call from the Other who canceled (shocker). Mr E and a few of his friends (very nice by the way) met up with me at the Arts Fest where more drinking and flirting went on. Now knowing that the friend coworker has an issue with us hanging out we decided to make things more interesting and play on that we had “fun” on our mini road trip for beer and fireworks. And that there was no porn available so we were forced to make our own at a roadstop. haha. The friend coworker is highly bothered by this and we are pleased. After the Arts Fest we walked to a friends house to drink and set off fireworks but stopped off at Mr E’s house for more beer. Everyone else carried on to the friends house so we decided to play again. I messed up my hair and took off my shirt to show just my shorts and bikini top. Once we got there everyone kept looking at eachother and at us. God it is so fun to mess with peoples minds like that. hahahaha.
Sunday Mr E, coworker friend, and I went to see a movie (Kung fu Panda) and tried to go on a hike up the hills around here. The friends truck had issues so we couldn’t go, but this didn’t stop the fun. Mr E. drenched me in his canteen water and we decided to have a BBQ at his house on the porch. More drinking and eating with friends ended with the friends going to a neighbors house while we layed around his house playing on the computer and talking. Coworker friend came back to find me laying on the floor next to Mr E. So we started up a television show. While the show was on I laid on the couch next to Mr E and he ran his fingers along my back. I swear to god it was fucking heaven! Complete and total peace! Once the episode was over Mr E drove me home listening to old Ella Fitzgerald songs with the windows down in the car taking in the night air.

Today he texts me (midheated conversation- when I said that I think I pissed him off):

“you know how (the dog) can go anywhere in my garden, up to the street? That’s like how it is talking to you. I just hit the street.”

Explaining that he feels there are boundaries to talking to me, as a ‘married’ woman.

I asked him how he could not feel like he was hitting the street while talking to me and he said:

“I dont know. (The dog) is allowed to go in the street when I go with him.”

And I responded that I have seen that and the dog practically RUNS through the street to get the hell out of it. His response:

“Because he knows he shouldn’t be there.”

At that point… I didnt know what to say. What do you say to that? So I said I was going to retreat quietly into my corner.

He said:

“Take this with you. To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world”

I know its not original words or anything, but… it stopped me in my tracks. Then it also scared the hell out of me because… I dont want to be anyones WORLD. I’ve been that, it leads to obsessive, abusive boyfriends and crazy partners that smother you to death (figuratively of course) even though you love them.

Sometimes I despair for myself.

Oh and I was going to tell you about D&G’s new GF. That will happen… I’m still sizing her up.

4 Litres of water

8 cups of coffee

balances out.

It’s been a bit of a month hasn’t it.

Well it seems like it anyway.

Relationship on the rocks, now steady as a strong ship on a swift sea in a smooth wind (having been on the ‘high seas’ now I can successfully use maritime metaphors without feeling a fool); Job has been off and on, more days sitting at home, in a spa or out to lunch with friends, in bed with strangers than actually earning a living. So how can more lies have crept into my crypt of crap?

Very simple.

Three days ago it was my birthday. It was a lovely quiet affiar.

Dinner plan was as follows:

Gay friend Paul’s Heterosexual (and hot) Scottish friend ‘Irv’.MR. Me. Gay friend Paul.

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|………………….tepanyaki ………………………|

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Jenny (mutual friend and lawyer). MR’s sister. My little brother (who is trying to get into the music business). Mr E (invited on a whim for the brother to chat to about recording contracts - never invite fuckbuddies to sit in the same room as serious partner !)

Of course all but the little Bro and MR think I’m two years younger than I actually am.

You, oh non judgmental internet readers, might think that I’m incapable of telling a straight truth. This might be the case. I’m sort of okay with that. Only because it is something that isn’t generally important.

It’s normally no big deal that I am actually now 27 when the world thinks I’m 25. but that night it felt like an elephant in the room.

With the weight of the ‘other’ lie on my shoulders i was sweating oddly.

MR kept leaning over to me and wrapping his arm against me. He kept looking at me with concern.

“You alright?” he kept asking as I turned my nose up at the egg roll chucking, (it’s not normally like me to pass up and attempt to have something flung at my face - read innuendo into that if you must).

“Just got stuff on my mind.” I told him. And hell had I.

So it comes down to the dessert, he orders me ice cream. The Scottish guy is in deep conversation with Jenny - I’m suspecting highly that they will spend the night together, there’s a lot of discrete hand touching across the table, some amusing tete-a-tetes over miso. My brother is trying to pimp his demo to E, it’s cute to watch, but he should really shave the beard. And gay Paul is sitting in keeps leaning over and making amusing comments about the chef.

It’s about this time everyone sings happy birthday. Most of the people in the restaurant join in. I turn the color of hot sauce and my gut does a somersault.

By the time the green tea was being passed around I was borderline in tears.

Seriously - it’s been one of those months.

i’m not an attention seeker…much…so I tried not to be seen as emotional.

Bless Paul. “There’s always botox.” he said, leaning in. “You’re just a year older, you’re no less glorious.”

I laughed.

“They’ll need double the strength.” I replied, “Twenty seven today.”

There was a pleasantly stunned silence.

Mr E was mid cake. Jenny’s foot probably fell out of HotScot’s Crotch.

“and I used to be a woman.” MR said, slurping at his green tea.

His sister kicked him.

“What!” He said, “My name was Sinaed.”

“You’re a dick.” She clarifed. “Fact.”

I love him.

I really, really love him.

So MR doesn’t know what I got up to while we didn’t communicate.

MR doesn’t know how close i was to sailing off around the world with the man that smells of heaven. He doesn’t know I spent three solid days naked in another man’s bed. He doesn’t know that I actually didn’t even think about him for one week straight, and it felt good.

And I’m not going to tell him.

I went through hell thinking he’d done the dirty, and alright most of that was probably my own fault! OK he wasn’t to blame for the way our so called friend behaved! OK if he found out about D&G he’d probably accuse me of being Hypos from Hypo Creek Hypocritville - But. but but but but but but but but but butbut but but but but but butbut….one little lie isn’t going to hurt now is it. And we’ve been through so much.

Today he brought me a Hello Kitty Bangle. It has love.

There was once a little girl called Claire du Lune.

Claire du Lune was in love with a beautiful dark haired man, a beautiful dark haired man who likes to sing Opera and has recently gained an obsession with little odd antiques stores in odd places around the country (seriously last weekend MR and I drove to the North of France just to fumble about in old shops that smelled of fermenting french people), a beautiful dark haired man with blistering blue eyes and one toe hairier than the other, and a pale birth mark on the back of his knee which never tans. A beautiful dark haired blue eyed man who I love, and to whom she INTRODUCED me nearly three years ago.

So Claire, in her infinite wisdom, when she hears we (the royal kind of we) had a fight and knows I, (the id kind of I) have been having worries that he (the good kind of he) has been distracted from our relationship, decides to make my paranoia quibble like fresh strawberry jelly by telling me - without actually apparently ever saying it! - that she and MR have….

And my mind filled in the blanks.

She APPARENTLY never slept with him.

He denies it with more passion than I have ever seen. There were tears.

She now denies it. And won’t take my calls.

All my friends say it would never happen.

I choose to believe it never happened.

Tomorrow….more lies.

so it’s been a while.

sorrry

things happened, updates to follow covering the list below:

1) Lies, lies and more lies.

2) lies

3) some lies

4) D&G’s new girlfriend (NOT me)

5) why i saw a cluster of chavs (that’s British slang for ‘unable to comprehend fashion’) today wearing singular flourescent pink legwarmers in a gale. Is there such thing as a singular legwarmer, in the sense that you have a pair of socks, a pair of stockings; unless you are an unfortunate 1980s disco amputee why would only ONE legwarmer be required. Well it turns out there is a justification. Explaination to follow once I have got back into the ‘blogging thing’.

Oh… and Me and MR are in love again. Hence the two weeks none presence.

Happiness is TWO legwarmers and a man to wrap your wool-sheathed legs around.

A few days off work. I went to a spa. Had things done to me that only the female of the species can truly appreciate for their wonder. Foot massages. UNGH. Head massages. Double UNGH. Suntanning in the currently glorious English weather. Burning in the currently glorious English weather.

I love Britain when the sun comes out. Everyone emerges from their little houses like dust encrusted refugees from some atomic wasteland. They rub their eyes a moment and almost immediately emerge with summer clothing that was last worn when the Beegees still had soul. Mostly none of it fits correctly. A silent cheer echoes across the land. It ripples like a heat wave. Sunglasses appear. Hats. “flip flops” as they call them here (I love that) for sandals. In a single day every shop has barbeque equipment on sale. People walk! Walk I tell you. I know, I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t seen it with my own baby browns. Teenage mums emerge with their offspring teathered to them with string like on those mommy monkeys in the zoo. Men (of all shapes) discard their shirts in favor of chests so pale that they wouldn’t look out of place advertising bleach. Their whispy hairs crawl upward toward the light hungry for sustenance. I love them all.

And not one of them wears suntan lotion. By next year they are all going to wrinkle up like yesterday’s half eaten apples.

And then in one week they all hate it; redder than Stalin’s pajamas; insomniacs because English houses are designed to keep IN the heat so none of them can sleep; watching the garden die because of a water ban (for the wettest place in the world England seems to drain water like a colander with a hole in it) and sick to the eyes with the happy feeling the sunshine brings…then, it will rain.

As I harken back to the west coast of the US (shock horror) sunshine is not a big riot for me to have sunshine. I love it, yes, but I actually prefer the temperate European weather to the heat back home. If I want a tan I fake it. If I want sun I take a weekend in Spain. But it rarely matters. The light in the UK is different to anywhere else. It’s reserved and glistens in places you least expect it. On my roof balcony I have pots full of daisies. There is a beautiful variety called Sunny Felix. Its blue center sparkles like sapphires in the sunshine. Those are the things I like about the weather here. And the breeze is beautiful….humm…No one has ever brought me sapphires.

I am currently on ’said’ balcony with a tumbler of nonalcoholic pear cider mixed with a healthy glug of gin and ice. On the table is a cup of freshly made espresso and beside it is my iPhone. I am plucking up the courage to give MR the ultimatum. The peace and quiet and mollification of three days away from the male sex, cigarettes, alcohol, work and food has done me the world of good. I am going to make a decision. MR or D&G. Two weeks. In two weeks it’s going to be one or the other.

Love of life, or man who smells like heaven and fucks like Jesus. Sometimes I think it would be so much more relaxing to be single. Maybe that is the third option?

“Hello.” I said as I picked up the phone, finally, last night. I feel like I’m living in an 80s video, maybe for a Lionel Richie song. “Tony Billy Boy has been imprisoned for 25 years…Billy Boy, ask Amanda for a date.”

There’s a pause at the end of the phone, I felt sort of sick as I answered.

“Is it me you’re looking for?” I say, I want to be angry and sound bitter and beleaguered, but I can’t. I’m doing what I always do, and he knows it, because this is such a hard conversation. I have to make sure I don’t cry, watching the flesh pump up and down on the tv offers a mild distraction.

“Lionel Richie.” He sounds as if he is slightly smiling. I’m trying not to miss him, or think of the things I have been doing in his absense. “Appropriate.”

“It’s what I know.” I say, “this and the can…”

We used to do this, MR and me, when we were bored, quote cinematic 1980’s music videos. Thriller was always a favorite.

“We could go to Florida,” He adds, “Or we cold go out west.”

“Guitar solo moment.” I added, This is where he would dance with utensils around the kitchen. His preferred microphonic implement was a whisk. Omlette making was always good time.

“I miss you.” He says. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Sitting in a hotel room in Berlin, watching german porn.”

He said something funny here but I didn’t laugh.

“Work?”

“Yup.” I clarify. Then there’s nothing again. Except the noises being made by my Ten Euro televisual entertainment.

“So why haven’t you been answering?” He asked.

“Busy, you know.” I lied. Part of me wanted to tell him it was to make him hurt like hell, so i did. “And because you hurt me.”

“It was just a stupid arguement.” He clears up. I think I made a snorting noise out of my nose.

“A stupid arguement? Were you going to ever tell me about you and Claire or just leave it up to her to do your dirty work for you.”

“What do you mean ‘Me and Claire’? I can’t stand the woman.” He said, and he sounded geniunely confused.

“You’re a regular Rip Van Winkle aren’t you?”

“Don’t change the subject. What are you talking about?”

“Claire and you. Don’t lie about it.”

“About what…God, you have one blow up at me and suddenly I’m a dick.”

“You blew up at ME? I’ve got the fucking email chain to prove it.”

“Shit I can’t talk about this over the phone. When are you coming home?”

“Never.”

“Now you’re being facetious.”

“Now you’re being facetious.” I repeated. God I love irony.

“Don’t do that. Come home, let’s go see a movie. I just…I need to see you. I’m useless. Come on. Please. ‘We could go to the Paramount maybe, or the Alby.’..” He’s Richieing again. Of course it makes me miss him.

“Dinner. No movie. I’m not coming over to yours. A proper date.”

That’s kind of how it went. And I DO want to see him. I won’t tell you how much i cried last night because it’s depressing. I’ll just send you in the direction of good ol’ Lionel…

German porn is a wonderful thing. I’m sitting in a hotel in Berlin and there’s nothing to do but stare at the biscuits and feel guilty about my hips. So I thought I would waste my expense account on the porn channel. After all, you don’t REALLY need subtitles.

it looks amateur this stuff, and it’s costing my company Ten Euros, shocking. I looks as if it was filmed on my Mom’s DVD video camera ( which was purchased when the things were new and interesting, now it looks as though it’s held together with superglue and faith), but the women are pretty hot actually. I can say less for the men. The Aerean race, if they had been born out of Adolfo’s stringent party planning, would NOT have been attractive; blond with six limbs and a reduced sperm count, yes; attractive, NO. So I’m watching the women. it strikes me that lesbians must have all the fun. I mean I find men attractive, and goddamn if I don’t love playing with them and their endlessly entertaining bodies; but as I watch Mr Hotditz here is absolutely silent without the fun of a ballgag. He’s just … and … while they… and ….

It’s dissapointing. Ten Euros. Yet still endlessly watchable.

My cell keeps ringing.

MR is desperate to talk. It hurts every time it buzzes.

So I’m turning up the volume.

“Oh yar” Says big tits #1

“Yar yar” Says big tits #2

“Ummmmmm” Says big tits #3 with something between her painted lips. (I’m not even going to encroach the german sausage jokes pUrleasE, it’s a penis, a big throbby penis).

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

That’s my cell…not anything on the screen.

I may take votes on whether I answer him.

Back to the porn (I’m taking notes - D&G and I are running out of moves).

So the weekend gone and the one before I have spent on a small boat type thing in the south of England. D&G brought the thing with his inheritance, which it turns out was not insubstantial based upon the prettiness of it. He is in fact almost entirely self-sufficient due to a wealthy relative back home who is happy to fund D&Gs whims since he is dead and can hardly argue about it. At lease D&G works hard too - I can’t bear those rich types that believe money equates to laziness. D&G wasn’t allowed access to his trust fund until after he got his first legitimate pay check. Hence I discover the ‘clowning’ was something he did to fund himself through school back on the ranch, so to speak, he keeps it up it turns out because he likes it, not for the money.

Like list 1) clearly cool with masses of screaming children. don’t think this can be deemed a bad thing.

But it turns out I am useless on the water and have suffered from an embarrassing bout of sea-sickness  (throwing up into a sink is really not attractive on first or second date territory, but he was nice enough to be okay with it) both times we went out on the water. We therefore stayed moored up in the marina 90% of the time. I wasn’t going to complain: good wine; the great outdoors, and an incident that due to some rather aggressive love-making led me to hit my head on the roof of the boat (as they say in ‘rom coms’, “Hilarity ensued”) meant that I was very happy, if bruised, for that particular 90% of the time last weekend. 

However (isn’t there always an ‘however’) not so much ‘happy’ this long weekend. Though the weather was hot and the company hotter, the water cool and rose cooler; the only difference between this and last weekend is that I was stupid enough to take my cell with me: and rendering only 30% of my time - until I checked my messages - anything like positive. Because we remained inland I still got reception this weekend, and unlike the seven days previously I began to receive contact from the now estranged Mr Right.

The first SMS was at 9am on Saturday, after a week of radio-silence.

MR 9.01 am

“I am sorry.”

Of course I didn’t receive this message, having at the time both hands upon the undercarriage of a professional clown it was difficult to check my messages. And the device was on vibrate.

MR 9.15 am

“I am really sorry.”

I would have been fretting had I not been, at that point in time nursing a small head wound.

MR 10.03 am

“I miss you, where are you?”

Now I was panicking because I had received the texts while D&G went to get ice. I shouldn’t have checked my cell. MR had called the weekend before while I was away, not texted, not left me a message, but called, about ten times. And I hadn’t called back. I couldn’t. What would i have said? I was so angry still, so heartbroken, so confused, so very happily smiling and waving knowingly at D&G as he breezed past me at work…that smell, and the mental images that now go with it are enough of a distraction for my loins let alone my mind.

There are more messages along those lines but the two that are important are these.

The first of only two responses:

Missy Monday 12.25pm

“You’re sorry for what exactly?”

MR Monday 12:29pm

“Fighting. It was stupid. Can I come over & see you tonight? We need to talk about it. I miss you.”

NOT SORRY FOR SCREWING CLAIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Missy Monday 13.00pm

“Fail.”

Still not sure if that was the right response. D&G and I used the ice in an impromtu batch of Mojitos.

But I’m still looking at my cell every 10 minutes. Nothing has been sent in return.