…more lies
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.
…lies
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.
…sunny felix
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?
…Richie
“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…
…marinara
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.
…Coulrophobia
I had a virtual fight. Unfortunately not of the Street Fighter kind. I got K.Oed by mac mail.
Mr Right and I had an argument last night, via email. My heart is breaking. Being away from each other so much is difficult. He down there. Me up here, under there, in out in out shake it round about…
It’s hard to share those ins and outs of the day to day. I spend so much of the day talking the last thing I want to do in the evening is gas about it, and so long at whatido that when I finally get through to the other side of the day I can’t talk about it, not about work, not about play, not about doing what I want to do. Saying what I want to say becomes the last thing I have to achieve and the first thing I forget to do. Too many people to see, too little time to see them. Living how I want to live is hard on the people I claim to Love (he says, hence the fact I have had MC Hammer in my head since last night). That was what started it. Not MC Hammer. He said, “Living how I want to live is hard on the people I claim to Love”
He think’s I’m condescending. I’m not. It’s all in his head. He’s just…hummm…I don’t know, jealous? MR isn’t what people would call confident, or sociable. He doesn’t like company (typical writer) except of the people he stakes a claim on. He won’t propose, and I don’t want him to, but he has staked a claim on me, planted a flag between my butt cheeks for me to wave at him as I pass by. HAILTHECONQUORINGHERO. When he’s here, with me, he is my world, every last gorgeous bit of him. Truth is though that I have to be shared. I have to see other people. I might have a burning brand saying ‘property of Mr Right’ on my soul but my work forces me to be pleasant and sociable, flirtatious, to make friends and influence people. I don’t talk about MR with them because I need to seem attainable.
I know I’m the one in the wrong here. I know I am. I’m not a nice person. I should be with him more often. I shouldn’t flirt. I should tell the world I am in love because I am. My beautiful Mr Right, who I love and adore and who …
Love List entry #6) wrote a love note and got PA to deliver it me on Monday in amongst the morning mail. (the PA is interesting, will tell you all about HIM asap.)
So we had a fight. I said things. He said things. I may have mentioned I was toying with the idea of fucking a professional clown…
As far as nails in the coffin of an argument go, admitting to crushes on children’s entertainers who smell of sex and make your knees tremble is sort of a period point. Especially given that it turns out MR has an irrational fear of clowns. Who knew. It’s called Coulrophobia.
And so I made a decision. Love be damned.
I called D&G. Friday, dinner at a prominent London restaurant. Clowning is paying (if all the desperate housewives knew what he was spending his money on). Should be interesting.
…blue suede shoes
For WHATIDO heals are a necessity. Looming is a fine art, and I am bad at it. I have never been one of the tallest women. In fact I am ‘down right petite’, or that is how MR describes me.
“I love them.” He said as I displayed my nice blue suede five inch towers at breakfast this morning. He knows just the right things to say, and actually means it too (Entering the following into Love list).
4)Last time we went shopping he stole into the changing rooms and tried on a pair for himself. He broke the shoes and had to pay for them. They now sit on my sill at ‘home’. I planted Cacti in them…(Cacti are excellent plant substitutes for a woman on the go).
We took an early breakfast in the hotel. Toasted Blueberry Muffins and OhJay because he had to get back. Taxi came. MR went. Le Sigh.
The cab came to fetch me four hours later. I get to THEOFFICE, today this is the top floor of a converted warehouse. I dislike the elevator, since being trapped in one at the age of six I have an irrational fear of strip lighting and the scent of urine. But I braved the beast, being careful my heal didn’t get stuck in the grille. I stood on point the entire journey upwards. On exit six mountainous creatures awaited me, all of whom commented on my blue suede Shoes. “Uh huh huh.”
Coffee break time came and went. As noted, this is my favorite part of the day. Except today. Except today. Everyone was ‘too busy’. My head was pounding, and only Miss LimeGreenPinnafore with her need for clean tables and her diabolically wonderful coffee could have possibly sorted me out. The healthy breakfast of muffins and juice (MR doesn’t drink coffee so when I am around him, neither do I) had taken its toll: five hours, no caffine, makes Missy a mess. Still, even the Caffine Shack was too far away. Instant. That’s what it had to be. And not an intern to be found.
Ever seen a woman growl?
In a bid for freedom I decided to fetch coffee(s) for the gathered mob, not the normal state of the nation, but I needed space. Ten or so people scratched their heads and wondered out loud if they were allowed caffine on whatever current diet they are on. Three finally raised their hands (one of whom I knew would, as her current diet is ‘Caffine only’ – rather her than me. She’s lost 10 pounds through insomnia alone).
One demands vitamin water. I remind them I not an intern, I’m offering out of the charity of my ample breast, not any bid for subservience and then politely told them to drink their own urine, “It’s full of nutrients,” I said, guarantee three of them at least will try it that evening. “I’m going for CoffeeCoffeeCoffee. If you want water, it comes from the tap.” I said and tottered out of the building in my heals.
I brought a jar of Nescafe Head Exploder and some cigarettes and headed back. In my heals. My lovely heals. My lovely lovely heals. Le Sigh.
It was then my cell began to ring. I looked at the display, ‘Private’, so I ignored it, and slipped it in the niche of my underarm while I negotiated the jar of HeadExpolder, the Tarsticks and the industrial locking mechanism of the warehouse door.
I wondered absently whether I was actually going to smoke one of the Tarsticks I had purchased (I buy a packet a week as a comfort but rarely, if ever, smoke one).
The “canteen” for this converted warehouse is on the bottom floor. When I say canteen I mean a table with used stirrers and a domestic abuse victim of a kettle, laced with so much limescale you could carve an Adonis out of it and sell it to the Tate. The discarded cups around it were last washed when Twiggy still hadn’t any hips. I ‘do the honors’: Three steaming cups of instant joy in hand I return to the elevator to find it has finally run its last journey and refuses to move. Share and enjoy? As a claustrophobe I am not disappointed, then I realise:
Six flights of stairs.
Three Cups of coffee.
One pair of Five Inch healed Blue Suede Shoes.
Oh… and a grey pencil skirt.
“LOGISTICALLY UNSOUND IDEA.” My pursemonster Brian would have said, if he had been there (I hadn’t intended to be long so my purse was upstairs)
Three cups of coffee quickly becomes one. The two people who ordered would have to make do with chewing on napkins. I was considering how good this climb would be for my core muscles and my ass while I carefully negotiated each step in my pencil skirt and five inch heals, a golden chalice of Nescafe in one hand and my packet of Cancer in the other.
Then, midway between the third and forth floor, my phone rings; the phone I had put under my arm, the phone on vibrate, the phone that sends a very surprising hum down my arm all the way to the remaining cup of steaming hot coffee, the iPhone that iCost me a small fortune and I am desperate not to drop down three flights of concrete steps. The result of which is that the coffee, which I was desperate to protect from my white shirt, spilt on the concrete floor because I stumbled and threw out my arms in order to stop my face from breaking.
The face thankfully did not break.
The shoes, however were not so fortunate.
Rest In Peace Blue Suede Shoes.
You have served me well.
I smoked a cigarette on the steps in their honor. Finally answering my phone (third redial, it must be important) when due respects have been paid.
The call, as it turns out, was from someone trying to sell me insurance. They are now blacklisted; and I am sending them the bill for my shoes being rehealed…which makes me feel a little better.
