Jooj did her last GCSE exam yesterday so only had to go into school today for a Leavers Assembly and then she came back home again. She brought a little gang of pals with her, and each had a suspiciously bulging carrier bag. Contraband? Ciggies and Alcopops? NOPE. All of them had brought round the exercise books for the subjects they most hated for a ceremonial book-burning in our fire pit! Now normally I would be VERY against any kind of book burning and would certainly not have countenanced the incineration of any textbooks AT ALL but these were exercise books, for subjects they have no intention of ever studying again, containing little more than homework they had failed to complete, notes they hadn�t taken properly, tests they had failed and inappropriate margin notes they had scribbled (sometimes with accompanying doodles). Jim had had a fit of conscience and had at least put some of his in the recycling box, but the rest were consigned to the flames and then marshmallows were toasted on their dying embers and smores were eaten at their wake:
So, it appears I am now officially old enough to have a daughter who has LEFT SCHOOL, which seems utterly ludicrous.
Now. This event, taken in isolation, would normally see me hiding under the duvet for a couple of days in a maelstrom of self-loathing or, more likely (seeing as I don�t really loath myself, just find myself a bit tedious sometimes), having far too much to drink at the weekend and trying to count my wrinkles when I am already seeing double. However, so bouyed up am I by events earlier in the week that it registered barely a flicker on the Whiney-o-meter. Yes, dear friends, interspersed amongst the general detritus of my life there have been several Moments of Chirpiness this week which have had sufficient effect on my wellbeing for me to jovially suggest to L this afternoon that I could use his penis as a device by which to measure whether a cake tin I wanted to use was a 9� or 10� diameter. Jocularity (and knob gags for that matter) have been thin on the ground of late, as I am sure you have noted.
Don�t worry, in the end I just measured the big tin against the 6� tin I�d already got out of the cupboard. No penises have been brandished in my kitchen this week, not even as calibration tools. Huh Huh. I said �tool�.
Anyways. What has brought about this bonhomie? Well, I�ll tell yez.
Ive been suffering most grievously with insomnia for some time now � it eased off a bit once I was done with the chemotherapy but reappeared with a vengeance a week or so ago, to the extend that some nights I wouldn�t actually sleep AT ALL, and would just stare out of the dark window at nothing for 8 hours or so and then get up again. Sunday night was one of those, but by about 2.30, Id had enough of sighing about it and just got up and went downstairs.
Playing about on the internet only passed a few minutes as nobody had updated their diaries and (shock!) nobody had emailed me long, newsy emails for me to read and reply to since I�d gone to bed. The house would have been quiet and still�..had I not been able to hear L snoring upstairs, and sounding for all the world like someone having trouble drowning an angry hippopotamus. That had swallowed a vuvuzela. Full of custard.
My inner monologue went off on a rant, which was almost entirely made up of references to how L wouldn�t snore so much if he didn�t drink so much, and that bloody Guinness has a lot to answer for, and how he loves his bloody Guinness more than he loves me and all kinds of similar-themed moaniness, getting ever more fanciful and lyrical and flowery of language. Then I thought maybe I might be able to write a diary entry about how moany I was feeling so I started typing up some of the more noteworthy turns of phrase that my inner monologue had come up with and by 4.00am, I had written a folk song!
I know! How did THAT happen? I wrote a folk song called The Black-Hearted Irish about a woman who loses her man to another. Get ME!
In the morning, when I showed it to L, he made a strange face. Then he said �that�s about Guinness, isn�t it?�. And then he said the lyrics were �brilliant, very clever� and he took it away and wrote some music for it, so now its copyright US so it cant be stolen and if I get a chance over the weekend, I�ll record it for you and you can say you heard it here first! SQUEEEE! I haven�t written a whole song before. Ive helped L out when he�s had writer�s block and Ive come up with new arrangements for songs that already exist, but not a whole lyric by myself. Im seriously proud of it, really I am.
Bloody stupid things I have done today:
Bought a bottle of Limoncello, but a different brand to the one I would usually buy. Instead of putting it behind the bar for when it was actually needed, I opened it and tasted a little bit, just in case it was horrid. Sadly, it was delicious and I have now drunk the whole bottle. *tssk*
But I digress. The next thing that happened was that I had a couple of massive rows with L, which nearly resulted in murder or stabbings or punching full in the stupid beardy face, but actually only involved one person shouting �FUCK OFF� and then crying. You may use your skill and judgement to decide who that was. Or you can just sit back and give your brain a rest and I will tell you that it was me.
Tuesday morning, after another night of counting the bobbles on the Artex ceiling in the spare room, I phoned my sister and asked if I could go and visit. Within 20 minutes, I was in the car and driving away after calling �Im going out� over my shoulder to L.
When I got to her house, she wasn�t in, so I left my car outside her house and walked around to Brenda�s house, where they were both sitting in the garden with cups of tea, nattering and enjoying the sunshine. I can do nattering, and enjoying the sunshine, so I joined in. When it was time to leave I realised that Sis had taken her bike to Brenda�s, as she jumped on it and made to cycle home. I didn�t want to trot alongside her like a prizefighter in training, and she didn�t want to get off and walk, seeing as she�d brought her bike specifically so she wouldn�t have to. Realising we had reached an impasse, I took the initiative and hopped onto the carrier, over the back wheel, even though it was a bit of a stretch as she had two grocery panniers attached to it already. Even though my legs were stretched considerably further apart than they have been for a while (!) I still mustered up enough merry to shout �Give us a doubler, then!�
We were in the middle of the street. There was nobody around. Sis looked at me. I looked at Sis. We laughed so much that we were wheezing. We made perfunctory �We cant��, �Its dangerous��, �We�re old and fat�.� noises. Then, despite having a combined age of 97 and a combined weight of around 25 stone (350lbs?) we set off.
The first fifty yards were the worst, as we struggled to maintain an equilibrium (and the bike struggled not to buckle under our weight), Sis helpfully shouting �SIT STILL� as she stood up on the pedals and waggled her fat arse in my face to get us moving. Lurching perilously from side to side as we picked up speed we alternated between screeching, laughing and shouting �OMYFUCKINGOD WE�RE GOING TO BE KILLLLLLED!� as we careened towards parked cars, ditches, wheelie bins and patches of slippery gravel and then swung wildly away from them again.
By the time we reached terminal velocity (by �terminal� I do, of course, mean that we would have died if we had fallen off into the road) we�d gotten our confidence up and, on reaching the bramble-lined cutway between Brenda�s estate and my sister�s, Sis just called out �pull your legs in!� over her shoulder and carried on pedalling, despite the cutway being scarcely wide enough to accommodate the bike, let alone the bike + panniers + the legs of a middle-aged woman which were sticking out almost parallel to the ground.
No matter. With a �WO-AHHHHH-EEEEEEEE-AARRRRGGGHHH� we were through to the other side, bits of broken-off greenery flying off behind us in a wide arc like some threshing machine made flesh (and bike).
Sis�s street is wide and flat and straight. Unfortunately, as it is a private estate, it also has �resident constructed� speedbumps which are much higher and steeper and more generously distributed than regular speedbumps. Travelling over them at high speed if your posterior is seated on a metal bike rack over a pneumatic tyre has the effect of being kicked very hard , up the arse, by Calculon (I�ll wait while you click on that link, it�s the only person I could think of with a massive metal foot). Sparks flew off the Blakeys in my cowboy boots as I put my foot down to round the corner into Sis�s drive and we were home.
I have not had a doubler on a pushbike since I was maybe 17, and probably havent had a doubler with my sister since we were little kids. I also have not laughed so loud and so long since��������������..actually, I cant remember.
Friday
Ooch. This is taking an AGE to write!
After the episode with the doubler and the laughing, Sis and I went out in my car to Worthing to pick up some picture frames and then back as far as Littlehampton (Don�t laugh at that. There is nothing funny about a little hampton) for a stroll on the prom and an icecream. As we promenaded, 99s in hands, three men enjoying an afternoon pint cat-called to us from across the street and we bantered back and forth for a minute or two about the merits of being in the sunshine and having a nice afternoon. They were certainly keen for us to join them but we are both married and had icecreams to eat and errands to run so we declined � they weren�t pissy and called out �you have a lovely afternoon then, girls� to us as we walked away.
We were giggling like two schoolgirls when I suddenly had a bit of an epiphany. I got chatted up, by three strangers, in the street. Not friends of L�s who know its OK to flirt with me, not drunk losers who would hit on anything, but three perfectly pleasant working-class men who appeared to be reasonably attracted to me and wanted to spend a little time in my company.
BUT WAIT! I am the grey-faced, bald, mangled boobed, self-esteemless cancer patient, aren�t I? In a shop window I saw a tall, slim (ish!) woman with an edgy suede-headed hairdo, wearing jeans and a crisp white shirt, eating an icecream. Next to her was a slightly older, plumper vivacious redhead, who was laughing and licking bits of chocolate sauce off her fingers. Maybe ugly old me and my fat sister were behind them�..
NO! We WERE them! Now, I cannot vouch for my sister, but I got chatted up by some strangers because I am gorgeous and I NO LONGER LOOK LIKE I HAVE GOT CANCER. It is not writ large across my face. To the untrained eye I have no outward signs that I was ever sick.
I
AM
BACK
and I am kissing life hard on the lips and reaching round to squeeze its arse.
Onwards and upwards.
Later
S
x
PS Something Ive noticed since I stopped taking the pill � my chloasma has faded away to pretty much nothing and just looks like two freckles now. You know, before I said chloasma I nearly wrote cloaca, which is a chicken�s bumhole. I certainly don�t have one of those on my face, nor would I expect it to look like a freckle if I did.
PPS Listening to Vic Damone singing �On the Street Where You Live� and getting goosbumps. OMIGOSH I nearly faint with lust when I hear those big long notes. As Im writing this, my internet connection is down, so I cannot check to see if Vic Damone looks like a baboons arse. I am also unsure as to whether he �never married�. DO NOT ruin it for me by leaving me a note saying he was world famous for being a simian-faced whoopsie of the highest order. DO. NOT.
PPPS That Sunshine thingy that I got nominated for (Twice!) next time m�kay? I gotta go to the guitar shop and this has taken up too much time already!
PPPPS The internet�s back on now. Here! Have it! And know that I have already peed my pants before he finishes singing �Oh the towering feeling�.�