Not much, if I'm honest! Drove down to see my sis on Wednesday and, as predicted, spent an extraordinary amount of time in talking about boys and drinking tea. As my sis doesn�t drive, I did most generously offer to drive her "somewhere�if you like" but we couldn�t think of anywhere to go that wouldn�t involve us spending stupid amounts of money (ie going shopping) and, to be honest, the weather was a bit crap and sis's house was nice and warm and there was homemade soup there, and fruit cake, and tea, and magazines to be leafed through in a desultory fashion. Ex-HAUST-ing!!
Had a visit from annanotbob (and Millie the Dog) planned for Thursday afternoon, so there wasn�t much of the day left to do anything really. I did manage to haul my carcass to B&Q and buy a tray of marigolds. They haven�t actually made it as far as the garden yet as its been raining pretty much non-stop all bloody week and Im not so keen on gardening that I would consider doing it in the rain.
(brief pause while Stepfie thinks about "doing it in the rain"��.*ahem*�aaaaaaand, we're back in the room!)
It was lovely to see Anna without any kid-like accoutrements for a change, and we had a spiffing time looking at holiday photos (hers) and eating homemade bread (mine) and walking little Millie dog around the field so she wouldn�t poo on my lawn (It didn�t work. She pooed on my lawn.) and generally putting the world to rights in the way that only a couple of self-opinionated old moos can. I am slightly glad that Anna lives an hour and a half's drive away or I predict we would waste a great deal more of each others time in gossiping about nothing, swapping recipes and re-telling anecdotes along the lines of "Kids! Cant live with 'em�..can't cave their heads in with a brick".
Speaking of doling out parental punishment, got home from committee meeting on Thursday night to find Jooj watching Inbetweeners, which is SO not a show that 13 year olds should be watching. I made a half-arsed attempt at telling her off but I was sitting on the arm of the sofa, one eye on the screen and sniggering while I was admonishing so I guess she knew my heart wasn�t really in it. Jooj did put up a reasonable argument for being allowed to watch which mostly involved her telling me that she'd heard nothing in the show that she hadn�t already heard at school and that just because she'd heard those words, didn�t mean she was gonna say those words�well, not in the house anyways!
I know this to be true as she will quite often tell me about arguments and stuff that have gone on at school and censor herself in an amusing "edited for television"-type way:
"Anyway mum, Jade called Ryan a Mummy-flippin Boy Part, cos she found out that Ryan had fudged Alisha, but Alisha said she didn�t fudge Ryan and Ryan was a lyin cake-sucker with a tiny peanut who couldn�t get a fudge if he was the only boy in the world. And then Ryan said he wouldn�t go anywhere near Alisha's Kachina and that her tights were too small anyway and he only wanted Jade cos she has, like, massive tights and a cute Arsenal."
"Ummm�..Jooj��you don�t do any of this stuff, do you?"
"Don�t be stupid, mum. Fudge is for grown ups."
Actually, Jooj and I had a very sensible conversation about Es Ee Ecks and we figured out that the best rule of thumb would be this: If you are considering doing 'something' with a boy, first consider whether it would be OK if you did that with a man, or whether it would cause the man to be on the front page of the News of the World under the headline "Sick Paedo in Pervy Schoolgirl Sex Shocker". If it would, then its probably not something that�s appropriate (or necessary) for somebody your age. Jooj thinks this is a very good rule. Im trying not to have sleepless nights about the day when she considers it�s a stupid one.
On Friday, I was up at the crack of 11.30 to drive up to Reading for lunch with Anne Marie, in a funny little pub near where she works. She paid, which was a lovely surprise, and it was an even more lovely surprise to see her actually eat something for a change. She's as skinny as a rasher of wind these days and I do worry that her nutritional intake seems to consist mostly of cigarettes and brandy. I watched carefully, but she didn�t appear to be shovelling the fishcakes and chips directly into her handbag � I couldn�t watch her all the time, obviously, as my own chips would�ve got cold and that just WONT DO.
Failed miserably at 'doing a little retail therapy' in the shopping mall near the pub after lunch. Shopping malls these days seem to consist of ALL the shops I never go in anyway (Next, JJB Sport, Comet, Sainsburys etc etc), so to have them all in one great big place just means an hour or so of wandering about not actually being inspired by anything. The best I could manage, as far as retailing went, was a bottle of whisky and some face powder.
Friday night I was off to an Ann Summers Party. In case you aren�t aware, Ann Summers parties are where people who don�t buy sex toys go to buy sex toys. My dear Slavey (who really needs a new nickname as she hasn�t actually been my Slavey for about 18 months now!) was 'demonstrating', although Im pretty sure that's not the right word for it as she doesn�t actually lie on her back and go "and this bit goes HERE" or anything like that.
Im not desperately keen on Ann Summers. I think their stuff is shockingly overpriced and generally a bit�ummm�..tame and Carry-On film-ish. Ive never really had a problem with buying sex toys and I don�t find things like that embarrassing so its just irritating to be in a room full of proper grown up women who wont even TOUCH a (small) vibrator and who say things like "Nobody actually BUYS these things tho, do they?" and "I cant imagine why anyone would WANT to do THAT?". It�s a fucking SEX TOYS party, chicas. What did you expect?
There were several women there who should never ever be allowed to have sex ever. Its clearly an activity that is wasted on them. One woman had brought her daughter, not realising that meant that she couldn�t buy anything without her daughter knowing. Stupid. Very stupid. One woman (not yet 30) 'nearly' bought a mini vibrator but didn�t, in case her husband found out (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).
There were the inevitable ice-breaking 'hilarious' party games, mostly involving bursting long balloons without using ones hands (or teeth!) and one in which we had to nibble a chocolate hobnob into the shape of a penis. I won that one. My hobnob penis (and balls!) was highly realistic � I am an adept nibbler. I won some "Sizzling Body Candy", which is also known as Space Dust, as far as I can work out!
On the back of the box it says "learn six simple, yet seductive techniques to tease and tantalise the senses��promises to provide hours of bedroom fun!" I checked out the 'instructions' and they generally say 'sprinkle it on and lick it off'. Ive never felt the need to sprinkle (or be sprinkled!) with Space Dust but I feel morally obliged to try it, just to see what happens. When I do, I shall report back. Until then, if anyone can come up with why this is a particularly good (or bad) idea, please do comment me and let me know.
Incidentally � feeding Space Dust to a dog = hilarious. And cruel! Don�t do it!
Slavey and I had a very long conversation about cock rings. In fact, the conversation was so long and so involved, that we didn�t even notice that all of the other women in the room eventually stopped talking about Eastenders and were listening with looks of horror/shock/interest/embarrassment on their faces, sometimes all at once. Maybe they learned something.
Ann Summers teaches their demonstrators to show how powerful a vibe is, by touching it lightly against the tip of one's nose. The nose, apparently, is the most sensitive part of the face. Yeh. The FACE. *shakes head*. Im not advocating the testing of vibrators 'properly' whilst in someone else's sitting room, surrounded by dishes of kettle chips and conversations about the mortgage rate but, ladies, you may like to know that testing a vibrator on the cleft between your index and middle finger is a fuck site more discrete AND a better indicator of performance. Relax your hand and rest the tip of the vibe just against the little dip of skin which joins one finger to the other, with the shaft of the vibe almost resting on the back of your hand.
I didn�t buy anything too much. I AM unemployed, after all!
Me and L, walking down to the workies behind a girl in a beautiful jade green minidress:
"That�s a nice colour"
"Mm-hmm. She's got nice hair, too"
"Lovely. Very Pretty"
������....��.(singing, together) "I�..like�.. big BUTTS and I cannot lie, you other bruthas cant deny BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA"
I finally bit the bullet and went to the Job Centre to register as unemployed. It took just over an hour for them to tell me what amounted to "if you fuck us about you wont get any money". I think they're also supposed to look through their database and see if there are any vacancies that might suit you but my 'personal advisor' took one look at my previous job title and my leaving salary and didn�t even bother to fire up the search. I have six weeks in which to find a job 'the same as before and with a comparable salary' before I have to start 'widening my search criteria', which I think means "get thee to the Asda checkouts and stop thinkin' youz sumthin you aint, you scrounger!". All in all a little bit depressing, if Im honest. I have to go back on Thursday to 'sign on'. I might have a little cry about that later.
I do have one interview lined up. Its for a job I cant do, at a piss-poor salary, with a company so disorganised that even their job spec was full of typos. Oh, and it took them four phone calls to arrange my interview because they kept forgetting to tell me stuff and then had to ring me back. In the last phone call they made, they left a message with Jooj telling her to let me know that I would be required to give a five minute presentation on How A Project Would Develop If I Were to Manage It. All that for a 15% wage cut. Its almost tempting to stand up and say "How a project would develop if I were to manage it, by Stepfie Stepfordtart: PROPERLY, you fucktards!" and let the remaining four minutes and fifty five seconds just be embarrassed silence.
I suppose I should say 'wish me luck', but Im not sure I can really be bothered to.
Later
S
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