Yes

That’s it. I shall never ever put my trust in the stars again. I shall only look at them from the gutter, as recommended by Oscar Wilde.

What a fine disappointment (apart from Wednesday late evening) this week has been. My horror scope told me last Sunday (remember?) that I should say ‘yes’ to everything coming my way for the next seven days. This minute it’s Saturday morning and time is running out. And nothing has come my way. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Please do not suggest that this might have something to do with my having put myself under house arrest. Human contact thus limited. There are other ways to communicate in the ether. Any moment now I’ll expect ET landing on the window sill. Peering in. Asking me what I am doing at 0355 BST at my desk and could he please have some scrambled eggs. Of course. Yes. Or an omelet.

The hot water situation (in the kitchen) has now reached critical mass. The plumber took the boiler away. When he asked me whether he could come back today (Saturday) to replace it I was so happy to be given one of my last opportunities to say: “Yes”. I even said ‘please’. Plumber promised to add cost of new toilet seat and fixing it to the fab Fabrizio’s (that’s my landlord) bill for having let the boiler slide into disrepair. “Compensation for your inconvenience”, Handy Andy said. You can’t beat it. Can you? Why did Handy Andy not become a lawyer?

What will the next 48 hours bring (other than a new horror scope)?

Hugs and kisses, please do make up for the deficit of questions I might be able to say ‘yes’ to. Or maybe I should take up growing mushrooms in the dark.

U

Which way to go

This minute I am faced with a choice. To let rip or to keep schtum. By temperament I prefer to fucking let rip. The voice of reason (that’s the Angel) has told me to not say a word to those words need to be said to. OK. He is probably right. Except that in a situation so bad it couldn’t be made worse I should allow myself to let rip. Am rewriting my will. Not that, this minute – a minute which could change any minute – do I have much to leave. Except a vial of verbal venom.

Let me know what you think. Or don’t bother. I have had it up to a level taller than myself. And I am not short.

If you do come to my funeral and insist on flowers please do make them sun/paeony/gerbera. If you are hard up just pick a dandelion or a daisy down the lane. I’d be deliriously happy with either of the last two.

U

I hate gender stereotyping

Before I revert my attention, as promised, to gays, let’s get something straight.

There is a blogger out there who is beginning to get on my tits. For the sake of convenience, and so that he recognizes himself, let’s call him Nick. Normally I don’t use the expression ‘on my tits’. But needs must. Not least Nick’s. Nick is a man, say in his mid sixties. I shan’t comment on his maturity. He has fashioned himself into a spokesman for womanhood. I had this out with him the other day in both his and, mostly, in Ramana’s comment boxes.

Since I get chastened in comment boxes every so often I shall take Nick’s shit into my own pig sty.

Nick, let me remind you: I am a woman. And I resent you telling me how I feel and what offends me. You know what offends me, Nick? You maligning YOUR own gender, only to quiver when I say boo to an as yet to be cooked gander. Let me enlighten you, Nick: What you are doing with many of your posts, what you are accusing other men of, is  cheap titillation. Ever thought of it like that? No, didn’t think you would. When I say that being wolf whistled is nothing to me you don’t take it seriously, do you? Nick, the man (don’t make me laugh), do draw your own conclusion. If  you can’t see the irony then you are beyond a woman ever looking at you. Not that I’d whistle at you even if I could.

Let me tell you something, Nick, Woman to Man: Denigrating your own gender does not make you a better man. It makes you most unattractive. I am the mother of a son, a daughter of a man, a sister of a man, a cousin to many a man, a friend to the stalwart – and I do NOT like the way you talk about men, the way you make them into sexual predators.  Still (see above), I know you wish to titillate and ingratiate yourself with your, sometimes misguided, female readership. Your offering today, a man in a bikini ‘asking for it’, really did it for me. I wouldn’t even shake your hand. And I have had limp hand shakes before. Yours no doubt dripping.

Sorry, Nick. I know you are of a sensitive disposition. But you do need to either be taken out of a closet or given a shake.

Before I forget, but then of course for you, Nick, men are the bad boys, by coincidence and not for the first time, the Angel (a most attractive specimen of a twenty year old) mentioned to me yesterday that whenever he goes out strangers will come up to him (women that is) compliment him on his drop dead gorgeous long long long blond hair, touching it. Invasion of privacy, Nick? One stretch too far? Invading personal space? You tell me. I dare say: Like his mother was in her time, he too is perfectly able to live with the attention and look after himself.

Get a grip, man.

U

The week I’ll probably die with the help of someone

I may have to leave the country once I am finished – and move to Mars. Who cares. Destiny leads, I usually run away.

Yes, so this is GAY week. On my blog.

And when, and if, I use the wrong lingo then, dear gays, do forgive me. I am only human thus errors are made. Why am I so down in the mouth? Well, Sweethearts: Fact is that some six or seven years ago I fell in love with a gay man. I knew he was gay from the beginning so sex wasn’t exactly an issue. Though would have slept with him – on request – if we had made to Paris or Rome.

Nay, my trouble with gay men is semantics. I do not fucking get the lingo right, do I? Am I an expert? No. In my experience we make allowances for each other. Count gays out on that score. They are unforgiving. Sorry about generalizing, but generalizations are there for a reason – mainly to get a point across.

Yes, so I put my foot into it. Still don’t know how. I used ‘preference’ when I should have used ‘orientation’. Or whatever. I have to hand to you gays: Some of you are so sensitive may the sun never set on you. You’ll burn.

And please do not keep pointing the finger at heterosexuals. Lend me a helping hand instead.

U

Economics

I have just about had it with the English Press (the paper and its commentator not to be named). What is with the English? They refer to the rest of Europe as “the Continent” when they themselves are part of fucking Europe. They refuse themselves. If the Euro were a bedchamber they might find themselves either in a nunnery, a cloister, or in a divorce court – marriage annulled.

So fucking Germany once more being maligned when Germany is the very country who bails out everyone. Including the Greek. It’s incredible. If, and I hope I won’t because I’ll be going down, meet that columnist who wrote his smear, probably whilst having lunch and one too many drinks on his paper’s expenses account, I’ll punch him. I will. With pleasure. Let him pay for his own Moussaka and a bottle of Ouzo.

Sometimes in life we mess up. But don’t piss on those who lend a helping hand.

Vorsprung durch Technik? Well, you could have fooled me. And whilst you are at it: Why not put up for sale your BMW and break off your neighbour’s Mercedes star?

U

Later

Lorna, one of my not so long ago acquired shining stars to show me the way, published a post on procrastination. Like all she writes it’s funny, sending me over to that book shelf among all of mine I hate (self help). I cannot forgive myself for ever having spent money on the obvious: Still. So, as I hoped I wouldn’t, because I’d given it away earlier, I do find Dr Knaus on guess what? Yes, you’ve got it in one: “Do It NOW.” Because that’s what I tend to do, now, I settled with the book. Like any self respecting self help book on page 18 you are asked to take an ‘inventory’. I did. One does live in hope to be told things about oneself you do not know – yet.

What a downer. Anticlimax. I have scored. Yes, I am your “efficiency superstar”. I don’t need the book. YOU may not be surprised. I am. Fact is: In recent time I do not get anything done. It’s a mystery. I have resorted to baby steps. Ignoring all my lists. Congratulating myself every day … on achieving anything between nothing and very little. Still, once my gear box has been revamped I shall be up to speed again. In the meantime I’ll donate all self help books to I don’t know who. I think the bin is a good place. But then who am I to contribute to fill land with rubbish?

U

PS It appears I bought this in 1998 – Revised Edition, Over 100,000 sold. What sort of comfort is that?

Boiling water

Looks are everything. Don’t buy into anyone reassuring this not to be so.

Yesterday I made the acquaintance of a woman who may become a friend. Not least because she is candid. When I learnt that she is one and a half years younger than me I momentarily lost my thread of coherent speech. From now on I shall look into the mirror, and at myself, in a new light. No, make that in the dark.

To say that I am shell shocked would be to say that I am a crab facing a human for the first and last time.

It sparked a conversation with the Angel, over dinner, about time warps. I love time warps. You can tell a woman’s heyday by the way she does her eyes, plucks her eyebrows. Do men inhabit a space in ‘time warp’? Don’t think so. They tend to go with the flow. What’s a beer belly among aficionados? Though men will mourn over a receding hair line. Which is why I harbour a growing hatred of Delilah. Why did she have to break Samson’s spell?

My one time warp, in my mind’s eye, is my mother. Frozen in time as it were. Since I rarely see her, though speak to her every week for at least an hour at a time, her voice still that of the young woman she was, possibly still is. Have any of you ever contemplated that voice doesn’t appear to age? Other than when one minute you are a choir boy the next you are a man?

I am now older than my mother the way I see/remember her. And my youngest sister, the formidable and pragmatic if ever there was one,  mother of four of her own, is still that tiny little girl with big wide eyes, looking at her big sister for reassurance. Except she doesn’t need it any longer.

U

Purpose

I won’t give you the whole saga. Just a conclusion.

And the conclusion is that I have missed my vocation. I should have become an efficiency expert. Speciality: Logistics.

If some people were ants there wouldn’t be a heap. If some people where bees there’d be few workers and no honey. Where that leaves the Queen Bee I don’t know.

U

365

Sweethearts, I will answer your comments you so kindly left at expense of your time. I promise. Though Phil, as usual, has me in thumb screws. If only I could ask him to marry me. It would be easier. Androgoth may serve as best man. Lorna, Bella and Renee I’d honour to be my maids. Magpie might oblige to make sure the champagne is served at the right temperature. John will sacrifice Phylis (don’t ask; just make sure you eat before the feast begins).

Dear dog in heaven: Yes, it’s 29 Feb. Women are supposed to propose. The first hurdle being that I am not the marrying kind. I am immune to the altar. Being admonished for crunching apples in bed, my love of freedom got the better of me twice. I now keep a bowl of apples next to my bed at all times. Just to make sure no one comes near me.

Still, I don’t want to be a spoil sport on that four yearly window to chain yourself to the master of your destiny, and I will propose. To a dear friend of mine. He doesn’t know it yet because I haven’t pressed send for my email. He is of a fragile disposition. He also gets irritated very easily. Particularly before a live broadcast.  So easily irritated that, three years ago, he broke off all contact with me. Under the understanding that I will keep my promise to him (made in the throws of our earliest courtship when he worshiped the very ground I was walking on and  was all up for carrying me up Montmartre, Absinthe in hand) that I’d never ever not write to him. The swine. By keeping my promise I have fashioned myself into a backdoor stalker. I normally don’t do servant’s entrance but anything for one of the most misguided souls I ever had the privilege to meet.

Don’t get carried away with the romance: In the marriage stakes I like playing it on the safe side: So yes, he is gay. Very intelligent if emotionally somewhat stunted. I do have beef with his therapist: She gave him terrible advice. Like most compulsive obsessives he follows it to the letter.

In terms of damage limitation and health and safety regulations we are happily divided by a pond. The bargain is perfect: On signing the contract I’ll get my double barrel name, he gets a wife he doesn’t need.

Wish me luck. If he says no he’ll have to buy me a dress and/or gloves (as folklore goes) – make that an ipod, Geek that he is – and if he says yes then both of us will be in a double bind.

On my knees,

U

Marketing

On the right of my screen, next to my emails an advert pops up: “If you died unexpectedly could your loved ones afford the bills?” That is SO cute. Pass me a tissue to wipe a tear.

Why not let my UNloved ones foot the bill?

Think Greece: So much cheaper to just resurrect me: Two lives for the price of no funeral. What a bargain. Don’t say I don’t come without a price tag.

U