CarpeDiem in London

A long week

2008-11-01T16:12:00.007Z

This last week hasn't been that good. I had to spend most of my free time meeting up with complete morons to work on group presentations. Group presentations, the way it seems to be going, that will end up being all of yours truly's work. Gotta love your hard-working peers, really.

Fortunately, I managed to keep my mind off morony things by going out a bit. A lot, actually.

On Monday night, I accompanied Gay Mike to an auction preview, which basically combines everything I love. Free art, champagne and social chit-chat.
Unfortunately, this sort of event only attracts old wealthy businessmen. As much as I'd love having some of the sculptures gracing my bedside table, I don't have the multiple zeros sort of cash in my wallet. £14,67 would be more like it.

I did miss out on the opportunity to refill that wallet of mine though. The kind of thing that only happens to me. See for yourself.
I was walking around, champagne in hand, admiring statues, and NOT provocatively dressed, when I noticed that (old and creepy, it goes without saying) man, who seemed much more interested in my bum than the art work on display. I turned around. He repositioned himself in a way that left no doubt that he was indeed staring at my ass.
I moved to the next room. He followed, without taking his eyes off it. When he not so casually brushed his hand against my bottom, I began to see red.

Look mate, there's a very nice naked lady just here, you can get it for £16000 and look at her arse for the three remaining years of your life. It's a bargain really. Now please, leave mine alone!

And you know what the son of a bitch said?
Maybe I'd be more interested in spending £16000 for the pleasure of your company tonight, what do you say?

-What do I say? FUCK OFF!!!

Now my credit-crunched self is staring at the £14,67 in my wallet and thinking I should start rolling my cigarettes. Great.
But I do hope he too gets credit-crunched to death and shrivels up in a concil house.

On Tuesday night, Italian Neighbour dragged me to That Bar, where I spent half the night praying for G-the-M not to turn up. Thankfully, he didn't, and a Jason Bourne look alike kept making sure that my glass of wine was full at any given time, so I guess it was a good night...

Most of Wednesday was spent in lectures, cursing both the hangover and some of my moronic fellow students who certainly did not make things easier with their constant stupid chatter.

Friday was a good one though. Tarzan and I finally met up for our first date.
My... this guy is my future husband. Seriously, he's perfect. Intelligent, well-spoken, well-traveled, funny, arty, with a great job, and fit-fit-fit!
We laughed our heads off for the five hours we stayed in that Notting Hill pub, until the moment we parted with an awkward kiss on the cheek. I really hope I'm going to get more. Soon.
I headed to Soho, where the Usual Suspects were celebrating Halloween in gay fashion. It was alright I guess. I had one too many shots of sambuca and did my fag-hag duty (Aka: You look amazing with eye-liner dah-ling!).

I was woken up on Saturday morning by a text from Tarzan:
Sorry for the delayed reply, hope your night went well. Looks like it did... :p . Yes, it'd be good to meet up again. Take care.

It only meant one thing; I had sent a text that neither me nor my retarded phone had any recollection of...
Oh dear, I did send a drunken text, didn't I? My phone is currently refusing to give its content. I'm going to hide in the corner now.

His reply?
Haha, don't worry, you didn't write anything bad; it was nice...

-I love you I love you I love you!
Ok, I didn't write that, but it was close.
At the risk of repeating myself, I NEED to see that man again. And buy Italian Neighbour a massive bottle of champagne and a box of chocolates.

Well, if I don't fuck it all up. Because I've been very bad last night.
I went to my friend 'Pusc' 's birthday last night in Angel. It was great fun; nice bar, nice music, great company, alcohol flowing, etc... You know, that kind of night when everyone gets in the seriously-I-love-you-guys mood.
At 2am, while on the night bus back home with the Usual Suspects, my phone rang.
And guess who?
Bloody fucking OG, who has a knack for systematically calling at the wrong moment in my life.

I didn't pick up, and instead chose to complain to the Usual Suspects who kindly backed me up on the this-guy-is-such-a-dick assumption.
And once home I textingly unleashed all my hatred:
Is it just me, but was that a booty call? I'm sorry, but I don't find the fact that you're calling me out of the blue after months, when you happen to be a) in London for a couple of days, b)drunk (hello, it's 2am!) c) horny, exactly flattering.

-Hahahaha, no! But I kinda miss you. Yes I'm in London, but I'm not drunk. If you'd allow me, I'd like to see you again... If you pick up, I can ring you to prove you I'm not drunk?

-I don't care if you're drunk or not. I am. And I'm planning to sleep through the hangover. Now!

-If you'd like me to kiss you goodnight tonight, know I'm here...

-And that wasn't a booty call? Yeah right. Please stop that. What's the bloody point?

-I told you. I miss you... What are you doing on Tuesday night then?

-Revising. I've got exams on Wednesday.

-Wow, exams? You clever, clever thing. Well, is it ok to call you on Tuesday to see when's good for you, my lovely one?

-Fuck off. I'm not lovely. I told you I can't do late Tuesday. And you'd never get anything more than a coffee anyway.

-You really are lovely. And beautiful, and sexy, and smart. I'm really looking forward to that coffee of ours then. I'll call you on Tuesday, will try not to be late. xxxxxxxxx

-How can one sound desperate AND arrogant at the same time? Go back to a club and please pull another drunken girl.

-It's you I want to pull. Talk on Tuesday then! Can't wait! xxx

Now, I need help. Can someone please explain me how the heck that happened? My head is a fuzzy mess right now. I did not agree to see OG, did I? No I did not. I was verbally abusive. That's all there is to it.
How could that arrogant bastard assume I'd be up for it when I expressively told him to fuck off?

I'll tell you how. Both of us know I want to...

SHIT!

2008-10-26T12:05:00.005Z

I don't cry very often. It's been yonks since I last shed a tear.
But I just got off the phone with A. He called to confirm his definite moving to Australia. I would have gone and visited him in Cannes before he moves, but even Cheesy Jet tickets are damn expensive and I really can't afford it right now.

As I said before, A is the closest thing I ever got to a family. He's my blood. The only person on earth who knows me inside out. Even if, nowadays, we only see eachother three times a year at best, at least Cannes was not that far, and just knowing that we could visit eachother "whenever" made things easier.
I'm also sad in a sort of fucked up motherly way, because that means he's "leaving the nest" and will get on with his life. It's going to be virtually impossible to be part of it once he's out there, as much as it will be tough for him to be part of my life.
As long as we've known eachother, every major decision was never taken without consulting the other one. I'm worried that, with the distance, it will no longer be the case. And I need him to be there for me.

Still, I was the one who encouraged him to move, because I knew it would be good for him.
It's what family does. To love is to let go.

If I save 20 pounds a week, I might be able to go to Australia next summer. I'm off to buy a Tesco value pack of rice.

The joys of Trashbook

2008-10-23T00:25:00.004+01:00

Now that Tarzan has decided to get back in touch, he's sending an avalanche of texts.
*The 2nd one, to apologise for late texting because he's phone is "playing up".
*The 3rd one, to say that he'll be getting a new number in a few days, so that we should get in touch through Facebook.
*The 4th and last one to date, to give me his contact details so I can actually find him on Facebook.

I still haven't replied, I'm saving that bit for tomorrow evening, you know, instead of studies-related researches...

But still, there I go, and type his name on Trashbook.
You have 1 friend in common.

Damn, this is getting interesting, who could that be?
I keep going, click on the one friend in common.

TADAM!!! G-the-M!

Great. My next date and my Friend-Turned-One-Night-Stand-Who-Didn't-Want-To-Have-Anything-To-Do-With-Me-Ever-Again-After-That are mates.

Seriously, how many inhabitants in London? 7 millions?
I'm giving up and becoming religious. There must be a superior entity.
One particularly fond of taking the fucking piss.

PS: I just wanted to update you on how well my studies are going. I am spending the next two hours removing all sort of evidence that G-the-M and I ever met on my Facebook page. Talk about productive work!

2008-10-22T20:21:00.004+01:00

This morning's lecturer was replaced by a hungover misogynist, still reeking of booze, and talking out of his arse. The one thing everybody learnt? He was once -and a long time ago, seing the physical state he's now in- a referee.

In order to stop rolling my eyes, I tried to keep my pre-menstrual self occupied.

"Young woman in the green top at the front?
-Yes?
-(to my cleavage) Do you actually think you're making the best of the lecture by sending text messages from one hand and drawing on your notes from the other hand? What was I talking about?
-Oh you were ranting about last week's match, should I really write that down?
-Erm...
-And don't worry about me. I'm a woman. I can multitask."

He left me and my cleavage alone, and I resumed my texting, while extending my general culture to his views on red cards.
On the bright side, with 99% of girls in my group I made about thirty best friends.

Oh, and Tarzan sent a text. Only took him four whole days to write the following literary masterpiece:
Hi Lilith, it's Tarzan- I met you on Saturday at [...] club. Are you free to meet for a coffee/drink next week?

To his credit, he makes up for the lack of originality and sense of humour by a perfect spelling.
I'll reply in a couple of days, since it seems to be the way it's done on this island.

Like I said, I'm pre-menstrual, so I'll fuck right off to spread the hatred somewhere else.

Facebook chat

2008-10-20T23:13:00.005+01:00

Lilith: Still haven't heard from Tarzan. Do you think he's playing The Game? Or simply not interested? Anyway, instead of studying I typed his first name plus his job on facebook and found [link], do you think that's him? Could be.
Cripes, that officialy makes me the worst stalker in West London.

Italian Neighbour: Maybe, can't be so sure. You know, I was drinking. If it's not him, he's very cute on his profile picture anyway. I'll add him as a friend and we'll see...
But... He was a tad pissed you know, and even if he was so obviously into you, he might have lost your number. To cheer you up, my [insert insult here] of a housemate baked a thousand chocolate and peanut cookies when I expressly told her I was on a diet, want some?

Lilith: The most depressing thing? The fact he hasn't called yet makes want to eat chocolate, and I'm allergic to peanuts!
But yes, he must have lost my number. Reality denial will get me everywhere!
Or else, I can always commit peanut-based suicide.

-Wait a minute! You did NOT add him as a friend, did you? You really are making sure you'll die of a slow and painful death. And very soon!
Seriously, what would you say? "Hello I'm the pimp from Saturday night"?

IN: Too late, it's done!

L: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!! You do know how much I hate you, right? I would call a priest now if I were you.

IN: I was thinking of bringing all the cookies at my new job. Someone could die of food poisoning and I'll secure a long-term contract.
You know we discussed the magic of pheromones the other day. The fact that it's always easier to find a shag when you're already shagging for Europe? Well, that old fuck buddy of mine called and I was considering giving it another go, you know, just to get back in the game. But the thing is, he was not exactly good at it.

L: Nice try at changing topic. If you decide to take him up on the offer, make sure it's a Saturday afternoon, just before going out, and not to G.A.Y. But seriously, how bad?

IN: Stop watching your phone! You could really do with more nights out. Grab a boy and run away with his mobile.

L: I am not watching my phone! I'm merely waiting for it to ring, that's all. Anyway, that's nice to know you think I could make a career in the phone stealing business... Will start next time we go out together. Can I use your handbag for provisional storage?

IN: I meant the number... Back to the fuck buddy, he is: not dirty, not big, with no oral.

L: Apparently, Fuck Buddy doesn't even have the basic qualifications to be used as such. Here's how it works in a fuck buddy:
Not dirty and not big only works if there's loads of oral.
No oral and not dirty only works if there's sizeable material.
Not big and no oral? Erm... the point of it?
Fire him!

My phone's not ringing. I assume you don't have any peanut-free chocolate? I'm gonna run to the corner shop, need anything? Apart from fuck buddies of course because I know for a fact Costcutters is out of stock.

IN: No thanks, nothing from corner shop. I'm saving money to buy a New Efficient Fuck Buddy from Ebay. The beauty in it? If you don't like it, there's a refund within the next 7 days!

L: Should really get around opening that Ebay account...

And you were wondering why we're still friends? There.

Love thy neighbours

2008-10-20T22:18:00.003+01:00

Saturday night, Italian Neighbour and I hit the town.
With an ulterior motive, (aka: find a reasonably cute guy each, share a cab in between the four of us, and wish eachother good-night-wink-wink once at our respective doors), of course, because there's only such an amount of time one can go without sex without losing one's sanity.

We did find a nice pair, and followed them around the club discussing potential ways to chat them up, until they grabbed eachothers' arses and exchanged a long and langourous kiss. Well, so much for the infallible gaydar then.

I was cursing my consistent lack of luck over my cranberry juice (having been ill as fuck for the past few days, I still was on antibiotics, hence no alcohol, and before you say it, I know it would have been in my best interest to stay home, but FYI, I did not go out on Friday, so I consider myself half guilty only) when this absolute hunk walked past.
I poked IN on the shoulder:
"Me. Jane. Him. Tarzan!"

I should have never forgotten than IN's flirting and matching techniques were still very much jungle-like. Or at least, primary school courtyard-like.
She pushed me into him, and before I had time to say sorry -and feel sorry for myself- she had already asked him his name, whether he was single or not (he was), said the two of us had something in common then, and buggered off.
Oh dear. Now Lilith, say something. SAY something!

"So... Erm.... Hahaha! God, I wish I was hammered. Rest assure she will not live to see the next sunrise. Anyway! Do you come here often?" (oh-dear-oh-dear-oh-dear)

After the initial embarrassment, it went surprisingly well, I have to say.
We chatted for the best part of four hours, until he invited me to come along to an after party with his friends. By this time, I had realised that not only "Tarzan" was super fit, but also smart, funny, employed, and straight!
Unfortunately (or fortunately, I still don't know), my sober mind had also decided that he could be more than one night stand material, so I politely (and ridiculously) declined and let him beg for my number.

I not sure I like my sober self that much.

When the lights came back on, I said goodbye, and he gave me a bear hug, promising he would "definitely" call.
I grabbed IN who was lap dancing one of the two gay guys in the utopian hope of getting a threesome, and we went home.

No cab. No good-night-wink-wink. No hot sex.
Night buses. And harassing drunken arseholes at the bus stop. And enough time spent in the artic wind to have a relapse.

Tarzan'd better call.

2008-10-16T17:34:00.002+01:00

I don't have time to wash my hair, let alone blogging.

I need a cook, a driver, a nurse, a male prostitute, a cleaner, a secretary, a hair dresser, and someone to catch up on sleep for me.

Oh yeah, and a nice city man unaffected by the credit crunch, to pay for all of that.
Obviously, my hopes are high.

2008-09-29T11:16:00.003+01:00

Friday night Pinot Grigio fueled conversation:

Me: I am screwed. Actually, "not screwed at all" would be the correct statement.

Gay Mike: No one at uni?

Me: Oh yeah! Gay guys and straight girls. I am so lucky.

GM: And what about gay girls?

Me: Actually, and something tells me you will agree, I find that, in the long term, girls somehow lack the right equipment.

GM: True... But you could still have fun with a girl and a strap-on?

Me: Mike, would YOU have sex with a girl and a strap-on?

GM: No!!!

Me: There. We understand eachother.

Questions

2008-09-24T21:26:00.002+01:00

Where are all the cute guys I saw at enrolment?
Seriously, where did they disappear?

And why are there only two "male" specimens in my course? An old, fat balding one, a gay Italian one, and way too many bitchy females, is that a sort of bad joke?

And is that wrong to think one of the lecturers is sort of easy on the eye? And shouldn't I have smiled when he greated me with the "up and down" look I usually only get in bars?
Ok. I know the answer to that one. Bad Lilith, bad!

Well, I guess I will have to attend most of the social events in order to meet more appropriate targets. First one tomorrow.
Too bad...

Bree

2008-09-21T20:28:00.003+01:00

I've got no nails left. Probably no lungs either for that matter. My stomach is torturing me.
And even if I came back home at five this morning after a night at Barfly, by 1pm today, I had done laundry, food shopping for a week, cleaned The House from top to bottom, including the washing up accumulated while I was away (of course), dyied my hair, and baked a cake.

The Housemates were staring open-mouthed, wondering what had hit me, since I'm usually a Sunday couch-potato professional.

Ok, I'm stressed, and I'm doing a Bree Vanderkamp to keep me from being stressed. It doesn't work, but at least it gets things done.

It's ridiculous, I know, millions of people start uni every year. But even if it's something I feel I really want, until quite recently and from as far as I can remember, if people had told me I was going to study I would have rolled on the floor out of laugher.
That's probably the most disturbing bit for me now, and all of this is coming up the day before enrolment. Nice.

I think I'm going to prune the hedge.

2008-09-19T11:11:00.002+01:00

So, I'm back in London.
Lately, the above sentence seems to show up here with a certain recurrence. This being said, it's nice to get out of the city once in a while, just for the pleasure of coming back, and it probably won't happen again anytime soon since I'm starting uni on Monday.

The initial excitement has been replaced by a sort of irrational fear. Of course, the nightmares I've been having recently involving a bunch of eighteen years olds laughing at me and pointing out my (invisible) wrinkles don't help...
Call me vain, but I can't help to recall how fucked up we were back then.

Not that things got that much better since.
See for yourself: I've just accepted to go on a date in a few weeks time with a bloke I met at the Ikea "restaurant" yesterday.
Well, he's charming, literate, well traveled, exactly my type physically speaking, but, there are a few buts.

But number 1: He's French. This is not racism, but seeing my previous experience regarding French guys, you know where my reluctance comes from. Well, I'm not going to blame an entire nation for one arsehole's shitty behaviour, am I?

But number 2: He's a decade older than me. Actually, that's not exactly a problem as far as I'm concerned, but I wonder what he would see in me?

But number 3: He's a divorcee. That's unexplored territory for me (as far as I know...).

But number 4: He's got a son. Wow, now, that's a massive but. The maternal instinct hasn't knocked at my door yet, actually, it hasn't even been in my neighbourhood, and I. simply. do. not. like. children. As I say on a weekly basis; come on guys, use a condom!

So why did I say yes?
I've been thinking about it last night (instead of getting my beauty sleep), and as I said, he's my type, charming, literate, etc...

And maybe I'm a tiny little bit desperate?
Arrogant German cancelled his trip to London, and if you ask me, that's for the best. But, meanwhile, I haven't got any action in erm, a very long time, and it is starting to get to me. A few days ago, as I was passing through the city OG now lives in, I seriously considered calling him "for old times' sake". The only thing that saved me from doing it was his facebook update: OG is in Shangai. Lucky escape.
But I know I won't last long. And I seriously can't start jumping on innocent students from Monday, can I?

Student, moi?

2008-09-11T11:54:00.003+01:00

Long time no blog. I know I should give myself a tap on the hand in the "Bad Lilith, baaaad!" way, but I just haven't had time to do even that.

My laptop has finally given up on life (to be honest, I'm sort of pleased with the outcome, since it had been nagging me for months, refusing to cooperate, and many times has been very close to win a free one-way flight ticket through my window).

I've also been very busy, mainly applying for universities courses via clearing. And against all the odds, it paid off!
I'm starting very soon, and need to:
-fly back home get the originals of my various diplomas for enrolment,
-incidentally visit the family, you know, just to be nice,
-argue for hours on end to convince them that that career choice of mine is a good thing (and as a result of it, get the funds...),
-clean out Ikea of its furniture, since I might be in serious need of things, you know, like a desk for example...

The good news; I get to stay in the Big Smoke for at least two more years and will, if everything goes well, get the exact degree I wished I had for quite a while now.

The bad news; as an undergraduate mature student, I'm going to spend most of my days surrounded by 18 years-old.
I shared that concern with Gay Mike yesterday and he had that incredible answer: "You know when I was eighteen, I still wasn't out, and if I had met you then I'm sure I would have felt completely in love with you."

Ta, darling, knowing that I'll spend two years helping young closet students come out is so comforting...
I've got amazing friends, really.

More about the rest later, will try to update during or after freshers' week. Time to pack.

Bomb

2008-08-26T18:58:00.006+01:00

By the start of the Usual Suspects' party on Saturday night, G-the-M had sent a text apologising for his -lame- joke, and saying he wouldn't be able to make to the party in the end. But see you when I get back, I hope.
Whatever.
Stella texted me too to say she couldn't make it either because not in the country.
Fair enough. It meant much less trouble for me! Especially since I decided it was not worth mentionning the affair with G-the-M to her.

God, the party was fun! No fresh meet, but I didn't feel like a carnivore either.
I was high on redbull to keep me alive after the journey, and it was good to catch up with -almost- everyone. I remain slightly concerned about the fact that the old lunatic pub landlord spent most of the night trying to pimp me up with various newcomers in the neighbourhood though...
I really hope he doesn't think of my weekly drinking sessions in his pub with the Housemates Gay-Mike and Slightly-Retarded-But-Adorable-John as sad. It certainly doesn't feel like it.
On the other hand, it would have been a bit problematic to explain to him that his pub is too dodgy for me to venture in it with any sort of potential sexual partner.

I spent the whole Sunday in bed, catching up on some much needed sleep, and only got up to wach Peep Show with the dozen of remaining survivors from the night before. (I love The House!)

And then, at 9pm, the phone rang.

I stared at the German number on the screen with an open mouth as my brain was working fast. German number=Arrogant German. Pretty simple, really.

Pick up or not pick up? That was the question. Of course I picked up. Of course it was him.

God it was so good to hear his voice. Good doesn' t even start to cover it. And God, I was pissed off he decided to get back in touch. Pissed off doesn't even start to cover it.

We chatted for a good hour, at the end of which he dropped another bomb in the conversation. Clearly, he's such a bomb specialist that he'd have no trouble finding work for Al Queda. Here's that specific bomb's components: He's coming to visit in London in September for three or four days. He didn't even ask if it was ok with me, he's coming, and that's all there is to it.

My feelings now are a mix of extreme fulfillness and anger. I'm too happy for words, but what the fuck happened to the not keeping in touch part? And he's coming to visit, and then what? We'll have to part again. Of course.

So, what's the fucking point? If only I could errase that stupid smile from my face...

Last days

2008-08-26T18:13:00.003+01:00

I spent my last few days in Florence going to school (I am now the proud owner of an Italian diploma recognised by the Italian ministry of education!), visiting around (as you do), and going out at night and talking about life and philosophy and sex with Mexicana and Austrian Goth. Most interesting.

Mostly, Italian guys were at the center of our conversations. My main problem with them is that they tend to be metrosexuals on the edge of gay looking (everyone knows I'm generalising here, ok?), but at the same time incredible machist dickheads. Seriously, what do they think they're going to get from standing at street corners and shouting at everything wearing a skirt: Ciao! Bella! Bellissima! Ho detto ciao!
I've never seen that technique succeeding. Never. So why do they keep doing it?
And it would be fine if it had happened once or twice, but twenty times a day, seriously?
By the third week, Austrian Goth and I had set up a routine which consisted in kneeling in front of the Italian offencer in a prayer mimic and telling him in his language: Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for telling me I'm beautiful. I feel so flattered to be worth of your attention. You really made my day, thank you!
Fat chance, mainly, they didn't get sarcasm. And my knees are still bruised. But we still got a few good laughs from their puzzled faces.

That last week was good. But, truth to be told, it felt a bit weird being there without Arrogant German. I forbid myself to think about it too much and G-the-M's outing sort of kept my mind busy.

By the end of my stay, I couldn't wait to be back in London. We spent our last Friday night at an outside bar next to the river and said our goodbyes after a few hours of dancing.
Good luck with your life and take care. Maybe we'll see eachother in a few decades.

This is not helping to keep my cynicism levels relatively low. Each time, something was screaming in my head: people come and people go, and what's the fucking point of everything with them in between?
Enough.

I came back to my Florence flat, packed, and headed to the aiport way before the sun rose on Saturday morning.
The journey back to London was a nightmare. Bus delays, train delays, flight delays. You name it. Even in Stansted the suitcases were delayed and the passengers had to wait for them a good hour and a half after we landed.

But exhaustion, annoyance, irritation, nostalgy, and all those unpleasant feelings flew away as soon as I set foot in London. Home. Sweet polluted home! It felt so fucking good...

Karma

2008-08-21T16:08:00.008+01:00

Allora, yes, Monday night was epic.
I was around at Austrian Goth's flat, getting ready to go out, when I got a facebook message from G-the-M:

"I am out and proud. Sorry girl, I am just drunk at home being honest about my sexuality for once"

My first though was something like what the frigging fuck?
I didn't gratify it with any kind of answer. If it was a joke, then it was NOT funny (but makes the probable drama of this coming Saturday's party less erm, dramatic), if it was not a joke, then, what can I say?
I just know for a fact that at least he's not as gay as my housemate Mike for example, who is erm, unable to lift it with girls. This didn't seem to be a problem with G-the-M.

Sure, a few days later I am now able to look at it in a more rational way, but truth to be told, I became nuts the moment I got the message, and dragged Austrian Goth out immediately in order to get truly and wonderfully plastered.

Of course, three beers and a shot of sambuca in, as I was cursing out loud in every possible language my eternal lack of luck, an Italian pidgeon decided it was the appropriate moment to take a shit. All over me.

Now, try to go and wash your hair in the disgusting toilet sink of a dodgy Italian bar. So much fun.
After such an experience, I could only go back to the bar and tell my life story to the cute bartender who from then on kept the -free- drinks coming.

I'm not sure what happened next. I vaguely recall smoking pot with Austrian Goth and Cute Bartender after he finished his shift. Then?
I'm not sure. I must have walked home somehow.
One thing is sure, both Austrian Goth and I were still pissed in class on Tuesday morning. Mamma Mia!

There's only one conclusion to that story; I must have been very mean to pidgeons in a past life.

2008-08-19T16:03:00.002+01:00

If, after a whole day holding my head in two hands at school because of the Hungover of the Century (yes, him again!), I was feeling a bit better, I'd have a lot to tell about last night, but right now the only words I am capable to put together are:

I. need. my. bed. Ho bisogno del mio letto. Ciao

2008-08-17T16:59:00.003+01:00

After a wander in the ruins of Fiesole, I climbed further up the hill all the way to the convent of San Francesco. From there, whole Firenze was spreading itself in the valley down below, for my eyes only, it seemed, because for once, I was the only visitor around. How nice.

I then took the bus back to the city center, paid the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo a visit, before meeting up with Spanish Geek at the Signoria's square to say our goodbyes.
Sharing loads of people you're never going to see again is becoming a tad exhausting, but she left on the promise she'd come and visit in London. We'll see.

The plan for Saturday night was to go for a good dancing session at that club Arrogant German and I were supposed to go to.
It didn't happen due to a certain lack of enthusiasm from the creek; Austrian Goth had her period, Mexicana had blisters from wearing high heels.
Another reason to miss the Usual Suspects. All of them being males, I know for a fact they would never come up with that kind of excuses not to go out.

But, as it was my last Saturday night in Florence, I took myself out nevertheless, and spent the night getting hammered with three Italian guys I met in an outside bar next to the river. The only problem was, they were already out of their faces when I met them and I ended up ditching them and going home when they started to take their clothes off...
...to dive in the very-green-and-very-muddy Arno. Ewrg.
I just hope I won't read stories of drowned bodies found in the river in the newspapers tomorrow at school.

This morning, I was woken up really early by loads of people screaming outside my window.
After verification, it was "just" a dozen of old half-deaf Italians waiting to go to the mass together, at the bus stop across the road. Oh Dio mio!

I decided to make the most of the day, had enough coffee to wake up the whole Medici dynasty from the the deads and went visiting "a bit".
A bit, well, that included the Piazza San Marco, the Santissima Annunziata church, the church of Santa Croce with its museum and MichelAngelo's tumb, the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, some long but good bargaining on leather bags at the market of San Lorenzo, and the visit of the Cappelle Medicee which made even more of an impression on little-sensitive-me than it did when I first came five years ago.

I've always reacted very strongly to art in all its classical forms (paintings, sculptures, and music), especially to Renaissance masterpieces, but this time, I had to sit down for a good fifteen minutes before being able to breathe properly again.
I am not goin to descirbe what I saw, there's no words. You should go and see by yourself.
Let's just say that, to me, Michelangelo will stay one of the greatest men who ever lived.

I was supposed to go straight after my visits to Austrian Goth and Mexicana's flat for beers and gossip, but a break in the air-conditionned internet cafe seemed like a good idea.

Tomorrow, new start of the week at the school. I wonder what the new people will be like.
As long as I don't end up paired with a hysterical Polish priest like last week, everything should be fine.

Fiesole

2008-08-17T16:32:00.004+01:00

Saturday 16th of August, 12:25, Fiesole

Note to self about Thursday night: Never walk in an internet cafe again with three very strong Mai Tais in your bloodstream...
It is true I was sad, still am a little bit, but I'm confident I'll survive.

I am now sat in the shadow of an olive tree on the Etruscan archeologic site of Fiesole, that small village overhanging Florence, where at last I found a bit of peace and quiet.
It is true I'm having a great time in between the classes, the infinite amount of Renaissance art available (the Galleria Palatina and the Uffici on their own are worth the journey from London) and the nights out spent drinking and talking international bullshit with Mexicana, Austrian Goth, Spanish geek, and usually a handful of Italian guys found on the streets, but I find it hard to cope with the hordes of tourists, and was starting to suffocate due to a lack of me-time.

Here, it's perfect. It's just me, the ruins, and the Toscan hills.
And my inner Japanes feels more than contented with all the photographic opportunities.

I know I shouldn't be complaining, but the truth is, I am starting to miss London a little bit. Especially the Usual Suspects, and the endless possibilities when it comes to meeting new people and discovering new places.
Florence is a bit too small for me I think, and I hate feeling like a sheep and having to follow the groups of sweaty American tourists in the queue to famous monuments. The problem is, I would never be able to sleep again if I didn't visit as many of those as humanly possible during my stay.
This, and I could kill for a breath of air under 30 degrees.

Londonners, be aware, I'm coming back in a week!

Little sad moment

2008-08-14T20:29:00.005+01:00

Often, I say:
People come in your life then they go. Then new people will come and they will go too. One can never get used to it, but one has to accept it.
Because sometimes nothing can be done about it.

It is all so true. Especially when, like me, you have a nomad lifestyle.
And yet there I am, crying in the far corner of the internet cafe, hiding in between the hard disks and the earphones, Placebo at full blast.

Arrogant German left and maybe it's something else inconsciously coming up at the same occasion, but I feel crushed.

No. No. Before you ask, NO. Nothing happened.
Nothing, or everything. What can I say, I've spent the best part of two weeks, day and night, with someone whose sole presence made me, wholly, entirely, unconditionally happy.

Infatuated? Of course.
Call me the biggest drama queen in Italy.
Call me stupid.
But we had the wow-effect connexion.

He was not fuck buddy material. And his studying in Germany made him no boyfriend material either.

We discussed it after one too many cocktails and agreed any "happening" of any sort would only make things harder when parting.
We also agreed not to keep in touch.
The faster you forget, the better, right?

So far the first few hours have been terrible. I just wish I could cuddle up on my London futon with a blanket and a big joint. I want to be alone.

I'm going for a walk around the deserted streets of Florence.

Florentine Friday night

2008-08-11T16:21:00.005+01:00

Saturday, 9th of August, 3pm

I woke up half an hour ago, as dehydrated as if I had been running across the Sahara.
Two liters of Italian coffee and a cold shower later, I am still trying to work out exactly what's going on.

Yesterday, after class and the visit of the Capella dei Medici, I went to the Germans/Austrians' flat in central Florence for Trinks.

Of course, Arrogant German was there, and the two of us spent hours on end arguing about international politics in Italienglish. Clearly, the boy has brains.
And there's no better foreplay for me than a witty challenging conversation.
Add to this a deep voice and a perfect body, and I am smitten.
I was smitten.

When the temperature eventually went under 30 degrees, the seven of us grabbed a handful of Heineken and went to sit down on the benches of the Piazza Santa Croce.
I wish I could do that more often in London; sit outside with a drink and a couple of fags without shivering after three minutes, but, from what I heard from the Usual Suspects, it is not bound to happen anytime soon in (now cold and rainy) London.
That is, unless there is some serious acceleration in the global warming process. I can't wait.

Heinekens downed, we decided to follow the young dressed-up crowd to a so-called "club" close by.
God. It was terrific. And not in a good way; stupidly trashed Amrican tourists profusely sweating on five years old commercial music.
Little precision at the risk of sounding like a pure snob: I am NOT a tourist, but would rather call myself a traveller, and I'd much prefer hand in local places with locals than having to bear the
"OHMYGOD! And then, Brandon pulled his pants down in the middle of the street, and ohmygod we were all so stoned after that joint and it was soooooo funny!
-Oh my actual God! I can't believe it! It must have been amaaaaazing!"
type of conversation in the smoking area.

After five minutes of this, I was seriously considering suicide. So was the rest of the rest the -mainly geeky- group.
Even after filling our stomachs up with Sambuca in a failed attempt to get in the mood. One after the other, everyone made his way home, leaving only Arrogant German and I, clearly still there because of eachother.
So much for playing it cool.

I eventually shared my desperation with the bouncer who sent us to that other club across town. Florentine night public transports being unreliable at the best, virtually inexistant at the worst, the two of us started that forty minutes long walk along the Arno river.
Maybe it was the undeniable romanticism of the situation, but something switched in Arrogant German, and he went into full courtship mode, insisting in offering his arm for the whole way, and helping me whenever we had to triumph over a couple of steps.
I have to admit I found it embarrasingly nice.

We arrived at the club at three, only to be told it would be closing at four. We agreed not to pay the thriteen euros for such a short time, and spent the remaining hour salsa dancing on the car park.

Bring on the cheesiness! Hmm... I loved it!
By this point I was dying for him to push me against the wall and take me there and then.
Maybe i'm not such a lady after all.
Oh wait, I think I knew that already.

Unfortuanately, the dancing stayed what it was, only dancing.
At four, he offered his arm again and we started the long way back.
Half way, in between the Ponte Vecchio and the Ponte alle Grazie, we sat on the low wall, feet hanging above the water, and resumed the our conversation about European cultural differences (pure hotness if you ask me!) before moving to more personal subjects.

That's when he dropped the bomb:
"You know I'm only twenty and...
-WHAT? Erm, I mean, I thought you were older but who cares anyway!"

Me and my big, huge, enourmous, woolly mammoth sized mouth.
On the other end you couldn't blame my surprise; he doesn't look a day younger than twenty five, and certainly doesn't behave like a piss-head teenager.
I guess it wouldn't have mattered if my reaction had beem a bit more, erm, suttle.

But my inability to shut the fuck up probably discouraged him, and, even if we stayed there talking until seven, long after the sun rose, absolutely nothing more than hands holding happened.

Maybe I am just a seriously retarded romantic, but I am very curious to see what Monday morning will have in store for us.

Situation

2008-08-08T16:14:00.005+01:00

Shit-shit-shit-shit.
Me and my propensity to get myself in the most awkward situations!

Explanation:
On the day of my return to London, the Housemates and I are throwing one of our legendary parties. This time is meant to be so big that, in an attempt to salvage The House, we actually rented our local pub next door, with Dj etc.
So far so good.

The first problem is, it is going to be the first day I'll have the opportunity to see Stella since the whole G-the-M thinggy. I am still pondering weather or not she should be informed of what happened between G-the-M and me. Since I've been totally unable to make up my mind, I've asked around for advice but the diversity of the answers was such that it left me even more confused if possible.

The second, and bigger, problem is that, probably in a moment of high intoxication, I invited G-the-M too. And he very kindly sent me a message today to confirm his presence.

So there we'll be in two weeks time, three "friends" for a big "friendly" catch up!
I might need to bring boxing gloves, you never know.

Why do I keep doing that to myself, seriously, WHY?
Anyone out there can offer any kind of advice?

Some more travelling

2008-08-07T15:53:00.006+01:00

As I am now abroad, I'll try to update this whenever possible. Chances are it will be copied from rushed notes, hence a bit erratic in the dates.

Sunday 3rd of August, 3:32 am

I am now on the coach to Stansted (sounds vaguely familiar, in fact, so familiar that once in the terminal, I'll be able to go straight to the toilets with my eyes closed).
On the coach, miraculously enough, since I am not quite sure how I got here in the first place.

Friday night was every bit as fun as I thought it would be; major piss up with the Usual Suspects around the pubs of Liverpool Street, followed by six hours of hardcore up and down jumping on DJ Fresh at fabric.
I went to bed at 8 on Saturday morning (don't you love taking the tube in the wee hours with six junkies in your carriage to keep you entertained, and a couple of liters of vomit splattered on the floor to remind you that at least your sense of smell is still intact?) and woke up at 2pm, quite confused.

I packed, coloured my hair, made bloody marys with the Housemates, and drank them on the balcony, enjoying the rare warm evening.
The original plan was trying to stay awake until 3 by watching baby kangaroos on youtube, or anything equally random. The thing with bloody marys, is that they always get me inspired.
I knocked at Italian Neighbour's door, and 20 minutes later, we were downing sambucas at the Notting Hill Arts Club. Funk night, yes please!
We danced with what we thought were two gay guys.
It looks like I'll have to revise my claim to fineliest tuned gaydar in London since they actually became way too interested for gay people.

They were fun nethertheless. In any case, we both had true excuses for once; her regular shag-buddy was coming to pick her up, and I had to go to the airport.

Drunkennes was in the air by 2am when we left the club, but I still managed to make it home, swap high heels for comfy shoes, and finish the stach of weed hanging in my room ( since I knew that, with the "people traffic" in The House, it so wouldn't remain there, unsmoked for a whole three weeks.

Seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, but obviously it wasn't since next thing I knew, I had lost - yes lost!- the coach stop in Marble Arch, and spent a whole forty minutes looking for it up and down oxford Street with a suitcase twice my size. Hmm...

2:05pm, some Italian train, local time

The staf in Stansted decided I looked very much like a terrorist and took a very long fifteen minutes to empty my handbag in full view of everyone, handbag which, incidentally, had just been stuffed with random things from my overweight suitcase at the check-in desk. By random things, I mean all my lacy underwear which has been making so many public appearances recently it needs an agent.

My destination was Florence, where I will be starting a three weeks course tomorrow, but (oh, the joys of flying Ryanair!) I landed close to Pisa and decided to stop there for a few hours to see the famous slanting tower.
It is still there. Well, if it wasn't, you would have heard about it I guess.

Thursday 7th of August 7:30pm, Firenze

So, I am well settled down in Florence. My flat is a bit, erm, sweaty (Florence, because of its geographic situation, is supposedly the hottest city in Italy and I am on the fith floor with a massive window facing South) but very cosy. Not that I've spent more than the strictly necesary time to sleep there so far.

I share it with a Japanese piano teacher with whom communication is virtually impossible, so we smile at eachother whenever we're in the same room.
Fortunately, people on the course are way more fun.

There's the Mexican girl who with I get on like fire. She was supposed to go back to Mexico about a month ago but decided to stay a bit longer because the guy from the internet cafe she's sleeping with happens to have -her words, not mine- the biggest one in the world. No, you don't need more details.

There is the Spanish Geek who doesn't drink but shares my passions for Michel Angelo, Rafael, Puccini and tall Italian guys.

There is the Austrian girl who always wears funky tights and must be dying in the heat but loves as much as I do the live music scene.

There is the pure Hungarian Hunk who unfortunately doesn't speak anything but Hungarian. Actually, who cares, every girl on the course, teachers included is actually much more interested in his potential body language.

And there's also the very arrogant German student whom I can't help but provoke. Damn, I love arrogant guys way too much for my own good.
And I know for a fact that they love being provoked. I'm telling you, it works everytime.
Actually, I've already been asked for a drink tomorrow after the classes.
I said I wasn't sure. Which is true. He's attractive enough, but... Well, I don't know. But there's plenty of time to decide.

Well, sort of, especially since my timetable has been pretty busy since Monday; classes from 9am to 4pm, usually followed by a visit either with Mexicana, Austrian Tights and Spanish Geek, either on my own.
So far, culture wise, I've walked through the beautiful residential area on the hills, the South of the Arno and the Boboli Gardens, visited the Academia museum, the Uffici Gallery and the Museo Nazionale, until 10pm, closing time.
Each time it was followed by dinner/drinks with a small roup of students or a few randoms Mexicana and I met on the street.

No, I don't have time to sleep, but I am fucking loving this!
Actually, I have to go, I'm going for drinks in fifteen minutes. I'll raise my glass to Michel Angelo!

Text

2008-08-01T16:36:00.004+01:00

Hello my lovely one!
It was so good to see you last week...
I'm in [...] until next Thursday. Will you be around?
If not, I would like to take you out for drinks next week on my return and maybe we can start again!?!
kinda miss you...
xxxxxx

Of course it comes from OG. Seriously, who else?

Thank God I spent last night stone-talking to another of the Schmokin Creek's (sexy) guests until 5am. Meaning I'm too dazed and confused right now to formulate an appropriate answer.

Thank God I won't be "around", neither in London next week. Because I know I would have jumped on the opportunity, quite literally.
Bugger. I should stop caring since it is NOT. HAPPENING. Apart from the fact that we're never in the same country, just for health and safety reasons.

I need to get my brain back together instead, do some packing, get ready, meet the Usual Suspects for drinks, and go to Fabric with Sexy Guest.
Sounds like a good plan.

Timing

2008-07-31T11:02:00.003+01:00

Tell me about the female hormones! I can't stress enough how much I hate them. I guess it's because they are one thing I cannot control.

Two days of phone-watching finally paid off, when G-the-M called to invite me to a gig yesterday night. And obviously, at that moment, I was bent in two on my futon, popping ibuprofen by the bucket and cursing period cramps. I had to explain that I would have luuuuuuuved to come but wasn't feeling very well at the best. God loves me, clearly.

It also means I'll be "in that state" until Saturday, day I'm leaving to Italy for three weeks. Perfect. Great timing.
I won't see G-the-M until he will have had loads of time and many opportunities to *catch up* with Stella. Call me a paranoiac, but that freaks me out.

My mood is just too great for more blogging today. I'm gonna go and kill a few fellows on the street instead.

Fun

2008-07-29T09:40:00.000+01:00

On with the catching up.

A week ago, on Monday, G-the-M and yours truly, spent the whole day texting eachother.
The furious texting ended late afternoon with a "Really hope to see you tonight at That Bar... xxx" from his part.

I didn't reply. But first thing that morning, I had invited my crazy Italian neighbour (whom I love to bits, though not in that way, even if she loves girls too) to come with me , and my outfit was ready. Sometimes it's good to play a little games.

All in my own relashionship/exes torments for the past few months, I had forgotten how exciting the first arrangements can be.
Very.

We showed up late. Very late, (hell, Italian Neighbour is not Italian for nothing!) but still in time to see G-the-M play.
As I.N. didn't fail to not-so-discreetly notice (eg: screemed at the top of her lungs) when I showed him who was G-the-M: Yummy!

Yup, he is yummy. I decided to ignore the fact that Stella and I's friendship is momentarily non-existant for that reason and to go for it.

Also because drunk I.N. was doing anything in her power to go for it too. Or for me, for that matter. Actually, she mentionned something about sharing. The night at That Bar was all a bit confusing, and erm, slightly awkward too. And as lovely as she is, she didn't make things easier.

Especially when she grabbed G-the-M by the arm and told him in front of everyone (eg: me):
"So, as a musician, you must be able to do wonderful things with your fingers and your mouth, right? wink-wink!"
I pulled her back and gave that look to make her shut up, but she immediately grabbed my ass in full view of everyone (eg: G-the-M), caught G-the-M's hand while I jumped up and told him that he should touch my ass too because I had a great one!

Seriously, how do you get out of this kind of conversation without alcohol? Laugh?

She had a job interview the next morning and had to leave early. Thank God for that! Ok, I'm such a bad friend, but your have to admit that my friends are a tad bizarre...

As soon as she was out of the way, though, it became obvious that "it" was going to happen.
We went out for a cigarette together, crammed on a little bench, not knowing what to say anymore.
You know when you pick up that little something in the other's eyes, and you just know what's going to happen? That.

He took my hand and dragged me back inside for a dance. I followed, making horrendous faces to myself as images of Stella kept popping in my mind. An onlooker would have found it rather, erm, inappropriate. And I guess it was.

But when I felt his hands on me, his body against mine, the whole Stella problem was immediately filed in the Will-think-about-it-later section at the very back of my brain. Carpe Diem, right?

We kissed and danced and kissed some more until the bouncer kindly informed us that he had been trying to close the place down for ten minutes already, and that we were the only two people letf in there...

As we simply couldn't end the night then, we jumped into a cab and went back to his place. You know I cannot possibly say no!

So yes, my "friend" G-the-M and I had sex.
Disturbing enough.
But the most disturbing thing was that we did not only have sex. We had amazing, wondrous, earth-shattering sex. Is that even supposed to happen? On the very first time?
I never ever came on the first time with anyone else before. So what was that about?

As he was away from London most of last week, we communicated by text messages, first making sure we were "still cool".
Whatever that means, apparently we are, and are supposed to meet up at some point this week (when he calls).

Clearly, my hormones have now taken over, and I can't help but obsess.
Now if you'd please excuse me, I have to go; I have some serious phone-watching to do.

The joys of unexpectedness 2

2008-07-23T13:42:00.003+01:00

I was heading to my friend Tam's formal birthday party in a Soho bar.
I don't even remember my tube journey in the evening dress/very high heels combo. Must have been quite an interesting sight...

I had promised Tam I would be there at 9ish. Instead, I walked in at 11pm, and completely out of my face. I am such a reliable friend.
Trying not to make a complete fool of myself in a crowd of 40 plus, I went to the first friendly face, Mike.
Whose face changed when he saw me:
- Lilith! Don't turn around-don't turn around-don't turn around.
- Why? Who's here?
- Your dear friend OG. Right behind you. Here. Have my shot of vodka!
- (gulp) Bugger. Shit. Fuck. I mean, thanks Mike! Erm, I'll see you around, I need to... Erm, move!

I made a bee line to the bar, downed a mojito, and spent the next half hour in the smoking area outside, telling the bouncer all about my problem.

I eventually decided to follow his advice, by behaving like the adult one. I walked back inside, head held high, and as soon as he was on his own, to OG and initiated polite conversation.
I was terrified. It was pretty hard to see OG in the flesh again. And yes, he is still VERY good-looking. But it didn't go too badly. I think. I was so drunk I really can't be sure, adn I kept drinking the wine he was pouring me.
Weather, summer plans, career plans, etc... It was all very casual.

Until he asked me out for "drinks at some point next week".
That's when Masochist Lilith and Responsible Lilith had a very long argument in my head.
Masochist Lilith: Go for it! Look at him, he's so hot!
Responsible Lilith: Yes, and he knows it. And I'm not falling for that again!
ML: Come on, what's just a drink?
RL: Like just a drink is going to happen...
ML: See, you're dying to fuck him again, and so is the rest of the London female population!
RL: Maybe, but I'm not going to do the same mistakes again!

OG waited, looking quite puzzled while the inside debate was taking place, for a good five minutes.
In the end, Responsible Lilith took over, and I am glad to say I politely declined.
I politely declined again when he asked me if I could do some translation work for him too, and politely declined again when he offered to drive me home.
Wow, I'm self impressed. Maybe I'm learning after all.

There's still some serious learning to do in the drinking department though, because, even if I pulled an OK face whole night, as soon as I was in Tam's car on the way back to The House where the official after-party was taking place, I passed out. And had to be carried to bed. Or so I've been told.

And the hangover on Sunday was priceless.
I spent the whole day wanting to die, but ordering pizzas and watching DVDs with survivors from the night before instead.

Of course, OG filled my Facebook inbox with "messages" ranging between ";))))" and "xxxxxx", to which I didn't bother replying. I'm sorry, but even if it does not always show here, I like proper sentences.
And I guess the good thing is, I am now able to use my brain before my hormones.

Well... Sometimes only.
I need another (long) post for that.

The joys of unexpectedness 1

2008-07-22T21:15:00.003+01:00

I did well to stock up on some pure no string attached fun in Cannes, because, even if I was reluctant to come back to rainy London, I certainly didn't know what a mess my first week-end back here was going to be.

First of all, on Thursday night, French Guy called me.
That's right, after two months of complete silence he could have been dead for all I knew (wouldn't have it been for Facebook), HE called me with the big news.
No, he didn't want to get back with me, he didn't want to apologise either, he merely wanted to explain me "why we didn't work out".

So, WHY?
You'll never guess in a million years.
This is actually so unbelievable it would be funny if it wasn't so revolting:
We didn't work out because I was not wife material, and while we were still together, he's met a girl who is just like me except that her, she is wife material, and they're getting engaged.

WHAT THE FUCKING TRIPLE FUCK??????
The man is 23, commitment phobe, and my teenage cousin is ten times more mature than him, for fuck's sake!

My answer?
It looks like someone is having a hell of a madonna/whore complex. Wish luck to your fiancee from me, she's already been cheated on, and getting engaged to a moral-less piece of shit. Bless her!

Obviously, even if I was more infuriated than anything else, I didn't take it too well, didn't sleep that night, and had to call Pusc over on Friday morning while I was having a panic attack over my morning coffee.
I eventually calmed down over bloody marys, a four cheeses pizza and Hot Fuzz.

But the big mess doesn't stop there. Far from it.

G-the-Musician-from-That-Bar and I had planned "drinks" on Saturday afternoon. The constant phone and internet flirting was becoming unbearable, (and Stella still hasn't got back to me and is not in London until the end of August anyway) so I decided to ditch my conscience and go through with it.

We hadn't seen eachother in about three weeks, but had been in touch every single day. No pressure at all. Yeah, right.
And what do two people under pressure do when they meet at the pub?
They get pissed as quick as they can.
So we did. From 4pm. To 10pm.

You said it. Ouch.
I remember having a great (spinning) time. G-the-M really is a very smart and witty guy. And that turns me on! As for our six hour long conversation, well, let's say I keep getting flashbacks.

At 10pm, I managed to say what I thought was a dignified and friendly bye, stumbled back home with a kebab, put on an evening dress, and headed out again.
The rest tomorrow. I really have some sleep to catch up on...

Can you Cannes Cannes Cannes?

2008-07-22T20:31:00.005+01:00

I came back from Cannes on Wednesday. It was every bit as amazing as I thought it would be, and I am glad to say I did everything on my to do list. A bit more, actually...

Let's see;

I did spend most of my days on the beach, with a lunch break either with A and friends, the henna tattoo guy who kept buying me coffee, the girl from the ice-cream stall (friend of A's I got on very well with from my stay in January) and even, on the last day, in a very chic hotel restaurant with a hot Brazilian boy I met "sur la Croisette".

I did get a great tan, until I got sunburnt and all my skin started peeling off.

I did get high. Even if high doesn't start to cover it since, under the pretext of my being on holidays, I was at a minimum of six joints a day.

I did swim in the sea for two hours a day, and amazingly, (seeing my constant state,) didn't drown.

I did go to a rave on the beach. One word: Wow! (And came back with enough sand on myself to open a new beach in A's flat.)

I did attend the opening of that brilliant club with an even more brilliant line up inside the festival hall, full of v.e.r.y b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l people, to the point I had to stop myself from drooling over half the clubbers.

And yes, I did have sex and won 50 Euros!
No, I didn't go into cheap prostitution. It's just that A, his creek and myself set a bet: the first one to get laid would get 10 Euros from all the others.
I know, I know. Lame. But what else are you supposed to do on holidays where no rules apply? (And that bought me a carton of duty free cigarettes!)

Now, what happened.

On Saturday night, A, Ice-Cream Girl and I went back to that same club. As you do when you're a bit tipsy and in a crowd of 2000 people, Ice-Cream Girl and I lost A. We carried on dancing nethertheless, and somehow ended up invited at a VIP table by four French blokes. As they were so obviously into flashing their money -which disturbingly reminded me of French Guy- we accepted.
After all, what was wrong with Moet et Chandon?

What was wrong with it, actually, was that, five bottles later, the four guys started to annoyingly try to make us make out in front of them. One of them offered to pay us (quite a lot) for that. That was the final straw.
As much out of provocation as because I've been in lust with Ice-Cream Girl ever since I met her (she looks like Scarlett Johansson, in better), I told them it was something I was considering indeed, but that I would rather do because I felt like it than to please a bunch of pricks who use their father's wallet as a penis substitute.
And on a "have a good wank guys!", she grabbed me by the arm and we headed back to the dance floor.

Where we made out after half a song, obviously...
... and finished in the ladies'! Erm, no pun intended.

Not classy, but damn, it was great.
We left the club and finished the night sharing a joint and talking bullshit on the beach watching the sun rise. Awww...

The second "event" was on Tuesday, my last full day in heaven.
I was leaving the beach to go and get my free coffee with the henna tattoo bloke, when I was stopped by the nicest pulling line so far:
"Excuse me, sorry to disturb, but I couldn't help noticing you, and I had to make a move before you left. Would you terribly mind if I invited you to join me for lunch tomorrow?"

Maybe I was a bit too hot from the sun burns, but when I actually saw what he looked like (tanned, tall, slim but nicely toned, dark hair not too short but not too long, full lips, and dark green eyes, ok, perfect!), the only thing I wanted to say was "Fuck the lunch, fuck me now!". But I managed to make my hormones shut up and explained him instead that I would have greatly appreciated it, but was leaving the next morning.

After a bit of embarrassment from both parts, we finally decided to go for lunch now and then.
Lunch, then coffee, then martinis in his hotel lobby, and then, of course, back to his room. Awww... encore!

So yes, thanks, I did enjoy my holiday.

List of the (dull) pulling lines served on the beach

2008-07-11T16:44:00.003+01:00

-What are you reading? The fact that I'm reading means I am not willing to talk to you.

-Do you have the time? No, I don't have a watch, don't have a phone with me, do you wish to remind me that my holidays will end eventually?

-Do you have a light/cigarette? Dull, dull dull.

-Do you come here often? No comment.

The more original: -Excuse me, but I've been asked to take a picture of the most beautiful girl on the beach, and that can only be you... No one takes a picture of me with that much skin on display while sweating like a pig, thanks!

The worse: -I'm sorry I kicked you in the head with my football, but your beauty distracted me. Go back play with your balls you moron!

And the more interesting offer so far: -I can help you find Jesus if you want, he'll help you break free from the dangers of sex and drugs. How the hell do you know me?

Where beautiful people go to do dirty things...

2008-07-07T12:54:00.002+01:00

You would agree that after a holiday which felt like everything but a holiday, the last thing I could do was refusing a free (!) eight days in Cannes.

I'm visiting my best friend A. He payed for my plane tickets since it was his turn to come and visit me.
Eight days in a flat with balcony in the sun, a five minutes walk from the beaches and the bars, and illimited access to hash, I really can't complain, can I? Ok, I am litteraly jumping up and down out of excitement and spent the last three days unable to think about anything else.

My programme?
Day: BEACH. On my own with a good book and my new bikini. I am loving the idea. I am confident it will be a great opportunity to make new friends. Especially, hot, tanned, male friends looking for a bit of fun...

Night: PARTIES. From weed parties on the beach with a couple of friends and a guitar to electro parties on the beach, with, in between, a few cocktails in one of the hot bars I visited in January, and a few clubs.

(Life is so hard, isn't it?)

In my suitcase?
-bikini, bikini, bikini
-sun-screen
-Nivea tanning lotion (because if it's ok to rock the white'n red look in London, I'm guessing that on the riviera, I'm more likely to be seen as a cross between a polar bear and a lobster, aka: not. sexy.)
-water-proof make-up
-camera
-little nothing dresses
-heels
-flip-flops
-A's favourite digestives he can't find in France
-condoms
Done!

I'm going to take a nap now, go to That Bar at 8pm, come back home before 3am to grab my bag and head to the airport. Yes, my flight is unfortunately at 6am tomorrow, but I do think it's a small price to pay!

2008-07-05T18:45:00.005+01:00

I've just spent not such a great week on a windy island with parents who now work full time for the How To Destroy What's Left Of Your Daughter's Self Esteem company. And I got sunburnt. Not that walking around red enough to make a well-cooked lobster blush was a problem in itself, because probably no more than eight persons had the great opportunity to admire my redness, on that island. Five of them were at least eighty years old, and the rest were fishermen. My idea of a perfect break. Riiiigh.

Of course, feeling somewhat cast away, I spent my long nights of insomnia on Facebook, it being for some random reason the only website I can access from my phone.
And as Facebook should be renamed Foolsbook, what did I do?
Flirt outrageously with G (he started it first!!!), and check French Guys's page.
Foolsbook indeed.
It gave me the perfect opportunity to feel even worse about myself:
French Guy is no longer listed as single. Enough said.
Or maybe not.
What about pictures of him and a surgically enhanced blonde kissing in a jacuzzi on holidays in Capri?
And what about the comment one of his dickhead friends left about said pictures?
Oh... So, that's the famous Lilith... Well done mate! Keep it up! (HAHAHA!)

Fucking brilliant if you ask.
I then swore I would never ever check his page ever again, but that's a lie. I keep doing it twice a day.

Anger will fade away. Eventually. But when???

Obviously, yesterday afternoon, my flight back was delayed (Oh I sooo love travelling in the summer), and I went straight from the airport, to the pub with my suitcase, to meet with the Usual Suspects. I am a class act all the way!

They all welcomed me with apologetic faces, but as I already knew this wasn't meant to be the best week of my life, I asked what was wrong.
Not that much actually, but they somehow got the date of my return to London wrong and had booked tickets for a concert and its after party today without me. Oh well.

I am pondering whether or not I am going to go out tonight. The Usual Suspects are busy, obviously. I haven't heard back from Stella, whom I know is working until late, but whom I suspect might be slightly irritated by G and I's constant Facebook chatter. And everyone else is away in the sun.

I am going to order a curry, watch some more Peep Show, and see who calls...
Wow. That's exciting.

Underwear

2008-06-27T13:28:00.003+01:00

Great. That is just brilliant.
It's been three days now. I can't leave the house anymore without having five men in bright yellow jackets yelling obscene things at me.

Why? Just because my underwear, probably trying to recover its freedom, managed to escape my balcony where, hidden from the rest of the world, it was drying. With a little help from the wind, that traitor, all my panties did a magnificent gliding and landed in the middle of the construction site down my road.

I had to go and pick them up, and even if I had the presence of mind to put sunglasses and a hat on, the builders now recognise me. And now they know all about my passion for lacy things and don't miss an opportunity to comment on it, I can't even go out during day time to buy clothes pegs.
That is just brilliant.

Hopefully, they'll forget about it sooner or later. Especially since I'm leaving London tomorrow to visit the family for a few days.

Not before a major night out tonight, that is.
At the risk of sounding somewhat desperate, I really hope there will be something in store for me. It's been a whole six weeks since I last got any proper action. (Well there was the foot thingy with Mark, but that SO doesn't count as proper action, does it?)
And yes, I am about to lose my mind. I even caught myself checking out the builders. Of course, with my luck, they're all old, fat and bald.

I am just looking for someone not old, no fat, not bald, to see my underwear in a more normal environment (eg. on a bedroom floor).
Is that really too much to ask?

Live!

2008-06-24T14:52:00.009+01:00

As usual, (and I am probably having some serious anger management issue here) when I stop being angry at myself, I start hating the whole human specie instead.

It doesn't last long, just a few days, but then it's exactly like nicotine withdrawal.

-Feeling like everyone around you is trying their best to be hurtful/stupid/selfish? Check
-Feeling unable to say absolutely anything positive about anything? Check
-Being anable to relax in the presence of others? Check
-Irritability to the point you want to kick everything that speaks? Check
-Desire to be yourself hurtful/stupid/selfish? Check

Check check check check.
Needless to say my week-end wasn't exactly spent socialising... (Bring on Peep Show!)

On Sunday, though, some of the Usual Suspects dragged me to the East Finchley music festival. But my being annoyed with everyone and the so-so quality of the music there quickly -ahem- annoyed me, so I pretented I had to be somewhere else and left.

I called Stella to see if she was up for cocktails and shisha at Momo's, an old time favourite North African place next to Regent's Street.
She was. But of course, when we got there, the tea room had been booked for a private party. (Grrr)

We decided to meet up with Andy in case he had any other plans. He had, but of course, all of them involved G.A.Y late. (Grrr)

Gay clubbing, as much fun as it can be when you're in the right mood, did not appeal to me then and there, so I made my apologies, said I was going home, and went for a power walk around Soho to calm myself down.

I was turning the corner of Wardour Street, when a girl stopped me for a light. We chatted a bit and she asked me if I knew where the Black Gardenia was.
"Blimey, at last, someone with a good idea!! Are you meeting anyone in there?"
Turned out she was just in London for a few days, staying with friends who didn't want to go out, shared my passion for intimate bars with atmosphere and quality live music, had randomly heard of the place, and was about to walk in on her own.
She didn't mind my coming along, so we went!

Pathological impulsiveness, what else can I say?

The Black Gardenia is that very small live jazz venue where time stopped somewhere in the 50s. I used to go there on a weekly basis last year, until TimeOut made a (deserved) fuss about it and sort of ruined it by bringing in too many loud people in suits who'd treat the place as any other Soho after-work boozing corner.
But on a Sunday it was far from crowded and really nice, even if unfortunately, no band was playing.
At midnight, they did like in the good ol' days; closed the front door, declared it was a "private party", ashtrays magically appeared on the tables, and the place was filled with cigarette smoke in three minutes. Awww... Gotta love it, really! My new friend loved it too!

When we eventually left, I took Visiting Girl's number, and promised I would take her to another bar favourite of mine the following evening.

That's where I got myself into trouble.

It's another tiny live music place I discovered through French Guy. Let's call it That Bar, since by now I'm known by pretty much all the staff, regulars and musicians and I really want to be able to come back.
Over the past few months Stella and I made it a habit to be there every single Monday, supposedly the best night.
And it was loads of fun. I made good friends there, especially G, one of the musicians.
G is a really really cool nice bloke. And exactly on the same level of sarcasm as I am. We got on perfectly.
So, as I was at the beginning of my happily-ever-after relashionship with French Guy, and Stella sort of fancied him, it was only natural I gave them a helping hand. A successful one, needless to say. (By the way, I should put pimping on my CV too...)

Successful that is, until Stella decided she didn't fancy G that much actually,and prefered leaving things where they were. Understand she stopped returning his calls, and refused to set a foot in That Bar ever again. Bravo. But who am I to judge?

That left me with a big dilemma: I knew I couldn't convince her to go back there since she was too embarrassed to face him, and I couldn't go back there because she prefered me not to have an explanation for her. In the mean time I was missing out on my favourite Monday nights out and felt really bad for G.
I am such a good friend, really.

So yesterday, before confirming the night at That Bar with Visiting Girl, I gave Stella a call and explained her the situation. And, come on, even if she wouldn't have given her "approval", I would have gone anyway. Water has passed under the bridge since.
But she laughed and made me promise to tell her all about my night the next day.

So, Visiting Girl and I walked in at exactly 9:30.
Of course I bumped first thing into G, and we got straight back into the jokes-cracking routine. He did ask how Stella was, and as the great diplomat I am (ahem), I told him I hadn't seen much of her recently either, you know, she's been real busy with work, and blah blah blah...

In between G, too much red wine, the music, and the dancing/cheering, I had a bit forgotten about Visiting Girl, to be honest, but I realised I didn't need to worry too much when I later discovered her all over one of the guitarists in the corner. Good girl!

When she eventually she came up for air, I congratulated her, and she the only thing she found to say with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge in G's direction, was that she now understood why I was so eager to come back to That Bar: "He's so obviously hitting on you, isn't he?
-WHAT???? Nooooo... We're friends, and I told you he used to go out with my best friend.
-Yes, but believe me, he likes you...
-You sure? Shit-shiy-shit-shit-shit-shit!"

I mean, shit!
Then I spent the rest of the night feeling guilty and drowning my guilt in red wine.
Well done Lilith, really, well done! That was so obviously the best way to deal with things wasn't it?

Especially since I don't remember much after that. I don't remember leaving That Bar. I don't remember saying bye to Visiting Girl either (apparently I did, from the facebook messages she left me this morning).
And I surely don't remember how I ended up in a cab with G. Or why he was in my living room this morning.

We checked, the friendship line hasn't been crossed. A big PHEW for that!

But I was supposed to go to the cinema with Stella tonight, and, bizarrely, she's not returning my calls. I think it's got to do with the fact that facebook told her all about G and I's exchange of private jokes which took place whole day long.

This is ridiculous. Why are people so complicated?
I'm going to stop drinking soon, it might make things slightly less complicated, at least on my side...

Nerves

2008-06-19T14:54:00.003+01:00

Yesterday night, I had the first nervous breakdown in ages. It doesn't happen very often. Usually with a few cigarettes I manage to keep it at bay. But when it does happen it's not nice.

And usually ends by me throwing up, being unable to breathe and finally calming myself down by crawling under a cold shower.

Yesterday, I did all the above. What can I say? Sometimes it's better to aknowledge you're not feeling good, than britishly pretend that everything is "fine", then drink through it.
And I'm not feeling good. But it's good to let it out sometimes, so there you go:
I fucking miss fucking French Guy, my family is a fucking nightmare, and my professional life is fucking shit at the moment.

Call me an emo, but the only thing making me feel good is my friends.

The big problem is, when I'm in that state, the one thing I can't cope with, probably for some sort of twisted psychological reason, is any sort of compassion.
I don't cry often, but tell me everything is going to be fine, tell me you're sorry, or give me a hug, and you can be sure you're going to start the waterworks again.

That's the thing, DO NOT be nice to me! (The best thing you could possibly do would be switching on the TV for a Peep Show marathon, and bitch about the neighbour.)

Thankfully, my closest friends like the Usual Suspects are amazing and know that.
But the corner shop lady (we're not exactly best friends, but she's lovely, we're on first name terms, share the same opinion about random things like music and politics, and she is probably the only person on earth with whom I have a 3 minutes conversation every single day when I buy my fags) didn't know that.

She's genuinely nice, and when she saw my post-breakdown red swollen face, did everything wrong (hugs, etc...) until I was crouched down behind the counter, finishing her stock of tissues.
What a good look!

Now I feel sorry for her...

And very angry at myself for not being able to fucking M.O.V.E. O.N !!!

2008-06-17T17:17:00.002+01:00

Aaaaargh! OG is stalking me again on Facebook!

He got really upset and we had our last argument two months ago when I told him all about French Guy, and I thought that would be it. "It" as, you know, o-v-e-r!
Apparently he doesn't think so. SHIT.

I honestly can't reply right now. I think I'm going to join Pusc at the pub instead and hide my laptop before I go to avoid any kind of horny drunken facebooking when I'm back tonight.

Yup, that will do.

Bizarre

2008-06-16T16:53:00.005+01:00

So, on Friday, I went to Liz and the Schmoking Creek's flat to watch the football and keep her company as her boyfriend was leaving London that night to go to a festival with Mark (,the ex).

So we watched the football, drank a little, got a little stoned (as you do), and Liz's boyfriend left us at around 11pm to go and catch his coatch.

At this point, so much weed had been consumed that Liz and I were litteraly rolling on the floor from laugher at yet another of my stupid jokes.

An hour later, the boyfriend called. Obviously, he had fallen asleep on the tube and had missed his coach, so was coming back to the flat with Mark and a random friend who both had had the patience to wait for him at the coach station.

Now Mark. We had an on-off relashionship for months a year and a half ago and ended it, both of us agreeing that we were much better off as friends.
And we are (erm, were...). We get along great (well, it's difficult not to since we haven't seen eachother in a state other than stoned since), and any kind of ambiguity is (erm, was) out of the way.
We both crashed on the sofas (each on his personal sofa) of that living room many many times since our break-up, and, even if I admit it did cross my mind, nothing had never happened. Moreover, as fucked up as it sounds, he knew everything about my relashionship with French Guy, as I asked him advice a few times.
Now I'm thinking about it, maybe I shouldn't have ranted about my break-up last time we saw eachother. Well done Lilith!

Anyway, back to the night.
Soon, Liz and I both passed out, her in her bedroom, me on one of the sofas.

I vaguely recall getting up to open the door when the guys arrived, mumbling something along the lines of "Humpf" and crashing back on my sofa, not giving a shit about who was going to sleep where.

I woke up some time later to see Random Friend on the other couch, and Mark on the floor. I think I said something to Mark about RF's snoring and went back to sleep.

An certain amount of time later, I was woken up again by a bizarre yet very nice feeling. I opened my one functional eye to realise that Mark had managed to make himself enough room on "my" sofa (he's 6ft 3) and was (very nicely) massaging my feet.

My thoughts at that moment, in that order:
1) Hmmmmmmm...
2) What the F?
3) Oh, that's nice...
4) But my feet are clearly in the top 50 of the ugliest feet in the world population!
5) Oh shit I'm horny.
6) Yeah, that's normal, it's been a bloody month Lilith, and your ex is massaging your feet in a dark room...
7) But seriously, what is he doing? He didn't use to have a thing for feet before?
8) Fuck it, it's driving me crazy, let's just go with the flow!
9) But RF is less than a meter away!
10) Let's just pretend I'm asleep... for the time being!

Now, the most bizarre about it all was that he kept massaging my feet until long after dawn, meaning more than a few hours... I stayed "asleep", even if I could feel his hard on all this time under my carves.
If you ask me, I was so confused I didn't know what to do.

So, at 7am, I "woke up" and went to the loo. When I came back he was smiling this smile of his which used to make me feel weak at the knees, and apparently still does.
Because I smiled back, settled back in position, and whispered a "yes please..."

He put my feet back around his crotch area, and moved his hands further up my legs, further, further.
Until I came in his hands... And woke up RF! (Oh-dear-oh-dear-oh-dear-oh-dear)

Who thankfully didn't appear to understand why I had made such a noise.
Mark and I got up and shared a cigarette on the balcony. We talked about the-weather-in-London-this-summer as if nothing had happened.
I still wonder if I'd rather not get myself quickly into reality-denial mode and tell myself nothing really happened.

Luck

2008-06-14T20:49:00.005+01:00

Friday the 13th...

With my usual lack of luck and perpetual propensity to get myself in the depths of the weirdest situations, I knew-I-knew-I knew I shouldn't have left The House on that fateful day.

What I couldn't imagine, though, was that it was all going to end by "ex-sex"and my discovering all about my ex Mark's foot fetish...

Oh dear... I'm such a disaster!

I'll tell it all in the next post. In the mean time, I'm getting ready to go out, and swear I will try not to misbehave too much that time.

2008-06-13T12:43:00.002+01:00

News update: It's not a jungle out there, it's worse, it's a farm!
But sometimes it's good to view relashionships from a culinary point of view.

Doux-amer

2008-06-12T13:23:00.014+01:00

London is back to its normal rainy self, and I think I'm back to my almost normal tears-free self.
Picnics in Hyde Park season might be already over, but at least so is the time when I'd start crying within two seconds of waking-up.
That's an improvement, but it took quite an unpleasant episode to get there...

Last Thursday, as I was walking through Sloane Square on the way to visit Liz at the hospital, I saw, a hundred meters away, an all-too-familiar figure: French Guy.
I have to precise that the rat-bastard broke up with me on the phone and then screened my following calls and text messages in which I was asking him to meet up for a proper chat. Needless to say that the fact that I was never going to see him again and couldn't have my say was more than hard to swallow...

Call me a stalker, but I was still distraught and what else could I do but start to walk towards him and try to have that "closure-chat"?

But he saw me, and believe it or not, he started running!
Anger like I probably never felt before took hold of me, (anger? What am I saying? RAGE would me more like it) and I ran after him, armed with my chicken salad, well decided to pour the content of it down his Lacoste shirt.
Unfortunately for me -and probably fortunately for him- he's much taller and much faster than I am, and managed to jump on the 137 bus which left before I reached the bus stop.

Shaking with anger and disbelief, I sent the following text:
"Espece de lache sodomite sans couilles, j'espere que tu as vire ta cuti et que tu as moins de mal a lever tes 3cm maintenant"
(Try to work out what it means if you want, I'm not going to translate it, its content is just too rude.)

I arrived at the hospital in a state very close to pathological hystery, only to hear Liz ask me: "What's wrong with your eye?"

Maybe it was hayfever, or the aftershock, or all the crying I had inflicted to my poor contacts-wearing eyes in the past days, or all the pot I had been smoking, but my left eye was bright red.

And it started hurting that same night. A lot. Too much to let me ponder over French Guy's cowardice.
By Friday morning I was completely blind on the left side, couldn't stand the light, was holding my head in both hands, and eventually had to call a mini-cab to the closest NHS walk-in clinic.
There, I copiously insulted the ophtalmolgist who had a weakness for torturing his patients, and then drugged on the painkillers he had injected me, I wandered in search of the hospital pharmacy, eyes closed and hands in front of me, for a whole hour and a half, asking directions to brainy people who told me to "follow the signs", bumped into enough wheelchairs and people in crunches to give me a lifetime of injury bad karma, etc...
From now on, all my sympathy goes to the blind.

I know I sound really bitter, but I've spent the whole week-end in, unable to watch TV, read, look at a computer screen, or even enjoy the sun, smoke or drink... Frustrating doesn't even start to cover it.

On the bright side, the really good thing about physical pain (not than I am such a fan), is that, when it reaches a certain point, it completely overwhelms emotional pain. What I mean is that, you can be distracted from true emotional pain by true physical pain, but the reverse is just not possible.

Don't get me wrong, I still think (a LOT) about French Guy, and miss him every day, but I just don't want to keep nursing the depression.
Yes, I still think (a LOT) about the great times we had together, but I just have to accept the fact that I can't get rid of the memories, and that they will stay with me for probably more than a little while; as dramatic as it sounds, it makes me who I am, and life doesn't stop there.
I'm officially back on the scene tomorrow night, Pusc is taking me for some straight clubbing. That doesn't mean I'll be throwing myself in the arms of the first cute guy I meet, I think it's still too early for that, it would feel too wrong, I think.

I'm slightly worried about the psychological effects of going off sex for much longer though, it's been a w-h-o-l-e m-o-n-t-h now. On the other hand, the last time I had had my heart that broken, I went off the scene altogether for no less than eight months if you can believe it! (But I was too young to know better, if you ask me now, it was a silly waste of time.) In the mean time, Sainsbury's battery sales are reaching a historical high...

Surprise

2008-06-03T15:32:00.004+01:00

Last night I had a pleasant -or unpleasant, I'm still not sure- surprise. In an attempt to definitively kick out the depressing dressing gown lifestyle, I suggested going for a pint with the inhabitants of The House. Unfortunately, they were still recovering from the week-end, and declined. I pondered for a while about going on my own, but thinking it would sign my official descent into alcoholism, decided against it.

I already wasn't in the greatest mood, and retreated to my room, considering banging my head against the wall just a few times to send me to sleep, when my phone rang.

It was Stella:

Lilith, I'm so so so so sorry, but I've just been out with that really good friend of mine and his friend who are just back from touring in China, and they were supposed to stay at a friend's but he can't have them over anymore because of his landlord and I wondered, well, I thought...

-Ok, cut it, what time are they gonna be here? Because I'm in bed...

-Half an hour! Thank you so, so, so, so...

-It's fine, see you in half an hour.

Now, being the control freak that I am, I absolutely HATE HATE HATE HATE it when people, as good friends as they can be, don't leave me a choice. And nothing pisses me right off more than feeling that things are being forced upon me.

So, half an hour later, when the doorbell rang, I made a great show of appearing as grumpy as I could, with what I thought was the right combination for convincing grumpiness, just picture it:
-dressing gown
-no make up
-hair sticking up in every direction
-my 90s geek glasses which haven't been updated to my decaying sight in a decade (I wear contacts every day)
-hairy legs (nothing to do with behaving grumpy, they just happened to be there, and hey, that's what you're supposed to do post break-up: let your hair grow!)
-and my monthly spots (which just happened to be there too, since my periods are here just to make me feel better -sense the irony.)

So, I opened the door (grumpy face and all), and Stella jumped on me:

Oh Lilith, you're a star!

-Yeah, whatever, just come in and unfold the sofa bed in the living room if you can.

That's when one of the "friends" came in:

Oh my God! LILITH!!! How the devil are you???

-Eh? (screwing up my eyes while trying to see who the devil he was)

-It's me!!!

-Ooooh.... Hi! (then looking down at my "sexy outfit") Ooooh... Fuck! I mean, come in guys, make yourselves comfortable, here's the bathroom, let me help you with the bed, I'm going to get you blankets...

As pissed off I was with Stella right at that moment, she sensed something was wrong and dragged me out on the balcony "for a quick cigarette".

As soon as the door closed behind us, I was laughing my head off under the rain, unable to answer her "who-is-he-who-is-he-who-is-he".
I eventually managed to blurt it out.

We'd met three years ago during a three weeks summer course abroad where, during our free hours, he taught me how to talk dirty in English, while I taught him how to do so in my own language. With all the corresponding actions of course.
That is, only during day light, since at night, he shared a room with his long-term girlfriend...
Back then, I didn't care, in my incredibly selfish mind I had a very clear distinction in between sex and relashionships. It was just sex. And it was brilliant.

We were both a bit sad when the course ended - after all, he had given me my first big O!- but when we said our good byes at the airport, decided against keeping in touch for his girlfriend's sake and I flew back to London, and he flew back to Birmingham.
I was over him when the stewardess told me to put my bag under the seat in front of me.

I bumped into Summer Fling at a party in London six months later where booze, drugs, and sexed up couples were flowing.
I would lie if I said I didn't feel anything then, and my first question was if he was still with his girlfriend.
He nodded and suddenly burst into tears, telling me how he had been thinking about me all the time, and I told him how I couldn't/didn't allow myself to, for the only reason that he was taken, and that would just have been a waste of time and effort and pain.
(Wow, how cold-hearted was I back then? It made life so much simpler.)
So we spent the whole night sat in a corridor of the flat, hugging eachother, while everyone was going wild around us. It made the whole moment somehow more intimate than anything we shared before.
And we left it at that. We became "friends" on Facebook about a year ago, and that was it until last night.

So imagine my surprise when I realised he was on my doorstep... Six degrees of separation? I'd make it three degrees!
As much as I wanted to stay in the living room for a chat, I was too conscious of my appearance, and couldn't see anything anyway, so I excused myself upstairs.

Why I changed overnight into a nice morning person with make up on, making coffee at 7 for everyone, don't ask...
His friend (Stella's friend) being present, we had a nice chat about life, without mentionning the girlfriend. But I know for a fact that she's now moved to Norway, so... I gave him my number when he asked for it before leaving, I'm just curious.

Still it was a nice diversion from seeing Facebook pictures of French Guy and his brand new fucking mammouth bitch of a wrinkled girlfriend walking their hideous rat-like dogs together in Hyde Park.

Back here... and on the market

2008-06-03T13:55:00.005+01:00

I know, I know, I know that I've just commited the worst offence in blogging by not up-dating in erm... three months.

It's unforgivable. But what can I say, I mainly used to write here to help me overcome the whole dating drama and analyse my feelings (ok, and rant about my funny/or not-so-funny nights out). And what happened is that I fell so in love with French Guy and felt so fulfilled that the need to blog completely faded away. (I even dichted OG, if you can imagine what that meant...)

I had the best time of my life with him, until two weeks ago, when he said that he loved me, but didn't think I was the one and needed to get on with his life (cringe), then I had the worst time of my life.
You know when you keep pushing the time you're going to bed, because the prospect of having the hard reality downing on you as you leave unconsciousness the next morning is simply unbearable? That.

Fortunately, on Wednesday, the Usual Suspects managed to drag me out of my room and my dressing gown where I had been hiding away from civilisation for a whole week, and since I wouldn't eat, stuck cigarettes in my mouth (I gave up those with great trouble for French Guy about two months ago), forced trunkloads of liquid goods down my throat and led me to all sorts of shameless behaviours which somehow make me feel a bit more human. That's what you call friends!

Shameless behaviours including:

-insulting "Big" out loud during a Sex And The City late viewing (in my defence, Stella had dragged me to a wine bar where we made good use of the pinot noir before the cinema).

-getting drunker than the landord of my local pub by drinking faster than my housemates, which is probably unheard of in West London history.

-smoking weed in the middle of Sloane Square (yes, the actual square in front of the station) with the Schmooking Creek before visiting my friend Liz who's at the moment staying in a hospital nearby because of a big operation.

-smuggling beers in said hospital and making a little party of our own in Liz's room to cheer us both up. (just so you know, we didn't let her drink)

-being so f*cked on the way back from the hospital in the middle of the night, that I actually found myself agreeing to go on a bagel date with a drunken Irish man I had just met at the bus stop.

-very rudely running away from the bagel shop for dear life after said bagel sobered me up.

-making a scene in a Pret-a-manger by having a nervous breakdown in my tomato and bacon soup until Andy, who, for the past two hours, had been listening to the what-a-bastard-French-Guy-is-but-I-still-looooooooooooooooooove-him song, eventually dragged me out of the place straight to Harrods where he actually bought me Dior make up. Awww...sweet retail therapy!

-since I couldn't cope with any kind of straightness, celebrating my 22nd in true fag hag tradition, by inviting all my gay friends to a (actually very nice) bar in Soho, pimping away -I think I made three matches- and eventually sticking my head down the toilet.

My liver is going to collapse very soon, but at least, the hangovers give me another reason to feel like shit in the morning, and, on the bright side, I haven't cried or banged my head against the wall in almost 48 hours, which is, believe me, a great improvement.

Apologies

2008-03-01T18:23:00.002Z

I haven't been blogging for a while because I was:

-Considering, researching, and eventually applying for a change of career.
-Flying back to my home country to visit a relative on his death bed.
-Catching up with my best kindergarden friend I hadn't seen in ten years, while she was visiting London.
-Spending loads of time with French Guy.
-Getting my mother to definitely stop talking to me.
-Drinking three liters of cranberry juice a day because it looks like I've got cystitis.

I am tired. It's Saturday 6:30pm and I'm going to bed. That's a first.

French Guy

2008-02-20T18:05:00.002Z

French Guy called me yesterday afternoon. It happens he had his phone stolen and just got it back yesterday.
(Needless to say it made me feel like shit about the whole OG night last week. It might be time to break up with him for good...)
Silly me.

French Guy asked me if I wanted to come to his place and share a few drinks with him and some of his friends.
It was a premiere, the meeting-the-friends bit made me feel even more like a piece of shit, and it took me over two hours of debating with my conscience before accepting the invitation.
Silly me.

Obviously, my resolution of non-drinking fell through and as usual, I poured myself a double-rum and tonic before leaving The House. Unfortunately, it failed to settle my nerves or hide the guilt, and I arrived at French Guy's place shaking as much from stress/expectation as I was from the Arctic cold outside.
Silly me.

It went all so smoothly that I somehow find it disturbing...
French Guy was as charming and sweet as usual, and his friends were a nice bunch of weed-smokers easy to talk to.
And, how can I describe it? As I started to suspect a few weeks ago, it really looks like our relashionship developed a life of its own, in spite of common fucked up past and our best plans to "keep it light".
Silly me.

There is no need to deny it. We really are at ease with eachother...
Even in the presence of his friends. To whom he said that, for once, he was serious about me, because he really, really liked me. I managed to gasp almost silently.
Silly me.

Eventually, the friends left one after the other.
And we started making love. At the risk of sounding tremendously cheesy, it felt somehow so right that I suprised myself by wishing it had been my first time. God, how weird is that???
It was so good. So good. For both of us. I was delirious, and (to his apparent delight) I drenched French Guy's sheets numerous times. Sex had never been so good for me before. My whole body felt electric. Which probably explains why I felt comfortable enough and could let myself go to the point of doing a number two.
My first one.
Now, I had always been curious about anal sex, but always told myself I would not take that step unless I was with someone I really liked, was very comfortable with, and had been seeing for quite a while.
I was only going with the flow, but I am now obliged to think that if it happened, French Guy might have been this someone, because it surely didn't feel wrong...

Now, in all honesty, I feel like crying and singing and screaming and laughing and banging my head against the wall.
I am a complete emotional wreck. I've been feeling like this since he fell asleep and I spent the whole night awake, watching him. SILLY ME!
I can't believe I was holding back my feelings for him for so long, but now I am realising those feelings might as well be there, I feel like a fucking piece of shit for not wanting to aknowledge them before, and at the same time I am fucking scared shitless of getting hurt.

Cleaning Express

2008-02-19T13:50:00.004Z

Yesterday (apart from the procrastination/masturbation time) was dedicated to a House make-over. My housemate John and I cleaned The House from top to bottom, and that reminded me of that anecdote dating back from the time I was living on the Schmookin' Creek's sofa in China Town.

It was late afternoon, and their landlord had just called to say he would be popping by to check the flat the following day. As you can expect, the flat looked more like a squat where fifteen tramps had been living for three years than a three bedroom flat.
I remember they used to refer to its state of dirtiness and chaos as "a piece of art".

No doubt the landlord wouldn't have appreciated it that way though.
A massive cleaning session was in order. At best, it would take us a week to overcome.

That's when the guys amazed me. Instead of starting now and then, they made a quick phone call and headed all to Liverpool Street station. Left alone in the flat and not exactly knowing what they were up to, Liz and I exchanged a glance of pure despair, texted them to at least buy some Febreze and a mop, and started the washing up.

They returned an hour later, all grinning, and told us to sit down and relax, that they would do everything.

I only understood where they were coming from when they sat down on the sofa, took out tiny white plastic bags, a CD box, a credit card, and rolled up notes.
Coke to clean?

That was a new use of the class A drug I had never heard of or thought about.

It worked, though. I had never seen anyone being so dedicated and so fast at cleaning before. They even did the inside of the cupboards.

An hour and a half later, the flat was shining and would have had its place in a Mr Muscle ad.

I can't help but thinking about it and smile whenever I am faced with compulsory domestic chores, but, come on, I know I won't go there. Coke and I are ancient history now, I'll explain why in another post...

First

2008-02-18T22:49:00.006Z

French Guy doesn't know what he's missing out...
Well, I didn't know either until earlier this afternoon.

I was comfortably settled into my futon with my old time "literary" favourite (called Menage, if that can give you an idea of the "literary" standard of the book), a good joint, and a very good vibrator to keep me company.

That's when it happened. It even didn't see it coming. The waves of pleasure built up even faster than usual, all the muscles in my body started to tense as when I'm close to orgasm.
And it happened. A sudden gush of "water" from between my legs covered my futon cover.

I couldn't believe it; I had just squirted.

I first thought the weed was making me hallucinate, so I did what anybody would have done in that case: I did it again. And again.

And it happened again. And again.

Wow!
I must be one of those women who can have female ejaculations, after all.
I can't wait to share my new discovery with someone...

PS: My futon cover is now in the washing machine...

What stalks around...

2008-02-18T14:13:00.008Z

Great. OG is stalking me while I am stalking (in vain) French Guy.

I treated OG like shit and he's only wanting more, while (if I'm being really honest with myself), French Guy is more or less treating ME like shit, and as a result I am dying for him to turn around and would litteraly jump in his pants as soon as he bothers calling me. And now, seeing the intensity of my stalking, he knows it. Great.
Why are human beings so twisted?

At least, I am being a civilised stalker and only send my text messages at appropriate times, which is more than what OG could say.

Had I had him on hand, I swear I would have ripped his head off, when I received yet another text message from him at 7:58 on Sunday morning. What was he thinking?

As far as I am concerned, Sunday mornings are for one to sleep through one's hangover caused by three nights in a row of really heavy drinking and loads of partying.

So much heavy drinking indeed, that I swore I wouldn't approach anything known to contain any sort of alcohol, at least until Thursday. (It's wise to set sensitive goals)

Last Thrursday (the 14th of Febraury, just in case you live on Mars), Stella, Brooke and I went out around West London as a F*ck Valentine's girly night.
As a result, I am now tagged all over Facebook with one different cocktail in each hand, (two different cocktails on each picture) pulling most ungracious faces, as a tribute to what I thought was the most disgusting day of the year.
Oh yeah, this, and coming up to any stranger I could find, telling them how pathetic I was, since I had two "boyfriends" but was spending VD getting hammered with my girlfriends.
Nice and grown up.

I spent the rest of the week-end visiting friends up in Birmingham, and visiting Birmingham and its nightlife as well.
At the risk of sounding like a closed-minded Londonner, insensitive drinking was the only way forward if you wanted to cope with being in a club up there. Or maybe my friends just didn't bring me to the right ones...

Anyway, I am looking forward to my first week-end in London in quite a while.

And I really don't know what to do of Z, who called me and who with I agreed to "get together and go out". Shit.

2008-02-14T15:16:00.003Z

London Transports would be ashamed if they knew that some people -ok at least me- only log on tfl.gov.uk when they're about to get laid.

But that's the thing, see, I don't need help with random buses when:
-I go to work. I am not retarded and by now, I've got them pretty much figured out.
-I visit friends. Same applies there, or, if it's at a new place, I can usually rely on their directions.
-I go clubbing. I've done it so often that I could name by heart all the night buses numbers needed to go back home from at least 20 different London clubs.
-Or even on shopping trips. Come on, from wherever you are, how difficult is it to find Oxford Street?

But when it comes to erm... "sexier businesses", I am way too eager to look and sound as independant as one can get that I always hang up the phone on a: "It's ok, I know London by now. Don't worry, I'll find it!"
It is most of the time pure bravado, especially when, last night (e.g.), I have to go to parts of town I have never heard of. Hence my being perpetually late because I still haven't included the 15 minutes spend on the tfl website as part of my "preparation routine".

Ok, the compulsory alcoholic-drink-and-fag-and-wash-your-teeth-again before leaving the house certainly participates in my lateness...

I am not including the amount of time spent singing "Should I stay or should I go?", or the "just one more episode of Peep Show" factor either.

At least that is what happened last night, and might explain why I was late (about an hour and a half late, to be exact) at OG's place.
NOT that is matters that much anyway, I don't mind anticipation...

OG and I hadn't seen eachother inover three months, and now that I can look at things with a little more distance that I used to then, this break definitely was for the best.
Of course the man's desire for me is a huge turn on and a great ego booster; he's VERY handsome and extremely successful.
But fuck he knows it and is oh-so full of himself.

After dinner, when I couldn't take anymore of watching him unrolling different giant versions of himself sporting the cheesiest smile (=all the different posters in different languages from his last tour...), I grabbed him by the balls -almost litteraly- and dragged him into bed.

All this time and I had almost forgotten how well endowed he was and what a size queen I can be -smiles...
I had also forgotten how fast he came -sight...

Tonight, Brooke, Stella and I are hitting the town. It's been said Valentine's Day (in spite of being a complete commercial load of bullshit) is the best night of the year to pull...

Just another week-end...here and there 2

2008-02-12T12:55:00.002Z

I am now supposed to be making the most of my day off, spending the whole day in bed, instead of nursing murderous feelings. My "dear" neighbours decided to do some NOISY work in their garden from 7am. Now, they can count on me to organise a rave on the balcony. The sooner the better.

Saturday:

An hour and a half later, I dragged myself out of Liz's bed with great difficulty,
because I had to run back home, pack, (shower), and run to Gatwick, (all in less than 3 hours), as I was supposed to fly abroad to attend that international conference for people in my work field.

Let's be honest, I couldn't care less about the conference, especially at that particular time, but most of the expenses were being paid, and I was eager to meet up again with some of my best friends who I knew would be attending, especially A, and L, my flatmate from our time working in Germany last year, and a whole bunch of others.

Even with two Red Bulls down my system, I landed in an appalling state, and don't remember much of the day. Every thing said in situ entered my brain through the left ear to immediately escape it through the right one.

Fortunately, the first night, I was sharing a room with A and friend in a five star hotel, and two hours spent in between the sauna, hammam and other steam rooms, jacuzzi and swimming pools certainly helped me to get back to a more human self...
And feeling myself again could only mean one thing: "Guys! Let's go out!"

We found that amazing (and unfortunately amazingly cheap) cocktail bar in an otherwise quite dead city center, and ended up following those Spanish guys to a great alternative club.
Well, that's at least what I was told the next morning. My memories of that night stopped in the bar after the second mai tai...
Apparently, A and I literally crawled back to the hotel room at 4:30am.

Sunday:

It would be absolutely pointless to recount the day until 6pm, seeing it was spent exactly the same way as Saturday: Hungover. The absence of flights made life slightly easier though.
As A was flying back to Cannes that same night, we went for farewell drinks, and I then joined L and friends for dinner in a nearby restaurant.

There, I had the very pleasant surprise to bump into Z.

Now, Z. Please bear with me as I have to recount everything about her for the rest to make sense.
Z is internationally reknown as "Crazy Z". Or "Bisexual Z". We attended the same school in London for one year. We had quite a lot in common since we discovered we shared the same friends from our respective times studying in Spain. And at that time, the same interests as well, which probably included a somewhat boyish way of thinking, a love for crazy nights out and everything which goes with it...
Still, even if we lived in the same hostel, we didn't spend that much time together since she was definitely part of the "cool kids", and me with my hard work and dedication and all the time I used to spend with A, couldn't care less about being seen as cool or not.

We first "bonded" on that particularly interesting night. It was a schoolmate's birthday in that awful pub in Fulham. We spent two hours exchanging exasperated glances over the crowd of hammered girls all in pink dresses who couldn't stand anymore on heels too high for them.
It really got too much to bear when they started playing Britney Spears and all of them started the slutty dance from the video clip.

I mimed a yawn and she crossed the room: "Ok, let's go!"
We stopped by a 24hours Food and Wine where we convinced the guy at the till to sell us booze, even if it was well past 11pm, and went to sit on the stairs outside our hostel, waiting for her coke-addict then boyfriend to come and pick us up to another "more happening" party...

When he and his friends eventually showed up, they were obviously way too fucked-up for me to agree to get into their car. So I proposed what I thought was a safer and as appealing option: let's all go and spend the night in Hyde Park (it was summer) with booze and a couple of joints. (Let me remind you we were still teenagers...)

So we did. Well, it didn't exactly went all that smoothly, seeing that after half an hour in there, two police cars with sirens turned up, from which a bunch of cops came out, screaming: "Don't move!"
Of course, we did the only thing we could do: RUN and scattered in every directions.

Personnally, I climbed over the park railings and ran all the way until I was safely back in my hostel room.
Then I started worrying about Z, and spent the whole night waiting in front of her room and leaving panicky voicemails on her phone.

She called me the next day at 3pm: "Haha Lilith! I spent the whole night at the police station! Thank God I didn't have any drugs left on me!!!"

I called her crazy, but we kind of stuck together ever since. Went out partying and she played an important role and helped a lot when I got into trouble with my lesbian ex-flatmate P.

Nowadays, even if we still both live in London, we don't see as much of eachother, probably because our timetables are completely clashing, and because I "calmed down" a little bit.
Or so I thought...

So when I met her again on Sunday, we thought we should do something worth it to celebrate the good old days.

We left the others at the restaurant before dessert and sat in that quite random bar open 24hours where they played transe. We ordered more cocktails than required to send a whole football team to the intensive care unit, and couldn't say enough how cool it was to get together again.

Soon, I was so drunk I almost made her a scene when she started hitting on the lesbian waitress. Don't ask me what I was doing, I really don't know...
So we left the bar, bought a bottle of wine on the way, and somehow ended up drinking it in her hotel room before both passing out on her bed...

That is, until I was woken up a few minutes/hours(?) later by a hand slowly caressing my neck, my back, my stomach, my breasts...

Saying it came as a surprise would be a lie, but still, I was terrified. I stayed there still for what seemed years, pretending I was fast asleep.
When I couldn't hide my arrousal any longer as my breath grew heavier and faster, I turned around, kissed her, and let her take complete control.

That's right, we slept together. And that was the first time I went "all the way" with a girl.
It was one of the nicest experiences in my life, but definitely the most terrifying.
She left the next morning at 6 as I was still asleep to catch her flight back to London.

Saying exactly how I feel about it would be impossible. I know I still prefer the male equipment, and, to me, it doesn't really matter anyway, it was just about sleeping with someone I always cared about.
And I am left both wanting to see her in London and hoping I will never. Something is either open or broken and I don't know.
It feels like a bad and a good dream at the same time...

I haven't told anything to anyone yet, and I can't wait for A to call me back. This whole thing is way too destabilising.

Monday:

I went for breakfast with L, lunch with yet another group of friends, coffee with others, flew back to London, dropped my bags home, and met up with Stella at that really nice wine bar in Shepherd's Bush.

I was supposed to go on a date with OG tonight, but I called him saying it was my time of the month. It's a complete lie, of course, but I really feel like I need some "me time"...

Just another week-end...here and there

2008-02-11T23:54:00.001Z

I can't believe i just survived this week-end. Friday-Saturday-Sunday all put together are to this day the most surreal experience I've ever had. Surreal, and rather intense, hence the lack of updating here...

I don't even know where to start.
In chronological order I guess...

So, on Friday:

I was invited to the birthday bash of one member of the Schmookin' Creek. Bday Boy was actually my best friend Liz's boyfriend, himself one of my best (slightly twisted) friends.
It started all as a pretty much normal birthday bash. Thirty or so persons at a pub in Leicester Square and way too many pints.

Pretty "normal", as far as I am concerned, if you don't include the presence of two of my exes, J and M. (If you ask, I used to spend way too much time with the Creek back in the day...)
Still, it all went well, the three of us now perfectly able not to cross the - slowly rebuilt - friendship line. (Phew!)

We were supposed to finish the night in Shunt, but as it tends to happen when a group of too many persons gets together for too many drinks, we never made it, and about eight of us opted for catching the last tube back to the Schmookin' Creek's flat in South London.
As you do, we sat down with a few joints and some good music, and started talking about the deep meaning of life.
At one point, Bday Boy and Liz excused themselves to their bedroom, which we thought was only normal (and healthy).

But, blame the weed if you like, we decided to keep a "peaceful attitude" when we started hearing serious screams of anger and noises of objects getting smashed against the wall.
J, M and I couldn't be bothered to move from the couch anyway, and we chose not to intervene.

That is, only until we heard the entrance door getting slammed, and realised Liz had left the flat.
It appeared, after a two-minute long investigation, that our favourite drama queen had left on a whim, all without shoes, keys, or even a phone.

I managed to drag J out of the couch and we both went out after her. Except that she was nowhere to be seen; not in the lobby, not in the basement, not in the 24hours local Food and Wine, and in none of the dodgy streets around.

Two hours later (it was 3:30am), completely sobered up, the two of us had been through the whole neighbourhood, had woken up half of South London by shouting her name at every corner, every drunken/homeless/random man on the streets had been asked if they had seen a shoe-less girl on her own, and I was continuously arguing on the phone with Bday Boy who hadn't got out of his bedroom all this time...

But Liz still hadn't reappeared. Running short of options, we opted for going back to the flat, where we would call the police (that is, needless to say, after a well-needed session of flat-cleaning and "evidence"-hiding)

I called her name out just before we got back in, and as we heard a shy "Yeah?", J and I almost fell into eachother's arms out of relief. (Well, we fortunately didn't.)
"Liz!!! Where are you? Thank God we found you! You're here!!! Where exactly? We can't see you in the dark!
-Up there! Erm... Lilith? I'm stuck..."
I glanced "up there" and heard J gasp while my heart missed a beat.

Liz was standing at the edge of the rooftop, five floors above our heads!

"Don't move!! Sit down!! Err... Wait! We're coming up!"
I swear I never saw anyone climbing five floor as fast as we did, and swore off smoking for life (or at least for the next five minutes).

The poor girl was in a complete state of shock and for some random reason my nerves decided to let me down and, in spite of my best efforts to keep my head on my shoulders, I started to cry uncontrollably when I realised how worried and scared we all had been.

Back in the flat, not knowing what else I could do, I poured a cup of hot chocolate down her throat, stuck a lit joint in her mouth, and went to sleep in her bed next to her after Bday Boy decided to sleep on the couch...

I had to wake up less than two hours later.
But that's Saturday's story, and for the time being I'm going to bed, I hardly slept since...

2008-02-07T20:21:00.001Z

I really should stop pouring myself a double Rum and Tonic before my "dates".
But, call me an alcoholic if you want, the prospect of yet another night with French Guy somehow made me nervous to the point a drink was in order.

The presence of Australian Fiona in The House yesterday evening certainly didn't help. (By the way, she's moving back to Australia in a month, and I know I am going to miss her more and in more ways than I'd like to admit.
Shit. I really wonder how exactly our farewells are supposed to happen...)

As a result, I was pissed on the tube to French Guy's place, staggering around and bumping into people and wondering why on earth I was defying the Hammersmith and Shitty line in that state.

Worth the drunken journey though...
What a great night. French Guy and I got to the point we're actually comfortable enough to hang around eachother completely naked, joke, and laugh while at it.
Very much like if we had been in an actual relashionship for a while already...
How bizarre!

But it was so nice that I actually called in sick this morning, and didn't leave his flat until noon, feeling I was worth a billion dollars.
This is quite weird, especially since we both established that "this" is NOT supposed to go anywhere.
Hmmm...

2008-02-06T16:33:00.002Z

At the risk of sounding completely and utterly full of myself, I am very pleased to discover I am becoming somewhat addictive.

I am being requested over at French Guy's place for the second time this week. It's a first in our short sexual history, but it is true that Monday night was erm, (I am looking for the right word there) fucking mind-blowing. I can't think of anything more accurate to describe it.
It probably was the best sex I ever had, and seeing French Guy's face at those particular moments (the mirror on the ceiling certainly helped), I'm quite convinced he had his fare share of fun too...

It looks like I got him hooked. And I am still pondering whether this is a good thing or not.
And I still wonder how can sex with someone when there is no actual feelings from both parts involved (let's be honest there), can still work after that many times, and even get better each time...? How is this possible?

Of course, it's a great ego booster and it's giving me an incredible sense of power, but, knowing the man is probably as machiavelian as I am, I can't help but wonder what he would be capable of to reverse the roles...
Scary, and I am probably the worst paranoiac in London.

Who cares if we both know that we're purely using eachother for sex? There's no law against that, is there?
So I guess I should stop worrying and just show up there in a few hours...
And that really shouldn't prevent me from attending that fabulous Anti-Valentines party next week with my girlfriends, should it?

Another London week-end

2008-02-04T16:21:00.001Z

If I haven't been blogging for a few days, it is just because I had a quite busy week-end. And a very fun one too that deserves its place here.

Saturday morning, I woke up to find a wooden stick on the kitchen table.
Wondered what the heck that was for five seconds, but I smiled when the previous night came back to mind.

My lovely-crazy-alcoholic housemates and I went to Shunt on Friday, (Shunt is that wonderfully random club under London Bridge Station) and I don't know if there was a special vibe in that place which "inspired" us, or if our group is simply mad enough not to need that much to be inspiration to misbehave, and a couple of pints plus a few shots of sambuca simply suffice.

We first spent an hour and a half sharing cigarettes while critising British culture with two very drunk Estonian guys, in a completely dark room randomly enough filled with plane seats. As much as I hate planes, it was still a lot of fun to pull the fold-down tray in front of us to put our glasses there...
Quite surreal.
At the same time, I couln't help but think how much fun it would be to bring a lover in there. Surely, if that corner was remote enough to brave the law and smoke, there must be loads of other stuff you could do in there. And the illusion of doing it on a plane would be almost perfect...
I am planning to come back there very soon.

Apparently, the theme of the night in Shunt was "Pirates and Mermaids", so, after the plane seats moment, we went to that other room where a real-life sized pirate ship had been built for the occasion. There was a notice saying that if you "boarded", you be served "Punch, Sodomy and Tache". Of course we climbed on the ship, but were fortunately only served the punch.
Two glasses later, as you do, we were standing on the prow, replaying that famous scene from Titanic, me at the front, Mike behing me, and John on top of that, singing Celine Dion at the top of our lungs.
People stopped five meters below my feet to contemplate our very good act.
I don't think of myself as a "heavy person" but I think the boat hadn't been built to bear that much weight.
Near, far, wherever you aaAAAAAAHGH!!!!!!

The wooden pieces I was standing on colapsed and I ended up my legs hanging in the void, five meters above the floor, screaming like a mad woman, and wondering if time had come for me to start to believe in God.

Fortunately, Mike managed to pull me up, and we went back dancing, me nervously laughing so much I was on the verge to pee myself...
I still had the presence of mind to pick up the piece of wood which had broken off as souvenir.
We left the club shortly after that, mainly because I kept stabbing people on the dance floor with it...
On our way home, we still stopped by a kebab shop and entertained the other customers by dancing the Macarena in the middle of the tables, as a tribute to life...
All in all, a very surreal night.

On Saturday, after spending whole afternoon nursing a tremendous hangover in that lovely pub next the Thames in Hammersmith, Mike dragged me along to crash that hat-house-party in South London. He also invited that Pushy-Scottish-girl-friend of his, with whom I almost had fight over Hihes that night I first slepped with him.

It actually was a great houseparty, with all the right ingredients:
-LOADS of booze,
-loads of people,
-a fair percentage of cute guys.

Especially with the presence of a straight to-die-for Colin Farrel look-alike...
Of course, Pushy-Scott girl (let's call her PuSc, ok?) and I were on him like flies on a discarded piece of meat in a minute.
(I know I know, quite pathetic, but PuSc and I decided to laugh about it and promised that at the next house party we were to attend together, we'd draw an imaginary line in the middle of the room so we each would have our own "hunting space"...)

As Colin Farrel was apparently more interested in me than her, PuSc went for Cute-Guy-Of-The-Night-Number-2, who, once he let himself getting french-kissed and copiously grabbed by her, confessed he had a girlfriend. (Men...Are they REALLY all the same?)

As for myself, I can't complain, since I got amazingly well kissed by Colin Farrel for a few hours.
Didn't take things any further though, since I still had my periods and played the role of "shy-and-restrained-Lilith" very well. Damn.
At the end of the night, I wrote down his facebook, and we agreed to go for drinks together this week.

Except that once home and logged-in, it appeared that Colin Farrel had 121 namesakes in the London network, most of them without a profile picture. I am still browsing, but all hope seems to be lost.
I can't even start to explain how much life sucks.

But I am not letting myself getting all depressed because I won't get to sleep with Colin Farrel after all. I know it's a shame, but there are plently of other fishes in the sea.
Speaking of fishes, I am invited over for dinner at French Guy's place tonight, and I've also arranged a date with OG next week.
It's been way too long and I swear I can hear my hormones screaming.

2008-02-01T09:35:00.001Z

I still haven't "met up" with French Guy. The reason being, as my best friend would put it: Another baptism has been avoided. Translation: I have my periods.

Frustrating. I now have to wait until next week.
Not fun. And I think I upset him by telling him I was too tired and too ill from my European tour to go all the way across London to his place. Which is partly true, seeing I am still coughing my lungs off since a certain snow ball battle in PJ's in Oslo...

I think I got OG upset for the same reason. Which is probably a good thing seeing how stalkerish he's become recently, and how reluctant I feel about starting seeing him, again.

So, instead of hot sex, I spent yesterday afternoon shopping with the only person who I think has ever truly loved me.
The person who used to be my housemate and a great friend, until SHE fell in love with me.

About a year and a half ago, I found myself homeless again. I guess it's a London trend. Eventually, through a friend of a friend of a friend [...], I moved into that house in Hammersmith, where lived P and a couple.
There were all typical geeks from Imperial College, and made me feel somewhat stupid, but a very nice and friendly group nevertheless.
Of course it should have occured to me that P wasn't the typical girly type. But since the girl in the couple was even more masculine, I assumed it was just a trend amoung their group.

P and I got on very well from the start, enjoying going out together, going to the cinema, spending long hours talking about our respective troubled childhood and our dreams. I really thought she was a great girl and enjoyed her company a lot.

So, instead of staying only for a month while looking for my own place, I decided to permanently move in with them. And all was well.

That is, until that particular night, when P and I came back from a cocktails-fuelled night at Favela Chic, in Old Street. It was summer, so we sat in their little garden and shared a smoke before going to bed.
That's when she made her coming out.
I reacted by saying exactly what was on my drunken mind at the time: That she should try not to care about what her catholic family would think, and just embrace her sexuality. That I had loads of gay friends (she had already met a few of them) and that I would really be the last to judge her or treat her differently because of that. And very lamely concluded by saying that there was abslutely nothing to worry about because no one could know in advance what would happen to them, yes, who knew? I could, in ten years, five years, two years, find that I was myself attracted to girls too, and it really wasn't worth worrying about.
Drunken ramblings, I know, but I was trying to be understanding and supportive since she was in tears.

I noticed quite a change in her the following week. She looked much happier, more lively, outgoing. So I thought I did my friend job well, and accompanied her the next week-end to an Imperial student union party.

When after a few pints, she became a bit touchy-feeling, I though I was only being paranoiac. But when a common friend came to me to say P was in corner in tears and was asking to speak to me, my first thought was SHIT.

We both cried a lot that night. Her, because she was in love and being rejected. Me, partly because I had no choice but hurt a friend, partly because she told me things that no one had ever told me and it f*cking hurt to see that someone could have such feelings for me and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

We tried to play the happy friends part for the following weeks, but it just felt plainly wrong and I could sense she was getting more hurt by the minute.
So I moved out, and went back to my sofa surfing.

We still meet up for the occasional coffee or pint, but, even if more than a year on awkwardness has disappeared, we can both sense that the friendship hasn't -and won't- go back to what it was. And I always leave her feeling incredibly sad.
I still can't help but thinking about what a bliss it could have been, being in a relashionship with someone who cares so much about you...

Other reasons to give up smoking

2008-01-30T16:46:00.001Z

- It's cold outside.

- If, like me, you own a crappy lighter, you end up with a sore blister on your right thumb.

- You tend to date smokers only, not to feel too self-conscious about your breath. Dramatically reduces the possibilities.

- You get in trouble with your family.

- Spending more than 24 hours with your parents makes your teeth yellow, because you are left with no choice but chew on those awful nicotine gums in order not to commit murder.

- If you are as clumsy as I am, you regularly set random things on fire. Especially your hair. (or how to quickly get an original and unique layered cut)
A friend of mine is well-know for having got rid of her nose hair when her lighter exploded. Her words: "It smelled of burnt pork for weeks!"

- You sweat a lot more through customs at the airport when you know you are bringing much more cheap cigarettes back in the country than technically and legally allowed.

- You are ten times more likely to catch a cold than a non-smoker, because since the smoking ban, the amount of time you spend outside has been multiplied by ten.

- You get chatted up by those awful guys who would never dare to do it if you weren't happening to be having a fag at the same place at the same time.

I'll update when I find new ones. In the meantime, I'm going out for a smoke.

Being social

2008-01-29T11:09:00.001Z

Last night with French Guy didn't happen. For the "good" reason I fell asleep in the bath and woke up in cold water three hours later. Lovely.

And a shame, really. Our next meeting is postponed until Wednesday. I can't wait, all this internet/phone foreplay is driving me nuts.
And what can I say, except that when we eventually see eachother, any sort of conversation might be slightly compromised...
It's getting worrying; how can you make any kind of relashionship develop "normally" if each time, you are both literally starving-craving for the other one that no time is left for words?
Oh well, I'm not going to complain, am I?

Tonight, I'll be catching up with Liz and the Schmookin Creek.
Even if I am looking forward to it, I am finding my social life a bit overwhelming. Especially after that long-and-intense-and-tiring Europe tour where I caught up with so many good friends, some of them I hadn't seen in years.
It was nice, but emotionally a bit too much, and now I'm back, I am left with a lot of catching up to do amoung my London relations. All my nights are already taken this week, and I don't even have time for a pub night with the Usual Suspects. Let's just say I am lucky that Brooke and Stella are not back yet from their China tour... I really couldn't have coped with a few mad clubbing nights on top of it all.

London

2008-01-28T12:18:00.001Z

London

I swear the tube carriages have not seen anyone grinning that much since the seventies. I am so glad to be back that I would have been jumping around for the past half-hour if hadn't it been for my extreme exhaustion. I've been up for 10 hours and had three meals already today, and it's only 12.

To make things even better, as I opened my inbox, French Guy had left me the sweetest/sexiest message. Ok, I'm really happy with that, but not to the point I could gather enough strengh to jump around either... I barely managed to empty my suitcase into the laundry machine, and I'm feeling really proud for that.

I'm off to a well diserved and well needed bath. Then I'll think about tonight's proposition...

2008-01-27T14:41:00.001Z

I am back at the hostel. You might think I'm a silly and blasé tourist, who'd rather be blogging about instead of visiting Oslo, but the reason I came back so early is that the said hostel is located on the highest hill around, and I wanted to see the sunset over the city and the harbour. The sight is absolutely breath-taking and I have been taking pictures for the past half-hour.

Another reason for my early return was the bloody cold outside. Sorry, but I can't hang around the streets for that long by minus I-don't-want-to-know-how-many degrees, especially knowing that I shall be leaving the hostel tomorrow at 4am latest. Bracing.

This, and if I want to be really honest, I somehow thought that the earlier I'd be in bed tonight, the sooner the day on which I'm coming back to London would arrive.

After almost three weeks away, I am entirely, completely, totally looking forward to it. I am usually the kind of person who feels at home wherever she goes (and that helped me a lot seeing how much travelling I did since I was 16), but I have to say, I never felt so much at home like in The House. Might be somehow related with the fact that I never lived for that long in any place before, even for half that time...
And I miss it.
I can picture it from here: my room, my futon, my bath, my bed, my kitchen, the Usual Suspects, my friends, "my" places to go out, the shitty but warmer British weather, the "joys" of London transports...

And sex.

It is only fair to say I haven't been getting any since I left, and I am slowly loosing my mind.

I don't know how anyone can disagree with this, but to me, London is the only place where getting laid is that easy. (Unless you need to pay, in that case, go to Amsterdam) I've lived in quite a few capital cities, and let's face it, probably because of its specific drinking culture, London is the world capital of the one-night-stand.

I am not saying that it is difficult to find a willing partner in other big cities -believe me, anywhere is easy as long as there are people around- but merely that the whole dating/casual-drunken sex scene is so normalised it's a wonder the British population hasn't tripled last year.

Anyway, I am loosing my track. I wasn't saying that I couldn't get laid because I was too much used to the London standards, but just that I was very eager to go back to them...
It is not entirely fair to say that I didn't because of constant work and constant travelling, since I always managed to fit everything in while working back home.
I think I didn't because of lack of opportunity, and I didn't really wanted to "go and get the opportunity" either.

And I know, whatever I decide, that I won't have to do that much work on it either once I'm back.

OG is being VERY insistant, even though I only replied to one out of four or five of his messages. I really don't know what I am going to do with that one. I don't even know if I really want to see him again. It's been so long! What if I give in, open the door to him, only to take a good look and say: "Sorry darling, I don't think I desire you anymore"? It would be so bad for my karma that I'd probably have to retire in a convent straight away.

And French Guy...
Who writtes me how glad he is to know I'll be back soon, but at the same time reminds me he's still in the middle of his exams, hence can't really do anything before next week-end. (This being said, it suits me perfectly well, as my period is due anyday now.)
Still I don't know what to do with all his mixed messages, and I'd like to see him again very soon, especially if a shag like the last one we had is in the cards...

Cannes to Oslo

2008-01-27T09:30:00.001Z

Cannes was a bliss. I did nothing but catching up with A, long walks on the sunny beach, window shopping (too skint to actually shop in Vuitton), getting a new haircut (I am still wondering if it wasn't a mistake, seing the result is very close to the haircut I got rid of at the beginning of the nineties), watching the first season of Lost, and smoking pot on the balcony with A and his friends.
My idea of a holiday. Of a well needed break.

Still, on Friday morning, again for work related reasons, I had to fly to Oslo.
After spending the first flight to Copenhagen thinking I was going to die with my fellow passengers, and looking for an island by the window (bad luck, it was the Alps!) because of way too many turbulences than required -I know I shouldn't have watched Lost the night before- I very classily threw up in a plastic bag on the second flight.

But when we landed, what a change from Cannes and Nice!
There are no thermometers around, and I think it's a state decision to avoid mass suicids amoung Norwegians.
It's so cold that if you go out for a cigarette, you can rest assured that your two fingers holding the fag will stay in the same position until you next need one. Useful.
I am sporting not one, not two, but four big bruises on my ass because of the number of times I landed on it thanks to the black ice.
Yesterday, with some collegues, we were trying to work out how many hours of daylight the Norwegians could claim to have everyday, and we came to the conclusion it didn't go past 4 hours a day.
And I am sharing a room in a hostel with the largest German girl I've ever met, whose number of decibels she produces while snoring, I swear, is proportional to her size.

Still, I am enjoying it a lot. Today is my last day here before I fly back to London tomorrow (YEY!), I don't have to work, and I woke up this morning to find it had snowed a tremendous amount during my sleep.
I am probably going to bring home the biggest cold ever, since my inner child, faced with that much snow this morning, couldn't help but have a snowball fight with a friend of mine who's staying here as well. All on the way to breakfast, before the sun rose, and still in PJs.

I am coughing already.
But it is still early in the morning, and I first went online to work out which kind of tourism I shoud do today...

2008-01-23T09:28:00.001Z

I realise I am growing a very distinct English behaviour towards the weather.

In the way that whenever the rain stops, and the weather can be described as vaguely sunny, I will be the first outside and take my sunglasses out of my bag as fast as any character out of a Western film would take his gun out.

I've been living in England for too long now not to consider the sun as an amazing and rare opportunity to be outside.
My friends here thought I was a real freak when I proudly said I had spent the morning outside in the sun: "But it's January!"

And then what? It's sunny, warm, I'm on a vacation, and right after my coffee, I am taking a book with me and will go and read on the beach. Little does it matter to me, if the French around here think it's too early in the year to do this, it means I'll have the beach for myself!

Cannes at A's

2008-01-22T10:08:00.001Z

I am right now sat in the sun, wearing only a night gown and sunglasses, on my best friend A's balcony in Cannes. I can see the sea from here, and it looks blue and wonderful, and makes me regret we're still in January. Still, it is such a nice change from Berlin!

I've known A for four years now, and he is still the only person on earth with whom I can be completely myself, and probably the only person who knows me so well he can predict what I am about to do or say. The only person who is "like family" to me. (The one person I can be comfortable with without wearing any make-up, which means a lot seing how lost I feel without my eye-liner...) Almost a year we hadn't seen eachother. God, I missed him so much!

A is my true sibling. We met during our first study year in London, and were for eachother the only thing which made those two very harsh years possible to go through. I remember, at night, during our many insomnia nights, when we were too skint to go out and couldn't meet in our hostels because of our respective room-mates, we would, during summer time, sit down at a random bus stop with ice creams from the local Food and Wine and talk for hours, whereas, during winter, we would get on the first night bus where at least we wouldn't be in the cold weather, and go around London for hours.

I also remember the day I started smoking, and didn't want to tell him in order not to smoke when we were together -most of the time- and told it first to my friend Stella, who started to laugh and explained me A had told her the exact same thing five minutes ago... We started exactly the same day at the same time, in two different cities, without consulting eachother! How many cancer sticks did we share since!!

I also recall fondly how hard it was to explain to my then boyfriend that he shouldn't be jealous, but that A meant the world to me, and that he could consider himself very lucky because for the first time, I had ignored my best friend's advice to be with him! A happened to be right in his disapproval because that relashionship left me considerably hurt and resentful...

I helped him coming to terms with his sexuality (he now assumes perfectly well the fact he's bisexual) and he helped me cope with all my family/food issues...

Sometimes, at the risk of sounding cheesy-sentimental, I really wonder where I would be and what I would be doing right now if I hadn't met him.

He came to Berlin to join on my last day of work there on Sunday. We stayed in a hostel, which saved me a night at J's place (thank God, although I bought her about a kilogram of chocolates to thank her for her hospitality), and, of course, both having fewer problems money-wise, went out for too many drinks, before catching our plane to Cannes yesterday morning, both tremendously hangover, and both sporting a huge pair of sunglasses!

I'm not actually working here, but, before flying to Oslo, I figured out I might as well spend a few quiet days here (ok, I know, Cannes is not exactly on the way from Berlin to Oslo) instead of crossing back the Channel for such a short time.

I met A's friends here, who are undoubtfully as crazy as the two of us, so get on well with them. I'm already invited to a French birthday party tonight.

Being here in such a nice, warm, French environment makes up for the fact that I am starting to get a bit homesick. And, truth to be said, a bit French Guy-sick as well...
Come on, less than a week to go!

2008-01-19T15:21:00.002Z

Almost a week here, and I am starting to find the Berlin tube (or S/U bahn) a bit less of a mission, and can now take it on my own without ending up even further from my destination.

So that's almost proudly (at least much more certain of where I was going) that I stepped on the S6 this afternoon and sat down next to that very fit German guy.
Two stops later, he decided to smile at me and it stroke me how similar to Hihes he looked.

I got off the train at the next station, realised I had missed my stop and felt the urge to cry, along with the will to kill Hihes-German-look-alike.

I don't wish to proceed with the introspection any further...

2008-01-18T12:46:00.001Z

It's all very nice to be working here at the moment. Moreover, I just found a really charming little cafe in Western Berlin where they let you use their wireless connexion if you brought your own laptop. I am planning to stay here until my battery dies.

But I am getting quite bored of the wake-up, work, internet, bed routine. Didn't go out since the Vienna fiasco last week-end, and it is starting to feel really strange. Something needs to be done. But then, I am working early this whole coming week-end as well. But I know I just can't keep going like this!

This morning, I bumped until an old collegue from a London job, we exchanged numbers, and hopefully, she has a little more knowledge about Berlin night life than I do and we should plan something very soon. Like, tonight?

I am still staying with J and Hubbby, and make a point of coming back home only very late at night, to let them time to get the business looked after before my return. Seemed to have worked yesterday... Phew.

Another night like the first ones and I would have started to scream/run around like a mad woman.

All this makes me feel quite eager to come back to London, somehow... I miss the Usual suspects, and being in a country where having a drinking problem is the norm.

I have a longing for something else too, but can't seem to nail it.
Is it French Guy? I'm not sure, but he keeps behaving like the boyfriend, and well, it's all very sweet, but I just can't believe he is genuine. I simply don't want to believe it. If it didn't work out better a few months ago, there must be a reason, right? I wish I'd remember which one.

It's all way too suspicious, and in order to keep myself from going too fast too far with him, I keep in touch with OG. I know I know: Sadomasochism!
And anyway, I'm not really sure I want to see any of OG when I come back. I haven't seen him in ages, and our last facebook conversation quickly went down to yet another row... So I'm starting to think that keeping him where he belongs to (my facebook inbox), is the way to go.

We'll see what happens and who with when I'm back. But I'm dying to find out and waiting another week and a half is doing no good to my already quite bitten nails...

2008-01-16T17:34:00.001Z

I am "still" in Berlin, and enjoying work a lot even if it's currently taking the best of me and waking up in the morning feels like righteous torture.

It's not that I am sleeping very well either. K, my very first boyfriend, whose place I was planning to crash for the week (even if he's still unaware of my presence in the country) has apparently changed his phone number, and it also looks like he's too busy to check his facebook. In the mean time, I am monopolising his wall with desperate messages and staying at an old collegue's flat, J, in South East Berlin. J is a very nice girl and does everything to make me feel at home, but she lives with her husband with whom communication is nearly impossible as my Hebrew is almost as non existant as my German...

Still he's a nice bloke (and even if I should't be saying that, a very fit one too...) and we share a joint together in the kitchen at night. I thought exhaustion was getting the best of me and was purely hallucinating when I first stepped in the flat as the kitchen table was entirely covered by a whole bunch of weed which wouldn't fit in my suitcase was I willing to take it home through the customs!

Thank God for the weed, though, because I am currently sleeping in a sleeping-bag on the floor of the living room, and should I precise that there is no door separating it from J and her husband's bedroom?
Yup. No door. No curtain. No nothing.

With my luck, of course they both have a high sex drive.
Fortunately, J is not a "screamer", but the hubby is a groaner. And a propper one too.
Lucky me.

So, each night, I lay there for a few hours, wishing I had taken at least a teddy bear with me, and thinking of England, literally. Well, at least of London, and of the lovers who are -or not- waiting for me back home... (Especially with the few messages I keep getting from French Guy and OG) ...and of what I could be doing to them right now.

And right now, I don't have the time/will/energy/German skills/room to be looking for a German one either while I'm here. Although, now I'm thinking about it, surely, in a big capital like Berlin, I could probably find another French one (I'm getting quite addicted to those, you see...).

I just hope that K will make himself known very soon, because I know I'll be insane by Sunday if I stay here, and it would be a shame to pay a hotel room for such a small matter...

2008-01-11T16:53:00.001Z

I am now a bit everywhere in Europe, and didn't have any easy access to internet until now, so here are my notes day to day...

Friday 11th January 6am, coach to Luton Airport

Ewrg. Honestly, I am full of great ideas! If you're ever running short of a great idea on how to put yourself in a weird/unecessarily stressful/embarrasing/absurd situation, please get in touch. I frankly consider myself as an expert; that's what my life is all about!

Whoever is "upstairs" and gave me all those bright inspirations must have accumulated more serious laugher lines than a weed chain smoker from having so much fun at my expense!

Anyway, -don't listen to me I am probably still drunk- I had to deal with at least two of those specific situations in the past twelve hours... Lucky me!

Let me explain.
Today, I'm flying to Europe for work and probably a few job interviews as well...(let's see how it goes)
When I'm saying Europe, understand Germany, Austria, Italy, Noeway, another country I can't recall right now, all, in no specific order!

It might all sound very glamourous, but believe me, (at the risk of sounding somehow blase) it is not that glamourous when:
-you're doing this for the 70th time of your life,
-you absolutely entirely hate flying, (I gte seriously plane sick twice out of three times, hence my somewhat agressivity at the checking desk when I have to really insist "YES, an aisle seat. NO, NOT a WINDOW one! Understand I NEED emergency access to the bathroom!"
-you have to pay for your flights yourself, which explains why I am currently on a bloody coach to Luton. And, If I arrive on time (had to wait for said coach 50 minutes under the London pouring rain), lucky me, I'll have the great honour of paying eight pounds to enjoy an EasyJet sandwich than even the squirrels in Hyde Park woudn't want of...

But that's not today's topic.

Trying as hard as I can to be organised, when I recieved my plane ticket last week, I immediately put it in the very-important-safely-closing pocket of the handbag I was going to travel with.

Thta's where the problems come in.
That very-important pocket is also the one where I usually keep the condoms and a small bottle of lube...

There you go. On Monday night, as you do, I got somehow so worked up and eager to fuck French Guy's brains out that I threw all the content of the infamous pocket flying across the room... I didn't think about it twice, or not even once, if you ask; I was somewhere in between 5 and 20 orgasms in, so my brain had long ago given up on basic functions.

Until yesterday night, when I realised while finishig packing that my plane ticket and my passport had gone AWOL...

I was tired, stressed out, and really didn't have the time, or the will for any action below the belt, but my only option was to call French Guy and ask if I could pop by to get the papers back. Well, pop by, not exactly, because Monsieur's place is at one hour and fifteen minutes away from mine...

So I braced myself and spent the whole journey on the Hammersmith and Shitty line telling myself "Concentrate, concentrate, get the papers and out of there, you don't have the time for sex!'

Obvioulsym when I got there, it was the hardest part of the task.
Or, litteraly speaking, maybe not exactly. . .

I am proud to say I stayed under control and managed to escape 20minutes later before any action below the belt happened!

Terribly horny and frustrated, I had to take the tube back home. Not fun.
Especially since they decided to make it the Hammersmith and Very Very Shitty line for the night. I had to let to trains go before managing to squeeze myself in. And it was so packed it was pratically impossible to expand your ribcage just enough to gulp some overly smelly air.

Apparently, there was no roo for my bag either.
And no room for me to do anything but scream HOLLY SHIT!! when my bag started to make some weird cracking noises.

Yup. The bottle of lube. Exploded.

Once home, I spent the best part of an hour cleaning up my passport and plane ticket, not easy, since there's nothing on Google on how to do that!
And the papers are still, how would you put it, a mixt in between sticky and slippery.
A good look for me at the desk in a minute if you ask!
This, and the terrible hangover face I must be walking around right now, because, as luck would have it, the Usual Suspects, facing my not-so-good mood, insisted to drag me to the pub " for a very quick pint", which became maybe a dozen pints...
Clearly, I have no will power. And I might have just enough alcohol left in my system to fuel the plane to Hawai instead. Another great idea...
Oh yeah, I forgot, and my current state is sooo going to help with plane sickness!

12:30pm

In Vienna, I was supposed to stay at my good friend V's place who was unfortunately working whole day and couldn't give me her keys to the flat. So I dragged my suitcase along with my old bones from one coffee to the other until 6pm.
After all, Kafe Konditorei are, with Mozart Kugeln (litteraly Mozart's balls) what Vienna is famous for, right?
I did my cultural bit then.

11:30pm, V's neighbour's House Party

I stumble across the corridor, hurt my head against the door handle, eventually manage to crouch down and start searching for my bag and leather jacket amounst the huge pile of coats, scarfs, etc. I find it, struggle for a good five minutes to work out how to put it on with my spinning head, call out "Danke shon!", make my way through the door when I realise someone has managed to re-strip me off my jacket in a pathetic attempt to keep me in the room.
I turn around.

The Russian Guy. Again.
Handsome in a kind of way, but weird in many, many ways... First of all, I'm not even sure he's straight.

"Pleesss! You can't leave naow. Come weet I: Vodka und smoking gestures, ok?
-Fuck off! I'm off my tits and i have to work tomorrow.
-Pleess!"
Obviously, I gave in, but only after warning him that I'd sue him, was I to loose my job because of the hangover which would inevitably follow the next day.
Silly me, I didn't even take his name, but I am proud to say I didn't even loose my job!

Because my memories become kind of blurry from that point on...
I remember smokimg way too much pot with Russian Guy.
I remember trying as hard as I could to remain serious, hence sticking to the Gin tonic -that I was downing by the pint before long...
I remember the music: whoever did the selection was a pure genius!
I remember dancing with all those fit, very fit boys who took their shirt off. (V's neighbour happened to be a ballet dancer and had invited mostly collegues)
I remember catching a glimpse (ok, to be fair, I took more than a good look) of some serious action going on in the bedroom in between God knows how many girls and boys. Not the couple kind.
I remember mentally screaming at myself "NO, no NO! Focus! You're not here to get any action of any sort. You're working early tomorrow, and you are very dedicated to your job, remember?"
But, I also remember myself on a sofa, kissing someone while stroking his perfect torso... The Russian Guy?
Let's hope it was him indeed, because he's the only one whose face I can recall...

Saturday 12th January, 6am, local time

Aaaargh. Things would have been so much better if I had died last night. Quick check: Am on V's sofa. Alone. No naked body around. And am myself fully dressed.
I might start to believe in God.
This, or Russian Guy is gay and still in the cupboard.

7:05am

Amazingly so, I'm at work, and 5 minutes late only!
"SHIT! Anyone knows how I did to get here from my friend's flat?"
Apparently, some collegues saw me arriving in a taxi. Wow! Wise move. I'm self impressed. I just hope I didn't gibe the driver a too generous tip, because I really don't remember anything. Just happen to get my spirits back at work. Meaning am probably still drunk/stoned. Shit.

7pm

"V, I'm sorry but I'm going to bed. Am too old for all this!"
Mental note: Never ever stay at a friend/coke addict's place ever again, unless you're planning to indulge. Being coke free, no way I can keep up.
Even if V is a very nice girl and it saved me loads of money.

Sunday 13th January

No party. Work work work. In a much more civilised state.

Monday 14th January, or official train-day.

What I did and where:

-stocked up on Sudoku books in Vienna.
-smoked a fag in Bratislava.
-slept.
-smoked a fag in Brno.
-took pictures of the landscape through the window.
-smoked a fag in Prague.
-tried to have phone sex with French Guy in the train's toiletten, but gave up after half an hour and no success because I grew bored of "Honey, hang on a minute, here comes a tunnel, I'll call you back!"
-got into a conversation about long distance relashionships with a train controller.
-caught up on notes.
-sudoku.
-smoked two fags in Dresden.
-slept again to wake up my head resting on the shoulder of an obese german woman. Eww.
-slept in the first internet cafe I could find in berlin instead of worrying a bit more about where I am going to stay tonight...

2008-01-08T16:04:00.001Z

Yes, I got rid of the spider webs! And very nicely so, indeed...

Last night was a pure bliss. French Guy welcomed me with a "Happy new year ma cherie" and sat me in front of a glass of great wine from his father's vineyard, while he was coming to terms with his mushroom risotto.

The risotto was great, so was the wine, and so was the rest. We were all over eachother in between each mouthful...
The risotto polished off, he told me to wait for him for five minutes and disappeared to the bedroom.
Another glass of fabulous wine and two cigarettes later, I decided the five minutes were over and walked upstairs... Monsieur was struggling with dozens of lit candles around the room!

Who said French romance was dead?

I did't fail to notice the addition of mirrors on the ceiling above his bed either...

The sex was great. Amazing. Terrific. I'm running short fo adjectives to describe it.
Which makes me wonder what the heck was going on, because months ago, last time we saw eachother, it wasn't even near to that standard.
But who cares? I lost the count of times I came, and I swear I came once for what seemded twenty minutes.

I saw God numerous times, all the angels, the saints, the clouds... I thought I was having a heart attack and would never be able to breathe normally again...

While I was lying on the bed, smilimg like stupid for the hundredth time and trying to catch my breath, my French lover asked mewhat I was thinking about, and I answered as honestly as I could seeing the state I was in: "I'm far too gone and too high to be able to think about anything right now..."
I'd recommend that feeling to anyone, really.

What a great, great night!

Well, this moring wasn't exactly up to expectations; I had to carry him all the way downstairs into a cab and straight to that osteopath-friend of mine, because it appeared my French lover had thrown his back... WOOPS!

On the way back, I recognised Catherine Towmsend on that carriage of the Hammersmith and Shitty line. She was even more beautiful than the various pictures of her would show, and was carrying what very much looked like a sample for the cover of her new book. Of course I read the title, but I'll keep my mouth shut. I wonder when it'll be in the book shops. I'll be buying it first thing!

2008-01-07T14:43:00.001Z

Yesterday night, wanting to have a quiet one in, I sent my housemate John to rent a DVD to go with the weed someone left at some point during the past week in The House.
My sudden decision to clean the micro-wave earlier that afternoon was rewarded by my finding a whole bag under it...

John came back with that French author film, Dans Paris, and, before I knew it, I was madly fantasizing about "Jo", one of the main characters; that very charming French guy who spends one day running around Paris as a favour to his depressed brother and ends up accidentally sleeping with three girls on his way...

He awfully reminded me of "my" French Guy, only that mine is even cuter.
Or so I was reminded of him in my stoned haze (John and I had to watch the film twice in a row to eventually understand what was going on...).

So, just before I went to bed, I texted him, welcomimg him back on the other side of the Channel.
He called back exactly 30 seconds later, and I had the great presence of mind to grab a paper and a pen before answering, just to be able to remember the content of the conversation later on...
I couldn't help but laughing when he read out loud a text he received while we were talking and commented:
"What does she want, that one? I didn't even tell her I was back!!!
-Seriously, mon chou, what do you think she wants...?"

Apparently, I didn't sound that bad, because, according to my notes, it looks like he's cooking me dinner at his place tonight.
Nice French food cooked for me tonight, what else can you ask for?
AT LAST, I'm going to get rid of the spider webs I've been growing down there for more than a month now... and, hopefully, nicely so!

Now, I just have to re-find out how to get to his place and go on another Boots mission!

2008-01-06T18:12:00.001Z

For some unknown reason -and I am seriously starting to believe in karma- the internet connexion our dear neighbours used to generously share with us for most of 2007 suddenly stopped reaching The House. I very much doubt they ever were aware of such generosity, but it looks like they decided to welcome 2008 with a brand new password. It's a shame, really.
Surely, new year resoulitons are supposed to be all about a regain of generosity, but it seems our neighbours didn't see it that way...

That explains why, after defying the night, the cold, the buses, the English keyboard (all with a massive hungover), I am now being charged to sit in front of a screen going back to the last century in that seedy internet cafe...

What about my 2008 resolutions<
I'm not sure, but I hope that "not-making-any-resolution" counts as one...

This whole week seems to have passed in a sort of haze of drinking, dancing, cocktails making, clubbing, etc... to the point I can barely put two and two together and put a specific memory on a specific day.
I guess it was fun though. Except maybe that hungover day when I didn't make it out of bed before 6:30...pm!
Or the night in Turnmills when, having checked my bag in the cloackroom, I had the great idea to slip the shots' change inside my boot. My left foot rang harmoniously all the way back across London, and, once home, I had the nice surprise to find the head of the Queen "tattoed" in red all over my foot. Trendy!

Oh yeah! This and the consequences of one too many drunken texts. To celebrate the New Year in style, God knows how, I got myself back into an old-not-so-glorious pattern; the one called OG/Frenchie!
My friend Brooke is now convinced they know eachother, but I'd rather think about the fact they're both back in London and asking me out tonight as a mere coincidence...
Absolutely unable to make a decision, as usual, I decided tonight was going to be a bit of "me-time". Understand two hours sat in between two weirdos looking at porn websites (Hello dear internet cafe neighbours!!! Yes, I can see your screens, so if you happen to be as curious as I am, know that: nope, you're not that discreet!) and as for tomorrow, I'll improvise!

Back

2008-01-02T20:29:00.001Z

I feel like I'm back to life. Back in London... HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Nun-like lifestyle in the country side under the parents' close surveillance is everything but my cup of tea, and I'm really glad to be back.

Last Friday night, though, I managed to escape the watching-the-cows/eating organic food/going to bed at 9:30pm routine and drove to the next town for what was supposed to be a catch-up dinner at the only restaurant around with old girl-friends from high school.

After voluntarily sending my cholesterol level up the roof by ordering not one, but two extra servings of cream and fresh bread (one has to make up for one week of muddy parsnips soup, fresh from the garden, and yes! even on Christmas day!) the girls insisted to bring me to the new English Pub, which was a new addition since the last time I came home. (about a year and a half ago...)

Ok, they didn't have to insist THAT much...

This place being the only one in the area NOT dedicated to cows or people above the age of 280, everyone from "back in the day" was there.

Still it seemed that a lot of change had taken place in my old school-mates over the years, especially regarding hair styles and sizes, which gave us girls quite a good ground for bitching away. (What else do you when you're reunited with your high-school bitching partners???)

It also looked like everyone had taken up smoking, which I thought, after a few pints, was a great idea, especially in a still-blessed country where the smoking ban does NOT apply!

Unfortunately I had come completely cigarettes-less (if I wished to spare my life, it was best to spend those few days chewing furiously on nicotine gums than letting the parents know). But I figured out at thatpoint that I could always blame the smell on my (non-smoking) friend, threw the evil gums back at the bottom of my bag, and walked to the next table, where I had noticed loads of rolling was going on...

"Excuse me can I bu...Aaaaaaaaah!!!"

With my luck, I had gone straight to my High-School-Fling,

I pulled a chair, sat down with the guys, rolled, smoked, rolled, smoked, drunk Stella and talked about sex, exactly like "back in the day" when it was really really really cool...

Three hours, a whole pack of tobacco, and way too many of those Stellas later (all on the guys of course!), the girls came to drag me back to their table.

It was probably a good idea, seeing that both the booze and talking out loud about our first sexual attempts with HSF had made me extremely horny, and I was becoming outrageously flirty. I had completely forgotten the present new girlfriend. Woops.

The girls drove me back with two cars and didn't let me back in the parental nunnerybefore I had swallowed a whole liter of water and what felt like a thousand mints. Just like the teenage years!!

This was about the only kind of fun I got while away.... i promise to make up for it very very soon!

2007-12-20T18:42:00.001Z

Last night I dragged the Usual Suspects to the pub.

As you do post break-up, I got myself tremendously drunk, and can barely remember anything at all, appart from the discovery of that little gem of a bar in the middle of Soho, where the smoking ban didn't apply, and cheering as we got a random to climb on top of a bus shelter.
Nothing else. Oh well...

There will be no blogging for me for a while, so Merry Christmas!

Dumped

2007-12-19T15:55:00.001Z

I'm officially dumped.
Well, not exactly. But I got Mike to speak to Hihes at a Christmas party last night. Apparently, he said there was nothing wrong with me, but that he just didn't want to take things any further.
(It looks like the night I thought we could really be together, he thought I wasn't worth the bother. What a connexion!!! And I am so winning the first prize in the fools' category. Congratulations to me!)

Thanks for letting me know and not let me hang in there for almost two fucking weeks.

Mike told him the least he could have done was telling me or at least give me a call and ended the conversation by calling him a chidlish coward.
Good boy. Couldn't have said it better myself.

I'm seriously thinking of asking Mike to marry me.
We would have the perfect arrangement; we already live together and we enjoy the same things (including boys).
We could be eachother's soulmates, and still bring home whoever we'd like for sex.

And I wouldn't get so fucking hurt... Because it really hurts.

Another thing that pisses me off so much is that I know myself: It's going to be a long time before I can allow myself to get emotionally involved with anyone. Can I possibly become more cynical than I already am? What a cheerful thought...

Anyway, I'm going to take a break from it all. I'm leaving London for ten days. Five on holidays with the parents. Five visiting the family.
I can't wait... to be back. To be back, and over it all.

2007-12-18T10:34:00.001Z

My mum keeps asking me on the phone how things are between OG and me. I find it very hard to explain the situation, somehow... For the time being, I'm staying as evasive as I can, but when I'm coming home on Friday, I know there will be no way to avoid the Great Maternal Inquisition. I need to work out a plausible story which makes me look respectable, and preferably -well, absolutely- not involving too much sleeping around. Hmm...

I've got until Friday, and, anyway, despite the copious amount of coffee, my brain is working way too slowly this morning to be used properly. I spent another sleepless night. Not an hour, not a minute, not even a second of sleep since Monday morning.
It's not that I had fun last night. I didn't go clubbing. I didn't attend any house party. I didn't go to the pub. I didn't even spend the night at home drinking with the usual suspects. I didn't spend the night with someone who kept me awake for good reasons either (sigh).

Insomnia. Or the great pleasures of being unable to sleep for no reason.

At 4:30, I gave up trying, and came downstairs where I watched most the DVD collection whilst playing sudoku. Pretty much until now, if you don't take in account my 7am trip to the corner shop to get another pack of cigarettes.
I live a great and exiting life.

That probably explains why I decided to give it another shot with Hihes and emailed him this morning. No, that doesn't explain anything. But I need to blame that impulsive self-destructive act of mine on something, and insomnia seems like a great excuse. Let's say that if I don't get any reply, I won't blame myself entirely, but rather blame the lack of sleep. Makes life so much simpler.

Not that it was anything too explicit either. I just asked how he was, how were the gigs going, and invited him to our New Year's Eve party. Nothing foolish. (well I did say that it would be good to see him, "whenever"...) I calculated he would read my mail either in state of great drunkenness, either with a terrible hangover, as I learnt by a common accointance that he is attending quite a big Christmas party tonight. Either option, that pretty much guarantee me a honest answer.
If there's no answer, again, well, I guess I'll know where to stand...

2007-12-17T12:27:00.001Z

Dear Santa,

You know I don't like all the fuss around your appearance on the 25th, and that I'm not a big fan of the whole hypocrite presents exchange process either, but if you consider I've been good this year -then I think you need glasses the size of your sleigh, but that's not the point- and if you really insist, I could really do with with an extra helping of irony and sarcasm at this time of the year.
So far, I think it's the only thing I need.
Hoping you don't freeze to death before you can bring all this at the foot of my Xmas tree, (but seeing my luck and the London weather, it's likely you will and I'll be left wanting more, as usual...),
Yours "sincerely",
Lilith.

Ok, I know my irony level has reached tremendous heights lately, but just imagine where I'm coming from...
I'm trying as hard as I can to forget that Hihes ever existed, and this morning I woke up to find two texts messages in my inbox.
It looks like, as always, and for some mysterious karma reason, OG and French Guy decided to get back in touch with me at the same time. Is it that they're not feeling that merry either? I don't wish to know.
See for yourself...

OG: "Darling, how are you? When are you here til? Miss you!! xxx"
I answered that apparently our respective timetables clashed and that we couldn't meet before 2008.
OG: "Shit! That's no good... No sex with Lilith for another two weeks?! I can't wait that long... Will be in London until 3rd so, PLEASE, let's make sure we meet and celebrate to the altar of your wonderful body... xxxxxxx"

French Guy: "Hello you! How are you? Long time no see... (no kidding) I'm back in Paris for Xmas. Home sweet home. I really hope I'll see some of you when I'm back. Merry Xmas Angel. XXX"

At least, it's good for my ego. I guess I'm not that crap in bed after all...
Does that mean I'm about to go back to the pre-Hihes period when I was juggling with them two? Looks like it.

I happen to spend whole day in Paris this Friday, and I'm planning to swap my Christmas shopping for some "quality" time with French Guy. Why not??? I didn't have sex in more than two weeks now, and really, it doesn't help my well-being...

Merry Fuck-mas to me!

2007-12-16T23:18:00.001Z

I am just starting to feel human again...

Last night was a great joke. My gay friend Andy invited us all to his sugar daddy's flat for what was supposed to be the biggest, gayest, most happening party of the year. Well, in its own way I suppose.

Stella and I were welcome downstairs by a very angry neighbour who told us to go home and get fucked somewhere else. He pretended the police was on its way, but how seriously can you take an angry English man in a white velvet dressing gown? We walked pass him, and once in the flat, it was exactly what I thought it would be:
Gay gay gay. Three fag-hags (us for two thirds), Vs eighty queens. What a waste, all those gorgeous men there, and completely uninterested, hence uninteresting.

Still, we were served drinks by two very hot models wearing only red boxers and Santa hats.
Needless to say we stuck around the bar most of the night, taking in the view. (Not the one over the Thames.)
Believe me, even if you considered yourself the most open-minded person in London, you wanted to stay away from dark corners.

At some point, I was talking to an old accointance in the corridor, when we saw three (gorgeous) men not-so-discreetly entering a room and closing the door after them but apparently they "forgot" to lock it...
Stella happened to have forgotten her cigarettes in the said room, and the nicotine call getting the best of her, she ignored my warnings and walked in.

She came out with an expression of such disgust that I had to walk her straight to the bar where we stayed for the next two hours and got hammered on the sugar daddy's expense.
Cherry on top, Sexy Santa Number 1 insisted he was straight. He even showed me a picture of his current girlfriend to prove this unbelievable fact. Ha-ha.
After he poured me the sixth Malibu and pineapple, in which you could barely guess the presence of microscopic bits of pinapple, I gave in and let him take my number, but I really hope he doesn't call. How would I explain anyone how we met?

We left the party soon after the Santas departed, mainly because things were getting too heated up to our taste, and tried to get in Pasha, which was situated conveniently close. Unfortunately, the bouncers decided we looked to drunk to get in. Great.
He was probably right, because I really don't know how and when I got home that night.
The last thing I remember is telling the bouncer he was a fool because the last time I came to that place, my friend was carrying three grams of coke on her person, and we had no trouble getting in. Woops.

Me and my big mouth... Thank God this is not my favourite club in London, I reckon it would be best not to show up at the door any time soon...

I spent the whole day in The House, dealing with the worst hungover in history, (shame on me) ordered a pizza for breakfast, and sworn off drinking for life. Again. Maybe for the tenth time of the year.

Feeling like shit all day long for too much drinking probably didn't help the not feeling-like-shit-because-I've-just-been-dumped-in-the-most-ungracious-way part. I find it really hard. But I'll get over it eventually. The question is when?
I already hate the whole Xmas period for many various reasons, mainly because there is so much tacit pressure to be happy or at least behave as such. And I just can't feel very festive right now. Meaning if I don't manage to shake Hihes off very soon, I'm just going to be the sad one in the corner, or the drunkest one in the middle. What a cheerful thought.

2007-12-15T21:29:00.001Z

I'm all cheered up! It didn't seem to start that way though.

Last night, I took the last tube to South London, zone 3 (=miles away), and apparently, I was the only one in whole London who wasn't both dressed up and utterly pissed. Not the best way to make me feel a bit less lonely, if you ask...

When I finally got to the Schmoking Creek's flat, I had to wait a good half an hour freezing my ass off outside. Alas, needless to say they're not the most reliable persons I know!

At 1am, I was making my way to the bus stop, ready to brave the night buses nightmare to go home, and swearing off my friends for ever, when they eventually showed up.

I swear I could have killed someone, anyone actually, but the feeling was repressed as soon as I was handed over a joint. Thank God for that!

We stayed up talking until 5am, and it was good to finally get everything which was bothering me out of my system in the company of good friends.

I slept on the sofa, and was woken up by John, that very nice boy I used to go out with back in the day, and whose unsupected presence in the flat came as quite a nice surprise this morning.

When I said I was woken up by John, it's not entirely exact, as the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes, was another pot "staring at my face".

Except when I was in Amsterdam, I had never smoked pot before coffee, but hey, what can you do, it was there, screaming Smoke me, and moreover, it was nice to catch up with John and see I could remain friend with an ex.

Had another few, and headed to Leicester Square with Liz, mainly because conveniently situated on the Nothern line, and changing line seemed like too much of a mission at the time.

We hanged around the Fun Fair, and went to see Enchanted, which was wonderful in its extreme stupidity. Exactly what the doctor ordered!

Re-reading myself, I realise I still think that the world is a beautiful place right now, meaning I must be still stoned. How nice!

Ok, I gotta go now, apparently, I'm about to attend the biggest posh gay orgy of the year... I'll tell everything about it tomorrow!

2007-12-14T21:55:00.001Z

I hate Chrismas.
For me Christmas equals an over-crowded Oxford Street, office parties where everyone wonders why they're mingling with people they spend more than enough time with at work, and a very hypocrite family gathering, which always ends with an argument over the turkey and someone leaving smashing the door.

Tonight, everyone I know in London is attending a office party of their own, and even if I could have joined, I simply don't want to.
I was also invited to join the lesbian crowd in Scala, but a night of gay clubbing isn't very appealing right now.

I was also supposed to go and see Hihes and his band playing, but that seems out of the question now.
I simply don't want to do anything else.

My phone keeps ringing, and I deeply offended the Usual Suspects, my clubbing partner in crime Stella, and all the others, by answering that I'd much rather stay on the sofa watching Pierce Brosnan in Tomorrow never dies. (Pierce Brosnan is the oldest crush I ever had as far as I can remember, and meeting him in person through work last May, was a definite way to confirm that my crush was entirely justified. Even if he had over-estimated the amount of fake tan needed, he was still absolutely-totally-gorgeous, with that great voice of his, and, cherry on top, really really tall as well!)

Anyway. I eventually gave in to my friend Liz, who was making the best offer so far tonight: A night spent at the Schmoking Creek's brand new flat. That seems to be the only thing I can think of to cheer me up. So, I'm going there. After both James Bond and my Cadbury bar are finished, that is.

Obsession

2007-12-13T19:25:00.001Z

I have to stop obsessing. I'm driving myself crazy.
Each time I have more than three seconds to let my mind wander, Hihes automatically pops in.

When something funny happens, I wish I could tell him.

When I'm sat alone on the sofa, I imagine how it would feel to have him here.
Worse! When I'm chatting with a friend, any friend, I can't help but secretly wish the friend could be magically replaced by Hihes.

When I walk in a bar, I remember when he used to make his way through the crowd, firmly gripping my hand, how I would scurry behind, with a huge smile on my face, and smiling at everyone, thinking: "I'm with him!!! Can you believe it???"

When I go to bed... God... Bedtime is definitely the worst part of it all! I keep remembering what it's like to caress and play with his chest hair, how good he feels inside me, how I enjoy his attentions so much more than everyone else's, how euphoric just feeling my naked skin against his makes me feel. How happily I'd fall asleep knowing he's there, how happily I'd wake up... The list is endless.

I can't fucking stop thinking about it. And each time it makes me want to cry.
I simply can't believe it is over. And I really don't like being left down like this.
And I hate the fact that I completely lost control on that one.

My friend Brooke, who is a bit of a meditation freak, told me that the best way to deal with the "flashes" was to picture myself mentally punching him as hard as I can, each time I'm thinking about him.
The whole point being to convince myself that I don't need him to be happy.
Sounds like a good joke to me, but I'm trying anyway. Every little helps. But it makes me feel lonely.

And I want to know for sure if it's over. I talked to a common friend today and sent him on a mission. Tomorrow, he's dropping me in the conversation. Let's see how it goes.

Okay, I know, I am so coming across as a drama queen. But my feelings are hurt...

Apparently, something went wrong...

2007-12-11T23:50:00.001Z

I came back in town yesterday.
Hihes.
All the time I was away, my mind was filled with him, him and me, me and him, the two of us, the two of us together, the two of us talking, the two of us kissing, the two of us in bed... The list is endless.
I could physically feel his absence, if that makes any sense.
So, before boarding, I sent him a sweet text, hoping (even if I was completely knackered and not looking my best), I would see some of him in the hours following my landing, as we had previously planned.

NOTHING. Nada. Niet. Rien. Niente.

Instead of spending the evening with him, I got myself completely trashed on mulled wine at the Notting Hill Arts Club with Stella.

The guy has gone completely AWOL.
He screened my two calls, and I can't be asked to go through another calling/screening.
This shit is so painful, especially since I really don't know what went wrong.

I wish I could get angry, upset, break something, throw the phone out the window, but I'm just feeling incredibly sad...
I don't even want to start asking myself what happened to my being invited to his gig this coming Friday, and what about meeting the f*cking parents????
Seriously, I know that behaviour of his is a little bit more than arse-holic, but I'm just here, waiting next to the phone, hoping he'll ring and will come up with a plausible explanation. This is only a nightmare, right? Yup, I know: reality denial.

And I can't help but ask myself WHY? What did I do wrong? What happened? What the f*ck is wrong with me? This is doing no good for my self-esteem.
I am totally pissed off with myself. I can sense a theme there: each time I actually admit having feelings for someone, either that person disappears, either I freak out and disappear. Great. I'm not fucked up at all.

But I'm decided not to let myself feeling like a whole lot of mammoth shit because I met a "perfect" guy who "really likes/d me".
Here is my goal. OG just came back - as quite a few texts from him, involving my perfect naked body (his words, not mine) seem to be saying- and if by Friday I haven't heard from Hihes, I'll be sending a few texts of mine involving OG's private parts and his eagerness to make me come over and over again.

I am such a bloody masochist. And I can't even start to explain how sad I am feeling...

romance?

2007-12-06T08:51:00.001Z

He walked me back to the station under the rain.
Just before we got in, he grabbed me by the waist and oh-so-gently kissed me.
He tasted of Corona and Malboros, I tasted of Malibu and Camels.
It was the best of all mixts.

I was stupidly smiling to myself and everyone like I was on E, all the way on the tube back home and even gave my seat to a Japanese grandma. I spent the rest of the evening singing out loud in The House (that probably explains the crap weather today....).

Now I just want to cry. I wish I exactly new why. I wish I could relive that moment again and again.
I think I'm slowly (ok, not-so-slowly) but surely falling for him. I haven't been feeling like that for years. Maybe never...
And I'm listening to Gary Jules' Mad World way too much.

And I'm also going away for work this afternoon. Another bloody plane. And I have the worst of plane-sickness. Another five days of travelling. I'm less than enthusiastic at the prospect, but I know I'll be back next week...... I just can't wait.

2007-12-03T13:09:00.001Z

Saturday

I was holding it tighly with my shaking hand, trying to adjust it in the perfect direction.
When it was over, I waited, anxious, and feeling even more nauseous.
Two minutes later, a single line appeared, and I let out a scream of joy which wouldn't have been out of place in the bedroom.
Thank God, I wasn't.

My period had come two days earlier and had vanished that same afternoon for an obscure reason, visciously reminding me of the condom accident two weeks ago.

So, that morning, decided to come to terms with that awful suspicion, I pulled myself together and went to buy that pregnancy test.

My Italian friend Martina, staying on my futon for the week, heard my screams of relief and I had to explain why I was singing Oh happy day in the kitchen.
She's no one to judge, seeing that, back in the day when we were still schoolmates, she called, begging me to go and buy her a morning after pill. It was 7am on a Saturday morning, I was on my way home from a China White night with Shakira, and was wearing nothing but heels, a skirt and a sparkling top. After getting the "you-slut" look from the Boots cashier, I made Martina buy all my drinks for a whole month...

This time, we decided to celebrate my non-pregnancy with MariJuana (her again), and spent the whole afternoon downloading music in the kitchen.

So, I completely forgot to sort out the accomodation problem I knew I was going to face after my date with Hihes that same night.
As I said, Martina was staying in my room, and couldn't possibly sleep in the living room because my "dear" (see the irony there) housemate's stupid cow of a mother was also staying over for the week-end.

And after a few drinks in Brick Lane with Hihes, I couldn't bring myself to tell him to make his own way home.
So we shared a cab back to The House... To find Martina in my room, and the mother in the kitchen, finishing the stock of wine we stashed under the fridge when we knew she was coming...
Such a good look!

I told the mother to piss off when she drunkenly asked if she could see what my date looked like, but she still made a point of stumbling in the living room to steal a glance. Do I need to precise I'm not a great fan of the woman?
But she saved the night by letting us know her passing out in the kitchen with loud snoring.
Martina got the sofa in the living room, and Hihes and I got my room!

Hihes...
I wish I wasn't such a cynical commitment-phobe. Everything is just perfect with him, but I can't help thinking that something is going to turn awfully wrong at some point.
We have the same interests and can spend hours talking about everything.
He's smart, terribly handsome, and strangely doesn't behave like a player. And he's the only guy I've been dating in a long time that I could actually proudly introduce to all my friends.
He's GREAT in bed, even if he's serioulsy impairing my sleep quota...
And incredibly sweet.

As I keep telling Stella, I simply can't believe my luck.
He's invited me to all his gigs, keeps asking me how long I'm planning to stay in the UK for (I wish I knew darling...), tells me I'm beautiful, and even invited me to spend the week-end at his parents' house.

I mean, isn't it every girl's dream to meet someone like that?
But now I've written it down, I think I know what's wrong: it's all going too fast for me.
I'm not the greatest monogamist one could come across. I still find it amazing I haven't slept with anyone else since we met.
The only time this happened, I was madly-deeply in love.
But I can't be in love with him yet, can I? And I know I'm not. We've only known eachother for what, three weeks? And I find it weird someone could sincerely like me after such a short time spent together.
I'll just try to wait to see what happens, and will try not to freak out in the mean time...

2007-11-30T21:02:00.001Z

My Thursday night wasn't meant to include any:

-drinks other than the quick pint with the Usual Suspects at the local pub

-stuffing my bag with three wine glasses from the pub (I figured out I was expected to do so, after breaking all of our four glasses by myself the past week end)

-going to that crap club which name I can't even remember

-falling into randoms' tables, spilling their drinks all over their cheap sparkling dresses, and thinking I could get away by a "WOOPS! Sorry people! On the bright side I made your night! I'm sure nothing else happened to you until I fell on your table! This place really sucks! Anyway nice to meet you all, have fun and don't fall on other people's tables!"

-Upper-body-dancing for half an hour on the shitty music while sitting on SA's lap.

Oh my...

I think the best part was the illegal taxi ride on the way back.
We asked if we could smoke inside. The poor driver said yes, but only one at a time, and with the window open.
Of course, the four of us lit up almost instantly.
And of course, about thirty seconds later, there was a bump on the road, and one of the Usual Suspects accidentally stuck his lit cigarette right in the ceiling of the cab.
The driver didn't notice, but when it was getting stifling from the smell of burnt carpet at the back and when the hole in the ceiling reached the size of a pizza, we stopped the car, threw a few pounds at the poor guy and left running.

Skipping dinner and drinking wine is not a good look, really....

2007-11-29T18:00:00.001Z

Obviously, after almost two weeks of abstinence, Hihes reappears exactly at the same time as my periods.
This is my kind of luck...

2007-11-28T15:00:00.001Z

I haven't been very good at writting posts recently.

I've just taken up a new translation job, for extra income. Spending so much time on my computer is driving me crazy, and when I'm finally over with the work, I angrily switch it off and go out to get a life, even if it just means going for a walk and pondering the lack of sense in my love/sex life...

Sense is lacking. Definitely.

I stopped returning French Guy's calls, and I think he got the picture now.
That's a shame, but I just figured out that he was the one person in my life I really couldn't be bothered with.
Yes. I am that selfish.
And I'm not worried about him. He's hotter than a jacket potato, and I'm sure he's not short of girls ready to burn themselves taking his jacket off.

I think what pushed me to stop seeing him was Hihes.
Not that I've heard from him since he left to NYC. He's supposed to be back by now, and the fact he hasn't said anything yet is slowly starting to piss me off.
I really like him. And I know I shouldn't have provided him the bed&breakfast&dessert formula the last two times, but there are some things you're just unable to say no to. (sigh)

And there's OG. Of course. You don't think he could withdraw from circulation, do you?
Not that I saw him since he went on tour, but we keep messaging eachother.
And I hate the guy for being so similar to me in many respects. It's such a shame we are also similar on the "I can't commit now" aspect...
Oh well, he's fun. And I'm looking forward to our next meeting in two weeks.

Now, that's where the big problem comes in:

Let's call the guy at the origin of the problem SA.
SA is that handsome great South African guy I've known for months.
Even if he's practically a decade older than me, we get along great, make eachother laugh to the point of rolling to the floor, have the same sense of self mockery, get into passionate discussions about pretty much everything, and are great drinking buddies.
Being part of the Usual Suspects, he's my mate, ok?

True, we've had that flirtation thingy going on for ages. (I remember hinting I had a sexual fantasy which included him during a "I have never..." drinking game months ago.) But it couldn't be serious, could it?
I've met him when he was about to be engaged to my friend Tam. (They broke up since. Shit happens.) But I would NEVER EVER had got into anything with him while they were together.
And when they broke up about a month ago, I remember my first thought was: SHIT!

It was so comfy before, when we knew nothing could happen. And now what???
He spent some time with rebound girl, that I've met at a few parties. Seeing her unbelievable level of stupidity, I wasn't surprised when he told her to bugger off.

I should have seen it coming.
At the party where I met Hihes, I remember coming back from the bathroom for my second Bringing-The-Cocktails-Back-Up/Brushing-My-Teeth session, only to find out he had got into a stupid argument with Hihes.
After the third BTCBU/BMT (it was an exceptionally bad night for my stomach), he was really too drunk to handle and told me it didn't matter if I was planning to bed the wimp, because he was about to call rebound girl. Even if what I thought then was more to do with "What the fuck do you care about???", I told him I didn't give a shit and he could bang his stupid half-siliconed cow an extra time for me if he wanted, and that yes, I was planning to have fun with Hihes, and couldn't care less about what he thought. The discussion ended on a exchange of angrily screamed "FINE!!!" and we thought best not to ever mention it again.

Until last Sunday, when my housemates and I decided to end that drunken week-end by a major coup de grace and invited all the Usual Suspects over to drink a few more vats of mulled wine.

We didn't exactly mention the event.
But after Fiona left, he decided to take her place.
(FYI, I had spent the last hour half lying down on her, not doing anything else than lying down, still following and participating in the drunken conversation... Maybe not a great idea in front of a straight guy, but, call me naive, I really didn't think about it that way.)

One word to define the situation: AWKWARD.
Now, we've always shared a lot together. He had become over the months a much closer friend than Tam, which I know is a bit weird.
But physical intimacy? Never before!
I think it was part of our tacit deal, both of us being conscient of the mutual sexual attraction, and thinking it best not to go too close to eachother... Even our hugs have always been so full of akwardness!

Nothing else happened than us holding eachother. But I had never felt so uncomfortable in my whole entire life. It was just wrong.

I'm afraid I'm slowly loosing a great friend.
What did he want? I'm not sure. But I was certain I didn't want to even think about kissing him by that point.
So why, why, why is he making me so nervous?
And why, why, why do I keep telling Stella about what a great guy he is, and that he would actually be the only straight guy I could see myself marrying?
This is just plain weird.

I'd better stop thinking about it, and rather get upset about the fact that Hihes still isn't calling me back...

Dream night out

2007-11-24T19:26:00.001Z

Last night could have been every single girl's dream night out:

-I walked in that bar, with, at my side, the most gorgeous boy I know.
-Once inside, I knew most of the staf, hence got fantastically tipsy on free Malibu-and-Diet-Cokes.
-Everyone called me Darling I was treated like a star.
-Every man in sight deserved a place on a catwalk.
-I kept dancing surrended by all those gorgeous men, with almost no girls in sight.
-Some of them took their shirt off.

Haha! Gotcha! I finally gave in to my best friend Andy and spent the night in a gay bar!

House of corruption

2007-11-23T10:24:00.003Z

Each time I have friends-in-a-couple staying over (and that tends to happen quite a lot, said couples being gay, straight, whatever...), I always feel obliged to precise : "Sorry lovebirds, but the rule is NO body fluids, hence preferably no sex..."

I don't know if all of them always followed the rule, (and I don't wish to know either) but if they did, that must mean that, recently, I've bypassed it a bit over-enthusiastically...
All for the best, obviously, but still, my bed is broken, and that's a good reason to be pissed off.
The landlord refused to pay for a new one, so I spent most of yesterday evening battling with an Ikea build-your-own kit. Not my favourite pastime if you ask.

I brought the subject up to my housemates yesterday night, and the three of us sat in the living room, trying to count the number of persons -including us and partners- who had sex in The House since we moved in last February.
It was actually impossible to make a proper approximation. But the minimum is definitely over 20, and the maximum is, hopefully, below 40...

We had a private joke going around amongst the Usual Suspects saying that when once one stepped in The House, it was impossible to escape without at least a serious drinking problem...
It looks like we found another way to make The House a place of corruption... and fun!

This being said, my current life seriously lacks in corruption. And fun.
I'm just recovering from another flu. It probably has to do with my half-an-hour-long walk under the pouring rain on Monday night. Coming back walking from the Shmooking creek's new haven in Gloucester Road felt like an amazing idea at the time... And it certainly was a great feeling. At the time.
NOT the next day when I woke up with enough temperature to cook a whole English breakfast on my forehead.

To add to all the "fun", I've been working my ass off at work recently, and can barely get my six hours of sleep a night. This, and the perspective to work at week-ends very soon, and travelling all over Europe again. Ok, I love my job, but it's getting all VERY stressful. Tremendously panicking is the correct term actually.

And no "corruption" either since last Saturday.
I realised I kind of really like Hihes, and I kind of miss him too...
So I kind of avoided OG while he was in London, and was quite cold to French Guy. At least until I've figured things out. The fact that Hihes is currently out of town and out of reach doesn't help the whole figuring out, though.

I keep thinking that if there's a God somewhere, he keeps having fun at my expense.

Last night, when I went to my newly built bed, I found two texts in my phone.
First one from OG:
"My darling, I miss you!! I'm so sorry we couldn't catch up when I was in London! I'll be back on 10th December, ok!?! And will be around til xmas...I hate xmas... :) Let's have lots of sex to make us ignore it... xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" (I had mentioned earlier that I hated Christmas...)

Second one from French Guy:
"Hello you! How are you? I haven't seen you in sooo long, are you ok? What are you doing tonight? We could go for diner or something. Take care. xxx"

I really wonder what I am going to do...

2007-11-19T14:08:00.001Z

Knowing perfectly well that, on a Saturday night, it would take me 35 minutes to get to Picadilly from home, and my date being at 9pm, I left The House at 9:05pm.

I know, I know, I'm incorrigible.
But I had done my best and was, for once, ready on time.
Everything was done:
-perfect hair, check
-make-up, check
-legs, shaved
-room, cleaned,
-two Red Bulls (not to fall asleep in the middle of the conversation seeing I had only slept three hours the night before and had spent most of the day in the haze of the hungover), absorbed.
-pick up an outfit, check.
-change it for something classier, check.
-change the hair to go with the new outfit, check.
-change the whole thing again for something more casual, but still very cool, check.
(After all, I was about to go for drinks with the man who told me I looked like Kate Moss - he needs an appointment with a serious ophtalmologist, if you ask, but let's not get into that- and I felt it was my duty to try my best to live up to the comparison...)
-nails, bitten, check.

So, I was ready to go, in skinny jeans, killer heels and a D&G black top (brought for £8 in a second hand shop, but no one has to know that...), by 8:15pm.

That is, until Fiona popped in The House again with a bottle of wine. It's becoming a habit.
I decided a drink was exactly what the doctor ordered to settle my nerves.
Then, of course, I was late...

Bless HIHES, he was still there, waiting under the rain, and looking even more gorgeous than I remembered. Wow!

An hour and a half, a bloody mary and a gin tonic later, (I think I'm developping some serious alcoholic tendencies...) the conversation was going thick and fast.

Another gin tonic later, he "suddenly realised" that his last train was gone... "Woops!"
Oh well, fine by me...

I didn't sleep at all that night. Not one single little minute.
Damn, the boy has some stamina! All for the best, rest assured...

(Of course, I am wondering where all this is going.
Well, HIHES is going to New York for the next ten days.
Does that mean I can keep having fun at least until he comes back? We didn't really discuss that point.
But, in my head, I'm already chosing the fun option... Woops!)

After he left on Sunday afternoon, Mike, Fiona and I went to the Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park.
Armed with an extra supply of canned beers, we made a point in trying to get all the "speakers" to talk about sex. We were very successfull indeed.
How much fun!

Shunt

2007-11-17T16:18:00.001Z

I can't believe I hadn't even heard about that place before!!!
Even if, right now, I am nursing one of the biggest hung-overs in human history...

I fell in love with all of it. It has everything I expected London night life to have when I first moved in.
Underground, huge, great DJs and crazy bands playing, amazing (and very random) setting, with a dance floor but loads of chill-out areas too, an incredible mix of people, and a fucking long queue to get in as well...

If you don't understand why the place is emptying and don't believe your friends when they tell you, that, come on, it's 4:30, we should go home, it must be that you had a great time!

I just wish I hadn't stolen that full bottle of wine, on top of the bar, just there for me to take, and hadn't happily shared it in 30 seconds top with Tam. (Because one has to make the evidence disappear quicky...)

I'd like to know as well why, if I left home with an half-empty pack of cigarettes, I came back with three full ones...?
A big thanks to the generous donators, even if I can't remember who you are!

I'd love to come back tonight, as it is their last night before a month of closure because of refurbishment, apparently. But the bouncers told me I'd need to be in the queue before 8pm, and I'm meeting HIHES for our official "first" date at 9pm in Soho...

I'm a bit nervous. Ok, really nervous actually.
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we already slept together.
What will he be expecting? (=should I clean my room?)
And I'm a little worried about the fact that we both had huge beer goggles last saturday...

Planning

2007-11-16T12:53:00.002Z

I have put myself in a very shitty situation.
When I logged on facebook this morning I had three messages.

One from French Guy, suggesting we meet up today/tonight.
One from HIHES, asking me on a date tomorrow night.
One from OG, saying he'll be back next week, hoping we can then see eachother then.

My organisation skills are about to be tested to their limit... So is my ability to come up with decent excuses regarding how come I won't be free the next day...

Thank God I have travelling "boyfriends". (OG is on and off to Europe all the time, and HIHES is going on holidays in the US next week)

I'm lucky enough not to have them three in London at the same time.

Still, the reasonable part of me (yes there is one, it's just not very active...) is telling me the time has come to ditch at least one of them, and maybe commit to one of them. But how do I do that, eh?
When I started seeing OG, I told myself it was only until a more appropriate guy came along and set the goal of meeting someone else to take the pressure off...
Then I met French Guy, and decided to keep juggling until I'd figure out want I wanted.
After a month of juggling, I remember telling my good friend Brooke the big problem was I couldn't figure anything out, and saying as a joke the only thing I needed was meeting a third much-much-better one in the aim to happily say sayonara to them!
And BANG! Out of the blue comes HIHES!
But it doesn't mean I want to ditch OG and French Guy... AAAARGH!

I''m going to wash my hair. I wish it'd wash my brain as well.

2007-11-14T18:56:00.001Z

I just got some really bad news...
I'm going to celebrate with my two soulmates: Mari Juana and Brian Molko

2007-11-14T14:49:00.001Z

I wasn't planning to go out last night, not at all, I swear. I figured out that, somehow, a quiet night in wouldn't do any harm to my health, and to my wallet either...

But that was until the fight with my parents on the phone. They don't entirely agree with my current lifestyle, bless them. Even if I always serve them a massively toned down version of my night time activities. Still, they'd love to see me very focused and at least about to get engaged. (I know, HAHA!) That's how conservative they are.
A few weeks ago, I made the huge mistake to tell my mum I was seeing OG. I never ever told her anything before about boyfriends, but OG was so good on paper I thought it'd make her happy. It did.
But now she keeps asking if he's calling me from his tour, and if I say no, it just stupidly upsets her... I don't need my mother to be upset about that too!
My current state of anger is more than enough I think!
(Anyway, he did text me today to say he was in London for the next 24hours only, and I still have to work out what I want to reply to that...)

The phone conversation quickly worsened until I hung up in tears. Needless to go through all that now. It was 5pm, I grabbed the last bottle of red, leftover from Saturdays party, and poured myself a well-needed glass of liquid comfort.

When my housemates came back from work an hour later, I had forgotten even the notion of dinner and was very merry indeed.
And when Fiona popped in, screaming at the top of her hoarse Autralian voice "Guys, let's go out and get fucked!", I simply had to obey.

So out we went, and fucked we kind of got...

Must have had some serious spare energy once in the club, because I danced until I almost dropped out. And damn, it felt good!
That stupid photographer took way too many pictures of us looking extremely wasted. Not a good look for their website if you ask. Potential customers would not want to go to a club after seeing pictures of three smashed girls all over eachother, would they?
Oh, I think I see his point now...

At around 4am, we dragged that lesbian girl from Norway all the way back to Fiona's place and carried on drinking. I can't even remember the girl's name. Bless her, it must have been all very confusing for her.
Fiona recounting her -many- same sex experiences but concluding she was straight, grabbing my ass as she made her point...
Me, after telling her all about my current "love" life, naming Winona Ryder and Nathalie Portman in the five celebrities I would do...
I swear I had never seen someone looking that puzzled. Bless her.

I have to admit, the whole situation was seriously confusing.
And the flirtation level in the room was unbearable.

Now, I have always kind of fancied Fiona, and we had that genuine sexual innendo going on for ages... But I didn't want to get into anything that night.
AND I DON'T GET INTIMATE WITH FRIENDS, WORKMATES, OR HOUSEMATES. It seems to always get everyone involved into such a mess I'm not prepared to cope with.

So we all pretended being entirely straight that night and all went to sleep in different beds/sofa.

Strange, strange night...

Evelyn Waugh

2007-11-13T15:45:00.001Z

"Oh, Nina, what a lot of parties.
(... Masked parties, Savage parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties, Russian parties, Circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties in St John's Wood, parties in flats and studios and houses and ships and hotels and nightclubs, in windmills and swimming-baths, tea parties at school where one ate muffins and meringues and tinned crab, parties at Oxford where one drank brown sherry and smoked Turkish cigarettes, dull dances in London and comic dances in Scotland and disgusting dances in Paris - all that succession and repetition of massed humanity... Those vile bodies...)"

Sounds all rather bogus.
But nothing has changed since then, has it? Or has it?

2007-11-12T21:18:00.001Z

Just wanted to share the good (?) news...

HIHES called and said he had a great time and wants us to meet "for coffee sometime".
I'm not sure if he actually had a great time -unfortunately, I can't rely on my memories for that matter- and he might just want to get his watch back...

We'll see what happens.
So it looks like I'm up-grading from seeing two guys at the same time to seeing three.
Oh well, if there's a time in my life I can allow myself to go over the top, it's probably now.
Let's go over the top!

Realisation

2007-11-12T15:29:00.001Z

HIHES left his watch on my bedside table, but still hasn't accepted my Facebook friend request. Apparently he's so eager not to see me again that he's prepared to abandon his watch.
Great.

I don't get it. From my point of view, what happened Saturday night was much more about an amazing connexion than anything else...
Ok, ok, I know, after three hours tête-à-tête in my room, chatting about the deep meaning of life, I shouldn't have stripped down to my undies saying I really really needed to go to bed NOW. (But he joined straight away...)
And I shouldn't have, half an hour later, out of breath, begged him to "please please, fuck me hard"... But, remember, I was in bed with Handsome-Incredibly-Hot-and-Extremely-Shaggable, moreover horrendously drunk, what else did you expect me to do???
I just hope I didn't scare him that much...

I haven't heard from OG since Saturday morning. He's probably having the time of his life in Eastern Europe, meeting loads of model-like Polish girls.
Great.

French Guy has disappeared from the circulation. Never called since last time we saw eachother. Neither did I.
Great.

GREAT.

Either I must be very very crap in bed. Great.
Either something is wrong with my approach and I need to do something about it... Great.
Either I should stop wanting to see my one-night-stands partners again. Great.

Maybe it's just the old "what goes around comes around"...Meaning I must have attracted some very bad karma on myself by sleeping around like I did recently. Is one girl and three guys in two weeks too much? Probably. Yes, I know... Great.

I think I'll just calm down and wait to see what goes my way.
Depressing thought.

The day after (sunday bloody sunday)

2007-11-11T17:59:00.001Z

11:43 am, Sunday

There's a disturbing noise in my room.
Oh shit, my pillow hurts. Or is it my hair? My head?
Something really hurts anyway.
And that fucking noise...
Sounds like a phone.
My phone actually.
Fucking annoying.
I'd better pick up.

AAAARGH! Something is moving in my bed!!!!
Scary.
I can't psychologically deal with that now, I'll just pick up.

"Hello?
-Hey! It's Stella!
-Cool.
-Oh shit, I woke you up, didn't I?
-No kidding.
-Sorry, just wanted to apologise for leaving so early last night, I was knackered. Did anything interesting happen?
-My brain hasn't started processing the details yet, but I think so...
-Shit, I missed out. Please keep me updated on the gossips!
-Hmm...
-Who got HIHES at the end?

(first flash-back* and quick look under the duvet)

-Erm, hmm, well, I suppose I did...
-What do you mean??? Anything happened or just number exchange?
-Hmmm... Oh... Good morning you... Err, Stella? You know what, I gotta go! Bye!"

(HIHES had started some very skilful moves to cure the headhache, and kept going until 3pm: Hmmm...)

*First flash-back: HIHES stood for Handsome Incredibly Hot and Extremely Shaggable.
That old school-mate of Mike's, who set off quite a heat wave amoung us girls last night...
After the third of Mike's infamous cocktails, I remember going to Stella to ask what she thought of him. HIHES of course! With her being single for more than a year, I told her to go for it now, because I wasn't going to hit on him, was I? I couldn't, could I? Enough trouble as it was at the moment, right? Still, I admitted I wouldn't be able to answer for myself after another drink...

After being "officially" nicknamed HIHES by Fiona, Tam, Stella, that pushy Scottish girl I wanted to kill and I, a bit of an un-spoken competition took place in between us... Pathetic, I know, but, believe me, he was definitely worth the effort!
I went around The House, asking who he was, who he knew in there, and, more importantly, was he gay?
I think he might have heard me at some point, because he made eye contact with me and said something to his friend about being gay.
So I took the plunge:

"Sorry to interrupt guys, but did you just say you were gay?

-Yes. I'm gay.

-Shit! (I meant it) My gay-dar is broken again! It's funny though, I'm never attracted to gay men! That's a real shame, and quite unfair, you know? May I say, it really is a shame, you're one of the hottest guys I've ever met... Actually, my gay best friend Andy is kind of single as the moment, he's really good-looking, too, he models for a living... (blah blah blah. I was high on three red bulls mixers to be able to go through the night, and simply couldn't shut up)

-Haha, no I was pulling your leg. I'm straight.

-FUCK! Haha. Erm... Well, on the bright side, I guess my gay-dar is repaired!

-I was just telling him that I thought you were really hot. You've got that kind of Kate Moss attitude, dancing with your drink and your cigarette...

-Erm... Haha?

-And he just told me you were doing [...] for a living. That's really impressive. I'm a guitar player. You want a smoke?"

-Oh yes!"

Ting ting ting jackpot!!!
Lilith gone with the wind!
Or gone with the booze and the lack of sleep.
Or gone to my room with HIHES.
As you wish. All three are true.

And what can I say, but WOW!
I hope he'll call...

In between parties

2007-11-10T14:55:00.002Z

I feel like I've just been beaten up. I wish I could sleep. Sleep until I wake up, litteraly. Which would probably not be before 9pm on Sunday.
Not bound to happen.

I have a party of my own to organise. That's right. In The House.
The sixth one of our fancy-dress parties.
Like the past ones, it will probably attract about a hundred persons, if you don't count the gate-crashers... That' s how famous -or infamous- our parties have become over the months in West London.

I can't wait. There's always loads happening. Even if The House might end up somehow destroyed...Again.

But, if I am still laughing at last night randomness, I am too knackered to think straight.
I was wild last night.

The original plan was a quiet dinner with Brooke in Covent Garden. Yeah right, like we stopped at that...
One thing leading to another, we then dropped by that gay bar for a few free drinks (an old school-mate works there), and at 11:30pm, decided we couldn't resist the clubbing call and jumped in the tube.
Direction: Fabric.

Except that, when we got there, the queue to get in was going all the way around the block. Some bouncer I asked to said we should expect about three hours of queuing.

No thanks.
I'm not Bristish enough to love queuing that much, and London is bloody cold at that time of the night in November.

So we walked around for a while and sat down outside a crap coffee shop for a cigarette.
The owner sat with us and invited his prostitute friend to join in, which made for an interesting conversation...
"Bianca" (that was her "stage name") told us they were having a great night at Turmills and that we should go. I complimented her on her shoes (maybe a bit too much for me, but still really cute!), and we headed to the club.

What a great choice! I should follow more often prostitutes advices!
As expected, people in there were out of their faces, but so much fun nethertheless.

Here are some the things I said, and to whom:

*To the bunch of blokes who asked us which "stuff" we were on and where we got it:
-double-espresso: Caffe Nero!
-sambuca shots: the cute bartender!

*To all the people who told me they luuuuved my sunglasses:
Cheers! Portobello Market, four pounds!

*To the guy who waved a glow stick two inches away from my face for half an hour, hoping I would take it:
Sorry darling, but that's too small for me!

*To all of those who asked for a spare cigarette:
Nope. I'm an addict. And when I run out, if you ask again, I'll probably savagely murder one of you guys and search your dead bleeding body for anything smokable.

*To the guys who asked me if I had a boyfriend:
Nope. I don't have one. I have two. And that's more than enough, thanks!

*To the guy next to the toilet who offered me mushrooms:
Sorry, don't do them, but do you have some of the non-magic organic ones from Sainsbury's? I love them!

And on and on...

Appart from talking bullshit with randoms, we danced, and danced and danced. The DJ in the back room is a genius.
But the place was a bit too hot. Seriously, it felt like doing aerobics in a steam room.

At 5am, ours legs refusing to keep up with the jumping around and feeling extremely dehydrated, we embarqued on our 3+ night buses journey home.

Oh, and I'd like to make a little dedication to the Spanish guy on the N55, who kept going on and on about how two girls ate his sausage;
Yes, I understand Spanish, and yes, I was laughing at you.

When too much is too much

2007-11-09T13:32:00.001Z

French Guy's friend's party was actually much less stressful than I expected it to be. I guess it can be put on the account of the incredible amount of pills/powders/smoking substances present...
That, and the absinth being introduced to us girls as "sambuca".

Yeah boys, right. I wasn't born yesterday.
And I know sambuca. It is my predilection drink on a long clubbing night. Believe me, I know.

So I stuck to the wine, and tried to keep my friend Fiona away from the absinth and the rest.
I miserably failed and spent most of the morning leaving panicked messages on her answer phone because I didn't know where the heck she was... (she's a tough girl though, ok, completely crazy, and happened to be in the flat below, rocking that cute Swedish boy's world. Good for her!)

The thing is, I know absinth as well. I don't wish to know more about it.

The first and last time I touched the liquid was two years and a half ago. It had been handed to me in the form of two double-shots by the then-manager of China White as a "baptism" everyone was supposed to go through to be officially part of the creek.

Back then, Stella and I used to refer to the club as "our second living room", being there at least on a weekly basis. After closing time, we'd accompany the staff/creek to their infamous after-parties, usually in the basement of some posh restaurant or some amazing flat in Mayfair, where we would spend hours spraying eachother with Moet&Chandon...

Glamourous lifestyle, you might think. Especially when you just turned eighteen, and you still naively think that being greeted by your name and a vintage bottle by a handful of promoters in every VIP room across central London makes you someone.

(Well, you then have to find a plausible explanation why you thought the champagne your parents proudly cracked open for your graduation tasted like shit...)

But Stella and I, even if we still are occasional users ( dinner+cocktails at Soho House are always welcome...), gradually grew out of our posh-nights addiction. The fact that those clubs are mostly full of very-old-very-rich(understand very-well-fed)-very-creepy gentlemen and skinny aspirant models on the look out for sugar daddies certainly helped... Yep, that, and the ridicule amount of cheesy commercial music played there.

On that particular night I somehow lost complete control of my muscles and my "friends" had to litteraly drag me off the middle of Regent Street where I was lying down, unable to stand on my legs (not on the pavement, in the middle of the street. Thank God it was 4am and the traffic quite light...). NOT a good look.

Now, I am a control freak, meaning no matter how trashed I'll be, I'll never do the following:
-get into a fight
-follow a dodgy someone home
-get into a car driven by someone drunk/on drugs/I don't know (I remember a three-hours-long walk back to a hostel in Spain, ON MY OWN, because all my friends had jumped into a random car passing by)
-take class A drugs (appart from the very occasional line of coke)
-have sex with someone I wouldn't want to have sex with while sober
-do something unnecessarily dangerous and stupid (I once sat on my housetmate to prevent him from breaking his neck by climbing all the way to the bathroom window because both of us had forgotten our keys on the way to the pub)
-take an illegal cab if I'm not with at least one guy
-abandon a girlfriend somewhere when I know she's not able to take care of herself anymore.

Try me if you want, I'll just never do it.

Needless that little adventure scared me shitless off absinth for life.

Hence my restraint last night.
Sorry guys.
I must apologise for not being among those walking stark-naked in the flat.
For not being amoung those whose passed out bodies were not so discreetly pushed behind the sofa or under the curtains.
For not participating in the happy chemicals-swallowing.
For not being the one who redecorated the kitchen with the content of my stomach.
For not going to the street corner to meet someone's dealer (being amoung the rare still fully-clothed ones didn't oblige me to do that).

But I hope you still appreciated the way I diplomatically convinced the angry neighbours not to call the police. Twice.
And I know you certainly enjoyed our little perfomance. But you ought to know no-one can appear naturally that skilled; Fiona and I went to a few pole-dancing classes, back in the day...
I still have one question, though, what was that inviting pole doing in the middle of your living room?

2007-11-08T13:18:00.001Z

Because of the obvious, I didn't have access to internet until now, so here's the first post I wrote from a Starbucks yesterday late afternoon...

I am seriously starting to find the fact OG and French Guy always call on the same day, at the same time of the day, a weird coincidence. It must be some kind of bad karma I keep draging around.

I went to Covent Garden with Liz for drinks and set up the details of THE party this Saturday ( she had to leave early for a flat-visiting emergency - Why does everyone I know seem to be homeless/sofa-surfing in London? Must be something wrong with the living conditions and the exhorbitant prices... But that's not the point.)

OG called first, from somewhere with hardly any connexion (airport terminal, maybe?).
We got cut and I didn't bother return his call. He is leaving, right? End of the chapter.
I just wish it would leave me unmoved...

Five minutes later, it was French Guy's turn.
I felt bad and didn't want to pick up. But I did.
Surely, if you are a well-brought up girl, if you have spent the last twenty-four hours obcessing over a guy's arseholeness, you don't plan drinks followed by a fuck-fest with another one the following evening?
Well, apparently, I am not that well-brought up girl, (Damn, I knew it...), and figured out that another night spent in front of DVDs, eating another jar of nutella by myself, wouldn't do me any good. Except, maybe, give me cellulitis: Ouch.

So, I am on my way to Angel. Carpe Diem after all.

This morning's post

Being in a public place with your date, gently put your hand on his knee, or slowly lean across the table over your two martinis to exchange a sweet kiss...
There's an amazing feeling to it.

Especially (at the risk of sounding pretentious...) when people around look at you, and you know they are thinking that you two make a very attractive couple....
It gives you that sort of social recognition you'll only ever get in couple, and it feels good. Even if I'd like to have a world or two with the one who established that convention; why do you automatically get better consideration as soon as you are part of a couple?

Anyway, yes, that was me and French Guy yesterday night in Angel, kissing over martinis... We had a great time talking about pretty much everything, and, before I knew it, four hours had passed.
We went back to his place, he introduced me to his flatmate, we shared a few joints in front of Comedy1, and ended the night - of course - fooling around in his bedroom.

Maybe the weed was a bad idea, because he lost it, several times... And I found myself becoming way too lazy, hence decided against resuscitating him with my mouth for the third time (it worked wonders the two first times), and happily dozed off to sleep, which was very welcome, since I tend to be quite insomniac recently...
He more than made up for it this morning, though.

I was still stupidly grinning to myself while walking Oxford Street this morning, immersed in my very own debate, whether we could eventually make a relashionship out of it, when my phone rang. Again.

Convinced it would be French Guy, as he always calls after I left, generally to wish me "bon voyage", I put on my sexiest voice (at least as sexy as it can get before coffee) and picked up without checking who was calling:

"Hello?
-Lilith, it's OG.
-W H A T ? ? ?
-It's OG.
-Yeah, I know. Wait! I didn't say "what", I said "wait"! Err, wait, I need a cigarette. And I didn't have my coffee yet, so if you have even a desapproving thought, I'll hung up!
-...ok...
(it took me less than two milliseconds to lit one)
-OK, I'm done. So, what did you call me for? In which bloody country are you anyway?
-I'm at the airport, Heathrow...
-... "
(long silent drag on my cigarette, secretly hoping the lung cancer would finish me off on the spot)
The lying bastard had told me he was leaving YESTERDAY!

So I let him talk, talk and talk, punctuating his words with a few "uhuh..", while trying to make everything stop spinning in front of me.
And did he talk... Saying that whole bunch of bullshit about how the only thing he really wanted to do before leaving was seeing me, how great he thought I was, how much he was going to miss me, that, if I wanted, he'd fly back for the week-end from wherever in Eastern Europe just to see me in two-weeks time, and begged me to try my best (the fucking "best" again) to be in London from the 10th of December on, as he would come home for Christmas...
To which, even if I chose not to spend Christmas home for the past three years, I still retorted I had a family, too.

What was he doing? Bloody liar. The only answer I could find to all of this was "Yep, cool, whatever. Take care and good luck."

If I wasn't messed up before, I certainly am now.

I think I am going to treat myslef with a new vibrator. Now, vibrators, they're great!
*They don't mess up with your head.
*They're not selfish (it's all about my pleasure).
*They don't increase my consumption of illegal substances.
*They don't "loose it". (well, it depends of the kind of batteries)
*They don't lie.
*They surely don't pretend to be something they're not.
*They don't call you at the wrong moment.
*They don't move abroad.
*They don't take pleasure in messing you around.

I wish us a very long merry relashionship together!

Texting fiasco

2007-11-07T12:16:00.002Z

"My hair is sooo horrendously short! It's very depressing."
is the text I got from OG after he got out of the hairdresser yesterday afternoon. How can someone so bright be so shallow? I wasn't really expecting that. Usually, yes, his texts are quite graphic, but not in that way... So I replied:

"How short? Horrendously? Really? I am sure it can't make you unattractive"

"I'm so upset. I said I wanted to keep all the length and they still managed to make it ghastly... They truly can't understand English... It was so silly of me to go... Now I have to wait at least a month before it looks nice again!"
Seriously, how old is he? My thought exactly! 25. Come on, get a grip and get the hints! Apparently I was texting the worst kind of self-centered metrosexual. Yeepee.

So I replied:
"Good news: It's only hair, meaning it'll grow back eventually...
Anything I could do to make you feel better?"

Half an hour later, I got back down to earth with:
"Absolutely not. I'm so depressed. I must now hide for a month."

What was the f*cking point of all this texting? Discussing a guy's hair cut? What world are we living in?
Pissed off at myself, OG, and the rest of the world, I texted back
"In that case, have a good month hiding and recovering from depression."
And went to the corner shop to stock up on brioche and nutella, planning to spend the night watching DVDs. Great.

After two thirds of the brioche, a whole jar of nutella and my stomach about to explode, my phone beeps again:
"There is one thing you could do to ease my depression, be on top of me, naked..."

Absoultely unable to say no to that kind of proposition, I melted, texted back: "Oh, change of mind I see. Good, I had something similar in mind..."
and ran upstairs for an emergency make up session.
I was still there when John, my other housemate, knocks at my door, my phone in hand:

"Lilith, your phone was ringing, so I picked up, and someone asked me if I was naked, is that normal?
-John, no one was asking you if you were naked, pass me the goddam phone!"

I think hearing John's voice saying he was pretty much dressed, thanks, kind of cooled down OG. He told me he still had stuff to sort out before tomorrow, but that he would do"his best" (his f*cking best again!), to make the [...mentioned above...] happen.

So I tragically spent the next FOUR hours intensely watching my phone, like it could make it ring faster. Pathetic I know.

I was on a bus towards the West End with my friend Tam at 11:30pm, when I got the last text:
"Darling, just got home... Will ring tomorrow, ok? :) Sleep well... xxx"

Liar.
B*stard.
Son of a b*tch.

End of an era.

And I am sad. Wish I wasn't. Life is a b*tch, isn't it?

And so am I. I am seeing French Guy tomorrow, and I find it sad somehow...
I need a good clubbing night to cheer me up.

Good byes?

2007-11-06T15:01:00.001Z

I am such a fool.
A bloody foolish idiotic fool.

OG just texted me to say he was leaving London tomorrow for two months.
I freaked out, spilled my cup of coffee all over myself, swore in every language, and decided I needed a nicotine fix now, and didn't even bother to open the door to the balcony. I'm at my third cigarette in the kitchen, still shaking, and my non-smoking housemates are going to kill me...

I am such a fool.
I swore to myself I would never let myself get emotionally involved with OG.
He is toxic, remember?

And then, out of impulsiveness, against my own will, I told him I really-really needed to see him before he leaves. So much for not sounding needy. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit.

And he said he would try his best... Shit.

What on earth am I expecting????

Why did I say that? I could hit myself right now...

If we do meet up tonight, it's going to be the same old, involving him sneaking into the house, (Mike really doesn't appreciate my seeing him... For some -right-reason, he thinks he is a bit too full of himself, but it doesn't matter, does it? As long as I am, too, full of "himself") clothes flying off, rough ( but oh so good) sex, and him leaving an hour later. Except this time, I won't be able to be that strong, and it's very likely I'll burst in tears once he'll have left. Yep, that, and hating myself.

And if "his best" can't even involve that, I'll hate myself even more. And regret spending the coming hour shaving and cleaning my room...

Well, I'm still off to do that. And yes, I already hate myself.

Why do I care so much? How could I be in such denial?

2007-11-05T23:50:00.001Z

Went for coffee and some well-needed girly talk with Brooke today.
She made the big step and just slept with the guy she had been seeing for the last few weeks. And, of course, as you do, has fallen head over heels for him. She's now talking about going on the pill because the lucky bloke goes soft when "faced" with a condom...
Hmm...

I mean, that's great, she looks happier than I have seen her for the past few years, so I can't help but feel happy for her.
But, being my usual cynical myself, I couldn't avoid telling her to be careful. I haven't met the guy yet, but if he'd happen to behave like a b*stard and hurt her, (she's so genuine, bless her...), I'd happily tear his head away from his body...

I know, I'm overreacting. It probably has something to do with the fact that my booty-texts didn't get the expected effects...

For some reason, I got myself into a text-fight with OG about my smoking. He really pissed me off; why would he care about the state of my lungs if he doesn't even bother telling me he is definitely moving abroad (as I discovered after a little Facebook spying) ???

As for French Guy, he is working late until the end of the week, but invited me to one of his mate's party on Thursday.
I am so going. Of course I am. But I'm shitting myself.

Seriously, what am I going to say to his friends? I can picture it from here:

"Hi! Nice to meet you.
So, how do you know French Guy?
Oh! You're his brother? I didn't know he had one...
What about me? Oh... At a bus stop, got drunk together, had sex twice, if you don't count the one time at the back of a cab. The usual really...
And what about you? Oh yeah, you said, you were born in the same family... hahaha, I'm gonna... erm... get a drink. Later!"

I am going to have to drag Mike to the local pub for pre-drinks that night. The prospect of showing-up sober is just too scary. When my liver falls appart, I can always sue French Guy. Or his brother for that matter...

To bouncers.

2007-11-05T14:42:00.002Z

Yesterday night, I litteraly dragged the Usual Suspects to Vibe Bar, on Brick Lane, where I knew they usually play good quality live music. Most of them had to start work early this morning, and they probably all got in touch by now, to work out the perfect murder, and how to get rid of my body.
I am bad influence, I know.

A good night, all in all, filled with great jazz, loads of dancing and drunken talk with randoms.

But still, I have a few complaints to adress. To most of London bouncers.

I am not THAT OLD! I've just turned 21 for God's sake!

Most of my friends are five or six years older than I am, and almost each time we show up at a club door, they all get asked for IDs, and while I'm fumbling with my bag, trying to extract my driving licence, I'll get a smile from the bouncer, accompanied by a "Not you darling, you're ok!" It happened the last five times we went out, and I'm seriously starting to find it annoying.
I can't help but retort that I am the youngest one in the gang, and when I get the ironic "Yeah sure" answer, I have to start doing breathing exercices in order to keep the murderous feelings to myself...

After all, bouncers are much tougher than I am. It is their job not to have an as petite stature as mine...

Still, it is doing no good for my ego. I know some of my best friends have told me I look and behave older, which could be explained by harsh past experiences. Life is a bitch, I can't stress it enough.
But as far as I know, I am not wrinkled, and I wish I could at least pretend to be as carefree as the next person...

So please, if any London bouncer is reading this, stop the ID discrimination! If you're suspicious about a person's age in a group, just ask IDs to everyone, or to no one.

And stop making me feel like a wrinkled old fart!