Sun 2nd October 2011

I had my first drink yesterday at 8.45am and the last at 11pm. I loved it all. There's an aesthetic quality to drinking, a sensual pleasure that you can't talk about, of your skin being stroked. "I wished he would get out of the car, because I was going to come right there." I spent a happy half hour sexting Denise, who applied her considerable literary abilities to texts of richly precise detail. It involved lipstick. I don't think I'm going to be able to pass the Revlon counter at Boots any more without sighing.

I woke up with a bit of headache, nothing much, but a surprise as I never get headaches. My daughter Jenny came round. "Tickle me", and we made up a game where I was just checking her cardi's hood to make sure it was OK. She loves being tickled round her neck.

I had to get some printing done. No idea, on a Sunday. Jenny suggested the Novel Cafe, a new bookish cafe but more Danielle Steele than Doris Lessing. Staff who are well-meaning to the point of irritation. But they had a printer. Went upstairs to use the computer. A little girl was on it. "Shit," I thought, "How do I kick her off without irritating her parents? Actually, that looks like GorgeousAdminWoman's daughter."

GorgeousAdminWoman was reclined deeply, almost horizontally, into a settee. I met her about four years ago when she was ticking boxes in the Department of Pencil Skirts. "Hello Tina," I said. "I've always wanted to see you laying down." I bent down to kiss her on the cheek. She offered the side of her face up to me to the same uneasy extent to which I felt I was stretching a social boundary.

"You've still got my number, haven't you?" she said. "Yes," I said. "We must do that drink sometime." Do that drink. I'd criticise that in someone else's speech. But I'm not going to ring her. She likes me fancying her but lacks the interest in others that would make me going round to hers result in anything but an unerotic night of her own self-examination.

In town, I met another good looking woman, who was a barmaid for a while in my local, doing an MA at the same time as me. We chatted about her teaching job in Kendal. She's always generously talkative to me in that open, unflirtatious way that says "No fucking chance pal".

4 comments

Comment from: The Unbearable Banishment [Visitor]

I am such a miserable drinker. I could never start in the morning and drink straight through until evening. I’d require hospitalization. When I was dating, all the women I went out with were able to drink me under the table. So embarrassing. All you want to hear from a girl is, “I’m a bit tipsy. Take me!” All I ever heard was “Excuse me, are you drunk already?” I’m not bragging. I hated it.

Can you post the sexting messages? Or PM them to me? I’ll PayPal you $1.00.

Mon 3rd October 2011 @ 12:12

Comment from: [Member]

I’d love to hear a girl say that! Well, not any girl.

You might have that gene that is quite common in Southeast Asian people, but often encountered elsewhere, which makes your tipping point quite a fine one. Kirsty’s got it, I think. She has to be very careful as the boundary between being merry and being ill is a slim one for her which is a little bit of a shame as she’s quite a good time girl. As long as I stick to beer, or wine, I know exactly where I’m going. 1, 2, 3, 4… I know exactly what I’ll feel like. It’s nice, I don’t feel out of control.

Early editions of today’s post contained a bit of the detail of what I was saying to Denise but I deleted it this morning. It’s between us, it’s special and I value it and I value her friendship very much and I shouldn’t betray anything that is between us.

However, it might have involved this lipstick (the dark red one) and she sometimes wears one of these.

Oh bloody hell, let’s change the subject!

Mon 3rd October 2011 @ 15:51

Comment from: Homer [Visitor]

Hey Loobs. Just to give you a bit of delicious schadenfreudey goodness, I am taking 42 9-11 year olds to London for 3 days tomorrow. THINK OF ME. And I have to leave the house at 6.15am, so THINK OF ME some more.

Mon 3rd October 2011 @ 18:24

Comment from: [Member]

You will be in my thoughts, honest! I’ve done that only once when I had to take my 8-9-y-olds to the Tate, but that was only 30 of them and it was a day trip. But three days, all the sleeping arrangements. Really you have my sympathy.

Mon 3rd October 2011 @ 21:56

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looby, n.; pl. loobies. A lout; an awkward, stupid, clownish person

M / 60 / Bristol, "the most beautiful, interesting and distinguished city in England" -- John Betjeman [1961, source eludes me].

"Looby is a left-wing intellectual who is obsessed with a) women's clothes and b) tits." -- Joy of Bex.

WLTM literate woman, 40-65. Must have nice tits, a PhD, and an mdma factory in the shed, although the first on its own will do in the short term.

There are plenty of bastards who drink moderately. Of course, I don't consider them to be people. They are not our comrades.
Sergei Korovin, quoted in Pavel Krusanov, The Blue Book of the Alcoholic

I am here to change my life. I am here to force myself to change my life.
Chinese man I met during Freshers Week at Lancaster University, 2008

The more democratised art becomes, the more we recognise in it our own mediocrity.
James Meek

Tell me, why is it that even when we are enjoying music, for instance, or a beautiful evening, or a conversation in agreeable company, it all seems no more than a hint of some infinite felicity existing apart somewhere, rather than actual happiness – such, I mean, as we ourselves can really possess?
Turgenev, Fathers and Sons

I hate the iPod; I hate the idea that music is such a personal thing that you can just stick some earplugs in your ears and have an experience with music. Music is a social phenomenon.
Jeremy Wagner

La vie poetique has its pleasures, and readings--ideally a long way from home--are one of them. I can pretend to be George Szirtes.
George Szirtes

Using words well is a social virtue. Use 'fortuitous' once more to mean 'fortunate' and you move an English word another step towards the dustbin. If your mistake took hold, no-one who valued clarity would be able to use the word again.
John Whale

One good thing about being a Marxist is that you don't have to pretend to like work.
Terry Eagleton, What Is A Novel?, Lancaster University, 1 Feb 2010

The working man is a fucking loser.
Mick, The Golden Lion, Lancaster, 21 Mar 2011

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Best laid plans

4 comments

looby, n.; pl. loobies. A lout; an awkward, stupid, clownish person

Rummage in my drawers

The Comfort of Strangers

"Just sit still and listen" - woman to teenage girl at Elliott Carter weekend, London 2006

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