- Piper at the Gates of Dawn - Pink Floyd
- The Dark Horse Book of Witchcraft
- Champagne tea at the Savoy
- A cat encyclopaedia
- A dog encyclopaedia
- A book about the paranormal
- Another book about the paranormal
- A third book about the paranormal
- Jewellery
- Clothes
- A clockwork fan that is also a flower and a pencil sharpener and an eraser
- A trip to the London Aquarium
- A postcard of Prince William
- A cigar
Today is not my birthday. I am not smoking cigars. I am on the sofa drinking red wine with The Boyfriend, who is watching The Story of Light Entertainment.
But I am recovering from the first of my birthday celebrations last Friday. My birthday tends to be the social event of the year. Not because I am a towering socialite, but simply because I am very, very bad at keeping social engagements. And I have unfathomably tenacious friends, most of whom I don't deserve.
So, when I send out those emails detailing a bar and a date one night in August, my friends pay attention. Because it's the one night of the year that I'm actually guaranteed to show.
I'm not proud. Okay, I'm a little proud. But then I'm a little twisted.
So Friday night began dismally. The bar - which I'd booked precisely because it was always empty and had groovy electronica burbling in the background - was stuffed with braying suited City twats, pumping out a bad, loud wedding reception-type playlist. There were glossy people sitting in the area we'd reserved and the bar staff weren't willing to move them. And I'd had a shitty day at work.
But then the alcohol flowed, my friends arrived, then more friends arrived and ordered more alcohol, and more, and more, there was a blurry, beery interlude, and suddenly I was in my friend's house, drunk, at 3am eating very dubious fried chicken and clutching a postcard of Prince William and a cigar.
These are the highlights I've managed to piece together from the fragments of memory that the beer hasn't burned away:
- The random half-naked dancing man towards the end of the evening, who kept trying to do the Milli Vanilli chest-bump with every passing female
- The arrival of a guy I hadn't seen since I met in a pub at midnight in February, but whose frankly brilliant horror script I had read. There was some concern from some quarters that he might be a murderer, but if he is, he's a very nice one
- This guy's brother, who looked like Pob and kept shouting "WHAT????". In the end he left looking for "something to put in the shit factory"
- My rather creepy friend from college, W, trying (and failing) to woo my newer, less creepy, very pretty friend S
- The arrival of a friend I hadn't seen for 5 years, from New Zealand
- The arrival of another friend I hadn't seen for 5 years from, er, 20 minutes from me
- The superstar DJs set up near the toilets who leapt in excitement every time a woman came near them, only to deflate when they realised she invariably needed a pee
My actual birthday is this Thursday. Related upcoming celebrations include:
- An Italian dinner with my family
- A trip to the aquarium and a "surprise" from my friend, E
- A night of karaoke and debauchery on Friday
- A spa weekend with The Boyfriend
Not too shabby really.
I'd completely forgotten about the song Walkabout until The Sugarcubes popped up in my random iPod playlist today. I love this song! And I'd always thought the lyrics were:
Delicious boy,
With animal eyes,
Beautiful buttocks,
Hunting Moomins.
But the thing that makes me love you
Is the unforgettable smell of your skin.
But I just found out it's "haunting movements", not "hunting Moomins".
Hm. My way sounds better.
I went into work today, slammed my bag on my desk, and proclaimed, "I am grumpy. The Boyfriend is in Edinburgh."
"Awww," said my colleagues.
"No, you don't understand," said I. "My boyfriend is in Edinburgh. He's at the Edinburgh Festival. Because of work. Tell me, what business does a computer journalist have at the Edinburgh Festival?"
After that they knew to leave me alone. They didn't even laugh when I dropped my wallet in the wastepaper bin in the canteen.
According to his last SMS, The Boyfriend has "just queued for a vegeburger behind Mr Belle and Sebastian."
Just to spite him, I had pizza tonight. Ha!
Watching the first few whiny, whiny, plaid-shirted, pathos-filled episodes of Party of Five, it occurs to me that I may only have found it riveting when I was 14 because they played lots of tracks by REM and even, ohmigod, 10,000 Maniacs.
Like, how cool. I mean seriously.
And yet I can't stop watching it now...
Does everyone walk in time to the music playing on their ipods, or is it just me?
