Monday, April 03, 2006

So finally I've done it. I've set up a space that acknowledges my existence:-o That isn't to say I've been sitting here unsung like some heroine of old and am now resurrected to fill a missing space in a history book lacking black or brown faces. I think my heroics, such as they are - maintaining the lifestyle of an urban professional bunker babe while earning less than my cleaning lady - are pretty loudly sung by those inside the Camden gossip loop. That is, the ladies who sit having coffee in the hostelries of West Hampstead at weekends, describing their peri-menopausal symptoms, lusting after men half their age and size, and swapping notes on the latest diet craze. As it happens, it's only the first two subjects that interest me. Our domestic diet is fairly standard - all food consumed on these premises has to be boiled, baked or bought. The calorie talk does however provide interesting punctuation points along a familiar route made up of mindless, but intensely comforting and occasionally profound, female smalltalk. It's just that nobody actually knows what I do with my day, here in my basement bunker. To be honest, I don't either. I have two children. One's at school today. The other is already on Easter hols and has gone to the science museum with my ma. They've left me to work. So far, this has consisted of a letter to the Daily Telegraph fishing for commissions, two album sales - John Entwistle and The Hollies - on ebay, and an hour flirting with married men seeking affairs on an internet dating site. I'm not looking to help them out, as it happens. I'm a bit po-faced about extra-marital activities, having been dumped in favour of blondes by both my dad and my ex husband, but they're always easier to talk to than the single men online who still call women 'ladies' and put down 'walks in the sunset' as their favourite first date. Why walk during a sunset when it's so much more edifying to stop and watch it? And to snog, perhaps, if you're still dating men before the dribbling stage. Anyway, that's what I've done so far that is productive. I've also tested some old vinyl for scratches, put on two washloads and sent an email asking my friend X if we're on for dinner tonight. She spends half the week with her elderly mum and the other half with her lovely husband. Talk about trapped: from soapy sandwich to Sandwich Generation in the space of a decade. So: I'd listened to the Archers repeat at two, discovered I couldn't update my Orange phone because they've already run out of the new Nokia, and was sitting at the Mac eating chocolate squares when I decided it was time to start a blog. Tantarra!! This way at least I have a record of what I've done with my time. Or not done, as the case is. And maybe at some point I'll look back at this, feel ashamed, and get a proper job.

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