My favourite mistake

I once dated a man who stole my heart (and coincidentally my eyeliner and hairspray when we split) at our first kiss. Even today I remember sitting at that Japaneses table, cross legged and fidgeting with my skirt. After hours of flirting and even more dancing at our friends birthday party, he leaned in, cupped my cheek in his hand and gently kissed me on the lips. He was never good for me and I was never good for him. We brought out the very best and the very worst in one another. He's since married and its been more years then I can count, but I still recall the intensity with which we loved. My stomach turns when I think of the lessons we learnt at one anther's expense. I then moved on to my second big love who got the new and improved version of GirlFriday GF 2.0. We were best friends and as it turned out, little more. But nevertheless, we had a really great time together. We brought out the best in each other (most of the time) and parted ways kindly when we started to bring out the worst.

It's an interesting thing, past love, no matter how good or bad it was, time screws with our perception of it. When we are longing for that lost love, we often forget all together the bad bits. But in contrast some backwards glances yield only views of scorn and hurt. Regardless of what happened, it was good at one time, but it's in the past for a reason.

In talking with Cricket Boy about a business deal gone bad with past love #2, he questioned why I was still such good friends with him. Relationships are a funny thing, they really only make sense to the 2 people who are part of an unspoken alliance. Great loves are few and far between and when possible you want to preserve any good remnants of that piece of your past.

But moving on is the only thing that allows you to find your next great love. For me, I will always remember that kiss over the Japanese table, even if he was a make up stealer he was also my favourite mistake.

Space

Ones sense of personal space is highly, well personal, isn't it? It's also culturally relative, I do realise that. I reckon all those things considered, I still need a much larger amount of personal space in public spaces then many. I notice myself constantly backing up when people are talking to me or inching forward in queue when the person behind me gets too close. Is it me or is it unacceptable to feel a strangers breath on your neck in a non crowded environment. When I am having a particularly cranky morning commute or evening commute, which lets face it, is at least 2 days out of 5, I will stop dead in my tracks until the jack ass behind me realises that no two people who aren't trying to procreate should be that close. When I encounter a close talker, I literally want to draw out a square in front of me, like in Dirty Dancing, and say, this is my space, that is your space.

Ok, rant over for the day, but seriously..does anyone else have this issue?

Grace

Those who know me well know that I am anything but graceful. I have been called a bull in a china shop more times then I can count. It used to describe every facet of my personality. The take no prisoners attitude of my 20s, however, gave way to a less aggressive more considered woman of a certain age, but I still struggle to keep limbs in tact and anything breakable unbroken.

Luckily most people that love me can laugh about it, but I assume there comes a point when even the most long suffering person throws their hands up in despair. I remember one time when trying to sort out a problem with a good mates hard drive I busted the entire hanging rack (where the the CPU lived) off of the the desk. She was understandably irked. Most sets of things that I own which can break are incomplete. I have 5 dinner plates, 5 champagne flutes, 3 lovely tea cups from Turkey and as of yesterday 3 beautiful wine glasses from Sweden.

My mans was washing up and I was drying. The stem of the wine glass I was toweling busted right in half in my hand. I swear, I can't be that strong, I am a midget for crying out loud. Accustom to my mishaps he looked at me and first said, are you ok? After nodding yes, he removed the top and bottom of the glass from my hand, placed it in the bin and shook his head. "Remind me when we are properly together", he said "never to buy expensive stemware." I can only assume "properly together" means when he makes an honest woman out of me, which I hope is not dependent on my ability to stop being a klutz.

I hate that I am so clumsy, but honestly I don't know what I can do about it. I had a really good 6 months recently where I didn't break anything (and this included a move) or injure myself significantly. Then just within the last 4 months I have: Broken a bowl, broken a picture frame, sliced the tip off my thumb, crushed my toe causing most of my toe nail to crumble off, broken the blinds in my office at work (it now is sans the pull cord which means I have to manually roll it to about half way and wedge the bottom rod sideways between the metal window frame, hot!), spilled an entire glass of red wine on my beige carpet and broken my toilet seat so it slides any time someone sits down now. Don't even ask me how I did that, I honestly have no idea.

Is there like a vitamin or something that one can take for this type of behaviour?

Destination Dating

My first 2 years in London were mainly spent on aeroplanes and cities other then London. Paris, Munich, Prague, Budapest, Athens, Istanbul, Zagreb, Brussels, Dubai...I could go on, but I shant. I developed a penchant for what I termed "Destination Dating." The men I was meeting at the time (the oh so wrong for me men) rarely lived in or around London. Typically we would meet when I was somewhere on business, or leisure in a few cases. We would go to dinner or have drinks the next time I was in town for business, or on that same trip if time permitted, and then we would meet up in a city for a weekend. Sometimes it was London, sometimes where they lived and other times it was a random city we would both agree on. Aside from the obvious dangers that DD can hold, it is mine field of unexpected circumstances that one must always have an exit strategy for. Why go through the trouble, you may be asking? Trust you me, it was this or commit myself to a monastery and accept my fate as a permanent spinster. Also I have to admit, at first it sounded very romantic and in fact for my friends, hearing the stories never lost its appeal.

So off I went on my weekend dates with, as it mostly turned out, men I couldn't have spent 2.5 hours in a West End production with, much less 3 days and 2 nights. On 2 occasions I fled the city early with no note, no warning and no looking back. Lucky for me the airlines always allowed me to change my ticket upon turning up at the airport. On one occasion, I fained illness and also pretended to be sleeping as often as possible. It didn't stop the boy from tapping me on the shoulder and in a voice that escalated from a whisper to a full on shout, ask "Girl, Girl, Girl GIRL...is it sleeping that you are doing? You see the other challenge tended to be language. We rarely had a common one that we both spoke fluently. Once, on what would have otherwise been a terribly romantic weekend in Amsterdam, an entire dinner was spent with the 2 of us trying to communicate our education levels. Another weekend ended in a row over me not properly converting the local currency to Euros/GBP and ordering a ridiculously expensive bottle of wine. C'est la Vie, said I. Adios, said he.

The moral of the story is, no matter how bad the date, be glad it's only one evening.

Fo Sheezy

Yeah, ok, so obviously I was the only one who found the Jive version of my blog so funny that I wet myself. So we will now return to our regularly scheduled programming. I had an eventful 5 days since I last posted, so thought I would enlighten the fine people of blog land on some of my observations

• Rufus Wainwright. I have several people that I KNOW are going to get angry with me when they read this, but that's a chance I have to take. I really like the Ruf, I do, but I did not like him in concert at Kenwood House on Sat night. It could have something to do with the fact that in a vain attempt to drop my body weight, I left part of my thumb at home, but I found him very depressing. I also found the couple next to us very depressing. It was one of those combos where you know the girl doesn't think she's dating a gay guy, but she's the only one who thinks that. I know you know what I mean.



• Dubai. That place scares me, always has, always will. Anywhere that has manufactured wind on the beach to mask the fact that it's hotter then hell, might actually be...SHOCK AWE..hell?



• Exhaustion. It makes you do crazy things. I blame my Blog last Friday on exactly that.



• Love. See exhaustion, well sans the bit about the blog.



• Movies on Planes. There's something funny about the mindset you are in when you watch movies on planes. I watch things on planes that I would never even rent. You are a captive audience. I do not recommend coming home and trying to convince your friends that something you saw on a plane is really really good and they should rent it. It's highly probable that it wasn't good, it definitely wasn't really really good and the only reason you enjoyed it is because you read the in flight magazine twice and were pretending that the battery on your laptop was dead.

That's all I've got for you today folks, I at least hope you enjoy it more then my jive translations. Slap mah fro. (you have to admit at least THAT part was funny)

Da bof us-Cos e'ry fool needs some Jive in da day

****Warning*****

Do not read this post if you are easily offended or culturally sensitive or have no sense of humour

Now that's out of the way. I will explain how this came about another time, but for now, just know that Jive is cool.

The Holiday

My mans an' I had uh lovely holiday dat wuz full o' chickn n` corn bread, wine, sun an' relaxation. The Italians iz uh fun bunch an' while we's had ta gesticulate mo' then normal ta be understood wiff most peeps, we's got what we's needed in da end. Da bof us didn't meet one other person who spoke English on da entire trip, it wuz great. Given dat we's had only one another ta speak wiff fo' 8 days, I wuz amazed ta find dat we's liked each other even mo' when we's came back. I would highly recommend da region an' I th'o't we's will definitely be returning.

Today

For da first year since I gots lived in da UK I will be celebrating da 4th o' July. I th'o't dis here may be da first year since I gots lived here dat I gots actually been in da UK fo' da holiday. Last year wuz Spain, I th'o't I wuz in da Middle East da year 'bfoe dat, Amsterdam in 2006, Barcelona in 2005. Am going ta da Rib Shack where we's will celebrate havin' uh bettah life here in da country which da US iz celebrating independence from. Then we all gots some tea. I'll definitely be havin' uh Budweiser though.

Misc

The ticket guy at da train station taday said he liked muh ma fuckin accent. Normally I would th'o't he wuz taking da piss, but in muh ma fuckin recent glass half full phase, I smiled an' said thanks. Accent might be code fo' boobs as I be wearing uh fine ass low cut dress taday. Next Holiday One o' muh ma fuckin pimp-tight mates from da US an' I iz headed ta Bali end o' August, beginning o' Sept. 2.5 weeks. I can't wait. We booked our flights ages ago, but iz just now starting ta book accommodations. I th'o't brothas needs 2 pimp-tight holidays uh year. One fo' relaxing an' recharging an' one fo' adventure. My mans keeps teasing muh ma fuckin dat I be naughty ta jet him fo' so long, but honestly I hope I can take solo or mate holidays now an' again- forever, even if I git tied down at some point. Slap mah fro!