February 10th, 2007

The next Post Of The Week will be announced on Sunday evening.
Please note that nominations for next week cannot be accepted until then.

1. A beautiful revolution: Stuff in the air at 1 a.m.

Met a girl I used to know. Have a drink. Stuff in the air. Ask about her current fortune. She shakes her head. I light a cigarette and remember the past. Passionate. Car crash. Hanging on for both our lives. How about you, she asks. I shake my head. Lonely, she sighs, licking her pink glistening lips with the tip of her tongue. I nod. Stuff in the air.

2. An Unreliable Witness: No ball games, please.

Magnolia is an evil colour. Whichever interior designer it was who first came up with the idea that it speaks of calming and soothing and reassuring and home should be shot in the knees until they dance.

3. Fire & Knives: St Valentine’s Day massacre.

And so, for one blissful night, the balance of power shifts away from the whiney, demanding and unpredictably fickle customer and firmly into the hands of the restaurateur. Along with the week prior to Christmas and Mothering Sunday this is a time he can be sure of filling every available seat several times over. If you can’t fill a place on Valentine’s night you have no right to call yourself a restaurant. In fact, in most towns the UK you could stick red napkins in the mugs in a soup kitchen and sell tables. Shove a rose in a jam jar and you’d be sold out six months in advance.

4. [from fuck-up to] fab!: high maintenance.

I refrain from launching into a woe, thrice woe, poor little me tirade and bite my lip so hard I can taste blood. I am not after charity. I am very good at what I do, I work very hard and by the way, she never had the courtesy of acknowledging receipt of my CV - instead, I found out about new appointments - none of which bearing my name - via the internal newsletter.

5. Girl with a one track mind: Three.

I’ve always done a yearly round-up of blog posts on this date; today is no different, barring the fact that this last year has been the oddest I have ever experienced. What was once my private life has now become public, in its most literal sense. I’ve been proud that my writing crossed into the book medium this year; I’ve been gutted that I lost my anonymity in the process. Here are the highs and lows of the past twelve months.

6. KristyK: I love my grandpa.

The man stood naked in the middle of the yard. He was starving to death and the bones holding up his skin stood out in sharp contrast to his round belly. His teeth had long since fallen out and when he grinned it was with a gaping black hole that was too large for his face. Trucks carrying American soldiers rolled through the gate of the prison and the man, alone in the center of the court, started dancing a jig.

7. Little Red Boat: Another night in paradise.

“What was that?”
“What?”
“That noise. What was that?”
“I didn’t hear a noise.”

8. Neonbubble: Cat Pee.

You see, I have a cat and that cat - being an animal - expels fluid waste from its body using its teeny, tiny cat penis. Okay, maybe compared to other tabby cats the penis is a monster both in length and girth but I’m not prepared to do any research in that area. Suffice to say: it’s smaller than mine. Really. Beside the point, though. The point - if I remember correctly and dispense somehow of the image of cat genitalia in my mind at the moment - is that fluids, when they aren’t being regurgitated or drooled at the speed of light from one end of his furry body, instead prefer the option of ejection via the teeny, tiny penis.

9. Petit Hiboux: Madonna and Whore.

I am angry that segments about women like the Today Show segment even exist, because they are not complex and thoughtful evaluations of modern motherhood, they are idiotic and prejudiced stones of judgement that are all too easy to hurl at this society’s favorite punching bag. It’s like some horrific national itch that no one will collectively face and eradicate because it’s too fucking enjoyable to drag it out into the harsh light of day and watch it scab over again.

10. Reluctant Nomad: Felicitas - a year on.

It’s coming up for a year since Felicitas, a friend of mine in Maputo, carefully planned her suicide by writing suicide notes to various friends before taking an overdose. As far as I’m aware, it was her only suicide attempt. It worked. She put the suicide notes on a ‘memory stick’ with instructions for a friend on how to email them to the people concerned.

11. Timorous Beastie: How to get a free lunch.

I got Mutt No. 2, Honza, when he was twelve years old. He was a silent little dog, who didn’t bark or lick or run. He was deaf, he had warts and the pink, glistening end of his knob routinely dangled perilously close to the carpet/grass/foot of the person he happened to be sitting on.

12. Tired Dad: Signifier / Signified.

Interior. Day. Corporate Headquarters of TopShop or any other manky High Street clothing emporium selling dreams of whoredom to twelve-year-olds. And that, oddly, are only actually frequented by slightly tense-looking women in their forties who can be seen asking after Size 12’s and getting laughed at.