Hello/Goodbye

As friends who read this blog have pointed out – there really hasn’t been enough Drew in the world lately (insert laughter/new friends). There’s been a busy Christmas (in Dublin, the first with my Dad), a book to finish (not quite) and other blogs - kitchen, light, rug and chair ones to be exact (link to them and I’ll love you forever).

In the month since I posted last, I’ve cried at the Tate Modern, had my underwear inspected and promised myself to stop dating non-English speakers. Things have been pretty good really - the irony is that as your life gets better, there’s often less to write about.

I went to the archives. It’s an odd experience reading old posts. It throws up awkward memories and even more awkward writing, but the scope of it, well - it’s one of the greatest things I’ve achieved. I considered moving the archives to the new blog, but then I realised it had to stay an entity of its own, to be visited sparingly, but not forgotten. I mean, who would want to forget the time Jesus peed in my bed (Part One & Two)? Or the time I went to the Marilyn Manson Concert? The Supermarket? The time I was flamed? Or when I made the boy I liked fill out a Compatability Test?

Oh yeah, they were sure some neat times.

The new blog, erm, didn't work out either - so I'm now in a blogging purgatory until the urge to blab about my life grips me again. And it will. Until then, thanks for reading and follow your bliss.  link to this

  Lust in Translation

How are you? I im sleepy. Have gest got home. And you?

Oh dear, his English isn’t very good. Well that doesn’t matter. We had a connection. And a connection like ours is more than language, more than the physical - though the physical was pretty good as well. Mental note: I should start trimming again. Just because its winter, doesn’t mean I should get tardy with my manscaping.

I better text him back:

Hi, I’m really good. Busy day too. Would you like to come over to my house for dinner on Wednesday night?

That might be a bit wordy. Don’t want to overpower the boy with all your greater command of the English language do we? Let’s strip it down a little:

I’m good. Dinner at my house on Wednesday?

Should I kiss?

I’m good. Dinner at my house on Wednesday? x

Best not.

I’m good. Dinner at my house on Wednesday?

#

Oh God, it’s been hours. Why hasn’t he replied yet?

I. not sure. Work mabe. Night Chico malo

What the hell? What’s a Chico Malo when it’s at home. I hope he’s not calling me fat. I hope it’s not Spanish for chunky. Maybe he didn’t understand the question? Maybe I should text again? Or call him? Or go over there?

Steady on. Steady. Turn off the phone. Turn. It. Off.

You’re playing it cool, remember. He can text you next. That’ll teach him.

#

Hee guapo, what did you do today?

It’s been two days now and we’re still to progress past the daily pleasantries. I’m beginning to forget what he looks like. Worse, I’m beginning to forget what he looks like naked. He never did get back to me about dinner on Wednesday…

Yeah, I’m great. Just eaten a huge meal. How are you?

That’s great. Great. Why don’t you tell him you ate the olive that fell onto the floor while you’re at it?

Yeah, I’m great. Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday

Too needy

Yeah, I’m great. Looking forward to the weekend

Better. Now finish with something racy to remind him what he’s missing…

Yeah, I’m great. Looking forward to the weekend ;)

There it is.

#

That was quick

Am working now Sat. Sorry. have you finshed the book?

What? So he can’t see me this weekend now either? Sheesh. And why would I have finished the book?

Back to the more pressing point – does he like me or is he stringing me along? Why would he keep up such regular texts if he didn’t want to see me again? I wish I could ask him:

Hey, are you planning to see me again buster? Cos if not, you can bugger off. I ain’t no ones text patsy

God, delete it quick.

No, text back something breezy.

Ok, that’s a shame. Talk soon.

Oh, I like that. Decisive. Yes, you hold the power in this relationship.

#

He how are you? I am very tired. Staying in tonight like good boy. You?

Well, I’m staying in too now it seems. How can he be so tired all the time? He’s not an Ambulance driver or a Mother of three for chrissake. He’s a bloody male model.

Don’t text him back. He can’t treat you like this. You deserve more… respect. So don’t text him. Make him beg.

#

Hola are you ok? I txt you yesterday?

See it worked! He’s eating out of the palm of your hand! Victory! Stay aloof. It’s the only way you can last the distance with the super pretty guys.

But what if he’s sad?

I’m going to text him:

Yeah, I’m fine. What are your plans this weekend?

I am tired, not going out? You? Are you going clubking?

That’s it. This is over. Over. I haven’t spoken to or seen him in over a week. This is not going well. It. Is. Over. Why would I be going clubbing? He is an idiot. He is probably an idiot in his native language too. We have nothing in common. It would be more interesting texting a calculator.

How do I break up with him though? I want a clean end to our relationship. This could drag on for weeks.

I could text him I guess?

Best not.

I’ll give him the cold shoulder instead. Less dramatic. Delete his old messages. Do it now. Delete them all. Even the saved ones. All the saved ones. Now, turn off your phone. That’s it.

All communication has now been officially suspended.

I’ll miss him, I think. Those little beeps brightened up my day.

I hope he doesn’t suffer over it.

Maybe I should text him goodbye?

No, put down the phone.

One way or another, he’ll get the message.  link to this

  Being a bit out of practice, I’d forgotten how wonderful it is to date someone you actually like. The highlights include:

• Crippling self analysis
• Heightened feelings of vulnerability
• Loss of all humour
• Instant body dismorphia
• Incessant giggling
• Inability to write in English

I can’t wait for the jealousy, miscommunication and random hand-holding to kick in either.  link to this

 



  link to this

  "Even more than in America, British regional accents are the key to deciphering class and social stature. Does he speak with a crisp London clip? A slurry cockney? Does it matter? No, because they all sound freaking adorable. What do you care?"
(from Is He Cute or Is He British?)  link to this

  I went to a bar!  link to this

 

I’m off to Madrid for a long weekend with eleven of my nearest and dearest. On my return, exciting new things will be happening around here. I’m going to let you into a few secret projects that have been brewing over the past few months and I’ll also start writing about my life again – maybe even reveal what the book is about.

Have a great weekend and I’ll see you Tuesday to come.

  link to this

  One of the characters in my novel is a poet. A goofy kind of poet. This is something I wrote for him, but it hasn't made the final cut.

The Traders

Rum Black raps

Tom Thumb taps

Blacken, twist

They perch with me

Wendel barter

Broken, raw

Drink them blind

Spend my mind

A gutted East, the Priest

Will hark

Falling, pawing

Savouring

The kill

Till pecked and plucked

These traders

Fly not oft

But circle

Coming home.

  link to this

 

The Great Unknown

Things I kind of understand - kind of, but not really

RSS

the phrase “post modern”

grammar (especially, commas)

HTML

The stockmarket

Pinter

“second cousin once removed”

any measurement (distance, weight) excluding time

the defintion of irony

White Sauce

Brown Sauce

  link to this

  In other news it's the Londonist party on Thursday.
I will be there in my best shoes signing autographs and such. And when I say "signing autographs" I really mean "serving drinks". And when I say "best shoes" I really mean just "shoes".  link to this

 

Flexi-things I can do:

Bend and lay my hands on the ground

Do a back arch on my toes

Stand on my head for, like, ages.

  link to this

 

Leap

Run up

Jump

If you’re not sure where you want to land, lean forward

Prepare to make contact

Let the ground take your weight

Relax

It will hurt

Make the flats of your feet sting

Dirty your hands in the mud

Bruise your knee

But you only have to do it once

Try not to think

Focus

Pick your spot and hold your gaze

Now run

Pump your arms

Pump your legs

Pump your lungs

Your footing is important

Do a skip

Change beat and

Yes

No going back now

That’s it

You’re flying

Flying

Egh

The ground slaps you hard

Makes you crumple

The pain jolts your calves

But not as bad

Not nearly as bad

You wipe your hands

You wipe your nose

You look behind

You wipe your hands

Come on now Rosie, she says, trundling the pushchair

You wipe your mouth

Big day for Rosie, she says as she lifts you and places you in the seat for the ride home.

  link to this

  Here are some leftover photos from my Banksy review





(this - which is obvioulsy not a Banksy - I found by chance at Portobello Road Markets an hour later)

p.s. The Londonist drink was good fun. They’re all extremely clever and nice. Lot’s of Americans too. Who’d a thought?

p.p.s. The weekend with my brother felt a lot like hard work. I have too little patience to be a very good entertainment manager, especially when my idea of fun right now is sparkling clean kitchen linoleum. I love the word linoleum. Linoleum. Linoleum. It would make a good name for a bar.  link to this

  20 Fast Ones

• We now have a washing machine that washes. Never before has white wear make me teary.
• I got a lovely email today from Breanna over at the Austinist – welcoming me to the –ist family. Feel the love.
• Speaking of – I’m having a drink with the Londonista tonight. Never really met any real bloggers (Lizzie, Christopher, you don’t count). Hope they don’t make fun of my syntax.
• Speaking of – I reviewed the Embankment at the Tate Modern. (What? You’re complaining I write for them more than I do here now? It’s the same old words, just on a website that doesn’t have design aesthetics circa early 1999…)
• I’ve gone off verdana 8.5, 1.5 lines. I’ve written almost everything in this font for two years. I’ve gone all Times New Roman 12. Oldschool.
• I can’t finish the Time Traveller’s Wife. I tried. It just didn’t do it for me.
• My brother is coming to stay this weekend.
• I am going to try not to say oldschool again, especially in his company.
• Columbia Road Markets (where I went last Sunday) is the only place you’ll hear a right cockney geezer yell “Pansies! Come and get yer pansies!”
• There is a shop that sells fairy cakes on Columbia Road too. The cakes are delicious but cost an arm and a leg.
• I still managed to eat two.
• In New Zealand we call regular tea “gumboot” tea. Over here it’s “builder’s” tea. Anything herbal is just “lezza tea”.
• Oh, and I didn’t give up coffee because coffee didn’t give up on me.
• It’s good having Daisy back.
• If you email me, I’ll buy you one for Christmas. Choose a style now to avoid disappointment.
• Today it’s officially Autumn. Officially to me.
• The pigeons in Soho Square are reaching plague proportions. When a car backfires the air swarms with them and I pretend I’m Tippi Hedren.
• I now have enough matching socks. This is quite a defining moment in my adulthood.
• This is my first Winter in 18 months and I’m going to splash out and buy rakish scarf.
• What if the best is yet to come?  link to this

 

The Monday Hangover

1. You will never drink again
2. You will feel sorry for yourself on the tube ride home. Yes, it is hot and crowded. You should have thought about last night, drinky boy
3. You will go to the supermarket and suffer the crowds to get yourself something healthy for dinner - some type of raw bean and/or tofu curd salad
4. You will not write because we don’t want our first novel to be penned by someone who is almost certainly a drunkard, they have to drink on a Sunday. The book does not deserve you. If it could, it would spit at you
5. You will have a long shower and almost fall over twice. The shower curtain will save your life
6. You will have an early night. You will not stay up to watch Six Feet Under or some other popular US television show. You will sleep. Sleep will forgive and restore. And you will dream sober and unchallenging dreams
   

  link to this

  Join the debate  link to this

  Another Londonist quicky here. I'll have my name attached soon, but until then I'll link.  link to this

  As if the blog Gods were eavesdropping and decide to play a joke…

5 October

1.54pm
Hi I thought it be polite and tell you I’m alive… and you? Alba

2.06pm
I see, you must be dead. This would be a horrible joke if you really are dead... Alba

The thing is, even though I can see how carefully he’s phrasing himself, I still mangle the messages to mean whatever I want them to.  link to this

  Experiments in XXXX

22 August, 10.22am

Hi,

I've moved house. I didn't take the place in Streatham. I moved into a bigger two bedroom house in Bethnal Green instead. My bedroom looks out over a children's playground, which isn't as creepy as it sounds. I can see Tower 42 and the Gherkin. I've watched as the scaffolding changes each day while they clean the glass on the outside of the Gherkin. It must be amazing spending all day up there, cleaning glass, suspended from a rope and gazing at all of London around you.

I have more time on my hands now, even though all my friends want to come over to see the new house. I write and write and watch movies. I walk down to Brick Lane with Amy and we buy all our fruit and vegetables. Yesterday I found a picture of James Dean at the market for a pound and the DTPM CD for £4. Afterwards I went home and scrubbed the floors, polished all the counter tops and washed the windows. I had my sleeves rolled up. I was in my bedroom cleaning the windows and listening to my ipod (I have an ipod) humming along to "Me and Mrs Jones" and trying the clean the corner of the window panes so they didn't look streaky, thinking about what I was going to have for dinner (pita bread and hummus) when I realised I was in XXXX with you and I had been for a very long time.

I tried very hard not to be. I kept myself busy, I didn't dwell on things; I took every day as a new opportunity. I wanted to get over you and get on with my life. I'd managed to do that with every other boy I'd ever met, so why not you?

Anyway – I was cleaning the glass and making sure there were no streaks and humming to myself and I decided I was going to write this letter. There it is. I XXXX you, Alba. Silly I know.


22 August, 10.44pm

I don't exactly know what to say...

I’m very tired now... and I don’t like writing like this... but I’ll try and
make myself clear.

I must say that I’m not in XXXX with you... but I on the other hand, I’m
finally not in love at all...

There’s been many changes since I haven’t seen you...

I got a new job, I made nice friends, and I decided I’m staying for longer,
at least till September of next year... I feel brand new... well not really, brand new, but starting a whole new phase...

In a way, I feel I managed to do this by myself... and I’m very proud of
that... when I called my house and told my dad I was working in one of the
10 best companies to work in the world according to the Sunday times, he
couldn’t speak cause he was crying... it’s been one of my happiest moments in
my life...

Anyway... what I mean to say, is that right now I need to be by myself... at
least I think I need that...
I would really like to see you... I miss you... But I’m not able to tell you
that I XXXX you... I don’t want to be in a relation, but I definitely don’t
want to play with you in any way...

I just read what I have wrote... I sound to hard... it’s because I’m tired...
I was really happy when I saw a mail from you, more happy to see that it
didn’t say something like "stop sending me txt messages you f**king
foreign"... but quite overwhelmed by what it said...

Let’s meet and see what happens... but everything is starting... lets keep
it that way... we are no strangers, but we had our problems... may be more
calmly, more slowly than the last time... it was quite intense...

thank you  link to this

  The Monday Mystery
Guess who’s a new writer for the Londonist (and now has yet another excuse to go out drinking)?  link to this

  Just gone 8.30am and I’m walking by the Astoria where there’s a queue of hundreds. Thinking it’s a bit early for a pop concert I question a security guard. He sniffs, and cocks his head at the bleach blonde women hugging sleeping bags to their bosoms against the drizzling rain; "Robbie William’s is having a concert tomorrow" he replies in a thick Eastern-European accent, and I thank him and walk off, leaving the poor Robbie loving bastards to their wait.  link to this