Tag Archives: celebrity

Dry-cleaning

‘I’m doing the most grown-up thing you could imagine,’ I tell my friend as she picks up the phone. There is a worried pause. ‘What is it?’ she asks slowly. ‘I’m picking up my dry-cleaning,’ I tell her smugly.

‘I’m walking down the road with those lovely plastic covering things slung casually over my arm, chatting to you on my phone. People probably think I’m a celebrity.’  I nod kindly to a gentleman as I pass him on the pavement. ‘I’m very bad at dry-cleaning,’ my friend tells me apologetically. ‘I leave it for ages in a pile and never get round to taking it to the dry-cleaners.’Aha!’ I say, delighted. ‘And then, because you’re got loads of things, they give you with a massive bill.’

‘Indeed,’ my friend says sadly. ‘I’m terribly good at dry-cleaning,’ I inform her. ‘I feel like it’s really something I’ve gotten a handle on, vis-à-vis this whole being a grown up thing.’ There is an inarticulate yelp from the other end of the phone. ‘Oh,’ I say quickly. ‘I wouldn’t let it worry you. There’s plenty of things I’m still getting to grips with.’ ‘No, no,’ my friend replies. ‘I’m doing some normal laundry, as it happens, and I’ve managed to skip past one of the stages of the cycle. Did you even know that was possible?’

‘Oh of course,’ I told my friend helpfully. ‘It is possible to do almost anything with a washing machine. Jam it so it won’t give you your clothes back, let it run with no washing powder in, stop it before it’s drained, skip the spin cycle so your clothes are still dripping…’ There is another pause. ‘Well,’ I say finally. ‘I suppose you can see why I’m so keen on dry-cleaning.’

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Celebrity Savvy

I’m in the shower at my sister’s flat. I’m meant to be there, by the way. I’m visiting her for the weekend, not re-creating the secret track at the end of Alanis Morissette’s ‘Jagged Little Pill’.

(I think quite possibly I have spent more time listening to ‘Jagged Little Pill’ than is strictly necessary. It was the first CD I ever bought with my own, hard-saved pocket money. I can still accurately tell you the tracklist, along with my thoughts on what her inspiration for each song was. I don’t like to boast, but 12 year old me and Alanis were pretty connected). I once bumped into Alanis Morissette. I mean that literally. I was wearing my pajama bottoms, and I had noticed that they were dragging on the pavement. So I was looking down to hoik them up, and I bumped into a small lady. I apologized, and looked up. It was Alanis Morissette. (It is scarcely a coincidence that Alanis’ next video featured her walking the streets naked. I had basically thrust how inconvenient clothes are into her face).

Alanis Morissette is not the only celebrity I have been close to. I was in American Apparel with a great friend, wandering around and wondering who on earth was skinny enough to wear that much lycra, when I saw Dannii Minogue. I could not believe it. I pointed her out subtly to my friend. My friend politely asked me to lower my voice and stop pointing.

‘She’s going into the changing room!’ I shouted at my friend. ‘That’s nice,’ my friend whispered. ‘I’m going in,’ I declared firmly. I rushed away before my friend could stop me, threw open the curtains of the changing room next to Danni’s, and took off all my clothes. ‘Look!’ I shouted at my friend. ‘Me and Dannii Minogue are naked together! This is great!’

I re-clothed and emerged from the changing room. I found my friend hiding oddly round the other side of the store. ‘Don’t worry,’ I told her encouragingly. ‘Not everyone can be as celebrity-savvy as me. Did I tell you about the time Alanis Morissette used me as her muse?’

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I want to be alone

I can’t work out how to use emoticons, so in moments where nothing else will do, I tend to put a ‘0’ at the end of my text. I assume people realise this is because the ‘0’ looks like a mouth open in amazement. It is therefore the perfect, low-effort emoticon. Unfortunately, I seem to be the only person sensible enough to notice this. I fear recipients of my artfully constructed texts are missing out on vital expressions of shock and horror. Then again, perhaps they have seen the zen-like simplicity of my unique emoticons and felt rebuked for their own excessive use of ‘traditional’ emoticons. It is hard to tell.

I had some time on Tuesday because buying my trainers was much easier than expected. (I don’t want to boast, but I have a perfectly neutral gait. This is similar, in running shops, to being a celebrity. In that all the staff stare at you and try to act cool. And you can get cheaper stuff than everyone else. Though not free. I mean, a neutral gait is highly impressive, but it’s not a leaked sex tape or a stint in CBB). I was walking distance from where I was meeting my friends for drinks, so I decided to head over there early. I strolled (in a orthopedically superlative fashion) up to Sketch.

The lady at Sketch told me that I should go through the dark curtains. I was understandably concerned, but figured that if things got messy I could slip on my new trainers and race out of there. (Hoping, obviously, that my perfectly neutral gait didn’t attract more attention than normal. I just want to have a private life, you know? I wish they’d all stop hounding me).

So there I was, at Sketch, alone. I decided that this was either excessively cool or tremendously not. I texted a friend to ask. He was resoundingly certain that it was not cool in the slightest. I sent him back a shocked 0. I’m not sure if that really furthered my cause. I thought about mentioning that I had my perfectly neutral new trainers with me. But I didn’t want to seem boastful. It can be hard, as an emoticon trend-setter with the perfect gait. Sometimes I just need a little time to myself.

The beautiful staff bought me over a drink. And with the drink was a napkin with a telephone number on it. I was shocked. I had tried so hard to maintain my anonymity. I looked at the napkin more closely. The number was printed on. It was part of the napkin design. 0.

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You are what you eat

1. Dukan diet:

For those who like to suffer.

Here are some of their FAQs (frequently asked questions, which means lots of people are asking this. It isn’t a poor solitary person):

‘Since I have been on this diet I have the tendency of being constipated. What can I do?’

‘Since I am on the diet, I have some difficulty in falling asleep’

‘Are we allowed to eat any type of mustard and how much?’

OK. When people are pitifully keen to eat excessive amounts of mustard, you know it’s time to find a different diet. Luckily, they have all those extra hours when other people are sleeping to consume this mustard, and no wasted time with those pesky bowel movements. As the diet that keeps on giving, Dukan also comes with a common ‘induction flu’. Don’t worry, it’s not really a flu. It’s just the body adjusting to the diet. Please pay no mind to the headache, nasuea, lethargy and other flu-like symtoms. Just eat your mustard and stay awake.

 (Is going to always be sat next to Harry at big family events)

2. South Beach diet:

For those who like moral clarity.

The South Beach’s central tenets are to divide all of the food in the world into ‘good’ vs ‘bad’. Brilliant. It’s the Star Wars diet. I have to admit, I was so taken with the idea of making morally pejorative judgments about food that I didn’t bother to find out what food was ‘good’ or ‘bad’. I have therefore used my own trusty moral compass:

Good: meatballs, pick ‘n’ mix, those chocolate cakes that are still runny in the middle, red peppers

Bad: olives, mushrooms, twix, overdone scrambled eggs

(She’s pointing at the ‘bad’ food)

3. The Evolution diet:

For the neanderthal.

‘Exercise and sleep when your body tells you to’. I’m sold. The premise for this diet is that we would all be much slimmer if we emulated our cavemen ancestors. Well, let me tell you this: if I followed this diet, I would be the first caveman to be killed off. And probably not even by a bear. Probably I would just be happily sleeping in my cave (because my body told me to) and a fellow caveman would mistake me for a soft pile of animal skins and lie down on me. Unfortunately, because I had only been exercising when ‘my body told me to’, I would be too weak to shift him and would suffocate.

(I just thought this would be nice to look at)

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