Thank you little German lady

This is a story of timing. Timing so beautiful, it deserves sonnets, birds and shiny haired Chinese children playing the violin.

Now, we all avoid people. My personal technique is the stare through (ST). First timers, please, please, don't try it out on an important avoid because it can go wrong. The ST is my most used avoidance technique, mostly because it comes quite naturally. There are two ways I perform the ST. The first is when I haven't seen the person because I don't have my glasses on (this is err, why it comes naturally). The second is when I incorporate my double take of the noted person with one long ST. I gradually make my face become more fixated and animated upon a certain object, as if yes, I'm trying to read that street sign across the road. Now the ST only works if there's a mutual avoidance understanding (MAU). However, more often than not, it's only a one sided understanding and you end up having to talk to the avoided, usually about what they did/are going to do on the weekend. This is where it all goes wrong so you must prepare for a solid ST performance.

Sorry, that was way longer than expected.

So back to timing and the Chinese children: cue birds.

This morning, I was walking to work. I was at the crucial point of the journey where MAU's are often had or are broken. Twelve minutes from my destination I saw a lady in her fifties looking at a map. Inexplicably, I was drawn to her which resulted in my very uncharacteristic and unprompted helpfulness, asking her if she needed help getting somewhere. Sure enough, she needed the Millennium Bridge which I very enthusiastically showed her with large arm movements. I left, feeling pleased with my deed. I was so very pleased with myself, that I then decided it was likely I was going to soon be run over by a car before being able to brag about my Jesus like behaviour. So while still congratulating myself yet looking both ways while crossing the road my eyes were drawn to a head, a known head, let's just call this person Carpet Face. Even without my glasses, I knew it was a head I should avoid. If I had not stopped to help the little German lady, I would have bumped smack bang into Carpet Face with whom I do not have a MAU.

I learn lessons and then pass them on. Seriously, I'm like a guru.

Grandad fantasy dirtified

Imagine me, walking to work. The sun is shining and I'm feeling generous with my positivity; like in a I could probably hug puppies and pat toddlers on the head kind of way. I have my headphones on which I did think were cool and if I'm honest, a little street, up until a day ago when L asked me if I had stolen them from the plane.

So I'm powering away when I see four little boys running over the pavement, trying not to step on the cracks. 'Oh how sweet', I think as I am pretty much high after four straight days of English sunshine. Then I spot their 60 year old (give or take), grandad, ambling behind the little monkeys. I decide he looks like a good old sport, and probably even whittles some soldiers out of wood in his spare time while whistling old show tunes.

I begin to think about how kind it is that he's accompanying them to school. I imagine him telling the boys stories from his youth, most probably by some kind of fireplace and him slipping them chocolates before dinner time. I'm totally caught up in this wholesome fantasy until I walk past him and he slurs 'hell-oo sexy' in the most dirty, I need to go home and wash myself kind of way.

Sleazy fucker.

Rap

I’m procrastinating, so I’m going to write some kind of rap instead. I’m not going to delete anything so the following is rap via a stream of consciousness.

Here it goes:

Yo, yo, I’ll tell y’all what I know,
Don’t go chasin’ peeps without a bow
Run little dawg, I’m coming after yo
Be scared, but don’t stoop too low

Low, low, how low can you throw
Skim the fields with one swoop yo
Low, low, how low can you throw
Skim the fields with one swoop yo

I go through bins, I leave scraps on my chin
But I’ll tell y’all somethin’, this is how I win
I won’t pay no tax, I let da man swallow my sin
And now I got more to leave to my kin

Low, low, how low can you throw
Skim the fields with one swoop yo
Low, low, how low can you throw
Skim the fields with one swoop yo

That's enough, I'm going to have lunch now.

Moments of realisation: number 76

I wasn’t meant to act.

I wasn’t meant to lose my inhibitions amongst a bunch of strangers in Finsbury Town Hall.

I wasn’t meant to pick up imaginary flowers and pretend to smell them.

But this is ok, because now I know, right?

Missing out

Numerous exciting things have happened to me in the past week. Actually, two, but still, it's enough to write about.

Firstly, I finally resigned. Let me emphasise on the word finally. After a much anticipated build up of about a year and four months to be exact, it ended up being one of those things that could be filed under 'the biggest let down ever'. It was fine, you know, I could easily describe it as pleasant. I guess I wanted to feel some kind of post resignation satisfaction. I don't know, like a great weight had been lifted off my burnt out shoulders. But there was nothing. Perhaps it's because I'm dead inside. Clearly, being so icy makes it hard to determine these things called feelings.

Hold, there's a pang of excitement. 3 MORE WEEKS. Yep, there it was - excitement. The inquisitive ones may ask, what are you going to do when you find yourself unemployed in three weeks time? Finally fulfill my dream of being a garbo? Perhaps read to sick puppies while they paw gratefully at me, touched by my soothing voice? Spend more time familiarising myself with the bible? No. No. And no. I shall freelance. Lets take a moment to think about the word 'free' for a moment. Stop now, I have more exciting news: we got an electric toothbrush yesterday and I really have to tell you about it.

Firstly, it's amazing.The toothbrush cleans my teeth in a way that I didn't think was possible. It's like a professional clean, everytime. Honestly, it's fantastic. So much so it's in the top five things I own. Shall I list them? Ok, in no particular order:

The electric toothbrush
The bookshelf
My laptop
Dim sum steamers
The free mirror we picked up off the side of the road

So it started to make me wonder what else I'd been missing out on for all these years. What other contraptions, hobbies, people or things have I deprived myself of due to the stubborn nature of not wanting to replace the old with the new? For years I resisted the electric toothbrush and for what? Plaque ridden teeth? Well no more. Give me new things and I'll try them all. For the better I'll add. Go on, throw them at me and I'll try them like a teething baby.

Nothing says end of holiday like a Korean poo cleaning AND drying toilet

So I've decided you haven't lived until you've sat on a toilet and had a cold pistol of water shoot up your ass. Or have had the ability to then dry it with some kind of in built butt hairdryer. If you have yet to experience this, I suggest you calmly shut down your computer and then get yourself on the next plane to Seoul.

In other news I'm back in London. I almost cried on the tube ride back from Heathrow. That's until I remembered it would be totally pathetic and I'd lose all credibility as a girlfriend with no heart. That's right, I eat babies for an afternoon snack. But I digress. Australia was everything I wanted it to be. Although I guess the problem with belonging to two countries is, the longer you spend in one, the more detatched you feel from the other.

As you'd expect, everything moves on without you. It was great to see my family and friends and for the most part, time and distance makes no difference. Laughing at farts is without borders, but it became even more apparent how different my life is now to most of my friends back home. I'm not saying either mine or theirs is necessarily better, rather, they're just different. Luckily, for the most part, it felt like it was only the other week I last saw them.

It's a little strange to see how your life could have panned out. I could be a home owner. A gardener. I could own a BBQ. I could have kids or a dog. Sure, the me in my parallel life would have been happy. But thanks to a strange kind of distance created hindsight or is it foresight(?), I'm pretty happy where I am now with my mortgage free, kid free and sprinkler system free life.

But Australia, it was bloody good to see you.