Reported Speech, Volume 2: Romance

“I turned around and said ‘I trust you’ and he didn’t say anything, so I just said ‘and you trust me too”

[Note: It is not okay to ever bake a heart-shaped lasagne for anyone]

I am a big fan of reported speech. Reported speech is a great way to get a handle on life. Eavesdroppers, everywhere, should be commended.

So, when my Irish pal reported the above nugget she had picked up from her office back to me I cackled and rubbed my hands together in glee.

Firstly, it is so delicious. Read the quote again. This person has clearly internalised the values of a romance novel to the point at which they are unable to distinguish sentimental romantic literature from the realities of how people actually think and speak on a day-to-day basis. She is acting the part of the heroine of a courtly lovetradition, but the fucking irony is that she’s not had this imposed on her- she wants this.

Secondly, it is so fucking tragic. Look what’s going on here. She’s putting herself out there. What does he respond with? Silence. NADA. RIEN.

His silence is the pretty fucking massive signifier here. In the absence of validation, she fills the silence, constructing a response ‘so I just said’ that accords with her perceived ideas of romantic discourse.

Thirdly leaving aside all this textual analysis bullshit aside OMFG WTF if this has happened to you recently you need to sort your shit out.

You know that nagging doubt you felt when the dude paused and didn’t say anything? That was your cue. That was your amber light. That is when you run. It is exactly like when Miranda says ‘he’s just not that into you’.

Equally, though, how do you tell when someone is into you? This depressingly shit and unromantic conversation got me thinking of all the genuinely romantic stuff that men have done for me in the past.

Now, I hate cringe. I hate it with a sort-of puritanical ardour. I would (metaphorically, obvz) let myself be burned at the stake of anti-cringe if it meant the world was rid of thigh-stroking matchey-matchey couples posting vom-inducing selfies on Facebook and Instagramming their fucking molten-chocolate lava puddings and fucking Pizza Express two-for-ones.

But this doesn’t mean I hate romance. So here’s my list of nice shit that men have done for me that didn’t make me want to vom:

1. Holiday romance who paid for half of my flight to Australia and all my accommodation out there, even though they were broke, because they wanted to see me on their year travelling
2. An ex who, when I accidentally dyed my hair ginger, a.) didn’t tell me I looked hideous but that I was ‘the most beautiful woman he had ever seen’ and then b.) attempted to dye over the red with brown for me  using the two boxes of hair dye I had bought because I have so much fucking hair and then c.) when the brown turned my hair black held me as I hysterically sobbed down the phone to my mother and screamed ‘I’m hideous’ and then spent three hours using his anti-dandruff shampoo repeatedly on my hair because I had read somewhere that anti-dandruff shampoo can strip the hair of hair dye and then d.) spooned me when I finally collapsed, exhausted into bed with wet newly black and extremely dandruff-free hair before e.) waking up early the next morning to help me call hairdressers to see if any of them had any hair-fixing emergency appointments. That was romantic.
3. The current guy I am dating, who appreciates that I hate romantic gestures (after he took me for a dinner to a fancy restaurant and I loudly and drunkenly slagged off ‘fancy restaurants’ in front of the squinty-angry-eyed serving staff.) And who realised that ‘the most romantic thing I could probably do for you is come clubbing with you’, and so when I drunk-texted him at half twelve on a night out with my friendsthat I had not invited him on and was like ‘come it’s rily fun here lolz xx’ he came across London to meet me, even though he had a.) just paid to get into another club with his friends and b.) just paid for the cloakroom and c.) had to pay entry to get into the club I was in and d.) had to then stay awake until 6am even though he had to get up at ten the next day to play rugby and was sober and smiled politely whilst my gurning mates spouted gibberish at him and e.) didn’t even get angry when I was too tired to have sex with him when we got home.
4. Old Man, who used to let me have sex to comedy music, including Dr Dre ‘Xxplosive’ and Natalie Imbruglia ‘Torn’ just because I thought it was funny, and who would also put an extra duvet on the bed for me every time I came around and not get angry with me for fake-tanning his sheets but silently replace them and pretend he had not noticed.
5. Guy from point 2. who, after our relationship had ended, responded to my panicky phone call at 7am on a Sunday morning which basically went along the lines of ‘help, I’ve accidentally taken acid and can’t stop tripping and I keep feeling like I need to jump in a lake and also I think the police may be after me because I cut off all of Kim Kardashian’s hair’ and came across London and held my hand whilst I had a shower and ate mango sorbet and tried to reconnect with reality and not panic every time that flashing Comedy Central advert came on.

 

What I am trying to say, accordingly, to the girl who’ve I’ve quoted at the beginning of this post is basically, omfg you are fabulous and you will find a guy who will reassure you that the police aren’t after you for cutting KK’s hair and let you listen to Natalie Imbruglia and call hairdressers for you and then get confused about what a half-head of highlights is  and panic and hang up on Toni& Guy.  So ditch that loser. Because he’s not into you.

 

Reported speech, Volume 1: Workplace Wankers

The setting: a narrow, galley-style kitchen. It appears to be part of a light, modern-looking office. A young girl, slim, with dark hair, wearing faaabulous silk pantaloons and precarious heels, and a young boy, even slimmer, with long dark hair swept back off his face and wearing a green waistcoat over a white shirt, with pin-striped trousers, enter the scene.

Girl: ____ sorry, can I just get the milk…thanks

Boy: How are you? How’s it going over in [inserts name of division]

Girl: Yeah, fine, pretty quiet what with parliament being in recess and all. What about you?

Boy: Oh, you know. A-absolutely manic as ever.

Girl: Uh-huh. Which team are you on over in [inserts name of division]?

Boy: Oh, I work directly with [inserts name of MD].

Girl: Uh-huh. But what do you actually do with him?

Boy: Oh, you know. Hostile corporate takeovers, government accounts. The big stuff. Hahaha!!!

Girl: [Insert Pinteresque pause]

Boy: I think I’m rolling on about six hours sleep in three days.

Girl: [Insert Pinteresque pause]

Boy: Oh well. Back to the grindstone. Hahaha!!!

NB: *Whilst true to the essence of this conversation, the author would like to point out that she has taken some liberties with dates, and that parliament is not actually in recess after all. Her pantaloons are fab though*

Stuff I Worry About

The theme of this post is worries.

If you take the Daily Mail seriously, you have some serious shit to worry about

Now, I am not a particularly fretful person. I have been known to blithely saunter up to airport check-in desks and realise I’ve got the flight time wrong and have only made the plane by the breadth of an angel’s hair ,a unicorn wing and a prayer. I have adopted a, shall we say, laissez-faireapproach to contraception throughout most of my adult life (not now though, Mum) and even missed periods haven’t given me any sleepless nights. I hopped, skipped and jumped my way onto an aeroplane to South America without having even booked a taxi to pick me up at the other end, let alone anywhere to sleep when I arrived, at night, by myself.

I don’t advocate being reckless, and I don’t think it’s a glamorous or laudable approach to have to life. Life is valuable, you shouldn’t fuck around with it, and unnecessary risks should be avoided wherever possible. Which means not walking home, shitfaced, at half two from the Dolphin eating gherkins out of the jar back to your terraced semi over-looking literally the worst estate in Homerton, by yourself, as I did last weekend.

This preamble is meant to highlight the fact that I am basically mega chilled. I do not sweat the small stuff. Don’t text me back? No problemo. I’ll just delete your number to prevent me drunk-texting you in the future, which has the unfortunate side-effect of me responding, ‘hi, who is this?!Lost phone!! X x’ to multiple late night booty texts, and then panicking that I’ve guessed who it is wrong and that some loser I stupidly gave my phone number to whilst on some god-awful night out in West London is going to get a veeery expensive cab from Fulham all the way to Homerton at my behest.

Generally, I fucking hate sweeping generalisations about the genders. You know, like ‘women are more empathetic/better at multitasking/more creative/more selfless/more intuitive’. Fuck that. I can’t multitask for shit, I can’t even focus on one task at a time without getting distracted, and I reserve my god-given right to be a selfish, dense, play-by-the-rules-and-I-don’t-GIVE-a-shit-how-you-feel kinda girl.

But, I do generally believe that women worry more. I don’t think it’s exactly a condition of having ovaries, because I don’t think Hillary Clinton ever reaches for the Sanex 24hr, ever, but I do think that women are conditioned to feel this sort of low-level nagging guilt most of the time and that if you stopped any woman in the street, anywhere in the country, and asked her to list all the shit she had worried about in the last hour she could probably tell you like FIVE things that she worried about in the time it took you to walk up the escalator at Bank.

So, in no particular order, here is the stuff that I would say that I worry about, in a looping basis, probably every hour or so:

1. My weight
2. How I need to get a new job that pays more and allows me to channel CJ Cregg from the West Wing
3. How much more than me my friends get paid
4. Do I have an STI
5. What would happen if I bumped into one of the people I was dating whilst with another person I was dating, and what I would say
6. Where did I put my contact lenses?
7. The fact that I am unable to fix the clothes rail that has been broken in my room for a month even though I have bought a new one, and so have started stacking my clothes horizontally under my bed
8. My weight
9. Whether I need to exfoliate more or less.
10. AGEING. AGEING. AGEING.

And here is the stuff that I feel guilty about, on an hourly basis:

1. Wasting my ridiculously expensive education
2. My toxic clubbing habits and the fact that I’m normally a zombie at work on a Monday, when people would probably scam their own mothers for my job
3. The fact that I can’t get out of my expensive M&S fruit-buying habits
4. The fact that I don’t change my sheets nearly as much as I should do
5. The fact that I don’t wash my hair nearly as much as I should do
6. Smoking
7. The fact that I am sort-of cheating on some really nice guys by multiple-dating them and I should stop being so bad and just settle….NAH just joking.
8. Not calling my mother enough
9. Picking up when my mother calls
10. MY SPENDING HABITS.

I don’t really know what the purpose of this is, other than to show that even pretty normal, relaxed women stress all the time, mostly about the toxic threesome of money/weight/work. Interestingly, although I stress a lot about not being a dick to the men that I am dating, I don’t stress about them.

Which is good. Because there are plenty more important things to worry about.

Like whether hair-straightening a silk shirt is going to leave a permanent mark (it does),and whether you should ever buy new bed sheets from Primark because you can’t be fucked to wash your old ones (you shouldn’t).

TTY

Hipsters (full stop. Question mark)

Hi pals. Isn’t it all lovely now the sun has come out? I’m not even getting that thing where I want to cry-muffle into my pillow at nine pm on a Sunday night (A.K.A the fear hour where you realise the weekend is truly over). Nah, now I’m all chilled and I’m like, yeah I’m totes ready for another week at work, ah sweet lets go for sunny chilled drinks after yeah and we can talk all about the two bank holidays we’re getting in May!

But, as I was chilling down in London Fields on Sunday with my Irish pals, all sun-dappled and squinty-eyed and happy, I was struck with the same observation I get every time I go to London Fields (which is a lot).

Why the fuck does everyone sit on the left?

Ok, so obviously I’m going to have to correlate this for you- I’m talking the left when you enter the fields from the bottom end of Broadway Market (beyond the Cat & Mutton, or, where hipsters go to die, and past the crazies on the steps by the bike racks).

I have been coming to London Fields for a long time, ie., since 2009, or approximately eight years after it stopped being fashionable, and I have always noticed the same salient fact – that the hipsters sit on the left.

I’ve have given this a moderate amount of reflection, and I still can’t figure out why the fuck this is, other than the fact that ‘hipsters’ are basically sheep, and have got to sit where the action is. Either that or it’s sunnier on the left, I’m not really sure.

It made me start thinking about all the other sitting-on-the-left-type stuff that you do when you’re, y’know, impressionable and wanting to impress the opposite sex and worry your parents but-not-too-much and give the slightly edgy vibe to that cute boy at work without your employers thinking you’re a probable loose cannon.

So:

1.) Coats. On dancefloors. Dalston boys like to wear their coats on the dancefloor – in particular, they wear fucking massive parka jackets or black North-Face padded coats whilst sweating their tits off and looking studiously bored at raves.

I have a couple of theories as to why they do this. Firstly, I think that they like to have that ‘I’ve just arrived’ thing going on. Like, nah mate, I didn’t buy tickets to this when it was on first release on RA months ago, I just rocked up now in time for my mate ‘_Insert name_’s’ set and so obviously I’m not going to put my coat away as I’ve gotta go hang out in the secret room at Fabric afterwards’.

Secondly, I think that they like to have that whole ‘I’m a drug dealer vibe’ thing going down – like, yeah, if I look pissed off it’s probably because I’ve just got some serious shit going on with my network of drug-delivering cab drivers who are being so unreliable of late. And thirdly, I think that they’re probably just wearing a really fucking shit t-shirt. And they can’t afford the cloakroom, because they spent all their money on a stupid fucking bobble hat.

2.) See above. Stupid fucking bobble hats. Do not get me started on these. Especially do not get me started on girls who wear these. And if you are a girl who wears an orange bobble hat, well, go fuck yourself. No, really. I’m not joking. Fuck off and die. I realise that this might kill the business somewhat at the Pembury Tavern, which is a shame as I do like that pub, but sometimes the right thing is also the hard thing.

3.) Ok, here’s the big one. Boys who insist on standing behind the decks at nightclubs, as opposed to literally anywhere else in the club that a rational person might stand, like the dancefloor or the bar area or the smoking area.

This is a terrifying phenomenon that is fucking sweeping Dalston. I’m not going to single out one club as particularly bad for this, apart from Dance Tunnel, which is genuinely the best new club to come to Dalston for fucking ages, but it is so fucking riddled with this. On a night out there a couple of months ago there were genuinely more men behind the decks than there were people left on the dance-floor, and admittedly it was five in the morning and most people had gone home or to camp out on Dalston Lane in the hope of seeing some dickhead from One Direction try not to act like he’s on shitloads of coke in front of the paparazzi, but still…

Boys like to hang out behind decks for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there’s the practical side of things. It is a lot easier to smoke behind the decks. Often they genuinely want to see what the DJ’s mixing up close. It provides a better vantage point to scope out fit girls. You can take drugs more easily behind there. It’s less crowded. You don’t have to pay for a cloakroom.

But mostly, they like to stand there because it makes them look cool. Or, at least, they think that they look cool. It’s the Dalston equivalent of buying a fucking magnum of champagne in Mahiki with a sparkler in it and having it delivered to your scrotty white leather ‘VIP banquette’. It says,look at me. I know people. I am part of this scene. Hang out with me, and I might be able to get you my plus-one at the Boiler Room.

I delivered this rant on a recent night out in which, sneering, I pointed at the group of men clustered behind the decks. ‘Look at them’, I spluttered. ‘They think they’re so cool don’t they…It’s so ridiculous. It’s much better over here anyway. We’re in front of the speakers!!’

Right on cue, my friend Charlie emerges. ‘There you are babe, I got you guys the backstage wristbands. There’s free drinks and shit on the table’. I look up. Cute boy behind the decks smiles at me. I smile. Well, if there’s free drinks…

Fanny Waxing and Other Stories

Today I want to write about fanny waxing.

Now, I am a feminist. I am a good feminist. I am politically engaged. I am feisty. I am fierce.

I also regularly get my fanny waxed, and so do most of my friends. However, at heart I am a secret slattern, so I tend to only get a fanny wax when I know that someone’s going to see it.

As my sluttish-ness tends to outweigh my slattern-ness, so to speak, so too do these two forces tend to cancel each other out- the sluttier I am, the less slattern-ly I am down below.

However, I know many girls who get bikini waxes every month, irrespective of whether or not anyone is going to see it, and in the probably likelihood that no one in fact will.

As I am basically a miser, I find this kind of astonishing. What do you mean, I gasp? It’s like buying some really fancy new outfit that no one’s gonna see. It’s like wearing Agent Provocateur underwear on your period! What’s the point in that?

A couple of months back I got all low-down and kind of depressed because I realised that I was fundamentally always going to be slummy, a ‘gritty bird’ as my housemates used to call me, the kind of girl who would always have fake tan stains on her ankles and not-quite-pristine bed sheets and smudgy eye makeup and never, ever, be wearing matching underwear. And so I went and bought a ludicrously over-priced silk kimono from the Rosie Huntington-Whitely collection at M and S, as if it would suddenly transform me into the sort of girl who never had mascara stains on her pillow and wafted around her pristine flat in a mist of Diptyque, arranging fresh flowers and smoothing satin pillowcases.

But then I thought, nah, fuck that, and chucked the silk kimono in my laundry basket, to be whipped out only when trying to impress men, and got back to all the serious shit that I do, like microwaving Special K with hot chocolate powder sprinkled into the milk and then googling ‘Kim Kardashian weight gain’/‘do bananas really make you fat/best way to get fake tan stains off hands’ reading Progress magazine whilst watching Question Time and simultaneously downloading the Economist onto my iPhone to read on the tube.

How does this relate to fanny waxing? Well, I think, basically, that all those feminists who say that you shouldn’t wax your fanny because the cave men didn’t give a shit about all of that should kind of do one. Cave women also didn’t use tampons. They went around bleeding everywhere. You think that’s better? You don’t think a tampon is a symbol of patriarchal oppression now, do you? So take your Mooncup, and do one. You gotta do what you wanna do. I’ve made peace with my less-than-perfect-life and my less-than-perfect-muff, and no guys ever told me to sort my shit out down there. I just, you know, do it because I want to. It makes me feel airy, kind of like those women in the Lenor adverts. The fact that most of my friends do the same I think says more for the fact that women are doing this for themselves, rather than because of porn or anything like that, than any outraged muff-loving Guardian columnist saying otherwise.

Finally, I just wanna finish up with this awesome review that I read on Yelp criticising what is, otherwise, a pretty damn handy place to get an excellent wax. http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/strip-wax-bar-and-boutique-london  - scroll down to Robin J’s comment- it is fucking awesome.  Fair point, Robin J, fair point. You’re welcome here any time.

The Dalston Years Guide To Hungover Face

Hi Gals. Today I want to talk about hangover face. No one wants to be the person who scares people at bus stops, let alone the person who makes kids cry. Life happens to us, and sometimes you have to be presentable post-bender. Such is my proven track record of excellence in this field (I once turned up after a skanky all-nighter with Old Man which consisted of shitloads of red wine and not a lot of sleep and was told that I looked ‘glowing’ by Alienface. This was not due to the first flush of romance. This was due to the sample of Chanel Vitalumiere I had found in the bottle of my handbag).

Right, so- the key to this is – products. Lots of products. Some expensive, some not so expensive. But forget all that ‘drinking water’ bullshit. It doesn’t matter how you feel on the inside. What matters is how you look on the outside, where it counts.

So- step one should ideally start the night/morning before, where you scrupulously remove all your makeup. Do not use face wipes, they are of the devil. Use, ideally, a nice oil based cleanser (I like DHC, which you can buy on Amazon, or Shu Uemura is the gold standard really, but pricey. I also find the Simple eye makeup remover cream can be good if you use it all over your face and really massage it in, then rinse off).

Now- assess the damage. If you’ve just been on a standard night out, you’re ok with the serum-eye cream- moisturiser trio.  However, if you’ve been really naughty (and smoking loads) then it’s time to bring out the Big Guns. Yes, I’m talking Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream. Put on your eye cream first, then rub this bad boy all over your face. I promise your skin will look fucking fab in the morning.

Now go to sleep.

In the morning- wash all the gunky crap that’s inevitably still on your face off with super warm water. I sometimes crush two evening primrose oil tablets and massage these into my face too (great Sali Hughes tip, cheers Sal).

Now it’s time to get serious. Of course, pre-any makeup application a girl’s gotta moisturise. Use whatever works for you- I’m actually really digging the new Garnier budget range of moisturisers, they’re like 6 quid and do the job.

So you’re going to have bad boy eye bags if you’re anything like me, and you’re going to need to zap those fuckers if you don’t want to look like Morticia Addams. So, first up – Clinique Even Better Eyes Dark Circle Corrector. It’s ace. Smash that on.

Now you conceal. I don’t buy into all that bullshit ‘you’ve got to use YSL touché eclat’ stuff. They’re all the fucking same. I use a Maybelline concealer (make sure it’s liquid, you don’t want the stick, that will make your eyes look cakey). Pat it on under the eyes with your finger and also in any other blotchy areas- chin, mouth etc.

This is where it gets heavy. The key to this look is the foundation. If you have the right foundation, everything else falls into place. The wrong foundation and you’re going to look bad. You’re going to look like one of those girls on the Benefit counter. It’s gonna get ugly.

The right foundation will take you from Morticia Addams to Jessica Alba in like, thirty seconds. Unfortunately, the right foundation is gonna be pricey, there’s no two ways about it.

Listen to me gang. There is no such thing as a good, cheap foundation. You want the good stuff, you gotta spend. I personally don’t like matt foundations as nobody is matte in real life, and I think a dewy finish is a lot more natural looking and healthy, but I get that I often look like the top of Phil Mitchell’s shiny bald head in photos.

Here are the best dewy foundations:

Chanel Vitalumiere- the godfather. The daddy. The one.

YSL- Perfect Touch foundation (the brush is fucking annoying, but this foundation is lovely. You also get an extra ten mls.) The touché éclat foundation is good but doesn’t last as long

Estee Lauder Double Wear: also lovely

So, the key is that your skin is going to kind of gleam with good health. To achieve this you don’t want to plaster lots of powder over the top of it, as it’s going to make it look dry and tired. Dust a little Chanel translucent setting powder over the top, and some rose coloured blush on your cheeks (I like TheBalm blushes- look for them on Amazon). If you’re feeling brave, a bit of Mac strobe cream on the cheekbones also helps.

Eyes wise- you do not want to draw attention to your eyes. Your eyes will look tired. You want to super layer on the mascara so that your eyes look awake, so you’re going to use Benefit They’re Real and that’s it (I hate Benefit, but this does work).

Now, my favourite trick. You know which part of your face never looks tired? Your mouth. The big thing people forget is that when you’re tired, you look washed out. Put some colour on your lips and it’s instant zing. You suddenly look awake. People focus on your mouth, not your poor, tired, dilated pupils. Bold colour on the mouth is a strong statement. A nice red, or a berry stain is good. Pick whatever works for you- you can go cheap if you want. Just make sure it doesn’t smudge.

Because no one likes to see a tired clown. That would definitely scare the kiddies.

A Love Letter to Glenda Jackson

(how hot was Glenda Jackson?)

Hi Glenda,

I hope you don’t mind me writing this to you, but I just want to say hi, and that you are like, totally fab.

Never mind that you’re a sassy double-Oscar winning octogenarian who was the only person to highlight the obsequiousness of yesterday’s Commons debate. Never mind that you pointed out that just because Thatcher was a woman, did not make her a feminist, and that just as being a human person doesn’t necessarily make you rational, so too does having power and ovaries and an admittedly wicked skirt suit with a slashed, coloured petticoat doesn’t mean you’re doing it for the sisters. You might just be doing it for yourself.

Never mind that you totally blew out all those nasty Tories boys going ‘shame’ as you totally slammed it to them, RADA-style. Never mind that the camera still fucking loves you, for Christ’s sake, and that I was totally digging your nautical boating top and that nifty red jacket.

Nah, Glenda, you’re totally fab because in a three hour wash of self-congratulation, tedious anecdotes and humdrum musings, you were the only person who actually said what they thought. Everyone else went

‘waa waaa waa glass ceiling…waa waa waa iconoclastic…waa waa waa pointless made-up anecdote involving bumbling junior minister and off-the-cuff Thatcher quip…waa waa waa… Lib Dem awkward praise…waa waa waa let’s all go to Strangers Bar and swap more anecdotes and laugh at how awkward Nick Clegg looked on the front bench’.

And, more importantly, you totally pissed off the Daily Mail, who described you as ‘fag-ash Glenda’ (Quentin Letts, I would totally take that). You were fab. You were mental. You were honest.

You were Girl Gang.

Yours, sincerely,

TDY x

Clap Your Hands: The Dalston Years’ Guide to finding the best clap clinic

Hi pals. Today we’re going to talk about Hackney’s hidden gems. No, I’m not talking about some bar with ‘no name’ or another yuppie coffee shop.

No, I’m not talking about some overpriced hairdresser where a peroxide waif on a comedown uses, like, gluten free shampoo on your hair which turns totally crispy when she blow-dries it (just give me Pantene. Silicon is what I need), before charging you 60 quid in some converted industrial estate in London Fields.

No, what I’m talking about is the word-of-mouth recommendation that every girl really needs – where to find a decent clap clinic.

As I’m such a charitable kinda girl, I’ve done the hard work so you don’t have too. Yes, such is my dedication to my readers that I’ve gone out, had risky sex and then CHILLAXED in a doctor’s surgery for three hours, reading African lifestyle magazines, before having a needle jabbed in my arm and a colander shoved up my ‘flower’, so YOU don’t have to!

So, first up: the Ambrose King Centre in Whitechapel.

Atmosphere: 6/10

Crazies: 2/10

Magazine selection: 7/10

Wait time: 7/10

Non-judgy medical type person: 9/10

Overall: 7/10

The Ambrose King is just a bit, meh.  You don’t really get any of the interesting crazies here, hence the low ‘crazy’ rating (in my book, this is a bad thing). I got to read an inadvertently hilarious two-year old Red interview which discussed Katherine Hegel’s up-and-coming movie career (chortle chortle) while I waited.

My doctor was meh. She didn’t ask me the ‘do you take drugs’ question which is the one that normally comes up when you get ‘red flagged’ on the system for promiscuity. I liked that. The nurse managed to get the needle in my vein the first time. All in all, bit meh.  Like, it’s not going to be the best STI test you ever had, but they probably won’t miss anything important. Although I didn’t really appreciate the female nurse who, as she raised me up on the table, legs akimbo, smiled benevolently at me and went, ‘ooh, we’re giving you the full MOT aren’t we’?

The Ivy Centre, Hoxton

Atmosphere: 7/10

Crazies: 8/10

Magazine selection: 6/10

Wait time: 4/10

Non-judgy medical type person: 6/10

Overall: 8/10

Ah, The Ivy Centre. This will always have a special place in my heart because it’s where I got my coil fitted, and so I’m never going to be able to be impartial about the place that shoved a piece of copper up my cervix and had my vomming codeine tablets for a week. However, as I thought my memories of the place might be characterised by the bleak primal horror that accompanies recollections of that month (TS Eliot was wrong. October is the cruellest month, or at least it is when you feel like Edward Scissorhands is chilling in your cervix for weeks).

On the particular rainy January morning I visited the Ivy Centre I had to wait for fucking ages. And I mean, like, at least two hours. A good tip, Dalston Years readers, if you want to make sure you see a doctor on your thrice monthly junket to the clap clinic is to make sure that you tick the ‘symptoms’ box when you’re filling in your form. However, in my case, this resulted in me seeing a Vietnamese doctor (I’m probably being racist here – he was maybe Thai) who had a habit of s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g o-u-t as I filled him in on my sexual history and he typed, one handed, into the system. This is how our exchange went:

Nguyen: ‘new sexual partner yes?’

Me: Yes, a few new sexual partners.

Nguyen: N-e-w-s-e-x-u-a-l-p-a-r-t-n-e-r-s yes. How many yes?

Me: Erm, like three?

Nguyen: u-n-p-r-ot-e-c-t-e-d p-a-r-t-n-e-r. Yes? Condom, no?

Me:; Erm, not always.

Nguyen: You take drugs, yes?

Me: Sorry?

Nguyen: Up on table yes?

Homerton Hospital GUM Clinic

Ah, Homerton. Land of the crazies. Home of the MAD. Seriously. Forget what you hear about Homerton being up and coming. Maybe it is, but it is full of MAD people.

Atmosphere: 10/10

Crazies: 10/10

Magazine selection: 10/10

Wait time: 8/10

Non-judgy medical type person: 0/10

Overall: Crazy rating – OFF THE CHARTZ.

Firstly, the waiting room was mega-lolz. I got to read some sort of gay lifestyle magazine which is funded by Hackney council and had the most naff male model shots I had ever seen in my life, which kind of detracted from the weighty subject matter (did you know that the biggest killer of young gay men is suicide? How fucked up is that?) I also got to read an African lifestyle magazine which taught me A LOT about Aids and not much else. Unfortunately Hackney council doesn’t sponsor any lifestyle magazines for young white people, which is a crying shame as we really are underrepresented culturally I think in the media and press.

Whilst waiting (and in between laughing in my head and also with my eyes at the bunch of spotty ginger teenage guys who had obviously accompanied their female friends to the clinic for no reason whatsoever, because there is absolutely no way that they had been near, let alone seen, a vagina) I noticed a slightly crazy looking Indian man wondering around the reception in slippers and a cream jumper. My first thought was that it was strange that he was wondering around, and then, of course, I realised: he probably worked here.

And of course, because these things always happen to me, as soon I realised this and realised with inevitability that he was probably going to be my doctor, he was in the reception calling my name.

Reader, he was mad. He laughed hysterically throughout my entire medical history, and thought it was a very funny joke when he went ‘you no like condoms, hahahaha’, and then he told me I could request a female doctor if I liked, but ‘that will take hours, hahaha’. And then when I bumped into him outside in reception as I was asking the receptionist for condoms to take home with me he practically shouted, ‘but you no like condoms, hahaha’ (to which the ginger kids looked at me in awe). And then he marched off and returned with a bag of condoms, which he thrust at me, saying, ‘see you soon, hahaha’.

And I got home, relieved that my diligent research trip for you guys, Girl Gang was over, and I unpacked my little bag of treats, and you know what that mad doctor had given me, the girl who ‘no like condoms, hahahaha’?

A bag of Femidoms, pals. A bag of fucking Femidoms.

How to be the perfect fuck buddy

Hello, friends, I’m sorry it’s been a while. I’ve started a new job and dyed my hair and moved house twice. I realise that’s a pretty shitty excuse for being a pretty shitty blogger, but then again, I couldn’t find my laptop charger for about a month and then, you know, I had a really heavy period and stuff and didn’t feel particularly witty. My general slattern-ness has reached the extent that I’m gotten into stealing my friends’ underwear (clean, I hasten to add- nothing kinky going on here) when I go round to their houses rather than actually having to wash any of my own. Sorry, friends who are reading this. I didn’t take any of the nice stuff, promise. Although you may not be getting those Wolford tights back any time soon.

 

Anyway, I’m back now. I have plenty of exciting and interesting insights to share with you in the coming weeks, including What to do when your favourite food blogger writes a totally anti-feminist article in the Sunday Times supplement about how she learnt to cook for her man (I’m looking at you, Esther Walker).

 

The experience of moving away from my Dalston love-nest for a month while I go all Erin Brockovich at my scumbag ex-landlord has unfortunately dragged me away from my E8 network of fuck-buddies.  As you never, apparently, realise what you’ve got until it’s gone, this post is going to be about the art of the fuck buddy.

 

Developing a reliable, high-grade fuck buddy is one of the most difficult, but, ultimately, rewarding, things that a girl can do. With a little careful work you too can have all of the following:

1. Sex
2. Someone to occasionally change a lightbulb, or get you guestlist, or help you get stuff out of your loft

 

That’s it.

 

Unfortunately, the road to successful fuck-buddydom is often fraught with difficulties. In the interests of both parties, therefore, please find belowThe Dalston Years Guide to finding and maintaining the perfect fuck buddy: or, we’re not friends, and we never will be, but please put me and my friends on the concessions list for your club

 

Step 1:

Identify the fuck buddy.

 

Ok, so in my experience this is usually a pretty straightforward endeavour: I’m not going to write a guide to pulling, I’m going to save that material for the slower winter months, but basically you want to go on a night out with Girl Gang and then make hot sexy eyes at any available man who takes your fancy. You’ll know they’re single because they’re out, in a bar, in Dalston.

 

When you want a man to know you’re interested in them, you do the following : dance with your friends, whilst looking at him. When you catch him looking at you, smile. When he’s not looking at you, smile. Basically, just always smile. Whilst dancing with your friends. But looking at him.

 

There are a couple of other stages to this, like the ‘I’ve lost my friends –can I hang with you’ routine (which usually is better executed when your friends aren’t standing in a massive group, shouting your name and then looking confused when you ignore them). Sometimes, if times are reallydesperate, you can fake stumble into them and then ask them for a cigarette, but normally I find that smiling like a maniac whilst staring them out generally gets the ‘I’m into casual sex’ message across in an expedient and effective manner.

 

Step 2:

Road Test your Buddy

 

Well, this is pretty straightforward. Or at least, you would think it is – but unfortunately fuck buddies aren’t always the most reliable of lovers. You see, as you’re not their girlfriend, they don’t have to hit all the marks, action-wise, every time. This can be frustrating. The gold standard you’re aiming for, really, is someone with such a massive pride thing (or hugely damaged ego), that they’re going to make it their mission to make you come, every time. I once thought that I had hit gold with my I-met-him-in-the-queue-for-the-cloakroom-at-Fabric-closing-time fuck buddy, who ‘rocked this party’, Black-Eyed Peas style,  for the first couple of times we ever hooked up. Unfortunately, when I went around to his house for another session of what I thought was going to be gold standard fuck buddying he made me watch a VIN DIESEL film whilst eating hash brownies, and it turned out that, minus the Class As (him, not me) , he wasn’t so hot after all. So, as with all other major purchases- road test your buddy in all conditions. Is he good drunk? Is he better high? Most importantly, what is he like sober??

 

Step 3:

Establish your schedule

 

Ok, so this is the golden rule really of fuck buddying. Establish what you will and won’t do, and, most importantly, what you’re allowed to do with other people. In my experience, it’s best to keep your fuck buddies apart –  it’s also good to have a hierarchy of fuck buddies, so that you can make contingency plans when one fuck buddy drops off the radar (surprisingly, girlfriends aren’t actually the biggest killers of fuck buddies, it’s usually more distance that’s the issue- if you’re really good they might come up from Mile End, but ain’t no one gonna go south of the river for nobody). Most importantly, don’t double-book your fuck buddies. Much like drug dealers, or buses, they’ll usually let you down, but every once in a while they’ll both come through. As happened in my last weekend in Dalston, in which I had to explain to Fuck Buddy A why I needed to go downstairs to the door to explain why Fuck Buddy B couldn’t actually come in. All very embarrassing, and actually very frustrating as I really would have preferred to see Fuck Buddy B that night anyway.

 

Finally, enjoy your buddy! I would say that most fuck buddies have a six month period before they start to go a bit bad and you need to put that little yellow ‘reduced to clear’ sticker on them and whack them on the lower fridge shelf. Like exotic fruit, or non-elasticised tights, or a poorly-executed bikini wax, fuck buddies don’t last long, so enjoy them while you can. And remember girls – stay safe. A healthy fuck buddy is a happy fuck buddy.

 

Am I boring? Or, why you should say ‘yes’ to [most] stuff.

I think we all have a duty to ask ourselves, at least once a month, the following questions:

1. Have I changed my sheets?
2. Did I get my period this month?
3. Have I called my mother?
4. Have I seen/spoken to all of my close friends?
5. Have I done something exceptional at work?

Alongside all of these things, what we should all be asking ourselves, every month, is the following:

‘Have I been boring?’

Now, there are always going to be boring months. I get that. There are months where you have to knuckle down for exams, or when you’re SLAMMED at work, or where you’re moving house/fighting a recurrent illness. There are months where you feel fat and minging and you’re depressed because you haven’t had sex for [insert period of time], or where it’s grey outside and you’re fucking bored and summer seems so far away.

But, we still, all of us, have a responsibility to ask ourselves, at least once a month, maybe when you’re chucking away the out-of-date full-fat milk that has mysteriously appeared in your fridge, whether you have been BORING this month.

Like, if someone was to stop you in the street in four years and ask you, Rainman-style, to name the one funny, interesting thing that happened to you in February 2013, would you be able to think of anything to say?

Because, often we’re guilty of thinking: next month. Next month I will [insert: break up with the partner I no longer love/ talk to my boss about getting a pay rise/ move out of this crummy flat I hate/ ask that cute boy out for a drink].

You know why this is bad? Because we are, all of us, living our lives right now, and for the most part, the people reading this are young. Do you know how fucking great it is to be young? A man turned up on my doorstep last night with a bottle of wine and a heart shaped chocolate lollipop at half-past eleven. That shit is not going to happen to me when I am forty, and boy do I know it.

Once you feel that sense of urgency: that realisation that

You have to stop waiting for your life to happen to you. Your life is happening to you now.

you realise that it is unforgiveable to be boring.

So, what happens when you stop being boring?

Here’s the thing my pals. Tell me if you agree (comment section). Well, frankly I’m terrified that when you stop being boring you become *whisper it* a bit of a twat.

I learnt a while ago that life is more fun if you just say ‘yes’ to stuff. This realisation means that I’m rarely boring: however, I do sometimes wonder if I just do things for the ‘craic’: for the funny story the next day, the anecdote to add to my collection.

So, last Saturday. I’m at a pretty fucking good party, and I’m feeling pretty fucking good about myself. There is a hot, kind of freaky looking (in a good way) guy who is giving me the eye from across the dance-floor. I know that he is giving me the eye because we have made eye contact about four times in the last five minutes, and he’s doing that ‘dance near you but not invade your personal space’ that guys do before establishing contact.

I am desperate, desperate to establish contact, because, frankly this guy is SO my type. He looks like he has shit tattoos, and scars, and maybe some friends who deal drugs for a living (he did). He looks like he works in an arty/scenester-type profession (he does), and like he’s older than me (he was). He has that nice sort of crease-y lived in face [see here] that I like, and he’s tall. Basically, he looks like a rude boy, which is so what I am into at the moment, and hence I am desperate  for him to talk to me, and notice me, and so I do what all wise women do when they want to talk to a cute boy:

They ask them for a smoke.

His eyes widen fractionally, as I take the cigarette off him and light it in the club (in a flagrant attempt to appear risqué), and we speak for like five minutes. He tells me his name. I forget it. I ask him if he has a girlfriend (always ask). I tell him my name. He mispronounces it. I ask him his name again, twice, and then we both shout at the same time: ‘are you having a good night?’

And then, reader, he turned to me and went ‘shall we get out of here’.

And of course, I said yes.

Now, within ten minutes of leaving the club and walking back to my flat, we had already decided that it would be a really fucking good idea to open a bottle of wine and have a bubble bath. The total turnaround time between cigarette and bath was probably in the region of 30 minutes.

And you know what? I had a really, really fun night. We stayed up and listened to music, and I pulled the old ‘I’m on my period’ excuse because I’ve made a resolution to avoid having one night stands, and I’m sticking to it, and generally it was fun. And not boring.

But, the question I’m asking myself is this: did I say yes, to the bath, to the light, to the cigarette, to all of it, because I genuinely wanted to? Or am I just doing stuff to not be boring?

I think, at this point, it doesn’t matter an awful lot. If I’m going to be honest, the instinct to create a narrative out of your own life often leads you to do shit just to entertain yourself. I have sustained friendships, relationships, all because I have been bored. The key is to make sure that what you’re doing isn’t harming yourself, or, harming others. That you’re still authentically being you.

And most importantly, that you aren’t being boring. Because there is so much time to be boring. Just not now.