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ОглавлениеWednesday, 3 September i.e. Day 46 of Despair
posted by MissH 11.30
Sitting in the living room, steaming my stye with a bowl of boiling water. My hair has not been brushed for three days or washed for six, unless you count dry shampoo. There is a dark stain on my pyjamas from where I was too eager with a tub of chocolate mousse. According to all the TV shows that ever cast glamorous twenty-five-year-old women to represent me, this is NOT how my teenage life is supposed to look.
It also seems a little unfair that I get dumped, and grow a big, red, painful lump on my eye from the stress of it. Still, maybe it’s an important life lesson to learn. Give someone your undying love, they give you a stye.
posted by MissH 11.32
Not even dumped. Avoided. I had to work out for myself that I was dumped.
posted by MissH 13.03
I can’t seem to get off Anna’s profile. There are lots of pictures of her doing sports (I think she is the Hockey Captain). Should I have paid more attention in Games instead of using the time to chase Gracie around with my stick? And she has… wait for it… a baking blog. It’s called, I kid you not: Scrumptiously, Anna. There are lots of videos of her whisking cake mixture whilst looking, quite seriously, into the camera. Should I have paid more attention in FT?
I want to say she’s not, but she’s indisputably pretty. I have named her Apple in my head to make her less threatening.
posted by MissH 17.48
Still, she might be pretty, but there’s something really bland about people who always have the same expression in photos. Boring face. Boring face. Boring face. Boring face. I mean, yes, we all have our standard poses (I am a fan of the tongue-poke), but seriously… PHOTO after PHOTO of that insipid smile. She may as well just have one photo. The only way you can tell it’s even a different night is because she’s changed her cardigan.
posted by MissH 18.56
APPLE AND EMMA: THE PRO/CON LIST
NB: evidence gathered only from photos (not totally solid) and self-reflection (notoriously difficult)
APPLE
CONS: She can’t quite smile properly. This may or may not mean something very significant about her personality.
PROS: She’s all nice and pretty and wins sports tournaments and things for the school. She has a baking blog and makes cakes for her friends.
EMMA
CONS: I have been told my smile is ‘demonic’. I can’t do ANY form of sports (though I have been told watching me fall over provided ‘light comic relief’ on Sports Day. Should this go in the Con or Pro list?).
PROS: I’m not not nice. I’m not not pretty, when I bother to brush my hair. I have an encyclopedic knowledge of rubbish TV shows. I have a blog, too, though it’s mainly dedicated to self-pity, and it never results in cake.
Looking at it this way, I think I know who I’d choose, too.
posted by MissH 21.14
God, look at me. I have now, officially, wasted the entire day staring into the vacant eyes of my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. Still, as Jennifer Lawrence once said, ‘You try being twenty-two, having a period and staying away from Google! I once Googled “Jennifer Lawrence Ugly”.’ If J-Law isn’t strong enough to resist the self-destructive charms of the internet, then what hope do I have?
posted by MissH 23.58
Going to sleep, stroking the plaster under my pillow.
The plaster under my pillow
It is, obviously, Leon’s. One night, Mum went out and in a very thoughtless act of selfishness she left ingredients in the fridge, but failed to put them together into a shepherd’s pie. So, I was VERY hungry and wondering what I was supposed to do with this pile of meat and vegetables, and I Snapchatted Leon a picture of me holding a peeler, looking confused. He sent back a picture of himself holding up his hand, with a message that I remember very clearly because I screen-shot it and had it as my background for a month,
‘PUT THE PEELER DOWN. I’ll be there in 5. I quite like your fingers and I’d hate to lose one to a pie.’
(Message to Steph ten seconds later: ‘He likes my fingers! He likes my FINGERS!’)
I stood around dithering, hopping from one foot to the other and shaking my arms above my head. I kept trying to position myself in ways that felt natural, but I seemed to have forgotten how to stand. Then there was a knock that vibrated through the house. My heart pounded like it was Jack Nicholson at the door holding an axe, and I slowly edged towards it. When I let him in I was so nervous I couldn’t even look at him. I turned round, and he collapsed in a fit of laughter.
‘Thanks for the warning,’ he spluttered, pointing at my shoulders.
I completely forgot I was wearing my pyjamas that say, ‘I Fart. What’s Your Superpower?’ on the back.
‘What? Oh… Steph bought them for me as a joke!!’ I turned to face him, dying a little inside.
‘So you don’t fart?’ he asked.
‘I… No,’ I said, carefully walking backwards into the kitchen.
‘What? Never?’
‘No. Never.’
‘I’m going to have to call you out on that one, Emma, because that’s a physical impossibility. The average person produces half a litre of farts every day.’
‘…Well…I don’t.’
‘If you hold them in they come out in your sleep. Maybe that’s why Steph got you the pyjamas. You think you never fart but actually by night you are Explosive Emma.’
‘You seem to be worryingly full of gas knowledge.’
‘You seem to be worryingly full of gas.’
‘Are you going to help, or did you just come to insult me?’
‘Pass me the knife.’ He smiled.
As he began chopping, I remember feeling very solemn, like it was some kind of pivotal moment in our relationship that I should honour. Leon was in my kitchen. Chopping a carrot. He passed me the little pieces of vegetable and I took them very delicately, like he was handing me a baby.
‘You’d better not start calling me Explosive Emma.’
‘Already changing it in my Contacts,’ he said, reaching for his phone.
I threw a potato at his head.
‘It works in reference to your violent nature, too.’
‘I hate you.’
‘Do you?’ he asked, looking straight at me. I suddenly felt like I was made of glass and all my insides were on show. My stomach started backflipping, as he moved imperceptibly towards me…
‘Bollocks,’ he said, breaking eye contact.
It took me a second to register he’d cut his finger.
‘The irony,’ he said sheepishly, as I ran to get a wet cloth and started dabbing at him.
‘Haha, yes, irony, yes.’
Touching Leon, touching Leon, touching Leon.
‘Thanks, Emma.’
‘No problem.’
I would gladly clean up your blood by licking it off the counter.
‘Can I have a plaster?’
‘Sure.’
Take all the plasters. Take everything. That fruit bowl. That pile of Vogue magazines. My shoes. My vital organs.
So… yes. That is the story of the plaster. I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever found anything so satisfying as putting on that plaster. Before he left he put it in the bin and took another one, and I took it out of the bin, wrapped it in cling film and put it under my pillow. Yes. Fine. I admit it. I’M NOT PROUD OF IT, OK. As long as I remember that this is freakish behaviour, it’s definitely sort of OK. And luckily I have Steph to remind me. (‘THROW IT AWAY NOW YOU COMPLETE WEIRDO’ I believe were her exact words.)
I put the sacred pie in the fridge, ate some toast and went to bed. The pie didn’t last very long because Mum ate it the next day. She didn’t understand why I was so upset, though.
