Double Standard

1.

E, my slightly younger banker friend, found herself in a bit of a bind.

Her boyfriend, in mergers and of longish standing, had been for a while no longer upstanding. Blame the markets if your will, but that did not change the facts. She had noticed a decided droop in standards. And stocks just kept on falling.

The story went as these stories go: after a period of his performance being less than outstanding, she found herself legless at a conference…. and since non-standing unable to withstand the lines of a standard-operator.

I don’t blame her. He was in acquisitions. And I’m sure her plan was to stand firm. But in certain situations, not even the best laid plans can stop a girl from getting laid.

In short, she went belly-up, and now, she told me over sashimi, she had a burning sensation down below. And she was quite positive it was not all guilt.  

2.

My plan was to limit my involvement in this shit-storm to nodding sympathetically between bites of California Roll. But when I learned that she, as becomes one fed on milk-and-bullshit, wanted to rush home and unburden herself immediately, I had to put my foot down.

I told her that despite the obvious joys of explaining to her boyfriend how a one-night-stand had got her a sparkling new STD  - quite as sparkling, actually, as the watch he got her for X-mas… she might want to postpone this happiness until she’d had some tests done.

And she told me, in turn, that while she saw my point, she also saw this whole thing as my fault, and it was my duty to come with her to the Clinic. Which I did, against the promise that I could write the whole thing up.

(Unfair though. Technically I suppose I was the one telling her to pack that dress, but really, you can lead a whore to water, but you can’t make it take of its pantyhose, and if she’s old enough to earn twice my salary then she’s old enough not to need instructions on condoms… etc etc)

3.

Let me tell you this: the Clinic is where honour, dignity, and the will to ever have sex again go to die.

If I ever get a kid, I will drag it there while pre-pubescent, to stare at the ugly taupe walls, at the horribly explicit instructions taped to the lavatory walls (insert Swab and stir), and to listen to the rather à propos choice of music: Slippery When Wet, with Bon Jovie.

I waited while E filled out her form (almost as intrusive as the Swab) and while she hung out with some sharpish metal objects in the other room, I people-watched. Never have I seen people less keen to be watched.

All cross-legged, for some reason, all wearing rather sweat-stained business suits, and no one willing to go near the water fountain, they were all intently perusing back issues of Home and Garden (and probably crying, on the inside, for the Homes and Gardens they’d ruined with their wanton ways).

After a while, E reappeared, looking rather shaky under her paper-bag head-gear. We headed for the exit and a strong cocktail, and I realised that E was not quite on the mend yet when she did not laugh at my quip: that that was as close as she was getting to a cock, ever again.

4.

As if to punish me for this cheap crack, a week of intense telephoning ensued.

Every morning, E called the clinic to see if her results had come back. And every lunch, she called me to complain that she’d not got her results yet.  And at night, she called to worry about how her boyfriend had not, as yet, made it necessary for her to claim a head-ache. And asking whether I thought he suspected. And asking whether she shouldn’t just come clean.

To which my constant answer was: there is no point in coming clean until the shit has actually hit the fan. Mightn’t it just be a case of yeast?

5.

And then, it all came to a head, when she came home one evening, to a big red bunch of roses. And on the sofa, a boyfriend looking stupendously sheepish. And trying to explain how he really hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. But the stocks had been down. And he’d been feeling sort of low. And he’d sort of discovered how low he could go. And the notice from the Clinic had come that day.

Please, for the love of god, would she ever forgive him.

5.

A week later, when she was finished with her penicillin, we met for a drink. Her treat. We toasted her sparkling new engagement ring, and what she described as last nights glorious new issue of shares.

Mouse Will Play

The Boss is away, and so is the Boyfriend. One calls every hour, on the hour, demanding to know what is knew in my life.

The other sends his – scarcer – missives from some little French town, where he’s staying at what he has dubbed a “traditional” French Hotel, but I have on good authority to be a house of…mirth.

You may guess which does what.

In the meantime, I spend evenings with an assortment of friends, re-stocking reserves of gossip and potential defamation. So far, I’ve raked up an imminent divorce, a sharp turn for the far right, a bun in the oven, and a kidnap (!).

 

The best story, I got last night, as J came out for rather a large glass of wine. It was deserved: her afternoon had been spent randomly Googling her lover, and surprisingly, finding his as previously undisclosed wife’s blog.

 

(The wife being the secret, I mean. The blog seems rather popular.)

 

Which makes me question the sanity of any adulterer who allows his wife on the internet, much less his mistress.

 

Oh, and naturally, I have spent a portion of the afternoon persuing the entries of the wife. J, I completely agree: she cannot write to save her life. Cup-cakes my ass.

 

 

Project Manager

God, I’m a cheap date, though I say so, and pay for it, myself. Went out for 1 glass of wine with N, and apparently it was enough. Have just spent 10 minutes smoking fag in underwear under kitchen fan and shaking bottom to some music that won’t be named (in accordance with my new non-exhibitionist blogging policy).

The hotel lobby had deep red carpet, and we agreed wholeheartedly on the nonsense of keeping old stuff that had better been thrown out. We saw eye to eye on the healing properties of pottery classes. And most importantly, we were in unison on the fuckwittage of men in general, and the spotlight-strenght fuckwattage of some men in specific.

Her advice? Down a banker, a bottle, and the Bible. Though not necessarily in that order.

Apparently, it helps with the sleeplessness.

Gotta Be a Chocolate Jesus

We were friends from the get go. He was tall and handsome, I was a teapot short and stout. In the early days we’d meet up for blue drinks and steak, chatting on a Paul Simon beat.

But then it turned out every time we’d meet up in the twilight hours someone would die. Literally, and always his. Think he lost at least three relatives, close ones too. And that is how came we started doing lunch.

So far, nothing awful’s come of it. In fact – the magnificent D is a dame du dejunéer I’d recommend. Especially now he’s married and mellowed and can give full attention to my dramas.

So if you’re ever down in the dumps come noon, looking for some food for thought along with you food for flab – look no further than D. I am not certain whether his services are rentable by the hour. But if he hasn’t started charging yet he should.

The general idea? Well, he’s fun as a matter of course, and will pingback any witticism on a volley. But more than that he’s got philosophical training, thinking very straight edge. As perspectives go, once he gives his you need search no more. As free of bull as the driven snow, and as willing to conspire.

Love ya, man. Though next time maybe should look for a different veg stew?

Something’s off in the formating of this post. But then, if that’s the only decrepit dog in Denmark…

Saving Friday

Do you also feel the tug of bed early Friday night? Do you also feel washed out, beached, bone-tired, and frazzled. Look no further: I have the cure.

Leaving work, what you want to do, is take a detour into the fanciest perfume store you can find on way from work, and buy a lipstick in the deepest shade of red you can pull off. Trust me – it is probably a lot redder than you thought.

Then, you want to totter a few blocks more and land on a bar stool in a tiled and steeled room. The stool should ideally overlook a bed of ice and a man in an apron. On the bed of ice you wish to find a top of line selection of Oysters, and at hand you want a glass of champagne.

Spend a few hours gossiping to your friend, watching the harried and be-tied order rushes of take-away shells, sipping a second glass, and comparing the beauties of Utah Beach, Spain, the North Sea, and the different French Regions.

By now you should be feeling relaxed enough to apply a second coat of lipstick and mosey on over to the nearest bar, where you will be having a few drinks. They need not be very strong, but the bar needs to be cozy, warm, busy, mahoganied and with an open kitchen that lets you watch the chefs sprinkle and brown.

When the sprinkle and brown, and the mahogany and the chatter, starts to blend at the edges, make for home, and into the arms of a loving man and a huge plate of spaghetti and garlic. You’ll be feeling divine.

The Subtle Knife

Well, I just figured what I have been doing wrong all these years. I have been thinking Men intelligent.

Last night, the Better Man took me out for a really nice evening on the town. First we went to a small friendly neighbourhood Brasserie  – all Pierrot checkered walls, mismatched china, artschool waitstaff and lovely simple food fit for a stomach patient.

I had a deliciously coarse meatloaf with crisply browned potatoes, and a dessert named – in a fit of someones ingenuety – Death by Chocolate. It was a three-step-launch rocket of chocolate-banana cupcake, chocolate icecream, a chocolate wafer, all tied nicely together by a chocolate drizzel. All accompanied by a salutary glass of red.

After dinner, we strolled down to the Better Mans local, which sports Wednesday night jazz sessions. Anders Linder 4 Prima was the name of the band, four or five lacivious and leering octagonarians wielding saxophones and other pointy objects with a flourish, playing so hard part of the roof collapsed.

As the last set came to a close, the Better Man hailed a Blonde, tiny woman who came over to our table in a flurry of too much perfume, too much primer, and too many too obvious gestures. She plonked herself down at our table, and from her tinkly winkly conversation it transpired that she and the Better Man are aquainted.

It also transpired, to every man in the bar but the Better one, that she wanted to get a lot more aquainted, with him, as soon as humanly possible without downright felling his girlfriend.

There were strokings of arms. There were playful slaps of shoulder. There were thrusted forth bodyparts. There were displays of feminie whims, fancies, and incoherrent thought. There was even, help me god, batted eyelashes.

Through this display, the Better Man sat - a model of propriety, I thought – holding my hand and feeling up my thigh and nodding in the right places. Boyed up by his perfect behavious, I smiled and chatted.

Unfortunately, I was so little on my guard, as to say, on leaving, what a ridiculous person we’d just met. I was met, to my astonishement, by astonished incomprehension.

He had no idea she had been flirting. He had no idea that she had been drooling. He had no idea she had been anything but perfectly friendly – and added, he had no idea why I thought her stupid.

Which explaines why so many men never realised I was flirting with them. And why, earlier the same night, a none-too-sober gentleman had placed his hand firmly on my ass, no introduction needed.

Nativity Scene

1.

Someone sent me a link from the Huffington, an interview with Martin Amis, who is both a not too shabby author and the provider of proof – and yes David, even you would agree this is proof – that literacy and daftness aren’t mutually exempt. If you want the long version of the chat, you’ll have to visit, in a gesture to legal rights, the H post itself. Me, I’ll give you only the bare bones.

Mr Amis discusses a potential drawback of feminism and modern medicine: libbed women use contraceptives. Declining Notting Hill birthrates open up for a Muslim ascendancy, with their speedy breeding they may someday take advantage of democracy being essentially a numbers game and pass all sorts of hairy legislation, forcing us all to eat mutton-burgers and wear turbans instead of trilby’s. He sums up his reasoning with the instant classic: has feminism cost us Europe?

2.

For a while now, I have been noticing a shift in the gravitational force of my circle of friends. The explanation is, though scientific, visible to the naked eye. They have all gone fruitful on me, fruitful as bowls of non-alcoholic punch, but popping out, in place of soggy frozen raspberries, babies – left, right, and caesarean.

Their great big bumps have Newton spinning in his grave. All the tiny new people gestating are causing a flux-blip-vortex-black-hole-thing: sucking life as we knew it into it. Gone are the golden days of long drinks and longs chats. Gone is the collective freedom to suddenly do Belgrade, of sudden oyster madness. Gone the stuff we never did, and were probably better off not doing.

For the mamas themselves, I suppose this is all well and good. They are trading in their 20’s flapping madness – but reimbursed with charming picket suburbia. Me, on the other hand, I am getting a decidedly short end of stick: all of the curtailed nights on town and none of the sweet smelling baby blankets.

As per usual, I have no-one to blame but myself. A ten-year-and-change stint of playing the field instead of bucking down to a committed relationship, a fondness for work, and living under a bridge are lifestyle choices not conducive to baby-booming. But things being ones own fault seldom bars one from feeling regret: I would be lying if I said my kittens-not-kids future hasn’t bothered me. The chiming of my biological clock is very Nine Tailors – ringing proud and clanging changes.

3.

I was at a bookish do, one of those cleverly camouflaged evenings, ostensibly work related but really just another chance for people in the same business to hang out, throw back free drinks and bitch about the people who couldn’t be there because of pressing engagements with diaper disposals and stick-in-the-ear thermometers.

As always at these things, the lack of seating and tables together with mastery of two hands only forces you to prioritize between collecting business cards, holding glass of red, and actually getting any food inside you. And as always, this made for collection of rather squishy publisher’s spilling their venom with gusto. One woman in particular grabbed my attention: a walking advert for planned parenthood. 

37-ish, brushed but not coiffed, jauntily scarved and conservatively tailored, medium heels and with the sense to go easy on the mascara she was the very personification success. On closer inspection, it was success with dribble on her lapel, crows feet etched six feet deep, and the shaky hands of a man on the run. “Stay on the Pill” she swooshed at us, waving her chardonnay about “Kids wont ever let you think again”.

4.

I read an article the other day, on the importance of nursery rhymes in language skills development. Apparently, that importance is very great. There is something about the very naïve rhyming that works as a vaccine against dyslexia. An effect not reached by reading, for example, The Road by Cormac McCarty to the wee one, or Northanger Abby. No: The Cat Sat on the Mat is a prescription drug for toddlers. Not to Mother Goose them, but take them instead down the path of Rimbaud or even Eliot, is being as terrible a parent as, say, one who trades the tots formula for wine.

For me, this opens a whole new perspective on parenting. I never envisioned bedtime reading as a hardship, because I simply assumed that the kid would have good literary tastes. I never saw reading the same story over and over as an issue – I reread some Balzac monthly, anyway. And even if they weren’t big fans of Nabokov, they would hardly be able to voice a coherent critique, would they?

Now, faced with Science, I find that pruning the child’s mind with from-the-get-go wasabi, Cointreau and long walks in harsh winds is actually as bad as forgetting them at the butchers. I find they cannot be fed on a musical diet of Captain Beefheart and a visual diet of the off-white-and-egg-shell right away. That they need a good few years of Roses Are Red, Teletubbies and Mashed peas before being introduced to the good things of this world. I, as a parent, would have to sell all my aesthetic preferences down the river in favour of the bland, the twinkly, and the pink of their hearts desire. And given the choice between 24/7 Jack and Jill and a barren life of reading The Wasteland in peace – I am not at all sure I would go forth and populate.

Philantrophy

Earlier this year, at the break of Ill Advised Engagement, an old boyfriend/kindred spirit sent the recipe for a drink named Stray Dawg.

 

A surefire way to cheer one up, I think The Time (aka November) has come to share it with the world.

 

I ask for nothing in return, only that some of you will have a few for me tonight, in honour of the awful working weekend that lies ahead of me.

 

Stray Dawg

 

2 cl calvados

1 cl vodka

Lemon juice

Sugar water

 

Put ice in shaker, add booze, a quarter of a lemon and some sugared water.

 

Shake well, pour, howl.

 

 

Just the Two of Us?

The porn industry makes bucket loads pandering to man’s dream of the more the merrier. Fourways, hexagons, snake pits: the idea of multiple women seems irresistible. To me, this is conclusive proof of Men Being Idiots.

 

While I can understand, on an algebraic level, the fascination of the times table approach to sexual satisfaction, what the poor dears don’t get is that they are buying the herd when they are already getting the milk for free. Whether they want to or not.

 

I have been dating for fifteen years and have yet to have a single fling that involves less than an approximate dozen of women. From the first “what was it like” to the last “you can borrow my skillet for a blunt object”- female friends bring all the merriment and perspective needed into a relationship.

 

For a while, I feared that as we would grow older, and our respective relationships festered into the slow and muddy routine that is the long haul, we would grow more loyal to our partners and less willing to share. But as more and more of my friends drippety-drip down the aisle, promising to honour and obey, I am pleased to report that I find no consequent barring of bedroom, bathroom, or kitchen doors.

 

In short, men, for your information: no matter how firm a bond you form with your spouse, her ten best friends will be tagging along for the ride.

 

Now, before you start getting all misty eyed at the thought, let me bring a little something to your attention. Two or more women putting their clever heads together is not necessarily a good thing, from your perspective.

 

Her friends will have all the information and none of the leniency you find in your wife. And they will also, and on this you may rest assured, be able to compare and contrast your foibles with the foibles of the feeble fools she’s fondled in the past. As a cautionary example; I give you the following little conversational snippet, less than 24 hours old:

 

- How are things with [redacted]

- Great. Super. Excellent…

- That bad? Ok, hit me

- Well,  it’s really just the one thing. You know how I never [redacted] the [redacted]?

- Not even that one time when [redacted] went [redacted]?

- No, that was only [redacted]

- Oh yeah, I remember. Well – what happened?

- You have to promise not to tell [redacted]

- I never do (and they both know it’s a lie)

- Well, last night he [redacted]

- Noooo! Really?? What did you do??

- Well, of course, I told him [redacted]

- Oh, my God. That the [redacted] thing I’ve ever heard!

- Yeah, but now he thinks [redacted]. And I just don’t know if I [redacted]. I mean, on one hand it’s sort of [redacted] but still, I mean I don’t usually [redacted].

- Oh, you are so [redacted]

- Look who is talking. Remember [redacted] years ago when [redacted] wanted you to [redacted] [redacted] [redacted]

- That is so not the same thing. He never [redacted]

- Fine. You are Miss [redacted] fucking [redacted]

- Anyway, so what are you gonna do?

- I just feel so [redacted]. What do you think I should do??

- Well, its easy. You just have to [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] and then he’ll either [redacted] or [redacted] and then you’ll really know if he’s [redacted]”

- Oh, but then I’ll be [redacted]

- I know. God, men are such [redacted]

- I hear you. Let’s just go get [redacted]

 

I realise the play-by-play of this everyday roly-poly is as different from your run-of-the-mill latex harem, as that is in turn different from the real life polygamy of two battered fishmongers and the scent of cumin. But since the likelihood of any more exiting prospects coming through if you keep being a [redacted] [redacted] is pretty slim, I am thinking you should make the most of it.

 

Also, I can’t help but think that the reason why women have a thriftier approach to smut-stores is that they see behind the curtains, on a daily basis, of Fosses brilliant “Two Ladies”. Ten cuppa teas later – the thrill is gone.

Party Politics

For the longest time, I’ve been adverse to throwing parties: an aversion for which I blame my bestest friend, K. We have co-hosted two; both skidding dangerously near the edge of complete disaster.

The first was our high-school graduation blow-out, the night before which we realised that we had managed to invite not only our official and longstanding boyfriends, but also our cloak-of-night lovers, a few ill-advised snogs, an angry ex-con woman who thought K was trying to steal her woman, and worst of all: the girl who knew about all of these, and whom we had recently alienated to the point where she’d probably very much enjoy spilling the beans.

I remember us, fraught and applying gloss with shaky hands, desperately trying to figure out last minutes escapes from the seventy-something people waiting for us – and our doom. In the end, we got lucky. The con only got as far as the hallway before she stole a pair of pumps and then took of again, K’s boyfriend had come down with something life-threatening and was too pale and pasty to listen to careless whispers, and though I suppose I did get in a bit of a fight with my boyfriend, it was just in time to see him off before he heard any truly unpleasant things. After that, everyone got rip-roaring drunk, the fireworks went off, sure, there was a fight, but in the end, no one remembered the next day.

We did however wait another three years before giving entertaining another go. By now, Uni had us living together in a very downtrodden flat, an extra room allowing us to run a sort of halfway house for scantily clad young golden men, the occasional librarian-to-be on the lamb from her overbearing boyfriend, and a very short guy with a fondness for knives who used to hang out and eat ice.

They all paid their way, I suppose, one of them adding to the communal kitchen by offering up the occasional and often mouldy pilfered cheese – and then of course, there was always enough pot and hormones to go round, which was nice. We all adopted a big fat cat, called the Fat Cat, who gave K life threatening allergies but who was very good at eating the bad cheese.

Anyways, into this vortex of incestuous relationships and stale beer, we decided to introduce the elements of best frocks and loud music. For some reason which is still unclear, we decided to throw a real humdinger of a party. A really bad idea.

It would have been fine, had we just set out some of the usual bottles and invited the motley crew from down the hall over. But we had been brought up in a world where parties meant conversation, possibly a bit of light wobbling to-and-fro, infidelities of course, but discreet, and scented with lilac. Somehow, the best china and seating plans still stuck in the back of our minds, never mind the china being smeared with cheap red and cheap lipstick.

Alas, in the end, we did not cook, but we did put out some crackers, and threw a quilt over the short guy eating ice. We spun crazily all day, blasting Stronger by Brittney and bringing the vacuum out of hibernation, scrubbing the strawberry bubbles from the bath and disguising the slight funk with candles. We cleaned and worried and cleaned and mixed punch, and in the end, worn out with cleaning and worrying, we drank the punch to the extent where K passed out before the doorbell heralded the first arrival.

I was left to fend for myself, and by fending I mean trying to evict my ex in mid-coitus with his new girlfriend from my closet, trying to find a key for the poor girl who’d been handcuffed to the dining room table and ending up cuffed myself, convincing the neighbour he wouldn’t get lucky, trying to keep some bunny-ears from catching on fire, trying to keep the thumping of Manu Chao, or whatever of his ilk was playing, within reason, trying to unclog the better part of a box of oreoes from the bathroom zinc, trying to find the punchbowl for a top-up, trying to keep the cat out of the punch, and finally, trying to remember why the short guy with the ice should be made to stay in his room.

When K woke the next morning and saw the extent to which my trying had failed, we vowed never again to throw a party. A promise I have kept… up until now.  

It started with a very inconspicuous bird. A duck. Tradition has it, my cousin and I cook one for our mothers and our collective grandmother, on the Swedish equivalent of Hallow e’en. It is a pleasant affair, involving the stitching up of a bird, a lot of puréed chess-nuts, something fondant, apples, a couple of bottles of quality red, and perhaps a slug of calvados for good riddance.

This year however, things have spun a bit out of control, and it suddenly seems we’ll be 19 people, and an as yet unconfirmed small terrier named Field-Mouse. And by some inexplicable turn of events, it turns out I am sort of the commander-in-chief of the whole operation.

Though reluctant at first, now, I am knee-deep in sausage recipes, plan-b sleeping arrangements, and car-pool plans and finding it all highly enjoyable. So enjoyable in fact, that yesterday I gave K a ring and invited her down for the shin-ding. An invitation she accepted, with pleasure.

Expect the unexpected.

Oh, BTW: none of you were any good at yesterdays quiz. So I’ve decided to double the winnings, and keep my fingers crossed that all of y’all aren’t completely out of touch with the great western literary canon.