- As is becoming usual, for those that could giveadamn, and even those that couldn’t, the next in my weekly series of Music Video deconstructions can be found here, the rest can be found here. This week, popular beat combo Bloc Party, and their new song Whatever Their New Song Was, with added references to Grange Hill twenty years ago, guaranteed to lose a whole generation of readers.

- Post of the week, formerly a feature on the fabulous Troubled Diva, it’s now a big official project of it’s own, a weekly popularity contest to be won and lost, and won and lost and lost and all of that, and a wonderful place to find new things to read, new writers, new sites, new blogs, new talent and all of those lovely new things. You can find out more and how to link to it etc here. You can also find it in my links, which need sorting out and adding to. Something else for the weekend, then…

- There was something dreadfully important. It was something about the new Steve Irwin dol (picture can be found here, on the fabulously named blog “Seriously? OMG! WTF!“) that I was reading about in the paper this morning, and how the curiously formed plastic makes it looks as if Steve condoned the wearing of a Khaki jockstrap outside your khaki keks.

- No, I’m sure there was something else as well. It’ll come to me later.

PIES

Vegetable: Cauliflower cheese.

Meat: Steak and Kidney.

Poultry: Ham and bacon.

Think back, ladies and gentlemen, to all those times when you said ‘Do that?!…‘, ‘Work here again?!…’, ‘Wear this?!…‘ ‘Marry you?!…’ and promised it to a time when pigs might fly.

Well, there’s been a reclassification.

I’m afraid your day has come.

“Is there ennything else, whall you’re hirr?”

“Not really. Well, I’ve hurt my foot, but I can tell you about it when we’ve finished this”

“Tell me abaat it naa. I can do two things et once. Ahm Clivver.”

It is the first thing Monday morning.

My doctor, a plain-spoken South African woman who I like very much, is pumping up an inflatable armband on my arm, in case I want to go swimming, and then letting it down again, slowly, in case I would prefer to drown.

“It’s nothing really. I fell off my heels on Friday and it’s pretty painful he… Oh, sorry, hang on, it’s a bit hard taking this shoe off … Ugh … Ow … Right, there we go. It was very swollen here, but it’s actually painful under he…”

“You’ve torn the ligament. It’s a weight-berring joint, thet. It’s going to hurt like hill.”

“What? You’ve barely examined it! You haven’t even touched it!”

I immediately wish I haven’t said that, as she pokes it. Hard.

“There. Can y’feel thet?”

“OW!”

“Well there y’are. Ah toltyu. I could see frumere.
Y’can see where that bit is sticking aht?”

She pokes it, in case I didn’t, and takes the resulting whimper as confirmation that indeed I can see where the aforementioned thing is, but that the poking is very much helping me to understand and she is free to carry on at leisure, thank you.

I try and alter my whimpering to convey something else, and, apparently, fail.

“Thet’s the ligament. Raat there. Thet’s where it shouldn’t be, but thet’s where tis. Done this maself I dunt kna ha many times. It’ll tek six ta eight weeks ta heal.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“You ken be in pain for six ta eight weeks?”

“Is there enything else I ken do?”

Oh god, hang on, I’ve started to pick up her accent. Always a sign of panic.

“Is there anything else I can do?”

“Na.”

“Oh.”

A thought strikes. I attack it, hopefully.

“Should I put it up for another couple of days? I’m supposed to be going to work in a second - would it be better to rest my foot, perhaps?”

“Nah, what’s the point, it’s still gunta hurt f’six ta eight weeks anyway”

“Brilliant. Thanks.”

_____________________________

So that’s it. There was I saying ‘Oh, it’s just a bad bruise’ and it is. Well, partly. It’s just badly bruised because I’ve managed to tear bits of my body away from where they’re supposed to quite properly and usually reside.

And all because of the heels I bought for my Important Meeting a couple of weeks ago and my stubbornness about wearing them for other, normal, perhaps a bit drunken things like a normal grown-up girl.

Bother.

So there yaar. Na Heels.
Tek inti-inflammatories.
Be in Pain f’ six ta eight weeks.
Thenks. Havvanarsedaynaa.

Thanks. You too.

1. Biscuits.
Biscuits, I have always thought, are one of the cornerstones of British society. Above politeness, above loyalty, above friendship, common decency, above parliament and the rule of law, it is biscuits that keep this society together, through and through.

Remove the biscuits from any situation, and chaos ensues. Just look at Big Brother. Look at the first world war. Look at all the things wrong that you can think of. Do you see any biscuits in there?

No, there were no biscuits.

This has been a bad week, as I think I’ve said over and over again, a big old disappointing week in many ways that have nothing to do with blogging and that, consequently, I haven’t really been able to talk about. But thank you for your comments and things, which have as always been lovely and have made things better.

Today I have mainly elevated my hurty foot on cushions, sorted through piles of words for some secret project (later. I tell you later.), talked to good friends who eased my mind immensely, blogged some silly reality show (for work) and I made biscuits.

Everything is looking up again. And there are biscuits.

Biscuits, ladies and gentlemen. Let there be biscuits.

And lo, there ARE biscuits.

I rest my case.
Whatever my case was.
I think it was a case of biscuits.

Dear Fate,

Yes, I see what you’re doing, and it’s very impressive and well-planned and all that, well done.

I see that this is a tightly-orchestrated campaign you’re in the process of carrying out, and I respect you for that, I was just wondering when, you know, it might end.

The shittiest week on record should, let us agree, finish on Sunday, yes?

Because I’m not entirely sure what I did, although it was quite clearly very bad thing that made you very unhappy with me indeed. Have I been sleepwalking and killed someone? Again?

Have I brought down some government in the developing world with a couple of ill-judged sentences abut cheese sandwiches on this site?

Whatever it was - I’m sorry.

The bad news midweek was bad enough - the sudden SAD-sad last weekend really sucked, however. The weather, the constant travel fuck-ups, delays and debacles, the things at work that fell over, the things at home that broke, the things on the internet that failed and bumbles I bumbled and errors I errorficated over and over again. That argument that took up most of Wednesday - and the other one that stuck me in a terrible mood all over Friday?

You know what? Those weren’t very enjoyable, but they weren’t the bad things.

Waking up this morning to find a lump the size of a satsuma on the top of my foot, however? Hobbling across the landing to discover the pain was, in fact, all down the bridge of my foot and couldn’t take even an inch my weight because it was far too hurty.

THAT was a bad thing.

Yes, I do realise I’m the one who got drunk and fell off her new heels on the way home last night - but you can’t tell me you didn’t have a hand in that *somewhere*, you bastard.

I wanted to show you that you could not beat me. I wanted to show you that I was big and tough and strong and could not be brought down by the hand of fate. That’s why you will have seen me trying to go to the sausage shop just round the corner. And you will have seen that it took me about half an hour and a fair amount of whining noises.

At that point, dear fate, or whoever the hell you are, you won.

I get it. I was wrong, and yeah, yeah you’ve made your point, and it is a very ow-ey point, well done you, and I think now we are even. Yes. We are now even.

Or if not, can you tell me what you’ve got planned for tomorrow? Please? Oh go on then. Do your worst.

Seriously - bring it on.
It’s a piano falling on me from an eighteenth floor window, isn’t it?

Ah, the classic ones are always the best, aren’t they. You bastard.

Also: Ow.

Love and kisses,
anna

It’s Bloggie season once again. Hurrah congratulations,
to all the gorgeous lovely people blessed with nominations.
What joy! What skill! the pure finesse of each pristine creation
that make the heavenly shortlist-host a dazzling congregation.

The fact that friends are in amongst the firmament makes brighter
The ‘ready glowing bundle of the fittest of the fighters;
So go and vote for Mr Dre, One-Track, Jack who all, as writers
make all my insides gooey and my head feel fluff and lighter.

Most of all, I have to say, go vote much times for this man
He’s dear to me, and very nice, and writes like very few can.
It’s been a year of ups and downs - his life as omniped began
but not a pity vote for him. Nono, for writing - with élan.
It’s also widely rumoured that he makes a cracking flan.
And should win lovely prizes now if all does go to plan.
And if I’d had my leg chopped off I’d like to think a fan
would write a poem telling people that - no also-ran -
That I deserved to win the prize! And that I liked Boursin.

I don’t really know if he likes Boursin.
[UPDATE: Apparently he does].

Sorry.

Talking to a lovely European blogger (and coincidentally - though not officially - one of the best of them) last night, she told me that whatever I wrote today it had to be in rhyme, because she (weirdly, and quite probably alone) likes My Appalling Poetry™. Annoyingly, the topic turned out to have to be this one. Which is a wonderful and exciting topic and hurrah hurrah, but it is a complete bitch to rhyme.

So there. And! Though they wouldn’t scan, it is worth noting that Peter Nakedblog and Zoe of MyBoyfriendEtc have also been nominated! So well done them etc, yay!

In my heart, of course, I’ve already given the prizes away, but now the voting starts for the real winners, rather than the rather rubbish make-believe ones in my heart (sorry, JonnyB, you did give a great, terribly funny make-believe acceptance speech, though you didn’t thank as many people as much as my much beloved make-believe lifetime etc winner - but she’s been around longer, so that made sense, make-believedly).

So go and vote for all the people mentioned above who are lovely and special and wonderful and on the Bloggies shortlist, because they are much loved, and deserve great things, and are all brilliant.
Yay!

Important Side Note written under instruction: Although One-Track is linked in the post above - don’t vote for her (she says)! She won last year and has instructed me not to encourage any voting for her this year.

Well, job done, as I have already told you to vote for An Unreliable Witness man, and you can’t do both (although you are allowed to vote for A Beautiful Revolution if you really like.) In fact, you are allowed to vote for anyone you want to, if you like - who am I to tell you what to do?

Just one of those days where you wonder what you did to fate first thing in the morning to piss it off.

Because I’m so good, usually. I walk up the stairs rather than take the ramp in case someone with a pram or wheelchair or one leg needs it. I help people with their bags onto the train, stop so that people can walk in front of me at the ticket barrier, manage not to shout at stupid people in the line for - well, anything.

And I did all those today!…

Oh what did I DO?!

Today hated me even before I woke up.

I remember congratulating myself because I found I had a pocketful of hairclips to pin my fringe up at the gym. When I got the gym I felt in my pocket, and there were none there.

Maybe THAT was where I went wrong! The self-congratulatory hairpin moment.

Tonight I found them all on the bathroom mat. They hate me.

Damnit, I *knew* I shouldn’t ever go to the toilet when the fates seemed on my side. Because of… um… jinxing reasons.

Sorry, did I mention I had the world’s shittest day and I went and got drunk because of it?

Still though, I’m still trying to work out what I did, karmically, to deservethis day, a day that robbed me, sweated my hair, kicked me in the stomach, patronised me while I was kicked and then laughed at me while I was patronised. And then kicked me again. There was shit news, and rejection, and anger and fighting and oh I’ve left it behind, it’s gone now. But Whythefuck?

I don’t know, perhaps I watch too much Earl, and that’s why I believe that everything is too closely interrelated. Or perhaps I believe that everything is to closely interrelated and that’s why I watch too much Earl.

Oh god who cares. It was my shittest day. And My Beloved’s shittest day. It was a shit day. I’m sorry, I haven’t anything funny or whimsical to feed the boat today. Today I just feel like beaching. So we went immediately for Strada’s shittest pizza, their shittest cheesecake and Italy’s shittest wine (Strada sell it, which is lucky).

And I could write all night, because I’m whiney, and it’s my blog and blah blah blah blah blah.

But you know what?

The day’s over.

I’m drunk and pissed off, which was always going to be the problem with this posting every day thing, and…

And tomorrow will be betterer, and the weekend will be productive and good, and make things bode well. And the future is just, you know, there at the moment.

But once I shape it once more, I’m sure it will be fine. As long as I’m kind to karma/fate/thegeneraleverything. Thegeneraleverything will be good to…. < falls asleep >

< SNORES >

Update: The Next Morning

Ow.

Fate seems to have given me a headache.

And no bloggie nomination.
I must have done something REALLY bad this time.

Update update:

And now I can’t find any fucking tights!
Seriously!
WTF?!

My latest video deconstruction column is here.
When my portfolio site is up and running I cross my heart this kind of post will stop. Probably.

Anyway, read thing thing below. Not this post, it’s rubbish.

I was trying hard to think of what I could give you for my homework tonight, and I was going to write a post called ‘Me and my dog’, but then I realisedI didn’t have a dog. I decided that, since I didn’t have a dog to tell you about, I would have to eulogise my dentist instead.

My dentist: a plain spoken man, and stocky.

He told me today, as he was digging out the remnant of a crown with a specialist tool called, I think, a ‘rusty spoon’, that he was thinking of going to Italy on holiday. I told him Italy was nice.

That’s a lie. I told him ‘Ih-ah-ee’ was ‘ih’. He gathered the rest while gouging my gob. He’s an astute man, my dentist, and spectacled.

I think of him fondly. I even thought of him fondly when my crown chipped, the first night I was in Las Vegas of late. I was eating a slice of pizza and a salad, which I thought was hardly a fair thing to chip a crown on. It wasn’t a toffee salad, for example, which I would understand, or a pepperoni pizza with extra granite, which would be perfectly excusable. It wasn’t even a nice dinner, which is annoying, as I wouldn’t have minded standing up and feeling that sharp-edged gap so much if it was the best meal of my life. It would have seemed like tipping fate.

But no, cheap pizza and floppy salad, and as we left the restaurant, I felt the breeze tickle the corner some porcelain had recently been, and mourned it.

Then I thought of my dentist fondly.

‘Ah Graham’ I thought. “There he was, bidding me affectionate farewells, and here I am, about to storm back into his office my first day back in London, and demand my crown replaced, and tell him I’m not bloody giving him any more money.”

It’s alright though, because he didn’t want any more money. He’s a reasonable man, and smiley, my dentist.

I never had thought there was a time when I would think even vaguely well of a man who spent his afternoons boring into my face with sharpened points and carving at my root canals with things named ‘the extrapolating pull-fiend’ and ‘the no.1 blade serrated-bladed fucktard-pliers. But I do.

My dentist, you see, he’s a patient man, and thorough. Well, thorough apart from the crown.

But I don’t care about the crown, because the last time but one that I visited, he gave me a sticker for being brave.

It’s true, I’m thirty this year, but after putting the crowns in, he remarked how far I’d come since I started visiting him, nerves-wise. I agreed. He said I should have a sticker for being brave. I laughed, and said I should.

Ten minutes later he saw me outside the torture chamber, as I stood at the receptionists desk.
He’s a receptive man, my dentist, and friendly.

“Where’s my sticker then, Graham?”
I said

“Hahahahaha”
He said.
My dentist: He’s happy and also laughy.

“Seriously, Graham, I just gave Tracey here several hundred pounds and you’re not getting the balance next time unless I get a sticker. Right now.”

I realise my dentistal-fondness may sound like hard-love, cold business and barely contained fear and loathing but take my word, it’s difficult to start admiring a breed you’ve likened to the drill-happy spawn of satan for most of your life.

Cautious jokes are the nearest I can get to full-hearted love at this stage. I’m like an abused schnauzer cautiously sniffing at the rear end of next door’s pet shark that chewed both its rear legs off so it now has to go round on two wheels.

Tangent: I saw a dog once with two rear wheels in Kensington Gardens. Thing was, it had a handle as well - not a lead, a handle - screwed to wherever the wheels were connected. I assume so you could chivvy along if it was pulling its wheels too slowly for you.

I worried for a moment that that if you pushed its handle too hard you might wear its front legs down as well.

But then I realised you would just use the handle to tip it backwards a bit so the wheels were free to move faster and the legs were free to kick about in the air, exercisingly. You would do a wheelie.

You would do a wheelie with your doggy.

Anyway.

I have a sticker.

I like my dentist. I’m paying him to be nice to me and my teeth and he is, and I like him. And I also like my dental nurse who had no eyebrows at all during the month of October for no reason I was ever brave enough to ask about.

And I have a sticker but I am not as happy as that fact should make me, because it is a ‘Pirates of the Caribbean sticker, with a picture of Johnny Depp with a beard.

I was hoping for a happy tooth.

So here’s the thing: my shiny bright new macbook, which is enabling me to get all talkative on the train and write posts that are nine times to long and go off on unabashed tangents, has a shiny red clip-on protective cover. The protective cover now has protective stickers on, of Miffy, and dinosaurs, and whales and the like.

But there is a space reserved for a happy molar. I would very much like a happy molar for my pooter. Or even just something that says ‘You’ve been brave’. As maybe if I had one, I could be. But also because in my long-enough life, I have always been terrified and rubbish at the dentist, and for the first time, in this little area of my life - I HAVE been brave, and also, thank you to the magic Graham, I have happy molars.

Apart from the chipped crown, but that’s a work in progress and no, I’m still not giving anyone any more bloody money.

Anyway. Apart from that I’m a brave little molar-soldier with happy happy teeth.

So. If you have a Nice and Friendly Dentist who happens to carry Happy Tooth stickers for his bravest young (I am only 29) patients, then, you know, can you snaffle me one next time you’re there? Or in fact, if you ARE a Nice and Friendly Dentist - and I’m beginning to believe that you exist, as a party, as a people - then…

um…

Can I have a happy tooth now?

There’s been this comment sitting in my moderation queue for a month now. I keep ignoring it, but I can’t seem to delete it.

Part of me wants to reply to it, part of me loves it and wants to put it on site. But I’m not adding it to the original post.

I’m not making any sense, I know.

Ok. Google juice often leads people here to carry on talking long after you lovelies have lost interest. There is, for example, still a healthy argument raging about the merits of Thomas Kinkade over here, while (being the no.1 google hit for ‘ladybird infestation’) people drop in and tell me about their ladybug woes once every few days here.

But sometimes people ask me for advice that I cannot give. Sometimes because I am not an advice-giving service, sometimes because I don’t want to make their situation worse, but usually because I simply don’t know.

This is the case in this comment, from an eleven year old girl, asking for help which I still haven’t worked out how to give. And it’s now too late. Anyway ( and cleverly disguising that could bring her back on the same google juice that took her to the post in the first place):

i am doing a progect on a job i want to be when older. i want to be a est@te @gent. i am 11 yrs old and would like some suitble info. my email is xxxxx@xxxx.xxx

please send me the info. if ui know anything about being a model oplease send me that to. thank you.now i can finally do my prodject. all people in my class have to do a project so thank u spo muchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Well, firstly I can’t decide which of the spellings of project I prefer, they’re all delicious.

But quite apart from that, I feel terrible because the post on which she was so politely requesting advice is one in which I describe all members of her topmost desired career (edging slightly ahead of m0delling) as ‘twats in suits’ whose only qualification is the ability to despise humanity. Whoopses.

And the worst thing is, I mainly haven’t replied to her because that post represents seriously ALL the tips I can give her about the profession of Est@te Agentry.

I mean, I’d love to help, but that’s all I’ve got. Seriously. They’re money-grabbing professional embellishers with suits and a lack of repect for humankind. She needs something beyond that?

But now every time I log into Wordpress I’m faced with her words, and it’s been so long delaying her reply that now they haunt me like those blokes with chains in that Dickens book with the Muppets in.

‘now i can finally do my prodject’

And that was a month ago. I’ve failed her. I’ve failed the little wannabe est@te @gent/m0del.
I’m sorry, my little ambitionist.

Here. My answer. Um.
1) Despise humanity.
2)Buy a suit?

Oh - and you wanted info on the other, m0delling, thing?
Stop eating properly and develop a disdainful air.

Also, coke.

Couple little things. I was just doing some thinking about the site and whether I’m making a bit of a hash of things and could do better and stuff.

This is a pretty boring and self-reflective - possibly self-defeating - little post, so feel free not to read it at all. Or only this far, if it is already too late. It really is just about the minutiae, this, just lots of things about blog I’ve been trying to decide whether to do for ages. Sorry, normal people who like reading ’stuff’ about ‘things’, bear with me (well, me and the people who like thinking about such larks) for a second.

Have they gone? Right, Mike, Gordon, where was I? Ah yes…

1: Writing - too little for you? On here? I mean, the size, not the amount I write or how long I make the posts, sadly, that’s up to me. I mean the font: it’s fine for me but does it stop you from reading things? Would you enjoy reading them more if it was bigger?

2: When using the <blockquote> things, (as seen in such posts as these) do you think it would look nicer with or without the boxes? Yes, it’s a stupid question, but I really can’t decide.

3: If I had the little digger/stagger/delightful buttons at the bottom of all posts on this site (like the much more popular and my dearest darling girl Petite has - along with many other brilliant and deservingly much-read people) would anyone actually USE them here?

4: I was adding posts to my “Some Favourite Posts” section, rather arbitrarily, it must be said, and thinking there must be a more logical way of doing this. So I just had a random idea that may or may not be the most terrible that ever was. In order to get an idea which posts people actually enjoyed and cataloue them accordingly, I could, in theory, putting a ranking button on each post.
Is this idea?
a) Good and worth trying.
b) Really bad and possibly soul-destroying?

Of COURSE it’s the latter, but I am worrying about everything, bear with me.

So that’s it.
4 questions.
Anyone any thoughts?
About other things - about layouts and buttons and things that you would like in order to make things easier for reading?

Not the content - too late to do anything about the content, I’m afraid…

Thank you in advance. And in general, as always.

I am lucky enough to have a boy-genius for a beloved.

He can cook like a crazy cooking demon; he can rewire anything that needs rewiring, and even things that don’t; he can write like a writey thing, think like a thinky thing and talk like a talky thing better than most anyone I know; he’s logical, reasonable, rational and can leap over tall buildings in a single bound.

Why, then, I meet with blank stare every time I attempt to explain the correct way to hang up a wet shirt/top/trouser, is a mystery. Why, if left to it, I discover a pile of crumpled clothes with soggy rolled up sleeves, wet arses and whole wrinkles of garment damp and smelly where they were skooshed up the drying frame to make room for 19,000 other things rather than stretched out.

Is there some type of logical washing-hanging-up gene that’s overridden by testosterone?

Or is this ACTUALLY a lame attempt to make sure I always have the pleasure of hanging up the damn washing?

… And so I woke up this morning with a big black dog sitting on my face. Or whatever the phrase is.

They’re odd, my sads. Whether they’re the SAD sads or the other ones, they can fade away for whole days, weeks, months and I can feel ok, and have ideas, and deal with them, and deal with people and stresses and etc etc etc.

Then, one morning, they just come fluttering back like an enormous cloud of swallows, swooping around me before settling, heavily, on my face. Heavily in the manner of enormous black dogs. Sick black dogs. Black dogs with nasty colds and toenails that need cutting and poor personal hygiene.

And in another day, or two, or more, they can be gone again. Sometimes it can take weeks. On a couple of occasions, they were around - heavily, on face, woofing huskily - for a little matter of months. Ach, it’s in the archives, should you wish to find it.

And why don’t I talk about the sads every time they come and sit on me, heavily?
Is it because I am embarrassed? Or ashamed? Or unable to?

No, it is because I am so Fucking bored of them now. That’s all, really.

A lovely day, walked by the sea, had my Eggs Benedict - no, strictly Eggs Royale, but that’s a topic for another day - sat and watched crashing waves, made cookies, stuck things in scrapbooks, cleaned, and all the while: dog on head.
It is a pain in the arse.

I know that’s not strictly physiologically correct.
I’m also aware I may not have just spelled physiologically correctly.
And I’m also aware that the last sentence there was grammatically contemptible.
Please don’t comment just to tell me so.
Please. Please please.

Me and my black dog head and elephant chest (did I mention there was an elephant on my chest? Well, there is) are not quite up to today. Sorry.

So yeah. That’s where we are today.
I should write something better happier before bed.

*Thinks VERY Hard*

*Asks large black dog to move around a bit as large black tail wagging in ear impedes thinking.*

*Thinks hard again. Considers turning off comments so no bugger feels tempted to feel sorry for her. Decides not to, trusting that said buggers will know well enough not to*

*Stops talking about self in third person. Wanders off.*

Watching something this evening in which someone was bemoaning that they hadn’t done everything on their ‘Things to do before I’m 30′ list.

I panicked. I haven’t even got a ‘things to do before I’m 30′ list.

Suddenly, I feel bereft, and sit down, with a sense of determination and grist, I settle down to my task.

THINGS to DO before I’m 30: a list.

1: Write list of things to do before I’m 30.

Sadly, at this point, I get stuck.

Um.

2: Write an opera.

3: Visit the arctic and stroke wild polar bears. Preferably baby polar bear but grown would also be great, obv.

4: Change career entirely (barristry? I could be a barrister! Always thought I’d be great at barristing).

5: Invent something. A new card game or biscuit recipe would be good, but not as good as, say, a new piece of handheld communication technology that I could patent and sell for several billion English Pounds.

6: Learn Italian.

7: Become wildly successful at something (decide on what later), take over world etc.

8: Become a size ten. In clothing. Sorry, I’m not sure what one can be a size ten in. Condoms? I would have to also grow a penis, and that’s really not on the list.

9: Be a millionaire.

10: Oscar?

11: Save up for/buy house, decorate, get pregnant, have baby.

12: Learn to cook like crazy incredible chef.

And I think I might be alright, because I’ve got till the middle of May.

Hm.

Maybe it’s slightly over ambitious. I don’t even know if I’ve missed the application date for Oscars. I should make a different list. A less ambitious, more realistic list.

THINGS TO DO BEFORE I’M THIRTY: a list

1: Find the best Eggs Benedict in the world.

2: Eat it.

And those are hopefully going to taken care of before 10 tomorrow morning. Or if not ‘the world’s best’ then certainly ’some’. God, there have got to be other things I have on my list. No one told me about this list. I not only have only four months to not only do everything on the list but also write it.

Arg.

What am I supposed to have done before I’m thirty?

Help me.