Billygean.co.uk

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Your usual cynical poster will be resuming posts on Tuesday beginning with a rant about a librarian. For now, you got the soppiness

About two years ago I sat on my hair straighteners. I heard the sizzle and smelt the smell of burning flesh before I realised it was my own ass. I sat on a bag of frozen peas in my knickers whilst Mike shook his head at me. Since by this stage of our relationship I had actually let him see my ass, he could change my dressings and monitor my scars.

A couple of weeks later I got a cold, as per October. I decided to steam my face and dipped chin in the bowl. Ended up going for first year anniversary with a red polka-dot burn on my chin, two parallel scabs on my bum, a cold, and an eye infection, just for good measure.

But damn, the pill had done my boobs good.


(foundation did cover spot, just about)

That year I kind of worked hard. It didn't stop me watching the Hollyoaks omnibus or sleeping until noon, but it was more normal. I remember proclaiming to Mike that we were a "normal couple" one afternoon. "Really," he said, raising his eyebrows. But I meant it; I worked on my bed in the attic room, the sunlight on my back from the skylight. Mike cycled more, now we were able to leave each other alone. He would come upstairs with tea still in his cycling gear, his nose pink and cold from the autumn air.

And with a real relationship came problems. That winter was long. We couldn't find a house. Mike's dog died, and I was utterly, utterly selfish until one night we had an argument so serious that the dark night and the concrete wall and the streetlights faded from my view as I felt just how much breaking up would hurt.

I incessantly questioned our relationship. I told Mike exactly who I fancied. Meanwhile he doted on me, nursed my problems with my course, my mother, my feet.

I took the professional ballet exam, and every Saturday morning I took the train to Lichfield; the sunlight low across the tracks. I spent countless late nights at the ballet studio, sweating and bleeding and crying. Mike got so worried he started coming with me. Dancing in front of the one person who knows my body better than anyone was so hard. He thought it was barbaric, the sit ups, the surgical spirit, the jet glueing pointe shoes. He was there after the exam, with my hair gelled to my head, a pink ribbon under the bun, and we went to the Trafford Centre and ate hot muffins in Starbucks.

Eventually Spring came, and normality resumed. I stopped picking fights. I decided to do law. He decided to cut his losses with maths, and move back to engineering. I attended every single bike race of his, that summer. In the earlier months I wore hats and scarves, and cheered even though I was so cold.

In the summer I would leave my new flash office job on a Friday, my heart pounding, and go to Preston just to let him know that the tables had turned; I was utterly committed now; we were utterly committed.

by billygean.co.uk at 11:30 PM |