Hello everyone, this is Mindreader, I know what you are thinking (after all thats what I do), "Billygean hasn't posted for a while, what on earth could be wrong?"
Well, she is confined to bed, with suspected Glandula fever, and is just too tired to maintain her writing position for long enough.
She will resume posting when the crazy dreams have stopped.
Wishing you an early Happy New Year.
MR
Labels: illness
I walk into old boss's office, who
discovered my blog once I'd left work.
"Hi," I squeak, and do a little jump because it's been
ages. Madfather is with me and he shakes Old Boss's hand.
"Where is R?" I say.
"She's upstairs," Old Boss says, reaching for the phone. "I'll tell her it's a new client for her and she'll be straight down."
R walks through the door a moment later.
"Aaah," she says. "You!"
"Oh," she says, turning to my dad. "You must be MadFather."
I raise my eyebrows at the nickname. "You don't -"
"Everyday," she says. "I'm utterly addicted. How was Paris?"
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Billygean," a voice says behind me. "We know so much about you."
"Do I know you?" I say, clutching my wine. Stranger is wearing a Santa's outfit and fishnet tights.
"No," Stranger says. "But I know all about your English degree and your lawyer stuff and your new boyfriend. Is MindReader here?"
I smile at the nickname that has taken off so. "Yes, he's in the living room," I say.
"Are you over your flu?" he says. "Your doctor's very mean."
I am, I admit, completely weirded out by a stranger knowing about my entire life.
"Do you have a blog?" I say, deflecting the conversation before we get around to tampons.
"Yes, I'll comment on yours and you'll see the URL," he says. "Anyway good blog."
"Thanks," I say, baffled.
"And by the way this is the first 'I read your blog' conversation I have ever had!" he says.
I wish I could say the same.
"Right," I say, stopping dead in the middle of Montmartre. "Hold this."
MindReader stretches out his hand and I place the flu capsule into it.
"What...?" MindReader says.
"I can't swallow the capsules, obviously," I say. "So I'm going to eat the grains inside."
"Right."
"It says I have to take them with fruit juice or yoghurt," I say. "So here, hold this."
I put the bottle of orange juice in his hand, which he opens.
I open the capsule and most of the grains fall on my coat and my mittens. I pour the remaining grains into my mouth whilst MindReader's eyebrows raise higher and higher.
I can't get the last of the grains out of the capsule so I empty them into the lid of the orange juice. I then decant the juice into the lid and drink. Then I lick the last grains out of the lid, lick my finger and collect the grains off my coat.
"I suspect this is exactly what they had in mind when they said 'take the capsule'" says MindReader.
Labels: embarrassing, Holidays, illness, MindReader
"How was Mum's?" MadFather says as him, me and DoctorSister reconvene in the kitchen for post-Christmas-at-Mum's deconstruction.
"Mushy veg," I say, sipping my tea.
"Melt in the mouth," DoctorSister says, leaning against the counter.
MadFather wrinkles his nose.
I shrug. "We only complain about the veg because we don't like her."
"Totally," DoctorSister says. "If Billygean made mushy veg she would have tried hard. If MadFather did it would be funny. If I did, we wouldn't speak about it."
MadFather tuts. "Why would it be funny if I did it? I'm a good cook."
I smile. "It's because you're scatty."
"I'm not scatty," MadFather says, leaning against the counter.
He peers into the toaster suddenly.
"What's up?" I say.
"I just found some toast."
Labels: Dad, Home
"Here it is," MindReader says as we cross from the Jardin de Tuileries to the Louvre.
"Oh," I say, taken aback.
"Modern, isn't it?" He says as we admire the glass pyramid.
"But... where -"
"That's not the museum," MindReader says, well, mindreading.
"Oh! I did wonder where the pictures would go."
"Oh my God," I say in Angelina's (
recommended by my blog readers). "My hair looks orange in this mirror!"
"It's not," MindReader says.
"Is it her colour?" I say, pointing out a beautifully posh blonde girl.
"Er, no," MindReader says nervously.
"How about her?" This time, a redhead.
"No."
"Her?" a mid-brunette, kind of stripy.
"Yes?" MindReader says. He pulls on the sides of his own beautiful blond hair. "It's like Russian roulette this is."
"Are you
scared of me?" I say.
"Totally."
"Your turn," MindReader says, holding me to my
promise of speaking French.
"Bonsoir," I say to the hotel lobby man. "Demain, je suis departer a six ans."
"Oui," he says slowly, his French moustache twitching.
"Check - out - now?" MindReader says, a lilt in his English words that is apparently supposed to make French people understand.
"D'accord," he says.
After paying we headed out into the freezing night, past the sleazy sex shops and brothels. Yes, this is what happens when Billygean books the hotel.
"MindReader," I say after a moment. "Did I say six heures or six ans?"
"Now I think about it," he says. "I think you said ans!"
"Oh my God. I just told the man we are checking out in six years tomorrow!"
"Tomorrow est l'anniversaire of our checking out," MindReader says, that loud laugh escaping.
"Ha! We are leaving in six years, how do we check out, we must know?"
I am unsure how we faced him when we got back.
"You know quite a lot about my history," MindReader says as we stroll through Montmartre, steely under the stars.
"Not that much," I say. "I hate to think of you with someone else."
"Oh it's very different though," he says, a gloved hand waving.
"How?"
"It's simple: I didn't love her like I love you."
And suddenly everything is right.
Labels: Holidays, MindReader
"Home dye job?" is the first thing the hairdresser says to me.
I nod meekly, unable to live and indeed go to Paris tonight with my patchy hair from the
dyeing incident."Oh we've all been there," she says, brushing a strand of platinum blonde hair away from her face.
You, I think spitefully.
As you can tell, I am already not in the mood for this. I decided to sleep until noon today, because I'm good at that and because MindReader and I are leaving for Paris at 2am and therefore not sleeping. Well, I might be in the car, but shh. Unfortunately not functioning until one (yes, it still takes an hour even in the middle of the day) meant that packing, getting hair dyed, writing a LONG letter to a client and writing my Christmas cards could not be achieved.
Indeed, I have thus far only achieved hair dyeing.
"Dear me," she says. "This is a disaster."
And then she gets her boss to come look at it.
And then
she gets
her boss to come look at it.
Apparently the best thing to do was to HIGHLIGHT THE WHOLE LOT.
I gape. Me, Billygean, who has had black hair for a century?
Alas I am English and cannot complain, so 15 minutes later I am sat with a cap on my head. It is actually quite fetching, such is my propensity for hats at the moment.
"Don't worry this won't hurt," she says, approaching my head with a pair of tweezers. I wince as she pulls a clump of hairs through.
"See that's okay isn't it?" she says as my eyes begin to stream. I am in clear physical pain. My shoulders are up by my ears, my hands wrestling together like snakes.
And then I start sneezing. With EVERY HAIR SHE PULLS THROUGH. Needless to say, this is a labour-intensive process. Grab, pull, sneeze, wait.
And then I start thinking: I sneeze when I pluck my eyebrows. When hair is coming out of its root. Why does this hurt? Is the hair no longer in my head? Will I have to wear the cap as a replacement skull?
Once finished, she brings over a painting brush. I eye it nervously.
"When do I get to - you know - choose the colour?" I say.
"Oh," she says, laughing and raising a black eyebrow. "We don't really know what colour it's going to come out because it's bleach."
"Right," I say, my voice shaking. This is no longer my bathroom. This is a CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT where I thought £40 would ensure it WOULD NOT GO WRONG.
"So... it could be light brown like I asked, or blonde!" I say. Ha ha, I think. Ha ha, no no, not blonde she was
supposed to say.
"Yep," she says, walking off to 'mix my colour'.
What colour though?
She brings a dish back which is full of purple liquid. I stare at it. I keep staring as she paints it on. Eventually, she says:
"Oh don't worry, it won't be purple."
I eye her evenly. "I thought you didn't
know what colour it could be."
She leaves then, and her boss takes over, who gets increasingly nervous the more she realises what I do for a living.
And alas, Billygean is blonde, which is, let's be fair, quite appropriate.
Labels: blonde moments, embarrassing, grumbles
It is midnight and MindReader is asleep next to me. A terminal insomniac, I have been playing Scrabulous whilst he sleeps.
He rolls over, a puff of warm air across my legs. "Alright?" he says, a sleepy smile.
"Bored," I say. "Can I look at your photos?" I'm not sure where the impulse comes from. From having spent the day with his family, observing the 25 year history of MindReader that I feel I know little about, perhaps.
"Sure," he says, asleep already.
He appears near waterfalls whose locations I don't know, thigh deep in snow, in remote cottages in Skye, Prague, Macedonia, Belgrade, with people who I have never met. In one photo he is slimmer, less stubble, holding a blue fishing net. I wonder where, with who.
I cannot resist the holiday folder. It is some peverse voyeurism. I know they went to Devon, Rhodes, together. I open it, my teeth clenched in anticipation.
For she is, of course, a big deal. They were together for five years, with cats. and it ended amicably. He is vague on the reasons.
She is, to my dismay, beautiful, and in the way that means something. But of course, I think darkly, looking MindReader's rather beautiful body next to mine. She stands classically, upright, her hair often in a low bun.
She is, to my relief, not like me. She is ginger, bigger boobs, thankfully a bigger bum too. She is photogenic. She has a tattoo. Smooth hair though, and I wonder briefly what MindReader makes of my woolly hair. Bright blue eyes, like his, and freckles everywhere, like him.
They went everywhere, it would appear, drinking and laughing together. Like we do, I suppose.
I roll onto my back, my curiosity satisfied. A new wave of emotion rises; is it something you accept, that you won't ever know everything about someone, where they've been and who with? Or you do try to compartmentalise their life into neat little boxes you understand?
I push their life away from my mind and spoon the sleeping MindReader. And then I do the only thing I know how to do: write.
Labels: MindReader
Yesterday, MindReader got a training contract at a really good firm that sits about 500m away from mine.
Yesterday, I got three distinctions on my first semester exams.
Yesterday we ate half a roasted duck, laughed at the pub for 4 hours where I wore silver shoes, and then had sex next to his REAL FIRE.
A good day I think you'll agree.
Labels: law, MindReader
"Right then," PurpleEyes says as I sit down.
PurpleEyes is my new doctor. She is Indian. And wears purple contact lenses. Why, I have no idea, but at least she doesn't think I'm anorexic.
"You have five minutes," she says.
"Right," I say, taken aback. Five minutes? How can I describe the trauma of my flu and how it won't go away in just five minutes? MindReader says I should have prepared a speech.
"How are you feeling?" she says.
"Tired -" I say, beginning my monologue.
"Stressed?"
"Er, a bit," I say, surprised. Is it that obvious?
She brings up my records on the screen.
"Oh," she says, a hand stroking her chin. "You're a trainee lawyer?"
"Yes."
"Oh good then," she says, rummaging in her bag. "You see I've got this legal problem I was wondering if you could look at..."
20 minutes later she is legally advised and I still have flu.
Labels: law
I adore this photo.
Taken on a lad's weekend in Nottingham, as MindReader texts me, a tell-tale smile across his features.
Labels: MindReader
MindReader and I are canoodling. He has been here a matter of moments and somehow his clothes are all over the floor. What? Oh shut up. You all do it.
I hear
MadFather's footsteps across the landing and my eyes widen.
"
Billygean?" He says.
"Bit
busy," I shriek in a voice that
MindReader has taken to imitating.
"Okay,"
MadFather says, a hint of glee in his voice.
MindReader is bright red, his face in the crook of my neck. "I've been here ten minutes," he says. "Your Dad's going to think I'm a bastard."
4 hours later
"
MadFather," I say, quite unable to look him in the eye.
"Yes?"
"Can you drop
MindReader off at the station?"
"I'm a bit
busy, actually."
Labels: Dad, embarrassing, MindReader
Me: If you wanted to bring the partnership to an end you would lose the goodwill and there would also be tax consequences. It is also likely to be time consuming because you would have to liquidise your assets -
Fake Client: Liquidise? Isn't it liquidate?
Me: What?
Fake Client: liqui
dise is what you do to milkshakes. Liqui
date is what you do to assets. God.
Me: [panicking] I don't really think that's relevant, do you?
Labels: blonde moments, law
I logged onto MindReader's blog late last night. It was a sort of pining; the long distance stretching out sometimes during the evenings.
This is what I found. It feels good to finally post the missing link - more legitimate, somehow.*
*
I must point out his name is not Ian. It would appear he has more than one internet pseudonym. MindReader is obviously the best one. He even gets people calling him it at parties.Labels: MindReader
*Breathes*
Well that was all very traumatic. Apparently my ftp password became corrupt! Who knows what it was doing - probably insider trading again.
Not being able to blog for two weeks was difficult. It made me think about how next year is going to be
without a blog. I wonder what desperate measures I will come up with when the time comes; setting up a bulk email that goes round to let me vent all my
blonde moments? Invent a fictional blog perhaps? Watch this space.
The past two weeks have been quite difficult. I got flu, which in hindsight I don't think I've ever had before. I was incapacitated, and
every time I got slightly better I spent the day coughing over the Companies Act which set me back another week. I eventually made it into college for a mock interviewing exam where I had so much
lemsip I gave my client "near negligent" legal advice. Charming.
The real exam is tomorrow and whilst I'm still not right I am
certainly functioning.
I have no done any Christmas shopping. I have however watched approximately 75 hours of A Place In The Sun when ill. Priorities.
MindReader and I are off to Paris a week on Wednesday.
MindReader is difficult for me to write about. There is a certainty about him that I feel; a kind of gut feeling that I can't quite write. Suffice to say he'll be around for a while.
I think that's everything! It's nice to be back.
Labels: blogging
"I saw that Friends episode the other day where Monica tells Chandler her friend from work is the funniest person she's ever met," I say to MindReader.
"Oh right?"
"Would that bother you?"
"Why?" he says, a smile appearing.
"Because. That's your thing! Being funny."
"And handsome," he says.
"Yes."
"No I don't think it would bother me."
--------------------------------------
"Oh here's David's speech," MadFather says, waving a DVD in my face over dinner.
"Who's David?" MindReader says.
"My cousin. It's his best man speech."
"Born comedian," MadFather says.
"Mmm," I say. "He is literally the fun-"
MindReader's blond eyebrows hit the top of his forehead before I can finish my sentence.
Labels: Dad, Home, MindReader
"Can I get you anything?"
MindReader says, sitting lightly on my bed and touching my face.
I murmur pathetically, for I have man-flu. For, er, women.
"A
lemsip," I say.
"Okay."
"And some
Venos," that is, cough medicine.
MindReader's face breaks into a smile and he tucks a foot under himself on the bed, the hem of his jeans brushing the top of his bare foot. "Are you being Spanish?"
I am unable to resist a smile. "It's cough medicine. And can I also have a
strepsil?"
"What's that Spanish for?"
"A
Margarita."
