People Say I’m In Denial, But That’s Just A Lie!

Wrote a reply a while back on Wikivorce to someone who felt her children hated her. I know the feeling.  

Letter To An Old Friend

We were such good friends.  Met at university, hung out together and made each other laugh.   We were often in a group, yet you were always very special to me, and I loved you.

The Ueberraschung Button

I came back furious.  My ex-husband has been lying to my daughter who lives with him.  I mentioned it to her twin, who lives with me (yes, fucked up).

‘It’s like the Ueberraschung button’ he said.  ‘The first time you press it, it’s a surprise, but not the hundredth time’.  This made me laugh, but I was still cross.

From The Neck Up (or, I Thought He Had A Brain The Size Of A Planet But In Fact It Was Only His Head)

Chatting to a colleague.  I learned that she teaches a dance class in the evenings.  I have been looking (not very hard, but intermittently) for a dance class.  I’m too fat though, and unfit.  No one will want to dance with me.  I won’t be able to do it.

Barely Brushing My Teeth.

Within a matter of days I signed two contracts – one for a full-time job, the other to write a book.  

Using Myself As A Dustbin

Today is the first day I can remember not feeling hungry for years.  Yes, I ate a piece of cake for breakfast, because it was there.  

Looking A Gift Horse In The Mouth

Under a bridge in Holloway, a narrow cellophane wrapper holding a bunch of red roses.  It was wedged into a metal hook in the wall to hold it upright.  Also there, neatly folded and forming a puffy cube: a duvet without a cover.  I hurried past, late, and wondered.  Usually under that bridge there are people, wrapped in winter clothes and lying under duvets.  Last time, a young woman had stopped to give a dishevelled man some coins.  Now just the duvet and the roses.  Had the flowers been a gift?