My salad dressing days

In my more wistful moments, I sometimes imagine that I might have been the short-haired, elfin-featured, pale-skinned singer in an otherwise male-dominated indie band.

I would have worn vintage clothing and had a wardrobeful of cropped, home-knitted cardigans.

I would have sung with my hands clasped behind my back and bobbed my head lightly from side to side in the instrumental parts of the songs. I may have tapped on a tambourine and shuffled around next to the bass guitarist.

If asked in media interviews what my interests were, I would have responded earnestly: saving the planet and the organic food movement.

But I might have been damned irritating, like a female version of Chris ‘I hate capitalism but please buy my new CD’ Martin.

So, it’s all worked out for the best really.

**scribbles reminder to self to send off application to The X Factor 2006**

Image reproduced with the artist’s permission. Click here to visit Anita Klein’s website.

So I bring you a little poem by Helen Farish entitled ‘Coffin Path Poem’:

My habit of late-night walking
will mirror my life, how in its twilight
I’ll rush out saying, how beautiful –
has it been like this all day?

From ‘Intimates’ (2005), published by Jonathan Cape.

There once was a chick from the city
Who thought herself terribly witty.
Then one winter’s day,
With nothing to say,
She cooed over shoes that were pretty.

If socks make Little Blonde Niece cross (and they do), then these shoes make me cross.

They are screaming out to be worn to an urbane cocktail party* but they’re just so cross-making to wear. Wear them in summer without tights and the faintest trace of perspiration will see your foot slithering around and eventually slipping out. No amount of toe-grippage is gonna keep your feet in and I’m not prepared to go to parties and stand in one spot for two hours (how am I gonna get to the hors d’oeurves, frinstance?). Wear them in winter with tights, and, unless you have little rubber suction pads on the foot, you will experience similar slippage and slithering.

But do you think I can throw them out?

Uh-uh.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

* should I EVER be invited to one, that is

And so it came to pass that I made my inaugural visit to my local TK Maxx. And yes, that would be the branch where star-crossed cyber-lovers met to carry out their joint suicide pact in the car park. How quaint.

‘You need to set aside a couple of hours – y’know, for the rifling – you need to rifle,’ advised my sis wisely.

Ooh. Rifling. Sounds fun. I have never (knowingly) rifled before.

I set out with my habitual shopping mantra: This Time I Will Not Gravitate To Black. This Time I Will Not Gravitate To Black.

And when I get deeper into the chanting, I say to myself: Must pepper wardrobe with Colour! Patterns! Interesting Necklines! After all, I know it is only a matter of time before a friend refers me to Trinny and Susannah. Flash-forward to T&S screaming in horror when they open my wardrobe (‘Black is NOT A COLOUR! Suze: get the pinking scissors. Out out out!). This is after they’ve felt me up in the 360 degree mirror room, of course.

One quick swoosh later and the automatic doors have thrown me straight into the handbag section. I briefly consider clasping my hands together and gazing heavenwards to express my gratitude to the God I am now willing to imagine might actually exist.

The first half hour, therefore, is spent fondling and sniffing handbags galore. But there are too many, too many that I want. Need. Neeeeeeeeeeeed. I am, most uncharacteristically, overcome with the most unseemly bout of indecision.

And so I move away (vowing to return later) towards the kids’ section. An hour later and my trolley is chock full of toys and clothes for the chicklets.

Oh gawd, I have left so precious little time for The Rifling. My sis said: ‘at least two hours’. Glancing at my watch, I realise I have but 17 minutes. I am panicking now…

But you know, it’s not that hard to pick out all the black items on a mile-long rack. I quickly talk myself round: this black top, well, it will go so well with EVERYTHING, ANYTHING (of course what I mean is: it will go so well with MORE BLACK). As will those trousers…and that coat. Who wants a cream coat, forgodssakes? Think of the drycleaning bills! Gosh, I am so practical. Motherhen would be proud. After all, it was from her that I inherited the the GTB (Gravitate To Black) gene mutation.

I am all smiles at the till. I trill a merry tune, much to the shop assistant’s despair. ‘Beautiful day, isn’t it?’ I chirp. He rolls his eyes.

But as I am leaving, I feel a little giddy. I put my hand to my forehead: I think I may have a slight fever. I lean against the car door for a few minutes to gather myself together. I clutch at my mobile phone and wonder whether it’s too late to get an emergency appointment with the doctor.

Then I realise what it is: I left the store without buying a handbag. So I rush back in to buy the one I’d lingered over longest (23 minutes). But hey! It’s a Christmas present (probably) for my sister (maybe). Gimme a break, guys!

I pity the poor folk who find my blog when they are looking for something more exciting. So I can only guess at the deep sense of disappointment felt by the person who ended up here having searched Yahoo for ‘defecating women photos’.

A few handy tips for anyone serving me in a restaurant:

1. DO NOT automatically offer the wine list to my male companion(s). Not unless you want me to ostentatiously snatch it out of their hands, tutting loudly, the minute you walk away from the table. And when you bring the wine, DO NOT assume that my male companion ought to taste it. Not unless you want me to grab the glass and pour its contents over your head after I’ve deposited copious amounts of bile-lined saliva in it.

2. DO NOT give me the menu with no prices. Rest assured that I am not in any way at risk of fainting on discovering the price of ‘homard a la maison’. Tell me this: what would you do if faced with a party wholly consisting of women? Would we all end up with price-less menus? Come to think of it, perhaps this might work in our favour when the bill arrives and we claim innocently that we thought the food was free citing Article 75, Subsection C of the Idiocy in Restaurants Act.

3. When I have ordered two beers and two soft drinks for a party consisting of two men and two women, DO NOT automatically plonk the beer in the front of the men and the soft drinks in front of the women. Is it so much to ask that you inquire as to who ordered what? Apparently. Oh, and when a man and a woman between them have ordered one Diet Coke and one full-fat Coke, DO NOT assume it is the woman who wants the aspartame-loaded version.

4. When suggesting some digestifs, DO NOT trot out a long list of malt whiskys for my male companions but then turn to me and suggest ‘a Baileys or Amaretto for Madam?’. Else you might provoke me into replying ‘no thanks…sickly sweet alcoholic beverages will generally induce a bout of projectile vomiting onto your crisp, white, linen tablecloth, but thanks for asking – now bring me a Glenmorangie, you silly man’.

5. When presenting the bill, DO NOT automatically pass it to my male companion. Consider the controversial possibility that these days Some Women Have Money Of Their Own. If you do this, I will make a point of scoffing all the after-dinner mints in one go, before thrusting my visa card up your right nostril when you return.

Not hard, is it?

Whilst her peers were sneaking out of their parents’ houses to sniff glue in graveyards, Ursula was busy watching imported soap operas and collecting plastic bangles…

Wednesday 30 April 1986

Dear Diary,
Got up etc.etc. English homework is to write something about a relationship showing dependence. I’ve got a few ideas. For games we played tennis – that is, L and I. She’s about my standard. I forgot to tell A about late games so I thought she’d have gone but she’d waited. We got a lift from Mrs M who’d waited for me. We watched some TV. V’s got a music centre now. After tea we did some homework and at 8pm I had a bath and washed my hair. Then I watched ‘Dallas’. Nothing ever seems to go right in that programme. Mum phoned. We’re getting a lift home on Friday. Mum says that there isn’t any post for me. It’s exactly a month since I wrote to M-A and what’s happened to my bangles?
Love Ursula x

Um, could M-A be the dependent relationship, I wonder…and why do I think that L and U’s ‘standard’ of tennis is in the lower to lowest rank? And I sense the faintest whiff of jealousy about V’s ‘music centre’.

to Mr Chick, whose birthday it is today! Chin chin, honey! *mwah*

[The image is ‘Angel with bottle and glass’ by Anita Klein. The image is reproduced here with the kind permission of the artist (thanks, Anita!). You can view (and buy) Anita’s wonderful work here.]