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| Pour moi? C'est la vie! |
I'm twenty eight! After I turned eighteen, I delighted at perching there upon the bar in my local dive, (then sympathetic to under eighteens) and spouting the very words "I'm eighteen". This was met by an equally delightful reaction, of drinks arriving before me, forthwith. I carried on with this little performance for two weeks, until I had squeezed every bit of usable life out of it. By which time the question "Is it your birthday?" Could be answered no other way than with "Not any more, but I'm still eighteen!"
This year I was treated to a Sunday birthday. My mother had all of her babies on Sundays, bar one of us, who kept her in labour for three hours longer into Monday morning, in order not to share birthdays with her. We also all met our golden date in the same year. This is when you turn your age on the date of your birthday. Which by default took our mother back to age of 21 in 1999. Wowee!
My weekend began during an extraneous downpour on Friday afternoon. I was wading through the North Sea, as it was falling from the sky above me. Though I was refusing point blank to let it put a dampener on my spirits. (Vodka, Rum and Tequila.) Which made my hands go numb from the weight of my shopping bags. The rain gave the outside of my wool coat the scent of one part Thierry Mugler's Angel and one part wet sheep and eau de sweaty MoFo on the inside. Luscious. I arrived home, stripped off my funky threads and got straight on the phon-e-mail to sell a creative concept, with which I have fallen deeply and romantically in love, to the powers that be of a well known boutique festival. Task complete, I ran aeroplane-style to my local organically-sound-supermarket for further replenishments. On arriving home once again, my biceps flexing under the weight of fresh limes and exotic cocktail bound juices I heaved into the arms to my still long suffering BFF, like a salt sprinkled dying slug. To my good fortune she came equipt with luxury massage, kit and kaboole and Rioja. Praise be!
I am certain that if it wasn't for my treat of a birthday massage, my head would have popped right off, like the corks in our Cava, through sheer frenetic, over-excitement. My laid back limber from loafing about the white sands of the Caribbean, has long since worn off, here home sweet home on the english riviera, sunken deep in the depths of bleak mid-winter. But on having my surging sinovial fluids probed, my shoulders eased away from their lofty perch; clamped to my ears and the rate of my heart and thankfully also my speech, significantly slowed. At least now my compatriots, due imminently at my palace gates, would find me almost coherent. It was at this point I was given the verbal small print. I would be drunken and probably disorderly, as quick as the speed of light, as a result of my stimulated blood flow. Kerching, cheap date!
Soon my girlfriends began to arrive one by one for an evening of guilty pleasures. We slipped, stretched and slopped into pyjamas and proceeded to party the night away. There were games, there was getting into fancy dress, there was sliding down the stairs in our sleeping bags, there was hula hooping on my bed, there was tightrope walking on my bannisters, there was a swear-a-thon. There was a Wonsey. A fabulously high-waisted, fairisle printed, pinky coloured, all-in-one outfit. So we all had a go. Who would have ever known so much joy could be squeezed out of (and into) such a fanciful thing. There was also a bag of flour. Originally for use as part of a traditional party game from my family history, involving picking up chocolate out of the flour with your mouth. But it is only right, that with such an amount of flour amoung such company, that the flour should learn to fly. It filled more than our faces. It filled our ears and our noses, it covered our clothes, it covered the carpet, it filled the air, it stiffened my hair! So I scrawled my name in it on the back of the sofa and jumped into it to flaunt my handywork with pride, dressed as a rabbit. Obviously.
But we are ever such good girls. Naughty but nice perhaps. We got straight to task with the vacuum cleaner, before the messy lounge fantasy could get any more out of control. It was at this very moment that the front door swung slowly open, to reveal to us the BiG Bear, my landlord. Revealing to him some sort of haunted housework nightmare! But my crack team of girls-in-pyjamas were too strong a force of charm. Sassy commanders of good will. So of course, if you can't beat 'em, you gotta join them. If you've got a problem maybe you can hire them... But then the face packs came out and another fight broke loose. The results were muddy faces all round.
We made much mayhem.
We also made treats to eat, cocktails and tall tales, mended outfits and darned. Vacuum cleaned and charmed. Fought, taught, shared and declared. We held court over boys and girls, births, marriages and deaths. Did things we'd never have guessed. This birthday was my best. Well done to all of us who made it so.
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| Thanks for coming |
I am so blessed by the generosity and thoughtfulness of the whimsical, twinkley, soft and scented, specially selected gifts bestowed upon me by such beautiful women. Even for the pure alcohol uber-hangover that shackeled me to my duvet when my zenana came to depart one by one. But now that I have burned my candle at both ends and lit a cigarette off it, I feel melted in the middle and if I don't give my body a health spree, it's going to kill me. Until next week of course. The Original Rock n Roll Princess rides again!
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| Shiney disco balls |
In the interest of greeting grand new experiences, dawning over unexpected horizons, I laugh in the face of concequence! Which just seems to respond to me with ROFL.
As a younger person, I was highly suspicious of the world. But over my lifetime so far, those deep set suspicions have given way to an unquestioning trust. Not unlike that of a wide-eyed, waggy-tailed dog. That's not to say I don't sometimes get hurt by trusting so unquestionably. But the results are never so damning as I might once have believed, and besides, wounds heal. Which is lucky because I started off my new year with a black eye!
How the noughties ended.
At the very last minute, after spending most of New Year's Eve in bed, stubbornly ignoring the worldwide compulsion to party like it's 1999, something inside implored me to do just that. I lurched blearily from my duck-downed throne, to break out the sequins, pour myself into skinny jeans and get happy with the slap. C'mon, it's our last night to be noughtie. If I am right in remembering how they began a decade ago, then kissing goodbye to them, simply must take place with equal panache.
Rewind...
On the evening that the Millenium Bug didn't make our aeroplanes fall out of the sky, I was 16 years old. It was the first time I had ever seen cocaine, let alone it disappearing up the noses of our host's parents! Magnums of champagne were poured down my neck, and everyewhere else, I tried out snogging two people at the same time; an Irish lesbian and a beardy, be-trench-coated goth. Both of whom later tried to molest me. I escaped to the relative safety of the basement to conceal myself with my then brand new, but still now, long sufferening best friend, via seeing an alien in the garden. Really, this decade desesrved to go out with a bang. As well it did.
Fast Forward...
Another house party, another city, another clique. I dialled Zurich to receive the address. This was at least to be a higher class of gatecrash. The Central London town house reposed over four floors of newly finished opulence. It was black, white and sharp all over, along with being totally dreamy.
In the basement we had a shiney, granite dancefloor complete with mesemerising lasers for the party effect and a kitchen made of all things bright and beautiful. The puffiest, most bottom-supping sofas were luring us onto the first floor. But we revellers found the walk-through, rain-style shower just all too fascinating on the top floor. Hanging out in the kitchen is so last decade, Ikea! We ended up partying our socks off in the master bedroom at the top of the millionaire's party pad. Lights off, gloves off, this is how to see in a new year in style. I don't know how many of us crammed into our host's private quarters, but there were at least eight, maybe even ten on the bed at any one time. What more can I say? Hats off to James the Australian guy for always being the friendly face beneath our arms, legs, knees, etc, etc. Unfortunately it was during this multi-national pile up that I sustained my black eye, from a stray elbow which approached from a specatcular height, at a fantastical speed. I was collateral damage, but at least my first ever shiner occured during my first ten in a bed session of the next ten years, and just as kiss-and-tells are becoming outlawed by the latest privacy legislation, so here's my revelation; the bed fell through. Ikea! Tutt tutt.
So there I was, bravely setting foot, leg and face amoungst all these new people. Falling through furniture with them and slipping through the fingers of the boys in attempts at ball room dancing, and I'm not speaking figuratively here. Evoking incredulity by patting a girl on the thigh in offering her a drink and shock at encouraging Kosovans to join in the bundle. I started to realise that some of these people were very different to me. In the Big Smoke, where image is everything.
I love new people. I love new people in new places. To me culture is all about people. We make it, we create it and to understand it you need to feel it. You need to get amoungst the people who live it. You just can't get cultured by buying the T-shirt. Experiencing culture feeds you and feeds from you. But anyhow, I didn't come here for culture. I came here on a whim, to party the year away. To finish up those last dregs of noughtiness and drag my sky high heels into the impending teens, over a stellar dancefloor. I could be any girl in any city. It didn't matter. To be free, be fresh, be young and be impressionable.
It shoud be liberating. That was the idea. To let go. To abandon antiquated and ritualistic principles, which bear no meaning to my current incarnation. However, I have discovered that purging too holistically can leave a void. This open mind suddenly feels very spacious, one could even say a little empty.
Anonymity is fun. It comes with it's own opportunities. To meet, to greet, to love and to leave. But it can also propogate a strange sort of attention. A fascination and a need to impart reems of advice. All with best interests at heart. But who's? And is anyone really sure at that kind of time in the morning? Bonds form because we like to look out for each other. But when you are on your own in a tribe of someone else's friends, who looks out for you? We are all a little tribalistic. We will put our own kind first. It is true that there arrives a point in any top rate party, when is is essential to seek comfort. What form it comes in, depends just how long you go on partying. It can be in the arms of a loved one, falling into bed. A pile of best buddies on the sofa, recounting the evenings madcap mishaps. A deep and meaningful with a new aquaintence punctured by the stressing of "Mee toooo!" Or even just a quiet moment listening to birdsong. Home is where the heart is and wherever I lay my bones I rest my heart. With this in mind I am never really lonely. Boldly going where you haven't gone before is a pleasure beyond compare. But so is the elixir of a familiar hug. My new friends were fascinating, strange, funny, cute and kind. But I did find myself feeling far away from my tried and tested Trusted. Although I think that always happens on NYE. Whether we mean to or not, it seems an appropriate time to reflect. Which in reality, it isn't. All those hightened emotions can get very muddled up over 24 hours of mood enhancing activities.
For me, the people who really count; my family and my friends, already love me far beyond what I could ask. With that I can boldly go wherever I may wish to go boldly. Which is what really matters when all is said and done. I am loved. I have cosiness on demand from these wonderful people, if only I ask for it. So for the time being I feel no urge to try to impress anybody else. All the new and fascinating people who are to come into my life now, can like me for just who I am, or not at all. And that's ok with me.
