Saturday, February 28, 2009

The Dog Ate My Homework...

Dear Ever So Slightly Younger Lover,

If you will insist on looking at it like I'm the teacher and you're my student, then your report is in, it reads, must try harder...

Yours sincerely,

Friday, February 27, 2009

Smug, I, Never...

Dear Gwyneth Paltrow,

Goop off, seriously, just Goop off...

Yours sincerely,

Join The Dots...

Dear Freckles,

We've had a rough ride in the past, you and I. My entire childhood I considered you, to be the biggest burden a person of single digit age could carry. Every Summer without fail, out you'd pop, a smattering across an Irish complexion, which favoured blue as a base colour for it's dermis, no word of a lie. There you would be, across my nose and my mother telling me, freckles, are a sign of beauty. I didn't feel beautiful, I remember trying to scrub you off. All that succeeded in doing, was to make me look embarrassed, I Captain Shameless, with a red scrubbed face. Well, what a 180 we've done, it's February and here I am waiting for the kind of solar power that can bring out a game of dot to dot, upon my visage. A sign from the sun, that winter is over, I'm checking my face everyday and my breath is baited...

Yours sincerely,

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Elusive...

Dear Bad Party,

One day I will go to a party where every one starts to do the same dance, at the exact same time, and it won't be The Time Warp. There will be lycra and leg warmers and shoes that don't hurt, there will be spins, but the good kind, not the drunk kind and I will wake fresh as a daisy the next morning and go for a run. No one will be ill from the crab cakes.

There will be handsome men, all of them tall and all with shoulders. Shoulders? I hear you ask, shoulders I will respond, make no mistake, good shoulders are hard to find. No one will corner me and talk to me about things I don't want to hear or show me things I do not want to see. The next day, there will be no gossip, not a bit, it will be like the night before had never happened, except we will know it did...

Yours sincerely,

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

La La La La Latte...

Dear Coffee,

I still miss you. When I said goodbye to you on New Years Day, I didn't realise you would still be on my mind all this time later. We used to go everywhere together, I loved being with you. Cold days, hot days, all day, every day. I liked it that even when you were small, you were powerful, the times you were feeling saucy and mixed yourself with chocolate, but mostly, mostly, I think of the times you used to top up with hot frothy milk and we would hang out and go shopping.

I thought I could cope without you, I thought it would get easier, but everyday without you, just makes me realise how long we've been apart. I wonder if I made the right decision, I see you happy with everyone else, I see the joy and pleasure you bring to their lives and I can't believe I just cut you out of my life like I did. I couldn't do it slowly, it had to be brutal, otherwise I would never have found the strength to give you up. My friends have been great, they've rallied around and tried to get me back out in the hot beverage world, suggesting alternatives, but it's no use, they're not you, and you are who I want. Sometimes, when my friends aren't looking, I sniff their cups...

Yours sincerely,

Pass The Brush...

Dear Niece,

The Matisse might have gone for 31.4 million, it's still not worth as much as the picture you made for me that hangs on my fridge...

Yours sincerely,

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Oscar Is Safe....

Dear Certain Stylists,

I hope you're happy. I hope in your endless pursuit of everything looking just so, you're pleased you have killed imagination, true style and a knack for the quirky. Another Oscar ceremony, another round of mind numbingly dull shades of grey, black and navy abominations.

No one tries to be different at these things anymore and so everyone looks the same, not good, not bad, just an endless array of bland. Angelina Jolie in another black, sleeveless floor length number with hair that looks like it was styled by The Waltons. Kate Winslet chose to come dressed as my Nan. You have relegated them, and by them, I mean everyone in Hollywood, to the same style, same face, same shape fits all. Lets not rock the boat, heaven forbid someone should take a risk. No one got it horribly wrong, no one got it fantastically right, it was like one steaming big bowl of porridge, when what you really wanted was french toast and maple syrup. I wanted feathers, orange faces, white boobs and diamonds, I don't care about the credit crunch, Hollywood, sure as I'm breathing, doesn't care about the credit crunch, they're loaded, bring on the vulgarity, you're not fooling anyone! I want to be the peasant to your Marie Antoinette, I am outside the bakery looking at the cakes and all you had to offer was wholemeal loaf.

Oh I could weep for the days when Cher rocked up looking like she forgot her pony and Bjork wrapped herself in a swan, a swan I tell you, a swan. Crazy? Certainly. Forgotten? Never...

Yours sincerely,

Friday, February 20, 2009

Guilty Pleasures...

Dear Beyonce,

Still not tired of it, still trying to do the dance, still putting my back out every time I get too low....

Yours sincerely,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVEGfH4s5g&NR=1

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Where For Art Thou...?

Dear Players,

Everyone really is a critic. I went to see your production of Romeo and Juliet last night. I'm sorry I snorted with laughter when Juliet died. Actually, I'm sorry I snorted full stop, snorting is a most unattractive, yet rare occurrence, but you do know something is really funny when it happens. It's also the most tragic aspect of your show, that people are snorting, when they should in fact be soldering back together the pieces of their broken heart. I'm not heartless, normally I cry when it gets to that part, normally the rest of the cast aren't trying to out cry each other, great big racking sobs and that was just the men. I felt like I was trapped in a never ending Catholic mass of childhood, you know you shouldn't be laughing, but it's just impossible to stop. I kept expecting Sister Katherine to haul me into the office. The lady beside me was cross, I'm pretty sure Romeo heard me. If Mercutio hadn't been rocking a shoulder shake of his own, he would have kicked my ass...

Yours sincerely,

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

I'm Hanging Up Now....

Dear Are You My Friend Or Not,

You can't keep all your secrets to yourself and want to know mine also. If I wanted you to know every single intimate detail, then surely I would post my own pay per view website and be done with it.You're really going to have to stop asking, at the very least, ask me how I am before you ask me if I got laid, I mean if you really need me to list the things he did in alphabetical order, we have a problem. I'm happy you've met a girl, I'm not sure why you feel the need to keep it secret, we share a lot of friends, who aren't very good at keeping secrets. Unlike you, I don't want to know the details, I have a vagina, I know how they work. Real friends, do not bargain or trade information, they simply talk, you'd do well to remember that, or soon, soon, you will have no one to talk to at all...

Yours sincerely,

Swim For Your Life...

Dear Horrified Self That Swam Into Another Band Aid,

Someday I hope to be rich enough to afford a swimming pool just for me. Not one other person shall be allowed to swim in it. They can have their own pool, over by the west wing... This may seem elitist, but having spent however many years swimming in public pools, one of these days, it would be lovely to know that the plaster I have just swam into, is mine and mine alone...

Yours sincerely,

Saturday, February 14, 2009

On Your Marks...

Dear Cupid,

Happy Valentines Day! I bet you're exhausted, I bet you've drawn your bow so many times already today, that your arm no longer feels like your own. I bet you used every arrow you own and even whittled a few more. I bet you were freezing prancing about in possibly the coldest winter in England for 19 years. I mean it's not too bad down south, but man, up north? Brrrr...

Does it annoy you when people say it's a hallmark holiday? Does it undermine all your hard work? Does it really irritate some people so much, they feel the need to dismiss a day that celebrates love? Does the weight of cynicism in the world sometimes feel too heavy for your little wings and making flying difficult, or is that just wind?

I wonder, when you get back to your cloud will there be a Valentine waiting for you? I wonder do you have a girlfriend? I wonder is there someone baking heart shaped cookies for you as I type? I wonder if you've ever heard the words I love you? I wonder if you've ever been so lonely you shot yourself with your own arrow?

How did you become who you are? What qualifications did you require? Did you have to take a course? I hope the benefits are good, even if the people are a little ungrateful. Feel free to swing by mine for cookies...

Yours sincerely,

Monday, February 09, 2009

Peepo...

Dear George Bush,

Sometimes I wonder what you're up to, now that no one is watching you...

Yours sincerely,

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Affirmative...

Dear Bluetooth Headset Wearer,

Years from now, when a chip has been inserted into my arm and my eyeball is removable in order to make scanning my retina easier, I will think of you, for you, you are where it began...

Yours sincerely,

Friday, February 06, 2009

Bagel...


Dear Indifference,

Welcome back! I love it when you arrive in my town, sweeping up the remnants and placing them in a box marked over. I adore you, I know, I know, such declarations of emotion do not sit well with you, but I do. I never tell you, which I'm sure you appreciate, you're a pretty cool customer, but truth is, you get me excited.

We should celebrate your return, I see you so rarely, and for this I'm grateful, which I don't say to be unkind, I'm sure it doesn't trouble you to hear that. You are the friend I like to hang with from time to time, not all the time though, life is too short. I'm sure you could care less about these things, but I know you find my enthusiasm amusing. You always know when to show up, just when I need you most and I want to thank you.

I've always thought love and hate were two sides of the same coin, flip it and see where it lands. It's as much to do with luck and chance as it is to do with variable difference, conditions must be right if it's to go in my favour. It seems it requires as much effort to hate someone as it does to love them, same feeling, different manifestation. I've never really boarded the hate train, I think I did once, very briefly, standing room only, so I got off at the next stop. I'm just never sure what to do with the leftover love and then you show up and I find I no longer care.

Sweet indifference, your arrival takes my smile out of my pocket and puts it back on my face...

Yours sincerely,

Arse About Face...

Dear Roomate,

I found your new soap in the shower this morning, it made me laugh out loud and scared my rubber ducky, thanks for the tip off...


Yours sincerely,

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Have Your Cake And Eat It...

Dear Jessica,

There are many reasons to make fun of you, in the way that people with my taste sometimes make fun of people with your taste and vice versa.
You like new, I like old, you like flawless, I love a good flaw, you like it to be gleaming and ready to go, I have no problem scrubbing away the layers to see what's underneath. We're just different, plus you've released some truly terrible films and I'm loathe to use the word music but yeah, horses for courses, music. I thought that allowing cameras to film your newly married life was pretty crass too if I'm honest, all the special, new moments, that belong to just two people, or at least should belong to just two people, for the right price, were made available to the viewing public. The saddest part about that? Your dad brokered the deal.

The point being, and there is a point, you are not fat.

I'm sick of every pound on a woman's body being up for scrutiny. I'm dismayed that this is a story that made the evening news two nights running. It beggars belief that you are still smaller than most normal women out there, yet the women's magazines with the front cover of your supposed chubby demise, were the top sellers this week. If the coverage wasn't so rank, I'm sure it would be laughable.

Yes Jessica, there are many reasons to make fun of you, please see first paragraph, but having a slice of cake isn't one of them...

Yours sincerely,

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Disgracebook...

Dear People Who Tag Really Awful Pictures Of Their Friends,

No one, I repeat, no one, ever wants to see a really ugly, unflattering picture of their person on the internet, no matter how funny you think it is. I do not want everyone who knows me, to see what I do, all the time. Every party, every drink, every stumble, every adventure, every kiss, every hug, every bad date, every good date, every in joke, every country walk, every city rampage, every moment that I thought was between us and just us alone.

I do not need to have your camera in my face at any given moment of the evening. I do not need to stop what I'm doing so you can take a picture. I do not need to repeat what I've just done because you're stupid camera phone didn't get the shot. I most certainly do not need to act naturally while you do it.

I appreciate I could just come off Facebook, the thing is though, and I hope you understand, my job takes me away a lot and I love looking at my peoples pictures, their weddings, their birthdays, their holidays, their special days they wanted to share, but let's have a little etiquette here. I have one chin, that's all, one, that particular angle gave me six, tagging that, the week after we break up, this is not how I want him to see me. I had the flu, I was tired, yet somehow, you made me look like I needed The Betty Ford Clinic. He's my cousin, he's my brother, he's my best friends boyfriend, he's my boss, he's my room mate, he, he is my Dad! It is not a succession of lovers that could get me a job in Nevada.

I dread the words so and so tagged a picture of you, appearing in my inbox, particularly if it's there in the morning. I'm lucky, my friends are international, it means there's always someone to talk to. I'm unlucky my friends are international, it means someone always sees it before I wake up...

Facebook, reacquainting you with old friends and reminding you why you lost touch in the first place...

Yours sincerely,

No Good Comes From Teeny Tiny Drinks...

Dear Devil On My Shoulder,

I saw you push the angel off the other night, I watched and did nothing. I would have intervened, but my hands were full of too much fun at the time.

I thought he might have flown back up, fought his corner, fought my corner, but instead he threw his hands in the air and started knocking back tequila, he's a really good dancer for someone with wings...

Yours sincerely,

Monday, February 02, 2009

It's All About The Foundation...

Dear Big Brother,

I miss you today, it's snowing, you have always been my favourite person to play in the snow with.

I have never met anyone who can make a better fort than you. I remember when we were little and you made one that lasted for 6 days, all the others had melted, the last one standing in a concrete jungle. Everyone was so jealous, I was so proud. I hope you are making one with your babies today. You make the best forts...



Yours sincerely,