Legs and Lexicons

Not your average pair...

                                                 
I find Englishmen’s legs very funny. I was confronted with a fine pale hairy pair the other day whilst sitting on the tube and I could not stop giggling. I am sure that will tell you volumes about my relationship maturity but I can’t say I care (and at least I can spell it).
I guess what is most worrying is that I had this fit of giggles on the way home from a very intellectual political media debate. It was very interesting but no matter how much I try to stimulate my brain, it isn't long until I revert to type. Not that there is anything wrong with being a bit, well, girly. I like having a broad range of interests after all. Who says you can’t be into brainy things AND have a (rather odd ) sense of humour?

Aside from knobbly knees, new words really crack me up. I’ve heard some humdingers this week. Like wabbing. In fact, I’m wabbing right now. Apparently it means work avoidance behaviour because procrastinating was soooo last year. But my favourite new word is bahookie...as in that Lady Gaga is a real pain in the bahookie. At least she is better than Tiger Woods who is a real twonk. Ha.

I love that language is always evolving. I used to make up words in university essays to sound smart and it seemed to work a treat. Meh. But I think the cleverest new word prize should go to whoever made up “nom de womb”, as in the name parents give to their unborn child like “blimp” or “bubs”. Not that it is a bad thing- one of my friends has properly named her child well before birth and it feels like I already know the kid. Lovely.
Anyway, I’m off to check my ham (legitimate email, as opposed to spam, get it?). Moral of this week’s rather erratic blog? New words are cool and English men should be banned from wearing shorts.

My Crowning Glory

I always thought that blondes have more fun because they didn’t know when they did something stupid. Ignorance is, after all, bliss. I do plenty of stupid things but most of the time realise it before you can say “how did you fall over on a flat surface?” This week alone I have set fire to a tea towel, coughed coffee on a friend’s designer silk top, got stuck in a turnstile (again!) and broke a hand-made family heirloom. I am as accident prone as Anne of Green Gables and yes, just as redheaded.
I wonder if it’s the carrot top that makes me feel a little Bridget Jones. I’m not sure I can prove it. But one thing I know: a recent study has shown that female blondes are not dumber but are actually more confident and aggressive than brunnettes. The University of California study (where else would it be done?!) revealed that blondes are more used to getting attention and their own way and are thus are more likely to get angry to reach their goals. Even women in the study with dyed blonde locks apparently developed the same characteristics whilst the brunettes typically worked harder and expected less special treatment. The study said NOTHING about red heads which just shows how much us spitfires are ignored.

Common belief says that scarlet women have fiery tempers but I think we are perfectly composed creatures. Just don’t call us ginger or take away our sun cream and no one needs to get hurt. We aren’t really a cranky race but we are a rare one. Making up only 2% of the world’s population I think it is high time people start to treat us like the precious rubies we are. I would like a redhead club membership card that gets me free fake tan, carrot cake and VIP entrance to exclusive venues. Amy Adams and Prince Harry can be our leaders and when Ronald McDonald references are outlawed we will deign to use our vampiric skin as solar panels. When that day comes, it will be redheads that have more fun, and about time too.

Valentine's Veto

Me and cupid aren’t friends. Maybe because the last time he shot me with his arrow I called him a big fat baby. Well he started it. Stupid cupid kept making me fall for good looking fools (believe me there are more expressive and less polite ways of describing them). Anyway so I lost my cool, he doesn’t talk to me anymore and as a recurring single I hate Valentine's Day.

Now that Hallmark-excuse-for-money-making day is made worse by the fact that I caved into my mean dentist and got adult braces. So now I look like Ugly Betty despite claiming I’ve invested in teeth bling, I constantly and obviously have food stuck in my teeth and no boy is ever going to look twice at me again. On the upside the appointments are so painful that I can’t eat solids for days afterwards. So thanks to regularly enforced detoxes I’m at least going to look good from the neck down. Maybe if I make fascinators my signature fashion piece no one will notice the metal party going on in my mouth. Anyway, I digress.

My point was that this Valentine's ain’t gonna be any different from previously single years so I need a plan. A plan you say? Yes, a brilliant plan to stave off any loneliness monsters trying to convince me my single life isn’t great. It is. I can go for months on end without waxing anything, buy as many shoes as I like without lying about it and I don’t have to yell at anyone for farting in my lemon-scented home. I would ignore Valentine's but I don’t want to end up like bitter Miss Haversham OR tell anyone all I really want to do is re-read Pride and Prejudice and eat chocolate. But I also refuse to sit in a restaurant watching loved up couples being sickeningly sweet to each other. Ugh, public displays of affection should be illegal. They rate on my bad taste-o-meter somewhere between high cut fluorescent leotards and liking Jordon: that’s extreme.

So what are my options - bungy jumping? Can’t, haven’t got time to go bra shopping. Sabotaging other people’s day? Too easy. Cosmopolitans? Too Sex in The City without the awesome clothing budget. That leaves just one option: I need to get away. Preferably to a country that doesn’t know or care about the shallowest, fakest holiday ever thought of. And if I get a really hot tan, maybe Cupid won’t recognise me when I get back.

Penny for my thoughts?

As I trawl through Freecycle postings of hamster bedding, cloth nappies and out-of-date jam I wonder if I am wasting my time.

I’m all for reducing consumption and recycling (if only because I am down to my last fiver) but somehow Freecycle isn’t coming up with the goods I need: designer heels, dark chocolate and some hot red lipstick. The news that Britain is apparently temporarily crawling out of recession hasn’t seemed to have hit the magazine bosses judging from their seemingly eternal staff freeze so I am skint, broke, ain’t nothin’ but lint in my pretty pockets.

But I’m a girl of action and I thought that it was time to do some research. I scanned something about percentages, stocks and investment options and quickly developed a headache. Then I remembered: I am allergic to numbers. Damn. I needed an alternate plan, much like a super hero who has been temporarily thwarted by their evil enemy. Maybe I could be the next Robin Hood? I could steal from flagrantly rich people that annoy me like Simon Cowell who throws multi-million birthday parties for himself or plastic Paris Hilton (enough said). Then I remembered stealing was illegal and being in jail time might affect my brilliant career. Hmm. So I decided to become a freegan, rummaging in supermarket bins for out-of-date food. One man's trash is another man's free treasure, right? I decided that it also counted eating off other people’s plates when they were in the bathroom and nicking fruit off neighbours’ trees. It was when I thought about how I would get clothes that I realised that my secret plans and clever tricks had more flaws than a Primark jumper. Maybe Micha Barton and Mary Kate Olsen can pull it off but hobo chic just doesn’t work for me. I just end up looking like, well, a hobo. Must be my lack of stylist.

Right before I sold my hair for cash (isn’t that what Britney was doing? Poor girl) I remembered some recent world events and realised I had more money than most, a lot more. And that if I stopped mainlining coffee I could give some more of my money away. I wonder if we all have luxuries we could cut down to fund charities and what exactly would happen in the world if we did. So, penny for my thoughts? I reckon that one’s worth at least a pound.

Introducing me. Oh dear.

I walk out the door running very late, coffee in one hand, totally overweight handbag in the other. I’m thinking “Why can I never remember it always takes longer to get ready than I think it does?” when I slip slapstick style (like on a banana peel) flat on my back. Coffee is somehow miraculously un-spilled and nothing hurt beyond my pride so I gracefully pick myself of the pavement and laugh all the way to work. Just another day in the world of me.

I would like to say my life is glamorous but it ain’t. I may be able to pull off a nice dress (hang on, that sounded wrong) and bake a mean chocolate brownie but sophistication is not my middle name. I’m just an average girl trying to make it back into the magazine industry where I belong and even then, that is more in the Ugly Betty sense than in the fab fashionista sense.

In the meantime I’m just trying to tackle life’s big issues: how to make it through the day without doing something like sneezing juice out my nose in front of my colleagues, trying to invent calorie free chocolate that still tastes like, well, chocolate and remembering that how much I am loved bears no relation to my facebook page. So far I’m not doing too well but I figure if I do this blogging malarkey at least I’ll be accountable to trying even if it is only my parents that reads it (Hi mum! Hi dad!)

Why should you interrupt you week to read my humble blog? Well:

1. I am real. I won’t pretend I’m Belle du Jour or Mother Teresa. Mostly because I’m not.

2. I’m nice. You won’t have to skim over swear words or seedy stories. You may have to cringe at my mistakes but I’m hoping you will be nice about it.

3. I would like you to. And I would like to hear your stories: what makes you tick? Do you fall over for no reason like me? Can you help me muddle through London life with fab city tips? Are you someone other than my mum? If you can answer any of these questions then please put on the kettle, make yourself comfortable and stay for a chat.

Love Miss Londongirl