or meaning by floating on the surface of the Lake of Life and never diving down to the depths? Disha and I don’t think so.
THURSDAY 18 JANUARY
There is a God! There really is! And He’s ON MY SIDE!!! Sigmund caught Justin getting ready to take a picture of him while he was peeing (Sigmund, not Justin) and he went BERSERK!!! You’d never believe Sigmund makes his living being reasonable in this dead calm way if you’d seen him waving the roll of film about. He would’ve had the camera too, but the Mad Cow snatched it away just in time. I think she thought it was funny, because she left the room v quickly after that. I thought it was hilarious. Sigmund got so worked up that he got one of his migraines and had to go to bed.
Thursday nights I usually mind Mrs Kennedy’s twins, Shane and Shaun, while she goes to her computer class and then out for a drink with her mates, but tonight she rang to say she had a cold and wasn’t going out after all. Mrs Kennedy is in two of Sigmund’s groups (the wives of men in prison support group and the low self-esteem group), and now, under the guidance of a man who can never find his car keys, she’s getting her life together. At four quid an hour she can get everyone’s life together for all I care. Not that the twins are easy. They aren’t manic like Jupiter, but there are TWO of them. God knows I could use the money (getting money out of Sigmund or the Mad Cow is harder than putting your eye make-up on in the dark), but I could also really use the break from them. Children definitely don’t fit into the DP. From what I can tell, most of the Great Writers and Artists didn’t have that much to do with children – if anything. Not even the women. D agrees. She says Shakespeare had the twins and all, but she doesn’t think he took them every other weekend or anything like that. On the other hand, the MC doesn’t like Mrs Kennedy, so me going over there usually winds her up (one has to snatch bits of happiness where one can in this life!). The MC says she doesn’t like Mrs Kennedy because she shows right-wing racist tendencies (she votes Tory and once asked the MC what her ethnic background is), but I reckon it’s really because Mrs Kennedy’s v attractive in an
Eastenders
sort of way and the MC (being about as attractive as bog roll) resents her. It’s a pretty common syndrome.
FRIDAY 19 JANUARY
Disha and I had another long talk about MEN AND LOVE this afternoon. Should I go after David? Should I go after Flynn? Should I go after Marcus? It’s a big decision to make. Marcus is a v good artist, which gives us a Spiritual Connection , but he’s got a v square face and only one eyebrow and isn’t as good-looking as David or Flynn. David is not only v attractive and in possession of serious muscle definition, he’s also a musician (I know the drums aren’t exactly the violin, but it still counts). Musicians have an intensity that I respond well to. Flynn’s skinny but v sexy (D and I agree it’s his eyes – his lashes are longer than mine when I’m wearing lash-lengthening mascara), and though he isn’t a painter or a musician he is v literary. (One time when we were all at his and excruciatingly bored we played his parents’ Trivial Pursuit and Flynn was incredible! Even Disha was impressed, and you already know how much she reads!) But he did start a food fight at Lila Jenkins’s Hallowe’en party, which was v juvenile, even though he did get Catriona Hendley smack in the face with a handful of jelly, which was pretty hilarious and ruined her hair! Sometimes I think that if I could put them all together I’d have the perfect man. After all, if you do end up having sex with someone you get to be on pretty intimate terms with his penis, don’t you? I don’t think I’d be able to be on intimate terms with the penis of someone less than close to perfect. And also I do worry that there’s no real Frisson , as the French (who seem to know a lot about Passion and
Learning to Kill: Stories