GOOD THINGS ARE HAPPENING

Well.

So just after I wrote that horribly self-pitying post about how incredibly skint I am, things got better.

1. I got a payrise! I am now earning the magnificent sum of £22,000.

2. I sold my car. For the magnificent sum of £280. Minted.

3. I have moved house. Thank FUCK for that. Still sharing, still insanely expensive, but at least i never have to see my idiot ex-flatmates ever again. Except when I go round to collect my frying pan that I left behind.

4. I have been on holiday. Even better, I ahve been to America with flights paid for by WORK!

HOUSE! Nah....

So.

I was feeling catastrophically sorry for myself. I spentthe Easter break visiting my aged parents back 'home', because, frankly, I've not got anything better to do, and also because I have a sense of duty (unlike my siblings moanmoanmoan).

And I was feeling especially miserable as I waited for the 11.20pm bus from the airport. I am nearly 40 FFS, when am I going to reach the point where I could, say, afford to hire a car for a couple of days? Or book into a hotel for a late night/early morning flight? Or just afford the extra £30 to fly at a reasonable hour in the bloody first place? Anyhow...

On a related topic:

None of my friends live in shitty freezing cold rooms in shitty shared houses with morons. They all own houses; not just houses but massive, fuck-off 4-bed monstrosities. (This bugs me sometimes.)

But on Holy Thursday, as I walked down the streets of my home town, I found myself looking in the various estate agents' windows. And it turns out you can buy a two-bed house in my home town for £70,000.

£70K? I could afford that! Easily. Even with my redundancy-depleted savings and entry-level lucky-to-have-it current job, I could actually Own A House.

But I don't want to. Not in that unremitting shit-pit of a 'city' at least.

I suddenly feel like I have some control over my life again. Living in a shitty shared house is, I suppose, something of a lifestyle choice. 'Cos otherwise I'd fuck off home, wouldn't I?

Just how many bottles of shampoo does one person need?

Cluttering up our bath-shower area, my flatmates appear to need eleven bottles of shampoo and conditioner (that I can see) between the two of them. Plus an at least equal number of shower gel, face wash and other unidentifiable products.

They could perhaps learn something from my mother, who visited for the weekend with a soap dish, toothbrush and toothpaste. Not because she likes (as I do) to sample other people's stuff when she's away visiting. No, this is all she has ever used.

Me, I have:

shampoo - 1
shower gel - 1
soap - 1
conditioner - 1 (not in use, it's for balancing my soap dish on)
facewash - 1

all tidily encased in a basket.

If I did, for some reason, need to have an extra four types of shampoo within arm's reach at any given moment, I'd probably keep them in the cupboard WHERE THERE'S SOME FUCKING ROOM!

Romantic regrets?

...rather than continue taking over comment-space over at GSE's place... I don't think I have any. Not even the first one, who gave me a venereal disease that took over a year to get rid of. Not the backpacking two-night-stand who (allegedly) was hiding tattooes of burning crosses (!!!) under the big black celtic-style ink on his back. Not even the deformed-penis guy. There aren't any ones-who-got-away either. However, in years to come, I suspect I may regret having spent most of my thirties in unplanned celibacy. Hmm

What is she DOING in there?

Neurotic Flatmate is in the shower. It's been nearly ten minutes.

So what? you may be thinking.

She is now going to bed. She will get up in eight hours and have another ten minute shower.

She does this every fucking day. What is there to do in the shower that takes that long?

Breadline

A month in the life of my bank account

Income after tax: 1290

Rent: 483
Electricity and Gas: 53
Water: 9
TV and Broadband: 9
Council Tax: 41
Contents Insurance: 5
TV Licence: 5
Train to work: 97
Car Insurance: 37
Car Tax: 11
MOT: 12
Mobile: 20
Petrol: 30
Union: 16

Remaining disposable income: £473

Let me tell you, it doesn't go too far in this town...

It's never too late to try new things

I've never been a joiner. Never played team sports, never been part of a club, never had a hobby (apart from top secret super-indulgent internet over-sharing, obviously).

Until now, things just seemed to happen organically in terms of making friends or finding people to go to the pub with.

Plus there's never been anything I wanted to do, or learn. Things I like doing with my spare time are reading, mooching around, gym classes (though not the ones where you have to team up with other people), and listening to Radio 4. Not activities you'll ever need an evening class for.

But, being desperately miserable with my living situation and lack of friends to Do Stuff With (see a few posts back), I finally got off my arse, and joined a book group.

And do you know what? I had a great time!

Me and about six other randoms had a few drinks and chatted, mostly not about the book at all. And some of us are going out for a non-book drink soon.

It seems, against all odds, I may have made some new friends.

A 40-year-old woman who's never had a cock in her mouth...

...you're picturing Anne Widdecombe, right?

Actually, she's very attractive - tiny, delicate features, dresses well, looks younger than me (35).

And she's no nun. She's slept with 20-odd men in her life, has had at least two long-ish relationship, loves "snogging" randoms. Worked as a party-hard tour rep for years in her twenties.

How can this happen? Isn't she, at least, curious? And haven't any of these men, ever ... asked?

We didn't get on to the subject of - does she, er, get but not give? I don't know how that would work - it's a reciprocal thing, surely? And if that's not part of your foreplay-type shenans, what else is there?

Maybe there really are people who turn the lights out and get undressed under the duvet?

I'm hoping to see said woman again at some point under similar (girly, tipsy) circumstances, to try to get some answers.

Oh the horror...

...a wedding invite.

I thought I'd seen the last one ever last year. Then, to my immense suprise this week, I got an invite out of the blue.

Wedding's at Easter - wow, how'd they manage to book a church and top venue at such short notice? I thought. Then I realised - with the aid of a bit of facebook snooping - that they got engaged yonks ago. And they seem to have moved in together at some point as well.

Why don't I know all this quite important information? Well because this friend is one of the two that totally dropped off the planet when I lost my job (and no longer had loads of free tickets for them to take advantage of). Actually, it's probably more to do with the fact that they both got girlfriends shortly before that and ... well, you know how that works with some people.

I admit that I am being massively oversensitive and possibly a little bit silly about this.

I also totally cannot afford to go. Or at least, I do not want to spend fuckloads of money on an evening feeling uncomfortable with a bunch of people I used to be friends with five years ago. Oh yeah, and I'd almost certainly be the only single person in the building.

Friends

Am I too old to make new friends?

My flatmates (and supposed new-city-new-life-new-friends) are not bad people. But they irritate me to the point of wishing I'd never met them.

I thought it was just because of THEM: the non-stop shit telly (every single underclass soap and reality show; no news, ever. Not even ITV. Not even the frigging weather), the inability to stack a dishwasher, the lack of understanding of the importance of ventilation, the Capital FM...

Then I though of my (few, remaining) real life friends. And most of them'd be just as bad. How did we ever become friends? A goodly proportion of them were flatmates as well at one time or another, so it's not just the house-sharing thing.

Is it just too late? Am I too intolerant, and set in my ways? Is *everybody* either married, babied or mental?

Am I stuck with what I've got?