06/11/04 - Space Cake
The early 1990s brought me an annus horribilis - I was 17, had a Saturday job selling fishing magazines and a teenage sweetheart who thought that weed was the answer to all my woes. It wasn't.
It started on Valentine's Day. I bought 12 red roses and left them on his doorstep. I waited for him to reciprocate the gesture. He didn't. The 15th, 16th and 17th of February passed and still nothing. On the 18th, his effort arrived - a dry marble cake laced with marijuana. Poking from the top was one of the roses I had given him four days previously.
Precedence was set. Months later, I was referred to an ophthalmologist for a devastating diagnosis. I was a desperate heap. I called on my boyfriend. He didn't know what to say. He remained silent and responded to the crisis with the presentation of another one of his space cakes.
December arrived and I got glandular fever - my luck had surely run out. Everyone asked who I'd been kissing. My mum called my boyfriend on the Saturday to tell him I'd been admitted to hospital. Monday passed, so did Tuesday. By Wednesday, the hospital radio had played D:Ream's Things Can Only Get Better for the hundredth time. I realised things couldn't get much worse as my cake-wielding boyfriend finally arrived four days late, brandishing one of his freshly baked specialities, to help soothe my rasping throat.
13/11/04 - Growing Old
My friend turned 30 and moaned that she was 'getting on' a bit. In reality she looks 18. Her face is flawless. Spidery lashes hang from her oversized eyes and the soft milk of her curves makes me curdle with envy.
Everyone wants to be something they're not. We're obsessed with defying two fundamental laws of physics; gravity and time. But there are no exceptions. The truth is, time only moves in one direction, and with it, the weight of the world comes sagging down.
Complaining about aging is like complaining that you've still got a pulse. It's given. Age happens to the lucky. The unlucky are the ones who never grow old because they die young.
But I admit it, I've been sucked in. Adverts work. Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror and wonder if I would look better with my big ears pinned back or my arse slung back up where it belongs. I oscillate between thinking cosmetic surgery is the greatest waste if self indulgent time imaginable, and hypocritical contemplation. Then I'm reminded that one day I won't see to know what I look like anymore. I guess the odd wrinkle won't really matter then will it?
But what if it matters to everyone else? What if nips and tucks become as common place as the wheel or shouting into a mobile phone? Maybe when I am 55 my menopausal divorcee mates will huddle their stretched and snipped faces together over a sherry and plot how to tell me that my jowls have really gone beyond a joke and that it's time to have them hauled in down Harley Street.
20/11/04 - Lights Go Up
Arguably it's not very nice, but while I still have the opportunity, I like to judge on looks. Not that I have a penchant for the archetypally good-looking, though. I don't. In fact, certain folk mock that my taste veers waywardly towards the ugly end of the spectrum. If I could stratify the men of the world, Woody would certainly transcend Brad.
Consider it a form of social service. I'm losing my vision; I won't have to look at them for ever. I can help rid the market of the aesthetically challenged. They get to look at me and, in time, I get not to look at them. It's my special favour to the world. However, I do have my limits.
A friend introduced me to a bloke she billed as 'needing a girlfriend'. We met at a party. The lights were dim and my already straining sight was buckling with the booze.
He bought me whiskies and uttered tales of mirth in my ear. Then 'Time!' rang out and the barman flicked the switch. Suddenly I saw him in all his 120-watt bare-bulb Day-Glo glory.
Something about him had touched me in the dark. But, with the lights on, none of that counted any more. A greasy ponytail slithered down his back. The lobes of his ears stretched south under the weight of oversized gold hoops. In fact, he bore a rather uncanny resemblance to a hybrid of the lead singer of Status Quo and a decrepit pirate. Not a pretty sight, really.
27/11/04 - Being 16
Being 16 was good. I thought a lot of things. And I thought I was right.
I thought smoking was good for you. I thought my parents were idiots. I thought I'd be married by the millennium and have four kids by 30. I thought it was OK to have parties in other people's houses when they were away for the weekend. I thought it was no big deal that my friend was sleeping with the dad of a boy in her class. And his friend. I thought the Beatles weren't the best band in the world. I thought Guns N' Roses were.
I thought my dad would never be happy again. I thought spending my taxi money on cider and walking home late and alone was an ingenious plan. I thought I'd never stop loving a boy called Max. I thought my bottle-orange hair looked good. I thought it was a good idea to go up the school field with a floppy boy and get stoned before my English exam. I failed.
I thought I'd own a massive house by the time I was 25. I thought I'd pass my driving test first time round. I thought I'd become a famous sculptor. I thought I'd drive a convertible late-1960s Sunbeam Alpine. I thought I'd look so hot.
I thought I was the same as everyone else. I thought I could see fine. I thought I'd have a normal life. I thought no one could see in the dark, could they? I thought I was just a bit clumsy. I thought I'd grow old and 'see'.
I was wrong.