Fat Alcoholic. 18th January 2008

I spent most of the day listing CDs on Ebay. Who buys this shit? 

I mean Matmoth really.. Listing things on Ebay only requires about a fifth of the brain so with the remaining parts I began to worry.

1. I drank two bottles of wine yesterday, by myself, which is very stupid, I hadn’t considered myself to be very stupid but I suppose very stupid people rarely do. Am I an alcoholic? Should I send another e-mail to my mother detailing massive drinking problem and apologising fulsomely? 

2. I have had no response from my mother to the e-mail I sent yesterday. This is not in itself very surprising because she doesn’t know how to open an e-mail and if by chance my father has opened the e-mail for her and she actually read it, rather than assuming it was just an Ottolenghi salad recipe, she has probably taken to her bed. 

3. Last night Abigail ate some peas and lettuce and then she sat in the sitting room with John and me and retched into a bowl whilst talking about her plans for her 18th birthday. 

Is that my fault? 

Aren’t mothers who over identify with their daughters nauseating? What is the correct response to an emaciated 17 year old retching into a bowl of an evening ? Neither John or I have one. 

We sat there chatting to her as if it wasn’t happening, 

John said she looked rather ill and she said, 

‘I know. Shall we have the party in that place in Clerkenwell? Or do you think it would be better if we didn’t have a party at all and me and Ellie could go to Paris for a couple of days?

‘I’m very worried about her.’ I slurred drunkenly to John as I fell into bed munching a sleeping pill.

4. My mother definitely has a point if only she could have couched it in more positive terms. For instance she could have said, 

‘Darling I know you are a miserable drunken 44 year old drug addict with an anorexic daughter but I absolutely love the way you’ve done your sitting room. You really must tell me where you got that curtain fabric.’ And she could have rung at about 11.30 instead of 8.30.

I checked my e-mail and The Daemon Mailer Server had sent me a message to the effect that my parents’ e-mail has a fatal and inconsolable flaw so my mother won’t have received mine. Hurray. What a narrow escape.

I am going out this evening with my friend Ellis. Ellis is a psychiatrist, he is gay, so his wife, Rose left him and their children to pursue her dream of becoming a writer - in a flat in Walthamstow.

  Ellis may know someone who could help Abigail. Abigail is not a person who would take kindly to Haringey Mental Health Services. All that cracked lino and underfunding are not her thing. She’s more of a Harley Street kind of girl. I’ll ask Ellis if he knows any eating disorder specialists with practices in stucco fronted Victorian houses.

Ellis and I are going to see a play in the West End starring Christian Slater, I’m not sure who Christian Slater is. Helen Baxendale is in it too.

Usually, I never go out any more unless I have an invitation to the aftershow party. It can’t be just any aftershow party either. It’s no good if someone from Liberty X is there. It has to be Led Zeppelin, in a box, at the O2 with Jeremy Clarkson and Oasis or a private screening of Phil Daniels’ latest film in a posh hotel with all the actors producers and directors or I’m just not interested. I’m not sure how that happened to me. I think it’s because I don’t like going out and I need proper incentives.

Helen Baxendale is very thin. I wonder if half an hour on the exercise bike in the playroom would make me any thinner before this evening. 

I must go and buy Abigail some more peas and salad.

I need to phone the vet about Maisie’s rabbit. She thinks he needs neutering. 

Yesterday she was lying on the sofa watching Watership Down on my laptop with her rabbit sitting on her chest when he bit her. 

‘I really don’t think Watership Down is very suitable viewing for rabbits.’ She said, ‘He may have been influenced by the violence.’ She stroked his fat brown head and met my eyes with her own clear blue orbs. ‘Could you please take him to the vet and have him mutated. It might make him better tempered.’ 

Perhaps I should get Zac done at the same time.

18th January 2008 - Getting used to it.

 Illegal Taxi Drivers

18th Birthday Party.

Last night was fun. We took a Premier cab to the Vaudeville Theatre on The Strand. The cab was tied together with string and smelt of damp, corrugated iron, mothballs and it’s driver. He was from Africa but he had Satnav. An ambulance roared down Long Acre, sirens blaring and our driver veered into a side street, screeched to a halt, and sat, cracking his knuckles, trying to steady his breathing.

‘It’s ok.’ I said ‘We’ll walk from here.’

The play was called Swimming with Sharks. It was American and Helen Baxendale’s accent didn’t slip once. She really is very thin.

Later we took a cab to a pub in King’s Cross to meet John. The Lord Lucan is the worst pub in the world, so we stayed a while. 

John and a PR called Nat had been to a club to see an up and coming singer called Thao. The pub was full of tiny Asian girls and edgy urban musos. Ellis was thrilled by the sheer youngness of the people John hangs out with. 

This morning Ellie’s mother rang.

‘What about this party?’ she said.

‘What party?’ I replied.

I never seem to know what is going on. 

Apparently Ellie and Abigail are sharing a party in Ellie’s parent’s basement but Ellie’s mother was worried because she had found an e-mail that said ‘The shubs are gonna be late and hot.’ or something and did I know what that meant and where was Abigail?

Abigail had taken a fistful of £20s from my money jug and had disappeared into Covent Garden so I couldn’t help but I said that all Ellie and Abigail’s friends are nice girls who drink diet coke and talk about art so it would probably be fine.

Ellie’s mother said last time they came over for a quiet evening in, they had pushed the garden wall over and an Italian neighbour had come out and threatened them with a baseball bat.

‘They must have been some other girls.’ I said. 

You can’t account for neighbours. I wouldn’t want to live next door to me if someone pushed my garden wall over. I think I’ll get baseball bat.

I must talk to Abigail when she comes in.