You are, Number Six

Last night I dreamt I was being held prisoner in The Village, and Number 2 was asking me interview-style 'Moral Dilemma' questions. My flippant answers weren't going down too well; they were trying to prove I was crazy. I told a joke about being suffocated in a lift, and everyone laughed. Then they stopped laughing and I carried on, hysterical, because I didn't see why I shouldn't. I knew I wasn't crazy.

with one hand i'm still

Brrrrainsss

Ok. So. As far as I understand it, Hallowe'en is the celebration and continuation of an ancient pagan holiday upon which men and ladies were encouraged to make their own clothes, drink semi-lethal punch in a stranger's house and spend all evening explaining who they were supposed to be.

Naturally, all ladies' costumes must be "Sexy (Something)". Unfortunately some of us are mildly handicapped in this arena and this is the reason that in previous years I have attempted to be a Sexy Punk, a Sexy Witch, and a Sexy Harriet Potter, with varying degrees of success (failure). This year I have given up all pretence and just want to dress like an idiot on the one day of the year that it is actively encouraged.

Current options:

1) Sexy Gran: This requires a charity shop dress, very comfy shoes, those really thick flesh-coloured tights over drawn-on varicose veins, a liberal application of talcum powder, and a handbag with a brick in it.

2) Sexy Man: This requires a pair of braces, some Brylcreem, and a borrowed moustache.

3) Sexy Boy George: This evolved from the idea of 'Sexy Man'. Frankly I feel it is cheating to go as yourself.

4) Sexy Lush: This requires a ripped puffy 80s cocktail dress, smeared makeup, back-combed hair and a grafted-on martini.

5) Sexy Housewife: This requires that I just stay at home, and may be for the best.

WHO'S A CLEVER GIRL THEN

(It is me! I am!)

Fishies.

Jane Eyre

This is my entire joy at the moment. I love it. I love Jane, and I love Rochester, and I love all this "although stoical, I was not quite a stoic" stuff. It probably says something about my repressed submissive nature but I am apparently a sucker for lowly-governess-falls-
in-love-with-sexy-lord-of-the-manor, and I look forward to my Sunday night fix of budding doomed romance with all the illicit glee it deserves.

(Shame about the mad wife in the attic, of course, but the intention was good.)

Jobs!

I've been offered a freelance position with A Company. I would mostly be freelancing the likes of 'research' and 'model answers', for which they will reimburse me financially. Lovely.

But I'm a cynical lady and have to suspect that maybe these model answers are being sold on for the purposes of STUDENT CHEATING. On the sly, of course; that was no part of the application bumpf.

I'm torn. On the one hand, it's money for something I can do standing on my head in the dark. On the other hand . . . well, it's STUDENT CHEATING. I've lost a lot of my principles, but this one is still pretty strong. I don't want to encourage lazy students, but I do want money!

Moral existential angst!

Last night, a lightbulb on my landing EXPLODED! I'm still picking glass out of my hair. I love drama.

I'm not qualified for the jobs I want. Whose fault is that, I wonder. I'm applying for them all anyway. I've got the wrong class of the wrong degree, and I'm in the wrong part of the country: but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Yes, I'm numerate, yes I'm a team player, I'm good with children, English is my first language.

I write online applications for John Lewis's graduate IT scheme; I take proficiency tests for NATS. I hear that the NHS is short of radiographers. I find my GCSE Maths certificate and send it to ACCA.

But then, in the evenings, I turn off the computer and sit at the dining room table and drape myself in fabric, and uncut patterns, and miles and miles of unbleached 36s polycore cotton thread. I inhale fraying threads like asbestos, and I unpick and re-press and wish I'd paid more attention in Year Nine Domestic Science instead of sticking pins into Joanne Strange. The next day I go back to accountancy. Because sewing bits of fabric together is no way to make a living, is it (and even if it was, I'm not qualified to do it).