IF EVERYBODY KNOWS HOW IT'S GONNA END

WHY DOESN'T SOMEONE STOP ME


I've had the weirdest week.

These glasses were in the staff shop.

Last week, someone asked me do I still keep a journal. I said no. This week, someone entirely different gave me a new one, as a gift. As encouragment!

My legs ache from Tuesday but every time I get into the hottest bath to soak, I remember about all the grazes from Sunday and leap out again, screeching. This leaping action makes my legs hurt even more. At work I have taken to wheeling myself around the office in my chair. Sometimes I try to get people to push me.

I spend too much time staring at Boy Who Wears a Tie. He is so perfect in his awkward grace.

My friend and I are taking it in turns to commit outrageous mischief, to liven up the day. My idea of mischief is stealing pens. His idea of mischief is crystal meth in the salad bar.

So, I am pretty gross!

This is a fact.

Specifically, I've had an ear infection for over a year. I've had this thing for so long that I'm getting used to it. I'll miss it when it's gone. I've had it for longer than I've had some friends, and I don't miss any of them. Periodically I go to see a healthcare professional and they prescribe ear drops which don't do anything and which I either lose or sell on the black market to fund my chronic flip-flop habit.

But yesterday, I went back to the doctor, who has finally done some actual tests. I went back because he sent me a letter saying 'Please come back, we have discovered something we had not expected."

He discovered that I have got MRSA . I have got MRSA in my goddamn ear!

Thank you, Gordon Brown!

I am quite giddy with excitement.

I never complain about tax. I think that free healthcare, education and a police force who seem to get things right most of the time are worth a few hundred quid a year, and I would gladly pay more tax if it meant that nurses were paid more, every citizen had access to an x-ray machine, and that no child would ever again have to share a dissecting-frog with Pongo from the Lower Fourth.

But! When we studied the numbers in Mr Brown's Budget (i.e. played on the BBC's budget game), I discovered that this year I will actually be £3.89 better off! Everyone wins!

I have spent quite some time planning what to spend it on. Maybe it is time to get married, have a family. I will pay off my student debts and throw a lavish turn-of-the-century party in my brand-new mansion. You are all invited! A magnum of champagne for each of my very best friends, and two to the man who invented the corkscrew. I will domesticate a snow leopard cub and drink only fresh apple juice from martini glasses which have been carved out of glacial ice, harvested from remote Norwegian fjords by a team of trained unicorns.

Thank you, Gordon Brown, for making my simple dreams possible.

everyone says that you're so fragile

:(

Today's news:

I have had to phone 30 different tiny Boots stores today to explain why they have mistakenly received two years' worth of stock of one particular line. It was not my fault, btw.

I throughly recommend phoning tiny Boots stores if you are ever feeling a bit down because literally every single person I've spoken to today has been an absolute sweetheart and they have turned a very stressful day into a garden of the greatest joy.

BEARD INDEX

Practice makes perfect!

I wasn't meant to work in an office. I'm clearly too rare and delicate a flower. I don't care about making money, not even for myself. I never have.

All I like is going swimming on summer afternoons, and making rabbits out of spare felt, and seeing how curly my hair can be. I am sort of clever but also sort of irresponsible. I make a lot of mistakes. I've got a lot of history, but no common sense.

On Friday, someone offered to buy the company I work for, for £10 a share. This would mean that we were no longer a public company, but would instead be wholly owned by Doctor No. At least, that's my understanding of the situation.

This morning we had a balcony briefing. I find these hilarious and sometimes this gets me into trouble. I smile too much, at the wrong times. I never listen properly.

Now I've got my fingers crossed that I'll get early retirement and will be able to go and live on Kirrin Island.

I find letters incredibly difficult to write.

Given my book-fag background, this might be surprising. And yet I love to write them. I love to receive them, too, of course. But I love to write them even more. Handwritten letters are like gifts, or maybe like kissing.

But I am crippled by performance anxiety. I want this thing to be perfect, because I want it to be scrutinised. Letters are more personal, more secret, than talking, and each word has to be perfectly chosen because the recipient is going to hold it, and look at it, and know me better for having received it. You can't re-read a phonecall. Good letters should make you cry, regardless of their content.

Sometimes, I write letters that I'm never going to send. I love doing this, too, because then I feel like a fey, secret-keeping heroine.

One day, letters are going to come back into fashion, along with personalised calling-cards, fancy hats and elegant three-storey terraces. On that day I will be Queen of Correspondence.

I had this dream last night.

I'd gone to bed with wet hair but someone shook me awake, telling me the press were outside and there was no time, they wanted to take my picture because I'd won an award. I was confused and cynical and begging for just five more minutes' sleep.

Someone else came to take me through the hotel corridors but he was very cruel and, in my triumphant but unexplained moment of picture-taken-award-glory, made fun of my weird hair and big hands and general unsuitability for award-winningness.

Then I really was woken up, furious and extremely hurt, and was in a dreadful mood all the way to work.

I mean, seriously. I haven't dreamed in months, and this is the best I could come up with.

Friday is the best day for love-letters.

Handwritten notes, folded into tiny fat squares and left in secret places. The best kind of surprise.

I wanted to organise a Secret Cupid letterbox for Valentine's Day. I would have sent everyone a card, and signed a stranger's name to each one. Sometimes mischief has its rewards. Sometimes I just want to tell people that they are fascinating. It didn't have to be about love. I just wanted something shared.

I didn't do it, though. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But when I am in the office, late at night and on my own, I walk around. I don't touch anything. But I need to know how people live their lives. Maybe it's creepy. I just want to leave notes on people's desks. You have beautiful handwriting. I borrowed a teabag. Where did you get that scarf.

Tonight I wanted to leave love letters. Dear boy-who-wears-a-tie, I think you are beautiful. You smile so easily.

But I didn't.