2004-08-04..4:17 p.m.

I�m going to have to apologise before I start anything because this entry is mostly stuff from last week that I never got round to posting. I had a deadline Monday which made any thought of my diary mental purge null and void, and then yesterday I took a glorious day off. But I�m feeling chronological, so Wayne and Garth Back to the Future blippiness initiating now please.

CAN YOU SAY GET TO THE FLIPPING POINT?

Last week, my diet consisted almost solely of crackers and juice. Hmmm..Jacob�s Cream Crackers. To you they may well be as exciting as mouth rot, to my they are the crisp stuff of the gods. But I do think my nutrient levels may benefit from expanding my snacking horizons a little. My usual feast in mouthwatering delights can be found in Waitrose Fruit, Nuts and Seeds. Do you remember the old Skittles adverts which featured different kids experimenting with the fruity taste sensations of those plastic little nuggets? Green + yellow + red + red = Hawaiian Tropic? I think the tagline was something like �Taste the rainbow,� which always made me a little pissed off because if you COULD taste the rainbow, the rainbow would NOT taste like chemical fallout and moulded wax. I don�t like Skittles. But I do like Waitrose Fruit, Nuts and Seeds, and in the same vain as the Skittles Taste Explosion, WFNS is gloriously different with every mouthful. But healthy and full of the natural goodness. Are you still with me? Give it up for long and blustery descriptions!

BAD HABITS GONE WILD!

I seem to have offended the Church Heavies again. I�d forgotten my tobacco at home Thursday and so had to go scrounging off one of the women in Accounts. Our offices are in a converted bus depot � this gorgeous old building, long and cavernous with aged yellow brick and cobblestones. At the back of our unit there�s a thick stone stairwell, turn right and you�re led down to the scattered benches and tables in the courtyard of the gastropub next door, turn left and you�re standing on the gangway that leads to a small theatre company. The gangway stretches above the heads of those eating below, and serves as a perfect little sanctuary for a cigarette: above the bustle, above having to talk to people, or make eye contact. Perfect, too, for a spot of clandestine people watching. (One of my favourite subjects when I�m missioning around London with my camera is people eating. You�re so vulnerable when you eat. Half-aware that there are others around you, yet so involved in the single-minded act of enjoying what�s in front of you. Like people reading, or [in a slightly different sort of consciousness/awareness] people sleeping.)

Regardless, later in the afternoon I was asked casually (re: interrogated) during some teatime banter (re: High Inquisition) if I indeed smoked. I think my affirmative reply (along with my still-kohled eyes and post-coital smug glowiness) has sealed my fate as Queen of the Vices.

UPDATE FROM THE WIDE WORLD OF MONOGAMOUS ENTERPRISES

1. Last weekend (as in the weekend before the one we just had) I finally got round to telling the MC (for whom in future will cease to go by his current definite article status) about the Boy. I was pretty nervous, because he�d been a little off with me lately and I was worried he may have sussed it and was all pissed with me for not saying, but when I told him he was thrilled for us! He told me about bloody time too and congratulated me on my monogamy with his eyes all twinkly and happy and then teased most seriously that if I get ANY inclination to �be naughty� I�d have to break up with Boy first and that he�d be watching to make sure I stuck to it now that I�ve come out*.

2. As I didn�t end up going to the Truck Festival (boo.) I went to watch MCs band instead at the Buffalo Bar. They were fucking GREAT! Pure space pop filled with blippy bloopy sci-riffs and thumping basslines. Synthtastic, my friends. Synthtastic.

Two fab FAB things happened that night, the first being that I was hit on extensively not once but THREE TIMES and fended the fray to the utmost. The second that the after party was held at Chris Corner�s house. As in the Sneaker Pimp. I was in the house of a FUCKING SNEAKER PIMP!!! I this is where this whole music journo thing is taking me, I am sticking to it. some time around 2am MC came up to me and very drunkenly gave me a mid-party peptalk about Matthew, and got slightly gloopy in his affectionate delight that I was doing so well. And I got called a good little Meepski, which is always nice. But seriously, who�s telling me about the virtues of being faithful?? Pot, Kettle, have you met?

3. Then on Tuesday I saw the last of my old lovers and told him that I am no longer capable of copping off without guilt and dissatisfaction with the whole proceedings, and thus it must stop. It was strangely awkward and relieving all at the same time. Awkward because he decided about two minutes later that it was wildly inappropriate for him to be there and that he should go, and then there was all the cringy frightfully casual hugging good bye and the laughing too loud and the immediate physical distancing going from lovely and relaxed lounging to pacing as I tried not to squirm in my seat and tell him to �Sit the fuck down you�re making me nervous.� However, after I shut out the street noises and headed back upstairs after he left, I felt clean. The bleaching effects of honesty. And totally excited! I�d done it! I called up MC almost as soon as he�d left just because I needed to tell someone, and he is the only person around here who�d truly be able to appreciate just how much of a triumph that is.

In the game of Monogamy I have passed Go, collected my �200, and am sitting pretty in one of the penthouses off Fidelity Gardens!

*Boy and I still haven�t really started with the public demonstrations of our ongoing lusting. First it was because it wasn�t serious and I�d rather people not interfere, and then it was because it was all new and neither of us really knew what to do. We�re breaking into the hand-holding and the kissing slowly, but really we�re just like a gay teenage boy teetering on the edge of the closet. Everyone knows, but we have yet to come out.

WHAT STARTED AS INNOCENT BANTER ABOUT *STARS* THAT BREAK INTO THE MUSIC SCENE TURNED INTO THIS (OR PLEASE LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES):

meep: boomshakalaka boom.

grundy le zimbra: Boom BOOM shakalakalaka boom. Or alternatively �Hoogachaka hoogachaka hooga hooga hoogachaka

I'm hooked on a feelin'�