Wednesday Do-s and Don't-s

DO (Oh by all means, do):

- Take the day off work
- Go to London Zoo
- Take an attractive man along with you (who did call, as it happens)
- Look at animals (for which it is very handy to be in a zoo)
- Feel like the lions somehow KNOW that they are your namesake and also that perhaps if you were faced with one in a jungle-battle it would also somehow KNOW that you are an honorary lion and are not to be harmed.
- Not necessarily test this theory.
- Go to a lovely pub in Camden (The Edinboro Castle) (it's so lovely!) and have Irish coffee to warm up. Mmmm. (oh, the loveliness!) (because nice plush old-fashioned luxurious but trendy and sofas and Irish coffee and Irish man [Sarah: please stop laughing at me] [self: please stop with the parentheses thing it's not really funny no one likes it])
- Go out to Soho and get drunk

DON'T (take my word for this - I know you've got to learn your own lessons in life but TRUST ME I know what I'm talking about and yes this may be only the time that has ever happened so go with it - do it for me and I promise I'll stop writing rambling sentences that make no sense even to me):

- Have your bag stolen in aforementioned lovely pub.

(Intejection here. So, I'm in this pub at about 4.30pm. We'd been out walking around London Zoo and it had been one of those days in which the sky is ice-blue: sharp and beautiful. Autumn leaves thick and prolific. In short, a perfect day to be wandering around Regent's Park and then wandering around the zoo marvelling at thick snakes and laughing delightedly at monkeys. By four o'clock the zoo was closing, and we were freezing, despite my earlier grand claim that I 'do not really feel the cold'. [HA. I was freezing. I'm not sure whether maybe I thought that such a claim would be impressive. I know it isn't. Um.. anyway.] So we wandered down to the pub, this lovely, lovely place with fairy lights, rich sofas and an atmosphere that reminds you that to be alive and free on a beautiful autumn day in London, that is a good thing. We ordered two Irish coffees, I went to the toilet to check I didn't have lion shit all over my face or some other such disaster the likes of which would not surprise me at all. I did not. It was panning out to be one of those lovely days in which, even though there are plenty of opportunities to HAVE lion shit on your face, you don't, and life is good.

UNTIL. Oh ho ho.

I walked over to the sofa, took off my jacket and sat down.
THERE WAS NO ONE ELSE IN THE WHOLE AREA. NOT ONE PERSON AT ALL.
The nice barlady brought us our coffees and we wrapped our hands around them, tasting the rich whiskey taste through the coffeeness. And lo! It was good.
Well. I needed lip balm. I always need lipbalm and it was a sign of me having a nice time that I hadn't got it out of my bag as yet. I reached down for my bag, which I had placed by my feet.
I reached, my eyes not moving from that chap sitting opposite me on the sofa.
I felt around a bit.
IN VAIN, PEOPLE.
Oh how we laughed.
Because, and excuse me feeling the need to reiterate:
THERE WAS NO ONE ELSE IN THE WHOLE AREA. NOT ONE PERSON AT ALL.

Goodbye little phone with all my numbers and some lovely photos on you! Goodbye little cash card with access to my overdraft! Goodbye book I'm halfway through! Goodbye important and expensive items of make-up! And, oh! Goodbye as well to KEYS to the flat I am staying in while my friend Kate is on holiday so that I can feed her cats! GOODBYE TO ALL OF YOU!

Why HELLO ever increasing propensity to attract crime!

Fuck, is what I think I may have repeated once or twice.

So that was that. Lots of phonecalls later I had sorted everything out, but I was still money-less, phone-less, really-nice-bag-less, key-less.

So I did what any sensible rational person would do.

I got drunk.

So anyway, back to that list...)

- Get drunk, convince yourself that the chap you spent the day with doesn't really like you at all, and flirt ruthlessly with other men to make yourself feel better about your IMAGINARY rejection.
- Be a massive idiot who pre-empts rejection to the extent where you confuse and baffle someone who just spent the day with you.

I am SUCH an idiot, because, you know, it turns out he DID kind of like me and I am just a fucking fuckwit who is just silly. But, you know, it was alright in the end.

(IMPORTANT INFORMATION: This is NOT, repeat NOT a boyfriend situation. The person in question is not a permanent resident of this country and THAT IS FINE. [Have you noticed that I've now teamed writing everything in parentheses with massively over-employing the USE OF EMPHATIC CAPITAL LETTERS?])

But, yeah whatever. My bag got stolen. I fucked up with a man. My God both are just so massively surprising that my head has literally spun right off.

It's alright, though, I am laughing really. Through a two-hours-of-sleep-and-eighty-zillion-glasses-of-wine-induced hangover.

Oh, and while I'm here: Sarah, I hope your interview went well. I'd text you, but, well, you know.