Contains girl stuff. Tomorrow: tampons!

I have no money. This is not shocking, nor is it a new situation. I struggle to remember a time when I could (truthfully and not as part of some elaborate fantasy game involving faux fur, costume jewellery, too-big high heeled shoes and perhaps an over-application of bright red lipstick) say that I have a lot of money.

I just don't earn very much.

As this is just the common state of affairs it doesn't usually bother me too much. I pay my rent and utilities. I accept that my lipstick costs £2 from some cheap pharmacy, I get most of my accessories from charity shops and nearly all my clothes are coming apart in some way. My favourite dress, for example, cost me £4 from Oxfam. As I say, I accept this. It doesn't really bother me too much. I would like to be able to afford to go out all the time and have expensive dinners and daintily sip Champagne from a silver, diamond-encrusted hat, but I can't.

However. There are some moments when I just think, oh, fucksticks. This poverty lark is rubbish. Breadlines, it turns out, are not all they're cracked up to be.

Yesterday this came in the form of a dress. My day had been unusually stressful and on my way home I wandered into a shop in Old Street station that always has nice pretty clothes to look at. Sometimes I like to try some of the nice pretty things on, and sometimes I just feel the lovely material between my grubby urchin fingers and dream. Perhaps I am taking this 'poverty-stricken' routine a bit far, but my point is I was not in there to buy, just to look.

I have been thinking for the last couple of weeks that what I would really like for my summer wardrobe (I don't have a summer wardrobe. I just wear the same clothes as I do in winter, but just less of them) is a shirt dress. Button down, with a tie around the hips, simple and black. I like wearing skirts and dresses and I have been conjuring up an image of a daytime, mid-thigh length, short-sleeved beauty. I had come to the conclusion that the best I could do was go charity shop shopping and buy a large man's shirt and alter it. By which I mean get Bec to alter it, as I am much more of the staple-it-and-go mentality than the painstaking-needlework one.

However. In this tiny shop in a grubby tube station just inside the congestion zone, there it was. Black. Simple. Button down. A tie around the hips. Mid-thigh length.

£28.

Not a lot of money, particularly for something I have spent hours, nay, days dreaming about and lusting after, like a middle aged woman working in close proximity to John Prescott.

I tried it on. I went into the only free changing room, despite it being the one with the swingy door that won't stay shut, and constantly swings in on you while you're hopping around trying to get out of your jeans unless you use your elbow to keep it shut.

Oh, the dress. It was so nice.

It was so friendly and happy to see me, as I was it. "Look!" It seemed to chirp, helpfully. "Wouldn't I be practical? Useful for day and evening times alike? With heels or flats? I would be your friend! What japes we would have! I think I love you."

Reader, I loved it too. I did. It was perfect.

As I got onto the tube five minutes later I thought sadly of my dress, hanging in the shop, staring forlornly out at my retreating form. It didn't understand. It felt rejected, and I don't blame it. The chemistry between us was undeniable.

However, as I sit here in my ripped jeans and faded top, I find myself not really minding. Being poor is a part of my life, part of the way I choose to live at the moment. If I worked in a bank or some big company that paid me loads of money to schmooze and stuff, I wouldn't feel I was doing what I wanted to be doing. I also suspect that I'd be really crap at it.

I'm going to go to West Hampstead on Saturday, because there are really nice charity shops there, and see what I can get, allowing myself a budget of twenty quid.

I have also decided that when I get my website all sorted I will allow myself a treat. It's taking a lot of work, a lot of negociating with people and asking favours, the sort of PR shit that I hate. I have a sort of a mantra that helps me and stops the feelings of impatience and frustration bubbling beyond control. I say to myself "tenacity and timing", because I firmly believe that, whilst things take hard work and perseverance, they should not be rushed or compromised on too much, not if they're ever going to be worth anything.

Anyway, my treat that I have promised myself is another tattoo. On my left wrist, of a tiny star in black. People have expressed concern for the location, but it just makes me want to do it more, because I have been thinking about it for about a year now. I love the idea of it, and have spent days with a star drawn on my wrist in black biro, because I am mainly very cool. Don't go to sleep with black biro on your wrist, though, because I heard from someone who is definitely not me at all that you can perhaps wake up with it all over your face.

So, what I'm trying to say is that sometimes I can't afford to buy things that make me feel like a princess, but that I don't really mind. My life is alright as it is, where it is going, and I wouldn't change it for all the gorgeous, daytime-or-nightime, perfection-with-buttons dresses in the world.