2011

Well, I haven't posted since 1986 (approx.), according to Blogger. I feel I ought to buy it flowers or something. It must feel very neglected. I want to tell it that I haven't passed it over for a younger, trendier, more streamlined version (Twitter), nor have I gone back to something old and dependable (actually seeing people with my eyes and, like, talking to their faces). I have just stopped interacting. Honest! I literally haven't communicated with anyone in any way for ages, I promise.

Perhaps.

Life did go all whirly for a good few months before Christmas, though. If I had posted it would have been only to shake you by the virtual shoulders and beg you to help me, please sir/ma'am, help me before collapsing into your virtual arms in a weepy faint, my virtual mouth just a little bit open so you could pour some virtual gin into it.

The cat went and died, which was a pretty shitty thing to do, if you ask me. (Three years is not enough cat-time.) He was all weak and forlorn, staring at me and squawking, so I took him to the vet. The vet was called Bernard and had a very reassuring manner about him. Bernard gave me some pills and some disgusting orange goop to shove down his throat twice a day (the cat's, not Bernard's). It didn't work. Pony/Murko/The Cat needed surgery, which was a bargain at only £400, but we decided we would rather have a cat that a full set of kidneys so took him in. (I had to work that day, so Ben was taking him. Before I left I kissed Pony's tiny, sad little ears with an ugly, sunken feeling, and cried onto his head a bit.) He died on the operating table. We still owe the vet £300, but cannot even sell our kidneys now because we had to drink so much to get over the whole thing.

Other things that have died: my bike (Glinda) and my computer. Glinda has Back Wheel Disease, which means that no matter how many times you replace the back wheel inner tube she gets a puncture almost immediately. The thing about Back Wheel Disease is that nobody can work out the cause. Not me (technique: look at wheel, prod wheel, say "um"), not Ben (technique: take bike apart, prod, poke and scrutinize all parts), not numerous bike mechanics (technique: unknown, possibly involving smoking rollies and smearing hands and face in oil). It is a mystery, but one that is making me pay for buses and taking away the only form of exercise I get, unless loathing fellow passengers has some kind of aerobic value. My computer just inexplicably packed in. It isn't that old (although it is for a computer, I suppose). I haven't taken it to the shop where the clever computer people live yet as I know they will say HA HA YOU HAVE TO BUY A NEW ONE, IDIOT, and I will cry and offer them body parts which they will of course turn down. "Eye for an iMac?" I will beg, at which point they will kick me in the face, probably quite rightly.

So, poverty-stricken and catless, we enter this new year. Maybe I will blog more often about my devilishly exciting life, more likely I won't. Actually this is how most of my New Year's Resolutions always go. Maybe I will get really fit and be exceptionally attractive this year! Most likely I won't. Maybe I will save all my meagre earnings! Most likely I will fritter them away on pointless, unattractive things like food and shelter. Maybe I will write more songs! Most likely I will keep performing the same ones and hate them all. Maybe I will be more assertive with my resolutions, so as to instill some willpower and force myself into a glorious state of betterment and success! Most likely I will continue on in the same desultory way, reading and re-reading the same books, looking and thinking the same, until I die of Back Wheel Disease while being pawed by an oily bike mechanic with a rolled cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth.

I did have my hair cut, though! So my 2011 promises to be much like my 2010, with the added pleasure of looking like an over-developed twelve-year old. Hurray! Happy New Year.