At some point last week I began a garment-specific version of the Countdown. While getting dressed in the morning I found myself thinking, “This is the last time I will need to work Suit A into the rotation.” Then B, then C, and so on and so on until all days are casual and I make one last visit to the dry cleaners to have the suits cleaned and packed away like an expensive bridal gown from a doomed marriage.

Not that any of my suits are either literally or symbolically white. This wasn’t my first trip to the altar of commerce, and I doubt it will be my last.

Which is why I’m having my suits cleaned rather than burned.

I will catch up to Venice, but first:

Dear Wankers on the Victoria Line,

You’re better off playing Metallica on a ukulele than on the crap speakers of your cellphone. But thanks for sharing for six stops.

Love,

Jane

Still getting home from work late and in no fit state to commune with humanity, even the folks I’m super duper fond of. I worked all day last Saturday and spent Sunday assembling furniture, as you may have gathered below. And this weekend — which starts tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. — I’m running off to Venice and I’m not bringing my laptop. A brand new notebook will have to do.

More on Monday. Really, because I know at least one of you will come after me with a baseball bat if I don’t have a decent report to offer on my return.

I bought the Weeds soundtrack recently, mostly because I wanted a bright and shiny (thanks, Technology!) version of the Malvina Reynolds song “Little Boxes”, but a quick spot check revealed a few other tracks I was also interested in.

I put it on while I was assembling bookcases and was caught by an almost but not quite too sweet song redeemed by cheeky lyrics. So in the middle of the 873rd Righty Tighty, I amused myself by warbling along, “the little-ass birds sing the pretty-ass songs” (repeat, repeat, repeat).

It wasn’t until I looked at the track title that I saw it’s actually “the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs”, which is so disappointing I will carry on with my version the next time I’m tempted to sing along.

Two nights later I had the soundtrack on again, and while rushing down the hallway my foot caught on a stray bit from the giant pile of cardboard my shelves came packed in. I did one of those comedy forward flights where all four limbs are in the air before the gravitationally mandated slamming of knees and hand heels.

Then followed the adrenally mandated of moment of breathlessness during the autonomic evaluation of just how much damage has been done, which I usually find worse than than the actual damage.

I caught my breath and rolled over. I was staring at the ceiling when I noticed the track had changed and Martin Creed was moaning “I can’t moooooove” (repeat, repeat, repeat).

I’m now in the habit of skipping past the Sons and Daughters track “Blood”, just in case.

That wouldn’t be a bad thing, except in the usual only-so-many-grains-of-sand-in-the-hourglass kind of way — January has been a Challenge.

Bye, January! Don’t let February hit you in the ass on the way out!

Actually, if February will be doing any ass-damage it’s likely to be mine.

So yeah, what’s been going on? I did get internet access a couple of weeks
ago, but time to use it? Ha. Ha ha ha. Ha. Ow. I hurt my own feelings
with my with excessive derision.

The good news is that my contract is up at the end of February, and I will
be taking a writing and travel break, still based out of London. More detail on that soon.

Other good news: A’s story is the cover illustration of the current issue of Midnight Street, and a damn fine story it is, too.

Just checking in to establish my ongoing existence. Lots of changing scenery over the last two weeks, but at last I’m settling into the new flat and I expect to have internet access again any day now.

I’m going to be limited to sporadic internet access for the next couple of weeks, partially due to travel but also because I’ve moved to a new flat and I’ve got all that set up stuff to go through again. The good news is that I got through the BT phone line part in record time — I did manage to learn a thing or two from the previous experience.

So now I have a legitimate excuse for being the least updatey blogger ever.

I’m slowly digging my way out of the day job pit o’ despair, starting the ascent to See Level, and hey, what’s that glimmer of pink golden silver electric blue at the end of the tunnel?

Why, Kitty Wigs, of course!

Thanks for the smile, Prima Chica!

So the thing to do when you haven’t updated in weeks and weeks and have had many adventures and stresses (but mostly adventures, and good ones, too), is to skip straight to an anecdote featuring whipped cream, because that is most recent.

My friend S and I had dinner tonight at a place just off Tower Bridge, a place that used to have a sports bar vibe but has since been refurbished with a modern, generally uninspired decor. Whatever the decor, the joint has unexpectedly good, cheap-for-London food. The menu is mostly pubby, but the specials run toward the gourmet. Tonight we had roasted guinea fowl with green beans. It was delish. And we should have stopped there. But you know, dessert.

We ordered the profiteroles in chocolate sauce, and they were fine. They were probably leftovers from the weekend, but whatever — I was really more interested in the meringue nest with mixed berry frozen yogurt and fresh strawberries.

It arrived as a mound of whipped cream with three glazed (not fresh) strawberries on top, and I remember thinking, “If you’re going to go to the trouble of making a meringue nest, seems like you might want to show it off.” At the time I was willing to believe someone was being modest.

I plunged my fork into the blob of whipped cream, and encountered…more whipped cream. I had just begun to harumph and aggressively dig around for meringue, frozen yogurt, Jimmy Hoffa, anything other than whipped cream when S announced that she’d found the meringue on her side. She turned the plate around:

“See? Right there.”

“Right where?”

“That line there.”

“You made that line with your fork.”

And after further poking around we both had to concede that 1) we’d been served a plate of barely vanilla flavored whipped cream for dessert, and 2) even more troubling, we ate it. Most of it, anyway.

We were laughing pretty hard, high on transfats and sugar as we were, when the server came along and asked us how it was. I couldn’t resist mentioning — good naturedly, I promise — points 1 and 2 above. She looked worried and went back the kitchen. S and I laughed some more.

And that would have been enough, but then the server came back. The guy in the kitchen, instead of folding when I called his bluff, raised the bullshit ante. Apparently he told the server that “the yogurt was mixed in.”

“Frozen yogurt?” I said.

“He said that’s a mistake. It’s not frozen. It’s mixed in.”

“And the meringue?”

“Mixed in.”

“The meringue nest is mixed in.”

“That’s what he said.”

I could tell she didn’t believe it, either.

I was tempted to go back to the kitchen and get all Gordon Ramsey on his ass, less for serving me a plate of whipped cream than for telling such insulting lies. “JUST HAVE THE SERVERS SAY YOU’RE OUT!” I would have hollered. “YOUR CREAMY BLOB IS NOT FOOLING ANYONE!”

But then, I’d just eaten nearly half a plate of whipped cream. I wasn’t exactly standing on the moral high ground.

So yes, if you’re in London, go to the Tower Bridge Bar and Grill for dinner. Avoid dessert unless you’re looking to satifsy a very specific craving.

Catch up on non-whipped cream related adventures coming soon.

Twelve-hour, high-stress days at the Workplace and trying to deal with the end of the lease on the flat and all that implies. This is one of those Very Low Points that seem to turn up every six months or so. It will pass, and soon, too. More in a few days.