Belle de jour - 01.01.2004

In weather like this, one must admit defeat, ignore the 'never too thin' mantra altogether and give in to a new paradigm.

vendredi 30 janvier
In weather like this, one must admit defeat, ignore the 'never too thin' mantra altogether and give in to a new paradigm. This can best be summarised as the tights-fishnets-socks under trousers, 'please don't let me have to use a public toilet juggling all this getup' design for life. It is perhaps a small price to pay for living in a winter wonderland of slush.

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And in such days as these, only a cad would casually throw out a line like 'you've gained some on the hips.' Which is why I had to kill N and bury the corpse under a layer of permafrost on Hampstead Heath. No jury would convict.

// posted by belle @ 1:58 PM

jeudi 29 janvier
Snow yesterday afternoon - near UCL, students dashed out of the Union and Archaeology to gather up handfuls of snow and throw them at each other. Clusters of girls walked by in twos and threes, huddling under umbrellas. Though it had gone dark, the light was calm, diffuse: a warm glow of streetlights reflecting off the puffy duvet-sized flakes coming down.

I went to meet one of the other As (A2), who hasn't had a date any time this geological era. He recently hooked up with someone at a conference, though, a girl from Manchester. It seems a long way to go for sex. He assures me it isn't just about the sex. A2 is a great chap, but an extremely poor liar.

We installed ourselves in a gastropub-cum-bar to watch the buses outside pile up in the icy street. It was one of these places with a high ratio of leather seating to bar space where they turn up the music automatically at 7pm, regardless of how many customers are inside. We were practically shouting over the background noise to hear each other.

"So what do you think of latex?" A2 bellowed.

"Latex?" I asked, unsure if I misheard. "A good idea, generally." Unhappily, I am discovering a recent sensitivity to the stuff, having come away from a blowjob at work with swollen, tingling lips. Hardly a scientific experiment, though. It could just as easily have been the spermicide on the Durex.

"No, I mean like -" he mimed putting on a rubber glove. "Latex. The feel of it, you know, for -"

"You're talking about rubber sex already?"

"She's a hell of a girl," he mused. "So, have you ever done it?"

The squeaky squeaky? "Not full coverage, no. You mean with the catheter and head mask and everything? No." Ugh. 'Up your urethra' is probably the least arousing phrase I can imagine, ever.

"I so want to go there."

"Careful, you'll scare her off."

"It was her idea. So - tips?"

"Lots of baby powder, I should think. I don't even want to think about what this would smell like."

"Mmm, I do."

Where do people come up with this stuff? And wouldn't it get rather sweaty in there? "Freak. You said this was - and I quote - not just a sex thing."

"Takes one to know one."

"Who, me?" I put a hand to my chest in mock surprise. "I would absolutely never. I'm as pure as the you-know-what," I said, nodding toward the snow outside.

"Sure you wouldn't. You having another?" A2 yelled over a godawful cover song by Blue.

"Something hot, if they have it. With plenty of alcohol. Only way to banish this music. And the mental image of you humping a blow-up doll."

// posted by belle @ 12:31 PM

mercredi 28 janvier
People are either more trusting than I expect them to be or I appear more trustworthy than I think. Recently I successfully strongarmed the landlady into a spot of redecoration at my place. With the excuse that most of the kitchen fittings need replacing anyway, I have made the case for a full-on Chintz Removal which will hopefully culminate in a pagan ritual in which all Colefax and Fowler printsldare gleefully thrown onto a crackling blaze.

In the meantime, I will be experiencing minor household disturbance. Not unliveable, mind, just inconvenient. I was talking to one of the As about the impending redesign recently.

"Well, if they get their pants together at work I'll be at a conference the next fortnight. Do you want the keys to mine?"

"Surely, darling, but aren't you afraid I'll spill something on the carpet?" A is notoriously fussy about his home and has been known to reserve only a single shelf for his girlfriend's belongings. Even if she lives there.

"I trust you," he said, sipping a whisky and soda. "I know you know how to iron the sections of the paper just as I like them."

Ah, if only he were kidding.