All About Love

It'll be midnight soon, and this is my last blog entry of the year. And I want it to be about love. Because deep inside, I'm still an old softy who believes that love can really rock mountains. It might not be true, but I don't want to hear. I will believe what I want to believe. And the coming year seems to be going a lot down the love road. Plenty of drama, all in the name of love. I will not turn down the Ms title though. That's a little too much to ask. Perhaps I'm finally taking the plunge and at the old ripe age of 36 (which is the age I'll be next year, not this year) will be doing the things which other girls have done at 26. It seems destined to happen next year, not this year. And I will finally be made an honest woman at 36. I'm not sure people do that at 36, but well who says I can't. So it'll be loving a man, loving the cats, loving the dogs, loving my twin loving my very few friend, loving the little people, loving the music of life and love...

The bob woman

I clean forgot. Today while TV zapping at my mum's, my hand took a break as the picture on the plasma rested on the bob woman preaching about alcohol and driving. So far so good, but I really could have thrown my shoes (Nike ones this time) at the screen, though my guess is that my dad wouldn't have been too pleased about his daughter hurling a size 41 pair of Nike's at his plasma screen. Although dad is a very understanding person. But then maybe he wouldn't be very understanding if that had to happen. But this woman who always has the same prim and proper hairstyle, only now she's upgraded or downgraded it to a wispy bob gets under my skin. Her hairstyle could be straight out of an s & M shop in London's Soho. Especially when she's run out of words to say and decides to open telephone lines. And then she suddenly gets even more prim and proper and oh so clever. She even smiles the knowing smile which stands for oh-I'm-so-good-at-this. But she's not. She cannot very well string enough decent Maltese words to make a sentence, that's one thing she sucks at. Secondly, smiling as if there were no tomorrow when talking about serious things like alcoholism, drug abuse and any other kind of abuse is not on. Then comes that false head laugh at some really silly joke she's trying to share with herself. And people like these are put in charge of delicate posts, while their paycheck comes out of my taxes. That's sad. And I understand that it is difficult for hosts having a magazine midday programme to find actual people who will come and talk on their show. But perhaps they should try and get real people, like the man who sells peanuts at Valletta's City Gate. Oh he'll look grubby and shabby, but he'll be for real. And that would be a breath of fresh air.

girl vs boy

My good friend Claire has just called to wish me a Happy New Year. She's a good girl, not good as in boring, but good as in faithful that's for certain. And I feel suddenly so very lonely although I'm not alone. This house with all its assets and red walls needs a something else. Ok, it's not the house needing the something else, but myself. But I am too scared to do what other people see as natural because I secretly think that perhaps God is shielding me from something ugly. There it goes again, the fear. Which is strange seeing I didn't even have a tiny bit of caution to throw to the wind 15 years ago. I had no fear and I loved danger. I loved risking life. Now, I want my settled lifestyle and nothing to tamper with it. Because I'm too scared of what could happen. There are no guarantees in life and I am still not ready to take the plunge. The word risk scares me too much. If only somebody could give me at least a one year guarantee, then I'd go for it. But nobody will and nobody can give me that. And it has now boiled down to the - would I rather regret not having done that, than regret having done it? And it's at these times I wish I were a man. No I am not turning homosexual, a transvestite, or even queuing up for a sex change. I like being a girl. But men have it that much easier. I would never trade in my long hair, my hips which ooze fertility (judging by Mata's Goddess of Fertility), or my nails. I am a girl and I like being a girl and no I do not want another girl as a lover. I comply totally with what the world likes, I am heterosexual, and always have been. And I am not about to change direction now. Of course I find no problem with gay people whatever the gender because I embrace diversity. But, I am a girl who likes boys and that should be the text-book type of woman. At least I think so. And at least that is what my biology books said in form 5. Or perhaps it would have been easier had I liked girls instead? Because then the question of having babies would never be a question. But I cannot, really really cannot see myself with a girl. Sorry world, I'm like the bees and the birds, I'm girl likes boy and I cannot do anything about it. It isn't that difficult to live with, but then the inevitable subject pops up, especially when it's a 35 year old girl likes boy. I have till now, resisted all the things in the text book, but it's another new year coming, and somehow this is all I can think about.

New Year's Eve

I guess it would be appropriate to look back on 2008 and think about it. Everybody's doing this, the people on face book, the people on TV, the important VIP. But I do not care for other people. Ok that doesn't sound quite right. What I mean is that I do not care what other people do, I certainly will not follow others just for the sake of following. I do not want to look back on 2008. And I do not want to look at 2009. What's done is done, and what's to be is to be. I don't like New Year's Eves very much. i find it useless looking back, and I cannot look forward to something which is out of reach. If I had a magic crystal ball, then it would be easier, but then I don't want to know the future either. Future scares me; it could be filled with joy and happiness, and it could be filled with the opposite of joy and happiness. And I would welcome joy and happiness, but I don't want to know when and which bomb will be dropped at my door come next year. All I know, and I don't know for sure either, is that I am about to age by another year, and the dreaded 40 is not very far away. New Year's Eve, though, is never a bubbly eve, somehow, it creates a poignant atmosphere. I will probably have to decide a lot of life-changing things in 2009, things, which I have managed to put on hold. But there is not much time left for on-hold putting. I am getting older and I don't like admitting it. It's a time when I want my family all close, especially my twin, who will be one of those braving the cold, greeting in the New Year with style. I'm not sure what he's doing, but it's bound to be a stylish welcome New Year where everyone will be drunk. That's another reason why I don't like New Year's Eves. Because since I don't drink, people automatically think I'm driving, and no I am not driving to and fro, and risking people getting sick in my car. I did enough of that on Christmas Eve, the getting sick in the car that is. I'm not repeating it tonight. So here I sit with my Tancred on the monitor, my Ding terrorising the scratching post, my other cats running around, and my other half chopping things up for a New Year's breakfast. Oh have I been blessed with an in-house chef. And it seems rude to stay up here writing, but I'll be back. If there is just one thing I'm sure of it's just that.

Supermarkets

I have just about finished running all errands for 2008. Well I didn't actually run, but I managed just the same. How I hate this errand-running thing. And one thing which continues to mystify me is the thing about other women running the same things. They look so sophisticated, all made up at an unearthly time of 11am. Why would anyone plaster themselves in make up just to buy sausages? Is it necessary to carry a tiny Burberry handbag which is not big enough to fit anyone's set of keys? It's mundane shopping for Christ's sake, what are they going to put in it, an onion perhaps? It's so silly. Now one thing which isn't silly is my Chanel shopping bag which is big enough for anything, and yet I don't use it to go to the supermarket. I hate supermarkets. If I could, I'd go in my pyjamas. Seriously. I really don't know what all the excitement is about. And then I don't understand the reason for dolling up either. Who would I want to impress, the one behind the delicatessen counter? Oh no, no thanks. The thought that a potential boyfriend would have his fingers stuck in cheese all day long is not exciting. Or in some garlicky sausage. Or whatever it is that's soft. I'm soft enough. The thought is enough to make me book myself in for sex therapy, and even that wouldn't work. No, he'd have got to go. There is no way I could ever see myself in this. But, and it's just a thoughtful but, the way single men (single through a failed marriage) seem to be getting very popular in supermarkets, well, then that is a thought. They can be identified by a mile, they just walk up and down pushing the trolley as if the trolley were an extension of their something else which is by far smaller than the trolley. They look out of place, confused, and then some made up woman crosses their path. And there it is in the most primitive of forms, the confused man suddenly turns to look, and he's not confused anymore. So perhaps supermarkets could be the newest place for dating. But then I too am confused, I too drag a trolley looking stupid. And I don't think the trolley is an extension, because I don't have that something else smaller than the trolley. If anything, I have something else, and that is the being practical. I just will never date anybody within the supermarket walls. Because there are expiry dates, and I will never be shaking things to look at the very little coded, computerised date. Because they're in a tin, and I want bigger than that.