I am a ball of rage. I may be chemically unbalanced.

I haven’t blogged about periods yet. What kind of neurotic female blogger am I?

Recently having come off the pill I have had a longer gap then usual between periods. That’s fine by me (apart from the fear of god that goes with the waiting). However, what is beginning to dawn on me as the abdominal pains creep in three weeks late is that I am now going to have a “normal” reaction to my “normal” bodily functions, rather than gliding through “withdrawal bleeds” with ease and a smile. My body taunts me. This is a period, darling, it patronises, none of this pill-pretend bollocks for you. Pain, heartache and pure, undiluted anger will envelop you until I am done. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

The reasons I suspect this is going to be the case are:

1. When my boyfriend joked that he washes up more than me (lie) last night I responded by throwing a pan on the floor, shouting “Fuck you then, I’ll fucking do it, I fucking hate you, you fucking dickwad piece of shit” before storming out of the kitchen, slamming the door and sitting down in front of “Pride of Britain” to sob noisily at injured child heroes.

2. When I woke up this morning and got up to do my job (today: write an article) and vacuum the house, I was filled with the most enormous rage that I had to do my job and vacuum, facts compounded by the fact that my boyfriend was asleep. I was furious. Blind furious. I was a barely contained ball of rage and even now I cannot quite think why. I had no objection to my vacuuming or to my writing my article, or to my boyfriend sleeping in on his morning off. It was my usual time to rise. There was no issue. But did that matter? Did it fuck. I slammed the door three times, switched the bedroom lights on and off and then failed to work out how to use the new vacuum without help from a half-asleep, naked, grumpy man. If I am in abject misery then, apparently, so will everyone else be.

3. “60-minute Hour Makeover”, where deserving plebs get their house made-over made me cry yesterday. As did This Morning and the adverts.

4. I am actually scared that I might throw the cat out of the window if it gives me that puppy-eyed “I’m so hungry, Mummy” look one more time.

5. I agreed to pay the NSPCC £5 a month for the rest of my life after reading their heartfelt letter, crying quietly all the time, a bit of snot landing of their Letter of Pain, as it shall now be known.

So, there it is. I’ve had my well-earned rest from the pill, and I can happily conclude that my body still works perfectly destroying my life and that of those around me for four days of each month.

I’m going back on the pill.

Things not to say to your boyfriend part 2

"I'm not proposing or owt, but do you want to marry me?"

"I might be pregnant"

“I might be pregnant.”
“Fuck.”
“I know.”

In this conversation there are no winners. While my boyfriend contemplated the benefits of selling a kidney, I tried to convince myself that nine months without wine and menthol cigarettes was something I could cope with. What would happen after that my mind simply wouldn’t accept as a reasonable topic for deliberation.

The process of discovering whether or not you are accidently with child is one mild embarrassment followed by another, concluded with the climatic urinating on one’s own hand.

Firstly there is the running to the bathroom every five minutes to check whether or not you have indeed got your monthly visit from some obscurely named, prim and proper aunt. Looking rather like you have contracted a urinary infection to anyone spending more than 10 minutes in your company, you start to wonder if even late developing teenage girls stare so intently so often at their knickers for a sign; any sign. I swear one on occasion I mistook the stars in my weird staring eyes for my period.

Then there is the agonising self-diagnosis complete with imaginary symptoms. First, do my breasts feel tender, my nipples sensitive? Hold on, oh wise internet forum, let me just give them a squeeze. Nothing? Hold on, let me just squeeze harder…just a bit harder. Yes, definitely some tenderness.

Second, do I feel tired and moody? Am I easily upset? Shit, I thought, I’ve been pregnant for fucking years.

Third, am I lightheaded, do I have backache, and am I peeing more often that usual? More importantly, I should have asked, can any of these symptoms be explained by my lack of sleep, computer-hunched day-long stance or my desire to check for Flo every five minutes?

The results of my self-diagnosis were “inconclusive”.

I moved onto the next stage of humiliation. Judging by the many, many internet forums full of women getting unwanted AFs (Aunt Flos) who are TTC (trying to conceive) and sending each other “baby dust” (seriously), nobody could possibly know that my queuing up to buy a pregnancy test in Morrison’s was anything but a happy and joyous occasion following a sensible “planning a family” meeting with my supportive husband.

However, somehow they all knew the truth. They knew that I didn’t really need toothpaste, grapes and a packet of Pringles. They could tell what hid beneath my baked beans on the conveyer belt. They knew I was another statistic waiting for my turn on Jeremy Kyle. “I take it you want a bag?” the check-out girl sympathetically asked.

And then there is the bit where you pee on a stick. By now, having convinced myself of the inappropriateness of my potential condition, feeling like a naughty teenager, I concentrated too hard on peeing right and splashed my hand, and the results window. Then I’d lost count – did I pee for more than five seconds? Whatever the test says now, I thought, it would almost certainly be wrong. If it said negative, it would be positive, and eight months later I’d give birth to a chain-smoking, drunk in a train station loo.

So to the shops I went to buy another test, unsure of whether I was now being judged more for failing to pee correctly or failing to use contraception.

Starting to care less what the result was so long as I never had to go to Morrison’s again, I retested.

The test was negative.

A sigh of relief was enjoyed by all, for about a minute until the fear crept in: why aren’t I pregnant? What’s wrong with me?

At least this neurosis can be soothed with a full-bodied Shiraz and a long menthol fag. Oh sweet life, welcome back!

Want some porn with that coffee?

I recently took part in a photo-shoot with my clothes mainly off. I do that from time to time.

My photographer sent me the photos on a CD. He did this very quickly and shaved valuable seconds off the process by cutting out unnecessary steps like adding the “B” part of my address and completely omitting my name from the envelope.

Therefore the CD containing pictures where you sometimes could see both my face and my intimate bits in the same shot was delivered to Costa Coffee, which I live above.

I didn’t realise this and presumed the CD was lost in the post, amusing bored postal workers in an office far enough from my flat to only unnerve me very slightly.

On I went with my day-to-day life, drinking Costa Coffee, blissfully unaware of anything amiss.

Until Friday. On Friday the barista gave me an envelope with my medium latte. It was open. “This yours?” he asked innocently. I looked at it, and peeked inside. It contained a CD.

Reality dawned slowly. As I walked towards the door clutching my envelope, I thought “Oh, good, just a Royal Mail mix-up. I’m glad I have my CD.” By the time I sat down outside, I was thinking, “Golly, isn’t it nice that the barista knows I live upstairs having seen me coming and going so often.” It wasn’t until my coffee had cooled down enough to drink it that I thought, “Fuck.”

The barista has seen me naked. He recognised me. He knows what I look like down there.

I’ve recently gone off coffee despite the fact that my boyfriend suggested I save myself and him pounds every week by winking and asking for freebies. Well fair’s fair, he says.

Have you ever faked an orgasm?

Yesterday, I said to my boyfriend: “Have you ever faked an orgasm”. Looking uncomfortable he replied in the affirmative.

Inwardly outraged (because if they start stealing this trick, girls, we're fucked) and outwardly curious, I asked, reasonably, “Have you ever faked one with me?” Admittedly my voice did get suspiciously high towards the end of the sentence.

He replied, almost choking on his own laughter “Hahahahahahahahahaha, yeah, all the time… no, joking!” And then, seeing my face contort into something that doesn’t normally mean 'good', added seriously, “Of course not, darling.”

I don’t believe him. Would you?

Surely the only way I could have believed him is if he had answered as follows:

(dead-pan, no hint of sarcasm, looking both lovingly and lustfully into my eyes): “No, are you mad? I can’t stop myself with you. You’re amazing; the best I’ve ever had. Every time I cast my eyes onto your beautiful body I want to ravish you. It’s all I can do to stop myself ravishing you in Morrison’s sometimes. God I want to ravish you right now.” And then to proceed with the ravishing.

No, no I don’t buy this at all.

Later, when he had ravished me, we looked at each other and simultaneously asked: “Were you faking it?” and then simultaneously replied, hurried and flustered, “No, no that was amazing, brilliant, no, wonderful, absolutely not.”

From now on, sexy time is detective time. Everyone is a suspect.

This week was a bad week

This week I made a grave error of somewhat overdoing it with my friend, Lauren and her beau. What ensued wasn’t so much a hangover as a week-long dive into depression.

This included all the symptoms of flu exacerbating my weak mental state whilst simultaneously making it possible for me to take two sick days, guilt-free. Which was lucky as I couldn’t leave the flat for three days. It took two for me to dare myself to draw the curtains. They were dark days, literally.

It was a big night, but it wasn’t that big. As the fog slowly left my brain gradually allowing me to, step-by-step, relearn how to live my daily life (first step: get out of bed, day two: make and eat marmite on toast, end of week: go to the shop wearing large sunglasses and a hat), I realised I was officially run-down.

This is because I don’t look after myself very well. I think my lifestyle is normal because I don’t yet know anyone who does yoga instead of smoking and thinks one glass of wine is a bit naughty.

Not only did I have to contend with chest ache and Weltschmerz, in my weakened state I became paranoid. So paranoid, in fact, that my boyfriend’s quickened breathing assured me that he was building up to end our relationship. It didn’t occur to me at all that it could be the result of the weird staring way his girlfriend was scrutinising him, centimetres from his face.

Then we went to a psychic fair with his Mother and the Tarot Card lady told me that I was pregnant. Pregnant and on the biggest come-down of my life. Brilliant.

My boyfriend’s Mother’s reaction was also a little disconcerting. Something about me not daring with a look that would scare Eve into putting the goddamn apple down.

But I digress, I don’t believe the lady was very psychic at all, so I am not expecting the pitter-patter of tiny feet.

I was never a believer really. I prefer Richard Dawkin’s school of thought. But, for a time, I rather liked the idea of lots of lovely assurances about my wonderful life to come. And the fact that if someone else already knows about it then it is obviously set in stone meaning that I can continue idling my way through life.

But I’m not sure I can.

You see, I was so run-down I couldn’t work. I keep spending all my money. I think I’m getting too old for this. I’m not entirely convinced that I haven’t now had all my lucky breaks. My motivation to work hard is low because idleness so far has worked out pretty well. But in two years I will be one month away from 30 and if all I have to show for it is a rented property filled with IKEA furniture and an evil unwanted career, I don’t think I’ll be able to pat myself on the back with all the gusto one would hope.

I want the happy ending, but I didn’t realise I was going to have to find it or, god forbid, work for it. I sort of expected it to land at my feet.

I can’t complain; a lot has fallen at my feet (or at least gotten close enough to be tempted and gotten drunk enough to fall somewhere near my feet). As a result, I have the man and the kittens (I didn’t get the kittens drunk, just the man, and only the first couple of times. What? Stop judging me).

It’s a good start. But to go with them I currently have a job I dislike, a flat too small for dogs (I don’t have dogs, but the point is happy endings involve houses with gardens and lovely dogs; that’s just a fact), I drink far too much and far too often and I smoke. I also can’t run 10k without dying which I need to do for charity in two weeks.

It’s time for action.

Shock and awe: a girls' night in with his Mother

On Friday evening, my boyfriend joined me in the pub around 7.30. “So.” He said, looking nervous, “What were you and my mother talking about last night?”.

“Oh, nothing really, you know, just chatting.” I replied.

It isn’t that I’m lying as such. The “girls’ night in” we’d organised to amuse ourselves while the boys went to watch the football (please excuse the outdated gender roles; we live in Surrey and we don’t know any better) was a merry affair full of “just chatting”. And to suggest that we’d had any deep and meaningfuls would be to imply that we’d stayed on one topic for more than five minutes, which due to the depth of confession (on my part) and shock and awe (mainly from my boyfriend’s mother’s side) was really quite impossible.

The trick is, when clearly shocking your boyfriend’s mother with some not very important details about yourself, like, I don’t know, "I used to be a nude model for an erotica website", for instance, is to quickly change the subject before too many questions can be asked.

Something along the lines of: “Yes, but it was all very arty. Would you like another bottle of wine? What was my boyfriend like when he was five?” would undoubtedly work a treat.

What you shouldn’t do is assume that in order to divert her stern gaze from your terribly crass self is that a topic carrying a sure weight of interest must be thrown onto the table. What I wouldn’t recommend you say, following your confession of something like posing nude for cash, is to silence her line of questioning with a confession along the lines of, for example, “I went to a sex party once. It was quite fun once I got over the initial embarrassment. Modern world and all that; got to try these things, don’t you think?”

Of course, if you do make this grave error, don’t panic. Just stick to the original lesson and move quickly and swiftly on. By this point, you will probably need to quickly drink a lot of white wine in order to still your beating heart and momentarily block out the reality that you have just created for yourself. Once that is done, however, move quickly and swiftly on.

At this stage, it would be best advised to stick to safe topics, like Christmas, The Thorn Birds, and the pros and cons of eBay. Topics to avoid at this stage include:

- Swinging; and how I used to
- Drug-taking and it’s role in my college suspension
- Sex and her son’s “great big manhood”

If, you somehow manage to accidently find yourself talking freely on any of the above topics, it’s time for the Last Resort solution. Take control of the wine and keep her topped up until she slurs some equally dreadful confession. This done, your secrets are safe and so are hers. Tied together forever by the “girls’ night in”.