Saturday 9 January 2010

Shop Girl Out of London


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It’s likely the cheap accommodation I mentioned is cheap for a reason.
My future flatmate did some research last week.
Turns out there might not be any heating and it could be in a building about to be demolished.
“Hey you could rename your blog ‘Squat Girl’,” my brother said, when I told him.
I worried for a while then I flew to Barcelona to help my parents clear out the family house.
Discomfort is an inevitable part of this process.
Discomfort increases when a stray cat comes in and pees against the coffee table leaving a yellow puddle on the floor.
It made my nose itch and I decided on the spot that I was allergic to cats, which isn’t a problem because I’ve never wanted one.
The only pet I’ll have is a guinea-pig and that’s when I have kids. They won’t have a choice.
But seriously, how bad can these flats really be? I wondered, as I drowned my temper and the cat pee in bleach.
The clear-out unearths old photos, letters and over fifteen years of diaries.
I’m concerned as I read them. I seem to have spent most of my young life feeling love-sick.
The writing is so familiarly dramatic that I start to worry I haven’t developed at all since I was ten.
Luckily I’ve developed externally.
My mum says she wore false eyelashes when she was a teenager so you’d think she’d have been conscientious enough to notice her own daughter’s monobrow.
No such luck.
She was lenient compared to my friends’ mums, which should’ve been a good thing.
Instead it lead me to dye my hair bright orange.
Bright orange hair combined with a dark brown monobrow is unsurprisingly hideous.
It’s a miracle I ever had a boyfriend.
Anyway, the holiday hasn’t been all cat's pee and clearing.
We celebrated the coming of the Three Kings at my Godmother/Auntie's with a paella for forty people.
There never is forty people so everyone goes away with a Tupperware full.
Delicious.
Pity the Date couldn’t make it; as a hardcore carnivore he would’ve really appreciated it.
Next time, eh?
There’s something about Barcelona.
After a few days I always start to wonder why I’m not living here.


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4 comments:

Unknown said...

Having only been to Barcelona once, I can completely get the sentiment of living there, There is an allure about Barcelona, is there a creative energy that we are drawn to? I wonder what 2010 will bring for Shop Girl but no hurry all great things take time and time out in Barcelona is perfect! mx

Raquel said...

Ye girl...Spain has something...Maybe the paella, who knows...And we all ask ourselves the very same question: what is stopping me form living there?? and, still, every morning, we wake up with Russell Sq in the backgound and an non sourprising grey sky...
Raquel
PS any paella left???

Anonymous said...

Please post the photo of the orange hair monobrow!

ShopGirl said...

luckily those pictures are far away from my scanner, safely tucked away in spain while im in london...next time. whatever!