…I have learned that:

Russian Opera is ace.  Especially when it has subtitles.

There might well be mice in our kitchen, as I found a little chap in our saucepan cupboard last night.  I caught him and let him go in the Garden.

Riding escalators in the Royal Opera House with your Dad makes you feel like a little girl again.

That the new Pipettes album must be bought and danced to, but that this fact does not make me twee in any way, shape or form.

Against my will, I have been forced to admit that New Malden actually exists.  I heard a robot man announcing trains that actually go there on the loud speaker at Clapham Junction, therefore, it must be true.

There doesn’t appear to have ever been a Carry-On film that featured pirates.  Please, correct me if I am wrong.

It’s entirely possible to have an orgasm in the shower in approximately 10 seconds, without even touching yourself.

The promise of time off work if you beat certain targets makes you work really hard.

I feel mighty and learned (with emphasis on the last syllable) now.

Modern TV has a tendency to be a bit shite. 90% wank, I’d say. LOST and SPACED and THE WEST WING, and SESAME STREET basically make up the 10% that isn’t PURE TOSS.

Yes, toss, with bland wankers presenting it.

Obviously, this is only my opinion….

…however, now, thanks to THIS it is ACTUALLY, GENUINELY TRUE.

Proper wanking on the telly.

I was shy once.

Actually, I’m still shy.  Painfully so.  Lost-for-words, redunant, S.H.Y

No, really.  You can stop giggling in the back there, you lot. Slytherin Head Girl, like Ska Girl before her, is not shy.  She’s my mask, my weapon, my flirtatious other-self.  She’s loud, bossy, she shouts a lot, she drinks too much coffee, she flirts with the wrong people and, aiming to misbehave, she gets herself into trouble.  She goes out with inapropriate boys, wears too much make-up, dresses up and shows off.  She entertains, she holds court.  She gets drunk and dances til she has an asthma attack.  She flashes her breasts and goes on TV.  She takes risks, she spends her money before it’s earned, she’s gregarious.  She will draw you in and make you forget the real world.  She is the peacock.  She’ll cut you a line, and pour you a drink.  She kisses passionately, she gives the best head you’ll ever get, she laughs too much and she never says sorry.  She’ll make you lie to your friends, she sends filthy text-messages, she’s righteously angry and she’ll outrageously defend anyone she cares about.  She’s your interesting admirer.  She falls in lust and she falls hard.  She gets bruises on her knees, she downs tequila, absinthe, ritalin.  She copes with the stuff I can’t. Chloe Kristel Amy Hannah Hall is shy.  She’s thoughtful and cautious.  She makes tea for house-guests and smiles in her sleep.  She still sucks her thumb and she can’t sleep soundly without her raggedy old Big Bird toy that she hides from everyone, even her housemates.  She talks softly, she holds your hand when you’re sad, she walks along the seafront at 6.30am and cries at the beauty of the West Pier.  She’s afraid of the dark.  She used to hurt herself and still, deep down, is ashamed of the scars that reduced her Mum to tears.  She still thinks that she’ll never be good enough.  She’s a fantastic listener and a great friend.  She cooks dinner for people and makes her own t-shirts.  She likes hugs and giggles like a girl.  She falls in love.You people that read my blog mostly see the first girl, as after all, this is her forum, her stage – this is where I can say all the things I want to without the immediacy of an audiance, through her.  Occasionally, you see flashes of the real me and that’s good too.  I just wish I knew which one I was most of the time.  Of course, we are one and the same, but sometimes, I do wonder…

Personally, I really like the one with the longest first name ever…one day, there won’t be a need for The Head Girl anymore.

So, today is my 3rd blog birthday.

On 14^th July 2003 I was sitting, bored, unemployed and just about to graduate, in the Forum Millennium Library in Norwich.  My first entry wasn’t until the 15^th and it looked like this:

“Woo, I have a weblog!  This should be fun!”

To mark the passing of my 3^rd year (besides the champers and the cake), I’m going to write a proper post, one that’s worthy of blogging.

Today’s lesson shall be:

How Not To Break Up With The Slytherin Head Girl And Lessons I Have Learned.

I’ve known some really wonderful boys (and girls) in the years I’ve been dating.  Beautiful, complicated, breath-taking, awkward, difficult, independent, fierce, intelligent, possessive.  For some reason, no two of my chosen boys have been that similar, in as much as I don’t appear to have a “type”.  Here are some of note, in no particular order (names have been changed to protect the (not so) innocent:

Exhibit A – Had long blond hair and I fell hopelessly in lust with him when I was a 17 year old hippie chick.  We spent 6 months bonding over music, Star Wars, Doc Martens and self-harm.  We shared furious make-out sessions behind the gym at college and got stoned together.  He played guitar and thought I was a beautiful pagan wild child that he needed to tame.

The End – After a particularly difficult conversation about Oasis Vs Blur Vs The Verve, he went off me and delivered the “it’s not you, it’s me, we can still be best friends!” speech.  I stopped singing in his band and went off to become a Goth to express my ANGST and DEPRESSION at being DUMPED.

The Lesson – Stay away from guys who think they can “save” you and believe that Blur are better than Oasis.

Exhibit B – Was 6’2 with the spikiest jet-black hair you ever saw.  He had a gorgeous face and a hideous temper.  He had his nose, eyebrow, ears and tongue pierced and a tattoo on the back of his neck and was Angstier Than Thou.  I fell in love.  My parents HATED him.  I actually met this one in a chat-room online, so goodness knows what I expected to get out of it.  I certainly wasn’t banking on getting laid for the first time and spending 18 of the most complicated, turbulent, passionate months of my life with him.

The End – He was my partner in crime throughout my spiraling depression in my late teens and I think he probably cried and stopped more than I did and yet ironically, he left me when he thought things were getting too “intense”.  Seven weeks later when I was back on my feet more or less he came crashing back into my life and I let him spoil things again.  All told, I had the break-up I always expected from my First Love – about 10 months of agony and slow recovery.

The Lesson – Don’t date someone younger, angstier or more pierced than you.

Exhibit C – My University Love.  2 years of classes, hair-dye, cigarettes and camping trips and…boredom.  He was lovely, bless him, and he asked me to marry him.  He had a 12 inch…MOHAWK which required regular upkeep (step forward Miss SHG) but boy, he looked awesome with it.  He skated and painted graffiti on walls.  He wanted to date a really “alternative-looking” girl, as he told me – again, step forward Miss SHG with your dramatic eyes, extensive wardrobe and spectacular braids and dreads.  His parents thought I was a “bad girl”.  Clearly I was, because after dating me, he never graduated, got arrested for criminal damage and arson, and had his bank a/c seized by debt-collectors.

The End – Sadly, I got bored of him, so we were grown up and sweet and lovely and parted with a minimal of tears.

The Lesson – Avoid boys who’s hair takes longer to do than yours does and ones who really only want a trophy girlfriend – ESPECIALLY if his Mum doesn’t like you.

Exhibits D and E – These two get mentioned at the same time because the almost exact same thing happened with each of them and at the same time of different years, too.  One was dark, one was fair.  They were both older than me, tall, both indescribably and unconventionally attractive, both made me want to do very bad things with them.  They were both…pure lust.  They made me think, made me look at things in a different way, they both made me look at my past partners and go “Hmmmm…”.  Like a drug, I couldn’t get enough of either of them and like a drug, my flirtation with them was never meant to last.  But I wasn’t planning on giving either of them up so fast.

The End – Sadly, due to the fact that neither relationship was “official” – no security of rules or boundaries – I think I did something wrong because both of them just stopped talking to me one day.  No explanation, just a complete about-face of their behaviour up until then.  They both stopped adoring me and left me blinking in surprise and suffering severe withdrawal.

The Lesson – Playing with fire means you get very burned fingers, but naughty boys are the best shags and the excitement can consume you if you aren’t careful.

Exhibit F – Monsieur Creativité himself.  Wrote me reams of poetry, drew me pictures, made me cards.  One year he wrote me a novella for my birthday, featuring me cast as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  Only sexier.  He was tall with dark hair and green eyes.  He was beautiful and I think that when he left, he took a part of me with him forever.

The End – We ended it with high melo-drama after an indiscretion on my part and it was all over so quickly after 2 years, but he did have the grace to tell me why, in between calling me a “whore” and crying a lot, he couldn’t be with me anymore.

The Lesson – You always hurt the one you love the most.  And….*cliché coming up* what doesn’t kill you actually does make you stronger.

So, the moral of this story is:  Basically, don’t break up with me, because I’m a prize jewel and you’ll never find anyone like me again   But, if you have to, do it decently, eith honesty and then the chances are we’ll stay friends and meet for coffee during snatched lunch-breaks and still send texts and cards to wish each other Happy Birthday.

Here endeth the Lesson.

And now, for cake

At 5.48am this morning I stumbled out of a house party in Portland Road, half way between Portslade and Hove (actually) train stations, (or so my Brighton A-Z now tells me).

I had absolutely no idea where I was.

Due to Friendship-Suicide, I was facing the journey alone, with a dead phone battery and about £2.40 to my name.  So I tucked my hair into my top hat, crossed my arms against the wind and did what any (mostly) sane person would do – I followed the seagulls and headed towards the sea.

My befuddled thought-process was as follows – find sea, turn left, walk home.  In essence, this worked.  Except that it’s an incredibly long way back to Brighton from almost-Portslade and even though dawn was well and truly breaking, it was an incredibly surreal and rather chilly experience.  In total, it took me almost 2 hours to get home.  During this time I discovered that Brighton is never quite silent, that seagulls rule the dawn and that there’s no-where to buy tobacco at this ungodly hour on a Sunday morning.

About mid-way along Kingsway, walking next to the sea, I found a plastic Tiara.  As there was no-one around to claim their crown I took it for my own, a bizarre trophy for being the only person awake on the beach at 6.30am this morning.  When I reached the Old Lady, West Pier, I stopped and gazed out at the ferocious green, turbulant sea and for a few moments, absolutely everything in the whole world was OK.  The feeling of rightness was so great, I thought my heart was breaking and I started to cry. 

Then I remembered why I was standing there, alone, and the tears started to flow with anger, with bitterness, with sadness.  My beautiful red and black eye-makeup smudged and ruined, I walked on.

By 7, I had reached the Clock Tower.  West Street, after a Saturday night, looks like a war-zone.  Broken bottles, cigarette packets, burger boxes, strewn everywhere.  And suddenly, a street-sweeper lurched into view and I’d started to get tired.  My adrenaline slowed down and I realised that I’m fucking freezing and that in 3 hours the shops will be open and people will be running around like crazed monkeys, buying things from Churchill Square, and the magic is gone.

I made the last leg of the journey through the silence of the North Laines but by now I couldn’t feel my fingers, or my feet, so the unusual emptiness barely touched me at all.

I unlocked my door and crept in at 7.45am.

I feel numb.  I’m sober.  I’m tired.  I’m going to bed.