I'm sitting on my big furry cushion on the floor and have become rather accustomed to sitting on the floor lately because this is what I do when I need some kind of urgent change. It's the equivalent of when Bagpuss puts on his 'thinking cap' (a literal thinking cap) to really figure something out. I'm hoping it will eventually work out for me. It's been a bit cold and gloomy in Praha over the last few days and I think it's starting to infiltrate my brain. Not only that but things are on the point of spiralling out of control financially as so many meet-ees have cancelled recently and are continuing to do so, which is more than I can afford. Something must be done.
In the meantime, while I figure out what on earth that 'something' can be, I can at least reminisce about how I was able to look after myself better when I had money for nice chocolate and some reasonable Czech white wine. (Thankfully, that was only last week and I still have a bit of both left.) I don't have the money to buy magazines anymore, and my Hearst magazine subscriptions have yielded all of 3 copies in the year since October so I'm furious with them (but I digress...) so I have taken to re-reading old magazines and books I've read before in order to keep surrounding myself with little bits of inspiration and comforting ideas. I even took to the traditional 'old spinster' comfort of a hot bath and a bunch of things to read.
As you can see I added the Slovakian chocolate and Czech white wine (in a champagne glass to pretend I'm living the high life) to give me the full relaxation experience:
If I'm going to descend into spinsterdom, then I may as well do it in style. And I feel that this is indeed what awaits me because the cowboy is certainly, lovely as he is, not someone I could live with for any great length of time, especially being that I'm self-employed and work largely from home. I pointed this out to him recently, in fact. Most couples, I assume, have less of a hard time deciding to move in together because, for a start, there's the no-brainer of saving on the rent, but secondly, because a shared space is fine as long as you only have to use it in the evenings and at weekends. But if you need it all day long as a studio, bedroom, practice room, library, writing room and chill-out space at the end of a long day, it soon becomes unbearably small to share it with anyone else.
I'm so glad that I do now live on my own. Finally. It was a long time coming. I have had some 'interesting' flatmates from the past, one of whom used to put her hair in a towel when she came downstairs to do any cooking that involved onions because she didn't want her hair to smell of onions. Another lived in the room next door to me and when he wasn't playing his own songs on guitar he listened incessantly to Radiohead. Another had a dog who she palmed off to a friend she managed to get to come and live with us so that this friend ended up looking after her dog for her. She was particularly unhappy and so was the dog. Another had the most repulsive, smarmy boyfriend ever, who left the bathroom in a state which you would only imagine possible if the abominable snowman had just used it. And another has become a well-known pop star in Denmark. Wow. There were some characters. I could write a book about them...but I'd rather not.
So it's back to figuring out another source of income somehow. Though I suspect a square of that Slovakian chocolate would do wonders for my brainpower right now, so I might just have to sneak into the kitchen and retrieve it from the fridge. (Tip: living alone is great, but the downside is there's no-one to judge you on your intake of chocolate so you'd be better be sure you've got fairly phenomenal willpower or at least, good old fashioned British self-restraint.) I'm doing aerobics later, so it's ok. Honest.
