Bad Cat, Rubbish Thoughts

Maybe it will all turn out OK and Michael won’t tell anyone about my imaginary inheritance. In the meantime there are no obvious signs this firm is in trouble. The client list has not shrunk. They’re refurbishing the upper offices. The MD was whistling in the toilets this morning. Could Michael be mistaken? Why would he lie to me about something like that?
Anyhoo, last night Rachel was ranting bitterly about male/female relationships, and how they are a scary meat-market. So if you are a woman over thirty-five, basically your market value has declined tragically, so you have to pick a man who is:
1) less attractive than you
2) less wealthy than you, or
3) less classy than you
Other things that cause a woman to have to lower her standards severely in the hope of getting laid are:
1) being larger than size 12
2) having a past (ie divorced and ranting about it)
3) being accompanied everywhere by nightmare small child called something like Max or Rupert.
So according to Rache if I was divorced and had a nightmare kid the only person who’d ever go out with me would be a hideously misshapen tramp. This can’t be right.
I think prolonged contact with her nightmare cat Oskar has depressed Rachel too much.

The Glass is Half-Empty

The Private View was disappointing. The things we were viewing were – predictably - terrible photographs taken by a talentless madman. But on the plus side, there was good champagne. I never saw the artist. He wasn’t standing around looking arty and tortured the way they usually do.
As advised by Topiary, I’d gone for the Rene Russo look. I was getting my highlights done anyway, so I’d asked them to put my hair up in a French pleat, and I nipped home after and changed into a split tweed skirt, brown boots, and a rollneck sweater. It felt nice in the cool, rain-washed streets on the way to the view, but when Jasmine and I got there it became unbearable, because the room was so hot. I started sweating, my neck prickled, and even wearing my special sausage-skin knickers my skirt rode up ridiculously. Also, when I caught sight of myself reflected in one of the stupid photos I realised the pleat wasn’t flattering. I looked the way Anonymous always sees me: like a porky dominatrix (quite topical, really, considering the Mosley trial). The place had filled up to crush-point by the time Michael arrived. AND he had one of those awful, thin, hyper-groomed, ultra-chic women with him. The sort that make any average woman just want to curl up and die. She had incredible teeth, and tits that couldn’t be real, and she was gripping his arm and leaning in to him. (Well, more like bending down – she was jolly tall. It created a bizarre effect, like a mummy seeing her child off on his first day at school.) I don’t know if he saw me. Jasmine wanted me to go up and introduce myself etc, but I couldn’t bear to. Instead we slunk out. And had cocktails in a bar. So I suppose my last hope with Michael, now, is the magic spell on the 18th. If that doesn’t work I’m giving up.