Green shoots

Ahhh, spring. In so many ways the best of seasons. Barely a day goes by without my enthusing about the buds on the magnolia tree outside my house or the smell of cut grass, or the crocuses on the Heath, or the fact that when I leave work it's still just about light - or, indeed, any one of a number of such cliched spring things. Everyone seems so much happier. Even Mad Mary seems to have mellowed. Yesterday I submitted copy to her and, though she still made me stand there while she read it and scribbled on it, she managed not to say anything unnecessarily nasty, contenting herself with peering suspiciously at me, indulging in a rant about Richard (uber-boss, whom she clearly fancies) and telling me to get rid of the dirty coffee cups that had accumulated on her desk.

It's at times like these that I wish I'd spent my spare time at university doing unpaid internships instead of writing essays, but hey ho, she hasn't asked me to empty her bin using my mouth yet, so I suppose I oughtn't complain. Still, clearing away Mad Mary's coffee cups is a particularly disgusting task, I feel. It's not so much that it's demeaning, which I dare say I'd get over easily enough, but more that it's...icky. Mary, you ought to know, has a particularly offensive way of drinking coffee that seems to involve mouthing every bit of the rim of the cup liberally. I know this, because she wears very bright pink lipstick in quantities that make one wonder if her lips would still exist if she removed it, and EVERY time she uses a mug, every single millimeter of the rim is coated in the stuff. Also, she NEVER finishes a cup of coffee, she always leaves an inch or so of it at the bottom of the mug, into which she insists on dropping dirty tissues. Lord only knows what's wrong with the woman, but if a day goes by on which poor old Mary does not blow her nose, the whole office ought to be given a celebratory holiday. Picking those cups up, though, and seeing the snotty Kleenex floating in cold latte, and getting smears of her fuschia mouth-paint on my fingers, is an experience that leads to repeated resignation fantasies. One day...one day...

Anyway, I'm being distracted from the joys of spring by the 'vileness' (a favourite word of Mary's, incidentally) of my working environment. (Breathe, Alice! Think of the Regents Park daffodils!) And this is very wrong because, thus far, spring has been all it ought to be, so far as I'm concerned. My house-plants are flourishing, which always makes me happy, and I have been asked out twice in the last week, in spite of the mighty blemishes I wrote about in my last blog.

Speaking of which, part of the regenerationy springfulness of it all is my new skin-care program (YES! New Year's Resolutions ahoy!). On Sunday, I went for tea and a film (very, very brilliant, everyone should watch it - link below) with my lovely friend Cora. Cora took one look at my ravaged features and prescribed foundation. 'But Cooooorrraaaaaaa', I bleated, 'I've NEVER used foundation, I don't know hooooow, and then you have to take it all off and I'd probably forget'. She stared at me in disgust. 'Firstly, Alice', she began, patiently, 'it comes off when you cleanse - ' 'But Coooooorraaaaaa, I don't CLEANSE'. Her disgust deepened, visibly. 'Well you should!' she shrieked, 'do you WANT to have huge pores?' (A sensitive spot - I fear my pores, slightly). 'Nooo...but maybe just using water -' I gibbered, desperately. Anyway, the upshot of it is that she hauled me out to a pharmacy on Monday evening and made me buy some of the stuff she uses on her face - Yin Yang, link also below - because apparently it's chemical free and the science is good. (Cora knows these things, bless her.) So, I have commenced cleanse-tone-moisturise (which makes me feel all clean and new and leaves me smelling of oranges and flowers, mmmmm) and so far so good.

Which is just as well, because quite apart from The-French-Man-On-The-Bridge (asked me out on Tuesday; hmm, it's an unwieldy soubriquet, if he sticks around we may need another) and Escalator Man (who asked me out tonight and isn't especially good-looking but who DID lip-synch serenade me whilst carrying his adorable boxer-dog, admittedly the most attractive thing about him) there is also Mystery Barrister, with whom my friend Becky is arranging a blind date. (Becky is one of those girls with a high-turnover stable of high-quality studs and she has been offering to cast one of them my way ever since Wanker Banker hit the scrap heap.) Anyway, I have a good feeling about Mystery Barrister. His texts are excellent and I like his name. Oh yes, spring is in the air, and I mean to use it well!

http://www.ageofstupid.net/the_film

(not sure if it's showing again, but if it does you MUST see it)

and

www.http://www.yinyangskincare.co.uk/

(Ooo, I just looked at this; apparently the cleanser's won prizes and everything, how exciting!)