Sunday 28 April 2013

"You will never get married. You are CURSED!"

I distinctly remember that being the statement made to Charlotte in Sex and the City after she went downtown to a dubious fortune teller with limited English who then promised that for a hundred dollars she could remove the curse.

I had something similar happen to me today.

In the course of my Wembley Curry Odyssey (my latest challenge, which naturally involves eating in every Indian Restaurant in the 'hood to see which one is best, so that I can look like a veritable Curry Expert to visiting dignitaries such as members of my family and close personal friends, should they ever deign to visit me in North West London) I found myself popping into my local coffee place for a quick takeaway coffee (the coffee isn't great, but it's the only place in the Greater Wembley area that does lattes).  The coffee kiosk is located in a shopping centre of sorts, with a dubious-sounding name like Wembley Plaza, and I found myself staring down the forbidding looking corridor right at a board advertising palm readings.

I'm not quite sure what I expected-to my disappointment Mystic Meg wasn't sat outside gazing eerily up at me from her crystal ball-but I tiptoed along the corridor to see a small woman in a headscarf, apparently locked inside with no customers.

I knocked on the door and enquired how much a palm reading cost, to which the woman answered £10, so I decided to go ahead, given that the maintenance on the building must have been less than that on the seaside resort gypsy caravans one finds on the ends of piers that usually cost twice the price.

She then phoned the "pandit" who does the readings, apparently he'd just popped out to buy a newspaper-it must have been a slow day-and asked me to write my name and date of birth on a piece of paper, as well as asking me how many people lived in my house (bizarre), the names of my parents and siblings and my occupation.  After she'd done this an awkward silence descended as we waited for the pandit so I decided to make small talk by asking her if she lived in Wembley.  She took off her headscarf and answered, "No, I have plait," showing me her plaited hair.

Not quite sure what she thought I'd said there.

Anyway, fortunately the pandit arrived shortly afterwards and told me my lucky number was seven (isn't everyone's?) and showed off his psychic skills by the fact that he had written this down before I had even said it (he had asked me to name a number between one and nine).   He then examined my hands before revealing the following not-at-all obvious or general truths (bear in mind he already knew my name, age, occupation and marital status, and that I lived alone).

1.) I am from a good family, my parents were kind hearted and raised me to be the same.
2.) My family are neither rich nor poor, but of the "middling sort."
3.) I have a good education.
4.) At the moment, I spend all the money I earn.

The latter not terribly difficult to work out given the fact that I'd just spent ten of my hard-earned pounds paying a charlatan I've never met before in a room filled with pictures of Hindu gods to tell me all about my personality and potential future.

He then went on to say that I would be fine financially, and that I would be able to afford a car and two houses (yes, TWO.  This was totally the best thing he said.  I am so getting another property).

And then he said that people were jealous of me and were talking about me behind my back and giving me the "Evil Eye."  He went on about this for AGES AND AGES.  I was hoping he would get off the topic and tell me something more interesting.  Like, for example, that I was going to be a world-famous novelist, or meet a tall, dark handsome stranger (that old chestnut) or start popping out some babies in the near future, but all he could bang on about was these "bad people" who were giving me the Evil Eye and how this was hindering my general progress in life.

He also said my love life was pretty bad, so at least there was some truth to his ramblings.

He then said that I could purchase some spells and prayers to help combat the Evil Eye.  In fact, he basically said that I could pay him to do some yoga and he would get rid of the Evil Eyes for me.

PAY HIM TO DO SOME BLOODY YOGA???!!!

I politely declined, and enquired about more pressing matters, such as whether I should change my job (he asked if this was because I didn't like my colleagues, perhaps hinting that it was they who were giving me the Evil Eye, then when I answered that it was just that I'd been there a while and fancied a change he was really vague and implied that whatever I did would be fine and I'd still get the car and the two houses.  Very important that, the two houses).

I also asked if I would get married, and to my abject horror, he answered straight away that I had already missed two chances to do this.

TWO CHANCES!  My life flashed before me, trying to think when these two chances might have been.  Was I drunk?  Did I sleep with them too soon and they ran off, these potential husbands?  The pandit just muttered something about the "planets not being aligned."  Yeah, right.

Lastly, I asked him the all-important question of whether I would have children.  He examined my hands thoroughly, squinting to see if there were any lines which presumably indicated my future possible children.  I swear we used to do something similar in primary school.

Finally, just as I thought he was going to tell me I'd missed my chances at that as well, he said I had "five or six" chances ahead of me, and of these potential children, two were boys and the rest girls.

I'd better get a wiggle on, as my good-hearted and middle class parents would say.

Tuesday 2 April 2013

Hope Springs Eternal

I know I know, I've been away for ages.

And unfortunately, I do not return triumphant, ready to launch my blog of obsessive pregnancy anxiety, or write a press release for my new parenting book.

Alas, the treatment failed.  And not only that, but after I had some (brief) respite by getting a boyfriend (wonders never cease), that relationship too failed.

In short, I am one massive, humungous failure.  A failure as a woman, and a failure as a human being.

I had hoped, when my period was late this month, that perhaps there was a happy ending to my story, but happy endings are of course a mere chimera, based on nothing but the arbitrary place in a character's life where the author decides to end the story.  In a fairy tale or a chick lit novel, this might be at the point when the protaganist meets the man or woman of their dreams (although I struggle to think of a novel which ends with a man finding the woman of his dreams, as men are taught from birth to strive for other things, such as being a superhero who saves the world, rather than settling into cosy domesticity with a wife and children), but in reality Cinderella and Prince Charming surely didn't spend their entire married life in a bubble of permanent bliss, so better to end the story on a high note rather than continuing on until one of them dies, via illness, old age and arguments over the washing up.  Although I suppose as Prince Charming was a prince they must have had servants so probably never needed to do the washing up.  Well, even that couldn't save Mary and Matthew from that melodramatic car accident in Downton Abbey where Matthew got killed off leaving Mary a widowed single mother so a lack of washing up is surely not the secret to domestic bliss.  I think it's fair to say it hasn't worked for me either, no disrespect intended to the dishwasher for it is a worthy household appliance.

Anyway, back to happy endings.  So I had hoped when my period was late that perhaps there was a tiny possibility that the (now ex) Boyfriend had at least left me with a zygote rather than simply a rubbish book about Wicca, but alas no.  And yet again I had to suffer the indignity of going into Boots and buying a ludicrously expensive test only to get home and find that my period had started as if it was some cruel joke (Superdrug is closer to my house, but is cursed due to my having purchased so many negative tests from there in the past.  Also I can only buy the expensive tests as the cheap ones are also cursed).

AND I have now convinced myself that I have endometriosis, AND a hostile womb.  This is based on the following:
1.) I had two out of the ten possible endometriosis symptoms in an online quiz called "Do I have endometriosis?" which I found by googling the aforementioned terms.
2.) I am convinced that my late period is the sign of a chemical pregnancy as my period is NEVER late (apart from once, six months ago, which I also convinced myself was a chemical pregnancy).  The fact that I have therefore now had two of these means I have had three miscarriages in total and am a "habitual aborter" and therefore my womb must have an overzealous door policy which is stopping me from having any offspring.  Perhaps this is a result of the endometriosis which I have convinced myself that I have.  After all, chillingly there are sometimes no symptoms (it's like that pesky chlamydia, which I thought I had constantly between the ages of 17 and 31).

Maybe I did have the pesky chlamydia, and this is why I can't get pregnant.  Oh good God.  I am like a warning advert for promiscious teenagers.  "Look at me kids, this is what can happen if you're not careful!" like a cautionary tale advising against unsafe sex as if it was drink driving, dodgy fireworks or crystal meth.

Speaking of crystal meth, Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas used to be addicted to that, and she is now pregnant.  And she is like 38 or something, so there is hope.  I always find Fergie (as in Black Eyed Peas, not Duchess of York or Manchester United manager) is a useful pin-up girl for hope as her husband is also very fit despite her being a bit crystal meth-ravaged, so there is hope for me yet.  Maybe I should call Will-i-Am and ask him if he could use me on one of his tracks so I too can be like Fergie, albeit with a bit more of a starring role for the auto-tune.

I was going to go on about how I attempted to cheer myself up today by abusing my useless body in the gym, and then by going to Kew Gardens, although the latter was a bit scary as a 32 year old woman was killed there a few months ago when a stray bit of tree flew off and hit her in strong winds, and I bet she didn't see that one coming when she got up that morning and decided to take a trip to the home of retired horticulture enthusiasts and well-meaning middle class yummy mummies.  Luckily however, the only visible sign of death there today was the chair in which Queen Charlotte died.  Queen Charlotte apparently had fifteen children, most of whom survived into adulthood, which was pretty impressive for the eighteenth century, so I wondered if I should steal the chair and install it in my flat so I could sit on it and be infused with her fertility through the fabric (although hopefully not with the dropsy that killed her.  I had a pet goldfish that died of dropsy once.  How embarrassing to die of a fish disease).  However, I will stop there and leave you with the follwing thoughts of hope.
1.) Fergie is 38 or something, AND she used to be addicted to crystal meth, and she is pregnant and has a fit husband.
2.) I worked out that Queen Charlotte was 39 when she had her final child.
3.) I did not get killed by a tree today.  Nor do I have dropsy.

There is hope.