Emery board

I’m sorry I’ve been a slack blogger this week, I think it’s because I’m bored.

Silly, really, because you would think all this boredom might motivate me to do something but, oh no, it’s quite the opposite.

I liken it to the way a friend of mine talks about the shithole that is, or was, his bedroom. Booted out of the family home, said friend was so depressed he couldn’t be arsed picking up after himself and rather let the bedroom in his new, crappier, home turn to shit. I asked him (yonks ago) why he didn’t get a cat or pretty things up. He said he didn’t want to let himself think the new digs could be permanent. But, of course, the grottier his bedroom got, the worse he felt and the less he did, making the room even grottier.

For me, it’s the same with boredom. When I’m bored and a bit down, nothing, absolutely nothing, interests me. I’m like a petulant child screaming that she wants something, but with no idea what (Sweet? Toy? Nap?) it is that she wants. Just that she wants it immediately.

For my friend it has simply been a matter of bagging a new job and shagging his way around London. For me, neither option is a)viable and b)that appealing.

I tell you this now, readers, because I am a little concerned. I have booked in a haircut for tomorrow afternoon. I need a haircut - my fringe has grown so long I now resemble a slightly dim sheepdog – but I can’t escape a slightly nagging suspicion that having a haircut in my present mood is a mistake. I’m restless, I’m a bit meh, I want something to change. All of which translates, I fear, into a buzz-cut. Or a bob. Or going blonde.

Old friends may recall an ill-advised decision of mine, in my teenage years, to tell my hairdresser to just do whatever she wanted. What she wanted, apparently, was an ear-grazing bob accompanied by a short, blunt fringe that made me look almost exactly like a surprised hedgehog. I went home, locked myself in the bathroom and cut off my hair with a pair of scissors until it was about an inch long all over. Don’t feel sorry for me, feel sorry for Mum: she paid for the haircut.

And now… and now… I can feel the dreaded phrase sliding, once more, towards the tip of the tongue. In the noble tradition of bored teenagers, dumped girlfriends and gormless dullards alike, my lips are preparing to sound out the dreaded phrase: “Go ahead - whatever you want.”