I'M 30!
If it wasn't for the fact that I've just started a night-shift after driving back to London from Nottingham, I'd be feeling pretty chirpy. As it is, I'm sleepier than Rip Van Wrinkle just before taking a rather long nap.
So why the sleep-deprived good humour? Well, the big night itself got off to a rather slow start. A dive on Finchley Road was the rendezvous for my coming of age. There were three floors - the rammed top floor, itself split into a Jewish right and Gentile left, divided only by a bouncer-laden landing; the ground floor, where people waited for the neckless bouncers to let them up; and the lower-ground floor, where people, so far as I could tell, just went to shit (the top-floor toilets only had porcelain urinals - a tiny box of a bog, complete with valet to squirt soap on your hands and pass you toilet roll to dry them, before waiting expectantly for his tip).
In among the predicted fat-arses, faux Liz Hurley dresses exposing lifeless bosoms, and drunken chavs, was Rachel. She was a friend of Rob's. She had a phd, a nose-ring and, in her words, "had only ever shagged one guy". I already had the impression that she fancied me before she started rubbing my back and stroking my paunch.
Luckily, I'd already met Tamy. The tanned, evanescent-toothed Glaswegian was just about the only thing I cared to look at for the rest of the evening. I was drunk, but not annoyingly so. I gleaned that she lives round the corner from my parents and works as an optician in the City. "I know this isn't exactly the best place to make a good first impression," I told her. "But can I give you a call some time and take you out for a drink?" I asked. She smiled, looked at me in a flattered kind of way, and then told me she had a boyfriend. He shoots, he misses!
I wasn't too upset, though. I prefer to be rejected on the grounds of prior-commitment, rather than anything else. That way, at least, I can think to myself that it was a question of poor-timing, not poor personality.
So I left around 1.30am. I walked home in the freezing fog. My flat was warm, but unheated. I opened my presents: Garden State; Paul Smith washbag; Simpsons DVDs; and chalah bread board. Some lovely cards too. I went to bed, contentedly inebriated and not the least bit resentful that I'd just turned 30.
The next morning, the sun woke me (as happens every day now - I really must buy those blinds!). I turned on my phone. A text from Rosa, a Greek girl I'd gone out with once but had never called again. She was wishing me a happy birthday, the fulfillment of all of my dreams and everything else my heart desired.
It really put a smile on my 30-year old face. Perhaps I was too dismissive of her the first time round? I told her to let me know when she was back in town. Just on the grounds of sweetness, she deserves another chance.
If it wasn't for the fact that I've just started a night-shift after driving back to London from Nottingham, I'd be feeling pretty chirpy. As it is, I'm sleepier than Rip Van Wrinkle just before taking a rather long nap.
So why the sleep-deprived good humour? Well, the big night itself got off to a rather slow start. A dive on Finchley Road was the rendezvous for my coming of age. There were three floors - the rammed top floor, itself split into a Jewish right and Gentile left, divided only by a bouncer-laden landing; the ground floor, where people waited for the neckless bouncers to let them up; and the lower-ground floor, where people, so far as I could tell, just went to shit (the top-floor toilets only had porcelain urinals - a tiny box of a bog, complete with valet to squirt soap on your hands and pass you toilet roll to dry them, before waiting expectantly for his tip).
In among the predicted fat-arses, faux Liz Hurley dresses exposing lifeless bosoms, and drunken chavs, was Rachel. She was a friend of Rob's. She had a phd, a nose-ring and, in her words, "had only ever shagged one guy". I already had the impression that she fancied me before she started rubbing my back and stroking my paunch.
Luckily, I'd already met Tamy. The tanned, evanescent-toothed Glaswegian was just about the only thing I cared to look at for the rest of the evening. I was drunk, but not annoyingly so. I gleaned that she lives round the corner from my parents and works as an optician in the City. "I know this isn't exactly the best place to make a good first impression," I told her. "But can I give you a call some time and take you out for a drink?" I asked. She smiled, looked at me in a flattered kind of way, and then told me she had a boyfriend. He shoots, he misses!
I wasn't too upset, though. I prefer to be rejected on the grounds of prior-commitment, rather than anything else. That way, at least, I can think to myself that it was a question of poor-timing, not poor personality.
So I left around 1.30am. I walked home in the freezing fog. My flat was warm, but unheated. I opened my presents: Garden State; Paul Smith washbag; Simpsons DVDs; and chalah bread board. Some lovely cards too. I went to bed, contentedly inebriated and not the least bit resentful that I'd just turned 30.
The next morning, the sun woke me (as happens every day now - I really must buy those blinds!). I turned on my phone. A text from Rosa, a Greek girl I'd gone out with once but had never called again. She was wishing me a happy birthday, the fulfillment of all of my dreams and everything else my heart desired.
It really put a smile on my 30-year old face. Perhaps I was too dismissive of her the first time round? I told her to let me know when she was back in town. Just on the grounds of sweetness, she deserves another chance.
posted by David Cohen at 12:54 am
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