My Birthday Email or Zipadeedodah

It’s my birthday. I got an email.
It said
‘Here's wishing you a very happy birthday! Let's hope that this is the
year when you find that someone special at Guardian Soulmates. Warmest regards,
The Guardian Soulmates Support Team’

This, I believe was a cruel and heartless thing to do. After all, it stands to reason that if one is a member (albeit lapsed) of Guardian Soulmates (other dating sites are available) then there is a stongish likelihood that one is spending one’s birthday alone. Without one’s soulmate. So rubbing it in and being the only birthday email one might receive is just a tad insensitive.

I am, however, not downhearted, grey, drab, gray (that’s for my US audience) or slightly cheerless. For I have discovered many truths of being single, things that only single people can do just because they are single.

Here are some of them:

Burst into loud and tuneless song any time of the day or night.
Dance naked in the kitchen without giving the impression one wants sex.
Talk to friendly inanimate objects.
Kiss friendly inanimate objects.
Shout at not friendly inanimate objects.
Dance clothed in the kitchen without giving the impression one wants sex.
Give the impression one wants sex without the danger of offending.
See the world through rose-tinted glasses.
Fantasise about Prince charming.
Wear glass slippers.
Use words like ‘itsy, didums and zipadeedodah’.
Be happy without anyone thinking one is crazy.
Be crazy without anyone thinking one is crazy.
Be without anyone wondering why.
Wonder about being without anyone wondering where their clean pants are.
Not wash pants.
Not wear knickers.
Sleep in trees.

So, to The Guardian Soulmates Support Team I’d like to say ‘fuck off’. Because, and this is a fact, only single people live can live their lives as stars in musicals, when they marry they have to leave immediately. Or the musical ends.

Zipadeedodah!


P.S. now I’m going to see Sex in the City with the Lawyer because only single girls can really enjoy a film like that.

P.P.S. of course it wasn’t the only email, text, card, present etc – thank you all my friends, family, Beloveds, ex-Beloveds, cats and Beloveds-to-Be. Except the Beloveds, ex-Beloveds, cats and Beloveds-to-Be who completely forgot.

How I Didn’t Exist but Then Became One

I have been practicing using the first person singular pronoun. In conversation. As is appropriate for single people to use.

‘I’ is not my favourite. Frankly I prefer ‘We’. I (note the use of the first person singular pronoun) hope that I won’t be an I for very long and will become a We but in the interim I (note the use of the first person singular pronoun) am practicing.

This is what happened:

I met a person who didn’t know me.

This, for a start, is dangerous ground. People who know me tend to know me and take me with several bushels of salt, a teaspoon of pepper and assorted ground condiments. They know at what point to spit me out.

I met a person who didn’t know me. And tried to tell them about myself. It turned out that I didn’t exist. I was the first person plural - We. I was not an independent entity.

It’s all very well and good not being an independent entity when one actually is We. It is totally different if I’m not We. Which I’m not.

I am considering simply bluffing and claiming to be the Queen. She’s a little older than me and has a very different attitude to handbags but I, sorry We, think we can pull it off.

We are actually quite well qualified to be the Queen as we are one of the last people left on earth to regularly use the gender neutral impersonal pronoun ‘One’. This apparently is a sign of poshness. So at least I can be sure that David Beckham fancies me.

Life has suddenly become so much simpler. No longer do we need to wrestle with the big question of ‘Who am I?’ and instead ask ‘Who is one?’ And since we are now the Queen we have a fixed and well-documented life which any person who doesn’t know us might discover on the internet, in a plethora of magazines, or by asking a handy Beefeater.

One has been practicing using the gender neutral impersonal pronoun. One thinks therefore one is. One exists.

One is, at last, fucking sorted.

My True Identity Revealed

I have discovered my true identity. This is groundbreaking stuff.

Much research, meditation, trips to India, ashramming, pursuing of religious fervour and hiring of Life Coaches goes on in the world for people to discover their true identity. I used none of the aforementioned methods. I had a revelatory moment. In the changing room of the gym.

All the pieces of my disparate personality began to make sense. Things like:

My fondness for large bags and umbrellas
Why snapping my fingers is so effective
My knack of bursting into song at any given moment
My winning ways with children
Why I am revered by penguins
How I can understand fake cockney accents
My general ability to defeat gravity
The cut of my coat
My charming cloche hat
Why sometimes my feet might turn outward
Why I am practically perfect

This is what happened:
I was in the gym changing rooms preparing to leave. I glanced at myself in the mirror. I am the spitting image of Mary Poppins. I am Mary Poppins.

I said to the Lawyer – ‘Look! See there!’ I pointed at the mirror, ‘I am Mary Poppins!’

She said ‘I know, but I didn’t like to mention it.’