Mr Magorium's Wedding Emporium

There is a sign outside a church down the road from where I live that reads: "WHATEVER YOU PUT ON, WEAR LOVE." Just like that. In capitals. Now I've never been shy of a bit of gentle sartorial experimentation; I indulged the shell-suit trend aged 8, the tracksuit trend aged 10 (a local phenomenon) and now own a pair of leggings. But love? Now, that is one thing that has never quite fit properly. Throughout this blog I have brushed past the odd mating catastrophe as if it were nothing but an irritating fly in my gin and tonic but the truth is, well..that I haven't been completely truthful. The truth is that, if love can be worn, as my Christian neighbours say it can, then it is as becoming on me as a pink mini-skirt on a rugby player; chafingly uncomfortable, amusingly carried off, and with the wearer secretly desiring more time to walk round in the ill-fitting garment despite everyone else telling them to PLEASE REMOVE THAT THING NOW. In my case, and taking a relieved step away from the simile, this manifests itself through friends' gentle coaxing: "Put the phone down NOW", "Step away from Facebook poke", or just "You're being a dick. Stop it." So, it is hardly surprising that with these seemingly helpful preventative measures, my acquaintances have unwittingly allowed a love-aversion to grow and fester. Callous! I hear you cry. OK, I may have flourished this with some fictional elements, namely, my friends' involvement, but the fact still stands, I am love averse. Now, before you brand me a witch, let me take you back to my favourite metaphor - the rugby player and the mini-skirt. It's not that he doesn't like it - au contraire - he loves it. But it just doesn't look right, however pretty it (or he) is. To be quite frank, his involvement with the skirt causes so much distress to those around him that they cannot bear for him to don the garment again. Is this in any way any clearer? Thought not. Now, I could live with this, just about. I mean, if I want to get myself all trussed up in an emotional mess then that's my prerogative is it not Britney Spears? "Yes!" she beams reassuringly, the word tinged with the dying embers of 90s Girl Power. People can spit and shout and wail that I'm making a mistake but who cares? Live and let live! Laissez-faire! And all that.

However, something has changed. The hypocrisy of our late twenties is beginning to show it's ugly face. I have started to receive signs that point to a sea change in opinion, a move away from 'carefree' as an adjective to describe our crazy youth and towards, well, 'settled'. These beacons of change feature fairly high up those portentous words "...request the pleasure of the company of..." Reading my name followed swiftly by "...to celebrate the marriage of..." I barely have time to gulp before I'm forced to stoop to pick up a slip of paper that has fallen, at once accidentally and deliberately, from the white glittering card. Picking it up I immediately discern the silver lettering which can only mean one thing: The John Lewis Gift List. And that's it. The full hit. The complete and bloody blow to the head. The obvious questions flash through my mind: Do I know these people? How long have they been together? Was I expecting it? What will I wear? And will there be an item within my budget on the Gift List that isn't a toilet roll holder? Once these questions have been posed and the first (and most important) ones have been answered in the affirmative then I'm left pondering the other stuff, raking it over in my mind...Are these the people who have been discouraging me from forming meaningful relationships with men they disapprove of, only then to run away and secure a life-long bit of company for themselves..? I mean honestly, I could if I wanted to, I mean I'm just going to go and find myself someone now, I mean there's no reason why I can't make it my project to secure someone before the wedding day and take them along and who knows maybe it'll be us this time next year...I mean... Oh, wait a minute, how am I ever going to pull in my current condition? The word "unemployed", when uttered, has never to my knowledge turned anyone on...Ah, but hang on a minute, this invitation is addressed to me. I mean, just me - no plus one. NO PLUS ONE! This is an abomination. (And that word is only ever used in cartoons.) No plus one. No plus one. The words ring in my head. I say them over and over as if it's wrong that I don't have an invitation for an imaginary plus one. I'm fighting an imaginary cause. It's getting more like a cartoon all the time.

Needless to say I got over the initial distress and, if I'm honest, I'm pretty excited about this wedding. I like the people (which is always a start) and it's an autumn wedding and I like the autumn. I could do with a bit of light end-of-summer dress shopping as well. That never hurt anyone. Especially me. Once I had secured a date for parting with some of my dwindling cash, the thought of going alone didn't seem as painful. And anyway, what was I whinging about? I had at least two other friends who would be going alone. I aired my concerns with one of them and I was almost bowled over by her insightful response: "Listen, we're good quality guests, you know?" "No," I replied. "I don't know what you mean." "Look, we're good quality guests because people know what they're getting with us. They don't have to worry about expecting some crazy lunatic plus one. They get us. In a nice dress. That's good value for money per head." With the simplicity and clarity of this statement, the clouds lifted.

I don't know what it was that made me feel better, the fact that I was amused or a genuine belief that I was excellent value for money, but it didn't much matter. My bizarre hissy fit deserved an equally bizarre response. And that was perfect. It IS weird to moan about other people getting married, plus ones, relationship histories and those over-priced, unnecessary presents. It's like the grown-up version of saying that someone's stolen your ruler or pulled your hair. I know that. I just ask one thing: that when I reach my thirtieth birthday, each of my friends selects a gift for me from my John Lewis Birthday Gift List. Well, I've got to furnish my one bedroom flat somehow.

Ducks and Satellites

So, go on, who found the 'I've got a Ferrari in me yet' corny? OK, I'll be the first to say that I did. Although at the time of writing I meant it and still agree with it on re-reading, I still blush when I see it sitting there. On the internet. Being read by people. But that's the beauty of this. A little bit of honesty spewed out in a corner of my bedroom onto the World Wide Web. Maybe I should have thought a bit harder about my relationship with blogging before setting out on this little project. Oh well. Too late now.

It's about six months since I started writing this. I recently flicked back to the very first posting in which I triumphantly announced my departure from newspapers. Beginning on a note of panic, cleverly/clumsily disguised as self-deprecation, I had no idea what was going to unfold in the coming months but what I was definitely setting myself up for was a torrent of honesty. You can't really start to write something as self-indulgent as this without being honest. It's short-changing people. If you're going to talk about yourself, don't lie - it just spoils things. So, the Ferrari comment, that was me. Sometimes really honest just isn't cool. Hence the invention of punchy headlines and compromising press photos. Putting your thoughts to music also seems to add a cool shine to them. A recent musical obsession of mine is a very nice Australian lady called Kate Miller-Heidke. She writes about how ducks don't need satellites and about falling in love with the journalist who regularly interviews her. Yes, ducks and satellites, you did read right. I suppose it is all a bit odd but I enjoy her alternative reality. I can relate to it.

Having time does do strange things to your thought processes. You can allow your mind to wander. In fact, after a while, it wanders of its own accord. After about the first month of behaving rather hysterically about my unemployed situation (that was around the time of the one million emails a day to media organisations), I ran out of things to do. There were times in the week when I just had to sit back and let people answer my calls and respond to my emails before pouncing on them again. It was in these moments that I began to develop an interest in things outside of job-seeking. I remembered that there was an International Slavery Museum in Liverpool that I'd always meant to go to and that I had a few books I'd wanted to read for a while. I began walking to places too. In fact, just walking for the hell of it. A friend recently commented on the walking: "Saw you stomping down the road the other day! Was waiting at the traffic lights and there you were! You're a funny one." As if walking had gone out of fashion and I'd been caught in the act of extreme uncoolness. Leaving out the people who have cruelly commented on my 'dossing' (Ouch. Sore point), others have been perplexed as to how I have filled my days. They forget that, in their world, a weekend is framed by five days of work, rendering the weekend a 'holiday'. In my world, there is no such framing technique which means that there is only time - no weekend of holiday. You have to create a week. I have so far managed this fairly successfully. Monday to Friday I'll make my phonecalls, send my emails, fill in my application forms, do all my panicking. I'll only wander around the shops on weekends, as well. That is a weekend activity. Of course, money is rarely parted with. But that's not the point. It's about keeping up with the rest of the world. "I see they have new blazers in Topshop" is the kind of knowledge that feeds light-hearted chat on the phone. What is on BBC1 at 3 is the afternoon does not. Which I why I, thankfully, never gave in to the daytime TV temptation. It only loses you friends for, not only do they resent you for being able to watch it, but they can't discuss plot-lines or topics of the day with you anyway. So it's pointless. Enter museums and galleries. They have been a pretty healthy substitute for me of late. Although, admittedly, the free museums and galleries of Merseyside, while fairly great in number, do not six months of unemployment fill. But every little helps, as they say.

But however much you try, there's always the guilt. You can sit at a desk 9-5, stare at Facebook for the duration, leave at the end of the day, and legitimately bemoan your tired eyes, sore feet and buzzing head. "God, what a day! I'm so glad to be home!" you'll cry. I've done it. And yet no amount of emailing, panicking and head buzzing justifies your existence if you're unemployed. You can complain about not having a job but about nothing else. The sole purpose of your life is to secure that job. However, the longer the unemployment goes on, the less patient others become. 'Oh come on' they muse sceptically 'surely it's not that difficult.' But the transition from busy newsroom to very quiet corner of bedroom is a tough one. I can hear the sceptics guffawing. But that's the honest bit.

Some things remain the same; I'm still writing, for instance. About myself and not other people, but still writing. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if I had a greater readership now than I had six months ago. Secondly, the balance in my bank account is, give or take a couple of pounds, in exactly the same condition as it was back in December mainly as a result of me shedding my London rent. I'm not rich. In fact, I am poor. But I have read a bit more and seen a bit more than I saw in all of my working time. I've discovered a musician who sings about ducks, I've lingered over some art, I've walked. And I've written this blog. It has been my alternative reality. A reality that has not been easy to stomach in many ways but which, in other ways, has furnished me with some opportunities that may otherwise have passed me by. I only hope that, when September comes and I launch myself onto another educational institution, I will remember what it is to enjoy time in the ways that I have done over the past few months.