I am pregnant and Josh is moving to China.

Welcome to an unusual turn in my life, rather soap opera-ish really, but nevertheless serious and not in the least bit entertaining.

Pregnant. Yes. I don't know how I feel about that. It certainly makes going to university and being a scummy student more difficult and the fact that its father is running off to China is something of a disappointment.

Joshua works in a library, I may have mentioned this before. He has been taking teaching courses over the past year or so and has been applying for jobs to teach English abroad. He applied in all sorts of different countries - France, Germany, Norway, India, Greece, and China. My bloody luck he's been and gone and got the one six thousand miles away from home, and me. He'll be away for at least two years. His contract lasts two years and he has the choice to stay on if he likes the job.

There is an option for me to join him.

Living in China? Having a baby and living in China? I am baffled by these choices I need to make. I have one month to decide whether or not to move, and I suppose I should make the decision to have or not to have this baby by then too. If I do decide to move, I will have two months to quit my job, leave my home, say goodbye to my friends, and fuck off to East Asia. Golly. Guangzhou sounds nice. It's a city ninety miles North-west of Hong Kong and Macau - thriving apparently. We would get our own flat and Joshua's wage would support us without question. I suppose that would make me a housewife in a far away and non-English speaking country though, and I'm not sure I am ready for any of that. I don't think I ever will be.

So. My options are:

Having Joshua's baby and living as a single mum in London.
Having Joshua's baby and living as a family in China.
Not having Joshua's baby and living as I have for the past four years in London.
Not having Joshua's baby and living with him in China.


In other news I have given up my membership for my matchmakers community. I don't think I need it any more. And it's gone and got me in a whole lot of trouble already! I would recommend it if you fancy a bit of fun, or a life-changing relationship with tough decisions.

Oh bloody hell what am I going to do! Well I'm not going to reach a decision on here that's for certain. All this really does is provide an outlet for my opinions and frustrations. I say "only," that's a lot really. Never underestimate the power of waffling to a screen and a bunch of people you don't know. Can I still post on Live Journal in China? We'll see. I might not post here for a while. I'm going to stay with my parents and have a long hard think.

Bye-bye.

"Just like the white winged dove...
sings a song ...
Sounds like she's singing...
ooo...baby...ooo...said ooo
Just like the white winged dove...
sings a song...
Sounds like she's singing...
ooo...baby...ooo...said ooo."

Yes I am still listening to Stevie Nicks. Can you guess the song? I'm no quiz master, it's about her most famous one and it's featured in the School of Rock soundtrack...

"And the days go by....
like a strand in the wind
In the web that is my own...
begin again
Said to my friend, baby...
Nothin' else mattered."

Yeah, rock 'n' roll lyrics. I might change the pace a bit after this song and put Nina Simone on. Or my power ballads album. Who knows! I am that carefree.

No new messages for me from internet dating. I think I might actually give up my subscription, it's given me one totally awesome man and I don't think I need another. I may as well just burn my bridges and jump into this head first. He'll be round in less than one hour - we're going to do some late night cooking. Vegan lasagne no less. We both have all day off tomorrow so we're going to make a night of it and enjoy feeling like students with slightly better knowledge of the world.
Speaking of which, I have been thinking about going back to university. Perhaps Applied Psychology and Women's Studies. Or Politics and Women's Studies. Regardless of what I take as part of my joint honors degree, one half will without question be Women's Studies. I just wish it had a better name. It sounds like a fake subject. The study of ladies' things. I can't imagine it being anything less than remarkably fascinating but its title gives the impression of quite a lightweight subject about nothing more than what girls do.
Being back in university at my age will feel weird. I might make some young friends. Or I might avoid them like the plague and get on with my work like most mature students seem to do. I wonder if I'll be able to hack it. I haven't done academic study in such a long time I'm not sure my brain would be up for it at all. I think it thought that nonsense was all over and it could relax and grow old. That is partly the reason I want to do it. I don't feel that the bookshop gives me enough for my mind to work with and it's gathering dust. I'm approaching thirty and I am not confident enough in my knowledge things I am passionate about. That's not good is it? I should learn until my head explodes and then scoop up the mess and shove it all back in. So it's decided then. University it is. This feels like it could be the beginning of a sitcom episode. "So I went to college, and this is what happened..."

I am all better now, hooray! The weather has helped my mood - I do love the sun ever such a lot. Except when it burns me. But this does not happen often because of how clever and wise I am. I have factor thirty sun block. Oh Yes.

More sitting in the park today, eating Calippos and reading words out of my book. I did a stand-in part-shift this morning but it was only a very little one so I was able to run away nice and early and enjoy my life. One part of it anyway. Josh and I had a lovely time so we did. We played cards. Fuck yeah - party animals!

Got some pretty good messages in the old lonely hearts inbox today. One was quite sweet and enticing, the others not wavering from the norm. This is the nice one:

"interesting... you are the most normal person I have seen on here.

I am assuming you are bright enough not to have paid the fee to read this message.. I am unsure if I will be able to read your reply if you get it!

The internet is a perplexing world. If by pure chance you get this... then send smoke signals. I shall keep an eye to the horizon. Great picture by the by."

Heh. It made me giggle. I hate giggling as it belies my immaturity and I like to be regarded as a somewhat elegant and sophisticated lady. I am aware that my looks and personality do give me away immediately, however, I do try to keep certain aspects of my girl-ish-ness at bay, for want of an alluring quality.

Yeah, stupid innit?

This is one of the funny messages I got:

" gorgeous photo by the way...

do you just have piercings on your face!

i like the pic!

need a man !

i think i could help!

cheeeckyyy funny and notorious thats me!

check me out!"

That guy is a smoooooth motherfucker. But I am afraid I could never date a man who doesn't know what question marks are. I am also slightly concerned about him describing himself as notorious. That's not a good thing where I come from. Cumbria for those who don't know.

There is another funny message but it's really not worth posting here. Yes really! It's even more dull than any previous posted messages. This is the kind of thing I have to put myself through on a daily basis. I hope you pity me. But only for that reason.

I'm listening to Stevie Nicks. She rocks the fucking house. Fleetwood Mac were one of my favourite bands as a little child and, now being all grown-up and sophisticated I have taken more interest in her solo work and left Fleetwood Mac behind. Although if I were to receive a Fleetwood Mac album mysteriously in the post I wouldn't throw it away or anything. I might have a bit of a listen and then decide to donate it... Or put it in my embarrassing CD collection. Next to Shakespears Sister and The White Christmas Album. But this is all hypothetical.

The sun is back at last and I have been in the park all day.

I got up bright and early this afternoon and went out to buy fruit and other such picnic foods. I got houmous, bread, cherry tomatoes, melon, cherries, grapes and kettle chips with salsa and mesquite. Yummy. My friend Lauren was about so we hooked up in the park and sat on a blanket until we got cold.
There are a lot of weirdos in parks. There was a man wandering around offering free Indian foot massages, which seemed to annoy a nearby American man who came over to talk to us about him. He seemed alright until he called him a black cunt - it was then we realised he was clearly more mad than the guy he had a problem with. He stood next to us for about fifteen minutes, banging on about niggers ("course you can't call them that any more"), living in America, and a conversation he had just had with his ex girlfriend on the phone. She has been raped by her new boyfriend's brother, which has happened before and which is why he split up with her and beat the shit out of her and her new boyfriend and his brother and threatened to kill them with his old shotgun, but they took that away from him when they caught up with him, but she's sleeping around anyway so the baby could be anyone's but she thinks it's his and should come back to America but he can't because he's been to prison and then they kicked him out of the country cuz he's originally from the UK, but this country's all gone to shit now of course, since Thatcher got into power everything's gone up in smoke, just like his daddy told him it would.

I thought for a second I was on Rikki Lake. But no, I was in a park in central London eating houmous. That's about as far from trailer trash as you can get isn't it?

It's hard to know how to follow that.

Disappointingly I have no new messages in my matchmaking inbox. I have a whole month of my subscription left and I feel like I should use it. I could dump Josh for a while and start going on dates again. Not that Josh and I are really together. Okay, we are. It's not been made official but I suppose we should just accept it. He said he might come round later to feed me soup. He seems to be much better now but I am still all snotty and gross. I don't suppose sitting in a pollen-filled park helped but I like to throw caution to the wind, laugh in the face of danger. Or if not danger, then mild peril. Or very weak irritants.

Back at work tomorrow. I can't possibly have yet another day off so I'm going to brave it. I shall be a bookshop-based warrior. Hopefully it will be quiet and I can busy myself with slow shelving.

Hooray for Mars deciding not to put animal rennet in their chocolate bars and continue to make money out of us vegetarians! Apparently in just one week more than 6,000 people bombarded the Masterfoods company, which produces the Mars, Snickers, Maltesers, Bounty, Twix, etc., etc. with phone and e-mail complaints. So they changed their minds - obviously realising that they would lose money from it. I wonder how many veggies have celebrated by buying a Mars bar...

Still bloody raining, it's been raining for days. As expected, Polly's party was based in doors, but we cooked sausages using her grill, while drinking cans of beer, so it was sort of like a barbecue. I was and am still ill but I went and had a fantastic time anyway. I drank lots of vodka and orange juice just to keep my vitamin C levels up and got Joshua, who is ill too bless him, to carry me around when I felt like mingling in another room. He likes it.
Joshua was a great success! Thankfully he is very gregarious and charming so people are drawn to and instantly like him. He spent more than an hour chatting to Polly in the kitchen, while I scoffed crisps and talked to Polly's artist friend Bill in the living room. Bill is a sculptor, a sculptor of penises. Peni? He claims not to be gay, and at sixty he should know, so I just accepted that the man likes to make peni out of clay and stuff and we moved swiftly on to talk about UFOs. My knowledge of UFOs is limited, so we didn't stay on this topic for long either. Soon enough I had run out of booze and made my excuses to return to the kitchen and find someone else to chat to. Preferably someone I knew. I found my friend Ellie and I think I spoke to her for a good hour or so, then I was really quite drunk (damn vodka) so I'm not sure how many other people I managed to talk to. I hate that about parties. I always mean to talk to everyone but I never do.

I was not feeling any less ill when I woke up this morning. In fact, I would say that the alcohol had a definite negative impact on me. I haven't been able to shift a headache all day, despite knocking back some Resolve Extra Strong when I awoke and making myself lots of lemon tea and Lemsip. Bah! Joshua is still here, rolling around in bed and making silly noises to attract my attention. I only switched on my computer to check my emails and my online dating messages, now look where I am! No-one interesting has messaged me on the dating site in ages - to be fair it has given me the man in my bed, and I would stop checking it if I could. But I am addicted.

Right, I'm going to half-heartedly make dinner and then Josh and I are going to watch Children of Men on his laptop. Goodnight!

Still ill, no it hasn't gone away. I didn't go into work today, and I just remembered than Anna who runs the art section owes me twenty quid. She'll probably go and spend it on abstract paintings instead. Bugger. I need to go to the shop for food but I can't be bothered to leave the house. I only just managed to drag myself out of bed. It is days like these I wish I had a television - all I want to do is lie down and watch DVDs, maybe drink hot chocolate and scoff Wotsits. I'm very much into Wotsits at the moment, I hope they don't start making them with animal products in. Bloody Mars. I hate them, and their use of the phrase "less strict vegetarians," who do they think they are? And more to the point, what do they think vegetarians are if they expect some of us to consume animal products just because it's chocolate they're in??? If you eat animal products, no matter how small or disguised, you're not a fucking vegetarian. End of.

I can't believe I'm never going to be able to eat Maltesers again. Or Bounty. Or Twix - oh god!

Pfff, I need some company to stop myself going mad. I might try to find some unsuspecting male via the ever-entertaining internet dating site I am addicted to to come round and look after me - feed me sweets and throw away my snotty tissues. That won't happen will it... I might ring Polly, she's good in a crisis. A small, virus-based crisis. She could even bring her laptop and some Marx Brothers DVDs. This is sounding better and better. I'll do it now.

Hooray! She is coming round in an hour. With her laptop, and mirth-making video films. I was going to ask her to get me some things from the shop but I thought it a bit much - then she asked if I wanted anything from the shop! I'm getting her to bring Wotsits, Galaxy chocolate, tomato soup, vitamin C and stuff to make fajitas. Well, she did ask... I can't wait.

I am supposed to be going to a party Polly is throwing on Saturday. It's a chance for me to introduce Joshua to all my friends, I desperately hope I'm better by then - I love parties. Polly's are always totally ace too. She owns a big house (rich parents and a fat trust fund) in Hampstead, right near the heath, and it has a great garden inclusive of winding path and apple tree. Shame the weather isn't very nice, a barbecue would be ideal. I like to get drunk in the garden. That's all barbecues are good for really, the food is never up to much. I've heard that proper Australian barbecues are much more focused on the food and less about getting pissed. I might have to go there just to try one. I hope they're good at veggie food. Are they? Are Aussies good at veggie food???

I think I may have tonsillitis. Rubbish. I just rang Josh to find out if he feels under the weather at all and he said yes. He has exactly the same symptoms as I do: sore throat, stuffy nose, sneezing, headache and general feeling of woozy miserable-ness. I reckon it's tonsillitis because my tonsils look a little swollen and quite possibly a bit yellow. I say quite possibly a bit yellow because it's difficult to see properly and they could just be tea-stained. If that's possible.

I didn't get out of bed until two this afternoon I felt so shit. I went out with my friend Lauren until quite late last night and by the time I got home I could barely make myself a sandwich without saying "uuuuuugh" so I just went to bed instead. At the moment I am drinking mint flavour hot chocolate and listening to Annie Lennox to try to cheer myself up. It's not really working. Typical that I get ill on my holiday. I am supposed to be going back to work on Friday but I don't see that happening. Fuck. I need the money for things like wool, paper and wotsits. I shouldn't have bought those posh shoes last week, the ones that go with the even posh-er corset I bought the week before. That's £170 wasted. Okay not wasted - I do look hot, and now have something decent to wear next time I go to Torture Garden, but I still feel that it might have been better to buy food and a buss pass. Hmm, I wonder if anyone owes me money.

I'm starting to worry about money quite a lot now that the Edinburgh Fringe approaches. I usually spend the whole month of August up there bumming around and seeing shows, I tried working as a flyerer to pay my way one year but I quickly came to find that I had little time for anything else and the enjoyment factor plummeted rather sharply. Since then I have made an effort for the few months running up to it saving all the money I can to pay for the rent in a flat up there and the flat I have down here, plus living expenses for a month. It rounds up to about a grand. I currently have £100 in my bank account. Maybe taking on full time work at the shop is the answer. OR I could whore myself out to all the men who show an interest on the matchmaking site I am on. Do you think they'd pay? No you're probably right. Maybe I could just get Josh to start paying. I could tell him he owes me for all our previous shags too. A bit much?

Urgh, I reckon I'll go back to bed. Maybe I shall get Joshua to come over and feed me spring vegetable soup and pat me on the head. Oh no, he's ill too. Fuck that then, I'm not having an ill person sharing my bed.

"ill play hendrix for you and as an extra ill do it with my teeth just for you...woman u have got me by the balls and i dont want u to let go...danix"

I'm not sure this is the sort of message I would send to a lady I had never spoken to before. I must stress that I have never been near his balls and judging by his picture I would not want to be in the same room as them, let alone hold them. And what's with the PLaying Hendrix with his teeth bit all about? Is that supposed to be impressive do you think? It conjures up some very bizarre images that's for certain.

Hello I'm back from Wales! As you can see I have jumped straight back into my home routine and am already sifting through the hundreds of thousands of messages left for me via the lonely hearts club.

"Hi,my Name is Antonio,i Work as IT manager For telecom company in harley street,i saw your pics and i would like to get to know you if it is possible,you look so pretty and look like princess,(i am sure u hear this alot from boys,),so if you would like to get to know each other better i aam 185cm tall and good looking and ......thanks,may i have ur number pls?"

Woah there pickle! Many chat-up line put-downs have been inspired by this last sentence. The most long-winded and definitely not worth saying is "It's in the phone book," to which the reply is obviously "What's your name?" To which one wittily retorts "That's in the phone book too." Hahahahahaa. Genius.

And for the record, I have never, not once, been told I look like a princess by any boys. I do not see that as a bad thing. Princesses are, for the most part, vacant old owls.

So Wales was nice. We did all sorts of things, like ice skating, bowling, wandering, watching films, guffawing and snacking. Joshua's friend is very nice, and funny too. Though not as funny as Josh. Unfortunately it rained most of the time we were there, the nice summery weather has finally been replaced by more April-ish rains and winds. Boo. I was much enjoying the warm sun - as I am sure most people were. It's June in two weeks, hopefully it will be back. My fingers are crossed.

Ah it's always nice to be home. I like to be able to potter about my own flat and decide when to leave and when to stay in bed. I can get back to my knitting and craft-making without being hassled. Not that people usually hassle me if I choose to knit ir craft-make out of doors, but you know what I mean. I won't be seeing Josh for a few days because we've just spent three solid days together and have decided we need a little rest from each other. I am rather looking forward to a couple of days by myself before I go back to work, I shall spend it thinking and being creative. Lovely.

I have been working for three days solid. Tomorrow I leave for Wales with Joshua so, in anticipation of running out of money and having to spend our evenings playing with a twig and a breeze block, I took on some extra hours at the shop. It's been mostly quiet. Which is the worst of all bookshop-based states. If it's busy the time flies by and there is little shelving and frustration involved; if it's deathly quiet, like it has been for two days straight, I drive myself mad with ruminating and infuriate myself with shelving books that aren't for my section. Shelving books that aren't for your section is deeply bothersome as you don't know exactly where they go and the their system is always different to yours, therefore you often end up having to shove it in the wrong place and risk being told off.

If I owned my own bookshop I would be happy, in a control-freak sort of way, because everything would be where I put it and I could relax and drink wine... I could get drunk and throw verbal and even physical abuse at customers, employ the human equivalent of a doormat to do all my dirty work, and sit around smoking and grumbling at my friends. No hang on, that's Black Books. My mistake.

So, Wales. Joshua's best friend moved to Swansea a year ago and we have been invited to stay with him for a couple of days. I was rather taken aback by this because I haven't known Joshua that long and I was surprised he had even mentioned me to his friends. Ones in other countries anyway. We're not even an item. Not really. We're sort of fuck buddies.

The last time I went to Wales was to visit an aunt of mine who lives in Colwyn Bay. It was a right hoot because she's slipping into alcoholism, but in a comedy way. We spent three days knocking back various flavours of schnapps and laughing at each other. For a woman of only thirty-nine she has a surprising amount of anecdotes, based mainly on her trips around China, Korea and Thailand. Shame I can't remember any of them now. I'll have to visit again soon. Maybe write them down.

Oh god. Remember "Leon69er"? He has sent me three more messages on my online dating account. This is one of them:

"hi ya babes!!!!!! my gosh your well Fit,Lush,Stunning Drop Dead GORGEOUS JUST WHAT IM LOOKING FOR IN A LADY!!!!!!FANCY A CHAT SOMETIME???? i think we'd have loads in common espoecially bedroom sports??? bye for nnow hope u get in touch very very soon! leon bored in kent xXx"

After one more almost identical message I did not reply to he sent this:

"my god babes your playing hard to get eh??????? leon the chef in kent"

I replied. I told him I am not playing hard to get.

Joshua told me he still checks his dating account too, for the same reasons I do. I got to read his messages - some of them are worth copying to send to men I want to avoid.

I slept in a bed with a man, all night. The cold space in my bed was filled with a warm-blooded male. I cuddled him, and I was happy.

No work today, we slept in late and then ate toast and jam together. Joshua hasn't had bed company for almost as long as me and we had a little chat about how nice it was to have a silent sleeping body next to you when you've become so used to it just being you. We also talked about exes. J used to date a girl who, among other things, was a devout Catholic. I still find that deeply confusing. What self-respecting atheist would go out with a religious fanatic? Even he didn't have a straight answer for me. We discussed the possibility of an ex of mine having a serious mental illness due to my account of his "moods swings" and also about his most recent ex who definitely does have a serious mental illness. Apparently she is an obsessive compulsive with issues surrounding her house, and her control within it. She lived, or lives, with three other people and she controls the place despite the rent being shared. Very much like an ageing housewife she has an obsession with keeping the carpets clean and tidying things away. I cast an eye over my own flat as he said this and wondered if I should have made more of an effort with the pre-date clear-up. It would seem not, as we then had sex on my big pile of dirty clothes.

Joshua left for work at three and I had a nice sit down and a sandwich. I took a look at a skirt I have been making for two months and decided I need a sewing machine because making skirts is not easy and I get bored very rapidly. I might ask my mum for one for my birthday. Only three months away. I won't have finished the skirt by then but I will probably have started six others. Silly really because I am not very good at sewing, just very enthusiastic about crafts.
I could not resist checking my lonely hearts message bank even though I clearly don't need to. I have become resigned to the fact that I will check it every day regardless of my current situation. I paid for that subscription damnit and I will continue to log in for cheap thrills and laughs-a-plenty. No good messages today, I'll spare you the bother of reading them. I wonder if Joshua still checks his account. I shall have to ask him... Not that he shouldn't. Ahem. I mean we're not going out or anything. *Cough*.

Hmm, there's a thought. Do I WANT a boyfriend. Sure enough it would be nice to rely on that, instead of a whimsical non-relationship. But then whimsical is what I am all about. If I can't help being a flighty cunt who can't sit in a routine for longer than five minutes then why should I embark on a serious relationship. Why indeed.