I am back from the Wedding of the Century

But all of this must wait as I am off to be hypnotised this morning. It is a long story. But I shall tell it to you later.

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I have a confession to make

Blimey, I wrote a book

I know that might seem like a stupid thing to say, but the strange thing about getting published is that it is something that happens over lots and lots of stages, so until today I had never really had That Moment when I felt ‘wow, I’ve written a whole book and now people I’ve never met can read it’.

Even though I had a fabulous party last week, and I’ve been on Richard & Judy and lots of radio shows, I still felt much the same as I always do. Which, to be quite frank, was a little disappointing.

But then this evening my friend texted me to say that a piece I had written was in the londonpaper. So when I went to the post office I stopped off at the tube station to try and get a copy. I asked the man at the gate if I was allowed to go to the platform to try pick one up and he said he had one but he wouldn’t give it to me because he didn’t believe that I was in it. Him and his Tube Gate Pal had developed some kind of 80s buddy movie vibe between them (one was a smiley chubby black guy and one was a lanky pasty white guy) and they did a whole drama of turning each page really slowly and going ‘Noooooo, you’re not on this one you LIAR’ until they finally got to the page where I was and they went nuts! They gave me a round of applause and as they were doing this a tube arrived which led to them doing some very overexcited pointing at me and holding up of the paper and showing everyone coming through the gate yelping ‘She wrote a book! She wrote a book!’

And so I finally had That Moment: I wrote a book! This time two years ago I had a pretty Paperchase notebook which was entirely empty and I spent a substantial part of my summer lying on the sofa in floods of tears because I’d been dumped again. And this summer the two crazy tube men pointed me out to a whole load of tube travellers and shouted ‘She wrote a book!’. And do you know what, I did.

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I have a website!

Look> if you go to your right you will see buttons that will take you there. It’s very pretty and makes you feel happy about everything.

Although, I have good reason to feel happy about everything anyway because

a) I had a spangly launch party which made me feel funny and overwhelmed
b) I drank rum all weekend
c) I had lots of fun making a feature for Radio 2. It involved a Relate counsellor hanging up on me. ha ha!

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Ooooh I just made a podcast

I will tell you when and where you can listen to it. I did a mini-interview, and read stuff about how to NOT ruin your hair with a post-break-up haircut, how to DELETE HIS NUMBER and then some really embarrassing stuff about cultivating long body hair as a way of revelling in singledom.

I think you will enjoy listening to it more knowing how much I HATED doing it because I really fancied the sound engineer and there is no way to sound sexy while talking about growing leg hair so long that it pokes through your tights.

It it my launch party tonight. I must try and enhance my fabulousness in the next six hours.

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PS this button will make sense tomorrow

Well, it’s perfectly clear that I can’t do hyperlinks

so I will entertain you with random facts instead.

I once went out with a man who made prosthetic limbs.

Job satisfaction

This week my temporary postman and I having been inadvertently whipping ourselves into a frenzy of excitement.

As a book reviewer, I usually get between 2 and 12 books sent to me per day – there’s usually one day a fortnight that I don’t get a parcel. My usual postman knows the deal: he turns up at exactly 8.10am (yes, it is a bit weird that my lie-in days are dictated to me by the publicists of London, including Saturdays, days when I’m ill etc), he buzzes the buzzer, says ‘YOUR BOOKS’ in a monotone and then just leaves them in the hallway. This has been the arrangement for months, since I went running down the road after him one day and introduced myself. (I had become consumed with worry that he thought I was running a one-woman drugs cartel from my flat – the constant packages, the opening the door looking hungover etc – and decided to clear my name. Bizarrely, I have since found out that my counterpart at Marie-Claire magazine is actively trying to do the opposite with her postman. Her favoured technique is to only stick her arm out of the door to get the parcels, shiftily refusing to reveal her face.)

But since last week my regular postman has clearly been on holiday … and someone considerably more enthusiastic is filling in. New Postie comes a bit later, rings the buzzer and then says ‘Hello…. is that Alexandra Heminsley?’ as if he’s a fledgling gameshow host. When I say yes, he replies ‘You have parcels and packages downstairs!’ in full The Price is Right mode. The first couple of days I was confused, then I kind of got into it. So I started going downstairs and getting them in person, and thanking him profusely. Then yesterday a HUGE box with twenty first copies of Ex and the City arrived and I was overwhelmed with joy.

All in all, I think the postie and I are enjoying massively increased levels of job satisfaction this week.

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I can see clearly now.

While relaxing in my French gin palace last month, my cousin asked me why I read with my finger over my right eye. I could provide her with no satisfactory answer. A week later I noticed that I was watching Grey’s Anatomy in the same position. It was time to get my eyes tested. Something I hadn’t done since 2004 when The One Who Broke My Heart Two Years Ago ran over my handbag (containing my old, very mild glasses) when he was trying to reverse park. Sure enough, I have become massively short-sighted in one eye.

‘So, what do you do?’ asked the optician.
‘I read, review and write books’ I replied.
‘It’s interesting that you only get your eyes tested every three years, given that they are your most vital tool’ he commented.
‘Not so much interesting as INSANE’ I replied.

Now I am wearing my new glasses. And I am living in a very different world. Here is a list of things I may or may not have done on account of my wildly deficient eyesight.

1) Fancied Joe Mott
2) Fancied Liam BB A LOT
3) Spurned dashing men because I thought they looked entirely different
4) Written a really shit book because I couldn’t see what I was writing
5) Written mean reviews because I’d read all the words in the book wrong
6) Written good reviews because I’d read all the words in the book wrong
7) Been mean about Kate Moss Topshop because I thought the vast majority of the clothes seemed ugly, ill-fitting, badly-made, cheap and highly flammable
8 Wondered how the Kate Moss Topshop range was making money becuase I thought I could never see anyone buying the clothes or wearing them
9) Spent a fortune on a dress for my author photo, which might now actually be gross – but I am too scared to put it back on while wearing my glasses to check
10) Spent a fortune on a dress for Lily’s wedding, which might now actually be gross – but I am too scared to put it back on while wearing my glasses to check
11) Thought I looked amazing when I saw The One Who Broke My Heart Two Years ago at a party a fortnight ago.

At least it explains why I walked into the mirror.

I think I have learned a valuable lesson about being too looks-oriented. It’s just exhausting having my eyes open today, now that everything’s so much BIGGER.

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Shoes etc

I must admit, the shine has been taken off my week somewhat by my friend Jo telling me that her boyfriend has told her ALL boys without exception hate wedges. So I put a note up on my facebook site to find out if it was true, and it seems that yes indeed, they are very unpopular. Now, I’m not a massive wedges fan – I’d always prefer a patent peep toe with a nice bow myself – but it seems a bit harsh to TOTALLY discount all wedges. Isn’t that a bit heelist? Apparently all three-quarter length trousers are looked upon with disgust as well. (but not capri pants). I wonder if I just know girls with fashion-facist boyfriends, or if everyone is like this. Hmmm.

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Sometimes I really am super-cool.

Other times, I am not. Last night, I managed both.

First up, it was my friend’s launch party for her deeply deeply lovely book ‘Gifted’. Ta- da

I was looking forward to this greatly, as I truly love the book and I have reviewed it, and I was going with my buddy from Elle. All in all it was doing something nice with people I love. However … I also knew that at the party was going to be The One Who Broke My Heart Two Years Ago. But the thing is, over the last couple of months, what with writing about him in my book, exploring the rocky terrain that is the Kingdom of Dumped, and of course the recent New Lady-Gate (see May 9th) fiasco, I have come to realise that really he didn’t do that much wrong and actually he’s a genuinely lovely person. So, instead of using any of those BILLIONS of wise-ass, kicky and altogether fabulous lines I spent the entire of 2005 composing in my head while walking to the tube, waiting to pay at Sainsbury’s or or listening to a telephone hold system, I just chatted to him. Yup, I forgot all the lines, and just had a nice chat.

Bizarrely he is a big fan of the Radio 2 show I do and we ended up talking about that – who would have thought Matthew Wright could be such a healing presence? Most satisfyingly of all, we were in an entirely genuine ‘Heads back laughing at a shared joke from old times’ moment when his new girlfriend turned up. I soooo recognised her ‘Oh god everyone wants to talk to him and they’re ignoring me and he doesn’t know how to deal with it face’ and was awash with relief that I could just wander off and lark about with my mates and not worry about such anxieties. All in all it was something of a success. I walked home from the tube, listening to empowering songs on my ipod and feeling mighty proud of myself. I truly am the Queen of Dumped, I thought, as I turned my key in the door. Well done, me.

Then as I swung my snazzy handbag off my shoulder I smashed my full length mirror which I had only bought ON WEDNESDAY.

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