AKA - I'm Too Sexy
Reaclimatising to London life
“What’s up honey?” ask Zsuzsa, her thick Hungarian accent failing to disguise her concerned tone, as she’s just found me sitting in the dark in our living room, laptop in front of me with a furrowed brow.
“I’ve hit a wall.” I say.
I see horror slowly creeping across her face.
“I mean in the writing sense. Not with the car or anything.”
The horror dissipates, which sounds like a straight to video horror film.
“I’ve got second series syndrome. It’s that difficult second album! I'm joining the list of people who reached giddy heights too soon, and then couldn't reach them again second time around. I’m Right Said Fred!”
“Who are Right Said Fred?” replies Zsuzsa.
I scoff.
“Right Said Fred! I’m Too Sexy? Deeply Dippy?”
Zsuzsa stares at me blankly.
“Released an album called 'Up' in the early nineties? Bald?”
Nothing.
“Did they have a second album?”
“That’s the point! I don’t know!” I say, throwing my hands in the air to emphasis my concern.
“Just relax honey.” Zsuzsa says reassuringly. “You’re not Right Said Ted.”
“Fred.”
“I’m sure inspiration will arrive.”
But I’m not convinced.
“I just can’t think of anything to write about?”
Zsuzsa’s eyes widen, she smiles and she slaps the table.
“Got it! Mila getting jealous?” she says proudly.
“Jealous about?”
“About us holding hands! Hugging! Dancing and stuff!”
I consider this, nodding. It is true that Mila has started to freak out whenever Zsuzsa and I make any kind of physical contact. She whines when we hold hands and screams if we kiss. God knows what her reaction would be if she caught us in a biblical sense! Although saying that, the chance would be a fine thing.
“Hmmm.” I say. “Maybe. But I’m not sure there’s enough to stretch out over a whole article."
But Zsuzsa, like a Hungarian Kris Akabusi, is full of energy and won’t be defeated. Ideas are literally (not literally) pouring out from every one of her orifices.
“What about how you solved our corkscrew dilemma when you managed to get in to a bottle of wine with just a hammer and a screw?”
“And a screwdriver.”
“Yes!”
Now it’s my turn to feel proud.
“I was a bit like Bear Grylls wasn’t I?” I say smugly.
“You were baby. Exactly like Bear Grylls.”
We high-five because we are that cool. I consider the corkscrew angle, but then sigh.
“Again honey. Not sure I can stretch it out.”
Awake at an illegal hour
“Okay. Us both falling asleep in the cinema?”
“But I bet a lot of parents fall asleep at the cinema.”
“Within the first five minutes though?”
But I’m still not convinced.
“And then the clocks moving back an hour, but no one telling our baby?” says Zsuzsa. “You could write an article about the clocks going back! When Mila woke up at 0430!”
“Those clock movers are bastards!” I say. “Why do they even move back? For the ten milkmen left in the UK? What about the parents of young children! Bastards!”
“Oh! Oh! Oh! I know! What about you accidentally finding yourself in that mother and baby singing class and being forced to sing?”
“Too soon.”
“Too soon?”
“I need the scars to heal a little before I can share that experience.”
We both sigh.
“What am I going to do? There’s lots of little things that have happened, but I just can’t see how I can craft an entire blog post out of them.”
“You’ll figure it out honey. You’ll figure it out.”