Alone in the City

"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind." - Humphrey Bogart.

For the past week, I've been living the life of a single girl in the city by default. And for the next week too, as Boy's away doing his thing for the country.

Maybe it's age, maybe this town isn't as fun as it used to be. All the glammy single-girl things I've planned to do this week - shoe-shopping, gyming, girly drinks, more shoe-shopping - have come to nought.

When you don't have someone waiting for you to get off work, I learnt, you just stay at work until... forever. Before you know it, it's Saturday. Just as well. It's way cheaper to be a workaholic than a shopaholic. (Though I'd rather be neither.)

Ok, Take 2. Maybe I'll try harder at my Independent Woman act next week.

Meanwhile, my oldest, clinkiest friends are quitting all round me. They're my kind of people - mates who could have taken higher-paying fluff jobs (what an oxymoron) elsewhere, but simply cannot bring themselves to.

Who live to write rather than write to live. Who cannot stand people talking obsessively about their pets, and will tell them so. Who would like it if guys bought them diamonds, but failing that, would go out and buy them anyway. Who think that throwing a major wedding party for hundreds of people they don't care for is a huge waste of Moet. Wherever they're writing from in future. I wish them only the best.