inequality

A Woman’s Work???

/ Emma-Jane Austen-Jones / 1 Comment

Although I am def heading for celebrité status locally, I have to say that I remain super chuffed that most of my dear readers are expats; particularly those in Singapore who can sympathise with my horrendous plight borneded out of my ongoing subsistence without a helper. As I shall illustrate below, some others here – those who I perhaps naively, nay nostaligically, nay foolishly call my “friends” – are being far less understanding…

Since returning and not having a live-in, I have had virtually zero quality time to myself, and therefore thusly, I am hardly ever able to share my glamorous (#notsomuchnow hashtag sadface) life with you. There have been dreadfully dark days when I’ve thought, “If I have to fold another towel I will literally lose my mind and throw myself off Archway Bridge”, despite the mega-precautionary structures which are installed thereon, so desperate and fervent has been my distress. How do people live like this?!

 

Beautiful Archway Bridge. Credit: Nigel Cox

Beautiful Archway Bridge. Credit: Nigel Cox

It’s not that I don’t know what I must do. I am trying. I have made every attempt possible to locate appropriate staff who match my specificatations, as I shared with you previously, but the working classes here are so spoilt and unrealististically aspirational that they believe they are worth a living wage for minimal work. A nanny, apparently, despite her enormous fee, won’t even wash windows. “Call a window cleaner if you need your windows cleaned”, was the disgracfeul retort I received at Nanny Interview Number 107. (I have an Excel sheet for everything now, thanks to my online accountancy course.)

Will someone not tell these people that the American Dream (as fabulously as it works over there, where people get the opportunity to work three jobs and then have awesome stuff happen whereby they magically climb the social ladder through merit and hard graft and all that, and end up as Kanye)… Will someone PLEASE tell them that we just don’t operate like that over here?! In Blighty, you are what you are – deal with it. That’s Britishness, so suck it up, babeses. We are incrediblé lucky to retain our amazebobs Royal Fam because they preserve the sensible order of a class system, thank eff, which is beautifully reinforced by the public school thing, and the sweet pre-prep thing before that. I like to compare it to the whole caste jobbie in India. It just makes sense, you know, and has been so fab for those nice Indian people, as evidenced by their slammin’ economy. They are nailing it!! Go them! Essentiallially, all it is is that it’s Darwinisation, so come one: “Inequality”..? What even is that? It clearly rocks, whatevs it is.

So anyhoo, in my limited, v precious time I have been trying to touch base with my old girlfriends over here because they obviously want to catch up with me, and who could blame them? What with FB, they know that I’m back and I have had to formulate a Specific Intent (that’s what my life-long yogi practice has taught me) to get in touch with at least two of them each week. This week I had Evie and Robbie next on the list.

I squeezed together some time for a gel mani-pedi at Margot London in Crouch End (totes awesome BTW – so speedy, such lovely ladees, and nails now divine), during which I was able to Facetime with Evie. Evie is one of my London besties from way way back when we were both juniors at the same law firm. She was almost as talented as me, but she already had a kid at the time which of course meant that she couldn’t compete with me, let alone the chaps. Then she divorced, re-married and popped out three more irritants (what now, now??). So currently she has three children under five, AND a frankly insane teenage daughter. Plus, the blokie she married later is a musician or something, so b’byeee corporate lifestyle! What was she thinking?? She moved outside the M25 into Commuter Land, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Can’t 100% see the point in staying friends with her, if I’m honest, because I mainly like people who live in London, preferably zones 1-2. They’re just better, you know?

I was telling Evie what an awful time I’m having for want of decent staff, as a single mother in this glorious hectic city that she clearly no longer relates to, and she was actually quite nasty to me. She said, “Oh well, EJ, I don’t know what it’s like to have everything done for me and the kids, so I can’t really offer much help. Why don’t you just get an au pair?”

An au pair!! It was then that I realised the full extent of the gigantic gaping chasm between us, which has arisen through no fault of my own, but due to her lousy choices. Had she made wiser choices, she would know for herself that an au pair brings all the downsides of having a stranger in the house without a sufficiently compensating number of upsides. FFS, au pairs are worse than the over-paid nannies I keep meeting! They do practically nothing, are constantly making toast (so I’m told, and that’s a lot of bread), and then bugger off back to Bulgaria or wherever as soon as they witness their first stabbing. So no, Evie babes, thanks for your poor-person advice, but I won’t be going down the au pair route.

Praise be, three of her four irritants started to yell while we were chatting, so that closed our hashtag awkz conversation.

Next, because I had some time left, I phoned Robbie (Roberta, not Robbie Williams), who is also a v old friend of mine. We met when we did our Law degrees togev and she was always a right-on feminist type. I’m sure she fancies me (all mega-feminists are lesbians, let’s face it), but she is generally single or mingles, gender-wise.

“EJ”, she said, “I hear you! I’d rather have a wife than be a wife, any day. And the word, ‘wife’!… It shouldn’t even be about gender. It’s about convenient servitude. Women are told all the time how f***ing rewarding it is to raise children. But we live in a patriarchal society! If it was so damn rewarding, men would be clamouring to do it. Are they..? No, of course they aren’t. Then there’s all this nonsense like the thing going around on social media this week, suggesting that women should be grateful, or feel guilty if they don’t – did you see it? ’10 Things Mom Is Grateful For’… Are those the only choices available to a mother in 2015? Grateful or guilty?? Honestly, Eeej, it makes my blood boil!”

As likers of my awesome FB page will be aware, I have seen said post, and here’s my take on it:

 

Vom

Vom

At least Robbie understood my pain. Though probly mostly because she wants to get into my pants. (Which might be cool, now that I’m back in London – mightn’t it? I’d be a very hot lesbian I reckon, and it’s still so trendy.)

Inequality Rocks!

/ Emma-Jane Austen-Jones / 1 Comment

As dear readers are aware, the ongoing not-knowing about whether we’re repatting or wtf we’re doing is causing me some serioso stressoso, and actually it is beginning to interfere with my fabulous lifestyle and my rigorous self-maintenance regime. I’m doing my personal training with Eva and running a ton, but I’ve been too stressed to go to yoga (which means I haven’t seen Seth this week, but you know, whatevs). Today I decided to take Froo Froo dog for a walk along Orchard Road, to clear my brain. Who knows how much longer I’ll be sashaying my way down Orchard?! A grim thought…

The Froofster, so stylish in her diamanté tutu, came upon a hound of rather more mixed descent than herself, and in the unfortunate position of being naked, but for fur. My initial reaction was to try to extricate Froo’s nose from the other dog’s intimate areas, concerned that she might catch some dreadful illness, or an even worser affliction such as to fall in love which is the worst affliction known to man and beast. Froof seemed so enamored with the mongrel that I calmed myself by means of chanting, and allowed the proceedings to unfold as they might, in spite of my better judgement. Using my third eye, I observed the encounter: this meeting of mismatched beings, this “two worlds colliding”, (RIP gorgeous, tragic Mr Hutchence, we still miss you). And a fascinating deep thought came upon me from the unlikely source of the dogs’ derrières, which served to distract me from my own predicament.

The doggies got me reflecting on this mega zeitgeist thing that all the chattering classes are chattering about:

THE SO-CALLED SCOURGE OF INEQUALITY.

Following on from my ground-breaking study on social hierarchy among Singapore expats, I’m starting to think that I should become an economist or something. I surprise myself with how much knowledge I possess on the subject. It’s like it just comes naturally to me! Amazebobs, I know.

So I for one am a mahusiv fan of inequality because without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today: vastly over-edicated, living a glamorous expat life in tropical climes, sharing said glamorous life (as well as my unrivaled expertise) with the masses, and owning a Maserati. It’s also super doops for my children because they have opportunities that other less equal people’s children don’t have, and it’s wonderful for any auxiliary staff whom we employ during our long lifetimes (made longer by proactive, preventative, private healthcare), in that they have employment. So it’s a win-win-win, I think we can all agree.

BUTTT. Butt, but, but apparently some people don’t agree. Crazybobs, I know!! Apparently some people say that it’s not ok because the rich are getting richer and the gap between the top 1% and um, all the others, is growing like never before. My response to them is, “Tell that to Dickens, babeses!”

It was abso no biggie then, and I can’t see why it’s such a biggie now.

Yet a biggie it does seem to nonetheless therefore thusly be! So like I read this v baffling New York Times article about it all and something about how things at the top become more “fractal” and stuff. I think it’s humbug jealorosity from the peeps not at the top that quite a few people now can afford to spend $179.4m on a painting, while a whole bajillion bunch of other people can’t. Can we not just be happy for those nice people who’ve worked so hard to have enough cash to spend on art? Do we even want that painting on our wall?? No, babeses, we do not. We want gigantic TVs on the wall so that we can watch Netflix and reality shows. Picasso Schmicasso.

Howsoever.

I have some non-expat friendses back in the UK who are quite unhappy about the election result (why??! Cameron will repeal the ban on fox hunting, do what-not with the Human Rights thingie, and we’ll all wake up the next day, have a cup of tea and it’ll be ok), and it’s these friendses who insist on telling me that inequality is a very bad thing.

So one friend for example – we’ll call her Miserable Marge – she goes on about the cuts in education, the National Health Service (which I think is like BUPA, but with worse hospital food), the criminal justice system, and the arts and all that. Marge says that very wealthy people can basically pay their way through life, for themselves and for their children; but families who are even marginally well-off, with both parents working, or not at all well-off, they’re struggling to stay afloat.

As an enormously empathic person, I feel for these strugglers, I really do. But my wisdom tells me that if they were meant to have money and power in this world, so it would be. Money and power are of course the most important things, as alluded to in this much-debated piece on Upper East Side housewives. (Actually, I won’t put the link in. Is the writer going to thank me for selling more copies of her book??) Maybe all those folk not in the 1% are so busy pursuing silly things like having a worthwhile, meaningful, principled, ethical existence that they’ve overlooked money and power. No wonder that they have neither!

I know what I’d rather have!!! Veuve Click at the beach club with my Expaterati girlies on an average Sunday avo, and plenty of time to create awesome expat rap. So what if my kids experience repeated “transition and loss issues”, bla bla bla?? They can have therapy when they’re older. And they’ll be able to afford it because they’ll speak six languages and run hedge funds. So I have v little time for this (frankly Communist) attitude from Miserable Marge and her cohorts.

Continuing my series of Master-Selfies, this is me paying homage to that Picasso painting. Imagine how much this version would’ve fetched! Hashtag priceless : )

Continuing my series of Master-Selfies, this is me paying homage to that Picasso painting. Imagine how much this version would’ve fetched! Hashtag priceless : )

Social Hierarchy Among Singapore Expats

/ Emma-Jane Austen-Jones / 3 Comments

We just had a long weekend here in Singers, and on Sunday night my lovely girlie Flo held an exquisite dinner party (or sups, as both Flo and I would call it, given our shared class origins). Her father was a renowned British judge, and although my father was merely a “businessman”, we were expats, so that puts Flo and I in the same category by merit of my famliy not being categorised according to the standard laws of the previous UK class system. I say previous because apparently things have moved on now, and it’s no longer as simple as upper, middle and lower. I dunno.

So at Flo’s sups, I was sitting next to a charming old-skool expat chappie who has been in Asia since the 1970s. A first generation expat, he told me he was the son of a baker, and his deceased wife had been the offspring of a train driver and a dinner lady.

“The great thing was that when we left the UK we basically left our origins behind. Our parents worked hard to give us a better education than they’d had, but even so we were competing with an old boys’ network that we weren’t a part of. And actually, we weren’t even competing because it was impenetrable! Ha!!,” he took a deep swig of Pinot Noir after this laugh, his round face glistening.

“Oh ha! Yes”, I said, because I didn’t know what else to say, “That old boys’ network, eh?! Impenetrable!!”

“Precisely!! It was! And that’s why Meredith and I decided to up sticks and try our fortunes elsewhere. In England we would forever be ‘proles’, hacking our way through life in a suburban semi, with occasional promotions, and a tolerable existence of hard slog… hopefully paying off the mortgage in time for retirement. So we left. And it was absolutely the best thing we could’ve done – for ourselves and for the kids. It was no less of a slog, don’t doubt that, but there was a smooth, steady progress to it, we found. And suddenly it didn’t matter where we’d come from, it only mattered where we were in the present and where we were headed to in the future. All of that nonsense, all the limitations, it was all just gone!”, he grinned his nice grin and had another great big gulp of red before continuing: “It all became irrelevant! And the terrific outcome is that our kids are now surpassing even the wildest dreams that their grandparents could’ve had for them. They had great schooling, we showed them the world, they speak different languages, and they have friends and connections all over the planet. The world truly has been their oyster, and that wouldn’t have happened if we’d stayed at home.”

“OMG, babes, that’s like so truesome!”, I insertified, genuinely fascinated now by what this ageing expat dude was pontificating about, “And although I don’t come from that horrendous under-privileged place where you come from, I can totes relate. My kids are amazebobs at Mandarin, and Max is defo on a trajectory to become a fund manager. We’ve lined up an internship for him in 2020-ish, and after that it’s gravy, baby! Mills is more of a creative soul, like me, so she’ll probably continue her burgeoning modeling career, go to Oxford or Harvard to prove she’s got the smarts as well as the hots, and then just find her own niche in the movie/ media/ arts world. I’m all about giving the kids opportunities, but letting them find their own way. This Tiger Mom stuff, argh, I’m so like whatevs!! I don’t have time to stand over them and make sure they’re doing their homework or practicing basketball and stuff. That’s the helper’s job. So these Tiger Moms, I just think they’re totes ridic, you know?!”

“Yes Gemma-Anne, you’re so right. Can I call you Gemma? GA, perhaps, or maybe just Gem? You are a bit of a gem, my dear…”

At that point I noticed that the nice round-faced chappie was sending his words not to my eyes and ears, but to my divinely arranged cleavage (which did look particularly divine that night in my Givenchy leopard print boustier-avec-tutu mini dress). And that was fine because I aim to please and it would be unutterably wrong to withhold my stunning impact arbitrarily. But I didn’t feel completely comfortable when he manoevred his hand between my legs, and I watched a perfectly round bead of saliva drip from his lips onto the pan-seared foie gras entier below.

He had been so sweet that I didn’t want to make a scene, so instead I arose from my chair, and said, “Babes, I know this sounds crazy, but it happens sometimes. I am at this very moment being overtaken by the spirit of rap! I’m such a major mahusiv creative that I never know when I’m about to get channelled. I think it’s Kanye, or maybe some dead rapper – I’m not sure – I mean, that would make more sense, right?? If they’re dead? So maybe it’s that guy from Run DMC? Alls I know, sweets, is that I gotta go. I HAVE TO RAP NOW!!”

And with that, I left my place at the table. I went to find Flo, who was engaged in deep discussion with her personal trainer, Eric. As she was clearly v busy, I decided to grab another girlie and skip off to Brix. I texted Don to tell him.

So yesterday I was thinking about what the nice, albeit a little handsy, round-faced chappie had said and I found myself in a bit of a pickle about all this class, hierarchy, and social mobility stuff.

I texted Clara with my confusion, but her extremely rude response closed the whole thing down from the get-go: “Not only are you contacting me at work AGAIN, as I have repeatedly and specifically asked you not to, but your query is beyond ridiculous, even for you. So no, I do not have time for ‘a little chat-ski’ about expat hierarchy. C x”

Therefore thusly I realised that I was alone, equipped only with my impressive resources of intellect and insight. I reflected that the problem I was so elegantly wrestling with was this-fold: if expathood makes class irrelevant in the country of origin, is there a hierarchical structure within the expat community itself?

I applied my powerful brain to the conundrum, and came up with a ground-breaking categorisation which defines the order of importance among Singapore expats, which I will share with you now for the purposes of your edification and edication.

1. The High Dips
Not everybody has the humility that I do, but I am willing to accept that I am not at the very top of the expat social stratosphere. That place is reserved for the highest echelons of the Diplomatic Corps, which is as it should be in the best possible of worlds. So in this category, we find ambassadors and all that. They might be earning less than those in the second tier down, but they have an inalienable right to superiority. Like royalty, and who would be foolish enough to question the Royals’ entitlement? No one, that’s who.

2. The Big-Packaged Elite
This is where I am. In this upper strata are the people who make a lot of money because they are making a lot of money for other people making a lot of money. In Sing, this includes financiers and consultants. Can also factor in merchants, such as wine importers. We live the glamorous life without the responsibilities of the High Dips. As we are not dips, we can behave pretty much as we like (though not to the Anton Casey extreme, of course, babeses), and we have the funds to indulge in awesomeness. As many an expat wife has been known to gleefully announce, “It’s like being at college, but with money!”

3. The In-Betweenies
Here we have the engineers, the oil people, the car people, etc. This is the population that my overly-familiar friend above represented until he made Managing Director level and then retired to a life of petite Asian girlies, and occasional attempts to feel up prime rump, such as myself.

4. The Localisers
These are the peeps who became expats for the same reasons everyone else did, but their needs were a tad more pressing. Hencely the compromises they were willing to make in order to exchange their old lives for new lives. They’re not on a package – they just really want to be here. I could totes empathise with their plight, but for the fact that our package is ginormous so really I totes can’t. Sorries, honies!! Cannot lah : )

Now the nice thing about this system is that there is, as we have seen, considerable scope for social mobility. You can start at Number 4 and, a few moves down the line, progress to 3 or even 2. It’s doable, in a way that it generally isn’t back home. So that’s just wonderful and I can only conclude this study with the words: Viva La Expaterati! Amen and namaste to that.

When I'm taken by the spirit of rap, I just can't help myself.

When I’m taken by the spirit of rap, I just can’t help myself.

Just the Usual Expat Hol in Paradise

/ Emma-Jane Austen-Jones / 8 Comments
A spot of beach art, where the other half (3/4? 7/8?) lives.

A spot of beach art, where the other half (3/4? 7/8?) lives.

Following my completes crappola Chrimbo (who would have thought it would’ve sucked so badly that morning when I was making my Expat Exmas Message, like Her Maj?), we are now on our fabulous holiday in Boracay. Boragrad, if you must know, babeses, LOL.

Another top-notch hotelee por supesto, to wind away all the stresses and strains of my equally fabulous life. That said, even with the kids’ club, I’m rather wishing we’d brought the help along. I had forgotten the full horror of the tedium that bath and bedtime can be with Max and Mills. I am having to do it myself!! And I don’t mean supervising! So, after a full day of lounging in the sun, and attending to my rigorous health and beauty regime at the gym and spa, I then get myself all worked up on the few evenings we don’t hire a sitter, thanks to the irritants. Well happy bleeping holidays to me! Don, as always, said that bringing the helper was “unconscionable”, and that holidays should be just the family. Hmmmmm. This means that I don’t really have a holiday!! Which leads me to conclude that:

Paradise – Help = Almost Hell

Gandhi said something very similar when he observed that, “Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as”… I’ve lost the rest of the quote, but the skinny is that it’s totes ideal for me to depend on my helper because she depends on us for her livelihood; and it’s totes reasonable for me to have a bit of a sh** hol without her.

As if things weren’t bad enough, guess, dear readers, who is here. One of my all-time least favourite members of the Singapore Expaterati: Doom and Gloom Expat Wifey. Ugh-amundo. I know you feel my pain.

On our very first day here, I noticed Mills in the pool, playing with another little girl who looked vaguely familiar. Returning my attention to my iPad edition of Vogue, I heard a kerfuffle from the pool, as an adult waded in – yes, D & G Wifey – telling Milly to stop pulling the other girl’s hair. Oh Lordy, Mills! Being the responsible parent that I am, I had no choice but to put down my iPad, and dive elegantly into the pool, to pretend to reprimand Milly. Poor kid. The other little girl, Janine, has obviously inherited her mother’s dour looks and tote lack of humour, so I’m sure she got nothing more than she deserved, but what else could I do??

Once I’d forced Mills into a half-arsed apology, I then had to make polite conversation with D & G: how lovely to bump into you, what a coincidence (yeah, right), how’s your hol, are you having a good time, ra ra ra.

She was apparently gagging for someone to talk to, because she launched straight into her standard doom and gloom diatribe. I noted from her lack of woven resort bag (only available to the upper echelons) that she must not be staying in one of the villas. Probably in the main cell block. In the timeless words of Beyoncé, “Sucks to be you right nooooow”. Wise woman, that Queen Bee.

“Oh, I suppose I’m having a good time…” she began, her dull preamble warning of so much worseness ahead.

“I wanted to go home for Christmas, or maybe skiing, but Fred’s PA couldn’t take much time off, so Fred decided we’d better not go too far away. And they’re flying back before me and the kids anyway.”

“But, babes”, I told her, “Skiing is just so wet and cold, and accidenty. And England is totes miz right now, with the yucky climate, and all that economy stuff… still… I think… Here we’ve got the beautiful relaxing beach, and the lovely weather… Um, apart from the whole tropical storm thang, but that’ll pass”.

“Yeah, I know….,” she said, and for a moment I thought she might shut up, so that I could dash back to my sun bed. Alas, alack, and mega-bummer, I was profoundly mistaken. She went on.

“It’s just that we’ve been on so many of these trips: Bali, Langkawi, Krabi, Koh Samui, Yogyakarta, Hoi An…”, she continued, as I switched off and admired how smooth my freshly waxed Brazilian was looking.

“Bla bla bla, fa ba na noo fa bla, and at this point, the whole of Southeast Asia has just merged into one big blur of white sand, palm trees, and resorts. When I look back over the years, I can barely distinguish one holiday from the next. How sad is that?!”

I re-engaged with her bla when I noticed that the gel nail on my thumb was lifting, and much as I loathe nail-biting, I found myself gnawing at it.

“And what really gets me is”, she droned on, “I’m getting so tired of being the well-off Westerner, surrounded by locals calling me Ma’am, who bow and scrape in the name of good customer service. I can’t relax when I know that the people around me are so much worse off. It’s the inequality of it all! What does it teach our children?”

[OH GOD, kill me!! JUST KILL ME NOW!!!, I thought prettily.]

“And Thailand! Just awful. We were there last year for Christmas, and I heard such incredibly devastating stories about the tsunami. Whole families, wiped out. Babies, children. I thought, how can I sit on this idyllic beach, knowing what happened right here, just a few years ago? Horrendous.”

I tasted thick saltiness, and looked down at my thumb to find that it was bleeding. The woman was boring me so much that I had actually started to bite off my own hand. Enough was enough.

“Darling sweetie babes”, I managed to say, following a quick check-in with my higher power, “The fact is that without us well-off whities coming and spending our spondooli, these nice people wouldn’t even have jobs. We’re doing them a favour! The least we can do is have a good time, honey. Don’t we owe them that much?!”

I hoped that my impassioned words might turn the situation around, but she got her mouth straight back in there: “That’s a ridiculous argument! The fact is that our spondooli, as you call it, is because of disproportionate salaries, earned through the exploitation of people just like the ones working in this hotel, borne out of their disadvantage and our good fortune. We did nothing to deserve this, any more than they deserve the poverty they come from!”

O
EM
GEE

I found, then, that I was sucking my (half-eaten, bloody) thumb – something I haven’t done since childhood. Doom and Gloom Expat Wifey woman, I shouted silently in my head, it’s only Day One, and you have RUINED my holiday.

Gott sei dank, D & G’s helper suddenly appeared from nowhere, saying, “Ma’am, I am the one to take Janine for her nap?”

D & G nodded, “Yes please, Reyann”.

“Well, that’s lovely anyway!”, I chipped in, determined now to either lift this bleeping woman’s mood or get the bejesus away from her.

“At least you have the help with you!! Lucky old you, babes! Don never wants to do that, and frankly it’s a nightmare come truesome!”

“You say that”, (oh ffs, despite my awesome adorableness of niceness, she was finding a way to persist), “but the thing is that I knew she would have a better Christmas here with us than lonely in Singapore, while all her friends are working, or if we sent her home to her family. When she goes home, she comes back a stone lighter, and completely exhausted. Do you know what she does when she has a holiday at home?”

It was patently clear that I didn’t give a rat’s bottom, but evidently the woman has none of my empathic or intuitive skills when it comes to observing the responses of others. Instead of noticing that I was desperate to get back to Vogue, she…

Kept.

On.

Talking.

“She works on the family farm! For fifteen hours a day, every day! Can you believe that?! And not only that -”

While she was talking, her husband’s PA sauntered over, a vision in white linen.

“Mrs Davis,” he murmured – golly, such a treacle voice for a man! how divine!!, “Mr Davis asked me to tell you that he and I unfortunately have work to do, and will be gone for some time. He’s so sorry. He booked you a few treatments at the spa, and I’m awfully sorry I didn’t let you know earlier, because the first appointment is in five minutes. There’s a buggy waiting for you at the lobby. You should probably hurry. Have a great time!”

And with that, the delightful cloud of a man floated away on the honeyed gusts of his own voice.

What a charming chappie, I thought, and how fortuitous that:

A. D & G’s sweet husband had booked her a pile of fab treatments,

and

2.) She was gone, and I wouldn’t have to listen to her hideous whining any longer.

 

I got back to my Vogue, but promptly fell asleep. I must have been plain plum tuckered by that woman’s chi. Assaulted, I would say. I have had to do a veritable sh**load of chanting since then to cleanse myself.