Calm a llama down

You may remember last entry, you left your humble narrator wanting to make a concerted effort to say yes to life, and advertising on the internet for a "hot, foreign girl" to be my girlfriend in exchange for English lessons. The final ad actually ran with:

"Wanted: one flirty, foreign female who wants to learn English in exchange for being my hot, foreign girlfriend. And possibly teaching me another language, too.

French, Spanish, Italian; these are all good, but don't be limited. Norwegian would be good, too. And why stop there?

I'm not offering sex in exchange for language tuition; that would just be wrong."

After less than a couple of days waiting, I thought it was working when I got a reply:

"hi there
my name is sangri,and i am from spain and i like your ad very much
im looking for a nice boy, to show me round this big city, as i do get lost.....
can u help me????
i am studying english, but would like some personal attension, please right back"

Something about the reply didn't sit easy with me, I can't tell you what, but I didn't feel it was genuine. I replied, but guardedly. And so far I haven't had anything else from this "Sangri".

Shortly after this, I received another reply:

"hello,,
i read your profile it was so good to me.i feel you are the only one missing in
my entered life so i desided to stop on it and let you know that i am
interested to be a friend first.i also believe that coming to you will be a
probabilty of meeting that very thing thing that has been lacking in my entered
life. please contact me at (s_sarababy@---- ) i am a girl with respect
and responsible,i respect people also and believe if you contact me,i will
giove you a full introduction of my self okay. i hope to hear from you soon.
cares for my future love Sara,,
in addition contect me with the Emil that in side the massega thanks."

Before I had quite worked out what to say in reply to this one, I got another email with exactly the same text but a different address. I then found I could read the email as a reply to just about any ad, anywhere, ever. And have written all three off as spam, which leaves us with a score of: Jay - 0, Spammers - 3

I can't say I understand it, I thought girls from far and wide would be flocking to me following an ad like that. Maybe it was wrong to say I wasn't offering sex? That's probably what it was.

So far, the "yes" decisions I have been making haven't meant a whole lot of change in my. Monday night, Jon asked me if I was going to the pub. I had to get up at 5am the next day, but I said "yes". I wouldn't have missed much either way. Tuesday I worked at a PR event, and so when a colleague offered me a glass of champagne I said "yes". And when a waiter came over and asked me if I wanted another glass of champagne I said "yes", and when a waiter offered to refill my glass...you get the idea. Luckily for me, it stopped at three -- but considering the state some of my colleagues were in by the end of the night, I needn't have worried.

The final yes decision was on Thursday night -- following another invitation to the pub from Jon, and another yes from me -- we saw a girl I used to work with, when I was still bar tender extraordinaire. She's now in some management position in this other pub, and after some polite conversation and I mentioned how I'm looking for work again, she asked me if I would work there. So I said yes, and now I am. I've made clear it's only temporary until either some office work comes along, or a permanent job in PR -- it's not so bad. It beats going back to my old place of work and asking for a job again, and I need the money.

Tuesday was a strange day for me all round. At the media day I got to meet the girl who has effectively taken my place at my old place of work, and again I got the feeling of having been dumped when it seemed everyone was so in love with their new account assistant. I didn't really talk to her or work with her, but I'm sure she's pleasant enough and will do a fine job. And admittedly she is probably better suited to consumer fashion PR than I was -- I am beginning to wonder now if I'm not perhaps a little too cynical for PR, but that's thoughts for another day.

The format for Tuesday was effectively two events in one day -- an afternoon event, with editors and fashion editors from high end publications, a presentation and a q&a session with the big designer. Then it was everyone out, and transform it for the evening -- designed to have more of a party atmosphere, with no presentation or q&a session and with a DJ and celebrity guests.

The thing with celebrities, I find, is when you see them in real life you're not sure if it's really them. Liam Gallagher was the first person to catch my eye, and all I could think of was "Look at him! It's like he's king of the mods!" then quickly the hair, the glasses, the sullen expression all added up. But was it really him? It could have been some loser wannabe -- but then I figured that Nicole Appleton would probably have noticed if it wasn't, since she was with him. Over the course of the evening I saw (saw, rather than met -- I didn't speak to any of them) such dazzling darlings as Natalie Imbruglia, Camilla al-Fayed and Rachel Hunter. I didn't even recognise Rachel Hunter, until someone pointed her out as the incredibly tall blonde. I'd been wondering who she was.

Outside of the glittering world of media events, things are fairly quiet. San and I are on good speaking terms again, she recognises she was being a bitch and is sorry. I try to make a dig about it when I can -- "I've got a job interview today, please don't be mad, it involves going to Camden but I promise I'm not trying to make you jealous", that sort of thing. She deserves it. I talked to her about her relationship with Tim (Tim Nice but Dim), and am feeling a little better about it -- in a moving on sort of way. I talked to her about their proposed holiday together, and still disapprove of how she's funding it, but we remained civil.

Strangely, though, Fiona has seemed quiet lately. It's hard to tell with her, especially since years have passed before with us having next to no contact and still we manage to pick things up again. But just the same, I'm not too sure what's going on.