OMG! I'm in Love with a Geek! (11 page)

3.   What if I'm in a relationship?

4.   Does a feminist do what a man wants her to do?!

Dimple and Weirdo Jen think it's the chance of a lifetime. If I do go I will Skype them every day!

OMG! Keith doesn't have the Internet! He goes to the library to write his blog! I can't go to that level of country-style backwardness!

I can totally tell that Mum is secretly so THRILLED that me and Keith aren't best friends by now. I must make more effort with him.

Goose (who likes everyone) admitted today that he doesn't exactly LOVE Keith either. He thinks he's a MASSIVE kid. “And if he upsets you at ALL, Hattie, I don't like him anyway.” ENORMOUS DORKERY – but cute!

Very cute.

TOTALLY cute. BUT he's not interested. He's like all men. Reptiles and mammals and trees come first.

Actually that's not fair. Rob puts me first.

He does love his car though. He calls her Pat – after an ex-girlfriend who, he says “was wonderful to be with and easy to control”. LOL!

Actually that's not funny – that's SEXIST! Is Rob a secret anti-feminist person?!

I just asked Rob if he believed in the power of women. He said totally. He believes in the power of women, except in 3-point turns. Apparently we can't do those as well as men.

Mum heard Rob say that men are better at driving than women and went mental at him! They are now having a competition in the road. It's nearly 11 at night!

Rob beat Mum but only because she said she had to do an emergency stop to avoid a cat. Now she is shouting at Rob that men have to win no matter what and that “preserving life is more important”. Apparently this is why men start wars!

The thing is, as women, do we need to get tougher and squash pets to win the battle of the sexes?

Goose just texted to say he saw my mum save the cat and he thought it was amazing. Goose is what my gran calls one of these “new men – they even do the hoovering if you ask them and hand-wash your tights”!

I wish he was my man. OH, GOOSE – WHY DIDN'T YOU SEE MY LUST STORM?!

I just can't think of romance properly while Keith is around. I should be building my relationship with him but IT'S HARD. I look a bit like him but that's it. He's OK. Sometimes he's actually really sweet, but then he does mad stuff. Gran says she's even had to hide her broken biscuits because he doesn't like preservatives and E numbers.

OMG – perhaps MGK is right. Perhaps Gran does have a lorry-driver boyfriend who brings her stolen goods off the back of his truck!

I asked Gran about the biscuits. She looked a bit weird and said it was someone she knew with a “connection”. Her pensioners' club is just full of old people doing illegal stuff because the police would never suspect them. Apparently no one thinks you're a criminal if you've got a Zimmer frame or if you buy seedless raspberry jam (“seeds play merry hell with your dentures”).

I wonder if I'm a stealing genius like my grandad the thieving postie. Perhaps it's genetic. I've realized a lot of things are. I think I do get my caring bit from Keith despite the fact that he totally left us.

Gran says I'm not built for a life of crime. She can tell I'm lying just by the way my knee twitches. Apparently I'd crack easily under interrogation and torture.

Keith wants to spend time with me tomorrow. I hope it doesn't involve deer.

MENTAL DAY!

I went to see Keith and Gran. Gran irons shirts before she sends them to charity shops! She says, “Even really poor people and the homeless should have standards, Hattie – how else will they get a job?”

Keith was very impressed that Gran recycles clothes. When she heard this Gran threatened to just put clothes in the bin – and she didn't mean the recycling one!

Then Keith decided we should “upcycle” Gran's dreadful wardrobe into something “retro fabulous”. It's apparently what he does on his “occasional” market stall. This is the wardrobe that no one speaks of. The BAD family secret that Mum warned me about. Gran's wardrobe – the wardrobe of PURE FASH HORROR! The wardrobe stacked full of BAD TASTE BARGAINS AND NEEDLEWORK GONE WRONG.

While we were sorting through Gran's stuff I asked Keith why he'd left and NEVER got in touch. I think I wanted some better answers.

This made Keith laugh and he said, “Hattie – I don't think it will – BUT I like being with you. You're smart and funny and a little bit sarcastic.”

He didn't add, “Not like MGK.” BUT he's too kind to do that.

It's retro craptacular!

Upcycling was a TOTAL LOL! NO ONE can rock crochet FRAYED brown waistcoats OR an over-the-knee skirt with a slit up the front that Keith made (badly – it just looks like a 4-centimetre rip!). You also cannot rock a grubby white handbag with a rainbow and stars doodled on it IN BIRO. The rainbow was in just 3 colours – black, blue and red. Keith said, “It's the message that counts.” I told him that I would ring
Vogue
and report him! We ended up peeing ourselves.

Gran caught us giggling at her awful wardrobe and called me a traitor.

Keith and me bonded over Gran being mental. I feel a bit guilty but also a bit relieved.

I've just realized everyone in Australia must look dreadful.

They don't wear a lot of clothes though because it's so hot. You can't really mess up a bikini!

Like I haven't got enough to deal with, EVIL teacher-torturer Matfield has decided we are doing a 3D ceramics project in Art. We have to make an animal that we love or have loved. Florence Morse – ultimate rebel – said she went on a seaside holiday once and fell in love with a group of plankton. She just rolled her clay into loads of little dots. Matfield went mad at her for “disrespecting artistic materials”, so Florence went mad at her for “disrespecting a deeply held and fond childhood memory”. Then Matfield asked her what her animal was called. When Florence answered, “Plankton the plankton” Matfield went mad!

What can I do? I could make Hammy the hamster but his face would be too hard. It's the same with Sergeant Nibbles the guinea pig. Rodents have difficult faces to model!

Trust Mum to give me pets that are artistically challenging.

I definitely can't do Princess. She doesn't stay still long enough for you to even see what she looks like. Perhaps if I buy her some nice food I can do a sketch.

Gran says Princess likes M&S chicken slices. I can't stretch to that – she will have to have Lidl slices.