Those three words, said with exasperation, are the ones that are heard most within these walls more than any others.

With the odd “fuck!” thrown in of course.

Not to mention: “I’m fed up” and “I hate my life”.

After a restless night last night during which I had to give in to yet another canine tantrum and allow him to sleep with his squeaky toy on the bed, the offending item had been hidden from him this morning. Now that it’s bedtime again, he has demanded his latex comforter; shouting at it, even though hidden from his view.

My dog acts like a retard, but is highly intelligent. He is pack leader in this house.

It was never meant to be like this. He was introduced into a home with two mummies (he being the idea of his other mummy), but homes with two mummies are doomed to failure because relationships between two mummies generally bring together women who are suffering from a spectrum of mental illnesses, otherwise known as lesbianism.

“You can keep the fucking house, I’m taking Rocky!”

What on earth was I thinking? I’d been his main carer for nearly two years and I still wanted to have sole custody. Mental illness, you see. But still, of all the souls I have encountered in the past seven or so years, and of all those that I have yet to be acquainted with, that little dog is only one who I know will love me unconditionally and will be a constant in my life.

I just wish he was normal.

Photo shoot
When I took him for his jabs and check-up the other month, I signed up to something that provided a discount on this and that, flea treatments, annual blood tests… and a free – get this – photo shoot! They phoned me today, the people from Venture Portraits: “So, you can come along with your partner and children, and our photographers are great with animals, so we can do some lovely shots and you can have some lovely photographic memories to keep and keep again.”

“Can I get somebody else to have their photo taken with him? I look like something that’s crawled up a railway embankment after a derailment.”

…Nervous laughter…

“I’m joking. Yes, it might be nice, but it’s just me and him, unless I can drag my niece along. That might be nice. Actually… can you just do him? After he’s had a hair cut? And a few valium?”

They’re calling back next week.

I remember when those sorts of family portraits started cropping up in people’s homes around 2005. At first, they seemed quite sweet, an innovative way to capture the family dynamic away from the staged “book of the dead” portraits that had gone before them. Then after the first few times of seeing another family pile-up shot (“Oh, ha ha ha! isn’t that a lovely and novel way of taking your photo, I’ve NEVER seen that before!”), it became at best tut-worthy and at worst, something that made me want to kill small animals.

Right Move either had the obligatory Audrey Hepburn negative on block canvas or the Venture Portraits family pile-up shot adorning walls of houses that were being sold in all price brackets. [For a fun evening, I often go on Right Move and tally up the number of homes for sale in a particular area that have at least one Audrey Hepburn and/or a “feature” wall of hideous floral wallpaper.]

This image will haunt your nightmares.

I am tired. I’m tired of life, of the struggles of having nobody to share the burdens of it with. So, I’m taking a week off work in an attempt to recharge a little bit. To help lift me from this autumnal gloom, I am going off to Blackpool and I’ll be staying overnight in a 1960s-themed guest house where the bar looks like this:

Kill me now.