OK. I won't lie to you. I have a school reunion tonight and I'm glad I have bronchitis (it's a valid excuse
!) so I can avoid the whole smoke-ridden-cancer-inducing-box-sized-clubs and avoid drinking hugely-overpriced-Hong-Kong-alcohol with unpleasant company. Let's not mince our words: I wasn't the cool kid at school. Neither was I the one who got regularly beaten and abused but I certainly got exposed to enough bitches and crackwhores to fulfill my Abuse-Me! quota for a few lifetimes.

So it's the reunion tonight at a bar downtown and since we've only been away from Borstal 6 months it seems a) strangely premature b) completely unncessary c) my idea of TOTAL HELL. The only thing worse than going would be if they all turned up on my doorstep expecting to be fed and watered, and we were told the world was going to end in a fiery blizzard of hell, pain and torture. And that aint happenin', mister.

Of course, I'd be dying to go if I had achieved any of my goals. On leaving school I promised myself I'd drop at least 500% of my body fat (I had visions of swanning into the room, rather like Rachel Leigh-Cook in 'She's All That') so that men would drop to their knees and beg for forgiveness and attention. I dreamt I'd be fluent in 5 languages (French, Spanish, Mandain, Japanese and Russian, just 'cos it's Sexy) and I'd have Johnny Depp on my arm.

But none of that has happened. I'm still the same old me, ditzy and 'never-thinking-before-she-speaks-Laura' who's the butt of many a joke. Well, all jokes.

And that's just the way it is.

But next year! Next year I'll paint the town red with my new, stunning, celebrity-like self. Rachel Leigh-Cook, watch out.