Never A Frown - The Act Of Succumbing

WARNING: This post contains details some readers may find disturbing.

Golden brown, finer temptress
Through the ages she's heading west
From far away
Stays for a day
Never a frown
With golden brown

- The Stranglers, Golden Brown



I have a terrible confession to make. I have become an addict.

Yes, you heard me. Girl Of Few Vices. She who doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, doesn't use drugs, doesn't eat chocolate or crisps, who is compulsive about limiting her exposure to processed food. Who doesn't read trashy magazines, and watches MAYBE five hours of TV a week. Who likes to shop but doesn't have a credit card or a bank loan or overdraft. Well, aside from ￡100 that I dip into about once every six months, when stuff like car tax and school fees and an unforeseen emergency align themselves, and then pay back with my next paycheck.

Who lists her vices as books, bathing and making snap judgements about celebrities.

But I guess anyone can become an addict if fate and poor choices intervene.

Oh, you glorious Eastern goldenness. How did I ever exist without you?

It's only been a matter of days, perhaps too soon to judge whether it is a true addiction or merely a passing affliction. Part of me wishes it were the latter, but only part. Part of me is reveling in the sensations; not falling into addiction but soaring, tumbling, spiralling ever faster into it. I had my first hit so recently that I can count the time in hours and days rather than months and years. Yet life without that sweet burn, that grating, itchy, delightfully tingly feeling, seems so far away. Like a world where everything has had the colour leached out of it.

How did I ever exist there?

Like many have discovered, my obsession may well be my destruction. Yet I cannot summon the strength to judge myself harshly for it, even though a week ago I lived in a state of smug self-satisfaction that I had never felt the need to even TRY it, let alone succumb.

There is a small bit of embarrassment, a dash of shame, but sooner or later that will go too.

She grates on me and soothes at the same time. Fills me with aggravation and jubilation.

My Golden Brown.

Yes, I have sold my soul for Jersey Shore.