141109 charity case

Oh sweet lord, who needs canapés when there’s natural acid?

I am in the middle of a charity ball. Writing with a fucking pencil, hiding in the corner awaiting opportunities to thieve hand-made chocolates.

And my brother’s band is on. And a million posh drunk people are dancing. Which is a contradiction in terms. Do I stroll onto the dance floor and perform an elaborate buleria, I wonder? And the band are fucking good; better then they deserve.

But what’s this on the official invite I’ve swiped? Burger and chips. BURGER AND FUCKING CHIPS, for £100 a head? And I’m with my friend’s husband. And we’re stoned. What could be more appropriate?

The piece of paper I’m writing on says,

‘The Big Love Ball. Sorry! Not this time!’

You’re telling me! About to menstruate at any given moment, I sit ballooned but neatly tucked into my glittery tights and Balinese whore’s dress.

Too many manners to spit at you, but not enough to have developed any self-awareness, they waft before me in varying states of disarray.

There are three women who look like they’ve necked a couple of Es. One of them, hardly a spring chicken, is spiralling out of control. She gushes over to an upper-class hippy in a chiffon tunic and kisses her. When she walks away, the others curl their lips and turn their noses up.

I love them.

Give me your fucking money.

What is it you’ve been wishing for, Godiva? Wealth. I’d buy enough time to sort myself out, then I’d sort everyone else out. Personal kickbox instructor, dance teacher, yogi, masseuse, chef, stylist and surely a discreet gigolo, I would, indeed, be sorted. And here are the ones who could give me that.

And they either bob from side to side like they’ve got something itchy in their control pants, or they swagger about being snapped and papped; a host with a boyband version of Stephen Fry’s quiff poses with a punter. Before the flash goes he wriggles his body smarmily from side to side to create some sort of cad effect. Repulsive.

Sitting here, I remember I have a purpose here. I remark to the well-kempt blonde next to me that my job is to scream at the end of every song, hoping she will imagine a sense of irony in my tone. Alas, she politely dismisses me, I’ve obviously got a bit rusty.

No, my job is to help the photographer with his nift camera work.

Horrified, I realise that this is the closest I’ve been to a date in ages. In fact, have I been on one this year?...........

The answer is, if I remember at all correctly, (which is a worry), yes. But if you want to get down to statistics, let’s just say I ended up in bed with less of the dates, and more of the animals I led to be slaughtered in my farmyard.

And now I am on a warped date with my friend’s husband, the photographer. Well, if it’s a date, statistics prove that we won’t end up in bed, which is a relief. But other people’s husbands are known to like me. A kind of cheaper, feral alternative to a wife. Oh lord, thank you for the guilt you have bestowed upon me, for I simply couldn’t.

You hear about these women who go off with their friend’s husbands, and I imagine it to be a cheap glittery shift dress from new look and a couple of bottles of lambrusco that did it. But now I understand. Should the wife really have been the catalyst in someone else’s love story? Whatever happened to networking?

He just tried to steal this piece of paper from me, and he doesn’t know about my blog. Or the fact I’m writing about him. Shit, that could’ve been an awkward moment - or a lambrusco moment. A writer and a photographer, and he hasn’t got his wedding ring on. Hmmmmmmmmmm, best unpublish this blog if they ever clock on.

*ASIDE: Talking of things catching, my stalker’s back, isn’t he? Had to turn him away from twitter, ignore him on facebook and block him on ‘friendster’, and that’s just today. I ask you. What the fuck’s ‘friendster’ anyway. One of those weird sites you added when you were following Malaysian teenagers’ lead in social networking, only to discover facebook a month later.*

Back to the big lurve ball. The old bird on E is psychotically staring intently into the eyes of a relatively-innocent looking Greek guy. He looks like his burger didn’t go down well and he’s still hungry. And it’s me he wants a slice of, as I provocatively bop in a mock-posh way from side to side.

Smell the danger baby, that’s a corned-beef upbringing for you, come and get a bit of rough! I’ll give you burger and chips, a lemon curd sandwich AND a spam fritter if you play your cards right!

011109 the taxi of shame shall not equal the long walk goodbye

I’m in the mood for lurve
Simply because you’re near me

Well it had got to that stage. I’d go to Tescos and the pubescent cashier would look at me all Mrs Jones and I’d slip my card into his slender machine and the message would come up ‘card inserted too early’. Talk about passion killer.

I’d gyrate my way around my department at work, putting off the TCP-ridden leprechaun in the corner.

It was time to get laid. And it didn’t matter how, when, where or who I did it with, sometimes the why is enough.

Broken. It has been, and let all of nature rejoice and sigh relief, for once again I am furrowed and abundant - notice I avoid ‘fertile’.

I decided. That’s all. On the witching eve, dressed as ‘evil bitch’ or ‘vampire bait’, I would take a man tonight. I simply needed to, and there were three parties, four bars and a club to choose from in my quest.

Slightly stoned and excited, I entered the pub where the 24-year old barman stood behind the bar like a prize piglet. Let the perving begin. I was sat around a table of dribbling zombies, both in appearance and character, it seemed. There’s not much to be said about quantity, if you ask me.

But those two deadfaces opposite looked interesting. Twins, that’s two-for-one.

I gave it a shot. My wife remarked, ‘would you like them if they weren’t twins?’ accusationally.

It unfurled that I had already declared all of her friends ‘idiots’ and she was demanding an answer for my evilbitch behaviour. Aha! What is poison for the goose is rape for the gander, (or whatever), and I settled to enjoy taking on a halloween disguise that came all too naturally.

I joined the twins outside and had the pleasure of the most mundane, non-descript conversation one could imagine. Definitely pulled in theory though, so there was the test-drive.

Second stop. Regular pub where my wife is a fixture and has dated most all of the shrunken dick lady men behind the counter.

But who was this? The charismatic owner, a fine specimen himself, neatly nestled next to another trick or treat. He clocked me at the same second and though I turned back to the bar in mock-calm, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Surely the grail of my desire could not be attained at only the second leg of my stumbling?

‘oh, that’s just his brother; he’s rich, he lives in Chicago and everyone wants to sleep with him’.

Right.

If that ain’t a carrot, I don’t know what is. And of course, though I enjoy sleeping, one would hope for a party piece beforehand.

I basically ro’ped myself just in case. Bit of wine, bit of vodka, bit of sambuca, get it down, then all the conversations you remember will be good. And all those ‘oh…’ moments will trot by unnoticed. La la la, what about the bit where he had a mask on and he looked bipolar, and then he overheard me debating whether all bipolars are also bisexual. Something about butchering. Something about his ex-wife and it all being a big drama. Think at that point I wasn’t capable of even feigning sympathy, but extremely capable of demonstrating wildebeest.

Is it good when a man laughs about things you said, (oh God, please not what I did), long after the fact? I’m always suspicious that funny does not equal ‘and I absolutely have to return for the second fuck’.

So my fantasies have begun. In the morning he had to catch a plane, so I gathered my strewn belongings and stepped out into a storm, the wind dislodging a few cobwebs.

Suddenly I turned back and knocked on the imposing wooden door………

‘Changed your mind?’ he said coolly. I realise now he meant the taxi, but oh how I savoured the ambiguity. No, I’d left my scarf but…………………………….

I stop by a coffee house, with an ochre aura of smug sex about me, not to mention the sex stench and bleary eyes, and demolished some protein before embarking myself on my good friend Luke. Let’s prolong this walk of shame, let’s bask in its blustery glory.

So we prolonged, and it was music for the soul. We laughed about how fit men affect normal thought processes. When the magic man mentioned he sat up late at night, playing the blues on his ownsome whilst his little boy slept upstairs, I had to gag myself to prevent screaming ‘ME, ME! CHICAGO!’

But this time I’m trying not to procrastinate, deviate, lament, self-deprecate/defecate, just to enjoy what was and what can be, and to move through this beautiful universe knowing that I am now not the loneliest, most sexless bugger walking these wintry streets.

211009 choice

Tonight, I particularly enjoyed saying ‘you choose’ to the transexual in the co-op. I always feel, probably wrongly, that people in alternative or marginalised groups should be advocates for the cause. I didn’t catch the name badge, but let’s just say Charity would be more apt than Joy. Me, in my sweaty kickboxing gear, and her in her tabard, we are a sorry pair, so I try to bridge the gap each week but I never manage to break the suspicious stare.

When purchasing a lighter, she asked me what colour I’d like, at which point I uttered the midas words ‘you choose’. And there was the spark, there the bridge was clambered across.

There, was a red lighter.

I wanted the aquamarine, but sometimes you’ve got to take what you can get.

191009 in search of a magic faraway tree

If you can’t see the wood for the trees, run to la montagnes

Cecilia came up with a new one tonight at flamenco –

‘front bottom, FRONT BOTTOM’.

Ex-bloody-actly you enblazened genius! She was, of course, referring to the hip movement needed when excavating the rhumba, but the twinkle in my eye caught hers alright!

A break is always good for getting things into perspective. Wiping the floor with English men (still impartial to a Celt), I longed for the understanding of a man with hot blood pumping through his veins, who could lift me with one arm whilst tearing flesh from a spurned animal with the other. But as we know, extremes aren’t always the best course of action………………

Aboding doomsday, I prepared for my trip by bleeding in as many places as I could, then going to London in the cold eventime to get twisted on vodka at a groove armada gig.

And to add to my womanly joy, the husband of the lead singer decided to give me a lecture on why it was I was alone. Very easy to say from the smug-but-boring side of the fence! Apparently, I’m too fast, too overpowering – too much! Shall I change my personality for a nice boy then? Do I really want that? Pah!

A French guitarist named Dorian took rather kindly to me, but with a tampon-change a minute I was taking no risks.

I awoke on a too-short sofa and embarked on my journey into a longed-for wonderland.

Stepping off the plane into a warm sunshine nomansland, I instantly felt a weight off my knotted shoulders.

And there were my amazing hosts, the beautiful Evie, in tow with man and bebouncing baby.

We spent the night pigeoning in Catalan, drinking cheap wine and eating some sort of swine.

Saturday saw us attending a few parties – of which I’d been prewarned of the clientele. And they weren’t exaggerating. The first was further up the mountain, so we clambered into the back of the pick-up whilst the sun set, baby gleeing in the wind.

We arrived at the neighbours meek but warm place – stone walls, a fire burning, and presented them with the anomolous cake we had purchased from some dodgy Spanish supermarket. Apparently we did well with ‘chocolate’; the yellow one was in fact egg yolk flavour!

And there was the herd of wild stallion. Feral, to be more accurate. Some strange Chilean man in chorded slacks who lived in Stuttgart when he wasn’t pillaging, leaping up and down the rugged terrain off his head on some brand of carpet cleaner. A big, rotten-toothed foul-breathed local raucously laughing whilst stumbling about panting over the startled babies. These were men having a bewildered good time at 7pm in a shack. These were not the kind of passionate men with whom I choose to grace my custom.

Quick escape, and a hurtling ride to the piece de la resistance – another self-built house in the middle of nowhere, populated with swollen-eyed drug-smugglers and petty thieves. And I am standing with a plastic cup full of unidentifiable liquor, holding a baby whilst my friend ventures to the eco-loo down the bottomless path.

How the other half live.

Now the world is full of extremes, but where oh where is my middle man?x

121009 wild horses

So I’m off to Spain on Friday to test out a few moves on the locals. I asked my happily settled friend I’m visiting if there were any suitable chorizos on the menu.

‘erm, only ex-drug addicts and old people’.

Well, nowhere I haven’t been before. And I shall be bleeding which will make me slightly more unappealing and more likely to be sympathetic to the underdog.

My horoscope today said

‘Start upgrading this weekend by enhancing your image. The best way to do this is to bring joy to yourself. When you feel better you look better and other people will notice.’

Easier said than done when you’re living out of a ryanair one-bag on an isolated olive farm with nothing but the wind for company. On the blob.

Oh yeah, if it wasn’t for the soul I’d have nothing left!

I softly fell out of the hope of my French assassin lover demanding I fly to Geneva to drink champagne from his navel, I briefly thought a binge may have begun when I got my tits felt up on George Street, but it was nothing but a dying dream.

Instead, I focussed on the hope that the guy I first ever welcomed into my fold would come up trumps. Yes, the brother of the bride of the groom of the brother of the French assassin. To make things clear.

He is a serial monogamist, because he loves sex and appears to have no guilt complex; more fool him. But he wants my loins, and I his rump, and after dinner we’d skip the mints………..

Having someone on the back burner is a safe way to insure your sanity. No more angry sexually-frustrated outbursts at the world; chuckling softly to myself at internet advances rather than reaching my fist through the screen to try and grab some cybercock.

But I waited……………and a woman’s week is a man’s minute, and my plate was still empty. I put one egg in one basket and dropped it on the floor. I went to check my simmering broth and the hob wasn’t even on. Bugger. Strictly off the boil.

In a desperate attempt to grasp a piece of him for my own, I today sent him a very simple text:

‘fucking ring me, I want to know when I can get some possible sex’.

Unremarkable, you may think, but it grabbed him by the balls and we have a phone date on Sunday, (he lives in the wilderness).

O Lord break this seal that I have been re-given…….

081009 the barreness

My reputation at work as a sex maniac is really not helping. I’ve been known to shout at the top of my lungs my tale of bewoed barren-ness.

My new alter-ego – the barreness.

Anyway, today a group of cheerful housing officers asked me if I would like some children. I replied that I would need someone to put something inside me first and then I’d think about it. They decided I must have no end of offers, just hadn’t met the right man yet. That would be any man, with any kind of penis please.

A mid-life quaker lesbian with flowing fiery hair offered me a turkey baster at which point I coughed up more than a squirt of coffee and walnut cake.

Another colleague mused how he’d spent £600 on bedding and explained that a welcoming bed reaps a merry harvest. And it is the harvest moon. ‘Mind you’, he said, ‘you do alright’. SCREAM! My bed is barren as am I, sorry, tired and second-hand, impractical and haunting.

So I looked in a bed shop, (I am skint), and was drawn to one bed, a divan bed as it happens. £1200. What’s a girl to do? Not that easy to shoplift, but oh so easy to lie in.

But buying a bed also means staying put, and as my reflexologist told me today ‘oooooo, from your toes I can tell you know where you’re going’.

Down Tescos for a one-pot wonder, that’s where I’m going………….

061009 giving up on love

So tonight at flamenco I found myself aching for a camera, oh please! A snapshot of my life for the punters!

I am in the adult education centre, surrounded by an assortment of twisted allsorts.

There’s this woman I can’t bear whose name I forget instantly. She is like a string bean with something disgusting bursting from her intestines. Her face is pompous, she is very English, very unaware and intensely insulting to be near.

Her mate from tennis, on the other hand, is great. Ann. She has a labrador called Zoe, so I immediately assume the persona of bitch and we hit it off, much to string bean’s downturned-mouth disapproval.

Spontaneous laughter abounding at the crazy Spanish gypsy before us, who bears her aged but beautiful thighs at us and encourages us to know ourselves and dance. Oh yeah.

Not really the kind of advice given to a sex-crazed truthsaker, but what the hey, let’s make a bad situation worse by unleashing my sexuality on the conservative streets and suburban housewives.

The music changes for the mood of the dance, and Cecilia the teacher tries a modern slant on things.

‘Hokay, I think thith one you know’.

Please no, it can’t be……………….and off we strut, second-hand skirts bustling as we are told to let out this attitude. You are in a room with all these women and one man, and you will get him!

Welllllllllllllll, not being big-headed or anything, but when you look at what’s on offer here, I’m not going to have to try too hard.

One of my faves, Maria, really lets rip, though still holding on to something to prevent a leakage.

‘Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me’. She mouths. Oh yeah, she knows the lyrics, how very modern of her!

So after stifling my raucous laughter at this wretched display of womanhood, I assume a slow, panther-like strut, shoulders back, face not giving it away. Work for it baby, you’ve got a girlfriend after all………………..

‘oh………deeeeeeeeeeeefellent!’ Cecilia smoulders at me.

I mouth, ‘yeah, I don’t give a shit about him or her’.

And this, oh my poor readers, is unfortunately true. I have decided to play the oblivious card. Some say hard to get. I say nigh-on impossible. And the menopausals are strutting around out of time stamping their feet, and I’m coolly swinging my beflamencoed hips.

I win. But I go to bed alone.