The ex factor - featuring the ex men and the ex ex

What the holy moly has occurred?

Since I caterpaulted ‘all by myself’ to the world, every ex this inside of the M25 corridor and beyond has emerged from their hermit’s shell to show me their hairy underside.

In fact, there’s probably at least a two fist’s worth reading right now.

Hello boys.

Please don’t let this public airing deter you from your flailing plight.

I have found this rather curious. Since I’ve been spreading the word about this blog, the ex men have been forthcoming. It has crossed my deluded mind that it could be BECAUSE of the blog.

Have all of the men that passed me by, that I slung under the bridge, or that I thought I buried, finally GOT me? And now they want to get me?

Have they finally understood that the ‘closed book’, ‘tough bitch’ façade is actually the awesome front. And I don’t go out back, as you all know……..

That what there is to see here is a straightforward, impatient sex pest who wants not to be honoured, but obeyed and adored?

So I’ve got some men lined up on my bunsen burner. Burn, baby, burn, there ain’t no disco but I’ve got an inferno willing and able to be all-consuming. (cit. god)

Like a stack of dominos ready to floor.

Saving up my sexual energy until it burns so brightly that no odd-shaped phallus or peculiar accent will deter me from getting laid. Trying to build up an armour so that I don’t suddenly break down in the middle of an oral session, shouting GUTTED! GUTTED!

I thought I’d use afaux-holistic method to aid me in my quest.

In the corner of my bedroom, (the love corner according to old chinese masters),
is a small glass objet filled with rizlas. Very romantic, you might think.

And on these rizlas are written a series of names. I am ‘the collector’. I add to it daily. I walk about town stumbling into various sparks from the past, and something in them is drawn to my aching soul, and in return, they go in me sorbet pot. (Oh palate, be cleansed). I’ve taken care to ensure not EVERY cock out there goes in, as we don’t want to get an injury from the adage ‘be careful what you wish for’ camp, do we now?…..

The rizla chart, (in no particular order – not a chart really, is it?! Let’s do bullets instead):

• Neanderthal man.
• Ex-boyfriend from when I was 21. Still has own teeth. Hopefully still has the same genitals. Seen sniffing round me at my birthday party by cunning loiterer.
• Facebookers talking about bending me over, which include a now-married ex from my homeless days sending phwoarghs over the cyberwaves from new zealand, (thank you by the way), and the dutch tranny from india having a craic at a joke, (israeli men, hallelujah).
• The dealer from earlier this year. Stomping t’wards me in the street pointing in my oblivious face. Smackering my lips up and telling me I look good. I, completely bewildered after my ‘focussing’ meditation session, reacting by turning and making the universal sign of the ancient telephone and mouthing ‘call me’. Hideous, I must throw out those friends scripts. Has since texted me saying I need a spank. I do. Maybe not from him, though.
• Music producer. Groping.
• Film director. Staring.

And the newest entry, (who thank god, won’t be reading this YET), is possibly in at number one.

Walking over the railroad bridge, (oh PLEASE grant me an american-english license), hardcore and stacked in my fighting gear, I run smack bang into the cheeky playboy who used to front my brother’s band. His mate hides a DVD under his arm - ‘hot tub babes’.

The new specimen is sexy, shifty, has great presence, and would be an awesome and easy good lay I imagine. He sprogged one out with a Louise Redknapp looky-likey in her eternal days.

He kisses me, leaving cheap whore’s boudoir scent all over my soon-to-be-pumped body.

‘You look like you could cause some serious damage’, he says. That’s not the half of it, I think.

I say I’ll facebook him, and he yells his ridiculous lady-of-a-name across the bridge at me so I can look him up.

I facebook him. Apparently, he is looking for ‘random play’. Can do, my friend, can do.

And I have also been keeping up the home front with some new conscripts:

I have managed to command a whole bistro into a stunned and awesome silence by demanding that the barman pleasure me in some way, (red wine in a bloody mary?! I demand more) -: this shortly before conducting a war of credit cards belonging to two potential suitors, hands everywhere, (I forgot I had an arse for a few weeks).

We exited the bar three abreast, one man in each hand, but none in my bush.

I sleptwalked to co-op with no knickers on and got chatted up by a buff chav by chicken cottage. I was a beautiful sight to behold, apparently: hair unwashed for four days, mckenzie blim-burned baggies and flip-flops all on splendorous show. Whatever turns you on, honey. I’m yours.

But still I have ingested no cigar. And I want one, but I don’t want a half-smoked bum-end that’ll give me nothing but a clap-cough.

So I’m sticking to my latest mantra; ‘you only wank twice’.

And I’m hoping that I don’t get to the desperado point and sink a few mingers, but that I’ll come to my senses before they become inundated with mismatched hormones, and teabag a good ‘un instead…..

And if there be no horn of plenty, I’ll stick to my mantra till there is.

‘Oh the cum on the sheets is all mine, all mine, the cum on the sheets is all mine’.

sweet tuesday

Ah, sweet tuesday! What a day!
I dress in my pre-conceived lady’s costume – a dark-patterned shift dress, shock-whore primark tights, high heels with glue coming off the soles, a boyfriend (ha!) cardigan and some knock-off shades from the lloyds pharmacy. And a bra. Of course. My lady costume, my woman-in-drag.

I mean to visit the dentist down the road, who I leap about with on Monday nights at the open mic, and who used to be in Queen, to sort out me railings, but a forty wanksworth, strums and cursors later and I’m having to get a shifty on for my one o’clock.

Yes. My one o’clock.

Glory be, I am a writer! Poor, destitute and misunderstood. A writer.

Colvich calls for a ladies’ coffee. I decline. I have a one o’clock. Then my one o’clock calls and leaves a message. It’s going to be a one-thirty o’clock. Far less fucking catchy I think you’ll agree.

And though I’ve sacked off the rock star dentist I will not let time defy my new-found persona, so I jig my mental diary and decide to pay a visit to that well-famed establishment: le primarche. To buy tights. Without holes in the crotch.
I have light-grey ribbed numbers in mind, a bit convent-girl-cum-sensible-Kensington type tights.

I walk in. The security guard looks at me - I don’t belong. Thank god, (did I mention I’m religious?) I head upstairs to find that the hosiery section is actually by the ‘customer serving area’ downstairs. Still undefeated by this moroccan abattoir of a place, I join the long queue. Last time I did this I got sandwiched between an ex-client of mine, (no, not one of THOSE), and an ex flat-mate; physically challenged, mentally deranged, and a downright pain in the non-proverbial arse.

Not this time.

Instead, a deaf girl straddles the queue like a deranged donkey, and stands at my left shoulder, hyperactively yabbering at me that her mum will be home soon so she must get to London Road, and will this god-awful plastic-wrapped polyester travel bag fit in the overhead lockers on a non-existent american plane?

‘Should be fine’: I desperately attempt to dampen and thwart.

But she doesn’t stop. Obviously a regular bearded lady at this festival of freaks, she harasses everyone in the queue whilst I desperately search for my holy grail. The schoolgirl tights. Of which there are none, of course. Disturbed and breathless, I grab a two quid pair of 80 deniers. They are hideous, but hide they will in the cupboard for a couple of years, a decade or so.

Shaken but not stirred by my bystander’s ordeal, I get to the checkout. I receive a text. From the Neanderthal.

‘hello x’.

For frigs sake, what IS this? My ex-flatmate who knocked up the next girl who moved in, that’s who. The one that I let not enter me, but massage me with mango stones we had slurped upon. The one who now lives in nowheresville with the girl who moved in, with two offspring.

The one who facebooked me, and I simply replied, ‘that’ll teach you to wear condoms’.

I laugh, and the lady at the till looks at me enquiringly.

‘It never rains, does it?’ I say curtly, hoping she’ll mechanically digest my comment, sedated by her besludged primarched brain cells.

‘Oh dear love, hope your day gets better’.

‘No, no’, I quip. ‘I’m just not sure what these people WANT from me, you know?’ *wink* She shrieks. It appears I appeal to a wider audience these days.

As I turn to haughtily scarper someone calls my name. It’s only bloody colvich in the queue! And I’ve got half an hour…….

I wait outside. I text the Neanderthal back saying I’m busy. Colvich and I bribe the bootmakers into giving us a cheap deal, then plonk ourselves down for a cheap filter coffee and shared sarnie (what a rank word).

We talk about universal vibrations - not of the purple pulsating kind - how the vibrations you transmit to the ethos will attract back the very same.

Hence the ex men jumping out at me from all frigging corners. Hence the creative bursts, like economy sausages splitting when fried . Wonderful.

My one-thirty arrives. He calls me whilst I’m in the chapel of slump and asks if I am doing a dump. I say I am. He tells me my hair is so dry it’s going to catch fucking fire if I don’t do something about it. I tell him he smells of milk. He does.

All the best men do (used to think it was too many cups of tea).

We have a brief but mystifying literal exchange, shake on some deadlines, then he has to leave to visit someone who’s dying of cancer.

We trot up the street together arm in arm. He asks me if it still feels like walking through soho with my dad. I say no. I say it feels like, it feels like walking in the world: two super human-beings.

I head to mr fish’s studio to ask for his help in knifing a portrait, but it’s shut. What now? The library, of course, you arrogant writing tit. You blogging bastard. I look for pahalniuk. They only have a copy of Lullaby that looks like someone’s wiped a years-worth of bogeys, done a massive guff on, wiped up their spunk with, and hurled under an Indian bus, and I decide there’s enough stains on my carpet as it is.

I like this new lady godiva, artist-in-residence, nonsense.

It all started with a drunken tarot reading – the fool in the past, the creator in the present, and the woman with one tit out in the future. Yes. The queen of wands. Or godiva, if you think about it.

My wife explains its witchety meaning: apparently it’s the choice between acting like a cheap tart or becoming a lady. Lady godiva.

And to the world’s wonderment, I’m headin straight t’wards that second option.

I test out the theory formed after my ‘focussing session’ with mistress white the tai chi guru. I say that although we dress all blokey so we can squirm about in the mud, people still stare at us because we’re those people nutters love.

I ruse how perhaps they stare at my tracksuit bottoms because actually, it’s more normal to wear a skirt. I say how maybe if we dress like ladies we’ll be ignored. (They actually stare at me in my tracksuit bottoms because my greedy buttocks keep peeping out).

Well………..the slack/skirt theory remains unproven, I’m afraid.

Several men wobble off their bikes at the sheer sight of me in my get-up.

A strapping american basketball player stands with his mouth open, gawping at me strutting along the promenade in the sun.

He speaks:

‘Now, THERE goes a pretty lady’.

What is this, fucking Oklahoma?

‘You’ve made my day’.

‘Thanks’, I smirk back.

Suddenly he turns desperado:

‘Actually, have you got a minute’.

‘No. Sorry’, I say.

And I haven’t: I have to read the erotic review, have a wank, then beat the shit out of a room full of testosterone-fuelled animals. Sorry!

Shortly after this I have to cross the road to avoid two moustachioed men blocking my path.

I’m wondering if they know I’ve got peacock’s leopard-print pants on under my frock, and that the tights I’m wearing have a hole so big in the crotch another tiny rip would bring me to my knees…

And as I’m thinking this – (it’s not the first time - I remember walking down zombie alley in some short-shorts once, thinking the punters were getting an eyeful, when in fact I had all my clothes on inside out, labels and all), someone has the generosity to lean out of their car window and shouts,

‘nice tights’.

Oh fuck. It’s the hole in the tights, isn’t it? What the hell do I look like from behind in the glaring sunlight?

Oh bloody hell, has my crotch-hole wormed it’s way into view?

This ain’t no lady! It’s a walking advert for incontinence pads.

I rush into my spaceship. I clamber onto the side of the bath, the only way to see below the waist in a mirror.

And it’s fine.

There is no hole. (There was no blanket).

Nada. Hola. (ever the linguist) Nada. Blanket. (cit. derek and clive)

Yes. Ever the cunnilinguist….

And ever a lady who knows how to work a good pair of pantyhose..…….Gx

something for the weekend….

I decided that as part of my rehabilitation programme I should go to London to hook up with my Cannes-partner. He knows me well, and knows nothing of the boy.

I stop off at the world’s end co-operative supermarche to buy some plonk and am delighted to be surrounded by other crawling insects ravaging through the reduced ready meals. These chelsea chavs are the best in the world – an eastern european wears a kappa tracksuit with some gang name written on the back, and carries a small wide-eyed human. Out of my spaceship and into the void…..

I crack open the vino immediately. I mix it with soda in the pretence it will err a hangover. I haven’t had a drop since ‘see you next tuesday’ or ‘maundy wednesday’ for that matter. It goes to my head. It goes to my brain. It goes to my legs. A few hours later and I’m in a delirious whirlwind of confusion in a local drinking establishment. You couldn’t write it. The guests at our table are the following:

• Two Glaswegian make up artists and their dog. I tell them about jimmy who was also a Scottish make-up artist. Who hung himself. Cheery.
• Some bald-headed creature blurting out Melinda Messenger at me. Unwise.
• A strange delicate but drunk old lady and her family. Quaint.

Woah, this is a hardcore homecoming. We go back to tim-na-nas for copious random amounts of booze. Colvich and the tonemeister turn up for the craic. We yabber about my party and my blog, and suddenly they’re gone. And some new conscripts stagger in through the front door as colvich and tone disappear out the back. Who’ve we got this time? Extremely drunk people. I vulture on a few of them; and as I have no idea what language is, let alone what I’m saying, my attack is preyless.

And the rest of the night is a bit of a blur, and not of the tender kind. Puking was involved, as were failed acrobatics. Somehow I managed to have a shower, get into my moo moo and half-make the sofa bed. And pass out. That was the easy bit. Some time later I feel my right calf completely seize up into a crampic spasm, and I’m so pissed I don’t wake to sort it out.

I turn to my right and there’s someone on the sofa with me, saying, ‘I shouldn’t stay’, and other various deluded ramblings. Fucked, I opt for the old ‘it’s alright babe, it’s alright’ (last uttered whilst pissing in someone’s doorway delirious on mdma).

And it’s the morning. And my innards break and my womb-lining lunges spurting forth. And I’m not sure of my name or how I got here.

The kings road is a familiar place for me in this state. I love the poshness mixed with the wonkiness of the horse-bred folk that frequent it, and have my own special trot. There’s a juncture with my mother’s maiden name and married names as streets either side. I feel good here.

I canter into boots to buy some compacted cotton wool to stick up my plethora, and go to the till, proud of my soon-purchases. I demand attention. A beautiful dark-skinned creature emerges from out back, beautiful wide smile, big eyes, suit. He doesn’t seem to be able to work the till, but by God, he does a good job of working me.

And I sing to myself in a distracted, ship’s-skivvy kind of way.

‘you’re deep in tune’. He says.

‘you what?’ I say.

‘deep in tune, I’m trying to work out what you’re singing’.

‘Bonnie Raitt, can’t make you love me’, I pipe back.

‘Oh, I thought it was singing in the rain!’

So he’s completely uncultured but willing to have a go. Excellent. A perfect specimen for the job. I educate him on the awesome film, of which all he knows is that ‘it’s old isn’t it?’ and I demonstrate the sloshing tap dance for him excitedly up and down the aisles. Not bad seeing as I was just trying to plug a hole.
This reminds me of the time I cautioned my friend that if she played ‘lord of the dance’ at her wedding I would gallop up and down the pews lifting my hideous lilac skirts. I think we ended up with ‘make me a kennel with your fleas’. Or was it fleece? I don’t remember.

I move onto another establishment where the ladies go to hide their loneliness and spend on credit cards that lurk in their subconsciousness. The shop assistant is a young chav. But a fit one. I force him to help me. He invites me to a special evening. I decline as I’m not a local, but this second booster is making me feel a million miles from my lonely attic by the sea.

People pass by, they’ve got their troubles, I’ve got mine, but we appreciate it’s okay to be a human. In Chelsea. A few art books and a mocha later and I decide it’s time to venture over the river to my beloved Johnny London. I shan’t be having a drink, of course…..

Now the Borough is an awesome place. But it’s real, and I’m planning on getting the cranky misfits bus from sloane square to elephant. Which is a bit of a come down. I get to the bus stop and run – it’s a Sunday but the bus is there! Now it’s gone…..No bother, I’ll keep on wanderin like the hobo I am. I wonder if my oyster is loaded, but I can’t face any more transactions today, so chance it.

I keep on walking. Past ‘John King’ antiques in Pimlico to Buckingham Palace Road. To get the other chavvie bus that will drop me at the end of my old road. Plan.

It’s windy, yes even in London it’s windy, and I’m not sure if it’s this that’s making my eyes leak. I decide to take advantage of a bit of weather and turn it into a ‘woe is me’ weep. And after ten minutes or so the bus comes. A girl in a lovely dress gets on, and I think I’ll tell her how lovely she looks. But I’ve got to get past the scary Chinese bus driver first.

I get my oyster card out. I bleek it. The light remains red. I look at mr driver. He’s not budging. I get my wallet out. There’s 31p. I look, imploringly this time, at the driver. He stares at me steelily and shrugs.

‘I, I haven’t got any money’, I stammer. He shrugs again. And before I turn with my tail between my legs and exit the bus, a large glob of boo-snot drips from my nose onto the floor. As I stare at the driver dejectedly. How low can you go?

Undeterred by this should-be humiliating experience, I walk to Victoria, stick some cash on my oyster and waste time waiting for the next bus, whilst the person I’m visiting wheels it up to the backstreets of Shoreditch to score. An epic journey. I cry romantically, staring out of the window as I used to do when I was five and projecting along to sir Clifford. At one point I’m more or less in the lap of the larger lady beside me. Oh how sweet it is to wallow in London where no one knows your name.

And I wonder whether I’ll be morose and emotional for my Johnny tonight?

Not a chance. A bottle of cava and some green later and we’re off. Into a creative carcrash with the wonder that is garageband.

He’s written a song, mock-donna summer, called discoeey7, which we quickly rename discojam. What a godawful name. To match a godawful song. I gratingly wail ‘sexy boy, I want sex boy’ over the top of the 80s uplifting groove as he growls ‘sex on demand, sex on demand’. And then we splutter for a bit and stop recording.

It is a fucking wreck. We delete it, knowing that although we couldn’t face our failure ever again, it would have been priceless in the morning.

After another pass-out it’s bank holiday monday. We spend it flatly, dining on overpriced urban eggs served by a jaundiced bulgarian. We head uptown to soho to look for guitars, finding the shops all shut. We neck a quick vodka in the street and visit noel fielding’s art exhibition at maison berteaux. We came here once before, and left running with a certain kleptomaniac and original canvas to boot.

This time there’s a room full of homage to Bryan Ferry, and protruding from the wall is a painting that stops me dead in my contented tracks. It’s a tiger. The boy loved them. And it’s called ‘tyger with chlamydia’, and the tiger wears boots and says ‘shit off’.

That evening I’ve scored myself a gig. With some amazing irish musicians I used to beatbox with back in the day. We meet at the local pub we’re playing in and after a few buckets of wine it’s my turn to croon. I honk out ‘black is the colour’ in anti-traditional rusps. The audience stare, and ask me who exactly’s version is that? Johnny scarpers. Godiva drinks more port.

And when we’ve warmed up we do well. The old drunk at the bar pipes out ‘where do you go to my lovely’ for the 942nd time this year. The owner joins in. A small midget-like man in a suit strums ingeniously on the ukele and we ooze along with him in glorious celtic technicolour.

And suddenly it’s half-two in the morning. And me and the mighty quinn are standing bedazed waiting for her nightbus that will surely become a minicab without a fairy godmother.

And I’m standing on the corner of my old street, with the lamplights running low and the skyscrapers omitting moody green light over the pavement. And I remember that this is where my lover once left me, smiling and waving, for the last time before he hung himself.

And I stagger off to bed, seeking respite in the warped mattress where me and the boy joyously ejaculated a few months before.

And I ask my saviour, the lord Johnny, to redeem my soul. And he tells me,

‘yes, you did fuck him in that bed, but you also fucked a hell of a lot of other people in that bed’.

And with that, I resolve to not fuck myself up too much more:- a bright, garagebandless morning awaits me and my new life beckons….

maundy wednesday......

Thought I was fine today, maybe a bit come-downy. Went to work. Did some extremely subdued tasks. Got a pissed off email from a mate who I’d blogged about. Semi-sorted it. Low level. Sadness pervading through the office from my mighty gills. A sudden flurry of people telling me I look beautiful on facebook. Which obviously, makes me profoundly sad. The beans on the toast in the park in the rain. Arrange to flee to London town for the weekend to get away from it all.

Nearly meet a friend. Get a lift to tescos in the rain with a cheery girl from work. Where did she get that serotonin? Not fricking tescos, that’s for sure.

Bought a few limp cancerous low fat ready meals to eat cold in the middle of the night, and stooped home.

Not fine. Not fucking fine at all. Winter has come and I am holed up in a squirrel’s nest. I know: I’ll treat myself, I’ll suppress my ADHD long enough to watch a film. Picture fucking perfect. Yes, that’ll cheer me up.

Wailing. WAILING. WAAAAAAAAIIIIILING.

I am Jack’s wailing mess (cit. Pahalniuk).

How dare a man hold a woman in that way? There is something wrong with me. Split up with a teenager and watch a Jennifer Aniston ‘movie’ in my tracksuit bottoms? Who will love me now? WHO? I’m reminding myself of that little blonde munchkin from big brother, you know the one. Miniature with ridiculous gesticulation. What a beautiful re-incarnation.

So I get stoned and write instead. And here I am; everytime the phone goes it’s someone random texting me something strange. Not a lithe mischievous young creature telling me he wants to rip my clothes off.

I’m fluctuating at the moment between fucking someone for the sake of it, (note I don’t have to say fucking someone ELSE anymore), and being a barren depressed fat stoned spinster.

In the moments of ‘hope’ for a new horizon I realise I need to get my backlog out. I had remarked several times to friends that I needed to think who to fuck now that I knew the curtain was slowly slipping down.

Here’s the latest one:

• Desperate agoraphobic. Big cock, stupid shallow style. Extremely cheap thrills.
• Ex-boyfriend from years ago. Wallow in sepia goo.
• Wine me up man. Mmmmmmm.
• Dodgy arse-obsessed French man – brother of the groom and best man. Shallow, immature, smooth, brown, sexy. Just moved to London.
• Keep desperately trying to claw at the young man in the hope he might black out at some point and I can attack him.
• Music producer. A new entry in at number six. Not sure his records have got that high in the charts, (not that they have charts these days).
• Random. Most likely disappointing. Feelings of pain and anguish. What no text.
• My finger. Makes me want to cry.
• The vibrator I bought so I wouldn’t fuck someone when the boy was away. (being sandwiched between two young music producers from Coventry with a tongue in my mouth and a cock poking me from behind doesn’t count does it?). As mentioned before, I believe, you wouldn’t know how disgusted I am with that thing.

By the way, just played a game on facebook: ‘who does it look like I’ve fucked but I haven’t, and who have I actually fucked but wish I fucking hadn’t?’ It’s fun, you should try it, Godiva’s back in town. And I’ve a sudden craving for meat….and winds of frickin change is on my itunes, (opium-induced moment in Laos made me buy the Scorpions).

What did I love about him? His gangly ways, that’s what. His inability to shut up and his comfortableness with that. Our ability to mouth words at each other that neither bothered to absorb.

Side by side. The lion and the lamb. The dragon and the snake.

see you next tuesday.....

Two weeks after the initial and ineffectual ‘dumping’ text, it’s time to finish this thing off and face the silence. I wait till 11.30am. I text him to say we have to meet today to close the chapter.

I go out to buy some hideous-smelling foam cleaner with which to try and frantically eradicate the stain he made on the carpet. Fucking great. Got to stare at that forever. The red wine spilt at half four in the morning when I think I’m about to get it but actually he’s about to disappear from my life forever. The stubborn stain I cannot remove, no matter how much I pretend it doesn’t exist.

I go to the seafront, bumping into a friend. We dine on beans on toast and chat. My soul is empty but my lily is open. It’s nice. Then at 2.30pm the boy texts back to say ‘sure thing’. Oh how cheery this whole affair is, how deep, how meaningful. What a lovely ‘sure thing’.

4.30pm comes and I boldly board the 49 bus to the park and choose a spot in the sun. To the left some young girls are talking about some shitty art project featuring themselves. They sound so young and pointless. I realise it’s the gangly frickin model he tried to fuck that turned him down. I’m not moving. They pilfer some rizla off me, not quite clocking I am the paedophile rumoured to be interfering with a rock star, and disappear.

He calls - he can’t find me! I’m next to the path, near the busker. I find it hard to explain, then I see him, like a mirage, right in front of me. I hear him in my ear. A sensory delight. Double jeopardy. He sits.

And, would you predict it, yet more mundane chat. Oh god.

I’d reduced my speech in my head to something like this:

‘I want to be your friend. I believe in you. But I can’t see you, because if I do, I need to be with you physically.’

Rubbish, but hopefully to some point.

Instead, I blurt some flimsical waffle about the fact we haven’t pissed each other off, and I don’t want to start resenting him when I see him, or think of him as a wanker (I think his condom consumption confirms he seldom needs to wank).

His response? Oh, I’ll know about his band through facebook. Fuck-his-face book.
And that he was going to say pretty much the same thing to me. How fricking convenient. I think the truth of the matter is, whatever I said pretty much, he would have ‘said the same’. Either ‘the same’ is his standard break-up speech, or we are extremely well-aligned; in which case, where are my oats?

And that’s about it. Mundane waffle recommences. Ninners from my party suddenly appears, half cut. Time for more party gossip. Unaware that she is witnessing the most ineffectual break-up of the decade, she says how great the party was. I asked if I kissed her.

‘yes, but no tongues’.

Oh, I explain. I kissed someone I shouldn’t have but have no idea who……

‘Kate’.

Shit! She wasn’t even on my list! Well at least SOMEBODY’s giving me some answers.

A decidedly dodgy hare Krishna in his garb drags a poor young boy behind him droning. My attempts to lure them over are thwarted.

And the boy saunters off to work, his gangly legs and horse-like gait already like silhouettes of memories.

He turns: ‘We should do open mic soon’.

Erm, yes, give me a few days to write some bitter and twisted songs and I’d love to join you.

I CAN’T SEE YOU AGAIN BECAUSE I NEED TO FUCK YOU. What part of this doesn’t he understand? Oh, all of it, because I might just have forgotten to say any of it.

Kickboxing saves me from another half bottle of whisky. And the adrenalin produces some pretty interesting hormonal takes on the relationship. Streak of piss, bit like a girl, never gave me anything anyway. Hasn’t left much inside me. Oh, come inside me. That’s the gist.

He only talks about himself. He’s shit with his emotions and communicating them. He’s juvenile. He’s incapable of having a relationship. He can barely feed himself.

Well that makes two of us – bingo?!!

Delete. Erase. Deny. Fuck my ex. Write. Become religious. Eat chips.
Wank.

The telly tells me to smear Philadelphia on everything and I’ll suddenly have a sickeningly sweet relationship with a mature, airbrushed, plastic man.

George Harrison sings ‘my sweet lord’ to me, and as I seriously think about going to a church to redeem myself, the speakers blow.

Still not in god’s good books then……as my sister kindly pointed out in last years’ birthday card. Was it ‘the anal sex song’ that did it I wonder, or the new tune I’m penning: ‘Jesus, come inside me’? I wonder……

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0AUHWdTT9M

Sunday bloody Sunday......

So, if you read the last entry you may remember that I left you after the wine shop and before ingesting the wine. Party for one. Must stay up till midnight strikes and I can leave the last year behind….well I shouldn’t have gone to the wine shop. I remember looking half a bottle of red down and knowing this probably wasn’t such a good idea. I roll a fat one. I honk on the guitar. Everything is sprawled out on the floor. I ring duke and interrupt an intimate moment whilst shrieking a country version of ‘que sera’ at him.

I decide to publish a blog at midnight. Even with one eye completely squeezed shut (the eyelashes are growing back, thankfully), I can’t actually see the words I’m posting on the world wide web.

But a girl needs some satisfaction. So I post. I proudly tell everyone on facebook also that I have posted. I also go status-mad, a sure sign that a girl’s been dumped. You know the ones, suddenly they’re telling ‘the world’ (but hoping their ex sees and him alone), that they are gutted, broken, crawling the walls, licking the floor. The sequence went as follows:

Godiva is dangerously close to blogging her fingers off for the next three hours (no euphemism intended). wine me up had come up top trumps as usual. oh red wine, wash over and subdue me........9.41pm

Godiva has been literarilily (like it?) constipated. enema administrated....

av it

Then a youtube of Grizzly Bear’s two weeks….11.02pm

Godiva: ‎1800 words.....how many blogs to split into?! (so far...)11:29pm

Godiva: okay. published. next one tomorrow. get on it. 12.14am

This was followed by two youtubes, curtis mayfield ‘keep on keepin on’, followed by hayseed dixie’s ‘you shook me all night long’. Stanley vitte likes this. Thumbs up. 12.39, and 12.44, respectively.

Like I said. Party for one. Oh, but it didn’t end there. What would be the ultimate treat for ms godiva? Orgasm. God damn it, I’m gonna show that vibrator who’s boss. Conquer the beast. Let its rubbery walls not break me.

Oh dear. I try to get horny first, yes that’s a good idea before you try and ram a nine inch pulsator up you. I get the lube the smear nurse gave me out and slather it all over. I have an unconvincing wank. I get it and switch it on somehow (I spent a frantic ten minutes trying to prise the goddam battery compartment open in the kitchen. A recommended way to get to know your ‘toy’ I believe). Maybe I should write romantic novels?

Anyway. It’s time for the point of entry. Easy does it girl, that’s it girl, easy does it. I wince. I get it somewhere. It’s horrid. I get the clit bit in the right position, ramming the purple monster deeper in.

I fucking hate it. I pull it out and fling it across the room, lube a-flying. I never want to see that waste of forty quid again.

Hmm, maybe that’s how I should see my relationship with the boy.


Monday bloody Monday……………..

I awake. It’s my birthday. There’s lube all over the shop. There’s the purple beast in the middle of the carpet. I am alone. I appear to be vaguely intact. It’s my birthday. Hm.

What do I do? Cleaning. Meet up with duke, and depress each other out of our heads. Go home. Maybe a sleep will help, (or maybe a text from a certain little someone? No chance).

Then I get trussed up like a forlorn turkey and make my way to my wife’s for rehearsal and certain cake.

I get to my wife’s. I am a dreary mess. They play happy birthday to me as I come in and there’s a cake all lit and ready for bulimia. It depresses me. The poor sods, obviously also quite depressed, set grins on their faces like grimacing masks.

BIRTHDAY! BIRTHDAY! BIRTHDAY!

I’ll saw off my belly button when I get home, I didn’t get born.

Love it, three people with heartache in a room gobbling cake. A mighty celebration.

My wife suggests we just go to hell with it and sings the blues at our gig tonight. The only blues I can think of requires me to play slide and I can’t. What a useless piece of shit I truly am, on this, my birthday.

So we crank up some possibles and realise it’s all we’ve got, and trundle to the pub. The pub is full of fat greasy men in tight red t-shirts watching football. And completely eyeing me up as if I was the parton herself, as I huff about with my geetar. This is all I need – a constant reminder that most men are even more inadequate than the boy that’s surely gone.

And then my friends turn up. It’s my birthday. I apologise for being absolutely fucking depressed, but as they should know, I hate my fucking birthday and it’s over with the boy. Seriously, I don’t how they they could sit near this rain cloud and not get soaked. I think I managed a downpour by the end of the evening.

We have a mighty introduction from the organiser of the night, as usual. Then we play three random happy and sad and strange tunes, which no one really gets or is in the mood for, the stench of tight football shirts and wet bottom lips infesting the space.

Awful. Luckily everyone fucks off.

Me and my wife hit a strange ex-goth pub on the corner and set down our instruments - the heavy burdens we both had to carry. We prop ourselves up on bar stools and order a drink. My wife is making it better for me. We have a last chance saloon kind of chat about what to do when the world falls out of your bottom, and the bottom falls out of your world. That’s more like it. Matching. Mature. Real. Moody.

And that’s my kind of birthday, thanks for gettin hitched x

we appreciate your feedback....

I did go to bed at the end of a nine hour blitzkrieg of a birthday party uttering the words out very loud ‘GUTTED. FUCKING GUTTED. GUTTED’.

Not a good end to one’s do, you might think. But it was all going so WELL….or so I thought.

Over the past few days I’ve been travelling about town getting the party feedback. ‘crazed monkey’. ‘polly darton’. ‘erm, just saw gyrating and presumed you were kissing so couldn’t look at you anymore’ (wife). ‘fine, fine, you were like that with EVERYONE’ (husband).

But before this, I had been playing a cluedo of who it was I kissed. Someone inappropriate. Okay, there’s the three older guys. Could’ve easily been one of them. A woman. Easily. My ex. Easily. Someone else’s boyfriend. Maybe. My own brother. Almost certainly. A gay. Quite possibly.

But later when asking who the hell it was I went too far with in a kiss, my wife pipes up ‘maybe your ex-boyfriend, he was there at the end? Actually, it might have been me……….’ Had a feeling it was a woman. I finally kissed my fucking wife. And about time too.

But not my boy, no. he turned up at the same time as one of my faves, and there’s documentary evidence not only of me playing a sea shanty about anal sex to a room full of people wailing along, but pictures of us draped about each other. Which I don’t remember. And they’re on facebook. Thanks Johnny. With a picture I drew of him. Oh Christ, that isn’t going to help.

However, the faithful duke informs me that ‘it’s okay, you were like that with everyone. At the end you jumped from straddling lap to lap, man, woman and beast. So you acted normally. I’m very proud’.

This was after he gave me a full-on lecture of how I might ruin my party by hankering to the young thing’s needs. Of which he obviously has none.

It’s Sunday now. Countdown to my actual birthday. I feel remarkably sober and well for a has-been who has been pushing her liver through the paces for the last 48 hours or so….

The evening per sae ends after chocolate and guitar with Duke. On the way back from Duke’s I think about wine. My poor obliterated liver. Then I think about the wine shop. And the eastern European behind the counter. I like him, he slips right out of the chav wineshop-man category by his lineage. Fit. Slightly off. I go in when I’m pissed and want to grab him and take him with me with my knock-off merlot.

I walk in, feeling stoned and frisky. Ready for a bit of leering.

But be careful what you wish for when you’re on the starting line for an unconvincing rebound. It’s some fucking rancid long-haired beast behind the counter. And I’m alone in the shop with a flirty whiff coming off of me. And he’s playing Michael fricking Buble ‘I just haven’t met you yet’. How sodding depressing. I need to leg it out of the shop before the birthday blues hit me four hours early.

So, will he text me at midnight as I did him on his special day?

If he does, he’ll be a cunt. If he doesn’t, he’ll be a cunt.

no fucking cigar......

So, two blogs ago I had suffered the first crisis. Two weeks ago, seems like an eon. A big, glorious, mess of an eon. Marvellous. Oh, to wallow in one’s misplaced emotions. My favourite. As mr fish would say ‘at least yer living, most people don’t. you got the love pains, enjoy em.’ Amen.

Sick of reading about him yet? I fucking am. I would rather eat my own molars rather than listen to myself ranting on about the minor anymore. And I haven’t even had a wank since ingesting all of the substances god blessed us with over this, my birthday weekend. And that definitely ain’t usual.

Love is a disease, and my smear’s come up all smudgy.

Yes, I left you those two blogs ago somewhere round midnight on the 6 August as I remember. After his party. A washed out teenage affair, blow jobs and all. Coined the ball sack and perineum as well, so wasn’t all bad. But two weeks later, Friday 20 august, it was MY turn to have a party. And lo and behold, my boy is coming. It’s his turn to be a willing but slightly edgy guest.

Fantastic. Surround him with prolific beasts of the universe, from the farthest spread corners of my life. Let them poke, prod, speculate and harass him.

Erm. That’s not what happened:

Nine hours of running around in circles spinning a web of mystery. No quality conversation with a single person, but a plethora of activity with all. Trying to jump people’s bones. Oh, was I jumping donny, or dumping jonny?

The end of the evening arrived at four thirty am. Not bad. My hazarded guesses had been the one o clock respect, or the six o clock disgrace. Somewhere inbetween’s got to be good. It’s always that fucking third option (Shira).

A million texts the next day saying how prolific the happening was, and I’m stuck in my friend’s abortion nighty shouting ‘GUTTED. GUTTED’.

Because he stayed till last. He comes to the party, he chats and loves everyone, everyone chats and loves us together. It gets to the end of the night. Shall there be a cigar to finish with? It is my birthday after all, and I always say one should get laid within a week radius or one should pop ones clogs.

He plays me a new song. He can’t remember it. He’s fucked. I made the mistake of looking in the mirror after, and I’m fucked. Rank. Jesus may have been thirty three when he died but he did it well. I’m just the living dead.

He says, ‘oh it’s late, I’m fucked, I’ve got a fourteen hour shift tomorrow. I’ve got to find a bus or something and get home’. The guitar is a barrier. I am in full rapist mode. We go to the door. I force him to kiss me. Tis bad, tis awkward. He tells me to keep the book he gave me and not give it back. I take that comment as if that’s the last time I’ll see him. My gay friends take that as something meaningful. It’s his favourite book. It’s meaningful. It’s about rape, and I appear to already have that qualification. Bollocks, I say.

GUTTED. GUTTED. Alone on my near-comedown I don’t even wank. Worst party ending EVER. Wide-eyed psychotics telling me they’ve had the best time ever. The broken-hearted being kicked down the stairs. A 33 year-old trying to jump a 22 year-old unsuccessfully. And somewhere. On the other side of the universe, someone’s getting laid on their birthday. And I hate them.

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after the party it's the after party........


I wake up. Have I even been asleep? Did I have a wank? No. Did I lose any of my bodily functions? No. it’s okay. The place is a plane crash. And I’m gutted. I’ve a good mind to send one of those terrible female neurotic texts ‘so, will I ever screw you again’, to the boy. But instead I waltz about the flat grinding my teeth, haplessly trying to separate be-cigaretted peroni bottles from scud for the recycling.

Duke calls. He’s a bit slurry. We sort a bit of wheat from chaff from the party and separate. Johnny London calls. He’s scarpered from the hotel for an indiscriminate reason and is going to come and down a bottle of moet and chandon with me, smoke spliff, play guitar and make movies of me stripping. Business as usual.

This is good. We are annihilated by 2. we go for food at a faux-swank restaurant and he shouts ‘thank you very much, I mean fuck you!’ as we leave. This town sure ain’t big enough for the both of us. Duke indulges us with guitar and spliff. We fall out of his flat into a so-called ‘festival’. A minging gaggle of felt-trousered, be-feather-capped losers. Oh for fucks sake, why dress like a nutter and act normally, surely it’s best to look like a porn star and act like a freak?

Johnny eats cake. I develop paranoia of bumping into random cunts I may know. We circle the joint and end up near the strange south american-sounding band. Their limp costumes not compensating for their shit music. But we get this party started. I place my zebra bag upon the floor. Then perform a pagan-cum-morrisman-circusperformer dance. A lot of risky jumping. Johnny joins me, smattering his feet upon the floor and somersaulting. People gather. Yes, we are the best act here.

A few near-pisses later we get to mine with eleven-quids’ worth of rancid cheese that we begged off an arrogant depressive.

And I can feel a funeral of love approaching. Impending doom. Heartbreak hotel. After telling me how much I must love the boy, and how beautiful it is I’m not bitter, the last goblet of cheap red wine that followed the moet, spliff, champagne, vodka, spliff and wine induced a different take on the whole shebang:

‘oh, fuck it, he’s a cunt. He’s making you unhappy. Wait until Tuesday, DO NOT TEXT TILL THEN, then ring him, rant and give him hell. If he falls in love with someone else between now and then it’s a piece of shit anyway. If he wants you, he’ll come back to you after. I know, cos I’ve been that cunt. Someone loves you and your ego wants to keep that. Well, he can’t – you’re too good for him’.

Now THAT’s what I’m talkin about.

I respond with the fact that although I may be too good for this child, this town is full of ugly nonchalant wankers, and despite not being with him, I still can’t help but wank over the poor bugger.

‘well fuck what you can then, and fuck them till they die’.

Amen.

I fucked the text you next tuesday plan within two hours when my muse texted me with a mundanity that I simply HAD to indulge.

If only he weren’t one in a million. Or if only I could find one of the other 59 fuckers in this arse end of a country…….

you give me fever….

Shit. I’m writing this two weeks later. Just finished an epic marathon of eight birthday blog specials, and realised there was over a week to fill. What have I been fucking doing? A lot of mourning, that’s what:

The Friday: crying at mr fish

The Saturday: supposed to grade for kick boxing. Feel like a piece of utter shit. In desperation end up in the bleak midsummer drinking free alcoholic ginger beer with a group of outsiders, then ready meal, whisky and tarot with my wife. Tarot as follows:

The fool
Seven pentacles
10 swords

Yes, a marvellous reading! The future is basically the most feared card in the pack. The future is fear. I fear the future. The advice? Lay down and take it. Accept defeat. I push this all aside, such is the wonder of interpretation. But it will bite me.

The Sunday: lay in bed till three. Get up, all gangly after not eating for about a week and walk over hill and vale to my mandolin player’s for a roast. Play a gig in a dark irish pub. Sing a song about doing it up the bum at some strange morose hippies; hailing originally from cornwall but now on a nationwide tour. To an open mic night. They now in London, and must have hit it big time. Forest hill. London? The boy pretends he’s coming down. I know I may never see him again.

The Monday: even bloody worse. What do I do? I decide by the end of the day I have to know. Yes, I have to see him. I text him to tell him I have to see him the next day. He doesn’t reply. Oh shit. I have to see him, this is horrible.

So I make a pact with myself. That even though it was the last thing I said I’d do, (no, not THAT), I’d text him in the evening if I had to. Samson soothed my troubled soul on the beach, and I dressed like a Russian prostitute for this last day. And then I bumped into obstrov. We cried in the Vodafone store. Another friend wounded by a past blog, though luckily redeemed in the next, and she invites me to an open mic night that evening. Had just been thinking a cup of tea with her would be nice. This must be destiny.

I go home. It’s time for the text. And that’s why I’ve been quiet. Such a sequence of non-happenings there never was. He’s a very clever one, that tricky fellow. Let’s not argue, hell, let’s not even talk. Let’s just make believe he’s letting me down gently.

Here we go with the texts:

G: something about being gallant and bidding my leave
J: something about pretending to be confused
G: don’t be. Something about screwing other people
J: understands. How very fucking kind of him.

So that’s it? I push my feet ahead of me and get out of the flat. To the open mic. A badly arranged huddle of people who look like someone’s died and play like someone’s about to. Sorry, can’t handle this. I’m off. Obstrov asks me why. Well, there’s a talented pianist who can sing, playing with a complete idiot of a man from Worthing who’s written tiresome songs and is croaking them out in a faux-madness style. What a fucking liberty.

Walking home I suddenly remember my usual haunt for a Monday, (oh how dangerous part-time working can be). I pop into the pub where a good friend of mine’s a musician running an open mic night.

And suddenly, I’m propped up on a stool, geetar in hand, half-baked, being begged for a song! I speak huskily into the microphone for the whole pub to hear.

‘I’ve just been dumped’. A wave of sympathy comes back at me. And I honk out a good un, oo yeah, a bittersweet one. The 26 year-old crumpet I’ve been harassing in preparation for the fall kisses me on the way out. Nothing like a bit of sympathy.…

Tuesday: I’m feeling pretty wretched. I’d stolen some of my mum’s codeine to get through my fever and emotional pain and I wanted more. The albino mork from downstairs has become my personal photographer, following my band around and getting some beauties.

Today he’s doing my portraits for his portfolio. I look godawful. Really bad. Dehydrated, old, post-fever and codeine. It’s the daytime. I don’t know what to wear. I decide destruction would be a good theme. Broken.

We smoke rollies and chat about stuff. It’s good to get an outsiders perspective. Then we snap away, lights and screens and all, chin down, eyes up, move to the left – a terrible version of Blow Up. With Freddie Krueger disguised as a young model.

Then kickboxing. I’m pretty ropey and gangly, oh yes, this grief thang is great for the weightloss. My instructor has me on my own at the end of class. She invites me to her wedding party. I want to cry. She asks how I’m feeling. I want to cry. I fake that it’s the fever, but it’s something far worse. She tells me the date of my first proper fight. How can good news sound so terrifying?

Wednesday: sometimes work has a purpose. A gauge of how you score against other people in the real world. By the end of the day I decide I’m ranking pretty high. Sweet distraction. Then I go to a party, my hips sticking out of my jeans. It’s hard to party when you’re sad, but we make a good job of it. Bump into an old mod friend of mine there from way back. It ends in amateur tarot, guitar lessons and the up-the-bum song.

All this time in limbo, not breathing. Not writing, not thinking. Frozen like a gnat in plastic.

The weekend brings my god-daughter’s first camping trip. A long train journey takes me through London where my feet feel good upon the grey pavements. God I love this city, it’s real, everyone’s on their own but bundled together. On a similar mental plane. Doing what they need to do to get through. Not wafting about taking pottery classes by the sea.

My best friendo’s read my last blog, as have a few others, so no need to bleat out the three-in-a-bin vignette. It’s raining. Everyone’s drinking apart from me. Six o’clock comes and I get on it. Thank god for other people feeding me. Slatherings of meat and half a bottle of vodka later, I’m feeling good around the soggy campfire. I didn’t bring my guitar, but never to be let down by my adoptive family, surrogate dad pulls one right out of the bag.

Turns out he was in a band when he was seventeen. Knows every single beatles harmony. So we crank up the ipod and have a good old go at it, letting off Chinese lanterns that burn and fade. The olds come to the rescue by telling me their failed dating stories. Aunty Maggie sits me on her knee in my now blim-burned mckenzie tracksuit bottoms, and tells me to talk to the boy, but not to sweep it under the carpet, or else in three months it’ll be the same.

I just want to sleep with him. I JUST WANT TO SLEEP WITH HIM. One worse thing than a woman scorned, and that’s a woman with her horn snubbed.

When I get home my wife tells me I must text the boy to find out the day of reckoning. We said we’d meet up to talk about it. We arrange thursday, the day before my stupendous birthday party. Not a good idea. But then, the whole thing was never such a great one….

Then, on the Monday whilst playing love exaltation songs with obstrov on the ukulele, he texts again. Wednesday. We have to both do open mic at a random pub on Wednesday. Is that a good idea? It will be late, and I’ll have been up at half six for work in London. To hell with it, go out with a bang, prepare a set of absolute disgrace and wail it at him. Then try and fuck him. Sorry, talk at him.

The thing is, what the hell are we meant to talk about? The fact he changed my world? That I’ll always be his cosmic friend to guide him? The day comes, and I have no words.

But I do have three songs. As follows:

1. Yoko. A song about laying him across my womanly knee cos he really brings out the cougar in me. Last played to him on mdma before we collapsed on the rug in fits of ecstasy and I lost my memory.
2. let’s follow that with ‘midnight’. A sweet, swing-style ditty about being in somebody’s arms at midnight, and baby, they’d better be mine.
3. Kiss. By prince. Country style. Come on!

What a trilogy! Though it’s the darkest, most macabre drinking establishment I have graced for many a year, the lesbians lap it up. I get offered a gig by the landlady. I feel petrified and terrible.

Now it’s his turn to blow me out of the water. Somehow he pulls off Amazing Grace and other such wonders, mumbling his name at the end like a true pro. The crowd want more. A short, fat, drunk, bald man with gout keeps touching me and saying if he was simon cowell the award would go to…..and it’s obviously fucking him, I mean, I can hardly play the guitar without smashing the windows, thank god for untrained ears. But no, fatty tells me, I have won. I slap him on the head and tell him it’s only because I’ve got tits.

So what now? Must be time for ‘the talk’. Hallelujah. But the boy is squirming, saying he’s supposed to meet a ‘friend’. Grrrrrrrrrr. No you fucking don’t. we go for a drink, guitars and all.

And he talks about strippers, books and other mundane shit, and I lap it up, every word like liquid gold falling short of my yearning body.

No talk. No chat. An episode in the toilet where I have a word with myself and my wife, results in my her telling me to walk away with a ‘fuck you, you can’t have me’ stance. But we’re together as we always are, and I can’t suddenly become this rooster.

We walk away together. There’s no cocky attitude, but there’s no cigar.

What is this? Where’s the elephant in the room gone? Are we supposed to be friends now? Not fricking likely.

Then the redemption. He’s coming to my birthday party on Friday. Yay! I can completely humiliate myself by trying to fuck him then too!

And he’s walked away from me, into the rain, into the park, and I onto the bus. Still feeling put out, but clinging desperately onto the fact that Friday I could be in love………….

party for one......

Dear readers, I find myself here tonight typing into google ‘will singed eyelashes grow back’.

Apparently, yes, in seven or eight fucking weeks. Marvellous. My friend obstrov would say it was me trying to tell myself something. What would that fucking be? Don’t get burnt…………..oh too bloody late!

Yes, readers, the inevitable has happened. Nearly. The plan was, hold off while the boy was away. Tick. Wait and see what happens when you actually get your hands on him. Well, sort of. The first night was great but I’ve been reaching my talons through silent waters in the seeing him much stakes. Distance. He’s backing off. And I found three used johnnies in his bin today. And then saw him with a girl. Marvellous, you could say I’m adding up events into an average, rather than seeing them as separate, unconnected happenings. Hmmmmmmmm, more herbal tea please vicar.

The next part of my oh-so-unsuccessful plan was the feeling that after a few weeks we’d have to have ‘a chat’. Well, this has now become ‘THE chat’, and gawd am I dreading it. Especially with only one set of eyelashes.

The miraculous mr fish gave me some excellent advice. I can’t remember any of it, but I felt good, and I walked out into the street after scrawling ‘you’re nobody till somebody loves you’ on his toilet door in eyeliner. Which I may need for my left eye. And I walked out into the street smack bang into my boy and a rather lovely young lady friend. Thanks for spending your daytimes without me. Thank you.

Bitter? Possibly, old and can’t be fucked with all this, definitely.

1. it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s all going to be okay. (denial)

2. Fly away little one! Off to your tossers in shit nightclubs. (anger)

3. maybe we’ll talk and it’ll be okay - everyone seems to think he’s into me and won’t let me go? And I do do an excellent blow job. (bargaining)

4. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Might never fuck again. He doesn’t give a fucking fuck. Fuck. (depression)

5. (acceptance)

The singe, by the way, occurred at the accuseds’ birthday party. 22, what am I to do? Sit and procrastinate, write poetry, get stoned, learn Blur’s ‘to the end’ on guitar to drown people with at open mic, draw a picture of him and me from an amazing photo and obsess about various strange features he has and the way our bodies are interlinked, text the world, listen to Dolly Dagger and blog. That’s freaking what. God, is creativity about life or is life just all about creativity?

Haven’t blogged for a bit, and decided no more about this one. This thorn in my proverbial fucking side. This frigging muse. But hell, how creative!

So the chat comes next. Last time we had a 'chat' he upped his game....but I wasn't a bald-eyed old psychotic cunt back in them days. Shame...........shame that his beautiful penis reamineth not in his skinny jeans.

Last time I dumped myself? Hmmm........well my favourite time was a beauty. We got to my front door, I stepped inside, he stayed on the doorstep, and said:

'I can't see you anymore. I love you'.

Classic. They usually conk it or I shit all over them. This one's going to be a breaker. And the storm is coming, and I'm guessing he won't come under my umberella. There are no benefits to my doubts, watch this blog.....x

Going to the chapel….

Yup. How did I know it? All those good intentions……

Had been thinking that perhaps going part time at work wasn’t such a good idea – all economy beans and no oomph. Oh how wrong I was. It means there ain’t no bounds, every week is easter, your sleep pattern gets fucked, and so do you. Shitting hell, this could be fun…….

I had an aimless Monday waiting for the fucking moody delivery man to hand over my hoover, and after a feebly unconvincing writer’s hot chocolate in the bitter wind, flailed about waiting for seven o’clock, when I was to meet the coke dealer at the church.

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Yesssssssss, did I mention the strange sequence of events leading to this fucked-up pseudo date?:

In one of my mid-year, mid-life crisis pushes, I googled ‘dance’, as that’s what I do, innit. Usually various adult education sites spring up full of women who piss themselves much better than they move, or anything else for that matter.

But what’s this? A dance agency is arranging dance events all across the south! Excellent (but shitely advertised). So off I samba, then dive into a flashmob, then in the rehearsal space bump into an old stinking techie dude I went to college with. He gives me free tickets to the BBC Big Band. Awesome, old Derek from the Bond films on the screaming trumpet, a gaggle of misshapen misfits who know how to honk. I was there with my wife, so I asked her on a date for Monday. It’s a gospel concert advertised in the local rag – yes, I really have been truffling through the pamphlets as a substitute for cock.

She can’t come with me cos she’s committed to spending the evening watching Ferris Bueller with a bunch of Chinese kids, but suggests this guy we know, who isn't exactly ideal material for the house of God. I refuse refutedly.

Hmmmm. This is a guy who shared a maisonette with me in 2006. Me upstairs, him down. My monkey of a flatmate screaming abuse at him to keep the music down, me scoring the odd opportune bit of green from him.

And he’s cute, but by no stretch sane. So no, I should not invite him to a gospel concert, even though he’s an avid fan of the stuff, and a right old chrisso to boot.

But clip-clopping it back from the big band we scuttle past an old haunt we both avoid due to varying ill behaviour. And who should rush out yelling my wife’s fair name? yup, mr gospel himself. So the wife forces me to ask him out and he accepts. Fucking brilliant.

-----------------------------------------------------

“There was I, waiting at the church
Waiting at the church, waiting at the church
When I found he'd left me in the lurch
Lor, how it did upset me!”

(sorry, for war widows everywhere)

Anyway, yes I had to wait and he honed up with a minute to go in a cab – he lives down the road. Been up for 48 hours apparently. Jolly good.

We enter the chapel, the lord does not strike me down. I wince at the vicar and gulp guiltily. We find a shitty seat at the side. And there’s the choir……sorry for the slander guys (they’re from Atlanta, they’ll probably sue after they’ve claimed for all the other accidents in their lives).

The choir do not look good. Well, one of them does. She’s a purty blonde. The drug dealer says he’ll try and chat her up later. I spot her silver ring thing and glum expression and say it ain’t likely. And apparently it’s her birthday. Cheer up love, there’s a few maccie Ds in this town. When the ringleader, with a curiously British accent, addressed the audience to ask if anyone knew whose birthday it was today I got my line in.

‘Jesus’.

My date is horrified, I feel that beautiful warmth oozing through me. Blasphemy. Yum.

So this is a bunch of outsiders. Plump shining women with protruding fringes beam and shuffle. The gayest man alive perches at the front like a wounded chipmunk waiting for some nuts. A big, glorious fat man in the middle is the best attraction. He loves his church, yes m’aam, and though the joy is deluded, I focus on him.

They all wear ill-fitting black polyester trousers that sag at the crotch, and matching red polo shirts; sponsored by Nike of course. Fresh from KFC.

The backing track strikes up. I’d say thunders in, but it was a limp and puny sound. An overhead projector splays clipart graphics out of sync with the vanilla synth.

And they start up. Good god, THIS IS NOT GOSPEL! This is fricking torture! Apparently, however much we welcome in the lord there will not be room for him?! What? This is the whitest music I’ve ever heard, and I can’t stand it. My date pretends to be kinder, but when they sing a song about salvation I can’t restrain myself from yelling ‘masturbation’ to complete the rhyme….

At which point a tight-lipped young oppressor decides to eyeball me till it burns. I look at her, laughing. This is not funny, it seems. I pretend to behave for another godawful number reminiscent of a failed audition for atlanta’s got talent.

The girl is still screwing me up. Do not mess. It’s time to show her the glory of the lord. I turn to her and stare. And stare. And she shrivels into a flushed mess. Feel the power of the lord, feel it.

And with that it was time to exit. My poor date had full-on coke paranoia and didn’t fancy the trek across the pews, but I wasn’t waiting for my mellow birds at break time.

He’d already casually slipped in that we could go back to his flat and he could play me some REAL gospel. I remember trying to make a face that said ‘yes, that sounds normal’, not ‘yes, that sounds dangerously close to fucking to me’.

So off we scroddled. I shoving in an egg mayo sandwich for the ride, him politely shifting through the streets avoiding various punters.

So we get to his, and we have an innocent glass of wine and a bifta, and he puts on some hideous clonky ‘gospel’ music. I spot a drum kit in the corner. An expensive electronic one. He spots me spotting it and offers me a smash. I gladly accept, at which point a customer pops in.

Now, this is weird, I haven’t spent too much time in the lairs of dealers, luckily, I usually steal drugs, but this girl seemed really nice – is it a friend? Is it a random person looking to score? No, it’s that third category, the random trying to score pretending to be a friend. That classic way you have to be. Y’know, you can’t just USE these people, they have feelings as well as a stash.

Anyway, the geetar comes out, so does the lesbian stand up comic, and so do the drums.

It’s also only 9pm. I supposed to be in a church politely watching some saints singing. It’s a Monday. It’s my first week of going part time. I no longer am waiting for the hoover delivery man, I’m getting a bit trashed in a flat with a man I used to have ASB matches with.

But hey ho, must this virtuous girl always feel guilty, even before she’s done anything wrong?

We slope off to the pub so he can dine. He wants the beans and chorizo. The Polish no-nonsense straightened-hair barmaid does her best to humour us, but it ain’t funny. It’s his hood. I just drink wine, and tell him about my long lost lover overseas. He says it’s a bit odd that he’s chosen to go to war-torn countries. But then, it could be worse – he could join the army.

He did try and join the army. His mum wouldn’t sign the form……

So me and this kid are getting on well! Somehow, against my better judgement, we move on to a pub with freestyle jazz playing. I bump into the most introverted man you’ve ever met that I spent some time in India with. Then I bump into an ex-employee. And all the time telling my dealer date ‘I’m not allowed out, especially on a Monday’.

And he gets me. He tells me I’m not allowed out…ever. Because if I go out I’ll realise I’m mad, and I’m not letting myself be. Lord, I needed those vodkas after that. We hook up with a random pretty thing and a scary beardy monster, who facades as a lovely chap, then pounces in with the rape lines. And I’ve given him this blog address. Hi. How did the triple heart bypass go?

It’s back to the flat. Now I know I’m living on borrowed time. Everyone I meet eyes me suspiciously, then I gabble at them so they can’t make head nor tail of the threat I pose to them, and they love me. I spot a double bass player I’d been stalking on the internet and forced him to give me his set list, as I was going to steal it anyway. He obliges, the dealer typing the song names into his drugmobile begrudgingly.

Back at the den it’s more wine, spliff, speaking French with a bunch of randoms, avoiding the rancid perv who tries to force my fricking address out of me, and chatting up a ‘man’ that I later found out was born in 1987. This grooming has got to stop.

The drum kit interests me, it’s got carious buttons that play different styles, but in my state I think I’m playing along to itunes. An hour later I turn, exhausted but satisfied. And I meet rapturous applause. Apparently I’d been controlling the music and drums in an idiot savant fashion. Marvellous.

Now I know it’s time to go, or the legs won’t go where the face is heading. But before I do, the dealer whisks me into his bedroom and slams the door. Oh shit. There’s a beautiful bed, various gadgets, and I just can’t cope.

‘whatever it is you’re about to do, don’t!’ I squeal/dribble.

And he laughs, turns around and shows me a line of the good stuff. Oh no, no fucking way, I’m off. At the door he yells after me,

‘In three months I’ll read your blog about me, and we’ll take our relationship from there!’

Is it October yet? If so, where the fuck am I? Tha-a-ank you lord for this fine day…..just another manic Monday x

dicker with cocker…..glastonbury special

Been sprawled out in the healing fields all morning. Not sure why I paid nigh on £200 to sit in a field, but it’s working…..

Having procrastinated for at last a decade over whether to remain faithful, it seems I have compensated by demanding deep tissue massages off shirtless men.

So I strayed to the healing fields, and even managed to blow a didgeree doo or two on the way. I did a reckie on the first day. Telling my compatriots I had an eye for charlatans after an indian man stuck his buttocks in my face, I skulk around the fields looking for some eager prey.

‘Holistic palm reading’. Said one sign.

WTF? You either wear a dickie bow and hang out on the palace pier or you ain’t seeing my lines.

‘Joy’. Said another. ‘tarot’. I peak into the warped yurt that was her cavern. A fat, sweaty confused grizzler sat there. Frick! It’s a client from work who has, shall we say, an ‘adjusted’ state of mind! And there to show the kids the future………..

So now I know the ging-gang-gooleys from the ethereals. And I wanna get me some o that. I see a nice looking woman called Claire offering Indian Head Massage for a donation. She’d do for Samson, I thought. A few crows feet round the edges, but a nice face and a no-nonsense approach. Now who for me?...............

Well, I thought I’d better take two. Just in case. Opted for both with massage chairs; yeah, they’re for real, they’ll grind me into oblivion with a bit of luck. The first, Ben, was a cute kiwi with piercing eyes. I told him of my ailments and he touched me intensely for half an hour, holding my hands whilst caring for my arms, telling me how he gets to make inappropriate comments with his corporate clients, putting pressure on my mid-back and releasing some tears there. Samson looks on and approves of the heavy involvement. That was a bit better. Now for the second. A curly man with his top off. I watch him absent-mindedly kneading a fat girl in her bra and have second thoughts. I want his full attention, or nothing. So up I march.

‘Hi, I need to feel your pressure’. He is good. He gets so far into my back Samson says his hand disappeared into it at one point. Wowzers. He comments that I had ‘don’t fuck with me’ written on my forehead. That’s right. Don’t fuck with me, but give me some cheap thrills matey.

Then I did a portion of poo, like a goat some might say. In the wateraid toilet, a marvellous invention. All composte, (said in US accent), didn’t stink of shit at all, could sit and have a little rest if one wanted to. And just while I was expelling my droppings, a film crew decided to crowd into the next cubicle. Could they hear me pelloting? I wondered. No, it seems - instead the hippy on the bog decided to recite a world peace poem on the wall of the crapper. So there I was, on a toilet, letting out a spicy beanburger, being read poetry. Classic.

Shit is a topic of discussion when I travel. I was going to launch ‘pootube’, but wasn’t sure if it would attract the right kind of audience.

Met a couple the day before in shit chai Bob’s tea shop, they invite us to their tent as it seems shit is all they talk about too….for me, it’s just a conversation. Everyone shits. Everybody loves to shit.

Which leads me onto my first story,

1. The girl with the shitty legs
We were laying around like crocodiles on some stained cushions in a chai den, and Samson spots a couple in the queue looking slightly perturbed.

‘she’s got a tissue and she’s wiping it up her skirt………..?’ he says.

They walk past us briskly, diagonally, outta that hell hole. And I see her legs, she’s wearing a minidress. And there’s brown/red stuff smeared all over them. I start to splutter,

‘there’s stuff smeared all over her legs! It could be blood, but it’s…’ and before I can finish a wave of drug and cider-fuelled stench washes over us.

‘IT’S SHIT’ we cry together! Oh my God, she truly has tried for a pizza, looked at the food and shat her ecstacy-riddled guts out. And she’s probably nowhere near her tent. And she’s off her fucking tree. What are they gonna do?

It was her and her boyfriend. They stood outside the chai den trying to wipe her off. It’s a nightmare. The man uses cider to swab her, but where’s this gonna end?

In a drum n bass field in Arcadia somewhere no doubt. And the sex will be massive. And they will wake up in the morning and realise that her rose really smells like poo poo poo.


2. Things people say in tents with no walls

My abode for the occasion has been nicknamed ‘the crisp packet’. This lends itself to the fact it cost £20 in the year 1999, and is a one-piece with six pegs, not waterproof, and if you move about, the groundsheet sounds like you’re inside a crisp packet. The neighbours named me ‘cheese and onion’.

And we all know, but we all forget. Tents ain’t got no walls, and we don’t need no education.

Had to bloody sing that in a pantomime once. You can take the girl out of the panto….

A schoolgirl dressed as a slightly sluttier schoolgirl, doing some irrelevant ridiculous dance whilst shouting Floyd over a bad big band. Them was the days…..

But tents, yes. My complex relationship with Samson means that play fighting replaces sex. But as we’re both testosterone-fuelled animals, we end up crossing lines it turns out humans aren’t meant to cross…

The neighbours heard too much. And the best thing was, they didn’t clock that it was our late night ramblings they were perving on. Turns out they went round the whole of Glastonbury telling people that they overheard a girl telling the story of how she once decided to ride her boyfriend in a tent in 35 degree heat in Spain, only to find that she completely ran out of air, and to surpass suffixation had to poke herself out of the tent, naked and bejizzed, in the broad daylight of a public campsite.

They recounted this story to us in the late afternoon, over a plastic wine spritzer and a doobie. And Samson and I looked at each other, and I said,

‘that sounds like something that happened to me…’

At which point, the whole cacophony of Luton-based randoms turned.

‘It WAS you’.


3. If you can’t be with the one you love…..

I wash my hands in the standpipe. I see Samson in the distance. But what’s this in the foreground? A sexy man standing on a flower bed with a watering can, cooling people off in the hot sun. I mouth at Samson ‘shall I?’

‘yes’, he approves.

I turn to the man,

‘shower my tits’. And we stand there for about a minute, him spraying my tits with cold water whilst the queue looks on. Cheap thrills eh? Free, actually. It was only later that day when I suddenly freaked out that my tits were soaked that I remembered. And of course, went back for more.


4. Love the one you’re with

I was a bit concerned that I’d need a bunk up for the occasion. I persuaded myself that two can play while my love’s away, but now I was here I wasn’t so sure.

So I compensated with massages, tit showers, and a few other things…..

Puppy love

My phone is half-heartedly on. I can’t really be arsed with it all when I realised the amount of people I knew who’d be there. Impossible. I have learnt by experience that whether in Thailand or at home, honing around to meet someone in a completely different mental state for twenty minutes before somebody MIGHT need a shit, or before they rush to another stage to see a MOR lose their sound in the wind, is more than a waste of time - it’s a fucking waste of essential resources.

So I didn’t reply to any of my texts or voicemail.

I was on a hill, I was relaxing, I needed time to rest my weary legs on that hill, and I had it. But all this,

‘where are you now?’ that I’d look at two hours later, and ‘so and so told me you’re here! Let’s meet up, we’re going to see Gomez on Sunday not Stevie Wonder’. Erm?

So I ignore it all, then send a mass text back a day later to say,

‘not doing plans, just hoping I bump into you in some hideously ridiculous moment’.

But this one guy, friend of a friend, is insistent, and manages to call me during a Thom Yorke secret gig cos he knows somehow I’d be there. And I was, me and Samson had been arguing about the fact I’d been dancing to the irish choir in my moo moo so we’d missed the showers. Suddenly the stage nearby announced a special guest. Samson heard the first two chords and knew....

‘Go!’ I shriek.

I wank about for a bit at the crisp packet and make my way to my hillock. I sit on my own, knowing that somewhere in the crowd Samson is crying.

Then they play Karma Police. And that means a lot to me. And a Scottish clan adopt me on the hill and I tell them Samson will be crying and they stare at me, all high, and say,

‘I know what you mean. I know what you mean.’

And I can’t work out if it’s empty drug-speak, or if somewhere beneath the beanburgers she has a deep connection with my soul. Nah. She’s high.

But Samson rounds the corner, and then I get the call. The guy who’s been texting me is here, and knows I am. He turns the corner. What’s this then?

And he says he’s been told of the boy. And I tell him of the boy, in a way old friends can summarise. And he looks deep inside of me throughout. And I kiss him. And Samson informs me he’s in love with me.

Hm. We’ve kissed, it ain’t that great, and he was a bit of a virgin till a few years ago when he started stringing along vulnerable females for far too long before breaking their necks like battered swans.

So he can probably fuck okay now, and once I woke up with my hand on his cock by mistake so I have felt his sausage. But still, let’s not just let someone need me because I’m unavailable….

I decide in the end it was more of a lament for the love we never had and never will. Which sounds romantic, somehow, but in fact is a load of old tosh.

Up up and away in my beautiful balloon

We’d been adopted by a bunch of losers from Luton. Such is our way. My dad’s yielded from that manor and wherever I go in the world people from that side of town adopt me. Sometimes they fuck me. They never fully understand me, but hey ho.

So this lot have got a gazebo, chairs, and everything inbetween, and me and Samson get well in there.

I remember emerging from my crisp packet in my moo moo and kissing them all a sweet morning. One guy couldn’t stop leering at my arse, and Samson fancied him, so we started a bit of a triangle thing. He had a girlfriend, of course, they always do…..

But little B, ah he was my favourite. Not only did they have cheap rose wine and 7up and cracked plastic glasses, they had gas…………………….rank. No class As, just shit loads of booze and some fucking brainkiller. But my little B, my fave, loved it.

So these normal people, these caged animals waiting for us to unleash them (which, of course we did), got off on hops and gas.

My little boy danced like an accordion chameleon, and it was for this reason I loved him. So I ask him about why he does this ‘gas’. And he and the Neanderthal gently cajole me to do a balloon. Which I decline.

So instead, I sit him down on my knee, and he takes the biggest lungful of this stuff in history. People are worrying about the amount he’s doing, and I’m holding him tight, feeling every vibe coming out of him. And there’s a beautiful picture of me on a canvas, him top off, shorts on, on my lap, us looking intently at each other and smiling serenely.

I would highly recommend passive gassing. Only of the chemical type, of course….

Peeping into a parallel k-hole

Getting high and drinking chai, we were. My two compatriots disappeared into the oblivion of the rank bogs, and I was left on my own to ponder about the girl with the shitty legs. But in walks a tall young man, with beautiful black hair and an interesting stance. In fact, a very interesting stance. He looks like my boy. I want to reach out to him, but he’s so far away in his own mind that no one can reach him.

He had stopped moving. His face had frozen. He fears the can of lager in his right hand as if it were a volcano about to erupt. Everyone else is dancing, he stands rooted to the spot, swaying slightly. Frightening.

So this is a K-hole, my friends. How lovely to have a passive K-hole, fully appreciating the moment when he leaps back into life and becomes the spunky young thing he is.


5. Dicker with cocker

I’ve choreographed a northern irish choir singing ‘sweet dreams’, I’ve performed the riverdance in a cyber-pseudo burnt-out basement, what more can there be to do?

It’s near the end, and eating options are running low. We’ve made few mistakes, the ‘fishfinger fucker’ I ordered on the first day being the worst. But I’ve found a new little contraption that sells jacket potatoes and not much else. It’s near the shortcut we’ve made, and we’ve got little B and the Neanderthal in tow. Let’s do this.

So we head to the public school boys who sweat over the stove, with hippy mum and dad making chapatis and gruel.

‘four potatoes please’.

Apparently they could be up to an hour, the little dish serving us making no promises, but proving willing by prodding the motherfuckers to see if they’re ripe.

The boys we’re on a fake date with look like they’re heading to undercooked jerk chicken land, but me and Samson are standing our ground. And we’re the only ones in there. Apart from, it appears, Jarvis freaking cocker and his bird. Who also opt to stay for an hour.

‘best potatoes in glastonbury’, he quips. Yes, I know, it ain’t no headline joke, but IT’S JARVIS. And I’ve been drinking neat vodka from a cycling bottle and smoking spliffs for four days.

So we all sit on benches. Samson makes polite, entertaining conversation about music and stuff, and then I launch in. what’s he doing here, I want to know. I came in 95, didn’t think he was playing. Whoops. They headlined. Appears I was sucking off drug dealers in tents at the time.

He’s DJing at a place called the rabbit hole, where you go underground in a pit with the unwashed. Cool. What’s his set, I want to know? He says he hasn’t thought. He was up till six in the morning, and isn’t a young snapper any more. So we have a little think about it. He asks if I know an old track called Glastonbury. I don’t, so he tries to sing it. Hilarious. I ask him if he’ll do a creedence. Turns out Suzie Q is his bird’s favourite. We sing it together. Moment. Then I remember there’s an amazing tap dance called the Suzie Q. he has no choice. I get up. There I am, in a shack, waiting on a potato, tap dancing my damaged arse off for cocker. Fantastic.

The potatoes come. We greedily gobble them, Jarvis with simple beans, the rest of us with slatherings of chilli and cheese, a right dicker of a feast. Hence the photo.

Later that night, after a lot of carnage, we end up at the rabbit hole, after seeing the last song of Midlake and me nearly miscarrying due the injustice of a passive crowd not demanding an encore.

Then we hear it, those first few sexy little bars of the credence riff. It’s Suzie Q. it’s time to tap dance…..

Footnotes:

Costumes

Seeing as I didn’t officially take any costume, I did pretty well. Somehow the clothes I had turn into a myriad of personality disorders:

• Cloud moo moo land. No underwear, wet hair, Malaysian flower print moo moo (ref Simpsons), flip flops. Dazed look on face.
• Nora Batty. Pashmina wrapped like shawl, woolly hat, headtorch on top.
• Hindi cowgirl. Wet sarong done up like Indian lunghi ad tucked in. Vest. Standing on the corner I call the lost highway, waiting for no one.
• Whore of Babylon. Short hand-painted stretch dress, thai sparkly vest on top, mod jacket, bare legs, visible panties, diamante trainers. Stetson. One man in each hand.
• Cancer patient. Covering head entirely to avoid sun stroke. Not allowed on camera so as not to upset the masses.
• Mexican. Sarong round head, Stetson on. Jeans, strange Indian poncho garb.
• Middle aged mother – after going in the sea today I ended up with no knickers, a stripy skirt, wet tits and a cable knit cardigan.


Ideas for an act
Wash n blow job: Alternative to hair salon whereupon I wash yer widget, give it a quick suck, deposit the remnants into shot glasses or the fridge for todger jelly, then charge for the gobber and the shot, thus making money and keeping several people happy.

Afterthought

My lonely moments there had been dark. Thinking about my boy. Wondering when I’d stop obsessing about detail and face what is actually lurking beneath this small sailing vessel we’re floating in.

And actually, there are many thoughts, but thank god some thoughts for me and me alone are returning. The filthy masseuse’s hands have grounded me and I’m coming back to my shore. These six weeks are going to be useful.

And so now when I miss him, I miss him as he is now, where he is now, wherever that is. Not as we were, not the sentimentality and nostalgia. That’s not for summer…

The late, great, Kurt Vonnegut for you to finish:

1. Find a subject you care about.
2. Do not ramble, though.
3. Keep it simple.
4. Have the guts to cut.
5. Sound like yourself.
6. Say what you mean to say.
7. Pity the readers.