toady

I meant to type ‘I find myself today’ but instead I typed ‘I find myself toady’ and I think that just about sums it up, although toady is perhaps not the first word that would spring to mind were I asked to describe myself.

‘Toady’ would suggest that I’m a sniveller but I’m not that.  However if you asked me whether I ever felt as if I was abhorrent, green and slimy then I would have to say yes, right now I do.

Toad in teh hole. I certainly feel like I'm in a hole. I'm the one in the middle at the top with teh nice belt. I do have a rather nice belt.  I stole it off the set of a Just JEans ad I was in once.

First date nerves

You know what it’s like when you’re 15 and you’re on a date with a girl for the first time, and you’re in the movies and you can’t really believe that this girl is out with you because she actually likes you? You’re convinced that there’s no way she can be in to you as much as you’re in to her, and that she’s only agreed to go out with you for some reason you’ll never understand.

It took all the guts you’ll ever have to ask her out and you can’t believe she said yes. It then took all the sneaky smarts you’ve got to get some money out of your parents, without telling them you need it for a date, because you couldn’t stand them asking you about her. Bringing your parents into the world of a first date is a bad thing. They’d want to know what she’s like, and where are you going, and heaven forbid, they might realize they’ve never had “that talk” with you and so they might think this is the perfect time to do so.

And then there’s the choice of movie: should it be something she’ll like; something you like; something you’ll both like; or should you go and see Scream and hope that you score scare factor cuddles?

Of course, you let her decide, and so off you go to see Clueless, or no wait, it was Romeo and Juliet, not that you really care; you have other things on your mind. You’re going over those, “other things” in your head, weighing up the evidence and seeing how it falls. This is your case:

1.     Let’s assume, as crazy as it may seem, that she agreed to come out on a date with you because she actually likes you.

2.     Therefore, she probably wouldn’t go berserk if you put your arm around her.

3.     It is also within the bounds of reason to assume, from the above, that if she is willing to let you go that far, she might also be amenable to you kissing her, and to perhaps engaging in a limited uni - or multi - lateral exploration of each other’s territory.

This all makes perfect sense to you on an intellectual level, but how do you put it into practice?

It seems completely beyond the realms of all possibility that you might just simply put your arm around her as she sits next to you. You just can’t do it. It cannot happen. You spend the first thirty minutes of the film searching in vain for a strategy that might enable you to do so, while she’s obviously thinking that you’re some kind of retard for not doing so, but nothing comes to mind. You could pretend you’re tired and stretch your arms above your head, letting one casually fall across her shoulders, but you know you haven’t even got the guts to do that. You hate the fact that boys have to do all the hard work, while she just sits there sucking on Fantales, apparently engrossed in Olivia Newton John and Gene Kelly’s roller skating routines.

You start to sweat. You sense defeat. Then she turns just a little in her seat (she’s probably just getting comfortable) and you shift a little too and then she looks at you and you at her and you’re doing it. You’re pashing at a movie with a girl, and you don’t know how it happened, but your arm is around her too, both your arms, in fact, are around her. What’s more you can feel her breasts pressed against your chest and you’d like to go there too, but you think you’d better quit while you’re ahead and leave that to a second date, or at least to when you’re snogging on the train home.

Revenge

Revenge is sweet, revenge is a dish best served cold – perhaps it’s a custard tart? Wouldn’t that be the best revenge!  Revenge is mine sayeth the lord, but somehow I can’t see him stuffing prawns into Gillian’s curtain rods. 

Don’t get mad get even. Even what? Even madder? Even sharper claws? I always thought that sentence was unfinished.

Is it wrong ot want revenge? Because I do. I want to do damage. The fact that I know I won't doesn't make me feel civilised or well-adjusted, it just makes me loathe myself, makes me feel weak. I wish I had a lightsabre.

I'd chop both his hands off.

Don't tell your parents

My advice to you is this: Don’t tell your parents that you and your girlfriend have broken up.

Just don’t.

Telling your parents that you’ve broken up with a long-term partner is impossible, because they won’t really hear what you’re saying. Try and get a sibling to do it for you or better still just never tell them and let her gradually slip from their memories.

It’s not that they won’t understand, or they don’t care, it’s just that they are simply unable to comprehend what you’re saying. They don’t get it. It’s not in their nature to hear adult problems coming from their children. The very thought that you might be stuffing things up for yourself just as royally as they did freaks them out. To them you’ll always be a kid, not a thirty-something slacker. It’s boring; it’s frustrating, but it’s much safer and easier for all concerned that it stays that way too.

Remember what happened when your backpack was stolen in Athens and you were left with nothing but the clothes you were wearing.

Beep beep beep

Mum: Hello

You: Hi mum.

Mum: Oh, who is it?

You: Me mum, Bill-

Mum: Oh, but you’re in Greece –

You: Mum the money’s going to run out, can I –?

Mum: Oh, OK, I’ll just get your father.

You: Mum!

Dad: Hello son.

You: Hi Dad, listen can I –

(Mum in background: “Ask him what time it is?”)

Dad: Your mother wants to know what time it is.

You: It’s 3am, dad can I just –

Dad: 3am love.

(Mum in background: what day is it over there?)

Dad: What love–?

You: I can hear her Dad. It’s Tuesday.

Dad: He says Tuesday.

You: Dad, have you still got my credit card details-?

Dad: Yes I’ll just go and get them.

He puts the phone down.

You: No da-!

Beep beep beep.

The phone cut out and there went your last chance of having them wire money to you and have you ever tried to sell a watch in a Greek pawnshop?

Exactly the same thing will happen when you tell them that you and your ex, the one they thought you’d be with forever, have broken up.

No matter what you say, your mum will at first just not hear it. You’ll have to say it over and over again until it finally sinks in, and when it does, look out, because things just start to get very weird.

One of two very disturbing things will happen: either she’ll think it’s your fault and that something you did must have pissed off that sweet girl who’s been putting up with your irritating habits for years, “and does that mean I’ll not see any grandchildren?” or she’ll suddenly be so scathing about your ex that you’ll be left stunned and bewildered, wondering what she’s really been thinking all this time when she’s been offering her a slice of sponge cake and a cup of tea every third sunday evening of teh month.

You’ll finally see the non-mum side of your mum. You’ll realize, perhaps for the first time ever that she’s actually a person, that she’s got feelings, and that she’s just as fucked up as you. She’ll see you in a new light too. She’ll see the potential, idealised her-perfect-son version of you replaced by the actual and much less appealing real you; she’ll realize that her little boy is just as messed up as she is. You’ll go past the polite conversation and pleasantries that pass for much interfamilial communication and hurtle straight into a full on mano a (wo)mano slug fest, in which your mum pulls off the lovely oven gloves you bought her for Christmas when you were ten and goes bare knuckle, toe-to-toe with you.

She’ll treat you like an adult. She’ll want details; she’ll ask questions; she might even ask you about your sex life; she’ll want to know were you shagging around; was she? She’ll get upset and your father will stand up and put his hands in his pockets and look out the window humming a marching tune while you try and comfort your mum, who just keeps dabbing her eyes, holding up her hands and repeating, “I’m fine, I’m fine. It’s just a bit of a shock.”

Pretty soon though she’ll pull herself together and head off to the kitchen to get the dinner on.

When she comes back in, eyes red-rimmed, she’ll pretend that she’s, “fine really,” but you’ll see it in her face – she can’t hide it - and every time you look at her you’ll wish there was some way you could make her stop worrying, and so her pain - which is really your pain - becomes yours again, only doubled, and so you clam up, and you can’t tell her anything more. You become testy, touchy, and of course this just adds another layer to her unease, and every time she so much as touches you, you can feel her anxiety sucking at you like a baby at a tit, and now you’re the one worried. You feel like the parent and you wish there was some way you could make things better for her, but you’re just not right enough in the head to cope with that. You’re not selfless enough to cope with someone else’s load. You’re so self obsessed, so sorry for yourself that there’s just no room for anyone else, and even though you know you’re being a silent, moody arsehole to the two people in the world who are truly willing to listen to your grief you can’t stop.

And when mum finally clears away the plates, and you’re left alone with dad, who, after a suitable silence, asks you if you watched the match yesterday, you’re still grumpy, but you’re on familiar territory and you wish you’d just told him instead. Because he’ll be gutted, he’ll be shocked and he’ll eat his insides out with worry just as much as your mum, but he’ll do it quietly and without any fuss. Like her, he’ll lie awake all that night, wondering whether you’ll ever find happiness. He’ll spend silent moments remembering how you used to be such a happy little boy, or maybe he’ll look back and remember that he always worried about your state of mind, about whether you were the kind of person who’d sail through life without any troubles, or whether you were always the type to trip himself up or to get tripped up.

But he won’t let you see that. The most he’ll say is, “Ah well,”. Dads know better than to say any more than that.

Heal my arse

Sitting slumped on the couch looking at a book titled: ‘You Can Heal Your Life’. Oh yeah? Then how come I haven’t even managed a shave since Thursday week when she moved her washing machine out? Not that shaving and washing machines have much in common, although both are obviously concerned with hygiene, speaking of which I haven’t done any washing since then either.

Note to self: must buy a washing machine, or more underwear, and considering that even a basic Whirlpool costs at least $500 and that underpants are a buck a pair at Bi Lo I could just buy enough jocks to last well into next year and still come out ahead, although the thought of washing several hundred pairs of underpants at the laundromat all at once mid next year, does not appeal, nor does the idea of storing what may well amount to several dozen kilos of moldering undies over that period. Come to think of it where would I even store the clean ones? I haven’t got a wardrobe anymore (That was the first thing she’d taken. There was no way she was going to store her things in plastic bags. ) and so I’d more than likely keep them in the plastic bags in which I bring them home, that is unless I can score a few cardboard boxes from the greengrocer.

Unless I buy a wardrobe.

Although not buying a wardrobe would save another couple of hundred bucks which means that I could buy more underwear, perhaps enough to last for up to two years without having to do a wash, mind you that does compound the soiled undies storage problem quite a bit, although if I factor in the saving on laundry detergent, I’m still ahead. One slight problem however would be explaining the enormous stacks of plastic bags/boxes full of either clean or soiled underwear should Gillian come back, or hope against hope, I should actually manage to bring another girl home.

Girls just don’t understand these things and no amount of explaining about how much financial sense the situation makes would compensate either for the stench (which is sure to be mighty once I get a good six months into the project, which, for ease of communication, shall henceforth be known as Project Underpants)...

Double wow.I just Googled Project Underpants and there's actually a site with that name. Can't believe it. Some Charity underpant thing that's actually been happening at teh same time as my underpant (soiled) collection has been building - spooky.

...or for the mind boggling sight of several hundred pairs of underpants in various states of decay. Unless of course I was to spend the money I’d saved on the woman in question (ignoring for the moment the obvious problem that such an act of generosity would render the whole project meaningless) in the form of a gift, a washing machine perhaps - redundant of course in Gillian’s case as she already has one, hence the need for Project Underpants in the first place - and perhaps to grand a gift to bestow upon any other potential girl I might bring home.

Not that she’d be a potential girl in any way other than she’d be a potential girlfriend: in all other ways she’d be a fully-realised girl.

Mmmmmm, “fully realised,” doesn’t that sound sexy to you or is it just me? Soft focus film of a bouncy, bubbly girl gamboling in a meadow, like in this old Cadbury Flake ad* happy, smiling and willing to do just about anything for a bite of your chocolate bar…

…Paris Hilton, or Vanessa Hudgens, or any other nude celebrity…

… such as Pamela Anderson…

…not that I’m a Pamela Anderson fan, I’m not, well I wasn’t when I was in a relationship anyway. Like every other well adjusted able-to-commit-male I was appalled by her brazenly, inflated, and augmented sexuality, but now that I’m single, well to hell with that. I’m on the Net all night like all the other single guys looking for free porn, dodgy nude celeb videos and the like, as thankfully, the computer is mine, unlike almost everything else in this apartment, or rather formerly in this apartment. At least the new emptiness, which is now this apartment, gives me plenty of space to work on Project Underpants, all of which I’m sure to need if I’m going to store all those jocks – let’s say between 500 and 600 pairs.

You see that’s where men and women are different.

Forget this Marsand Venus stuff. The difference between men and women is that if a man walked into a woman’s apartment, on a first date, and saw that she had several hundred pairs of underpants he’d think, woohoo let’s party, unless of course they were all Bonds Cottontails, in which case he might be a little underwhelmed, but still not perturbed enough to do anything that might cause the woman in question, fully-realised or otherwise, to ask him to leave, whereas a woman confronted by my stash of undies, no matter how sexy they might be, would run screaming out of my apartment, with me following her, yelling, “Was it something I said?”.

And then all the neighbours would come out to see what’s going on and as I’m standing there in the corridor they’d take a look in through the open front door and see all those boxes and bags full of undies stacked neatly, labelled in date order, used on the left, unused on the right, and suddenly that nice couple who had Gillian and I over for dinner before the break up would be looking embarrassed and, if the truth be told, a little scared, and I’d know I’d never be tasting that cheeky little Rutherglen red, he promised to drop round, and as the other neighbours were shielding their kids I’d turn, crushed and condemned, and make my way back in to Project Underpants, and then the next morning there’d be a book in my letter box titled You Can Heal Your Life and I’d think, oh yeah? Then how come I haven’t even had a shave since last Thursday? And I’d open it and there’d be a note inside and it’d be from Gillian, saying that she’s really worried about me and that maybe I needed help, and I’d know right there and then that that book could tell me nothing, and that if I was ever going to avoid that fateful trip to Bi Lo I’d have to throw it away and work it out for myself.

* I found that ad while I was looking for this one, which is hilarious. For soem reason I remember this being raunchy, when in actual fact it's just very silly.

I can't stop eating and drinking

Man cannot live on bread alone, but if it’s baked thin and crispy and is covered with cheese and salami he’ll give it a red hot go...(I've already done that line, I know that, bt it kind of introduces the next bit nicely)...

He can, however, survive for an awful long time on a combination of vodka and misery.  Sounds like the title of a self help book for boozy twats – and maybe that’s what I should be writing – but its not.  It’s the truth.  You can do it, but you have to work hard to do so.

Vodka is pure.  It has no taste - except for Finlandia which tastes smoky as it’s filtered through charcoal - but it does burn.  It cleanses and strips away everything, even pain, leaving in its wake nothing but scars and ash and rawness.

Misery on the other hand is filthy.  It sits on your skin like coalminer’s grime, abrasively rubbing itself into every pore, clogging them up until they fester and fill with pus, capped with 

You can live on vodka alone, just not for a very long time.

That doesn’t mean you should eat like a pig, although if that works for you then I say go for it brother.  To paraphrase Nietzsche: that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, , and if gorging yourself makes you feel better then who am I to argue with that?  Mind you Nietzsche was a complete looney.  Very strong – legend has it he could crush one of those old steel beer cans with one hand – but stark raving mad in the end, so perhaps we shouldn’t pay so much attention to him.

Maybe we could update what he said though: That which doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger, unless it contains over 50% saturated fat in which case although it may make you stronger, it will also make you a tad lardy too.

I feel sick.

Hi Eva

When I set this blog up I meant to register the address 'note to self', but I ended up registering 'note to elf' by mistake, because I was pissed when I did it. I've been thinking about changing it back somehow  to the address I originally wanted, but some vegetarian has already got that, so I can't.

Tehn I got to thinking about about note to elf and I think I like it. It's a fuck up, it's unexpected, it's wrong, but somehow it works. It's like I'm writing to a mysterious little fairy person, to someone not quite real, someone made up, someone questionable. Right now then, elf sounds more like me than self does I'm not sure who I am, who I want to be or what to say, to myself or to anyone else for that matter.

I'min a place right now that doesn't even feel real. maybe I an an elf. But which sort?

Not this sort.

More like the above, but without a coat hanger wrapped round my head.

Note to self sounds like it should be very serious and considered too. That vegetarian site is certainly a lot more fair dinkum than I intend to be.

Looking at that site she, it's run by a girl called Eva, starts off by saying that she doesn't think anyone will ever read her blog. I don't think anyone will ever read mine either. Except for maybe for Eva. It's never going to rank high enough in search engines for people to find it and the only person ever likely to stumble on to it accidentlally is Eva, if she types teh name of her blog incorrectly. I hope she does that one day and i hope she finds this post and I hope it freaks her out a little, in a good way. At least she'll know that someone has read her blog. Maybe she'll post an hello Bill message on her blog.

Teh weird thing is she set her blog up just a couple of weeks ago, so if I'd gotten onto this a while back I could have had that name after all.