Lisa told us that Devo has developed a habit of running into the bathroom and grabbing her peeled-off knickers and taking them to his dog bed for a thorough chewing.
My parents bought Esther a pink plaid sleep-suit for Christmas, and she now wears it all night and most of the morning. In order to spend as much time as possible in it, she has cut a handy slit so she can wee without having to remove the suit.
I still haven’t found my bag from the weekend, although my coat has turned up. I am preparing myself to grieve for my extended family: niece ipod and her jelly babies, uncle diary, and smutty great grandad scarf.
I often wish I could meet myself when I’m out and tipsy: I could slap some sense into myself if I’m being a cunt, or maybe giggle at my stupid jokes. I could even check myself out for some homoerotic frisson. Yes I think I would have liked me on Saturday night.
Saturday was spent with my rabble-rousing blud, Hunter. We wiled away the afternoon by chasing the ghost of student protests. On the way to join the anti-capitalist march, we stopped off at Topman so Hunter could try on a snazzy skinny fit suit. He was keeping pace with the students on Twitter
“They’ve smashed up Vodaphone” he said with glee. “And they hassled Topshop.”
I bet Gap and Starbucks are really happy now that shouting about foreign problems has become passe.
The closest we got to disorder was a hen night shrieking on Deansgate.
Here’s what we missed:
I love the ‘Down with Stuff’ sentiment. Nice and vague.
I’m actually more gutted that we missed Bryan Ferry in Selfridges:
How bored does he look? I would have cheered him up by saying stupid jokes like “Do they sell fridges in Selfridges?”
fast forward a few hours, and me and Hunter start to drink. Things are a little hazy after this point, but I remember calling a chav girl a C*^* and then working really hard to convince her that it was term of endearment. She believed me too, the fool!
I also remember 2 house parties and the next thing I know, I wake up in Hunter’s mum’s bed.
Thankfully for all concerned, she wasn’t there. It took me several vacant moments to figure out where in the world I was.
The next surprise was that I had lost all of these things:
Coat
Shirt
Scarf
Railcard
Bag including ipod, shortcake biscuits and jelly babies AND midget gems (because I forgot about the jelly babies), phone charger and diary with all my work appointments which exist NOWHERE else.
This really is a record for me. A new stupidity high. So now I had to make my way home like one of those people you hope don’t sit next to you on the train; the smelly, red eyed, muttering figure who breaks social codes with every frazzled second of public appearance. This walk of shame lasted 2 hours and took in the ‘I’m so perfect’ hills of the Peak District (meh) , Carphone Warehouse (what is a car phone?) and McDonald’s. A chavtastic end to a lost weekend.
This is my song of the day, “I AM IRON MAN…HEAR ME DITHER”
Esther and Lisa are babysitting their nieces and nephew tonight.
In order to last the night, I bought:
For tea: Ham and Pineapple Stuffed Crust Pizza, Mr Kipling’s Rhubarb and Custard Tarts
For general snacks: midget gems and apple doughnuts,
For tomorrow’s elevensies: Danish pastries
Tonight is a perfect night to prove my worth as a human being. I can feed the pets, feed myself, watch TV and go to bed at a reasonable hour. Simple.
Everything runs smoothly until I get to Lisa’s house to pick up Goldie. I can’t decide whether to feed Devo or not. I just can’t decide. Indecision is me. After much thought, I ring Esther and ask her advice.
She says “Do what you think” and abdicates responsibility.
The trouble is I don’t think anything. I can’t procrastinate until Esther does it for me. I can’t pretend to concentrate on the conversation, knowing full well that Lisa and Esther will chatter on without my input. It’s down to me.
So I ring up Esther again. And again. Until she inadvertently makes the decision for me.
Job done.
Now I’m watching Being Human with a cat on my bloated pizza-stuffed belly, and a dog’s chin on my shins. Just right.
What would I rather be: a ghost, a vampire or a werewolf? No brainer- vampires get hot action and get to be history.
"Who are you calling history?"
I used to be obsessed with Coppola’s Dracula film- for a start it had my all time perfect woman Winona Ryder, who dumps uptight Keanu Reeves for sexy Gary Oldman as Dracula. I wanted to be him so much. I bought some blue sunglasses like his and I used to stalk around Sainsburys looking for victims. Once I mouthed his line “See me! See me now” at some winsome teenage girl and she looked straight at me as if spellbound.
"Yes! The rohypnol seems to be working"
Of course as soon as she saw me, she turned away in revulsion, but the moment had briefly been mine. It never worked again though.
Dennis Pennis is in this episode of Being Human. Best sleb name ever? It is for a fifteen year old; the age my humour stopped growing. Here he is winding up Jean Claude Van Damme…
"Dear Tracy, try harder next time. The sheets are still white for God's sake"
“I can smell dog poo” said Esther this morning as we sat in bed. She sniffs the air. “Oh no, I think it’s my breath”.
Me and Esther are rubbish at personal hygiene. Our bedclothes haven’t been changed in weeks. They’re full of biscuit and cake crumbs from months of elevensies and afternoon teas. We have had 2 duvets since it started to turn cold last September. The top duvet is covered in mud stains and hair from goldie.
We have been cultivating a comforting aroma of bums and feet. When I get a waft, it feels like home.
Every morning, Esther wakes up drenched in sweat. It must be the side-effect of her anti-depressants. She wakes up in a pool of cooling body fluid and has to reach out to the drawers next to the bed to grab one of my t shirts to replace hers with.
She always chooses my clothes, but I secretly love it. It’s kind of like a teenage fantasy: not only to have a girlfriend, but to have one who validates your existence by wearing your clothes. This fact separates her from the purely imaginary partners I desperately conjured into existence. Wearing my t shirt proves that she’s real.
Normally we sleep with at least one body part touching. Usually it’s a foot or hand or side of belly. However at some point Goldie climbs aboard and drives a big wedge between us, pushing our legs sideways off the bed.
Around the bed radiates a crumpled pile of clothes from nights out and workdays mixed with fresh washing that hasn’t been put away. The stink and stains gradually travels across to the clean stuff as we trample on it to and from the bed.
I‘ve always been astounded that people can be bothered to have a shower or bath EVERY day. I just wait until my smell stops being comforting and starts to smell like death.
"Esther, I can feel a poo coming out"
I have a problem at the moment: my bumhole stinks of rancid cheese. Every time I go to the toilet (and I ALWAYS sit down), I leave a cloud of off-milk aroma which I sadistically can’t wait for Esther to walk into unawares. I went to the doctors but I had showered the night before, and she couldn’t smell anything. She even inserted her gloved finger up my bumhole and sniffed it. After the initial shock, I quite enjoyed the feeling.
It is there, I’m sure. I think it is either Thrush or the fact that I was veggi for 15 years and now I’m a rampant carnivore. I might have to bottle the stench and make my doctor sniff it.
But what really stinks is the idea of COMMUNITY.
"Love and mutual understanding bring us together"
We were watching DIY SOS yesterday. We turned on halfway through, and it was about a boy who had been badly injured and his parents wanted to do up the house for him. It was meant to be a heartwarming tale of how a community pulls together in a time of crisis.
It made me seethe with rage and tremble with nausea.
The boy’s school friends had organised some faux-American school prom which raised 8 grand. Everyone had rallied together and done the Christian thing, thereby dispelling the pessimism of Thatcher: “there is no such thing as society”. What a rosy picture this is, like some Socialist Realism poster set in suburban Rotherham.
Reasons why I can’t stand this BS:
1. If it had been me in hospital during my school days, the only motivation to help me would have been when the bullies got bored of having no-one to harass and wanted their victim back. Freaks, geeks abd assorted weirdos do not become instantly popular in these situations. My parents used to say that come the revolution, our neighbours would trudge to our house first and hound us with pitchforks. On a similar note- “He was an angel” parents always blub when some shitty bully-boy dies prematurely. Like hell he was, he was a nasty little oik, and although he didn’t deserve to die, you make me sick with your retrospective beatification of a local cunt.
2. This vision of community did not include any non-white non-working class non-chavs. It seemed to say “Britain is still Great if you’re white in a blue collar”. This is the future dreamed up by Nick Griffin. (It’s also the inverse of that imagined by Islamic fundamentalists). This steaming pile of semen is the so-called “Big Society” Cameron/Clegg want us to join.
3. What was more is that if you missed the start of the programme, they refused to explain what had happened to the boy for the rest of the show. I refuse to invest my emotions until I can get vicarious pleasure from knowing all the gory details. I’ve heard so many sob stories (reality TV is obsessed with rags to riches stories) that it takes some “cruel and unusual” affliction to make me feel anything. My heartstrings have snapped and can no longer be yanked. Like an adrenaline junkie, we seem to need more and more horror to feel the upset we should. Why else would Saw be onto it’s 45th film?
“That’s funny, I seem to have stopped getting spots on my face these days” I said to Esther on Monday. “Ah, maybe I’ve finally grown up”. I have been looking for a sign of adulthood for about 15 years. Having sex and drinking booze were non starters because they just make me act more like a child.
“Don’t jinx it!” she replies with glee.
“Balderdash and piffleschwab!” I expectorate. One of the things therapy has taught me is that you shouldn’t fear words. The worst, most depraved or disturbing thought can be safely expressed and it won’t make it happen. Life just isn’t that magical.
Now that I consider myself free from superstition, I scorn the illogical faith of others.
Today I have 3 sore bumps in the worst places possible:
1. The middle of my top lip
2. The end of my nose
3. On the very peak of my cheek
I refuse to believe that I caused these! It’s impossible. I feel like a J. K. Rowling muggle, or like my grandad, who thinks that if he ignores the internet, it will go away.
It’s time to put superstition to the test. I’m going to say something now and if it happens I will believe, I promise.
Here is a faithful record of the unfaithful dream that I had last night:
Our house was haunted. The sound of stiletto heels echoed down the hallway floorboards and I ran after them into the kitchen. But there was nothing.
"Oh Oh you're in trouble with Esther"
I became very scared, but then got distracted by finding a picture disc 12 inch by Shampoo from 2011. “Wow, they’ve reformed” I thought.
"How dare you surpass your 15 year love for me!"
Back to the goosepimples. I realised as I became more and more terrified that I was completely and utterly and clinically madly in love with a girl who wasn’t Esther. I felt a yearning like a koala for its favourite tree, or a chip’s desire to lie with mushy peas, or a sloth’s desperation for an extension on their essay. Intense.
Every atom of my being was involved in this sweaty lust and longing. Each pore became a mouth singing ‘I love her I love her I love her’ like a million-strong microscopic boyband. Oh God, this feeling was worse than running out of pudding or some hellish comedown or even a year of Monday mornings lining up like happy slappers forever.
"Quick- she's falling in love"
I had the intellectual runs. Hot thoughts were spurting out of me like: She is the only person I’ve ever loved, the only person who makes me suffer a rapid succession of micro-strokes when I see her, starting in my eye and radiating down past my penis and into the ground.
But I can’t have her. I was mad with sadness, I started to melt like a microwaved snowman and I woke up with my face screwed into the pillow, tears mixing with the usual slobber in a pool that stuck my features into the expression of misery they felt.
Then I had to go to work and like with all dreams, the feeling faded and I found a packet of wine gums in my pocket and felt a bit better. Also my student told me about his visit to the Sistine chapel to see Leonardo Di Caprio’s paintings, which I greatly enjoyed. If only that was true.
But like my dream, it’s an impossible thing and I can’t waste my life wishing it into existence. And it’s a fatal mistake to take dreams as reality, as Marion Cotillard found in Inception
Allegedly, on Monday God created light. What a crock. Mondays are days for getting by, not starting the task of all tasks. Today is after all the sick man of weekdays, the rude oik nephew at a family gathering.
Luckily, there are some people who grab a pad and paper instead of curling into the foetal position when pain come a calling.
Hence “I don’t like Mondays” and “Manic Monday” and “Blue Monday” to name but a few.
I think God actually created pain today. And the police.
Me and Govinda were sat outside Spar on Saturday night, watching two bored policemen frisk a homeless man. We started questioning their motives (excuses to touch skinny men), and they came and loomed over us threateningly.
“Are you laughing at someone trying to do their job” said bad cop
“Yes” I replied.
He stomped away to think of a comeback. After the cogs turn for a while, he comes back over.
“That man is a burglar and a junkie. He belongs in prison”
“Oh yes” I say like a flash, “That will sort him out. He’ll be much better off after that!” I can feel a rant coming on. And then some cell time.
But luckily his one working synapse is taken over by hunger for red meat and he heads into Spar for some cat food. 2 for a pound at the moment.
I used to like the police. I used to believe that they had to be intelligent and sensitive and calm. Some of them are, but they end up at tribunals after being called names by the rest of them.
I suffered a similar disappointment when I found out that Waitrose and Marks and Spencers cashiers weren’t posh. I really thought they would be like the packaging: stylish, articulate and well put together. But oh no. I want to go somewhere where upper middle class types man the customer service desk, and go “hawhee hawhee haw” into the tannoy.
The best part of the day was eaten up ravenously by an afternoon nap from 4-7pm. Lovely.
"On the First Day God created naked napping. And it was goood"
Well, last night I made the depressingly common error of leaving my mobile phone in the back of a cab. And as usual I struggled for the rest of the night against the materialistic melancholy of having lost an object.
This morning, Esther got a call from a cab driver who demanded £30 for the return of my fone. Choking on my effervescent vitamin drink, I began to realise that my precious smartfone was being held to ransom.
“Can’t I just pay the fair from there to here?” I reasoned.
“You can but that will be even more money” he replied calmly and with calculation. He had an answer for everything..
“I can’t afford that much” I moaned, my head filled with monstrous images of money spewing from cash machines over the course of the weekend.
“Well, why don’t you ask your friends for money?” he said tersely, in his strange Asian Alan Partridge voice. “Or perhaps you want to call me back later when you have woken up?” he snided. Well reader, I was rather annoyed. But I agreed anyway.
‘Goddam privatised schmuck’ I hissed once the receiver was safely down. We had arranged to meet at the Natwest at the bottom of our hillock, and I got 3 ten pound notes out, a cunning plan forming as I walked. I met two accomplices, Jarvis and Panda, who were heading down early to get the first-fried chips at Two Steps. I told them my predicament and they decided to loiter with me for moral support. We were not an intimidating bunch: rather than heavies, I would have termed us ‘lights’, so feeble and friendly of face as we are.
"We are the 'lights' and we disapprove of this sort of business"
Another call from Mr Partridge, saying he would be half an hour late. Cursing, we stumbled down to Lisa and Dom’s house for a cuppa and some fighting talk.
I decided to stash a tenner in 3 separate pockets, so that I could profess to only having one, and two if pressed, and then as a last resort, all three (although by the time I produced the second, it would be clear I could have many more hidden about my person).
Eventually, he called back and we headed back up the road, where he sat waiting in a hideous pink cab. With trepidation, I climbed in the back.
To my surprise, he handed me the fone first before negotiation began. ‘The naive fool’ I cried internally. As he told me his long and deeply boring blow by blow account of the difficult drive over here, I fingered my most scruffy tenner, waiting for the right moment.
“You’ve caught me at a rather bad time” I began, noticing the spasmic microexpression of lost opportunity flash across his face.
“I am very poor at the moment. Ten pounds is like £30 to me, so that’s all I have to give you” I offer up my scruffy bit of paper.
“This is not good at all!” he says, mostly to himself. “Your friends out there, can’t they help you out?” he says, nodding at Jarvis and Panda.
“Oh no, they are even poorer than me”
“This is no good at all. No good at all”
I reach for the door handle before he can lock it and drive me to deserted moorland. I pass the tenner through the hole, and he snatches it away. Then I’m away- feeling proud of my victory of wills over a grasping jobsworth. So what if his children starve, the takeaway’s on him tonight. Smashing.
I walk home with much better posture. I was channelling Cher Lloyd’s gypsy swagger..
Sat 23rd Jan. It has been a whole two days since my last confession.
This was mine, Esther and Godiva’s 2nd night out in a row.
During the course of the evening, I became infatuated with a beautiful lesbian, sat among real working class Sheffield men (until then only a fantasy), saw a massive skinhead in a kilt with matching sock-ribbons, and got nicely blotto as Lord Archer would have it.
I had tummy ache around 4am and enjoyed sitting for a while in the toilet at a house party, away from all the noise and debauchery.
I pushed very hard and bit by bit hard pebbles fell into the bowl, each one christening my bottom with urine water. As I waited for the landslide to end, I read a toilet book handily left for such occasions: Ancient Myths and Religions. None of it made any sense, so I put it back and left the room.
A little later, Esther was rather worse for wear, and I had to manhandle her home. We watched some news 24 and she went to sleep. I decided to squander the remains of my energy on this blog.
This post is dedicated to Esme Duggleby and the bus-sick expats in Deutschland.
Stagecoach buses are the Asda of public transport. Whereas First buses tend to attract a less fucked up commuter, the dregs fill the aisles of the 83 and the 88. I feel like I’m slumming it on an 82: I feel like an in cognito Baron on the 88.
Just on the way home tonight, a woman got on and hollered at the driver when he set off before she sat down. Then a little later, the driver opened his door to scream abuse at a car that had dared to pull out in front of it. I kept quiet and made sure I thanked him when I got off.
Got home and Esther had picked all her spots and was sat in bed looking bored. We made tea and watched the first episode of Glee season 2 tonight. I was grumpy as hell when I got home because:
1. I handed my essay in and felt nothing.
2. I had a pint and then realised it was pointless because I couldn’t get drunk tonight.
3. We made the mistake of going somewhere cool. In the Deaf Institute there was a guy in his early 20s who had a much better beard than I could ever grow. And there was a table full of art school girls all with the same haircut (fringe and brown bangs) and the same “I’ve just discovered charity shops/stolen my auntie’s clothes”. I seemed to be invisible to these people and it pissed me off. What, TinTin isn’t a recognized style icon? How dare you.
"Hey! Don't ignore me coz I'm not dressing Naval"
4. I knew that now I have done my essays, I no longer have an excuse not to do the tedious jobs I have been putting off.
This was one big mardy pants wearing my clothes. Anyway, me and Esther watched Glee and I suddenly realised I was breaking into a half smile goddammit!
The best line of the show was when Sue Sylvester called Santana’s fake boobs ” exploding sandbags” and told her “Now take your juicy, unripened chest and get the hell out of my office”. Sue is a lone voice against silicon in American TV, and I love the fact that you sometimes want to be her more than you want to be Quinn Fabray or Santana. This feeling is rare.
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