Public Transport is a Breeding Ground for Undesirables

Jan 6th: Bussing it in Bedlam

Went to Manchester today and met up with my trash-culture partner in crime, Josephine. She is climbing up the Starbucks corporate ladder, knife in mouth, to take the world of hot beverages by its vajazzled balls.

She is a coffee connoisseur, a filter flaneur (perhaps even a frotteur), a mocha rocker.

She risks the glare of a jobsworth to ask for The Most Difficult Drink Ever, with the cocksure unblinkingness of a pro barista: a “One Shot-Soya-Mocha-with Amaretto Syrup” from NEROS. Interesting choice of name that, seeing as he let Rome burn to a crisp- a bit like calling your shop ‘Berlusconi’s’ and expecting people to stomach your ‘fish finger surprise’…

But the main rant of today is reserved for BUS DRIVERS. The lamb-chopped ferrymen of Hades.

"DOYOUHAVEANYHOTWATERORDOIHAVETOKILLYOU?"

Today’s driver looks like Catweazel (which in case I am the only person who gets this reference, is a TV character Medieval monk transported to 70s rural Britain. You got a mental image now?).

I think, ‘oh it’s ok, he’ll be nice to another member of the long hair club‘. Then, ‘oh shit, I’ve been thrown out haven’t I, I’m in the camp tintin club now’.

But ‘Oh he’s got a beard, he’ll give me the secret signal coz of that’.

But no. He is the grumpiest hippie I have ever met. I get on with my student card.

“50p”

I give him a pound.

A grunting, constipated moan comes out “doyouavthefefeepee?”

“Pardon?”

Again, the noise comes, and I can just about pick out these words:”doyouHAVEthefiftypee?”

“No.” As he slams the change down, I think ‘He’s no hair compadre, he’s a pre-postal serial killer’.

As I walk to my seat, I hear his gritted-teeth mantra echoing down the bus every few seconds as the queue jumps aboard. It’s like the guttural groan of Newspaper Vendors , for whom ‘The Manchester Evening News’ becomes a chinese poo-strain ‘Maaannneeeeezzzze”

As I sit and reflect on the emotional rollercoaster of having hair, I think back at the motley crew I’ve met on buses.

One time I got on and the busdriver said “You shouldn’t be allowed on here”. “Me personally or something I represent?” (bloody students, queers, men over 5 feet 9?) I ask, genuinely intrigued. Someone pulls the string in his back and he parrots “You shouldn’t be allowed”. I take my apparently undeserved seat.

Another classic was when I was really late for work, and I asked the big skinhead in front of me for the time.

“Time is irrelevant” he intoned, and turned back round. I should have said that to my boss.

One time, Aldo was waiting at the busstop, and a woman stopped and asked for the way to Mecca.

“Hmm, let me see, the sun is pointing that direction so East is over there…” he mused

Impatient, she butted in “No, Mecca Bingo I meant!”

“Dunno” he replied, suddenly deeply depressed.

“What would sir recommend?” “A little of everything?”

My new favourite phrase is “What would you recommend?” said with a disarming smile. You can cover up your complete ignorance of anything with this.

“What gear ya looking for?”

“What would sir recommend?”

“What stop do you want?”

“Hmm, where would you recommend?”

“To be or not to be?”

“Whatevs, I’m not fussy”

I think most of the recommendations would be a good kicking followed by A&E.

Don’t Dys My Body

Jan 5th

"Where did I put my slinky?"

My therapist (how American) issued me an ultimatum this morning: Either I do the homework and commit or I take a break. Story of my life. Why can’t I just float along like a fat baby in a basket?

I have Body Dysmorphia you see- this means I hate my neck and think that I am generally a freak. I’ve developed lots of ways to deal with this, such as:
1. asking for reassurance from Esther 50 times a day (does this coat look alright? What about if I have to undo it? What about with the hood up?)
2. getting drunk,
3. lying to myself that I need a wee so I can stare into the bathroom mirror at work.
4. Wearing clothes that cover up the parts I hate: shirts and scarves for my neck, hats for the 365 Bad Hair Days I have.

I’m having Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which is all about making you do the stuff you’ve spent years working out intricate rituals in order to avoid.

So, we wrote down all the unhealthy stuff I do to feel better, and we are going to do the opposite for each bad habit, one at a time.

First up is to walk to work 5 days a week without distracting myself (no ipod) and without doing anything that makes me feel comfortable (hiding my neck with a scarf, checking myself out in windows). It sounds easy to anyone who doesn’t do those things, but it’s really hard if you do them without thinking, and when you don’t do them, you feel hideously ugly.

So, I walk to work exposing my lanky giraffe neck and grimacing against the onslaught of buses and cars all rubbernecking at my rubber neck (or so it seems). By the time I get to work, I’m sweaty and knackered, and want to go home.

I was meant to be doing this for 5 days in a row, but I just can’t make myself. I want an easy life goddammit.

She my therapist is leaving me for another neurotic.

Altogether Now, sing these new lyrics to the chorus:

“Neurotic, Neurotic

Don’t put your hands anywhere near my body”

Delete as appropriate: Boring and/or Ugly 11

Dec 22nd

Another nookie-less night. In the morning, Esther says, “I was horny last night from watching The Walking Dead. But then you showed me your bum boil.”
I ignored the necrophiliac overtones, and just thought ‘Goddammit’. It’s really sore you see, and I wanted a second opinion ‘Does it look normal? Is it cancer?’ The window for sex was slammed shut in my face. Can we play doctors and nurses?

We trudge down to Lisa’s. She is flustered. Just before we arrived, Dom was in the bath and Lisa had just picked her spots in the formation of

(1) a unibrow,

(2) a beard, and

(3) a moustache.

Quite fetching, don't you think?

Then Dom’s manager, Barry, knocked on the door. Lisa had to answer with her bright pink facial hair, let him in and make a cuppa. Then she scurried back upstairs.

Xmas shopping for the insane: Lisa and Esther’s grandma wants them to buy her some ‘Round-to-its’. Apparently they are plates that you buy when someone says ‘I just haven’t got around to it’. So far, the search has come up blank. Whoever gets this prezzie is going to be thrilled.

Esther cut my hair last night. Now I look like a gay US marine. Every time I take my hat off, it’s to the internal soundtrack of ‘he’s in the army now’, serenaded by Muscle Marys descending from helicopters into the arms of winking Naval officers with pert salutes.

Devo has started to demand Lisa to vacate his favourite chair next to the radiator. He goes up to her, and walks in a circle and sits down. First of all, she got up to let him out. No, he was still there. He had climbed on her chair and made himself comfy. She pushed him off and he did his dance again. She stood up to get him some food and he hopped up again, curling into a tight ball. “He wants my bloody chair!” she realized. It’s the best, warmest seat in the house, and if you get up from it, it’s gone.

We popped into NatWest today to ask why I’m not a millionaire yet. Esther had a rare glimpse of belongingness in the bank while she waited for me with Goldie. A downs syndrome woman came over and grinned ‘it’s a doggy’ ‘She’s a bit shy’ replied Esther. ‘She’s a bit shy’ echoed the woman, and giggled. If only all conversations were this easy, then I’d be able to socialize properly.

Dec 24th

It just said on the news that to combat snow, trains will be fitted with skirts, which they can blow warm air underneath. This sounds like some middle-aged CEO’s dirty dream to me. How kitsch. It’s the last remnant of a faded masculinity that was happy with a flash of knickers. Today’s bloke demands hi-def tits n ass as the *bare* minimum.

Risque circa 1962

The girls go to collect the turkey for Roney’s butchers. It’s massive. It won’t fit in the freezer, so they try to put it out in the garden in a big plastic box. You don’t need a freezer in this weather. “But what if someone nicks it?” says Esther. “Let’s put it in the shed!” Weasel and Kung Fu (their names in babyspeak) are Esther and Lisa’s parents. They stride purposefully into the garden, parent mode turned up to 11.
“No!” shouts Lisa, “There’s dogshit everywhere out there, watch your step!”
The main problem with dogs you see is that every morning without fail, they need to be let out into the garden to empty their bowels. 365 days a year. That’s a lot of shit, and the longer you leave it to pick up, the more daunting it becomes. Surely something will eat it all? Nope. It sits there forever. Nature is wank.
“Well I can tell Devo is getting all the right minerals,” says Weasel, studying the rancid piles.
Esther’s family are natural physical comedians. I would pay to watch them. The simplest things take on Kafkaesque complexity.

“The door’s frozen shut” says Esther, “Let’s prize it open.” She puts her boot on the wall and pulls. Only after a second pair of hands join in does it finally jar open.

“Right, now we need some bricks to put on the box” shouts Esther.
“Ok”, then the frustrated sound of straining muscles happens. “Gnnnnng!” Weasel groans, her teeth clenched in effort.

The best example of anyone ever making this noise is Arnie in Total Recall when he get’s sucked out onto the surface of Mars and his eyes pop out…

The teeth-clenched straining echoes down the terrace. “The bricks are frozen to the ground” she shouts and laughs in an out-of-control way. They are starting to get hysterical.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” says Weasel, once the turkey has been defeated. “Yes. Commit me” answers Lisa.
Her mum heads upstairs to go to the toilet “Don’t let Devo up your bottom” yells Lisa after her.

BORING ‘N’ UGLY 8

OMG is that a clitoris?

Dec 7th

Esther brought up the small cock debate on the dog walk with Lisa today. “I was just being an evil bitch” says Lisa, “But Dom’s still got a big ‘un”.
Before I new that there were showers and growers (about 6 months ago to be precise) I had kind of resigned my self to having a smaller than average willy. 3 inches soft, 6 inches hard. A very mediocre improvement. Still it seemed to do the job (but it’s mostly unemployed).
As a virgin, I had avidly read the problem pages of FHM while I waited at the barbers.

“I was the only bloke in a college of 300 women” the hairdresser would boast as he chopped the hideouls marine cut I wanted at the time. He never said what that meant- so he learned how to apply fake tan like a pro?

‘Look at you now, the only manicured metrosexual in the village’ I should have said. Is 15 years too long for a comeback?

The French call it L’esprit d’escalier (the inspiration on the stairs, it comes to you after you’ve left like). With me it’s usually ‘the spirit of halfway along the trans-siberian express’.
“My boyfriend’s penis is so small that I can’t feel it inside me” one reader said. “He just sits at home and cries about it all the time” she concluded. Oh God, I thought, what if that’s my fate? A sad man growing old with his light permanently obscured by his bush(el)?
It reminds me of that joke “My wife’s so fat…she killed herself last week”.
My party trick, around 6am usually, is to strip off and walk around showing everyone who’s still awake everything I’ve got to show. (Not much according to Lisa). So whether they like it or not, pretty much all of my friends have seen my willy. So whether I am small or not should be a moot point by now.

Maybe it’s ok to have a small cock so long as you’re not afraid to show it?
In my head, that last line was spoken in the voice of Carrie from Sex and the City:
This is what I always heard when she spoke: “After all, aren’t we all just a bunch of privileged cunts wearing couture angst?” [meaningful silence]. Cut to credits.

Dec 9th
No lecture today- my tutor is protesting in London. The big kid. The only reason anyone goes to these protests is to take their anger out on Tescos and get their photo in the Independent. Did your dad cut your allowance? Go and join the demo. Did your girlf/boyf go off with a sexy activist? Go and smash a policeman’s face in and win them back. Don’t like politics or fashion? Join the Young Socialists. That’s the only reason I went to the Stop the War demo in 2003- for a party and something to do. Boredom not ideology drives our generation. Nothing better to do? Pretend to give a damn.

Who gives a shit- so what if the fees go up, it’s not like anyone will ever be earning £21K any time soon so it’ll never get paid back. You aren’t really expecting a good job as a result of your shitty paper certificate? Don’t be an idiot- it justs means you can afford a chip on your shoulder in the inevitable call centre where you end up, and have a higher class of daydream than the other school-leavers. “I could have been someone” moans Shane McGowan in Fairytale of New York, “Well so could anyone” comes Kirsty MacColl’s withering reply.

What’s in my head today: The Power by Snap: The Jim Carrey version: 

Just read this week’s Heat, my favourite magazine like ever. Thoughts: So Cheryl Cole is ‘torn’ between an ugly white man and an ugly black one. Maybe she only goes out with people who make her look better. And who won’t cheat. Why does Audrina Partridge look like her face is undergoing a landslide? In fact her whole body does too. Why are the best outfits always on the ‘What Were They Thinking‘ page?

Watching News 24. I wish the students would stop throwing things at police horses. It’s the people on top that they’re out to get. Imagine having a doughnut-filled bully boy on top of you, tensing his thigh muscles in anger as scrawny middle class dropouts get all hot headed and try to knock you over.
One student is interviewed “I paid £44 to get here today [have you never heard of a Student Railcard?], don’t get me wrong” he shouts at the top of his voice, “Clegg, you need to man up. You have 3 options, grow some balls and oppose it, abstain and you’re no man, or support it and be a dick” he bellows.
“YES!” shouts a neighbouring chav. Like he is ever going into Higher Education.

So Nick, did you get that; you can either have balls, or a dick or nothing; what do you choose?

"I want my balls back"

 

Dec 13th

“If I had turned out the way I should have, I would be making little cakes by now” says Lisa wistfully. “Instead I’m sleeping in and chain smoking”.
What did I want to be? What should I have become? I’m just glad I’m still here, what with my predisposition for falling over, indecision, and sudden fits of recklessness, I could have been a quadraplegic by now. The spine is so fragile I think, what a stupid design. Sometimes when I sit with my arm round Esther, I think ‘a quick twist and she’s dead’, and I have to sit on my hands for a while.

My mother once revisited her youthland and found an old woman staring at her like she’d seen a ghost. She approached her quizzically. “I’m sorry dear”, said the crone, “but I remember you, and I never thought you’d survive into adulthood”. No further explanation was offered, and the woman drifted back to her shopping.

The benefits of a healthcare system are that evolution is frozen- the weak and the frail get to live out their lives in an artificially safe environment. Instead of the old dying and making way for the young, they hang around- it’s not unusual to have the choice of grandparents or great-grandparents for babysitters.

It must come as a shock when you suddenly stop being young and realise that you’re ONE OF THEM- a fogey, a biddy, a dirty old man. I can feel it, coming in the air tonight…

I have the sudden desire for an enema in time for Christmas.

BORING AND UGLY seven

Dec 3rd
“You must never give a cockatoo an avocado. It kills them”. This is Lisa’s pearl of wisdom for the day.
Esther’s grandmother rang this morning to say she has had her shopping delivered. It seems to consist mainly of carrots and bags of salt. Apparently she asked all her neighbours for the same food just in case anyone couldn’t get it. They all got it for her.
“Devo was desperate for chocolate last night because I had a Gü™ mousse, and I looked up and he was frothing at the mouth in lust. I felt so bad I gave him a fingerful.” Lisa confesses. No it’s not a euphemism.
“Why is it that dogs like chocolate so much when it could kill them?” I say. “It’s just like our generation with drugs and booze. We love it but it’s lethal.” I add.
We are discussing the film we saw last night: She’s Outta My League. They had a rating system to measure looks out of 10. The hottie is “a hard 10” and the nottie is “a hard 5”. You can only jump up 2 points apparently. The nottie bags the hottie because he is a nice guy. Bullshit.

“I wanna be judged by them,” moans Lisa, after having picked her face red raw.

“No you wouldn’t” says Esther, “We’d be a hard 1.5”

“No” whines Lisa, “I’d be a sexy older woman”
“That’s exactly what I don’t want to be: older and sexy and a woman” Esther says. “Plop” she adds.
End of conversation. Whenever she doesn’t know what to say, Esther says “Plop!” as many times as is necessary until the other person goes away. Once in this case.

"Don't go to the toilet, I need you..."

“I love you darling,” I say
“Get away from me you freak” Esther says. She reacts violently when she thinks I’m being clingy.It seems this is most of the time.

 

Dec 4th
I was walking past some shops the other day and I thought ‘wouldn’t it be weird if you got sucked into the head of each person you walk past and see the world through their eyes. Like this lonely asian man delivering takeaway, or the cheery chavvy woman who belatedly answers the door’. But then I realised, oh yeah that’s what empathy is.

"Look at them all laughing at us!"

I only went out with my first girlfriend because she looked like Isabel from Belle and Sebastian. Well you would, wouldn’t you. And because we were the only people left when the Leadmill lights came on at 2am. But like all fantasies (and vampires..hmm), she disappeared in daylight.

She slept in her knickers and it never occured to me to try to get into them. Well it did, but I was too much of a nice guy (girlspeak for ‘loser’. Too much of a clueless virgin is nearer the truth) to get hot and horny with her. I thought, if she wants it, she will let me know. High five, Germaine Greer.

"Nice One"

It was only relatively recently that I realised rape fantasy (Note to Self: tread carefully), or at least enjoying the muscly advances of alpha males, is a crucial part of a typical woman’s sexual fantasy. That I didn’t try to have sex with her just told her I was a brother not a lover.
Once, we were walking down the road holding hands and she said “Look, over there! Those firemen are laughing at us”. I searched the landscape for emergency service hilarity and came up blank. She was a mess. I spot people laughing at me all the time, but they are actually there. I think.
Anyway, we met up after she had been away for the weekend. I had been thinking of her longingly every other second. It turns out that she hadn’t. As my hand brushed her back, it stiffened, like an arachnophobe feeling the tickly feather feet of a family of spiders.

“I went to my parents and I didn’t thinkabout you once the whole time I was there”.

Marvellous. Back to the barren world of the undesirable singleton. Oh joy. Another 6 months till someone takes pity on me.
Was it all a dream- would I wake up, dribbling onto Isabel’s lovely photo-face as I clutched ‘The Boy with the Arab Strap’ to my skinny, lovelorn chest? Was it fuck.

Journal of mental illness

It has taken me 15 years to realise that the nest of vipers that constitute my thoughts are not normal or healthy and in fact other people seem to be able to get through life being happy and confident without being plagued with doubt .
Over the past 2 years I have diagnosed as a ‘mild obsessive compulsive with social anxiety and depression’. This is starting to make sense.
I am currently being referred for Body Dysmorphia Syndrome, and this will be another label for the mess in my head.
I have tried antidepressants (Sertraline), counselling and a beginner course in CBT. The drugs made me feel numb and then worry about feeling numb. The counselling was kind of good, I got to confess all my guilty thoughts but they always came back and so I seemed to always be epxressing the same feelings every week, no matter how well I became at articulating them and rationalising them.
CBT has had the biggest effect because it has made me dare to do things that I hadn’t realised I was avoiding. But my therapists were trainees and were learning on the job.
My main problem is that I feel hideously ugly most of the time, apart from when I feel absolutely gorgeous. I have no middle ground, and I never forget what I look like. Other people can live in the moment and just BE, but I am unrelentingly self-conscious, I never give myself a break.
I think it started when I was bullied at primary school for being a swot and taller than everyone else, and for not really caring about what was cool….
to be continued