This is hell and I am in it

Hello all.

I've just been drinking with my gay husband John in the local we have been frequenting since we were 17. They ID-ed me in there which I was very proud of (I've been being ID-ed fairy regularly since I've been back, it's my Asian haircut- SCORE!) Still, it's hard for me to raise a positive mood. I'm just out for dinner with my friend Claire in approx 10 mins so may have more alcohol to improve my mood, I never released just how drunk one had to be to cope with Welling. No wonder I didn't have to drink so much in HK.

Having said that though, on the way to the New Cross Turnpike to meet John I passed the Embassy Court building site and there was a workman there of such fitness my entire lower body contracted then released. What was that phrase Lola uses? Fanny gallop. PHWOAAAAAAR! Was he fit! Not that I'd know what to do anymore. Having been in HK for so long I think I can only communicate with gay men, women or children. Hot men who may or may not fancy me are beyond my experience.

PAH! I will write more coherantly when I sober up, I promise but for now, please try to imagine my life, sexual and general frustration. I NEED A JOB! I NEED SOME FUN! I'M RUNNING OUT OF MONEY AND ALL THE PUBS SMELL OF STALE BEER AND OLD MEN!

I am taking the green tea my mum profers then fucking off to Pizza Express with Claire. More ranting anon.

Horribly Ever After

I’ve just finished watching an episode of ‘Don’t Tell the Bride’ on BBC3. I clicked it on merely for some background noise while I was pissing about on the net, then I got sucked in by the potential for a bride vs. groom bust-up; he picked a plain dress and it turned out she wanted something more chavvy. However, by the end of it I had a little tear in my eye. Not because I had any particular affection for the over-tanned bottle blonde bride or her slightly effeminate-looking dented David Beckham-esque groom, no it’s merely because I’d been thinking about weddings a little recently, what with friends who are soon to marry, friends who’ve been married while I’ve been away and one friend who just celebrated her 9th wedding anniversary!

And though I can look at these friends and seen obviously, plainly that their marriages work, and that they work so well together, for me, it’s like watching life occurring on another planet. I KNOW they are happy and I KNOW they are all made for each other but despite this glaring evidence in favour of the institution of marriage my subconscious refuses to believe it works. It’s like when I try to explain to my mother that no one can see her through the toilet window unless A) they are on a ladder one floor up and peering in deliberately or B) what Mr. Stelling taught me in physics was completely wrong and light can in fact bend round corners.

But it makes no difference, she still pees with the light off and I still, when seeing people in happy relationships fail to register that this is reality. Over and over I can witness these relationships working but the message that speeds from my eyes seems to make no impact on the section of my brain marked ‘Love, Relationships and Happiness Therein’. That section is occupied by lots of skinny, black-clad chain smokers, who have desultory hate-sex with each other while ‘Closer’ plays on a continuous loop in the background. If a fluffy bunny hops in with good news from the outside world they bludgeon it.

And on those wedding programmes, they’re always crying at the appropriate moments, sappy music tinkling away in the background. And so comes the pressure to make real life the same, as though everyone lives in some frigging rom-com. Well movie moments don’t work for me. As I’ve learnt this year, the moments you should cry, you won’t cry. The moments you should feel, you won’t feel. And why feel anything if it’s just going to set you up for a fall? Because the second you start believing in that sort of shit is the second it starts creeping up behind you to bite you on the ass.

I know, I’m a cynic. A black-hearted, mean, dead-on-the-inside cynic. But you know what really, really pisses cynics off? When some arsehole, some total, unoriginal, dickweed bumwipe simpers “Oh, when you meet that right man, you’ll fall in love and then you’ll feel different”

NO! No, I will not Pollyanna! This is all my own mental fuck-up, thank you very much. I am the one who needs to sort myself out, via dating, or therapy or by smacking my head repeatedly in a car door. It’s not about meeting some Prince Charming who can suddenly blast away my cynicism and melt my cruel, cold heart. He’d need a nuclear fucking bomb, not a diamond ring.

I’m a free woman on a great adventure and therefore in control of my own destiny. So I’m the one who has to sort things out, and risk getting hurt and yadda yadda yadda. A usually unwise suitor of mine once said that, with relationships, it’s better to risk getting hurt than to never know. He may have had a point on that one. But damn, doesn’t that sound like it sucks?

1 Week Today...

I have been very naughty with this blogging. Obviously, Jakarta and my flying visit to HK (where my laptop had a sad nervous breakdown) were my excuse for not writing everyday but now I’m back in England and have sod all else to do there’s plenty of time for typing up my inane stream of consciousness. You may get two today in order to make up for lost time or, equally likely, I may not post and instead lose the will to live sometime round Diagnosis Murder this afternoon.

I am being a little harsh on myself. I have only been back not quite a week and I am impatient to get my London life started once more. I was the same when I made it to Hong Kong; by day 5 I was annoyed at myself for not being a social queen with thriving hobbies and a packed diary. Instead I was eating supernoodles in my jammies and watching bizarre imported programmes on ATV, including Thomas the Tank Engine and a documentary narrated by Alan Titchmarsh.

Here of course I’m a bit luckier. I already have friends made in the classrooms, lecture halls and burlesque venues of London and had a lovely ‘Welcome Home’ dinner with some on Saturday. Caz cooked an all British menu (yummy soup, veggie bangers, mash, mushy peas and baked beans and treacle pudding and custard... I ate like a beast) which we washed down with copious glasses of Pimms. One fantastic thing about England is my capacity for boozing seems to be slowly returning. No migraines yet- hurrah!

Trouble is, though I am dying to get out and socialise the main problem is MONEY. I have very little, only the remnants of my HK bank account and it’s already diminishing. And, perhaps unwisely, I’m applying for an unpaid internship (thanks for putting me onto that one Debbie) which is AWESOME but, y’know, unpaid. They do give you your expenses, obviously but if I did get it- oh, and I want it!- I wouldn’t be doing much partying over the next 3 months. Ideally I’d pick up a little something on a weekend to keep me in pocket money but we’ll see. Hmmm, maybe it is time to start up that dominatrix business I’ve always wanted. But I fear I am not ready. I’m still too nice sometimes and too evil at others so my clients would either end up huddled under a blanket with a cup of tea or huddled under a blanket dead.

I’m also going to be applying for a whole lot of other stuff too- all with an eye as to what looks good when I apply for my M.Phil within the next year or so. I need to get back in gear, get to the gym, start Alexander technique classes (to stop my chest fucking with my posture), oooh and I need decent bras, I want to start lindyhop, I need to catch up with everyone, must save some money... Dammit, I hate life being on pause!

As I final note I should just say that when I was coming to the end of my time in HK, and then in Jakarta, I couldn’t wait to get home for some relaxation time. Ah, nothing to do. But now, AAAAAAGH NOTHING TO DO!

Today I am: Loving the smell of toast- toast not cooked in a sieve over a hob!, waiting for the CV Centre to send me back my CV- come on bastards you’ve had it for 11 hours, drinking green tea, looking forward to dinner with Claire on Thursday as it’s the one social event I can afford this week.

I know what’s good for you; I know you’re dying to...

It was when I was in Singapore airport that I thought I’d finally cracked the point of boyfriends. As a resolutely single girl for almost all of my twenties I had things neatly divided. Fun, emotional support, someone to hang out with and relieve loneliness, depression or boredom, well this is what friends are for. Sex, now there’s where men can be useful. But any of the other stuff? Nah. As I always say, why go out on a date with some stranger when you can have dinner with people you actually know and like and then go have sex with some random eejit afterwards?

But... as you know a slow change in my attitudes has happened over the past few years. I think I just reached my own personal saturation point when it came to shagging eejits and now think it would be quite nice to have sex with someone I actually respect and like as a human being. Could be waiting for a while on that one though.

And of course, my twenties weren’t entirely emotion-free. There was a relationship at the beginning that was perfectly lovely, if doomed, and of course there have been my random deep, dark obsessions. These were ideal for me, full as they were of exquisite pain that made me feel I was in Wuthering Heights instead of just pissing my life away in the cheap dives of London, with their sticky floors and musty aromas of stale beer. Surely if there was all this agony and drama it must all be frightfully important? Life or death, true love or madness? But no. Like Titania, I was just falling for asses.

Which brings me back to Singapore. I had a 6 hour stop-off, it was 1am and I was bored and sleepy but couldn’t get comfortable on the stupid metal chairs, bolted far enough apart so that bits of my anatomy kept falling between the gaps. Then the drilling started. At night, they dismantle all of Singapore airport and rebuild it again just for fun and the hammering keeps frequency with the heartbeat pounding through the veins in your head. I tried pulling my blankie up over my ears (Yes, I am 29 and have a blankie, I’m not ashamed) but every gnaw of the drill made it through to stab me in the temple. And then I got it; a boyfriend would make this situation so much better! He could distract me by whispering dirty things in my ears and I wouldn’t even hear the drill! He’d be warmer than the blanket and I could concentrate on the sexy lips, messy hair, someone who made me laugh. Yeah, I get it.

Then I found the fish spa and forgot the boyfriend.

That could be one blog in itself but I’m not quite done yet, sorry. There’s a postscript.

I was having a sort through of some of my old stuff today. I found some old diaries and sat down to read. Mostly they were stupid, and I could laugh at myself as we always can at our past incarnations who were obviously much more clueless than our oh-so-smart present selves. I was reliving all the deep, dark obsessions, the confusion, bewilderment, the crying, the wondering why. Even though it hurt so much can I really leave that behaviour behind for, what? Someone who loves and respects me and wants to stay in with wine and DVDs. Where’s the edge? No bittersweetness. No scratch of brick against my back. If it’s not hurting it’s not working.

Shit, I always get like this when there’s nothing going on in my life. Get me a job, a purpose and something to do quick, or avert my eyes from the asses.