Wishlist

* Smaller feet
* Bigger cock
* Smaller nose
* Bigger eyes
* Smaller waist
* Bigger tolerance in general. Patience, I suppose. I wish I had more patience.
* Less ginger. In fact, I wish I had darker hair, so I'd blend in with the rest of humanity.
* And while I'm at it, darker skin. I wish I could tan.
* Which in turn, meant I sweated less. I wish I had a higher tolerance for dripping like a snapped tap after a short three minute walk.
* Less fear. I wish I was absolutely fearless.
(* Sad male addendum: And rock hard, like Bruce Lee twinned with a Sherman fucking tank)
* More confidence. As fear, but somehow more positive.
* Less guilt. I wish I lived life drinking from its cup, instead of feeling guilty about absolutely everything.
* A womaniser. Sorry, but I wish I could pile through women like syphilis in a brothel.
* Charismatic? I'm clutching at straws now, but I'd like an almost hypnotic charisma, and engaging witty banter. Basically I'd like to be the bastard child of Dave Allen and Peter Ustinov, with Peter Cook as Godfather.
* Sexual mystique. I want what Sean Connery had, without the wife-beating and being Scottish.
* Yeah, okay, good looks. I admit I haven't fucking got it.
* A genuine, positive love of life, and people, and everything. Just this sheer vivacity, and joy, and happiness for being alive and sentient, right here, right now.


Actually, fuck that guy. He sounds like the worst kind of unbearable cunt.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Edit :- I'm tagging people, except I'm not going to do it at all, because I'd feel guilty about anyone I'd left off.
So if you're reading this and you want to write your own *you* wishlist, then comment and leave a link to your blog. Yes, that'll do. All-inclusive, yet lazy at the same time.

Probing Myanus

All things considered, it wasn't the best start to my week, lying on my side as a man with an enormous moustache rammed his finger into my arse.

I'd finally snapped a few days ago, deciding one afternoon as I ambled nervously towards the toilet that I simply couldn't take any more anal Russian Roulettes, and booked myself into a humiliating first visit to my new doctor.

Having never met said doctor before, I was hoping for an ageing and indifferent GP; a cantankerous old bastard so inured to life's ailments, who'd seen more arseholes than an LA barmaid, that he could happily be wrist deep inside a weeping, trembling rectum whilst thinking about nothing else but cricket.

As it was, I got the next best thing; a cheerful, middle-aged Indian with a moustache so thick and lustrous that it felt as if I'd been transported back to the Victorian age to see the best practitioner in the Raj.

I didn't realise he was more like Freddie Mercury until after he did what he did.

The doctor asked me what was wrong, and I approached the subject tentatively. I knew this was going to ruin someone's day and to be perfectly honest, at that stage I still wasn't sure whose. But he didn't blink when I told him. He was like some kind of doctor. I'd spent the better part of eight months shitting either cactii or bricks (the bricks being preferable as they didn't cut me up on their way out). If I looked uncomfortable admitting that, the doctor looked positively thrilled. I mean that. I told him the problem was my raw back passage and he practically clapped with glee as he stood up and told me to drop 'em.

"Oh christ," I thought as I lay on the examination table, the doctor jabbing at my bowels with ninja-like accuracy and asking if it hurt.
"Oof", I said. Actually "oof".
Plus my cock was out and he could see it.

Then he told me to roll onto my side.

"Here we go," I thought as I felt my cheeks being pulled apart and a finger - god, I hope it was a finger - prodding at the lower opening of my digestive tract.

"Does that hurt?", he asked again. By now I assumed he meant mentally, not physically.

"Yes, doctor. Very much so."

"Well blah blah blah!" he said as he cheerfully released my buttocks and trotted over to his table of gadgets. "Blah blah blah blah", he continued. I still have absolutely no idea what he said, as I was now in a very dark place and feeling more than a little vulnerable. All I wanted was his prognosis, and to get the fuck out of there.

Then it happened. No "Brace yourself!", not a damn bloody word, not that I was listening anyway. The doctor walked back to my prone body and rammed - rammed - his index finger, with not inconsiderable force, into my raw sphincter like a rat up a drainpipe.

"AARGH!" I screamed. And then he twisted it around as if I had an old dial-up phone wedged in my colon. "AAAARGH!"
I punched the wall.

"Well blah blah blah blah blah blah..." he continued as he walked over to the sink with all the air of a man who hadn't just inserted a digit into another man's rectum.

I hadn't expected that. The problem, after all, was on my outside. The doctor walked back to his desk as I pulled up my shorts and headed for the chair.

"I feel like I should buy you flowers now," I said in an attempt at brevity, but he just looked confused.

I remained pretty mute after that. Pretty mute as he scribbled down the name of a good laxative, pretty mute as I sat on the train staring at the other commuters and wondering whether they'd been violated that morning, pretty mute as I got to my desk with a finger-shaped cavity in my cavity.

None of it would matter quite so much if I had actually listened to his diagnosis. Instead I just felt dirty while the doctor looked really bloody pleased with himself.

Plus I'm not sure if he even wore gloves.


NEXT WEEK: I HAVE A DATE LINED UP, AND I'M SCARED.

The Grateful Apology

Right, let's get straight to the point: I'M SORRY. That's to anyone who's still around reading this thing: I'M REALLY VERY SORRY.

It's hard not to be introspective when writing a "blog" about "yourself", but bloody hell, what the fuck has been wrong with me??

I've just re-read the last few months of posts - something I never do - because I haven't written for a while and I wanted to get reacquainted... and I've found myself shocked at the uncensored, self-absorbed navel gazing; moreover the months of endless, unmitigated misery.

I didn't recognise myself. I sounded almost suicidal. I remember being advised to seek therapy and, at the time, thinking that was a bit of a harsh response, but now I understand why it was suggested. So thank you, all of you, and apologies again. Looking back - literally - I can see why it looked as if I was cracking up, predominantly because I was.

So I went on this diet, of which I'm still on, and fully intend to remain on more or less forever. It's pretty sensible, based on a little more fruit and veg in my life, and a little less Ben & Jerry breakfasts, elephant-sized packs of Doritos, and 18" pizzas as an amuse-bouche that preceeds a fish and chips main course.

The difference between this diet now, and every single diet I've ever done in my entire life, is that I accept that it's not so much a diet as 'The Norm'. Prior to this, my food intake was not dissimilar to a drug addict on a binge, where the narcotic of choice happens to be crap processed food, abused on a daily basis.

Said crap food became its own salesman too, promoting itself once it was digested and I felt shitty again and needed cheering up once more. In fact, it's only occurring to me now that my diet has probably been more responsible than I care to realise for my endless funk (which is not a good place, outside of discos).

Things came to a head when, eventually, I felt I had no choice in this anymore; that I either snapped out of this bullshit and took control of things, or else remained miserable, writing Woe-Is-Me posts, and wondering why that blonde on the train keeps avoiding eye-contact with frowning Fatcunt.

This book has helped me immeasurably: Overcoming Weight Problems using cognitive behavioural techniques, and I strongly recommend it for anyone who has struggled to lose weight, particularly using just good old willpower and lettuce.

I've given up smoking using similar techniques (in that instance, Allen Carr's EasyWay), which also, essentially, bypasses sheer force of will (which will only ever last as long as can be hacked) and replaces it with your own logic and common sense.

So in a nutshell, that's it. Sorry. And no more misery. It's too miserable.

Besides, I think I'm getting happy.

And yes, personally, if this still lasts come winter, then I'll be impressed. I should also be thinner, and possibly even having sex.

That's right, I said it: Sex.

Rage State

So I'm on a diet. It's been two days. And it's boring. This is The Diet though - at least I think it is ~ the Big Kahuna, the Long Kiss Goodnight, the Cappo di Tutti Weightloss.

And it's weird, because it doesn't feel like the All Guns Blazing assaults of old. Rather this is the tired, grim resignation that I've gotta sort this shit out, and before it's too late.

You see for quite some time now (i.e. every fucking day), I've been sensing that I'm Missing Life - I'm capitalising that because I'm aware that 'Missing Life' simply is my life now; biding my time, complaining a lot, and waiting for something better to just happen. As a result waiting's all I ever do, and I do it listlessly. Whatever I'm waiting for, like tomorrow and a girl I once dated, it never comes. So I keep waiting. And I don't do anything. And I don't affect change. I just remain in limbo.

And that's a ridiculous way to exist.

I've been thinking about the trajectory I'm on, and it scares the living shit out of me. Somehow, it's given me foresight. Without any change - I'm sure - I'm guaranteeing myself just more of the same. And then I'll die.

Hurrah! Funpost.

Needless to say, I don't want that. I really, really, really don't want that, and as someone who seems unable to know what it is that I want, it's nice for once to have the certainty of knowing what I don't want, in a million, billion suns. And that's my current existence, with its lack of excitement, and direction, or exit.

But it is the easy route though, the lazy route, the path of least resistance with its HD TV promises and cheese-covered loneliness, the road to a billion wanks in the dark with a gut full of chocolate.

It was an anonymous commentator on my last post that finally got me thinking. He, probably a he but I suppose maybe a she, wrote that I should "get into a rage state, look at myself and say fuck this, ive wasted enough time," and I like that. Mainly, I like Rage State, particularly as I get those on a daily basis. The absurdity is that they're always via mundane things out of my control, like the tourists who'd stopped to listen to their guide yesterday, blocking off the entire pavement for pedestrians called Me. And on the train home this evening, I had to sit arm-to-arm against a behemoth of a man who occupied all his seat and half of mine, whilst giving a full job description to whoever was on the end of his phone, causing me to stop reading my book so I could flare my nostrils and stare intently at my shoes.

That shit gets me into rage states all the time. It envelopes my world and gives me focus to live. It's negative as hell, but it keeps my fat corpse standing. I could focus that vast reservoir of energy into self-improvement but I don't. I never have. Instead, I just get stressed, allow that tumour in my head to grow, and eat the pain away.

I checked out my BMI this afternoon. It transpires that I'm obese, and I didn't even know it; a sizable 8lbs in the over overweight zone. And that didn't do my fragile ego any good at all.
Then I read the disclaimer that the index can "wrongly suggest fatness in people who are athletic or muscular". That bit, I liked, even though I'm neither, just stocky.
Yet despite this my ego rose up to middling.

So my diet started yesterday. It didn't feel like a diet because I ended the evening stuffing huge wraps of bread down my yaphole, a technique I like to call "Eating the Evidence" as I'd forgotten to consume it during my Sunday night junk food feeding frenzy.

This morning, I decided to bin the remaining wraps.

So it's Day Two, and it's about time I did this. And when I fuck up - and I will fuck up - I'll just get back on it the next day.

Primarily this is going to be for the next two or three months, to shed a couple of stone and get my confidence back. But in the long term, I'm trying to adjust my thinking, and my habits. Because I have to do this for life.

Of course, only time will tell just how full of shit (or not) I actually am, but I know I can't go on like this. I'm now the wrong side of my Thirties. I haven't had sex in four years. I'm single-handedly ruining the best years of my life - you know, the ones where my knees still work and all bones are my originals. Plus I want to write. I want to write and be creative for a living. I can't do an office desk job dealing with customers much longer.

I'd like muscle definition and a decent career by year's end.

Failing that, I'll accept filthy, random sex. That would be a good enough consolation price.

More Of The Same

When I was a teenager and I used to moan to my Mum about needing to diet for the five billionth time, or else I was bitching about school/ college/ work or the lack of a good woman in my putrid fucking life, she’d roll her eyes and sing Sinatra's "I've heard that song before."

Don’t ask me why.

Point is, I clearly complain a lot - and normally about the same old shit.
But I still need to go on a diet.
And my job sucks.
And I really need a girlfriend, but I'm getting increasingly shyer/ fatter/ older.

And for added decoration, since turning 36 and thus the wrong side of my Thirties and nearer my Forties, some kind of switch has flicked in my head. You see, I always used to console myself that things can get better, that we are the author of our own destinies plus something will always turn up, but as time passes and we get older and the positivity begins to fade, I’m beginning to think that all that might be some huge preposterous lie.

If only I had kids, I’d be living my now dead dreams through them.
But, oh yeah, I don’t.

Frankly, I’m just getting too old for this. I can’t help but notice, as all my friends plead Marriage and Children as reasons why we don’t keep in touch anymore, that everyone else is getting on with their lives while I remain mired in situations that are frankly beneath me.

A while back, for example, my sister and nieces visited, when sister had to leave for ten minutes. Oldest daughter (12) went with her, while her youngest (9) stayed at my desk messing around on my computer (I logged her on as a guest, meaning she couldn’t access my filth, even if she tried). I, meanwhile, had a badly needed shower.

When I returned, my niece seemed frightened and muted, almost as if her very soul had been permanently scarred in the five minutes she’d been alone.

It was a week later when I opened a drawer at my desk, and found pornography I didn’t even know I had. Teens With Tits 4 was winking up at me, bold as brass, with a less-than-subtle picture of a spit-roast just in case the title wasn’t specific enough. Sadly, my youngest niece is the cheeky, drawer-spying type. I know she’s seen it and I haven’t seen or heard from them since.

This wouldn't have happened if I was married, and with a proper job.

Neither would I be getting drunk. Age is making the whole process feel, I dunno, unbecoming, or something. Maybe it's not even age, but situation. Living a mid-Thirties existence that's virtually identical to my student years doesn't exactly make me feel like a grown up, particularly when I'm waking up with a hangover and a sense of dread, like I stripped naked on the train home or danced on a pub table or something. The reality is never quite that bad, although I’m clearly giving off vibes of total desperation. Last night, I went out for a drink with Martin, and found myself accosted by a group of proselytising Christians. I refused to answer honestly when they asked if there was anything I wanted praying for (I pretended to think for a bit then said, “Nope, everything’s great”), and found myself smiling politely when a nervous young woman laid a meek hand on my fat shoulder and asked her friend Jeffrey or someone to come into my life and give me a great big spiritual hug forever.

I was very touched on a metaphorical level, even if it was all pointless in reality. I also decided against telling them I’m an atheist Jew.

After being prayed upon, I asked if she could help "The man downstairs", but she looked at me quizzically and asked if I was joking. Martin then walked back upstairs from the toilets and scowled at them, and they all left.

Ten minutes later, we walked outside and got accosted by a different group with the same conversion tactic. Either the local church was on a promotional tour, or I looked really needy. I actually think it was the latter.

Things are so bad, that a friend of mine wants me to go to therapy. I’m really struggling against it. It’s like Martin’s suggestion yesterday that I buy myself a hooker for the night. Both options feel like an admission of defeat somehow.

Tonight, I went to a radio scriptwriting seminar with Ed. Then we went to the pub and had beer. In both locations, I was hoping to just bump into Her, The One, the future Mrs Ebola, but if she was around this evening, she chose to display her interest by avoiding eye contact, or scowling.

Fuck me, something outta change. This is boring enough to write. Christ alone knows what it must be like to read yet more depressing angst every other week.

Tschh.

Sweat

Just in case anyone's panicking that my life seems to be going well, don't worry; everything's absolute atrophying shit.

Most unpleasant is the overwhelming feeling of loneliness and isolation I've now got in my lovely new flat with friends who can't commit to come over.

Another couple however were coming to visit a few days ago, but oh brilliant! - I felt somewhat out of sorts on Friday afternoon, and went home from work only to spend the entire bank holiday weekend either shivering and wrapped up in a duvet, or else sweating like a thieving royal in a newspaper sting. And that's all I've done. I've not left my flat for three days. I haven't even opened the blinds. I've hardly eaten - which means I'm definitely ill. All I've been doing is sleeping, or sweating to Sky Fucking TV, meaning I'm slowly turning into a moron. I knew this was happening when I found myself riveted about a possum stuck down a drain.

I'm basically turning into one of those men that when my neighbours are interviewed by the news once the bodies are discovered, they'll rightly be able to claim, "He was a bit of an odd-ball".

But even without Manflu, my self-esteem over the last few weeks has been pretty dented. In fact, it's been imprisoned in an Austrian cellar by my lack of dignity and raped lots of bad vibes into my flat, and I'm struggling to keep my spirits up.

Again.

Basically, I removed my Indifferent Ex-Girlfriend from Facebook, and have been disappointed to see in the three weeks that have passed that she hasn't noticed, or couldn't care less. Frankly, either scenario really depresses me.

The only time where I felt alive recently was at a brilliant houseparty that was full of beautiful South American women. I talked to several who were good enough not to scream back in terror. By the time I left however, I was informed that one - since gone - was "Desperate for a shag, just at that particular moment, for one night only", and I had allegedly been in her sights. She had breasts and a pulse and everything. More in keeping with my success rate however, I spotted the last girl I'd been talking to in floods of tears by the time I said my goodbyes; probably relief that El Diablo was leaving.

And finally, I went to a barmitzvah which was loads of fun as my sister's going through a messy divorce, forcing me onto 'Brother-In-Law Watch', just in case he went ape-shit crazy or somesuch. I was even asked to be on standby to accost him if need be.
As it turned out, he was fine, but I wound up sweating profusely as I found myself in a room full of people I haven't seen for a good 15 or 20 years and, well, it transpires that I've turned shy. I think this is because I've got fatter, I'm 36 and still single, and I'm paranoid that everyone's judging me and assuming I'm gay. I'm also no great success in the career and general life department, so I had nothing to offer but awkwardness and sweat, forcing myself to be unnaturally polite which was at odds with my default position of offensive drunk.

You think with all this sweating, I'd have really good skin.

Coming up next: My inevitable suicide.

Work Shmirk

Perhaps I'm naive. Maybe I'm really an optimist. But deep down, I knew this moment would come. I even thought of killing off this blog as, well, buying New Place and waving goodbye to rented cesspits seemed like some kind of end-of-an-era, but it isn't. It really so fucking absolutely isn't.

The fact remains, as I marched into work this morning, that I don't want to do my job anymore. The new commute has been strangely exciting these last couple of months; catching trains instead of tubes, seeing slight different miserable faces every morning, walking to my desk from a different direction, but it's all largely bollocks ~ fripperies to make me forget that I really don't dig what I do.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not above working for a living. I'm not even sure I'd know what to do if I didn't have to. I couldn't just do nothing after all, but life's gotta be about quality, and getting out what you put in. Yet all my jobs have felt mandatory, shackle-y, rendering them all just a notch above a prison sentence with a pay packet attached.

I guess whatever I used to find rewarding about my job just isn't there anymore. You could teach a chimp to slam its fists into a keyboard and pick up phones and it could do what I do. Probably better, too.

I now despise phones to such a degree that I barely recognise myself. I hate mobiles because the voice on the other end is very rarely clear and unbroken, and unless that voice is coming out of some Amazonian goddess you'd met a few nights earlier, chances are you're going to have a very frustrating conversation. And I hate regular phones too because 9 times out of 10 at my work, it's going to be someone who wants, nay, expects you to drop everything you're doing and start helping them, because THAT'S THE KIND OF JOB I'VE GOT.

I'll be sat at my desk trying to wade through spreadsheets, preparing quotes, invoicing clients and so forth when the phone'll just ring, completely unannounced, totally at random. And you'll have to trust me on this...

... sometimes, when it rings, I can actually feel my heart sink.

And these people, our customers, scoff at the prices I give them.
Or they 'tut' when their goods aren't in, and start asking me difficult questions like, "When will it arrive, then?"
But normally, they'll just place an order and describe items in the vaguest possible terms, meaning I have to back up my spreadsheets, stop working on quotes, and drop invoicing clients because the guy on the other end of the phone wants "what I normally get", forcing me to wade through all their previous orders in a verbal version of pin the tail on the donkey.

And I know I'm in a bad way because I can normally put enough 'chipper' into my voice so they never really know that I want to pick-axe their heads.
But lately it's all I can do to sigh, and grunt in monotone. I can't be bothered to disguise my frustration anymore, to the extent that a couple of customers now refuse to speak to me. My boss has even dropped hints that I look for work 'nearer to home', as if I've moved to the Outer Hebrides or something.

But this is old news. And it scares me. Because I haven't moaned about work in a looong time. I had a completely different post planned, a roller-coasting one with barbecues and South American women and sweating visibly during awkward family situations but instead this happens, and I'm bitching about work.

So please leave a comment if your day job sucks, because if there's one thing I love, it's a whinge shared.

Man On The Verge Of A... Not Much Really

There's something about living alone that's rendered doing anything so damn difficult. For starters, not coming home to a Large Northern Flatmate watching TV on a cheap sofa means I can jump onto my flash cosy one and do likewise ~ It also means I don't get any creative writing done as I used to with my evenings back in Chiswick (or at least that's how I'm choosing to remember it).

Not having another human being sharing my living space, whilst utterly blissful, is also slightly bizarre, as it sets the scene for a nice spot of mad loneliness to enter stage left; a bit of talking to myself here and there, and a spot of not leaving the flat as I'm too apathetic to amble around a park/ catch a movie/ grab a coffee on my own. (And whilst I've apathetically not done any of the latter, the former has, thus far, been so far a few world-weary sighs, and - and I remember this quite clearly - an "Oh God" on my birthday evening as I crawled into my cold bed alone.

My birthday itself, well that was a washout as it was a Wednesday and I'd kept it to myself, which proved to be a little dumb for a sensitive little sausage like me, which is why I found myself sending an emergency party email on my iPhone (now dropped so often that I haven't been able to turn it off - one month now, and counting.) I sent it to some half a dozen friends who I thought would likely be in central London on Friday.

It ended up being just me, and Martin.
My Fridays are always just me, and Martin.
Don't get me wrong, because I enjoyed it. As I said to Martin at the time, at least we got to catch up - again - and had some quality time - again - instead of some lousy larger event with more of my friends all out in one place together.

And a week on as I type, I still haven't heard back from a couple of my oldest, dearest friends to say that they can't actually make it. Not even a Happy Birthday.
Nothing.

Cunts.

Other than that, things are fine and I'm settling in to my new rut nicely. I'm getting used to the commute and its reassuring daily certainties; leaving my flat bang on 7:50am and walking to the train station past the frightening tiny schoolgirl with the head of a 40-year-old (on her shoulders that is, not in a bag, or anything).
Sharing the platform with a man who walks like a duck.
Walking to work and passing a young blonde, angry of face, sturdy of thigh, and heaving of breast.
And getting roundly ignored.

And then getting on with that job I've been doing for nearly five years, that job that even my boss is hinting I pack in for something "nearer to home", that job that is starting to get annoying again, now that the deviation of buying my own place has come to its natural conclusion.

So things look like they're getting back to normal.

Next Week: My exciting weekend self harming in a darkened room as the eerie silence is broken by weak croaks of 'Why???', until I remember I can bring some sunshine into my decaying existence with eight-and-a-half minutes of frenzied self-love thanks to a wardrobe full of porn, an industrial-sized bucket of moisturiser and a towel, leading inexorably in one direction; more sobbing as my balls empty and hot tears roll down my face with the intensity of a thousand suns.

It Was My Birthday And I'll Bitch If I Want To

It was my 36th birthday yesterday and, despite my best intentions, I couldn't help feeling profoundly, utterly wretched.

I went to work as normal, and kept my mouth shut. I didn't want to broadcast the fact that I was entering the wrong side of my Thirties, and I didn't much care for the fuss. It was, after all, a bit of a nonsense; just a man-made calendar-based anniversary of my birth, hardly an achievement, nothing to write home about and celebrate.

So I went to work like any other day and answered the phones like normal.

And served customers like normal.

And queried my colleagues about mundanities like normal.

Meanwhile, I kept an eye on damn Facebook. My ex-girlfriend (American) bizarrely celebrates her birthday the same day as me, as she's exactly a year younger. She was getting inundated with 'Happy Birthdays' and 'Congratulations' on her spurious achievement of ageing one year.

I, meanwhile, received not a word. Not from her, who undoubtedly knew it was my birthday as well, not even from my sister who lives only on Facebook and where we conduct our fragile relationship as she won't talk to me otherwise.

But I was now 36 dammit, and above such fripperies.

Then I remembered the email I sent ex-girlfriend (American) the day before. Yes, I didn't mention 'Birthday' or indeed 'Happy', but I did allude to our upcoming anniversaries in my own stupid way as I sent her a cute, personalised Swedish meme currently doing the rounds.

'Oh yeah,' I recalled. 'She still hasn't replied to that. Must be busy.'

I was getting tetchy as the day drew to a close. I hadn't received a single card, much less a present as, well, my family have been instrumental in helping me buy a flat and all that that entails, so the last thing I was expecting was just more gifts.

But something, anything, just a dumb little whatsit to make me feel the giddying thrill of blood coursing through my veins on my apparently special day, that would've been nice.

The day wore on. My phone rang. Blocked number. I answered it excitedly, only to discover an automated recording wanting me to rate the services of a broadband repair line.

So desperate was I for contact that I actually relished the attention - then felt really rather deflated when I accidentally cut it off.

I considered going to Waitrose and coming back with a big cake, but felt that was a bit pathetic.
"What's this in aid of?"
"It's my birthday."

So I checked into Facebook.

'Blah blah blah voting, blah blah blah taking the kids to school...'

Unable to stop myself, I updated my status which had previously been, 'I should probably go to bed', to 'Thank you all for your kind birthday wishes. Oh, wait, there haven't been any'.

This provoked at first a couple of insults. Then a small drip of genuinely nice "Happy birthdays," followed by a slightly larger drip of a few more.

It fed my soul as the work phone rang and a colleague mumbled something about pricecodes.

It was coming up to 5pm, when I made my excuses and left a bit earlier. Just the day before, I had phoned my Mum and asked her and my step-Dad out to dinner. Thank god I did, because it became the nearest to any kind of celebration.

We arrived at the restaurant. My sister was already there with her two girls, and I felt the tension dissipate as I had a couple of beers and opened my first cards. The waiters congratulated me on seeing them - one of whom wishing me 'everything my heart desires,' which I found to be both a little over the top, and desperately brilliant at the same time.

I stuffed my face and listened, with a grin, to a waiter ramble on about Chinese tea, and caught my sister silently judging me, I thought because she thinks I might be gay - as not much else explains turning 36 with the only hint of a woman being one who ignores me from over 4,000 miles away.

Pictures were taken - and annoyingly uploaded immediately onto fucking Facebook - where I looked massive. I tried not to think about all that extra weight being a colossal contributor to my lack of confidence in the lady-dating arena.

And then I went back to my flat, my lovely, new, empty, modern flat, where I'd never felt so alone in my life.

Comfort Zone

It's all I can do to sit here and not stare lovingly at my sofa as I type my first proper update from my now settled New Place.

Said sofa is in, ensconced opposite large new HD telly. I have broadband. All my furniture is bought, and I think it's safe to say I don't have to deal with any more estate agents, mortgage advisers, or solicitors.

All I have to do now is live, and I may start remembering again that I could do with a more exciting job. Oh, and a girlfriend.

But it's great being an adult. Frequent visitors may recall that this was what The Pit looked like, back in Chiswick...
























Now my bedroom looks like this...








































But the nicest thing about that bedroom is the fact that it's become just that, the place I go to at the end of the night to cry myself to sleep. Most of my time is now spent in the living room, pretending to write but instead surfing the net and staring occasionally at the sofa and wondering why I'm not lying across it in a drug cocktail fug...








































The irony though is that I'm not doing anything else; my friends are now spread across London including Large Northern (Ex-Flat)Mate, whom I've spoken to the most as he deals with the crippling depression of unemployment in another friend's house near where we used to live.

As for me, I'm skint, having spent all my money on things like cupboards and blinds and the like that's forced me to stay in all this weekend, but I was overwhelmingly overjoyed to discover on Saturday that my newest neighbour is a single (as in "Living Alone") young lady who is really very attractive. She is also doubtless dating some gormless meathead I've yet to see squeezing her arse in the lobby one morning.

Having said all that, we did exchange fattening cake products through the window as her guests hung out of hers, smoking. Nonetheless, Gorgeous Neighbour was careful never to rise above disinterest, something I'm very used to in attractive women.

So that's everything thus far and things seem to be going well, other than discovering that part of my new development has been given to the local council housing association.

While I don't wish to sound unkind towards the less well-off in society, I'm none too impressed that my neighbours and I have paid a fucking fortune to move in here, only to discover some places have been given to those on welfare, for free.

I don't want to sound elitist, but one such recipient of a brand new house may have been the young man who last week drove, tyres screeching, into my block and gave me evils as he turned at speed round the corner.

It may even have been him who wrote 'I was here 2010' in biro on the brand new carpeted corridor outside my front door.

Either way, it beats what was outside my Chiswick front door last year...

New Place: I Am A Bit Less Hateful Towards The Earth

I think it’s safe to say, 3 weeks into my move to New Place, that I’m relatively not unhappy.

It’s taken longer than I thought to settle in, but 4 Ikea visits later, my furniture’s all bought and built and fitted blinds now replace my temporary slabs of cardboard. My new HD TV arrived this morning, and my sofa’s coming in two day’s time - if, that is, they can fit the damn thing through the front door. I forgot to check that.

My broadband’s being connected this Thursday (this is being typed on Sunday for a Monday work upload when no-one’s looking), my telephone line’s finally in, and all the loose ends are finally tied up. Now I can stop to think in my lovely tiny flat with its brand new fixtures and fittings… and I’m bored. There is nothing left to do.

I can’t remember what I did at weekends at Old Place (otherwise known as Chiswick, corner of Goldhawk Road and the High Street, just opposite the now defunct VW showroom and above the chemists), but I think having a Large Northern Flatmate a mere yell away in the next room with an off-licence below us and Internet everywhere, I was covered for the most basic of non-isolated-feeling weekends.

Yet here, in Nameless New Place Nearish London, I had to go for a walk yesterday just to get out and feel some sun. I found a very pleasant park nearby, ruined by some teen scamps drinking lager and staring. Then I found myself in Sainsburys, toyed buying some Amaretto, and bought pizza and wine instead to consume in the dark.

In other terribly exciting developments over the last few weeks:

I sprayed some WD40 into the squeaky cupboard that houses my fridge. My food still smells of lubricant.

I instructed a friend to park in my allocated, numbered space that I don’t personally use as I sold my car 6 years ago. We returned to find a car blocking him in, with a neighbourly “Thanks, Dickhead” note on his windscreen by a man who thought that the space was his. (He’s since apologised.)

I left a friendlier note under my new neighbour’s door, as it transpires my bedroom wall, and thus my head and ears, are about 5 mil from the back of their washing machine which they’d ran ‘til midnight on a school night.

Some other new homeowner in this development is a selfish bastard. Some evenings, notably Friday or Saturday nights, I can hear the muffled slam of a front door around 1am, followed by heavy footsteps somewhere, followed by more door slamming. I have yet to hear yells but I did hear the hard, rhythmic thumps of someone demanding someone else shut the fuck up, which neatly demonstrates why I really, really, really love other people.

I now have Sky TV meaning I’ve recorded an overabundance of Family Guys and Frasiers. In fact, that’s all I seem to watch; that, an Australian Reality doc called Nothing To Declare, and Babestation for ten minutes once when I was drunk, although it’s utter shit.

I have also discovered a family of bats living in the eaves of the building, and a future mosquito hazard thanks to the central water feature of the development (which has currently gone green because the developers are still building and there’s no point dredging it until they’re done). Oh, there’s also the relaxing sound of hammering at 9am on weekends.

There will also be a gym ready for use in a month’s time, so I could potentially CHANGE MY ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE living here, but we’ll see. I’m well aware of this incredible opportunity I’ve been afforded, although I tend to fuck up things like incredible opportunities.

So there we go, my first update in New Place. I’ll have broadband at the end of the week, so expect plenty of lonely angst in the coming months.

Limbo

Internet being installed at my new flat approx last week in April.

Typing this out frantically at work.

Loving the new flat; shame about the lack of anything to sit on, and the cardboard covering over the windows in lieu of actual curtains.

Still not had sex yet.

Thanks for the hundreds of comments demanding an update.

(That was sarcasm. I've heard nothing.)

And now back to work :(

Deterioration

I am a disaster zone right now. In two days time, I will be driving the van home from work and lugging boxes of accumulated bullshit to my new home, but only if I can handle it.

The problem is, I'm deteriorating. I currently make Joe Merrick look sexy, providing he's been hosed down and crowbarred into a Ted Baker.

And yes, I'm aware he's dead.

And the Elephant Man.

I can't breathe very well; my nose is blocked. I have a sore throat, just a couple of weeks after I got rid of my last sore throat. I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and can't get back to sleep, and I'm going through those medicated balm tissues quicker than a Premiership footballer goes through dim orange women.

And last night, as I sat staring at the TV double-sneezing and with my left eye weeping, I noticed the (thankfully very weak) skin condition I've had for years on my knees and elbows starting to explore my calves and ankle regions.
I'm basically turning into a giant wart.

But it's - ugh - this throaty sinusey thing though. Somewhere up behind my nose and at the back of my throat is a sea of gunk, a bit like that underground river in Ghostbusters 2, except this is solid and not running as freely, and Dan Aykroyd hasn't fallen in it.

It's completely impervious to Lemsip, and it's itchy too, which is irritating as I can't quite reach in to scratch it.
I don't know, this is all like some kind of cold.

It's an odd one though, as I still have my sense of taste. It's like full-on illness, except just a notch below it, just one stage under 'Close The Door and Go To Bed', thus I get to go to work to cough and complain and eat shit sandwiches.

Oh yeah, and I have a painful mouth ulcer, not to mention a rectum that feels like a bleeding Hula-Hoop trying to pass a tank.

"Hello Doctor, please can you probe my anus?"

I think this is Zen, pissing on my housemove.

Fucking planet.

Pack Waitmove Thingy

My life is currently on hold as I wait to move house. I should be writing stuff, any stuff, but I can't. It's not in me. My mind is blank, my muse missing, presumed dead - at least until all this flat-buying nonsense is over.

I can't even come up with decent titles anymore.

But then, the theory goes, I'll be living in my own one-bedroomed bastard house flat with a greater sense of my own destiny, and all that writing 'n shit should just fly out of my head.

(Yes, I'm aware that it won't.)

Truth is, buying my own place, and fulfilling all those (admittedly tragic) fantasies about what sofa to own and what type of wood veneer I should get for my Ikea bookcase, is all rather fun and life-affirming. I got to measure the rooms up last week during the home tour, an event that half my family attended and where my sister mentioned to the site manager at least three times that she was my sister, presumably to prevent him from assuming that she might be romantically linked to the abhorration that is me.

I am used to women doing this.

I've already started packing, and slung out a worrying amount of pornography I forgot I had. I shall be borrowing the work van this coming weekend for the Big Push to a different part of London, seeing out my life alone as I cry into my Tesco's meal-for-ones. (This differs from my current life, where all my gluttony is conducted under the jealous gaze of Large Northern Flatmate. He'll be moving in with his girlfriend, telling me and moreover himself that it's only temporary, and it's absolutely not a commitment.)

But I am aware that all I'm doing now is counting down the days, and with a smile on my face. When things are this good, and when my work colleagues are commenting that I'm uncharacteristically happy for once, it's rather difficult to keep up a miserable and self-deprecating blog. (Oh, and hello colleague, by the way. I'm assuming you've found me due to my unfortunate habit of having a backlog of 'I Hate the Earth' headed emails visible at the exact moment you're looking over my shoulder at the work I'm not doing.)

But anyway, that's why there's been a lack of posts lately. Things are going okay. I can't write miserable and sucky during okays.

But thanks for all your comments. I will not be killing this blog just yet. After all, things are about to get very, very lonely, and I might just find myself with a whole raft of new shit to complain about.

I dunno. Consider yourselves lucky.

AD/BC

And to think I pride myself of being all zeitgeisty 'n stuff.

This is only, erm, six years old - an excerpt from AD/BC: A rock opera, a parody of Jesus Christ Superstar with a bunch of my favourite comedians. No idea it even existed until about twenty minutes ago...



Towels and hot wateeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer!!!!!!!!!

Moving On Up

I know it's been a while. I know I've not written for three weeks, and during the last month of February, I'd shat out just one post.

But things are happening; "Moving House" things. It isn't the moving house that's stressful. I haven't physically done that, for one thing, but it's all the bullshit that surrounds it.

Tonight, as I crawled back from work, I noticed a letter from my solicitor (Check me out with my Solicitor, n' shit). Apparently, they'd received the mortgage offer I'd got only last week, and can I sign here and here, and have it witnessed here?
Ta.

This is not a moment too soon. In the absence of anyone getting back to me, I've had to go for broke on Monday, telling my landlord in writing to "Go Fuck yourself", and "use my deposit as this last month's rent, because after four and a half years of ignoring our pleas to stop the damp, repair the taps, and remove that mouse in the hope that we might just fuck off and leave you alone instead, I now have every confidence that you will plunge into our deposit in one last, desperate moneygrab. Well you can't. That deposit is now 'March'. You are the worst landlord I have ever had, I've never even met you, and I hope your rectum develops a very painful rip."

Something tells me he's not going to take that lying down.

Meanwhile, back to the move, I am soon to be 'Exchanging Contracts,', whatever that means, in about a week. Then I will be travelling to my brand new bachelor pad - henceforth known as Magnificent North-ish London Shag Palace, or Pit Of Filth And Doom Where I Lock Myself In To Masturbate With Greater Frequency And Enthusiasm Than A Caged, Demented Chimp - to measure rooms and windows in preparation of the whole furniture buying shit.

But I'm tired, so very, very tired. I'm not stressed yet - at least I don't think I am - but this is consuming every part of me. I've got about 3 weeks left in this flat and with Large Northern Flatmate (soon to be relegated to 'Large Northern Mate'), and then it's Operation: Grow The Fuck Up.

It all seems too good to be true, to be honest. I've even considered closing this blog, as it feels as if I have some kind of 'ending' now.

Of course, there are too many loose ends; My job, for one, my sex life (or rather my lack of it), that dead body under the driveway.

So that's that. I know I've been neglecting many of you, and I'm sorry, but please bear with me. You see, I'm movin' on up now, getting out of the darkness. My light shines on, my light shines on, my light shines on.

Thank you.

Goatee

You know you're in the midst of a major transition when you've got too much metaphorical shit on your plate, yet you don't have the time to get stressed.

Okay, that stressed.

At the moment, I feel like I'm in a real life version of Touch the Truck, except I'm the only contestant, and there's no truck - so really the only comparison with sleep-depriving gameshows where you can win a truck you've been touching is that good things await me if I can just stay alert.

Today, I applied for a mortgage. This is to pay for the flat I first saw four days ago and put one thousand pounds towards the very next day, just a couple of hours before attending a barmitzvah I didn't want to go to.

I thought I'd end up leaving said barmitzvah pleased that I'd done my familial duty, but I didn't. Instead I felt wretched, and crap. I couldn't have felt more out-of-place if I'd arrived dressed as a pig, drunk and pissing on my shoes as I sniffed coke off the tip of a bus pass and yelled, 'which one of you Jews wants a fight?'

It didn't help that the event was Black Tie and, well, I forgot. I was buying a place to live, okay?? Thus, I was the only man there in a light grey office suit, one that sliced violently into my guts because I have a) gained weight, due to being a b) cunt.

On the plus side, I wasn't the only one in restrictive clothing, having earlier forced my own father's pregnant stomach into his childsize dinnersuit trousers.

But that moment of schadenfreude was the only highlight. I was at first thrilled to see my Uncle, my father's brother with that same cheeky grin, after so many years absence, only to wish I was elsewhere as I watched him scan the room for anyone else just 20 seconds after I shook hands and started to talk. I was soon palmed off to people more my age who I last saw in 1986, indulging me as I sweated and talked about work.

I was sat next to a lesbian at dinner. This made a change as her opening words to me as soon as I sat down, and let me make this abundantly clear:- as I literally pulled my chair out from under the table and said hello, was some totally unnecessary comment about "her girlfriend", the gay equivalent of "Look, I've got a boyfriend, so don't even think about it."

As the food came out, no-one was particularly interested in anything I had to say, so I wound up brooding in silence as a viciously tight suit cut into my balls. I did attempt chatting as the lady to my left gossiped with the lesbian on my right, but it was clear they preferred holding a conversation over a strange man's head to letting him join in.

Then the speeches kicked in. Now call me old fashioned, but I ain't impressed with 13-year-old boys announcing to a dinner party that "Tonight, I am a man," particularly when three days earlier, he'd probably cried his fucking eyes out because he'd reached his highest ever level in World of Warcraft before getting killed by an elf.

Nor was I impressed with the boys that preceded him, telling us that they'd known the Barmitzvah for as long as they could remember (i.e. just under a decade), and that he's a stand-up kinda guy. He doesn't shave yet, but by golly if your balls are on the line, he'll kick some ass, presumably.

And as I watched his younger sister make her speech (she's 9), all I could see in my mind's eye was a middle-aged and heavily botoxed woman thrusting a plate at a waiter and bellowing at him to take it back.

The evening tailed off as I refused to dance, spent a lot of the time on my phone outside, and chatted to my Dad about dousing my anus with witch hazel gel to ease the bleeding. I did, however, drink a lot of scotch. It was a free bar after all, and possibly the only one in London (with the exception of other barmitzvahs) with no queue.

This made Monday back at work hell, and trying to negotiate a mortgage without my boss noticing wasn't easy, but then neither is pretending that my fat thighs haven't rubbed two vast holes into the gusset of my jeans. I can't wash them as the holes will get bigger, so I'm intending to by a new pair except I haven't, because I'm attending fucking barmitzvahs and buying houses and I'm overwhelmingly stressed but I appear to be on some strange kind of autopilot that's preventing me from breaking down again and crying.

And in the meantime, my American ex sent me some innocuous, bland email which I casually replied to, mentioning my utter disgust at her attempt to wind me up and/ or make me jealous. She somehow took the moral high ground over this, and now isn't talking to me.

But on the plus side, I've grown a goatee.

No Smoking. Or Women.

A message from the past:

It is October 29th 2009. I last sucked on a cigarette 11 days ago. Two days prior to that, the weekend kickstarted with some beers and the buying of smokes, despite a working week's abstinence. I went to a house party the next day, and bought a pack of 20. My friend's missus had also bought a pack for me to share, placing me firmly in fag heaven.

Monday October 19th became my first smoke-free day, coinciding with (or causing) some strange mental breakdown. Then I developed a violently sore throat that's only just cleared. 11 days have passed, and I haven't stopped stopping just yet.

I've smoked for 17 years, my entire adult life, and five years longer than Teenage Me intended, vowing, as I first dabbled, that I wouldn't make a habit of it and besides, I'd've probably given up by my 30th birthday anyway, because that's how teenagers think; Age + time = stuff just happens.

But it didn't, and then I was 35. All my earlier attempts had failed. My most successful quit was 26 days, from 12th November 2005, to December 8th. (Why did I stop? My inner "Fack it, it's Christmas!")

Anyway, if I manage to quit smoking for, say, three months - if I can get to mid-Jan having not smoked, including the 'difficult' Christmas and New Year's - that'll be an overwhelming personal best, even if I can piss on such an achievement by remembering that I'm not technically having to do anything to get there.

And if I do, I'll post this up. How exciting.

Back to the Future...
It's been 3 months and one day. I've saved £244, and I've not smoked approximately 1,000 cigarettes. It's very, very strange, but I just don't think about it any more. Neither do I think my life has vastly improved.

Case in point:

My ex-girlfriend (American) and I have been emailing for some time now. It's been kinda lovely, as I still miss her. There's been talk of me going over to visit her. She's announced her desire to visit London with her girlfriend this spring, and look for work here.

Our emails have ratcheted up recently. For one thing, that evil side of her, the Hell Hath No Fury banshee that appeared around the time I dumped her, well she's gone. Now there's lots of flirting again; her telling me about her strange dreams where we're snogging in the bathroom, while I thanked Thor that I'm still wanted by someone, anyone, who's not already a relative and therefore stuck with me like some kind of growth that complains.

I held back from telling her how my soul has been torn asunder with loneliness and despair since she'd gone, unable to tell her how much I miss and care for her.
Instead, I made a few nob jokes.

Time passed. She emailed some photos of her New Year's trip Midwest for no reason. I think I sent her a picture of a cocktail menu.
I'd go to bed to her emails. She'd wake up with mine.

And then, extremely early on Monday as I eeked out what no longer remained of my weekend and contemplated going to bed, I got an email from her asking if I was still up, and how my weekend had been.

'Fucking terrible,' I replied. 'I've spent it locked in my room trying to write, just as soon as I watch a couple of things on YouTube - except I've done that for 48 hours straight, and I've written absolutely nothing. How was yours?'

And then she told me.

She gave me her list that weekend; Pilates, drinks with friends, blah blah blah, followed the next day with lunch, and a "delicious" tongues down throats/ arse groping session that was all reported with effortless ease and ending with "Swoon", just in case I didn't pick up on any sense of emotional attachment. She hadn't worded it like that, of course, meaning that I'd all but finished composing my reply when I realised what she meant.

'Oh. Then congratulations are in order,' I'd written, followed by, 'Well, it's 2am. Goodnight.'

She wrote to me the next day to continue the thread, something bland and cheerful that I halfheartedly replied to, and that's been it. We've gone from several emails a day, to nothing.
To say I'm disappointed with her is a vast understatement. These last few months of emails, a couple of texts here and there and even a phonecall, they all feel like one enormous set-up; her opportunity to raise the tempo so she can hit me with a casual, 'Oh, and Fuck You All Along!'

But I want to know what you think, seeing as a disproportionate amount of you are women.

Is my ex-girlfriend totally batshit crazy? Or is she still angry? Or is this all my fault for keeping in touch? (Don't answer that one so much. Stick to the other two.)

I'm keeping my distance in the meantime. If I'm just some conduit for her to gloat at, then she'll at least have to contact me first - Ha! And should she contact me, then welcome to Planet Polite, population: Me, being brief.

So despite the overwhelmingly obvious (viz: Why haven't you Moved On, you fucking freak?), can we all agree that the Hell Hath No Fury banshee never left?

Ageing Bull

Why didn't anyone warn us about ageing? Why are there no government health warnings about its dangers, or programmes to inoculate you against it? (although technically that would mean being rounded up on your 30th birthday and shot.)
It was but the vaguest of thoughts in my youth that, aesthetically at least, we'll likely peak around our Twenties, and slowly decline from then on, unless wrinkles and bad backs become a turn-on. But fuck it, what did I care? I was a kid.

Ageing is the elephant in society's room - certainly the one right now in my head. It hasn't quite been omitted from our cultural landscape, but spun into some exciting goal of one day 'enjoying our retirement', neatly sidestepping the fact that we'll all be so old and embittered by that point in a world we no longer understand, that we'll just lock ourselves indoors, complaining. (And yes, I'm aware that I do that now. Thank you.)

I'm fascinated by ageing in the same way I'm fascinated by North Korea. Both are evil and unstoppable. Both seem to exist in some kind of fun vacuum where it would be great to be free and live without a care in the world except, oh, you can't. Your only chance of getting on in both states, it would appear, is either suicide, which kinda defeats the original goal of wanting to live well, or just lying down and accepting your fate like a bitch - which is crap.

I do get the feeling that I'm not the first person to dislike ageing, though. The Greeks and Romans shared a particularly interesting myth, laden with ironic profundity. Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, was rather partial to human lovers, one of whom was the Pythonesque-named Tithonus, prince of Troy. Tithonus, being a mere mortal, was going to age and die like the rest of us so Aurora, wanting to be with her beau forever, asked Zeus to grant Tit immortality. Zeus did so, but here's the kicker ~ she forgot to ask for eternal youth, meaning Tithonus eternally aged, presumably becoming the greatest complainer of pesky children in the world whilst moaning about there being nothing good on TV anymore as he shrunk down to four foot three and a half.

So Aurora turned him into a grasshopper.

But the whole point about this post is that I want to complain, obviously.
So here we go...

* I used to have a bladder made of cement and lead, or so it seemed. It was one of those nonsensical male things I used to boast about, the ability to 'not need the toilet for a while', as if it were akin to being able to recite pi to 1,000 decimal places whilst juggling cats.
Now, not a night goes by when I don't find myself being awoken at 4am by a pathetic bladder made of jelly and lace.

* My knees are weak. Admittedly, they're 35 years old now, but I get the feeling they're in direct competition with my bladder for the 'Most Atrophying Part Of My Body' award. I want to go jogging and cycle to work again (in theory), but I'm beginning to think I may do myself some real damage. (Yes, that's right. I probably shouldn't exercise ever again, just to be on the safe side.)

* My metabolism's rubbish. I used to diet as a teenager and, provided I stuck to it for a couple of weeks, strange things would happen like weight loss.
Now, I can jog and diet and cycle and cry for a month and lose just a pound, off of my little finger. This is patently, patently shit.

* Hair grows where you don't want it, and doesn't where you do. Okay, I will put my hands up at this point and thank Zeus or Allah or Thor (or maybe my grandparents) that I still have the hair on my head. I have friends who I knew back when they were devil-may-care hippies, whose scalps now resemble ox-bow lakes of hair.
But the back of my neck, my shoulders and the backs of my arms, what the fuck is happening to me? This was not in the brochure.

* I'm developing a natural inclination to not go out. This is a mental shift that I'm rather amused by, as I used to be something of a 24-hour party person (or at least 14). I'm still proud of those occasional all-nighters in the last millennium, when I'd crash at 10 or 11am the following morning, feeling like my candles had been jolly well burnt at both ends. Now, the party scales have come weighing down in the opposite direction, to wit; A hangover used to be an irritating side-effect of a great night out. Now, the hangover has become the crippling STD that follows a shag, more powerful and unpleasant than any earlier fun.

This, IMHO, is partly due to ageing into a 'wuss', as our American cousins are wont to say, because age renders fun stuff less fun . There's something about the first time doing *anything* that is bloody magical, and fresh, and golden. Now try doing something for the first time on a night out in your mid-Thirties. Unless it's bungee jumping off the pub roof and into Beyonce's vagina, my guess is that any excitement you'll have now is down just to the company you keep and how painful your bladder isn't being on that particular evening.

Last night, for example, I was in excruciating bladder pain, and had to leave early. It was as if a line of barbed wire had been inserted into my urethra without my knowledge, only for it to be pulled on viciously in some invisible tug o'war. (I ended up sweating on the tube, and pissing behind a bush. Hell.)

And speaking of hell, I still appear to be passing solids through what can only be described as a brutal ring of fire. I'm doing my utmost to ignore it, but it's not easy pretending that forcing a cactus through a solid, bleeding onion ring isn't happening.

All of which prompts images of visits to doctors which, frankly, isn't a youthful pursuit. It's the stuff of ageing, and I really am terribly fucked off by it all. I can also see an awkward scenario arising, one that is essentially a balance of pain over pride. At the moment, my pride remains intact even though my arsehole isn't. Perhaps, one day, I will have to confront a very unpleasant scenario that isn't just completely alien to me, but totally and utterly wrong in every conceivable way. If time and All Bran hasn't remedied this situation, I will have to endure the very definition of vulnerable:

I will visit a doctor and, after just a few minutes of meeting him, will a) remove my undergarments, b) turn around, c) bend over, and d) allow this stranger to peer and prod at my anus with a glove.

That isn't my idea of a good night out. It is also, I submit, why ageing is bullshit.

Two Paths

So here we are, six days into a new year and a new decade. Are you well? Good.

I have my usual resolutions (Smoke, diet, job, house, girlfriend) and am uncharacteristically happy, which is strange.

I think I'm happy because a couple of days ago, Monday, I was profoundly unhappy, and this is its story.

I was profoundly unhappy because it was my first day back at work, and I was rather stunned to find that bullshit Cycle of Life inevitably repeating itself once again.

Christmas and New Year's bacchanalian excess was now over, and it was time to Man Up like a chump. I had spent the better part of two weeks force feeding beige junk into my yaphole like a particularly masochistic goose self-fattening my liver into foie gras. I had done so little exercise - often leaving my flat for the first time at 10pm, just to stock up on more pies - that doing nothing was making me tired.

When I did go out - New Year's Eve being a case in point - I'd done so much lazing around that I felt guilty eating crap and drinking in a pub. After all, I'd been doing that non-stop and far cheaper at home. I had my standard London New Year's do in a bar with Ed™ (now with added EdFriend!™), and such was my lack of imagination that we'd simply revisited the cocktail bar we'd gone to last year. Back then we'd had an absolutely fantastic time; the place had been full of friendly people - including women - and even the staff were shaking hands and introducing themselves. It was so good that we were in two minds about ruining it by going back this year, but ruin it we did.

The barstaff were just as friendly, still shaking hands and introducing themselves, except this time I realised they were doing it to everyone for the tips. And the women? There didn't seem to be as many around this time, and two of the nearest ladies to me had already sneered back.

Then a proper, bonafide miracle happened.

Lingering in a crush near our table was a cute, buxom brunette. She looked over in my direction and I caught her eye - or perhaps she'd noticed me trying to smoulder in the corner. These simple facts I can't remember now, but I do remember her stare that even I saw contained interest.
'Oh, jolly good,' I thought. 'Now just play it cool, you idiot, and don't blow it.'
Then it dawned on me that perhaps she just wanted our seats.

I chatted to the chaps for a bit, then casually looked up again. She'd been waiting, and our eyes met once more.
She simmered.

'Christ!' I blasphemed.

I tried to act cool, and resumed chatting to the guys. I was getting panicky now, as she seemed quite interested and I'd realised I'd spent two weeks eating myself into a nice pair of low self-esteem pants.
I looked back at her again. Yup, definitely wasn't imagining it.
Pity, really, as balls in my courts will generally be left on the ground.

I couldn't do it. Despite my cool demeanour, I felt pitiful and fat. When she looked at me all smouldery, I knew right away that whatever it was she found attractive in me was at best an illusion; at worst, a fraud.

Knowing I'd only ever disappoint, I was actually relieved when, post-chimes, Ed and Ian got up and walked out into the night. The brunette and I passed each other with blank stares. Another 20 minutes later and me and the guys were slinging sweet-and-sour chicken down our necks in Chinatown.
That, I could do.

-

Doing bugger-all for Xmas and taking advantage of the Buy-One-Get-One-Frees that dominated the potato snack shelves had taken its toll. But now it was Sunday night. The party was over, and work was soon to resume. I couldn't even begin to comprehend the monumental effort it would take just to wake up the following day.

Sunday night. Lousy night. I felt bloated and lethargic, and dazed from overwhelming underachievement. In moments like those, when the metaphorical noose is tightening around my neck... I like to kick the chair.

I don't know now what compelled me, but with mere hours of my holiday left, I decided to Googlestalk my French ex-girlfriend, Amira. I don't even know why she popped into my head. Perhaps because she was my sexiest girlfriend ever, and I was at my zenith of unsexiness. Yes, that was it; I wanted to feel better about myself as I sat in front of my computer with bedrash and a stomach pregnant with Pringles.

I typed her name into Facebook. It came up immediately, complete with a tiny picture that made my heart skip. I hadn't seen my French ex for years and now, there she was, all moody and pixellated, and with an intriguing new surname.

Amira, it appeared, was now married and, hammering it home for me in the picture, pushing a pram. She wasn't smiling either - although smiles were never her forte - and I was stunned to discover that she might now be a mother. She was hardly the motherly type. I also had to assume that she was still in England after all having married a Brit, what with that new surname and all.

So to cheer myself up, I looked at my previous New Years entries on this here blog. Two years earlier, I discovered in a typically introspective entry, I was making grandiose pronouncements about the coming year, and declaring that 2008 would be the year I quit my job.

That entry gnawed at my mind as I found myself fatter and sat behind my desk two days ago. The 'How was your holiday?' conversations lasted all of three minutes, and I was ordered, by implication at least, to just Get Back To Work.

To say I was miserable was an understatement. I fought to stay chipper. I reminded myself that I was now on a fabulous new diet (lettuce), and it would reverse all those unsightly new pounds, plus some. But oddly, starkly, as I thought about moody Amira and her new life (I sincerely thought she was too miserable for the UK, let alone marriage and motherhood), and as I dwelled upon what Could Have Been with the clearly mental brunette in that bar, and when I mused that two years earlier, I was blogging that I would be quitting my job for pastures new, it occurred to me that I have two paths:

These paths may end up being vast arcs that ultimately lead me to the same destination. That destination may even lead me nowhere but back to the beginning, where nothing has changed except for the passing of time.

Yet what dawned on was really quite obvious; even if my journey does lead me back to square one, even if it was well worth the ride or a complete waste of time, I can choose what path I take to get there.
One is dark, and miserable, and crap. The other is really rather scenic.