The Birth Of The Cynic.......

Being a grumpy cynical bastard is, at most times, incredibly hard work.

You happy-go-lucky folk, you really don’t understand how much of a bind it can actually be to live under this terrible affliction. Nothing is black and white with us cynics. Everything is just a hazy shade of shite.

That smile we got from somebody who just walked by us, well, that was obviously because there is something wrong with our face and they were just laughing at us. Hard.

The lovely surprise cake that our closest friend brought us, well, obviously it contains some form of terrible bomb that will explode the moment we cut it and send flaming nuclear goo directly onto our heads and cause us to run screaming from the room with our hair on fire. That is why we cynics fear cake. It’s a scientific fact.

To us cynics, every good thing that happens always has something horrible that will be waiting just around the corner to go and royally screw it all up, and make us just sit there with a I told you so look plastered across our smug, stupid heads, while we weep tears of frustration onto our cheeks that drip down and stain our shirts with the wetness that only bitterness provides.

I know, I know, you are probably just thinking “Chill out man, cease the cynicism. Just stop every now and then and smell the flowers. It’s all beautiful dude.”  But us cynics know that if we were to stop and smell the flowers, there will definitely be a rabid squirrel with an unhealthy sex addiction lurking within, so the moment we bend over to take a lungful of that fragrant aroma, the little bastard will leap out like a furry ninja to claw out our eyes out with its little rodent claws and hold them triumphantly aloft over its shoulders like little squishy pom poms, whilst simultaneously trying to have vigorous squirrel type sex with our screaming faceholes. This is a fact. This will definitely happen and is in no way the inane ramblings of a man with far too much time on his hands. So there. Deal with it.

They say that our emotional and psychological makeup is created and formed during our teenage years, and I can certainly see some truth in that. You want to know where my cynicism was birthed. Just take a look at my teenage years, they were awful. And this was due to the fact that whatever holy deity that created us decided that he would have some fun with me the moment I hit the age of about 14.

So what did the holy one inflict upon me? Well, firstly he gave me spots. A normal thing amongst teenage boys, this is true, but he gave me the most impressive spots around. I mean, these things were real beauties. If there was some kind of gooey spot award, mine would have taken first, second, and third prize, and possible some kind of special achievement award as well, just for being extra spotty. And these spots had friends and family that they invited to my face for a party and it was many, many years before they left. The stubborn little shits laughed in the face of every form of medication that I threw at them, and this was a lot. Pills, facial washes, creams, all were mocked by my little spotty chums as they cried out from my cratered visage “Come on! Is that all you’ve got?” whilst forming new chums to join in the fiesta.

I remember one form of cream I was issued by my doctors called Quininderm. This stuff was the equivalent of smearing boiling hot magma on my skin. The first night I applied it, I could hear my spots scream “It burns!” in terrible agony. And it did. When I awoke the next morning, the cream was so powerful it had taken out all the dye from my pillow from where I had been lying on it the night before. I could see a perfect replica of my face imprinted on the fabric like the Turin shroud. I rushed to my mirror in hope, thinking that my chums were finally gone, but they weren’t. They were still there. All red and defiant.

Bastards.

So, I had spots. Not so bad, who doesn’t have spots? So what else did Buddha inflict upon me then? He gave me stupid hair, that's what he did. Hair that had a mind of its own and wouldn’t do what I wanted it too. All I wanted was a fashionable haircut so I wouldn’t stand out and be mocked by my peers. Did it happen? Did it bollocks. My hair and I had a six year battle where both of us refused to listen to the other. Curses were made, tears were formed, but no stylish hair was ever found. All I wanted was something to distract everyone from my face. I wanted to swish into a house party and go “Yeah, the face is a mess, but check out this bitching hair!” and people would gasp and then reach over to touch my lovely locks.

Didn’t happen.

Hair went mental.

Another infliction that I had to put up with was an odd sense of humour, something that regular readers of this blog can certainly attest too. My sense of humour was so dry that the moment I attempted to try and say something amusing near a naked flame, the words themselves would catch on fire and disappear in a puff of black smoke. Basically people just never got it. So when I said something dry and sardonic and hilarious, the normal reaction was an odd look, and then a quick excuse, as the listener scuttled sideways to talk to someone a bit more normal.

Anything left? Oh yeah, what about this? I was socially awkward. Socially awkward around whom, I hear you ask?

Girls.

Yep.

Girls.

Those mysterious and wondrous creatures that were like goddesses to my hormonally imbalanced brain. But with the combination of my spotty face, mental hair, and the odd sense of humour, I felt like I was so introverted around them that I would end up looking so hard inside myself that I would come around in a complete circle and end up staring at my own startled face, and no one wanted to do that. Not with the spots/hair combo.

So I would remain mute around the ladies, maybe throwing in the odd (and I mean, odd) comment here or there that would stop a conversation dead, make everyone stare at me for a few minutes, and then carry on like I had never said anything at all.

So quite often I ended up saying nothing. I felt it was the best thing to do. To fade into the background until it felt like I was made out of wallpaper and could blend into anywhere.

Wasn’t very nice, but what could I do?

I remember vividly being in a pub once with a friend called Steve when I was about 17. Steve was a loud, confident bloke, who could quite easily converse with any female he came across. During this particular time he was holding court with two girls at a table that he had just got chatting too. He was being loud, and in his own mind, witty. He was also being a tit. I was perched at the end of the table like a spotty mute with weird hair, listening to him babble complete shit to these two girls, and for some reason they were lapping it up and looking at him like he was some flash god with gold plated nipples. Across the floor on another table were two older women who were watching us.

For some reason, Steve got up with the two girls and left me alone at the table. Well, I was never alone really. I had my spots, my weird hair, and an almost crushing sensation of self loathing.

I always had that.

Suddenly one of the older women spoke to me from their table.

“You’re too quiet, do you know that?”

“Sorry?” I squeaked back, shocked that somebody had noticed me and had actually used their mouth to say words towards me.

“You’re letting that idiot do all the talking. You can talk as well you know, girls don’t bite.”

I didn’t really know how to reply.

“Steve is just like that. He’s very confident. I’m not like that at all.”

“He’s a wanker.” the woman said with a little shake of her head.

Well, yeah, I had to agree with that.

“Look, you’re not bad looking, just talk to them. It’s easy. Girls like it when you’re just straightforward and honest. The wrong kind of girls like pricks like your friend Steve. Just be yourself, if a girl doesn’t like that, then they ain’t worth knowing, are they?”

I could feel the redness creep over my face over this strangers sudden interest in my wellbeing and I hurriedly made my excuses to leave. But something made me pause halfway across the pub, and I turned around and went back to them, causing them to stop talking and look back up at me.

“Thank you.” I said.

And I meant it.

I’d like to say that from the moment of my mysterious older lady intervention, my social awkwardness disappeared and I became a walking Casanova (with mental hair), but it was a lot more gradual than that. But eventually I guess I blossomed a little, gained more confidence, and grew into the adult that I am today. The cool, hip slinging motherfunker whose skin has cleared up, who made some kind of peaceful truce with the mental hair, and who has honed the sense of humour into something more socially accepting, and can also make the ladies melt with one arched eyebrow (Okay, I may have lied about the last one. Actually, sod it, I may have lied about them all, but this is my tale and I will tell it anyway I want too). And I would like to think that my path to self acceptance was started by a few kind words from a complete stranger.

So I may be a helpless cynic that was given a painful birth because of my terrible teenage years, but maybe, just maybe, I will try and ease up on it a little bit and actually stop once in awhile and smell the flowers. But rest assured, I will be carrying a baseball bat as well, just in case that squirrel is nestled within them.

If he tries to hump my face I will twat the little fucker.

So, What's Been Happening Then?…….

Hello you! My lovely reader type person, you. I’ve missed your eyes over here, how have you been? I see that rash has cleared up, and you’re walking better now, which is nice. I’d lose the eye patch though, that's so last season darling.

Anyone want to hear how my week went?

Just to recap, I started my new job on Monday. I am working for a Government funded programme that aims to aid the unemployed gain entry back into the job market. It has been a really long and intense week, and I was pretty surprised to not find my brain leaking out of my ears on Friday like warm pink porridge, but I have to say, I have really been enjoying it so far.

The small group of new starters are a really friendly bunch, so that kind of made it a bit easier at the start due to the fact we all were in the same boat and seemed to bond pretty quickly. So far my odd sense of humour hasn’t got me into any awkward situations yet, but I’m sure there will be a moment where my mouth will be two steps ahead of my brain, and I will say something that will make the other person stare at me intently and suddenly start looking for the nearest exit.

The training itself has been excellent. Each day has left us with more and more of an understanding of what the role will entail, so at no point have I felt like I was fumbling around in the unknown, and the people that work there couldn’t be any friendlier and accommodating, which is a great help for slowly blending in.

It’s been a pretty varied week. I have sat in on some of the workshops/classes that I will be running, rung potential employers, practised appointment techniques, created pitches that will be presented to local job centres, and all of it totally out of my normal comfort zone. In fact it’s felt like the equivalent of being chucked stark bollock naked out of an aeroplane without a parachute and with two angry scorpions super glued to my testicles. But that's the exciting thing about it, where it is so new and alien to me, it’s a totally new challenge, which is exactly what I have needed after stagnating for the past seven months. I really can’t wait to get started to be honest.

I finished the week off by meeting up with some friends last night and going “Mega Large” in London. Though to be honest, as I was so tired, they would probably have had more fun if they dug up a two week old corpse, stuck it on a motorised scooter, and then made it do lazy figures of eights round the club we were in, dropping various rotting body parts as it wove between the usual collection of pisssed up mongs that you find out on the town on a Friday night. Plus it would have looked more alive than I felt as well, which is always a bonus.

But it was good to catch up with them, and plus it also gave me an opportunity to do one of my favourite things when I go out with this particular group, which is watch my friend Chris do his slow deterioration through the evening from normal bank worker to inebriated Party God. The last image I saw of him during the night was him dancing towards the exit with his arms round the shoulders of a bald black man. No one has heard from him since. I wouldn’t be surprised if he woke up in a ditch in Scotland with a sex toy up his arse, a woman's handbag that only contained a passport made out to a Mrs Geraldine Pumperhoosen, and a new tattoo that simply said “Mother”.  But that's why I love him.

So that was my week. Really enjoyable, really hard work, but off to a great start with this new job.

Couldn’t ask for any more really.

Back To The Rat Race…..

Those of you that have been reading for awhile will know that after being out of work for some time, I finally managed to land myself a really good job a few weeks ago.

Well, that job starts tomorrow, so I will probably not be around much this week (I always feel self conscious writing stuff like that, I know no one will really notice, but I wouldn’t want anyone thinking that I was being rude by not popping over and saying hello).

Once I am acclimatised to the idea of actually working again (Oh God, noooooooooooooo!) I will be back and filling you all in on how it’s all going, and also catching up with everyone else as well, as I know there will be a lot of writing to catch up on.

I would also like to thank everyone who has been kind enough to offer words of encouragement and wishes of good luck when I have written about the unemployment thing over the last few months, you may not think it, but it was really appreciated at this end, so I thank you from the bottom of my heart/bowel for that.

I’m pretty sure that once I know what my routine is going to be, I can balance work and writing, so at no point will any of you miss out on the inane drivel that passes for thoughts within my brain that gets zapped via laser beams into your computers.

In a way, I am very much like God, you may not see a lot of me, but I am always with you……..

Disclaimer- At no point am I referring myself as God. I am non religious. Actually it would probably be a good idea if I wasn’t God, for there would be a hell of a lot of smiting going on. There probably wouldn’t be that many people left. Just me and about 15,000 monkeys, which in its own way sounds like a little piece of heaven. I’d rename earth Monkey Land and become their ruler. They would carry me round on their little monkey shoulders and teach me monkey ways.

I have no idea where this is going either.

Anyway, back to reality. I hope your week is filled with everything that you desire, and may we all cross paths again soon (hopefully next weekend).

I’m literally high fiving everyone who is reading this.

Love And Hearts....

As a celebration of the fact that I have just hit 100 followers (are you all mental?!), I’d like to get  all touchy-feely with you all now and have a little discussion about love and also the heart.

In order for this to feel right though, I’d like you all to take the hands of the reader each side of you, and then give them a good old squeeze.

There, doesn’t that feel nice?

Though the OCD side of me is hoping none of you have been to the toilet recently and not washed your hands.

That would be gross.

Now, love.

We silly humans adore linking the emotion of love with our hearts. Greeting cards, silly stuffed animals, balloons, posters, all display the wonderful feeling called love as a huge heart, probably with an arrow stuck through it.

This notion is engrained on our psyches. You think of love, you think of the heart. And yet out of all the parts of the body that actually get affected by love, the heart is realistically the least noticeable. Certainly when I met and fell for my girlfriend, it wasn't my heart that was noticing it, it was my legs, mainly because they wouldn’t stop shaking after I left her on our first date. But a pair of legs with an arrow going through them certainly wouldn’t sell that many Valentines cards. It would however make an ideal signpost in the Wild West to warn you that Indians were nearby, so, swings and roundabouts and all that.

Presumably the idea that the heart is linked to love is due to the fact that our hearts are meant to beat that little bit faster when the object of our affections is near. That may be true, but there are many things that make the heart beat that little bit faster. Running. Getting out of bed. Walking up the stairs. They don’t all mean that we are in love; they just mean we are unfit.

What about the stomach? That gets affected by being in love. You don’t eat because you don’t need food. You get butterflies when you know you are meeting this one person who means everything to you. When your affection is returned, and you know that this person wants to be with you as well, you suddenly feel like you are in an elevator shaft and dropping rapidly. A wonderful out of control sensation that feels amazing and that you notice most of all in the centre your stomach. So why isn’t that linked with love? Could it be because your lower intestinal tract isn’t really considered sexy? You wouldn’t really say “I love you from the bottom of my bowel.” would you?

And when love goes wrong, once again, the heart may feel it slightly, but there are other parts of your body that feel it worse. The back of your throat contracts as you swallow hot salty tears. Your eyes throb and your head hurts from the emotion. And yet again, it’s always the poor old stomach that bears the brunt of it though. That's where I think you feel love the most, through good times and bad, smack bang in the middle of your guts. And yet when we think of love gone bad, it’s nearly always the image of a heart, probably with a huge crack running through it.

So let’s take it as such that love=heart. And because of this, we all try to protect our hearts as much as possible, fearful of getting it broken, like it was some delicate porcelain figurine that would shatter at the slightest contact, rather than the tough mass of muscle that is so strong, if a human body were to be on fire, it would be the last thing to actually burn (I saw that on CSI).

So we cradle our hearts with tender care, trying to avoid all notion of it getting smashed. Those of us who have never been hurt in love won’t know this fear, and will dive into a relationship with all the vigour of someone jumping off the highest diving board at a swimming pool, making the biggest splash possible, while others who have been hurt in love, tenderly pick their way through a relationship like someone who is wearing skis trying to traverse a minefield, each careful step taken slowly, just in case it blows up in their faces.

* Man I do talk in metaphors a lot. I can’t help it. I seem to have one for everything.

Kate: Would you like a cup of tea?

Me: I would like a cup of tea so much that I’m like a man who is crawling through a desert using only his lips, looking for water that isn’t there.

Kate: You’re really weird.

Me: I’m so weird I’m like a two headed clown who keeps honking both his noses.

Kate: I’m leaving you now.

Me: I’m so being left; I’m like a man…….

Ah, you get the picture.*

And yet if I were to look at my own heart, what would I find there? I suppose it would be one that is slightly bruised from life's experiences, but one that is still hopeful for the future. I keep it at arm’s length from people, and if I’m honest, the person I am with now probably has more of a hold on it than anybody has ever had in my entire lifetime, but there is still that fear, that idea of it getting broken and smashed beyond repair, that will always make me feel that little bit cautious of handing it over fully, as tough and stubborn as it is.

My stomach is battered and useless and no good to anyone, but my heart? Well, let’s just say it’s still beating strong. And I intend to keep it that way.

And Introducing.......

A few days ago, one of my lovely blogger chums emailed me with a rather excellent idea. That blogger chum was Matthew, and he suggested that I partake in a blog swap. I post on another's blog, whilst that person blogs on mine. That sounded interesting to my tiny little ears.

The deal was struck for me though when he suggested the person I swap with, the lovely JenJen. Now many of you on here will know of JenJen, but many of you may not as well. So I urge you that once you have finished reading her excellent contribution, hop on over to her blog and hammer that follow button hard, for you will be joining up in a holy union to one of the best kept secrets out in the land called blog. Always hilarious, yet able to combine the amusing with the serious, you will certainly not be disappointed for doing so. She always keeps a welcoming and friendly place over there, and you will soon become one of her many frogs. Which in its own right, is reason enough for doing so.


So for today only, I'm lurking over there, and JenJen is kindly posting over here. And I know everyone will make her feel royally welcome.


Anyway, enough of my chit chat. It is my pleasure to introduce to you………………..

JenJen.

Erect Stingers Suck When You’re Prissy.

 
I want to open by saying I am not the outdoorsy type. At all.

You could say I'm more of a girl who likes her creature comforts: crisp linens atop a down covered mattress, lots of pillows, carpet under my pedicured toes and a glass of water beside my head on my nightstand. I don't own boots for anything other than show. My coat is from Victoria's Secret (one in pink and one in black) and is decidedly not for lingering out-of-doors. I have a white hat and white gloves for when it's cold in the garage.
 

Damn I sound prissy. Well, here's more to add to that bucket:

So probably not a giant shocker that I despise camping; I think God (or Mr. Hilton) made hotels so I wouldn't have to sleep... outside.

*shudder*

Friends have invited us to go  to hell camping with them, and at first I was gracious and declined using busy words like, "oh, w-e-l-l  we don't have any...sleeping bags" or "oh hell darnit, we're already out of town that weekend, drat!" Hoping, of course, they didn't see the fear and loathing behind my batting baby blues and angelic smile.

After a while they gave up but ended with this gem: "You know, JenJen, you're depriving your children of the experience of camping!"

For real.

Deprivation by Lack of Camping.

News at 11.

You can't win this argument with me. I will not camp or step foot in a tent. I tried it one time years ago, and I was not loving the outdoor shower and considerable lack of plumbing equipment. I didn't particularly care for the mosquitoes, the smelly bug spray or the less-than-comfy beds, either. Okay, the outdoor shower would have been sensual and sexy had it been at a fab Caribbean resort and not at the KOA in the middle of NowhereNearTropical, Michigan and swarming with unsupervised children and bees.

Oh god, the bees.

I used to have a FREAK OUT reaction to any black and yellow striped flying bug with a stinger on it's butt. I would run and scream like a girl (k, because I am a girl) when one of those effers would even flirt with my bubble. I heard that bees don't like the water, so run into the ocean pond when one comes near you, butt stinger erect.

Turns out that is not true.

A falsehood, as it were.

They will follow your ass into that water and buzz around you until you cry and gallop out of the water, knees high (have you ever tried to run in the water? You can't. It's called galloping. Google that.). I galloped right out of the water, across the sand and into the car and shut it up tight. That little overgrown gnat laughed at me and wiggled it's stinger tush at me.

Then my son was stung at the playground down the street from my house. Minding his own business.
And I waged holy chemical warfare on those assholes. I got all "mama bear" and started thrashing about with a can of RAID, giant shoes (for the stomping once they fell to their deaths, just to be sure they were goners), and screaming GET OUT OF HERE. SAVE YOUR SEEELLLLFFFF!

I'm cured of the bees.

Bring it and your stinger asses...I dare ya.

But

I won't be using these boots to stomp them, no. These boots....they're for show.

Its Sexy Time…….

Well I seem to have amassed a few new followers to my little blog in the last few days, something that I am always happy and delighted with. So a big hello and thank you to anyone that has decided to stick around, you are all very welcome here.

You may be wondering if all of the posts I do are as heartfelt and poignant as my last one. In answer to that question, I am now going to write about porn (So that’s a no). It will be a light-hearted look, but may cause offence to some. So if it does, I apologise right now.

Sex is a beautiful thing, a wondrous connection between two human beings that is a combination of attraction, desire, and the simple notion of sharing yourself so intimately that nothing can separate two souls as they join together in one of nature’s most special gifts.

Or if your British, it’s a soul sapping slog that only goes to highlight your many flaws and insecurities, and makes you physically want to flay off your own skin and wear somebody else's so you don’t have to spend another waking moment trapped within the walking carcass that is your own miserable body.  

But on a whole, most people quite like it.

And pornography is an age old offshoot of the notion of getting down and dirty that has been around since the early cavemen first learnt to draw on their cave walls, even if it was only stick women with really big boobies.

I have a confession to make though. Porn and I don’t really get along. Instead of finding it titillating, it only amuses me to dangerous levels. Which I think is just missing the point entirely.

Quite a shock though, I’d imagine? I’m a man. I live on my own. I should have porn spilling out of every nook and cranny of my flat, right?

Nope.

That's not to say I haven’t partaken in porn, who hasn’t? It just hasn’t invaded my life like most blokes that I know.

I saw my first porn film at the tender age of 12. It was a stonewall classic called Deep Inside Vanessa Del Rio that one of my friends had on video and was passed around our little circle of chums with fevered breath and shifty eyes.

Eventually it was my turn to take the video home. I stuck it in the back of my wardrobe and waited for an opportune time to take it out and watch it. When that day came, and I was alone in my house, I put the video in our player and with shaky hands, pressed play. 

My internal monologue played out something like this.

Yeah I’m gonna see some people have sex. I can’t wait. I’m gonna see some boob and some sex. I like this films theme tune. OK, here's the lady. She's sexy. Yes, she's getting naked! Alright! Boobies! Ohhhhhh, so that's what it looks like. She’s hairy. And here's the man. Now he’s naked. I feel weird. And now they are- OH MY GOD! WHAT ARE THEY DOING? THAT’S HORRENDOUS! I HAVE TO DO THAT? I’M NOT DOING THAT! WHYS HE PUTTING IT IN THERE??? NASTY!!!!!!

Lucky for me, someone had part recorded over the tape with an episode of Knight Rider, which put me out of my shocked misery and made me eject the tape pretty quickly. But I now have the psychological problem of immediately getting an erection and a sense of shame whenever I heard the Knight Rider theme tune. Just thank god that pavlovian response doesn’t happen every time I see David Hasslehoff. That would take some explaining.

As my own world views widened, and my 12 year old self was replaced with an older and semi-adult self, my experience with porn began to change as well. When I began to understand all the “Ins and outs” (snigger), porn films began to take on almost depressingly predicable scenarios in the way they played out.

They would basically centre on the star of the film, a woman who’s “Sexploits” (double snigger) would be the plot of the movie, as she generally shagged her way through a procession of men.

The protagonists would always seem to be cut from the same cloth. The men would be perma tanned slabs of meat, so pumped full of steroids it was amazing that their balls didn’t resemble two frankly startled grapes with a huge swinging dick like an out of control fire hose lassoing around them, and they always had the same befuddled expression on their faces, like they were continuously trying to remember if they had left the gas on at home.

The women quite often seemed more like mannequins than real human beings. Everything nipped and tucked, with fake breasts that seem to defy the natural laws of gravity. And vaginas so hairless and smooth, that every time the man went down to administer oral sex, he would recoil in horror on seeing his own face looming back at him from her reflective nether regions.

So once whatever contrived set up had taken place that would get them in a position to start having sex, you could almost start playing porn bingo as it was almost so predictable as to how it was going to pan out.

Right, she’s blowing him. I got that one. Now he’s going down on her. Tick that one. Now she’s riding him. Yep, that's on my card. Any minute now they will change position. Is it doggy? Nope, it’s the praying mantis. Now it’s doggy. And here comes the cum shot. HOUSE!

It’s basically about as erotic as slapping two cuts of raw steak together.

But the thing that sets my, frankly rather odd, sense of humour off, is the “Dirty talk”.

Sex instantly makes us stupid. It’s unavoidable. Now I don’t know if any of you kinky souls have ever recorded yourselves, but if you have, play it back with just the sound and no image. You sound like an idiot.

Sex takes up so much brain power that what little is left is only our most basic functions, so when we start doing the dirty talk, we sound like we have just had a very powerful frontal lobotomy.

And porn films seem to be under the impression that we like this, so they go all out to give us more of what they think we like. Idiots talking gibberish during sex.

Ohhh yeah, fuck me hard.

Pound me with your hot meat.

You like my wet pussy?

One thing that seems to be repeated often is the fact that the couple can’t quite seem to believe that they are having sex.

We’re doing it.

Yeah, we’re really doing it.

We’re doing it hard baby.

We’re really doing it hard and fast.

It’s like some odd form of philosophical debate amongst morons. If two idiots fuck in an office, are they really there? If the woman really wanted to freak the man out, during mid thrust, she could grab him by the ears, look him deep in the eyes and say, “But are we really doing it?” causing the man to suddenly doubt his own existence, which in turn will make him lose his magnificent erection and go in sit in the corner to contemplate who exactly he really is.

One of the most soul destroying pieces of dirty talk I have heard in a porn film was this little beauty.

“Stick your big fat cock in my meathole.”

Now let me break that down for you.

Stick. Your big fat cock. In my meathole.

I don’t think in all of the history of the written literature has there ever been a more awful collection of words placed in one sentence. That one statement has basically reduced something that is beautiful, life affirming, sensual, and just generally amazing, and turned into donkey shit. Plus it has also shown porn up for what it really is: just two rapidly decaying sacks of flesh, pointlessly and joylessly grinding away at each other in a pathetic attempt to stave off the rapidly approaching spectre of death lurking menacingly on the horizon.

Well I’m horny now, how about you?

With the explosion of home internet use within the last 15 years, all the porn you want can be beamed directly into your homes at the click of a mouse button. You want to see someone with no hands trying to fuck a chicken? (and let’s face it, who wouldn’t?), have a little search around and I’m sure you will find it somewhere.

Websites like youporn, spankwire, redtube, all provide a never ending stream of folk doing the wild thing for you to consume at your pleasure.

And yet these sites don’t really appeal to me either. Unlike porn films, these sites cut out the story and just show endless clips of people getting down to it. But whenever I have watched anything on there, being the stickler for narrative that I am, rather than get turned on, I just seem to be asking myself loads of questions.

Whose kitchen are they in?

Is that the baddie?

Why is he dressed like a pirate?

So instead of getting my juices going, all I end up doing is desperately trying to fill in a back story for something I’m not really interested in anyway.  

I’m sticking to my imagination in future. In that I am always amazing, have endless stamina, and I never cry halfway through.

Which is always a bonus.

A Bedroom Full Of Stars….

When I was about ten years old, I saved up all my pocket money for about three weeks for something that had caught my eye in our local knickknack shop, just round the corner from my house. It was a packet of glow in the dark star stickers that were sitting on some dusty shelf, right behind some cheap and nasty plastic toys that were obviously made in some sweat shop in China.

These stars pleased my ten year old eye immensely, and I had these had grand visions of where I would put them once I had saved up enough money to buy these wonderful things. So I pestered my dad for household chores that my ten year old self could actually do (washing up, polishing, that kind of stuff), and eventually saved up enough money to go with my mum to the little store and buy my stickers.

I was so excited that day, my head filled with that childish glee that only something stupid and tacky could provide. I walked in with my £2.50 burning a fiery hole in my pocket and walked straight up to the shelf where they were. Now, I don’t know why she did this, but my mum could see how excited I was about getting these, frankly, pretty crappy stickers, and just as I picked a packet for myself, she then grabbed another three and bought them for me as well.

How cool was that? I had a whole galaxy sitting in a brown paper bag.

So I rushed home and immediately ran up the stairs to my bedroom, spilling the contents of my freshly bought wares over my bed. Now this was going to take some planning. My aim was to cover the entire space of my bedroom ceiling with these amazing things and turn my room into the deepest, darkest, space imaginable.

So I carefully unwrapped the stickers and placed them into little piles that corresponded with what they were. I had moons, shooting stars, planets, and hundreds of tiny little stars that would fill out the surrounding areas.

I grabbed a chair and began to carefully stick them to my ceiling. I wasn’t putting them up haphazardly; there was real care and attention that went into this little endeavour. I made clusters of planets, around which orbited a moon each, and then I created bursts of stars around them as well. Constellations formed, amazing nebulas were birthed right before my eyes, and a whole universe was taking shape with each sticker that I placed with my excited hand.

After about three exhausting hours, I was finally done. My entire ceiling was covered with the stickers. And as the light began to fade, I switched on my bedroom light to charge them up so they would glow brightly during the night.

When it was eventually time for me to go to bed, my dad did his normal ritual of tucking me in during the night. He would gather me up on his back, piggyback style, and then run up the stairs to my room, always making a point to pretend to be falling backwards on the top step, something that my younger self used to delight in, that sensation of nothing behind me, and me holding on to my strong father for dear life so I wouldn’t fall, but he never let me. He carried me as always. I always used to love this moment, that one small snatch of time where it was just me and him. That’s how I always remember him the best, us laughing, me clinging on to his shoulders, half in terror, the other half joy.

God he was a good man.

My dad was also a bit of a workaholic unfortunately. He would spend long hours away from us working, so any time that I could spend with him was always a bonus to me, my nightly tuck in being one of them.

He had watched me spend the day placing my stickers on the ceiling (and I swear I heard him muttering darkly something about “Gonna take the paint off”, but I tried to ignore that) and he knew that I had been waiting for this moment all day.

Once he got me into my bed, he gave me a little kiss on the forehead like he always used to do, his stubble tickling me, which always made me squirm, and the scent of his aftershave filled my world in a way that always makes me think of him to this day if I smell it elsewhere, and then walked over to my light switch and paused.

“You ready?” he asked me.

I nodded.

He turned off the light.

It was beautiful.

The walls of my bedroom seemed to fall away as my room exploded in a sudden burst of light. In front of my eyes, a never ending swirl of universe glittered above me, shimmering and gleaming like real stars.

“Bloody hell!” my dad said, upon seeing the wonder I had created. “Are you sure you’re going to be able to sleep with this?”

“It’s brilliant!” I replied.

And I meant it.

As he left my room, I lay on my back and just stared straight ahead. My bedroom window was open slightly and a cool breeze blew in, which further enhanced the idea that I wasn’t in some suburban bedroom, but was in fact drifting through the cold and empty upper reaches of the stratosphere. I almost felt that I could reach out my arm and touch the universe I had created as it was that close.

That night I slept deeply amongst the stars.

For the first few weeks, my favourite time of day would be that brief pause, just before I turned my lights out, and I knew that my room was going to be instantly transformed and take me to another place. I used to daydream about that moment all day, as to my child's mind, it was the most perfect thing ever. And it was.

Every kid at one point wants to be an astronaut; I got to do it every night as I lay on my bed.

As the weeks rolled on, as time does, my love for my stars began to gradually change though. Whereas before it was something fun and exciting to me, now, as each night drew in, I began to like my universe less and less. Instead of making me feel as if I was floating in space, it began to make me feel incredibly small and insignificant, like I was nothing more than a speck of dust, drifting through an infinite darkness and lost forever.

As I closed my eyes, I could feel these stars pressing against my eyelids, the glow from them invading my head and preventing me from sleeping. I would toss and turn in my bed, burying my head under blankets and trying to find an angle where I could find some peace, where I would be allowed to finally drift off. But no matter what I did, the sensation of all these stars pressing against my tiny body always stopped me from doing so. The moment when I turned my lights out at night grew later and later, until finally one day, I had enough. I got a ruler from my school bag and began to scrape the stickers one by one from my ceiling, ruining the paintwork, just as my dad had so wisely guessed I would do.

Being ten years old, I couldn’t really articulate in my mind why I suddenly began to feel highly uncomfortable in my room at night, why the sensation of being something so small, tumbling though something so huge, gave me such a feeling of vertigo that it almost made my head spin.

It was about 8 years later, as I was leaving Romford hospital one cold December morning, the morning that I had just seen my mother pass away, that I thought about my ceiling full of stars for the first time in years and how miniscule they made me feel, and I think I began to finally understand why.

Having lost my father three years before, a whole maelstrom of emotions were raging through my head as I blindly walked through the hospital, with its aroma of disinfectant and the sounds of the patients in the wards, but the one thought that played out over and over in my mind was that the moment that I left this building, everything would become real. Right now, hearing my footsteps echo along the corridor, it all seemed dream like, flimsy and unsubstantial, but the moment the automatic doors closed behind me, then I would be facing up to a whole new world with all my safety nets removed.

I had my best friend with me at the time; he had spent the whole night sitting up in the hospital, making sure I was OK. He may have been holding my arm for support, I can’t really remember. The only thing I can really remember is thinking, leave this place and everything changes. That was the only thing that filled my mind. Not the fact that I was now alone. Not the fact that I was going to have to grow up faster than anyone should have a right too. But the simple fact that everything that had gone before, all my past, all my history, had now been ripped apart in the space between heartbeats.

As I stepped out into the weak winter sunlight, it felt as if I was just about to take a massive leap into the unknown, and for some strange reason, I was reminded of lying on my bed at night as a child, with the weight of all those stars pressed upon me, and how so small, helpless, and utterly alone they made me feel.

I don’t think I have ever been so scared in all of my life.

I don’t know why I have written about this to be honest. I guess I have found myself in a reflective mood of late. Maybe it’s because of the New Year? Or it could be totally unrelated, just something that has been plaguing me lately. What I do know is that in a few days, I will probably look at this and feel highly uncomfortable about writing something so personal and take it down. I hope I don’t. It was certainly a lot easier writing about it than speaking it. I guess it’s the separation between a blank page and looking somebody in the eye. I can’t really talk about it in real life, but the act of sometimes writing about it somehow makes it that little bit easier.

There is no real way to finish it as well. I can’t wrap it up with something trite and simple, stick a little bow on it and round off with the sound bite that normally ends some stupid teenage movie.

After that summer, nothing was the same again.

Well, after that winter, nothing was the same again for me, obviously. That 18 year old kid probably wouldn’t recognise the adult that he grew into. I’m a lot harder now, so many things in me are now closed off that shouldn’t be. I don’t like that. I never have. I spoke about change and regret in my last post. I suppose these are mine. I’m just often at a loss as how I am to tackle them.

Don’t worry. Normal service should be resumed next post. Probably poo based.

New Year Manifesto…..

As a species, we humans really do amaze me sometimes.

Now I don’t believe in God, but if there is some kind of holy deity that one day, in its infinite wisdom, decided it would be a rather spiffing idea to create us wonders of the universe, then surely the biggest mistake he or she ever made was giving us the freedom to make our own choices. Mainly for the fact that we humans are all incredibly stupid and will surely always make the wrong one at any given opportunity. That's a proven fact. Give an idiot freedom of choice, and we will surely pick the worst one every single time.

The second huge mistake was giving us emotions.

Oh boy, the holy one really screwed up when he gave us emotions.

We live our lives based solely on what our emotions tell us to do. As emotions are far more potent than any rational thought we have in our brains, they drown out any notion of reasonable thinking that we may possess. You suddenly have what you think is an amazing idea, one that is fuelled purely by some great big green spurt of emotion that explodes in your head like a firecracker, and your sensible side is going “Hang on a mo, are we sure about this?”, but you naturally, of course, choose to ignore it. Sensible sucks. Emotions rule. So your rational side is left by the wayside, waving its arms in the air and trying to get your attention but failing miserably, like someone with a sore throat who is shouting at you the middle of a tornado, you just don’t hear them as it’s far too faint. And by then it’s way too late anyway. That great idea you had, in the cold light of day, not looking so great now, is it? Yep, you screwed up again.

So if you combine freedom of choice with our complete inability to separate our emotions from our rational side, you basically have a whole species that is making mistake after mistake every single day, and then hating themselves for doing so.

So this time of year, we all strive to change ourselves. We set out detailed plans on how we are going to mould ourselves into something different. To not make the same mistakes that we made last year and to emerge into 2010 like the beautiful butterflies that we are, all shiny and new, with our freshly created diet regimes, our firm belief that we are forging a new path for ourselves, the breaking dawn of a pure and wonderful life. It’s truly going to be something amazing. This is it everybody! Hold on tight! New life coming right up!!!!

It’s not going to happen.

Sorry to prick your bubble, burst your balloon, piss on your parade and any other well worn simile you care to fling at it.

We are human beings. Our one concrete notion in life is to be a fuck up. It’s what we do best. You give me someone who can confidently tell me that they are happy with every aspect of their life and I would probably be looking at a liar. Nobody is really happy with every aspect of their life, they wouldn't be human otherwise.

We are never going to be truly happy because we will never allow ourselves to be happy. We are bombarded on a daily basis, from every single angle; with people telling us how useless our lives are, how if we did this one thing, everything would be better. Buy this car, cut your hair like this, wear these shoes, loose a stone in weight, go on holiday here, belong to this group, not that group over there, put down that cake, and get a new career, change, change, change. All of this is pounded into our subconscious by all aspects of the media, and our own social circles, until we are almost breathless and dizzy from it all, and with an almost underlying sensation that we are missing out on some wonderful and elusive life. This life that everybody else is having and one we seemed to have mislaid the invite too.

We spend so long reaching and yearning for the things that we think we need, we sometimes fail to actually stop and look around at the things we actually have. Great things. Amazing things. People that love us, a whole network of folk who, when things go wrong, will be there to carry us through it. What about health? Most people that are reading this will hopefully have had a fit and healthy 2009. That's something to cherish, isn’t it? And those that have had brushes with ill health through all of last year, they will probably have grasped this fact a long time ago, the things we have far outweigh the things we think we need. There are so many things for which we should be really grateful for. But no, not us, we think we need to change our lives because somebody, somewhere, has said that what we are doing is not good enough. That we can be better than what we are.

We will probably attack the month of January, with all our new resolutions tucked firmly under our arms, with all the gusto that we could possibly muster. But over time, as our stupid little brains start thinking “Bloody hell, this is hard work!” our steely reserve will start to falter, and one by one, these resolutions will fall by the wayside. But is that such a bad thing? Should we really beat ourselves up over it?

And once again it all boils down to emotions. Mainly one called regret. Next to unrequited love, the worst kind of emotion there is. Regret can seep into the very fibre of your being and poison you with its reedy little voice.

Ohhh, but what if you had done this?

Ohhh, your life would have been so much different if you hadn’t of done this.

During a lifetime, you build up a whole catalogue of regrets. A list of moments that if given a time machine, you would pop back and play the cards you was dealt a whole lot differently. But time machines don't exist, and to live your life plagued with the regrets of the past is a total waste of time. And yet that it seems that is how we like to live.

Now I am certainly not advocating that you do nothing to change your lives. If you have the willpower and the strength to actually see out your convictions, then I truly applaud you, I honestly do. It really takes something special to be able to follow through like that.

But if you suddenly find yourself faltering, and that all these promises that you have made yourself are not quite working out, then for the love of Morgan Freeman, don’t beat yourself up over it. Chances are the life that you are currently living isn’t as bad as people would like you to believe. So, you screwed up? YOU’RE A HUMAN BEING! WE DO THAT!

Just stop, take one really good look around you, and realise that no matter what shit things have happened here to lead you to this point, you are alive and you have the rest of your life to change things, if that's what your heart is telling you to do. Why cram it all into one year? Why suddenly feel the need to change things right this very second? Is it all honestly and truly that bad?

You may not have the right car, the right hair, the right shoes, you may be carrying a few more pounds than society deems to be ascetically pleasing, your furniture may be a few seasons out of date, your career might not be what you hoped it would be, but bottom line is, fuck all that. Serioulsy, fuck it. It’s a truly wonderful world out there that contains far too many beautiful things that you could ever see in a lifetime. If you want to do something, maybe try and see a few of them before you die? Or just sit at home eating cookies. It’s up to you. Don’t let some twat, with this so called, “Perfect life”, tell you how you are supposed to live yours, because chances are, they are still probably weeping into a giant tub of Hagen Daz every midnight, ruing over missed opportunities, just like the rest of us poor simple sacks of flesh.

It’s your life; you do what you want with it. And if anyone tries to tell you any different, just twist their nipples and run off laughing.

Happy New Year!

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