Getting a Handle on Adulthood

A few weeks ago I came across a new blog to love, Aussa Lorens. I giggled and pulled shocked faces while reading her posts, and then laughed out loud when I came across a post titled I Just Can’t, which inspired this post. Take the time to check it out, it will brighten your day.

Sometimes when driving I get an attack of  “What the hell am I doing!?” thoughts, and suddenly realise that age is advancing like wild horses, and there really isn’t anything I can do about it. But there are quite a lot of things that I do that make me realise that however many sprouting grey hairs that offend me while peering in the mirror, I really haven’t got my shit together.

I just can’t…

1# Relax during a massage.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a massage, unlike my sister who (direct quote) “doesn’t like people touching” her. I love the whole build-up of going along and thinking how amazingly relaxing its going to be, and how my stresses will be wiped away with the simple touch of a trained set of hands and a splash of funky smelling essential oil, but does it ever happen like that? Nope.

I cannot chill out. when the masseuse says “just breathe deeply and relax” I tense up. I find the repeat in the panpipes music and start humming along, or I worry I might fall asleep and dribble, or I worry I might fart. All in all, not a relaxing experience. Which leads seamlessly into..

#2 Yoga

If you thought the massage was bad, yoga is a massage on crack. You’re surrounded by a whole host of yoga type women who really get it, can strike a tree pose without getting the giggles, wobbling and falling over, and when it comes to clearing their mind and relaxing at the end, you know they are meditating for sure, and not worrying about the sell by dates of items in the fridge and where they put that Tupperware from lunch last week.

#3 Go through security or get ID’d without feeling nervous.

I must have a really deep seated problem or been part of Al Quada in a former life, but whenever I go through the customs part of airport security at the exit end, or get ID’d in a bar, I feel nervous. I get sweaty and I feel panicked, for absolutely no reason at all. I am so far past the legal age for drinking that I can’t even remember it, and I have a valid passport and no activity to feel at all guilty for. However this still happens. I’m kind of twitchy, and weird.

4# Wear lip makeup without pulling a funny face

The stickier it is, the worse my face is. Lipstick makes my lips feel dry, and anything glossy and sticky makes me inadvertently smack my lips together, like a fish out of water. It’s not a good look, or very classy.

5# Go to sleep without checking under the bed

This is a new one, but a year (yes, a year) ago, the boy and I watched the whole of Luther from start to finish (it’s a really good detective series in the UK, with Idris Elba). Anyway, horror or suspense things don’t really bother me, however there was this one episode where a killer snuck into these girls house and hid under the bed for hours before killing them all in their sleep. So now I check under the bed, unless its in my flat where I know that its stuffed so full of winter clothes and duvets that no one is getting in there. You know, JUST IN CASE.

What can’t you get to grips with?

Debunking The Urban Legend

I love a good horror film. I’m the sort of person that will hide behind a pillow, scaring myself to death with that little bubble of anticipation in my throat when I know someone is going to get murdered terribly. I will put all the lights on in the flat to ensure I am safe (makes sense) and recently after I watched the terrible Insidious, I still checked in my shower for any dead kids that might be lurking there, looking a bit peaky. When I am alone in the house I shut all doors on the understanding that I won’t freak myself out wondering why the bathroom door is open when I can’t remember if I left it ajar or totally shut it or….. This way, there is no concern. Door shut means I am sane, door open means some dude with a fish hook has snuck in and is now lying in the bath awaiting my need for a wee. But I sometimes feel that some of the urban legends that these films are based on are slightly farfetched. So I thought that I would have a go at debunking some of the popular ones, so that you all sleep better at night. Please send me cake by way of thanks.

The killer in the backseat

 I’m sad to say that the urban myth of the killer in the back seat is something that I am guilty of being slightly freaked out by when driving late at night on my own. The myth states that a girl drives home, being flashed by the car behind her all the way. She doesn’t stop, as she is scared that she might be attacked (those police emails really make you worry) so she carries on driving. When she gets home, she realises too late that the person behind was trying to make her aware of the knife wielding maniac crouching in her boot ready to fillet her like a fish. Or something.

So this one has its flaws, doesn’t it? A sensible girl like me can realise that if you make sure that your car is tidy (no coats or other hiding materials on the back seat) then the only place the killer would be able to lurk is the boot. Problem solved! By ensuring your parcel shelf is always in your vehicle, you remove the element of surprise. By the time Norman Bates has worked his way out of the boot, you will be firmly in your house and the kettle will have boiled. Magic.

The Hook

The hook is a slightly ridiculous one. Picture the scene, young couple making out in car with the radio on. Which announces a serial killer on the loose that has a hook in place of a hand. They decide to go home, and the legend ends with the killer on the roof pretending they are a tin of sardines, and eventually the couple are dead.

This one is so simple. Don’t park up and have a romp in the car. Its frowned upon, and I think the police might assume that you are dogging. If you feel that you must, don’t put the radio on. What you don’t know won’t hurt you. (When researching this post, I love how Wikipedia informed me that interpretations are that there is ‘a depiction of danger from a rampaging antisocial person’! that’s me  most mornings).

Aka Manto

This one is a Japanese one, and makes me laugh because whoever dreamt it up covered all bases. Basically it’s a ghost that haunts bathrooms (As if you would. You would haunt somewhere a bit better than the loo, wouldn’t you?!) And is most commonly found in the end stall in the girl’s loos. When the victim is going about their ablutions, they hear a voice asking if they want red paper or blue paper (brilliant. I imagine this voice to be Billy Connolly, but insert comedy voice as needed). If the toilet user opts for red they are killed violently and drenched in blood (I assume their own) but if they choose blue they are strangled and bled dry, causing you to go blue. If they have any questions, or would prefer a different shade of loo roll, hands come out of the toilet and drag them to hell. Via the U-bend.

The licked hand

Aother simply solved urban legend. The myth is that a girl is home alone and hears on the radio that a serial killer is on the loose. She takes her dog and hides in her room, with the dog under the bed. In the night, she hears dripping and is freaked out when the light won’t turn on, so she puts her hand under the bed and when the dog licks it, she is reassured that everything is OK (because obviously this is a measure of how OK the situation is). When she wakes up in the morning she finds her dog hanging from the ceiling dripping blood, and in blood on the wall are the words “humans can lick too”. Goodness me. This one has always puzzled me. Why do people get so worried? If the killer was in your room with the light off you would surely hear something. If you had been eating your carrots like a good girl you might even see a shape. Best way to avoid this one? Don’t get a dog. That way if something licks your hand from under the bed in the night, you know to grab your baseball bat and get the hell out of there. But whatever you do, don’t head to the basement by yourself. That’s just asking for trouble.

What urban legends do you find the most unbelievable? And for a bonus point, what celebrity voice would your Japanese loo killer have?

Night Nurse

There is nothing worse than a morning where you took too much night nurse the night before. As you might have read previously, I have real trouble sleeping so every now and again, if I am feeling really under the weather and the lack of sleep isn’t helping me, I take a dose of night nurse. It knocks me out like a round in the ring with Tyson, and I catch up on my sleep to leave me rested in the morning. Or so I think.

But the problem is that I am small in stature, and it’s an exact science. So one capful for a normal sized person will lull them to sleep and ease the symptoms of their cold or flu, leaving them calm and rested in the morning, ready to face the day with a new vigour.

Doesn’t work like that for me.

I have to take it as I walk in the door from work, otherwise the effects last long into the next morning and I am drugged and disorientated. And this isn’t a joke.

The alarm goes off. I am yanked from slumber like someone has hit me in the face with a frying pan, and my day doesn’t get any better from there. I get dressed and leave for work, marvelling at how organised that was and how I don’t even feel rubbish at all anymore! I sit in traffic on the way to work and somewhere along the journey realise that my leggings are on inside out and that the seam is sticking out down my leg for all to see, not to mention when I get out the car the label will be fairly obvious and flap in the wind. If this hasn’t happened I sit smugly in the car patting down my hair which has taken on a life of its own and is threatening to blind me and wondering why I don’t have the energy to even sing along to the radio. I get to work, go to the loo and realise there was a casualty; I have my pants on inside out. Or back to front. Or in some cases, both.

In the summer I don’t need to take anything to help me sleep. I often don’t mind being awake when it is light and the rest of the world still sleeps, and have been known to get up, go for a walk in my pjs and then get back into bed as sleep washes over me. Admittedly, it’s not that great in the summer when I have left the window open all night (I find it easier to sleep with the breeze running over my skin) and the birds wake me up having a sing off on the fence post, but mostly I can cope with less sleep in the summer months.

But the winter is a totally different matter. I honestly think that in a former life I was a hibernating animal, and November through February you can find me in my bed for most of my free time. Either reading, writing, watching TV or, for the majority of the time, sleeping! And if I can’t sleep I get teary, thinking about the fact that I am on a different time zone to everyone on the same continent as me, and worrying how I will even make it through till lunch time on four minutes sleep in the last forty eight hours. If you know me you will know it’s true that I don’t function well without sleep, and am the most akin to a zombie as you will ever see.

So I take a bit of night nurse in the hope it will let me drift off with ease. It does. There have been some hilarious casualties to my reputation from night nurse induced situations. It doesn’t actually knock you out per se, just makes it far easier to drift off. For this reason I have had a couple of text messages which have woken me up and I have responded to. Cue confused message the next day from the recipient asking me to turn off predictive text/explain my point/enquiring if I had had a stroke.

Maybe I should go cold turkey….

Related Posts:

Conciousness: That Annoying Time Between Naps
The Early Bird Doesn’t Always Catch The Worm

Do Opposites Attract?

I have noticed in my time that people seem to identify with some of the stupid conversations I had with my ex-boyfriend. The one I used to live with (I feel I need to narrow this down). It seems that when you live with someone you have all sorts of silly conversations, and I swear, they started before we moved in. They say men are from Mars and women are from Venus, and me and this one totally were from different planets.

One night, after I had been at work all day and he had been a student all day (still not entirely sure on this one. He didn’t actually go to uni any more yet still claimed to be a student, so what he did is still a mystery) I came home. We shared a room at the time, it being just before we moved into our lovely cottage in the country with a rose bush and a garden (which in reality turned into a cold house in the middle of nowhere that was creepy and wild) and I was exhausted. Trying to let houses when people were doing their Christmas shopping was hard. I makeup removed, put my headband on, slathered myself with face mask, and hopped into my pjs. He played the Xbox (sense a theme?) and then I heard it. The dulcet tones of his Welsh friend. I froze.

“Where can I hear him from?” I asked.

“The Xbox!” he replied, as if I was insane and should know this already. I had tried to play the Xbox when we first got together in a nice girlfriendly fashion (not something I am familiar with) but I had got unceremoniously banned for making the players run round in circles and annoying everyone. My bad.

“Can he hear me?” I asked.

“Sure” was the reply I got.

I sat, pondering for a second and suddenly a thought crossed my mind.

“Can he SEE me?!” I asked.

“Uhhhhh, yep”.

“OHDEARGODTURNITOFFTURNITOFF!!!”

Him “I really do not see what the fuss is about.”

Me “I have just got changed from my work dress to my pjs. And he has seen my boobs and knickers in their full glory. How can you not?”

Him, after turning the sound back up so his mate was once again in radio contact “dude, next time she gets changed, just close your eyes. It’s just not cricket.”

LORD.

A few weeks later we went to look around a house. As a lettings agent I got the pick of seeing everything as they went on the market, and I found a perfect one. First floor, large flat. Big spaces, a small second bedroom for junk (the usual, ironing board, gym kit etc) and well in our price range so I could save up. Nope. He didn’t like it. Because the, and I quote ‘acoustics were all wrong”’for music production, and there wasn’t enough space. For the two of us. And we couldn’t get a pet. And it was in the city and he was a country bumpkin and he ‘couldn’t handle the noise’.

In a very un-me like fashion, I relented. We found a cottage in the country. There was no phone signal. There were no street lights. The bus went through sporadically when the bus driver could be bothered to get up. It cost a bomb. And the second large room for music production was used a grand total of five occasions. Twice when he went out and came home so late that he slept in the spare room as not to wake me, twice when my friend came to stay, and once for music production. In seven months.

The moral of this story is, that some men really are from a different planet!

Swallow Me Up!

I’ll never be one of those girls who is able to look all glam and effortless, and whisk about in high heels that look like they might break your ankle if you step funny. (On that note, I don’t think I will ever be one of those girls who deems herself grown up enough to call herself a woman either!) I don’t think it helps that despite the fact that I am twenty-five and a half, the years have been kind and I still look twelve. That’s an exaggeration. I look at least fifteen! But definitely not old enough to be served alcohol, cigarettes or other contraband items.

So yesterday, I had the day off of work. I was meeting a friend for a swanky lunch in a hotel, and then going on to Bruno Mars after. I was dressed in a black shift dress (day smart, but not too smart I felt) and some small black heels. I didn’t want to wear flat shoes as I wanted to look sophisticated, yet I didn’t want to wear massive high heels as a) I didn’t want to look like a little girl dressed in her Mum’s clothes and b) we ALL know I can’t actually walk in those and would just look like I had done a poo.

So small, yet girly heels it was. And I thought I had scrubbed up pretty well. I didn’t have the faintest idea where I was going however, and as I got off the tube I saw a taxi. Hallelujah! The heavens are smiling. I asked him to take me to my destination and he replied “Quicker to walk laaaav. Take a left and a right and….”. I must admit I zoned out, and began the walk to my destination. In the end Google Maps on the iPhone saved me, and I hurried along as not to be late. I turned the corner to the road and came face to face with twelve great big builders. “Oh God” I thought “Here we go!” In my effort to not go bright red when one jeered at me I got my heel caught in a grate on the street and fell, in a totally un demure or ladylike fashion, bottom over breasticles. (I think that’s the polite way of saying it!)

They all rushed to my aid, which made the whole situation more embarrassing. I know that’s the gentlemanly thing to do, but in a bid to will the ground to swallow me up, I would have preferred it if they had pretended I didn’t exist. I got up, dusted myself off and asked in a jokey way if they wanted me to take a bow. “No”, replied head builder “it’s bad enough you have to do the walk of shame”. Oh wow, thanks for your concern!

So I walked into the foyer of the hotel, and took a seat while I waited for my friend. I put my hand to my knee to rub off any dust, and to my horror, pulled back a hand covered in bright red, sticky blood. Looking down, I noticed that not only was I bleeding like there had been a severe shark attack, but my ‘ladder resistant’ glossy woman-tights had a hole in the size of my fist and horrific looking ladders scaling up and down my leg. I also had a gaping wound in my knee and lots of bits of road lodged in it.

I hurried to the loos and removed the tights, cleaned myself up and strolled back to the table, styling it out like nothing had happened. But I did have to sit with my legs crossed and my hand uncomfortably resting over the injury, so that the waitresses didn’t keep asking me if I needed a plaster/ some anti-haemorrhaging tablets / an ambulance.

Have you ever had a really embarrassing public experience?

Here Little Fishy ~ Part 2

Thanks to the success of my Here Little Fishy post, I have decided to write a bit more. Like a child who gets a clap from their mother and then carries on performing, despite annoying the rest of the room? Yep, that’s me! To give you a bit of background, I signed up to a free dating site to see what all the fuss is about. I have dabbled in internet dating before but always been a bit half-hearted, and always used the sites that you pay for on the premise that you have to at least have a job to pay for a dating site. But anyway, if you want to know more about the history of this post, then go back and read Here Little Fishy. Apparently I’m funny sometimes 🙂

My bugbear is this. A picture says a thousand words, and first impressions are everything, right? So I’m pretty sure that however glowing your bio, the photo is important, and this is backed by statistics online that say a great deal (vague, can’t actually find the thing I am referring to!) of people will not click on a profile that doesn’t have a picture. Because however charming and dashing you sound, you could be Jabba the Hut or look like you haven’t washed in months. Let’s gloss over the fact that it doesn’t take the next Steven Hawking to work out that you could post a picture of someone else.

OK, so…. Photos. I really wish I could use the ACTUAL photos that were the muses for this post, as then you would really understand, but as Elton would say “my gift is my song, and this one’s for you”. I’ll use my words.

Example A: Man in Room.

Let’s call him Man in Room (because I don’t know what his name is, mainly). Man in Room was clearly on holiday.. I can see the thought process behind this. Relaxed, in the sun, having a laugh, good idea! Man in Room had failed to tidy up however, and therefore made himself look like he was living in a travel lodge with an entire week’s charity bag collection that he had pillaged from the locals.

Example B: Sunny Delight.

Sunny Delight had about eight pictures, all with himself in various states of undress, in aviators. For those of you who have lived under a rock since Top Gun, aviators cover most of your face and can make anyone with dark hair look like Tom Cruise. I think that could be considered false advertising.

Example C: Example.

I think I will refer to this specimen as Example because he thought he was a DJ and all his pictures were taken under strobe light. Again, not a good way to gauge whether he had two eyes, for a start.

I like to surround myself with funny people, so if the pictures and captions make me laugh I’m onto a winner. Johnny Vegas? Ideal man. Well…

One guy had a picture of him standing in front of a waterfall so he looked like he was being sick. My kind of humour! Another had sarcastic captions like “Me, running.” “Me, standing still”. Again, it doesn’t take much to make me laugh.

My favourite of this week had to be the guy who emailed me to ask what SEO was, citing that he felt it was Safe Elephant Operation. Hahah!

I do have to say however I am losing attention with this particular line of interest and may give up soon. Characters are amusing for a time, but if I hear that goddamn polar bear joke one more time I will kill.

I got an email yesterday which I had to share, mainly for my die hard Blog Brigade… “Hey dere (for real) me and my mate have a bet, what colours your fong?”

I had to laugh. It did baffle me for a bit. What the hell is a fong? Emma wasn’t in at the time so I couldn’t get a guest opinion. There’s me thinking of vampire teeth (I know right. Fang. I was tired) until the penny dropped like Hiroshima and I realised he was referring to my thong. Of which I don’t own, because it’s like wearing undies constructed of floss. Not pleasant, and I don’t believe a single one of you girls who say “Oooh they are soooooo comfy. You almost don’t realise you have them on”. Sure thing, because YOU ALMOST DON’T HAVE THEM ON.

Internet Dating Update: Of the two original guys that had my number, one has been deleted due to infinite boredom. One remains. He has been joined by a bloke that told me he woke up one morning and went into his kitchen to find Tom Jones playing and his mate asleep on the floor. The word bromance got me. I’m easily pleased.

Here Little Fishy….

Last week I came across a great blog (please do your homework, I reposted it but if not read here) about being twenty something and single, and the realisation that it may be something to do with us rather than the men available. Too picky? Not sure.

This weekend, fuelled with a few bottles of wine and a good old moan, my single friend and I decided to sign up to a dating website. After all, the TV aerial is broken so we couldn’t watch anything, and we thought it might prove to be amusing. And it has been interesting to say the least.

And I’ve decided to tell you all about it. Its good fun, a little bit like going on ASOS on payday. Man shopping! ‘Nope, nope, hell no, looks like he has a girlfriend…. in the boot of his car, nope, hello!  hmmm, nope.’

Firstly, thanks to Karen there is a fantastic metric for screening men, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I’ve used hers. I have adjusted slightly to fit my requirements (she’s from Canada so I had to research some of her references), but it’s something every single girl should print off and put on the fridge. I mean we ALL could do with remembering that a Santa Claus beard is a total deal breaker.

The Screening Process (courtesy of Karen)

Requirements for Potential Prospects

1. A pulse:  Regular breathing= 5 points, Comatose= 3 points, Dead= 0 points, Heavy breathing= Disqualified

2. A personality:  Engaging= 5 points, Boring as a sack of wet bricks= 2 points, Doorknob= 0 points, Weird= -3 points, Douche= Disqualified

3. Hygiene:  Clean= 5 points,  Unclean= 0 points, Funky odours= Disqualified.

4. Toilet trained: Independent of personal potty tasks= 5 points, Significant knowledge on how to flush a toilet= 5 points, Avid player of pee games such as `Ready, Aim, Fire`and Àll pee, no see’= 0 points.

5.  Sense of humor: Russell Brand (Mr Katy Perry)= 5 points, Michael MacIntyre= 4 points, Steve Carell (from The Office)= 3 points, Mr. Bean (from your childhood)= 1 point, Charlie Sheen (from rehab)= 0 points, Jim Carrey (excommunicated from the leprechaun community)= Disqualified

6. Dress Code: Nice Clothes= 5 points, Clean clothes= 5 points, Hobo Chic= 3 points, Hawaiian Shirts= 1 point, Rapper Wannabe= 0 points, Falling pants= Disqualified.

7.  Personal Habits: Cooking= 5 points, Cleaning up after oneself= 4 points, Adequate knowledge of using a phone to order a pizza or to call 911= 3 points, Drinking straight out of a milk carton= 2 points, Avid believer in leaving the toilet seat up= 0 points

8. Crisis Management: Able to handle a crisis= 5 points, Unable to handle a crisis= 0 points, This girl is crazy= disqualified.

9. Beards: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (sexy stubble, 1o Things I Hate About You)= 5 points, Jake Gyllenhaal (groomed beard)= 4 points, Brad Pitt (unkempt hobo beard)= 3 points, Jesus (biblical beard)= 2 points, Santa Claus (unacceptable)= 0 points

10. Attraction: I’m attracted to you= 5 points, I’m not attracted to you= 0 points, You are Ryan Reynolds= Directly pass GO, collect your million points and win the game. In fact, you don’t even need to go to GO. Its fine love.

Fine Print: Need a minimum of a million points to qualify. A long interview process consisting of awkward dates ensues if you pass the screening.

So back to my story. I know a lot of people who have had success on dating sites, and see it like a bar full of single people. This is not the case. Single or not, men go on dating sites. But let’s pretend that it is like going out on a night out and being in an environment where everyone is upfront and single. (if you want to read a hilarious blog about internet dating and douchebag men, head on over to Brooke and McKenzie, my new favourites and my inspiration to tell this story).

We signed up. We filled in all the sections, half-heartedly I might add, with me listing my likes as “Wine. Cheese. Wine and cheese.” (this one’s for you Jules!!) and each added a photo, going off to get more wine. In the time we did so, the inboxes filled up with emails. If you are looking for a boost to your self-esteem, sign up to a free dating website; it’s like a shot of wheatgrass on a hangover. We couldn’t go to the toilet for fear that the email inbox would increase to over five pages and we would lose a James Marsden look-alike in the midst of all the shite. On one occasion it happened and my friend looked at me, scared and said “I don’t think I can cope!” More wine.

But don’t expect it to be plain sailing from the inbox ego boost. We quickly established a quick fire get rid of the crazies metric (which should also be stuck to the fridge). If we had gone with our initial thought that we would politely respond to each email we would have been sacrificing our life to the computer.

1)      If someone writes you an email titled “hay” it goes straight to the bin. There is nothing wrong with a) spelling hey correctly if that is the route you will go down,  or b) and preferably, putting something more exciting.

2)      “How heavy is a polar bear?” I fell for this the first time. Guy 1 got a reply. “Enough to break the ice!” Lord. Add it to the metric, if you see this joke, bin the email.

3)      “Fit”. “Gorgeous”. “Sexy” If any or all of these three words come through, accompanied by NOTHING ELSE! they get binned. How are you supposed to start a meaningful conversation from that?

4)      If the email is from a person with no head, only their t-shirt pulled up to reveal a rippling torso, they go in the bin. As we all know, I am a massive fan of a buff body, but I am also not the type of girl who would post a headless photo of myself in my bra. It’s not what one does! (Note. This has been the hardest of the metric points. If I see a six-pack that I would break my finger poking, it is something hard to walk away from. I have overcome this by flicking to my Ryan Reynolds screen saver. Thank God for Ryan!)

5)      As with #1, if someone spells ‘gorgeous’ ‘gawjus’, a little piece of me dies. It’s like when you sneeze and someone says bless you and you say thank you. Apparently this is bad, and if you don’t clap, you are the key suspect in a fairy’s demise. Or something.

6) If they ask me why I haven’t got a boyfriend. There is no easy answer. Because I moved out of living in a house in the country with my ex because I wanted to murder him for not picking up his pants? Because I attract men who are married, engaged, total douchebags or all of the above? Because the guy who was the closest thing I have had recently to a boyfriend is a thirty something workaholic? Because I am insane? Not sure any of these are socially acceptable.

That’s the do not pass go rationale. After that, it’s an entire minefield, but collectively we anticipate that 95% of emails didn’t get a reply. I got the guilt about this for a time but as my friend pointed out, if you respond to someone who looks like a serial killer and/or can’t spell, you are only encouraging them.  I don’t think that is admissible in court, but OK.

Some snippets of conversation:

“In all his photos his friends are smiling and he has vampire eyes!” Delete.

“I think he might be responsible for the death of his Gran” Delete.

“He looks like Eminem.” “Do you like Eminem?” “No I think he looks like a chavvy oik” Delete.

“You only like him because he is mixed race and you like that. He said ‘gawjus!” Half-hearted delete.

It’s now nearly a week on, and what have I learnt? (It’s like writing a science experiment!) I have learnt that Karen is right. I am picky. I get bored easily and annoyed quickly. If someone doesn’t ask me a question, I don’t reply. After all, I’m not trying to force a conversation with someone I don’t know.

There are a great deal of nutters in the world. I refuse to repeat a great deal of the content provided, as my mother often reads this, but some of the tamer ones:

• Pitbull advised me to “grab somebody sexy and tell them hey, so hey” aaah! You will never get anywhere near grabbing me.
• “Send me a picture of your feet!” I loved this. No “hi”, no warm up, just a podiatry request.
• “Hey gawjus, I fink you are the girl I am supposed to marry. I read your profile and I fink I love you. Let’s meet up.” From one dodgy photo and a few lines of text? Surprised you can read….. This one actually added a point to the metric.
• “If a man in a big red suit comes and puts you in a sack, don’t worry, I asked for you for Christmas”. Vomit. If a fat old man tries to put me in a sack he will be administered with a sharp kick in the general groin region and an ear bending so terrible that he will regret ever attempting to grant Christmas wishes.

But on the upside, I have learnt a lot about myself. All that matters to me is that someone gets that I am always dry, regularly sarcastic and often a little bit odd in my humour, and have the correct personality to be the same. During this scientific experiment I have :

• Awkwardly seen someone who I shared a drunken snog with on a night out at Christmas.
• Noticed that a once good friend of mine was now single and contacted him to offer a chat if needed (who says Facebook keeps us in touch?!) PURELY PLATONICALLY.
• Given my number to two people. This yes, makes me picky. But bonus to the people who made it to this round!

And thus are my findings. In conclusion (they always round it up with a conclusion, don’t they?!) I feel there is nothing wrong with being picky (my granddad would TOTALLY agree. He hates all our boyfriends, deeming they are not good enough for his princesses). It might mean you end up dead being eaten by alsatians before someone sends an ambulance, but I think I would rather that than be romantically attached to a man who has a foot fetish, takes his advice from a rapper who looks like he had a stroke, and cannot spell. I’ll keep you posted if anymore classic, must-be-shared emails come through. Until then I will remain reporting from the field. Over and out!

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Ring of FIIIIIIIRE!!!

Drinking games are quite possibly the silliest thing ever. No one can remember the rules of new ones, so you always end up playing the same ones and getting slightly tiddly.
Ring of fire is the worst. Everyone knows different rules and there are different characters that people assume when playing the game.

Rule Hitler. The rule hitler knows the rules of the game and generally tries to ruin the fun for everyone else. For example, if a seven is a ‘pose master’ in their world, but someone else suggests that it might be ‘rhyme’ then the Rule Hitler gets upset. The Rule Hitler may also whip out a pen and paper that they have had concealed about their person and write down what they feel the rules are, so everyone is clear (and rolling their eyes with fun ruining desperation).

The Beer Bullies The Beer Bullies, normally boys, are the ones that psychically pick someone that they feel isn’t as drunk as everyone else of isn’t getting into the spirit of the game as much as they would like, and therefore choose that person to drink at every opportunity. Its normall y a team effort, and often ends in the victim having to go and have a lie down as they have peaked too soon.

The Stickler. The stickler is the one that imposes the rules through the game when people have become too drunk to stick to them.

The sound effects team. Often supporting the Beer Bullies, the sound effects team make oohing and aahing noises when people are drinking, “oh you must” when rules are being enforced, and shout “down it!!” when people are having to drink. Generally make the whole game more fun.

So, in case you are not familiar with the much loved Ring of Fire, there are some rules. I only have a faint grip on these as I normally rely on the fact that one of my friends falls into the Rule Hitler category (not a bad thing) and therefore I don’t have to know. Basically, its a pack of cards that are laid out in a ring. Under no circumstances are you allowed to break the ring (not sure why). You pick a card, turn it over and assume the rule assigned to the card. Five might be rhyme, so the person that turned the card starts with a word and it goes round the circle until you cant think of anymore rhyming words. The person that gets stuck has to drink. Seven might be pose master (hiliarious photo of us at the festival all saluting, with me commenting “why were we doing this?!!” and my friend wisely responding… posemaster.) the person who turns the posemaster card has free reign to strike a pose at any time, and if you arent paying attention and are the last to do it, you drink. So pretty much all rules make you drink. You never get to the end of the game; people get bored and as you get more drunk your own conversations spring up through the circle until it is abandoned.

Another boy rule that seemed to be adapted at the festival was not saying mine. Apparently the word mine is completely forbidden, and if you innocently said it (“whose cider is that?” “oh, its mine!”) you were screamed at to drop and give them twenty. Push ups. Im not sure why, and I cant do one press up without eating the grass so they soon got bored of trying to make me do it due to my pathetically weak upper body strength, but their attempts to con people were quite ingenious. Emma fell prey to it after she was asked “what was that thing called that those miners got stuck in? You know Em, under the ground??” Emma, pleased to know the answer said “it was a mine” and was attacked with shouts of “AHAHAHAHA!!! Drop and give me TWENTY!!!!”

Boys.

Exam. FAIL

A friend sent me a forwarded email this morning. They arent something that I normally read, as I have a work laptop and downloading stuff is always risky, but I did anyway. And Im glad. The questions below are genuine questions posed to sixteen year olds on a paper. These kids will soon be adults. And then they will reproduce. The world is doomed!!!

Q.  Name the four seasons.
A. Salt,  pepper, mustard, and vinegar (come on now, did someone go down to the park and do some illegal drinking last night?)
Q. Explain one of  the processes by which water can be made safe to  drink.
A. Flirtation makes  water safe to drink because it removes large   pollutants like grit, sand, dead sheep and  canoeists (i dont think that the waters agency regard dead sheep to me a ‘large pollutant’)

Q. How is dew formed?
A. The sun shines down  on the leaves and makes them perspire (shame you cant buy leaf deoderant then, isnt it?)