Bald R Us - Men of the Year

Maccers' porn. Yul fucking Brynner - ah, the hotness.

Drinking to forget. It’s All Good.

My pal A calls me this morning.
A: Hey are you okay today?
M: I’m okay. Hungover. Why the concern?
A: You were steaming drunk last night.
M; Yeah, I guessed, right?
A: Did those guys call you yet?
M: Okay. Back it up. What guys?
A: Do you not remember?
M: Obviously.
A: Ok so last night you went downstairs to make a phone call. You were coming back up the stairs and walked past 2 bald guys. You stopped. Walked back down the stairs and said to them: Hey Can I just tell you something? Bald is so fucking hot. So hot. It really does it for me. BIG TIME.
M: Ah. It’s coming back to me.
A: Then they both asked for your number and you gave it to both of them.
M: Excellent. Threesomes.

Thanks to A for being my memory.

Beckham exhibition photo defaced

"The misspelling of 'losers' may have been a reference to Rebecca Loos, whose claims of an affair with Beckham made headlines earlier this year. "

Err no. It's because they can't spell.

North-south split 'getting wider'

"He said: 'It's a long and slow and steady trend and has many reasons behind it. The population of Britain has been moving southwards for over 100 years.
'There's only been a few years in the last century when on average the population hasn't moved southwards.
'So we should expect this divide to widen over the next 10 or 20 years, unless something dramatic was to happen.'
There were pockets of affluence in the North, such as parts of Leeds and Manchester, which 'governed' those regions, he said. "

Ha. Those wankers at Sheffield University fall for it every time. Every time they come round with their clipboards we put coal dust over our faces and tell them we are all dead povvie and have nay money to buy the dripping to go on our bread. Then we sing the "Blaydon Races" and "When the Boat comes In". Daft bastards.

It's all done to keep the southern wankers out of Newcastle. It works.

Wired 12.07: VIEW


"Did you hear the one about the programmer who outsourced his own job? I read about it on Slashdot.org, the 'news for nerds' Web site. A pseudonymous poster wrote, 'About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 to do the job I get paid $67,000 for. He's happy to have the work. I'm happy that I only have to work 90 minutes a day, talking code. My employer thinks I'm telecommuting. Now I'm considering getting a second job and doing the same thing.'"

Man. I am so doing this.

Moccasin House |Thunderbird Soft Sole

No, no, no. Moccasins are all wrong. Really. Wrong like lederhosen and Frankie Says Relax t-shirts.

Stop the madness.

Bar Fights: Men's Journal Reveals the Staggering Truth

"Accompanying Miles's essay is a sidebar on how to win a bar brawl. His first bit of advice might have helped that poor fool I watched in Boston: 'Never hit anyone in the head with a closed fist, unless you've taped your hands and are wearing boxing gloves.' "

Extra Darlo tip: As soon as anyone looks at you funny like, smash the bottom of your stella bottle (or Corona if you are a girl) on the bar, hold it up, stick out chin and yell: What the fuck are youse looking at, like? Outside now. And yer fucking mates.

Cactus extract lessens hangovers

More good news for boozers.

"The volunteers were given dinner an hour later and then four hours later were asked to drink a quantity of alcohol that is known to produce a hangover. "

Weird thing is that I haven't had RU21 for months after proclaiming them as a miracle cure. I need something that doesn't make me so dumb the next day. Something I can take that makes me work at least semi-effectively. Perhaps that thing is called stress.

I'm pissed off Wired didin't give me female pleasure bot, but I guess you can't please all the people all the time. I agree with Jude Law though. I've shagged him and he's excellent.

It's Elvis week. Each day will bring Elvis lyrics. Well today anyhow. I might get bored. Anyway today we have 2 classics that aren't so well known. My favourite is actually "Suspiscious Minds" but we all know the words to that since we've all used a hairbrush to sing it to ex-boyfriends, right?

She's not You

Her hair is soft and her eyes are oh so blue
She's all the things a girl should be,
but she's not you.

She knows just how to make me laugh when I feel blue
She's ev'rything a man could want,
but she's not you.

And when we're dancing
It almost feels the same
I've got to stop myself from
Whisp'ring your name

She even kisses me like you used to do.
And it's just breaking my heart
'cause she's not you.

Teddy Bear

Baby let me be,
Your lovin’ teddy bear
Put a chain around my neck,
And lead me anywhere
Oh let me be
Your teddy bear.

I don’t wanna be a tiger
Cause tigers play too rough
I don’t wanna be a lion
’cause lions ain’t the kind
You love enough.
Just wanna be, your teddy bear
Put a chain around my neck
And lead me anywhere
Oh let me be
Your teddy bear.

Baby let me be, around you every night
Run your fingers through my hair,
And cuddle me real tight

There’s a new way to spend summer weekends in the city. A friend recently bought a ginormous yacht so that we can jet all around Long Island on Sundays and quoff champagne. Ah the sweetness of life.

I was running late as Fifth Avenue was closed off, so I threw on the usual boat gear - surf shorts and a wife beater. Mmmm I’m the only lady who doesn’t change at least twice during the trip. I don’t have matching bikini and shorts or a floaty skirt. Mental note - purchase suitable attire.

My friend’s new girlfriend is also keen to take the boat away for the weekends to glamorous locations off the Hamptons. She wants to make it for couples – guess I’m fucked there then. She is beautiful, softly smooth and perfectly ready to wear. This is a lady who knows how to pose for photographs to maximum effect. Pout, raise right leg, point toe and look left. Fuck it works though – mental note - study this art, at home alone in front of the mirror and to ignore the jeering of others.

She cornered me in the galley and whilst I amazed at her constantly reapplied lipstick she filled me in on her year long course in team management. It’s important to create, build and surround yourself with teams - professionally and socially. Apparently it’s also very important to give people purposes and titles within those teams. Some how I am now in the roller blading team (wha?) and VP of arranging cool bars for the new galpal team to hang out in. That I can manage - but vaguely and it won’t be results orientated. There’s no me in team I try to tell her but it falls on deaf ears. I wonder the length of the course where she learnt to look at her man as though she were in a porn film and sucking him off. Is this where I have so obviously been going wrong? Her man laps it up. Laps it up. Oh baby, your ring is going to make Trump's look like something from a cracker and you know what, you deserve it girl. Mental note - buy more porn. This woman is great I think, I could learn from her. She has direction, she has focus. Results: she gets them. This is a woman who would never be dumped.

Another 4 glasses of champagne later and I agree to go to pilates in tribeca – hang on a minute I think, isn’t hanging out something you do because you just want to - something that happens sort of naturally? Do I need to be marshaled into accompanying you on your health routine?

We discuss competition amongst women. I disagree - none of my friends have ever gone after my man. They console me. The tiny actress from Chicago jumps up and shows us her arse - look at this, girl, if I want your man I'm gonna get your man and there is nothing you can do about it - this thing here has its own zip code. And I slip into a champagne glow, the four ladies snuggling on the back seat, only slightly disturbed when half of the East River dumps on us – eeeuw there’s a dead body in my wine glass. We screech and clasp each other. My last thought is wishing that I’d been more thorough with my hair removal as the lady to my left puts her arm around me starts to stroke my shin and thigh with her foot.

Beware the lecherous frenchman

Vous n'êtes pas jolie, vous êtes pire.
Victor Hugo.

Laissons les jolies femmes aux hommes sans imagination.
Proust.

Elle me résistait, je l'ai assassinée.
Alexandre Dumas.

L'absence est à l'amour ce qu'est au feu le vent ; Il éteint le petit, il allume le grand.
Bussy-Rabutin, L'histoire amoureuse des Gaules.

Because this is the funniest thing I have read in ages

Portuguese fans attacked by mob

We can't even riot properly.

"In Boston, Lincolnshire, seven people were arrested after a disappointed England fans congregated in Market Place after the penalty shoot-out.
A small fire was started outside a kebab shop "

Here Comes The Judge

Oh good lord.

"While seated on the bench, an Oklahoma judge used a male enhancement pump, shaved and oiled his nether region, and pleasured himself, state officials charged yesterday in a petition to remove the jurist. According to the below complaint filed by the Oklahoma Attorney General, Donald D. Thompson, 57, was caught in the act by a clerk, trial witnesses, and his longtime court reporter (these unsettling first-hand accounts will make you wonder what's going on under other black robes). "

It's not the winning, it's the beating everyone else

I did the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge thing tonight in Central Park and learnt a few things about myself.

1. There's no Maccers in team. Fuck you if you are slow.
2. I am competitive.
3. I am aggressive.
4. Being at the right place when everything kicks off is crucial (that's a sailing thing I learnt also).
5. If you are infront of me and picking the shorts out of your arse, I will CRUSH you.
6. I no longer get panic attacks when I'm surrounded by thousands of people running. Yay. That rocks. I should call that World Trade Center health survey woman.

It's Sir Cliffy Cliff Cliff day here on Maccers

And because I care, here are the lyrics to a classic track - Devil Woman - which was a song he dedicated to me in the early 70's when Cliff was still, frustratingly for me, a virgin.

I’ve had nothing but bad luck
Since the day I saw the cat at my door
So I came into you sweet lady
Answering your mystical call
Crystal ball on the table
Showing the future,the past
Same cat with them evil eyes
And I knew itwas a spell she cast

She’s just a devil woman
With evil on her mind
Beware the devil woman
She’s gonna get you
She’s just a devil woman
With evil on her mind
Beware the devil woman
She’s gonna get you from behind

Give me the ring on your finger
Let me see the lines on your hand
I can see me a tall dark stranger
Giving you what you hadn’t planned
I drank the potion she offered me
I found myself on the floor
Then I looked into those big green eyes
And I wondered what I’d come there for

She’s just a devil woman
With evil on her mind
Beware the devil woman
She’s gonna get you
She’s just a devil woman
With evil on her mind
Beware the devil woman
She’s gonna get you from behind

If you’re out on a moonlit night
Be careful of them neighbourhood strays
Of a lady with long black hair
Tryin’ to win you with her feminine ways
Crystal ball on the table
Showing the future,the past
Same cat with them evil eyes
You’d better get out of there fast

She’s just a devil woman
With evil on her mind
Beware the devil woman
She’s gonna get you
She’s just a devil woman
With evil on her mind
Beware the devil woman
She’s gonna get you...

Clifftastic - not

What the fuck is up with this? How can you NOT play the fabadocious Cliff? Fucking outrage. Tony Blackburn is a MARTYR, a fucking marytr I tell you.


"Veteran DJ Tony Blackburn has been suspended from his radio show for repeatedly playing Cliff Richard records.
Bosses at Classic Gold Digital fired off a furious email to the presenter telling him that playing Cliff tracks was against company policy.
Blackburn responded by tearing up the warning live on air and defiantly playing two Cliff hits back to back - We Don't Talk Any More and Living Doll.
Within minutes the former Radio One presenter was suspended from the station. "

Wimbledon't

Check picture for cracking good example of stiff upper lip, naive optimism in the face of diasaster, [insert other ridiculous cliche about the Brits - this guy is obviously German]

Sometimes I get all homesick. But mainly I just miss the proper bacon and chips and curry sauce and good curries and afternoon tea cucumber sarnies. The crapster weather has ruined many a fine pair of my finest suede shoes and it's that sort of asperity which forced me to fly away like a little thing with wings.

Two things I could do without right now

1. Going to see the Mets v. the Reds tonight.
2. Going tailgating first.

Holy Fuck

I haven’t felt this miserable in ages. Novacaine in my jaw, through the roof of my mouth, into my right eye socket. The unexpected cavity. The bashing around in my mouth. Do not leave me in the middle of the dental car mechanics to go and chat to your colleagues. Do not try and talk to me at reception. Leave me alone. I look and feel like a stroke victim. I want to go and hide.

Bill Clinton Book My Life

I got my New Boyfriend into blogging. I'm trying to help him out with his template but it's not going too well. He doesn't understand that pink is gay.


"It was flashback time for me yesterday. My friend Harry Thomason held the first screening of his documentary about me 'The Hunting of the President'. The movie will be in theatres beginning this Friday. It's about the right wing machinations during my presidency to use Ken Starr and other tricks to bring me down. They didn't succeed. They asked me whether I still hate Ken Starr. Not as much as I used to. Some might say, he was just doing his job. I disagree. There is a difference between doing your job and being a jerk doing it. Glenn Close was there. Beautiful woman. Moby, Mike Myers and Salman Rushdie were there too. We went out for dinner afterwards. Me and Glenn that is. "

Self-Help Prescription: A Double Dose of Culture

Stephen Metcalf reviews the latest Alain de Boton (I can't help thinking of Alan B'stard when I see his name). I just picked it up in the UK when I was there. Sounds like a load of pretentious arse. Nice pictures though.

"Of the many media personalities now competing for your attention, dear viewer, know to esteem me, Alain de Botton, the highest."

Is it so wrong?

When I was 10 years younger and in decent enough nick to actually make tips from bartending I would occasionally get pissed off with the leering of men and the random gropes.

Now that I am an aged, drooling Dorien Green from Birds of a Feather, I often find my hands irresistibly drawn to the perfect apples that are the butt cheeks of a certain NY bartender who is five years my junior. Sometimes it takes all the self restraint I am stunned to find myself possessing not to cup those warm orbs. And occaisionally when seated at a table (as you see I always prefer to perch at the bar like the sad loser out of town salesman I am) and he brings my liquid relief, I realise that all I have ever wanted is to slip my shaking hands under his t-shirt and over his undulating torso. Ahhhhhhhh. Is it so wrong?

8 sure fire ways to tell if you are gay

Where was this 3 years ago when I really needed it?

"If you can pick out chartreuse or you know what a 'fressier' is you're
gay"

>Original historical portrait of Dennis J Kucinich

Shit I hate it when I get outbid at the last minute on Ebay.

"So when it came to the concept of how to represent Dennis in a portrait, I positioned him in a thoughtful pose to symbolize his visionary progressive outlook."

The Guardian | Man, oh man:

"All these magazines are, in the end, about providing a sense of belonging, but few are as blatant in their invitation to the fantasy of tribal kinship as Zoo, which runs a regular item called 'Guilty Wanks: Toss Off and Then Think About What You've Just Done'. The list underneath, detailing the people readers are ashamed of thinking about when they're having sex with themselves, includes the child pop group S Club 8, 'National Geographic bare-breasted tribeswomen', Natalie Portman in the film Leon, and 'your best mate's girlfriend'"

A good article from The Guardian on the deluge of weekly mags for the lads. I wonder if the likes will ever make it across the pond.

"You'll find that no pride is greater than the pride that comes with being thick. Britain is filled with people who are really proud of their stupidity. I'm surprised Nuts hasn't made this its rubric - "We're Thick. And Everybody Else Is a Tosser"

The Hunting of the President

The film uses interviews from key players, politicos and journalists about the scandals that plagued the Clinton White House. Among those featured are consultant James Carville, author and former conservative journalist David Brock and Susan McDougal, who served almost two years in prison for refusing to cooperate with Starr's investigation.


Go and see this, it's excellent. Extremely well put together and very, very funny in places. My favourite quote "We've all done really stupid things in our lives but none of us have had 80 million dollars of tax payers' money spent on trying to find out what those stupid things were."

I can't vote here which usually leaves me with a mild indifference towards US politics and malfuntioning bureaucracy but this film just made me batey. Like really. The whole thing was shameful. Also, my new boyfriend is in it. [Please don't tell anyone about this just yet because I could never do anything to damage Hilary].

I dumped you first. I did. Did so.

Sometimes I am loved sogoddamned much that I am set free like the ickle white dove I am sogoddamned fast that the footprints on my arse, and therefore my soul, my eternal soul, take over a month to wash off. This is always a shock to the system – the speed of the dumping – so that 10 minutes after the treacherous deed my pea-like fills with appropriate responses to the inappropriate sad miserable excuses for the said dumpage by the sad miserable excuse for the dumper who just dumped me.

Well no more. Because you see there are really only ever like about three or four reasons (and they all mean the same thing - I am a cretinous fool, but please love me for this regardless) that sad miserable excuses for dumpers ever give you and I am recording these for posterity along with appropriate infantile responses for my future reference. Because, you see, I shall live to be dumped another day – if I ever give up hope of that then I’ll have to stop buying shoes.

Number 1
It’s not you it’s me.

Responses.
1. You’re sogoddamned right it’s you and that’s the first thing you’ve ever said that made sense. You do realize that you will die sad, lonely and unloved, don’t you?
2. You’re a fucking genius, you. Oh and you know what? You’re dumped.
3. I know and I can’t decide what’s worse – your sweaty back or your spotty arse.
4. Yeah well, you were crap in bed. Nerr.

Number 2
You’re not “the One”.

Responses

1. What the fuck do you think this is? The Matrix? Grow up you delusory fool. Oh yeah - you’re dumped.
2. I am actually, but just not your “the One”. I’m the “the One” for that really tall good looking guy who is better than you in bed that I’ve been shagging all the time we were “dating”.
3. Are you a mentalist?
4. Yeah well, you were crap in bed. Nerr.

Number 3
You’re too intimidating.

Responses

1. It was the strap-on and the “bend over boyfriend” dvds wasn’t it?
2. Am I? Excellent. You’re dumped.
3. I thought I might have been able to toughen you up but my magic doesn’t extend to life’s eternal losers.
4. Yeah well, you were crap in bed. Nerr.

Number 4
I just want to stop hurting you.

Responses

1. Yeah and it would be a lot better for me if I started hurting you. [Smack him in the kisser]
2. You didn’t. Letting you be an asshole to me was homework for my acting class.
3. You didn’t because my feelings for you never progressed from tepid.
4. Yeah well, you were crap in bed. Nerr.

Things that are terrible today.

My headache.
My ability to get any work done.
Celine Dion.
My diarrhea.

Gadanga

Just look at the shit you can get on the lovely interweb. Apparently you are supposed to either know something about electricity and sockets or read one of these before you start banging around on a sleek silver keyboard type thing like one of those wind up monkey on a drum things shouting "mmmmmnf mmmnnnumpf it's my lovely silver thing that fits in my handbag ooo it's a bit heavier than I thought it would be - let's shove that thing in the side".

I drink to forget. To forget my new lovely, can only think of a userid and password that so damn secret when I'm drunk, userid and password.

Most of my family are curtain fanatics

Seriously. I can totally understand how this happened and which is why I hate furniture.

Designer dies for curtain comment: "A South African man has been found guilty of killing an interior designer after she criticised his curtains. "

Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women: And Still More Laptop Bags

Oh no. Have been sucked right in. Mine is Philippe Stark but now I just want another one. Fuck.

Docs Rebuff Idea of Refusing Care to Lawyers:

Interesting tactic put forward by the American Medical Association.

"The first clause in the resolution, which had the innocuous title, 'Reform of the Civil Justice System,' stated that 'except in emergencies and except as otherwise required by law or other professional regulation, it is not unethical to refuse care to plaintiff's attorneys and their spouses.' "

We hear your pain. No really we do, but for fuck's sake get out of the playground, kids. And not that I am saying you are all kids, obviously, just Dr. Chris J Hawk, III.

Better than Blahniks?

I am very excited about my latest purchase. It's silver and that, quite frankly, is all I care about.

Contains strong language

Will make the English homesick.

New York City Ballet - Agon

I love obsessives and I met one last night at the New York State Theater. If you go to events on your own you eventually spot people who are on their own also and who are more than happy to impart their own particular enthusiams to you. Last night I learned more about Balanchine, New York City Ballet and why this generation of dancers, whilst excellent technically, seem to lack individuality and musicality. For example, during Orpheus, Peter Martin's son, Nilas, was dancing with his step-mother, Darci Kistler (who is married to Peter Martin) and step-brother, Ask La Cour, the son of Peter Martin's first wife who is also Nilas' mother. Mmmmm exactly.

Wendy Whelan rocked the house last night. She was incredible. Just wonderful.

Like all my relationships then

Mark Morris' new dance is messy, exciting: "NEW YORK - Mark Morris' new dance, 'Violet Cavern,' is sprawling, flawed, overlong -- and entirely exhilarating."

Ah, so that's what made me cry.

I'm feeling slightly melancholic today so I scammed this from a Sony website, cos I wanna.

Synopsis: The curtain before a stage opens to present a Pina Bausch dance spectacle, "Café Müller." Among the spectators, two men are sitting together by chance--they don't know each other. They are Benigno, a young nurse, and Marco, a forty-something writer. The dance piece provokes such emotion that Marco breaks into tears. Benigno notices the shining tears of his casual companion in the darkness of the theater's audience. He would like to tell him that he, too, is moved by the performance, but he doesn't dare... Months later, the two men meet again at "El Bosque," a private clinic where Benigno works. Lydia, Marco's girlfriend, a bullfighter by profession, has been gored by a bull and has fallen into a coma. Benigno is in charge of another patient in a coma, Alicia, a young ballet student. When Marco passes by Alicia's room, Benigno approaches him. It is the beginning of an intense friendship, as linear as a rollercoaster. During the time suspended within the walls of the clinic, the life of these four characters flows in all directions, past, present and future, leading all of them to an unexpected destiny.

A story about loneliness and the long convalescence of the wounds provoked by passion, Talk to Her is also a film about incommunication between couples, and about communication. Directed by the artist who created Tie Me Up!Tie Me Down!, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and All About My Mother, it’s a movie about cinema as a subject of conversation. About how monologues before a silent person can be an effective form of dialogue. About silence as “eloquence of the body,” about film as an ideal vehicle in relationships between people, about how a film told in words can bring time to a standstill and instill itself in the lives of the person telling it and the person listening.
Talk to Her is a film about the joy of narration and about words as a weapon against solitude, disease, death and madness. It is also a film about madness, a type of madness so close to tenderness and common sense that it does not diverge from normality.
All About My Mother ended with a theater curtain opening to reveal a darkened stage. Talk to Her begins with the same curtain, also opening. But now instead of actresses, this film concerns narrators, men who recount their own lives, who talk to whoever can hear them and above all, those who can’t.

I have a few obsessions; Philip Glass, Neil LaBute, Caetano Veloso and Mark Morris. I went to see the opening night of Mark Morris’ latest work at BAM last night and wasn’t disappointed, neither was anyone else in the audience, there were screeches and standing ovations all round. He premiered “The Violet Cavern” last night and it ripped me apart. I haven’t seen anything as beautiful and sad since Caetano sang Cucuracucu Paloma in Talk to Her. Do yourself a favour and go and see it, it’s the best dance I have ever seen. Like ever. Like.

It’s time to give me something back. I need help.

How do I get out of this situation without giving out my number?

You are at drinks organized by a friend. A good friend. A friend of his girlfriend, an extremely boring but extremely kind guy comes up and starts talking to you. You are bored shitless but then the topic of Reagan and his recent departure from this place pops up. He tears up. You continue to talk to him, fascinated by this emotional display, in a macabre way of course.

It’s time for your departure. He says, “so does that mean I will never see you again?” You say, “Oh. Err. Ahhh”. He says, “Maybe if you give me your number I could call you.”

OK. What do I do next? I don’t want to hand out my details and I can’t use the “I’m seeing someone" excuse as he's seen my shopping and knows the story.

[If you are wondering why I have a phobia about this - once, in the sunny North when I was about 16, some eloquent young chap asked if I would “go out” with him and when I very nicely actually responded that no, I didn’t think that was the best idea, he shouted “Oi yee fooking bitch, dee yee think youse are too good for me then, like?” and smacked me in the mouth. Nice. When I was growing up you could smack lasses unless they had boyfriends in which case you got smacked yourself.]

If you want to lick my shoes you have to buy them first.

There are 2 heavens in New York. One is here and the other is here.

First Heaven

I am sitting down in the store. Freaking out at the range of shoes – I never knew there were this many styles and I already have my quota form Bergdorfs – Eurotrash has 2 pairs already but today nothing is holding her back. She surveys the scene and regally slips on exquisite shoes on to her exquisitely tiny feet. Her phone rings. She answers. String of expletives. Ronald Reagan has died. Fucker. She throws down her plastic with a sneer and buys both pairs of shoes. She has purchased 4 pairs today. 4 pairs to my measly 1.

Second Heaven

It’s 9pm and cue Handel’s The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. Eurotrash floats into Public in her red patent leather Blahniks. She is blurred due to the shopping baggage she is holding. I’d offer to help but the only bag I want to hold is from the Blahnik store and the only way I’ll get that out of her hands is if they are cold and dead. Fair enough.

The most beautiful man in the world and in whose arms I want to die looks at us, bemused. I am cradling my Begdorf Goodman bag which contains my new pair of Blahniks.

B: Wow Maccers is it your birthday or something?
M: Nope. We both just got dumped and so we’ve treated ourselves to shoes.
B: Dumped?
M; Yep.
B: I can’t believe that. That’s unbelievable.
M: I know, right?
B: But they weren’t…….
M: I know.
B: And they dumped you?
M: I know.
B [taking me aside and melting me with his concern] Do you want me to ban them?
M: Ah thanks, sweets. It’s alright though, you know. It's not worth it.

Possession

I like A. S. Byatt. We have the same melodramatic vision of passion.

“No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the midpoint, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere.”

Melodrama, however, does have a tendency to cloud reality and the passage below relates the thoughts of a married man on his mistress.

Most of all he saw her waist, just where it narrowed before the skirts spread. He remembered her nakedness, as he knew it and his hands around that narrowing. He thought of her momentarily as an hour glass, containing time, which was caught in her like a thread of sand, of stone, of specks of life, of things that had lived and would live. She held this time, she contained his past and his future, both now cramped together, with such ferocity and such gentleness, into this small circumference. He remembered an odd linguistic fact – the word for waist in Italian is vita – is life – and this must be, he thought, to do with the navel, which is where our separate lives cast off that umbilicus which poor Philip Gosse believed had had to be made by God for Adam as a mythic sign of the eternal existence of the past and the future in all presents. He thought too of the Fairy Melusina, a woman jusqu’au nombril, sinao alla vita, usque ad umbicilum, as far as the waist. That is my center, he thought, at this time, in her, in that narrow place, where my desire has its end.

Bollocks - you can tell the author is a woman. It should be just:

He looked at her and remembered fucking her. This is great, he said. I deserve this. Vini Vidi Vici.

You’re nothing special, in fact you’re a bit of a bore
If you tell a joke, I’ve probably heard it before
But you have a talent, a wonderful thing
’cause everyone cringes when you walk right in
I’m so grateful and proud
All I want is to sing it out loud

So I say
Thank you for the blahniks, the shoes I’m buying
Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing
Who can live without them, I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a thong or a mule what are we?
So I say thank you for the blahniks
For giving them to me

Father said you were a fucker before you could walk
He says I should have dumped you before you could talk
And I’ve often wondered, how did it all start?
Who found out that nothing can capture a heart
Like your fabrications can?
Well, whoever it was, I’m no fan

So I say
Thank you for the blahniks, the shoes I’m buying
Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing
Who can live without them, I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a thong or a mule what are we?
So I say thank you for the blahniks
For giving them to me

You’ve been unlucky, I am the girl with golden hair
I wanna sing it out to everybody
What a joy, what a life, what a chance!

So I say
Thank you for the blahniks, the shoes I’m buying
Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing
Who can live without them, I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a thong or a mule what are we?
So I say thank you for the blahniks
For giving them to me

There's a hematoma in my arse, dear Liza, dear Liza.
There's a hematoma in my arse, dear Liza, a hematoma

Go fix it, dear Maccers, dear Maccers, dear Maccers.
Go fix it, dear Maccers, dear Maccers, fix it.

With what shall I fix it, dear Liza, dear Liza,
With what shall I fix it, dear Liza, with what

With a massage apparently, dear Maccers, dear Maccers, dear Maccers
With a massage apparently, dear Maccers, dear Maccers, a massage.

But who’s gonna massage me, dear Liza, dear Liza.
But who’s gonna massage me, dear Liza, who?

Try a bartender, dear Maccers, dear Maccers, dear Maccers
Try a bartender, dear Maccers, dear Maccers, a bartender

And how shall I do that, dear Liza, dear Liza
And how shall I do that, dear Liza, how?

Try flirting, dear Maccers, dear Maccers, dear Maccers
Try flirting, dear Maccers, dear Maccers, try flirting.

And how do I do that, dear Liza, dear Liza.
And how do I do that, dear Liza, how?

[Liza: Christ Maccers are you taking the piss or what?]

Your arse off, dear Maccers, dear Maccers, dear Maccers
Your arse off, dear Maccers, dear Maccers, arse off.

There's a hematoma in my arse, dear Liza, dear Liza.
There's a hematoma in my arse, dear Liza, a hematoma.

I have often declaimed my annoying trait of always seeming to be the one who grooms the man I am dating into a suitable companion for a woman of caliber. A painstaking and thankless task which then all goes to shit as the relationship implodes leaving me exhausted and fucked off to see the newly educated charmer worm his way into other rapturous knickers. The wife of an ex of 5 years did once express undying gratitude for the instructions I taught the blighter by rote. I can’t remember me being particularly graceful about it.

I have passed on knowledge of a range of topics:

Do not wash your pits, dearest, with a lady’s face soap.

No, darling, that aftershave of yours she may sometimes use in the morning when leaving your apartment to go to work is an inappropriate definition of birthday gift.

Less can be more as long as it’s more tasteful. When in doubt as to her taste, ask her friends. That’s the only reason she introduced you to them.

Flowers must have an exclusive feel and do not have to be particularly large. You will not find this at 1-800-flowers. Chocolates are for your grandmother.

Sometimes when she may express displeasure with your attitude or behavior, she may just need you to hold her and act like you love her. That’s all. If that doesn’t work you are up crap creek without a paddle for which a wedgewood-blue box with an ivory ribbon may be the only safe exit.

Tell her she looks hot, not cute. She is beautiful, not pretty. Pretty is for up to the age of 12 only.

If she feels that you desire her and obviously only her, she may forgive you all sins with the exception of stealing money from her bank account.

Occasionally it might be nice, oh Adonis, if you pretended to get all testosteronely possessive if another man has trapped his hand down the back of her trousers.

She was more than likely not a virgin when she met you. Suck it up.

Oh and I can and do go on with this. And usually do. This repetitive teaching assignment has gradually drained me. Why can’t I meet one who already jumps through the hoop when I lift it? I can’t be arsed with challenges. But then it occurred to me that maybe I have been deluding myself and boring any audience senseless for no reason when I bitch about this matter. Maybe I am the one who has been under instruction all these years (too many years, oh yes). The lesson being that men are weird, weird creatures that occasionally show flashes of wonderful human beings. However, to be able to live harmoniously with them in any kind of environment a female must be broken down to a state known as “tired of life” or “absolute resignation”. One must also be perpetually as prepared as a Girl Guide for a loss. A loss of any kind.

I was happy until you called

I don’t know for whom it was worse - me or the lady from the World Trade Center Health Registry. She had to listen to my answers to her questions about my feelings of anxiety, worthlessness, hopelessness, panic, edginess and stress. Hey, who knows whence that shit comes? Do I suppress it? Fuck yes. Please stop stop stop stop these questions. Do I suppress mental images from September 11 – of course. Do I feel anxious when I think about it – what like right now? Stop stop stop stop. Do I think about September 11 constantly. No. Stop. Yes I feel overriding feelings of guilt, but mainly because you are making me feel overriding feelings of guilt with these questions since my answers sound shallow and paltry. Is that common? Is there a fucking box you can tick for that? Is there? Huh?

Michelangelo 'linked' with autism:

Yes Yes but did he foul his trousers?

"'His single-minded work routine, unusual lifestyle, limited interests, poor social and communication skills and various issues of life control appear to be features of high-functioning autism or Asperger's Syndrome.' "

The New York Times > Opinion > Interstate Wine Sales: Yes please. This is long long long overdue. I want to order wine direct from California since forever. I want it shipped to my door. I want I want I want.

"The Supreme Court recently agreed to review 'direct shipment' laws, which prohibit wine sellers from shipping directly to customers in other states. These laws violate the Constitution by discriminating against interstate commerce. They also hurt consumers by keeping prices artificially high and limiting their choices. The court should rule for the retailers and the consumers challenging these laws."

Whilst I was away my computer died, which is weird cos none of my plants did. I hate it anyway but still, that’s really fucking inconsiderate of it. I think this means I have lost all the details from my palm pilot thing which I never charged and died on me about a year ago. It’s ok though because I am zenlike in my calamity.

So, what do I get now? I want something I can do wifi thingies on cos that looks cool. And that’s about it. My knowledge of computers is medieval like St Paul’s Cathedral, so basically I need like about one wigimigadget bite of memory stuff. My demographic advisor has recommended an Apple Mac thingymajig but deep down I fear them and their anarchic technology. Does anyone have any recommendations for cretins who can’t touch type? Oh and cheapness is scorcio. Scorcio like Hoxton Hipsters.