Holy Fucktards, Batman!

Wow.

Have I been Dooced?!

Well well.

Well, 2008, I suppose I should probably thank you for waiting a record 23 days before you fucked me over. It's an improvement on 2007, certainly, but then I suppose all that started in 2006 and just sort of carried on.

I am starting to feel like a piece of toilet roll, frankly. Wipe your arse with me and throw me away. I don't mind! I'm biodegradable! There should be adverts for me on TV with some little puppy dragging me around and talking in a disturbingly un-cute voice.

Anyway, as I have said many times before (although it's sort of like bolting the stable door...) I know it's bad form to air all this on a public forum. So please be grateful that I'm not doing that life-casting thing because there would have been a lot of swearing and violence before the watershed and god forbid the kiddies see all the horrible things life is going to do to them once you stop protecting them.

This is all probably making me sound horribly bitter and jaded, isn't it? Funny that. I was in such a good mood. What with having to find another job. With no notice. Again.

I almost (note: ALMOST - I haven't completely lost the will to live yet) wish that they'd done it when I got back from Christmas, just before the letting agency decided to fuck up and then tell us that, due to something THEY had done wrong, we were going to get served our notice the next day. Because then I could have said, right, you know what, fuck it, and just buggered off home for a while. And it's depressing to think that two years ago, I would have given everything - DID give everything, in fact - to be here. And I've been through all this shit, just to stay here. And every time I think it's working out, every time I think it's going ok, something knocks me back - but for some reason I keep going. I find somewhere else, I move, I accommodate all these things that keep smacking me in the face, just taking it and taking it and taking it, just so I can stay put. I feel like a salmon leaping up a waterfall. And also I feel a bit like a pile of crap. I suppose this is what you called 'mixed feelings'.

In other news: I will have this fucking novel finished by the tenth of March if it is the last thing I do.

Which, going by current trends, it probably will be.

Joy!

Review: 2007

So, I think it is time I reviewed my year, objectively and without self-pity or wallowing.

I'm going to start by saying, I am so fucking glad this is the last day of this year. I cannot wait to see the back of it.

Several events this year were, I thought, more than a little un-called for, including my four months of homelessness, several periods of unemployment including once being let go with no notice while I was on holiday, the death of one of my best friends, and the robbery of my laptop the week after I moved into my new house.

Now. Looking at these events, as I said, objectively and without self-pity: THEY SUCKED MONKEY BALLS. Seriously. If next year doesn't improve on this track record? Heads are going to ROLL, and I am not even joking.

Now, to the good points of this year: I have had several extremely enjoyable holidays, made some new friends, written 60,000 words of my first two novels, discovered House MD, and now live with one of my best friends. I have finally found a job I like, and I am a regular at a good chip shop, a good Chinese takeaway, and an amazing wine shop. I have blogged spectacularly; I have dressed up as a fictional character and pranced around like a twat; I have danced until I could not stand on several occasions. I have lived my life, within the boundaries of reason, to the extreme; and it ruled.

In conclusion: fuck you, 2007. You tried, but you didn't break me. But you know, I am grateful for all the things you taught me I can live through, so thanks for that I guess.
Now pack your things, and FUCK OFF.

Bring on 2008! YEEEEAAAHHHHH!

Ho ho blargh.

Wow, I haven't blogged once in December! Can't let that happen...

"Tinsel is Satan's pubic hair."

"What's the deal with God and Santa? You know? Religious people tell their kids about Santa too. Are they like... brothers? What?"

See? I'm in the Christmas spirit.

Baileys hurts. My mother made me do it.

Touché, Mr Shand...

Clearly, there are a few points I am going to have to clarify from my last blog...

While clearly, on some shallow but basically human level, EVERYBODY would be more pleased to have an attractive person check them out than an unattractive person, that wasn't what I was getting at.

I don't care if you're Brad Pitt (which is probably a bad example because I don't think he's attractive), if you're giving me that look when I'm not asking for it, I'm not happy with you.
The look I was referring to is a particular kind of look. There are appraising looks, and there are friendly looks, and shy looks, and coy looks. This is none of those. This is that look that is distinctly lecherous, distinctly dirty, designed to let you know that, in their mind's eye, you are not wearing any clothes and you're probably on your knees doing something that would make your mother vomit just to think about it. If a fat balding old man wants to smile at me, or give me an appraising look, you know what? That's fine. I'm actually perfectly happy with the fact that I'm attractive and that, now and then, people are going to notice. And if a fat balding old man - or any other variety of typically unattractive person, for that matter! - wants to 'check me out' casually while I'm on the dancefloor strutting my stuff (what a stupid expression), that is also fine. It's the particular attitude with which it is sometimes done - and I stress again, EVEN BY ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE - that gets to me, and this may not be something that men understand, because it may be that it isn't done with any different kind of attitude at all. I don't pretend to know everything about men. Perhaps that guy giving me the slitty eyed smirking look from the dark corner with his hand deep in his pocket is really a total sweetheart, thinking "she looks lovely, like she bakes a really nice sponge cake." You know? Who can know for sure. But it certainly doesn't feel like it so I'm guessing that's not the case.

On the other hand. If I am wearing something revealing, or tight-fitting, or otherwise sexy, I expect (well, not EXPECT, but you know) a lot of male attention; but I am not offended if not everybody giving it to me is up to my standards of attractiveness, because as Jase pointed out, that would just be unrealistic, shallow, and stupid. And I'm certainly not saying as long as you're easy on the eyes you have every right to treat me however you like. I won't put up with being looked at like I'm wearing a price tag by anyone; I wouldn't find it any less offensive coming from an attractive young man of my own age than I do coming from a much older and less conventionally attractive specimen.

And, as only one wise person picked up on when commenting on Jason's blog - it had a lot to do with the fact that I was standing in the rain after a hard day at work being stared down by some prick in a BMW. I mean, if you want to be viciously ogled by someone sitting in a warm expensive car while you stand in a puddle getting soaked to the skin and wondering whether to have a plate of plain pasta or a plate of plain noodles for your dinner, you be my guest.

In conclusion: if you think I'm pretty, I'm flattered. If you want to smile at me, I will smile back at you, regardless of your appearance.
But if you give me that look like you're imagining me gagged and blindfolded and tied to a dirty bed in some stinking basement somewhere... well. I'll blog about you and it'll be replied to by a Scottish radio presenter.
So, you know.

You have been warned.

Grr.

There is a particular look that men in cars like to give young girls standing by the side of the road while they are idling at traffic lights or waiting to go round corners, and it is a look I am fairly sick of - and not only because it is typically employed by men who are fat, old, and bald, and look like their job is to eat glazed doughnuts and drink coffee (ironically, with sweetners instead of sugar - as if it makes any difference) and have hideously inappropriate thoughts about their young secretary.

It is a look that says, "I don't necessarily think that you ARE a prostitute, but I am blatantly considering whether I would stop the car if you were."

Now. I am not a prude, and I am aware that I have boobies, and that this can be considered attractive. There are certain situations in which I would not find this look offensive; for example, if I was, in fact, a piece of steak in a butcher's shop.
However. As some of you may have noticed... I am not a piece of steak in a butcher's shop.

What I am getting at here, is DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT LOOKING AT ME LIKE YOU THINK THERE'S EVEN THE REMOTEST CHANCE THAT I'D SLEEP WITH YOU IF YOU PAID ME TO.

What gets to me more than that - because I know that men can't actually help looking at attractive women - is that, if caught in their leching, they give you this cheesy smile, as if you are going to find it funny. Well guess what.
NOT LAUGHING.

Seriously, let's think about this. There's you; an overweight suit with male pattern baldness leering at me out of the window of a shiny silver Beemer while I stand on the side of the road, in the pouring rain, with an embarassingly hot-pink umbrella, after another day being the lowest rung on the office ladder, with the fax machine malfunctioning and this somehow being perceived as my fault, and people on the phone who don't even have the common courtesy to spend two seconds of their precious, precious lives listening to me say "Good morning Blah Blah Blah Accountants, Jenny speaking, how may I help you?"
Where, exactly, is the factor in all of that that you think makes me sympathetic to your leering? You have a big shiny car. I am standing in the rain, wanting nothing more than for you to MOVE YOUR FUCKING BEEMER so I can cross the road to go home and get into my pyjamas and watch Akira in ten minute segments on YouTube. Your shiny expensive car does NOT make me feel any better about the fact that you are staring at me like a piece of meat carved into the shape of Angelina Jolie.

Also? When are you going to realise that when you 'go out with the lads' on Saturday night, you are, and always will be, the old pervs in the corner. I don't care what trendy slop you're drinking, I don't care if you bought your shirt at River Island, and I don't care if you're wearing those stupid fucking pointy leather shoes (and FYI, brown shoes and black trousers looks so fucking stupid I could choke). It's pathetic. Next week, please stay in. I like to dance with my girlfriends or my boyfriend without feeling like I'm part of some seedy 2am webcam show, thanks. Also, I can stretch to buying my own drinks, but it's nice to know you see me as some kind of charity case - or at least I hope that's what you see me as, because I'd hate to think that you honestly believe buying me an Archers and lemonade (single, to boot) is going to get you anywhere.

In conclusion, if you're looking for cheap prostitutes, I suggest next time you cruise the other end of town. They probably won't blog about you.

Or maybe they will, and it'll end up as some shitty TV program starring Billie Piper.
Ho hum.

Oh dear.

Well that was a fairly depressing way to mark my 100th blog post... but oh well. To be fair most of them have been pretty much completely irrelevant and or stupid. But hilarious! Or so I like to think.

So, still feeling crappy, but I have chocolate milk, and today I wrote a scene in which an innocent old man gets shot.
Not really. He totally deserved it.

On the other hand, writing is slowing down a little, as the big exciting scenes grow thin on the ground because... well, because I've got over-excited and written them all, leaving myself with only the piffling little filler scenes to write.
This depresses me for two reasons:

1: There should not BE any filler. If it's not important, it shouldn't be in there. That's what good writing is.

2: In my quest to write big exciting scenes, I am just coming up with more and more random plot points to facilitate said big exciting scenes. The story therefore deviates quite significantly from my original idea, and I've completely lost track of what genre - if any - it fits into.

Oh well. I wrote a scene where an old man gets shot. And a scene where people have sex in a little shed thing at Southampton Docks.

That's got to count for something, right?

Yeah I bet my parents are proud.