Feedback Friday :: Turning Point

bulk :: 15st 9
gym visits :: 2
haircuts :: 1
accusations of misogyny :: 4
misogynistic episodes :: 0
misanthropic episodes :: 12
turning points :: 1

It strikes me as kind of funny how I’m always so keen to seize on certain moments in my life and declare them ‘turning points’ or ‘fresh starts’. It seems I’m desperate to imbue quotidian events and decisions with special significance, perhaps in order to convince myself that I’m actually making some definite progress in life. It strikes me as kind of sad too. But I guess it’s normal. Anyway, here we go again.

I’ve reached a turning point. With this blog. With this life.

A few things have happened recently which have probably affected me more than I was prepared to admit, or more than I even realised. One was the end of my relationship with Morag, and the way I dealt with that. (Badly.) One was the reunion with my newly meek, practically lobotomised father and the fairly fundamental news about my life he finally elected to share. (What is it with people and their inability to communicate?) And one was the arrival of ‘the stalker’. (Shudder.)

Speaking of whom, it was only last week that I realised the full extent of the stalker’s derangement. I reread the comments that they’ve been leaving, and continue to leave, and I realised that there were messages hidden in them. I started to get scared for the first time when I realised there were references to books I’ve read recently. It sent a shiver down my spine. They must have been following me – In Real Life – seen me out and about with my nose in a book. Then I remembered that I’d actually blogged about the books I’d been reading, so probably they’d just been reading the blog. Phew. But then I’ve also blogged about where I live, more or less, and I don’t want to start getting paranoid, but… well, I’ve started getting paranoid.

Added to which, a few people have accused me of changing recently, and not for the better. Thing is, on the whole, I tend to agree. I think I have changed a bit recently. And not for the better. Therefore, before they go too far, things have got to change.

First and foremost, this blog has got to change.

No more deeply personal stuff. From now on I’m going to concentrate solely on life’s trifles. Everyday fancies. Crab sticks and horsefeathers. This blog, I finally realise, is supposed to be where I play. Therefore, I need to start enjoying it properly again – I had stopped recently. Also, importantly, I need to draw a line between this blog and my real life. A thick line. In permanent marker pen.

There’s no harm in the occasional real life anecdote of course, but no more of this blow-by-blow analysis and recounting of personal conversations. No more shall the horrible little midgets of my mind be allowed to crawl out onto my keyboard. It’s not fair on anyone.

I’ve made a lot of stupid decisions over the last year, and I admit, sometimes I feel wholly out of my depth.

And recently particularly, I’ve felt like I’m starting to lose control of this blog. It’s like it’s become a microcosm of my life and losing control of it, even to the relatively small extent I have, is a reflection of a wider-ranging trend.

I need therefore, to wrest back control. Also – for God’s sake, listen to me – me, me, me – what I really need to do is step away from myself a little, create a little distance and engage with the rest of the world, because at the moment I am in grave danger of disappearing up my own arse. And nobody wants that.

So, there we are. I probably won’t be blogging as much as I have in the past, but I hope to be a lot more professional about it.

We’ll see.

Fine words butter no parsnips.

Oh, and with reference to Courgettegate, I didn’t really say, ‘I’ve got a woody’. I was just playing. Jesus. What do you think I am?

Don’t answer that. Answer this:

What are you doing this weekend? Anything nice?

An Apology :: Updated

I would like to offer a personal and unreserved apology to Courgette, and by extension, to all those offended by yesterday’s blogpost. It is clear from the views expressed by the public that this post caused severe offence and, on reflection, I can see why.

I am deeply sorry and greatly regret the upset and distress that my juvenile and thoughtless remarks and actions have caused. Patronising and sexually harassing Courgette was bad enough; attempting to make light of the act in a public retelling displayed an unforgivable amount of self-regard, not to mention perversity, misogyny and outright inhumanity. The whole thing was a stupid error of judgement on my part and I offer a full apology.

Although there were certain crucial embellishments and omissions in the retelling of the tale, I make no excuses. I chose my words and must stand – or fall – by them.

I am however at pains to point out that I bear no Courgette ill will, and whilst she may not have known the name of the current Prime Minister of England, or had any understanding of how immigration is used by both the media and politicians as a means of manipulating and coercing the general public, I have absolutely no doubt that she is a warm, kind, sweet, special and spiritually sound human being, morally beyond reproach and certainly a lot nicer than I ever could be.

I realise that my thoughts were an affront to public taste and should never have been published in the first place. I have sent a full and unequivocal apology to Courgette, along with a large bunch of flowers and a Cabbage Patch Doll. (She likes them! Honest.)


Today’s scheduled post has been suspended until further notice.

...

Update

This is just a little note for some readers of this blog – not stupid readers, no, that is definitely NOT what I’m saying, merely American – who clearly didn’t make the connection between this post and a little story that’s been clogging up the newspapers over here for the last week. I wouldn’t mention it normally, as I quite like the idea of people floundering around in the dark (because I’m sinister), but I’m being mistaken for being noble, and that will never do.

See? In the cold light of day, I’m not sorry at all.

Well, maybe a bit.

Haircut

Her name was Chlamydia.

No, not really. That would be stupid.

Her name was Courgette.

Courgette was physically very appealing. She was what someone of my father’s generation and intellect would have called ‘a dolly bird’. I heard my father using that expression. I was never sure if it was meant to be complimentary or not. I’m still not sure.

Mentally, Courgette was not exactly a vegetable, but to say she was all cleavage and no critical faculty would not be stretching the truth.

Still, A Levels or not, when she sat me in her chair, wrapped me in her silvery cape and stood behind me, her hands on my shoulders and her glorious breasts not quite nuzzling my neck, I found myself thinking thoughts of a sexual nature.

I am only human.

‘How do you want it then?’ she asked, her voice all provocative like the town strumpet in a northern soap opera.

I told her, and she said, ‘I’ll just give it a going over with the clippers first, then we’ll give it a quick wash.’

‘OK,’ I said. 'Lovely.'

Courgette was a talker. This pleased me immeasurably as I adore big-hearted simpletons. They are such a pleasure. Not for long obviously, but for twenty minutes or so. It’s wonderful to be reminded what a privilege it is to have been born with a brain in your head.

God, I'm a cock.

It's true though.

Courgette is 21. She has large green eyes and luscious meaty lips. She wears too much make-up and her earrings are over-large and over-dangly. She has a butterfly tattooed on her wrist, and a couple of rings of barbed wire tattooed around both ankles. She showed me.

She loves going clubbing. Her favourite place in Burnley is a place called Lava Ignite. Gaze upon the film on the front page of the website and despair.

‘Haven’t you got a funny-shaped head?’ she said.

'Yes,' I agreed. 'It is hilarious.'

Courgette was lovely. Thick as a barrel of pig's tendons but sweet as sixpence with a winning smile and a nervous giggle that wasn’t even slightly annoying.

Halfway through my haircut, Courgette led me over to the wash basin and leant me back. The feel of the hot water was nice, but the feel of Courgette’s hands on my head was really lovely.

I don’t think she could possibly have been aware of how much pleasure I was taking from her fingers as they massaged soap into my scalp and moved across my head, over my ears and down onto my neck. Thankfully, my groans were mostly drowned out by Chorley FM.

Back in the chair, when my sexual thoughts became quite feisty and my groin began to twitch and stir, I remembered something.

My parents used to read The Sun. Worse still, they actually had it delivered to their front door every day. (Once my mother took a biro to one of the topless women on page 3, angrily inking a zealous brassiere, so zealous in fact that the nib of her pen went all the way through to John Major’s lipless grin on page 7. I suspect my mother was certifiably insane.)

However, the story I remembered this afternoon was a story from The Sun itself which concerned a man who’d been killed in a freak hairdressing accident. I don’t think I ever believed the story, but what the hell. It went like this. A man was having his hair cut by a young lady. Toward the end of the operation, the man seemed to take a moment to adjust himself around the genital area. The young lady couldn’t actually see what he was doing of course, because his entire body was covered by the protective cape she had secured around his neck. Only his head peeked out of the top. As she began to dry his hair however, the action continued beneath the protective cape and his hands began to move in an irregular fashion just above his genital area, and although the young lady couldn’t actually see what he was doing, she could see quite clearly the look in his eyes. And it enraged her. So much so that she lost her temper and struck the man hard across the temple with her hair dryer.

Whereupon he died.

This is one of those stories that make you realise how tenuous our grip on life is; how from one moment to the next, we hang by a thread, and perilously. It reminds you how, at any moment, and for the slightest tiniest, most ridiculous cause, your life can come squealing to a premature end. You could be standing on a train platform and with a modicum of force, a passing loon could take a chemical turn and push you into the path on an oncoming train; you could be in your back garden, lying back in the sun with your dearest loved one rubbing lotion into your thighs… you open your legs a touch and feel the moment turn, when a wasp flies in through the open window of a large white van on a road near your house. The van is in motion, the driver freaks out, his hands fly up to his face, his foot shoots out and jams onto the accelerator. The first thing you know, a van screams through the hedge at the bottom of your garden, bounces once on your lawn and that’s it. It’s done. The moment is ruined. Both you and your dearest loved one are no more.

Or you could be about to serve the winner in a Wimbledon final when a passing eagle drops a rock on your head. Or a spear of frozen urine from an overhead toilet facility pins you to the turf. You writhe for a moment, then die.

Or of course, you could be clubbed to death by an uptight hairdresser.

You could argue of course that the chap in this last scenario had it coming, or that at the very least he played some small part in provoking the reaction that caused the event of his death. And it’s true. When the single blow from the hair dryer sent him falling, sprawling to the salon floor, and his protective cape fell away from his dead body, the extent of his crime became clear.

He hadn’t been pleasuring himself at all. He didn’t even have an erection. What he'd actually been doing was rolling a cigarette.

If, that is, there was a single word of truth in the story.

Back in a Burnley barber's shop however, I had an erection. And when I had to adjust myself because my foreskin had grabbed hold of a pubic hair and was pulling at it rather painfully, I apologised. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a woody.’

Courgette gasped and blushed and looked adorable.

When it was all done and I gave her a mammoth tip, she blushed again and said I should try Lava Ignite on Halloween.

I said I would but I fear I lied. I’ll be back in London by then. Keith’s dad is fine. Just a bit depressed. Sad, rather. Horribly sad. I think the family might need some time on their own. I might leave Keith here and come back down on the train tomorrow.

Or, I might go and get my hair cut again and ask Courgette out on a date.

Amazing lips.

I keep imagining her eating a watermelon.

God, I could love that woman.



CWOTD :: Is it possible to be happy with someone who loves Harry Potter and genuinely thinks that Mrs Blair's first name is Cherry, like the pie? Or in other words, is it necessarily a bad thing to shack up with a mental inferior?