Busted

Although I spend an inordinate amount of time feeling mild embarrassment for me just being me and saying and doing things that me does and says (which I will then, when alone, beat myself up mercilessly for) it's rare that I get that full cheek-blush burning red hot embarrassment that you imagine when people go 'oh my god it was soooo embarrassing!' Maybe because I live my life mired in a state of constant horror with just how socially gauche or gullible or clumsy I can be, my standards for what actually counts as 'embarrassing' are much more stringent than they are for other people who don't live in the constant state of mortification that plauges my everyday existence. So let me tell you that when I was embarrassed last night I can assure you I was actually embarrassed. Like, properly so. Like how you, as somewhat normally functioning members of society, might experience. There are only a few other times when I felt as embarrassed as I did last night so, to paint you a little word picture and put things into context, they are as follows;

1. The time I walked into school (secondary school no less!) with my skirt somehow tucked into my bag so that my knickers were on display. Yup.

2. The time I went for coffee with a boy I liked and when I came home I realised I had SEVERE coffee stains on my front teeth and must have had for the entire time I was talking to him. Interestingly, we never went for coffee again. (Well, not together at any rate. I am to assume he has drunk coffee since that encounter. If indeed he can bear to stomach the thought of imbibing delicious caffine-filled beverages without wanting to vomit at the thought of my dark brown stained hillbilly teeth.)

3. Pretty much any of the times I spoke to the Social Psychology lecturer that I had an intense crush on in university. In particular how I would try and shoehorn in as many liberal writer references as I could muster whenever I cornered him alone in a room. One week he included a Milan Kundera quote in one of his powerpoint slides which I took as a sure sign he wanted to fuck me as much as I wanted to fuck him given that I'd stand outside his classrooms holding books uncomfortably close to my face as nonchalantly as it is possible to hold a book that close to you when you are stood up and trying to hold your stomach in and keep your face relaxed and pretend to read words and be hyperaware of whether or not a man is looking at you without actually looking at him to ensure he could see the front cover and spine of said books and realise how intellectual, and therefore fuckable, I was - because reading words is a well known seduction technique, that's why all those self-help books and dating manuals are actually just a step-by-step guide to becoming more literate (on opposite day) - and two days before the aforementioned lecture I'd done this 'sexy trick' of mine with 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'. Looking back however I am almost certain that my instincts weren't terribly far off with the 'he wanted to do me' assumption. Learning recently through the grapevine that he's been having an affair with another lecturer makes me more sure of this. (Life Lesson #38 - the guy willing to fuck someone he works with who isn't his wife is sure as hell willing to fuck an enthusiastic student with big boobs and low self-esteem.) Had I been a little less googly-eyed and panting and a little more aloof I think I could have managed in locking that ass down. As it was, I became so flustered with desire whenever I was within twenty feet of him that I could do little more than try and string together sentences that contained words like 'George Orwell', 'anti-fascist league', and 'social constructivism' in various permutations and order of usage. Then pant and be googly-eyed, then leave. Whenever someone (invariably male) asks me 'did you fuck him?' if the subject of this crush arises in conversation I have to sadly shake my head 'no' and smile wryly because of everything I just said; 'no I did not get to fuck the guy I had a scarily intense crush on, to the point I could barely breathe properly when we were in a room together making me appear like one of those wheezing nerds you see in American movies about college frat houses. Surprisingly'. I still have about four or five books he mentioned in passing that I bought and never read and then lied about reading to him about how much I enjoyed those books and how much they 'opened my mind' (because if you want a boy to like you, you just have to pretend to like the things that he likes! Science) that I do intend to read one day when I can be bothered because the fantasy of us one day running into each other at a conference about special needs/learning disabilities (which I do sometimes have to attend as part of my job and was one of his main research interests so there is a logical thought flow to this idea) and he'll mention Berger & Luckman or Michael Foucault and I'll be able to answer and engage as knowledgeably as I would if he mentioned Lauren Conrad & Heidi Pratt or Robert Pattinson (aka 'things I am actually interested in talking about'). And then he fucks me because, you know. (Or the even better fantasy where I am a successful writer who has completed a series of short stories and essays about identity and am invited back to my alma mater to discuss how brilliant and successful I am and he is so overwhelmed by lust and so impressed by my work that he compliments my brain and then ravishes my body in his office.) (TMI?) NEWAYS. Point is (!), I cringe as well as pant a little whenever I think of him and the rubbishy girly girl loonhead I turned into whenever I was around him.

4. Speaking of which. Myspace; what a charming little invention that was for those of us looking to get laid without leaving our rooms. I had a handful of dalliances thanks to that particular internet revolution and, unlike match.com, all it cost me was my dignity and some of my soul, rather than dignity, my soul, and £14.99 a month. I diligently accepted friends and messaged many a young suitor on that social networking platform. Some worked out (in the short term at least), some didn't, but I had my fingers in a lot of pies for a year or two (so to speak) and it was all in good fun. [Cut to:] One day stood in a Spar shop a boy approached me asking if I was 'Susan'. No, I informed him sadly, I was not. Oh how I wished to be Susan! Fucking bitch gets cute dudes coming up and talking to her in Spar shops! But then, through the internet stalkery lessons I had quickly and naturally acquired as part of the dot.com era, I found the boy on myspace and realised he thought 'Sazz' was in fact 'Susan'! We had had a brief exchange of myspace messages a year or so earlier until I had grown bored because he was four years younger than myself and looked like a total stoner (like I actually had any standards!), and thus it turned out the girl 'Susan' I hated was myself all along! (Many years later a similar breakthrough would occur during therapy but had little to do with myspace and more to do with my relationship with my parents.) By revealing his prior knowledge of me I saw this as an open invitation to become mildly obsessed with him ('mildly obsessed' by my standards is 'restraining order time' by most other people's). I'd look at the conversations he was having with his other myspace friends and was able (who knows to what degree of success) to intimate the sort of relationships he had and was having with other people (girls). I'd look at his photos AND the photos on his friends accounts to try and get a patchwork story to who this guy really was. To try and figure out exactly what he was about. I did all this because... I don't know. Because he called me 'Susan' in a Spar shop one time I guess. That was really all I had to work on, because although online presence can give you the sketch of a person, it doesn't really mean anything IRL and although I found him attractive in the dull light of a Spar shop it wasn't like I thought I'd found my soul mate. He was just a cute guy that was obviously into me enough to recognise my face as the face of a girl he had sent a couple of myspace messages to (the fact that he'd got my name wrong so clearly wasn't that into me didn't figure into this equation). Cute boy + bit of attention = unending devotion. So, anyway, MONTHS later I saw him out when I wasn't very drunk and he was. He screamed my name when he saw me and later kissed me on both cheeks and the nose; 'Do you think he likes me?' I asked my friend as we walked home that night 'fuck off does he like you Sazz you imbecile' she replied (I may be paraphrasing). It's at this point I wish I could hop in my DeLorean, go play 'Johnny B. Goode' onstage and fuck this boy when I was given the chance. He revealed he liked me and I did nothing about it. Fumbly, awkward sex with a teenager (as he was then. But over 18, Mr Policeman!) was just a bold 'well, come on then let's do it' move away and I blew it. Still, my devotion lingered because... Nose kisses! Screaming my name in my face when I entered a club! (Which remains the greatest confidence booster I have ever had.) Surely we just had to be in the same room again and then I could pull my bold move and nab that ass finally? What I forgot to factor in, as well as the fact that what I liked most about him was that he seemed mildly interested in me, was that boys - especially teenage boys - don't have very long attention spans. So days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and when I ran into him next the tables were turned. This time I was wasted and he less so, he had managed to affect a confident swagger and I had lost the clueless 'huh?' face that I'd greeted him with in our encounters in the past and replaced it with a 'I'm not sure but I think you and I could fall in love one day' vibe. Which was clearly a bit less of a turn-on. I managed to corner him with conversation and then let slip something very small but very telling about the fact that we'd both been to Amsterdam in the past six months; 'How did you know that?' he asked, genuinely mystified. I recoiled in horror and stammered something about needing a wee (as eloquent as ever under pressure) and ran away. Don't think I ever spoke to him again either. I had, however innocently, revealed my internet stalkery as I only knew this because of photos I'd seen, not on his myspace page, but his mates. There's no way I could have known about it without having done some serious internet delving and the weed and alcohol I'd consumed that evening mixed together in such a way that I thought emphasizing our similarities (i.e. getting stoned) was more important than concealing the fact I was an insane person who'd been secretly stalking him for months. I'm not sure what embarrasses me most about that story. Probably all of it.

5. As odd as it sounds for a formally promiscuous heterosexual female to say, for the last year or so I'd sort of forgotten that men can be attractive and just plain nice to look at. Some are tall, some are short, some have beards, some a bit of stubble, some are skinny, some are slightly chubby. Any of these combinations works for me on any given day if they have a glint in their eye and a nice mouth. Now, I'd known this as a conceptual fact for the last year but I was too knee deep in my own abject misery to really understand it as a solid reality. Until now. Now wherever I look I see cutie mctooties all over the show. The lanky barman with greasy 90's grunge hair and a plaid shirt on makes me swoon, the bearded might-be-a-gay shop assistant at HMV with salt and pepper hair (not to be confused with Salt 'n Pepa hair) gets my lust synapses firing on full alert, I keep seeing these boys; men, who I like looking at. I can't imagine that they've been in hiding for the last year which means I must just not have been looking or noticing. Poor loves! Anyway, now I am both looking AND noticing. Sometimes simultaneously! Which I happened to do last night when a douchey looking guy with a We Are Scientists haircut and a pink checked cowboy shirt walked passed my table. All I did was make eye contact and then when he had passed murmured 'very nice' to myself. That's all it was, or all it was supposed to be. Except it wasn't because my friend saw the whole thing. There's me in my own little world, silently appreciating one of God's douchey creatures, and there's my friend watching me make sex eyes at some boy and then mouth 'very nice' once he's walked away. She was staring at me in disbelief as I turned my head and attention back to the group of people I was with. I caught her eye and it dawned on me that she knew what had just gone down and we both suddenly burst into laughter like our lives depended on it, to the extreme consternation of the other people we were sat with who had no clue what a tool I'd just made myself look.

And that was it. I have no idea why it embarrassed me so but it really really did. I think, looking back over these stories what freaks me out is revealing a part of myself that I didn't mean to (indeed quite literally in point one where I inadvertently showed off my ass). What I don't like is getting busted (unlike the band Busted of which I remain extremely fond). So I either accept that I will occasionally show parts of myself that I'd rather keep hidden and just be cool with that or spend all my time neurotically in control of every situation so that I never have to expose myself unwillingly to anyone ever again.

Or just turn these moments into blog posts and let the internet deal with it.

Yeah, let's go with that one.

How the mighty have fallen

At one time this badge would be moved from t-shirt to jacket to coat to bag just so that I could always have it about my person should some young scallywag accuse me of not being a Jack'n'Meg fan.

Now I use it to pop my spots.

MyZombie

Visiting myspace now is visiting a relic of ye olde times gone by. It's like wondering through the streets of Pompeii or ducking in and out of the Pyramids - this is how we used to live it says isn't that strange? Yes, you reply (to myspace) (I don't know why you like talking to the internet so much and I've been meaning to tell you - it makes you a little weird) it is strange. What once was a thriving community full of top 8 battles and ever increasing pride at one's comments reaching into and beyond the thousand mark (really, these things used to seem important, not to me obviously, but to a... erm... friend of mine. Called Bazzlalish. Bazzalish is crazy) is now dead. No one comments, no top 8s change. The facebook bomb went off and left it stuck in 2006. It's eerie because everything looks the same as when you left it, the only tip off that the world has moved on is that you can see where the weeds have started to grow up between the cracks in the pavement. People referencing Howling Bells and being in awe of Heroes (no one is in awe of Heroes anymore. Let's be clear on this). It's the cyber-equivalent of Chernobyl (and that actually works quite well because facebook is just as dangerous as - if not more so - a soviet nuclear power plant. That is science and the science is tight). It depresses the hell out of me, not because I miss myspace (I am nearing 27, I might happily spend an afternoon making up voices of fluffly penguins for my nephews enjoyment - and my enjoyment. Ok, you weedled it out of me. Congrats - but I have matured sufficiently to care not about social networking anymore. Much) but just as a reminder of the past. That ol 'nostalgia/you were a loser' dynamic rearing it's ugly head once again. Proustian rushes of you sat for hours following the conversations of people you didn't even know because they were friends of a friend of a guy that you spoke to once in a One Stop and had spent 13 hours of your life tracking down in the virtual kingdom of myspace. Facebook doesn't really allow for this level of cyber stalking to take place. You are able to more easily view conversation threads but only of people you KNOW. And who gives a shit about them? (Kidding guys, kidding. Sorta). You can't sniff around a person's friends to find out more about them, you can't find out what happened when that girl's friend snogged her ex boyfriend when he already had a new girlfriend and GOD! she was mad! How could they! But oh they were sorry and now, 2 months later, it's all fine again and do you guys want to go to the pub tonight lol?

Oh it was the best. Nipping in and out of people's lives without them ever knowing you were there. A thief in the night stealing a glimpse at their diary that they kept open for other people to read and allowed their friends to write in and probably knew, to some degree, that people they'd never met was reading all along.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is, what is it a girl has to do to work up a good stalk nowadays? Clearly I'm going to have to invest in one of these. That is if I could ever be bothered to leave the house.

[Post Script. Oh god. I just realised that if I ever put half as much energy worrying about myself as I do about other people I'd be like, a gazillionaire by now and be flying on my private jet to Tahiti to meet Chuck Bass and discuss our wedding plans. This is disturbing to me but not enough for me to make any radical changes so let's let it slide.]

Bop to the Top

I'm not really sure they should be selling this to children... Or me.



[For those unaware of such devises it's a HSM multicoloured pen. The best in other words. It looked a lot more innocent in its packaging*]

*That is what she said.

Pity me

I am hungover.

I had genuinely forgotten what this feeling was like, the vague waves of nausea that wash over you, the continuous feeling that I'm slightly off-balance as if I'm journeying through a fun fair fun house even though I'm sitting down, the cold dead look my eyes get that, and the sallowness of my skin. I knew I didn't like being hungover and now I remember why.

The positive thing is that I have evaded the grump monster who was controlling my thoughts and actions over the last couple of weeks. I could say that my brother's motorbike crash on Monday (he's fine, has a load of owies that my nephew thinks is HILARIOUS to slap - it is - but other than that, fine) making me realise that some things in life are never certain and you should enjoy yourslef while you have the chance blah blah pop psychology etc. but, in truth I just woke up on Monday feeling in a really good mood. Positive, excited about the future even. Just cleansed of all the anger I was holding on to. It's nice. My baggage feels lighter. Makes it easier to twirl and swirl about the place should I so wish (I rarely wish. Unless I'm listening to Fergie in which case, different story). Well, except for today, because I am hungover. Today I can barely stir my tea let alone swirl. Which reminds me, I've just realised that I won't stir tea with a teaspoon that's been recently washed up because that teaspoon is 'wet'. I'm a few months shy of 27 and it's only just occurred to me just how counterintuitive that is. I don't think I'll change this compulsion but at least I know how weird it is now. Admitting you have a problem is the first step as they say.

Queer Eye for the Straight* Girl

My eye has gone queer. My eye has burst a blood vessel in the night and now people in meetings are giving me weird looks because I have a queer eye that I am using to look at them. See:

You would totes try and avoid to gaze yet be strangely attracted and unable to resist gazing at that eye wouldn't you? I would. I would gaze the shit out of that eye. I would do so because, to quote Shakespeare, it's bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s. Thus people have been staring, catching themselves staring, looking very quickly away and then staring again. It's nice. It's a nice thing for someone with paranoia issues to have to deal with. But, as I have already intimated, I would be doing the same thing where I not the one with a devil eye to contend with. 'Um... your eye has a fucking red spot in the middle of it' I would say were I not afflicted with a disabled eye, 'that's not normal' I would add. (Except I wouldn't because I'm middle class and white and never point out obvious truths in social situations. It's against every law we have). This is one of the top three things my eye has done to gross me the fuck out (c.f. horse allergy causing it to go all jellified, getting conjunctivitis and spewing goo all over the place ranks one and two respectively).

But anyway, I'm not saying this means I've been possessed by Beelzebub to bring about the End of Days but when it starts raining blood and the seas boil I guess I won't take it too personally if it's my house you decide to picket.

*ish

Dude

Bodies are temples and special and unique. You should never feel ashamed of your body, you should celebrate it's uniqueness and blah blah blah...

Fuck.
That.
Shit.

I've got a mofo-ing zit INSIDE my earlobe! My earlobe has a spot INSIDE IT! Between the two places it is pierced is this really painful big blob of pus and it is FREAKING ME OUT. It has made my earlobe red and bloated, so it is, in many ways, very similar to what I look like after I've eaten a plate of nachos with chilli and cheese by myself. At first I thought I'd got an infection from wearing one of my ridiculous, cheap earings but my other earlobe is fine and dandy and I haven't worn different earings in different ears since my birthday (oh, a big pink button and silver hoop in one ear and a dangly pink, white and black stars and sparkly black stud in the other since you ask. Claudia Kishi would be proud), it was only when I got my brother to shine a torch on the offending lobe (another patented Mulholland bonding experience) that the situation became clear and made me be sick in my mouth.

Of course, this does not diminish the joy I got from squeezing it. It was satisfying enough to enter the 'Sazz Spot's Hall of Fame' (you mean to say you haven't rated the satisfying-ness of spots you've picked over time? Oookay. If you insist) but still, what kind of FREAK OF NATURE gets a spot INSIDE their EARLOBE?!!?

Gross.

In other news, I got a job! I hope to Zeus my employers never find this blog.