A Question of Felicity Kendal and my face

I guess I've always been paranoid in nature, assuming that people are looking at me or talking about me for some reason or another (albeit forever a real or imagined negative reason). I'm not sure if this is in fact paranoia or just a symptom of my extreme narcissism that dictates I am the only one people would want to look at or talk about (albeit negatively). But recently I swear to little baby Jesus that people, and by people I mean women (kind of the same thing) have been looking at me funny. Like, constantly. Whenever I meet someone new, or am introduced to someone new (which happens a lot in a job where I have met someone new almost every day since I started as a function of the job itself), people (women) have been looking at me differently than before.

I'm not sure how to categorise the look. It just sort of feels like I'm being weighed up more obviously than has happened in previous times. Like, they'll squint a bit and stare at me a beat longer than I feel comfortable with. It unnerves me and leaves me unsure what to do with my face or my eyes or my hands. I do not like it Sam I am. I do not like green eggs and ham (or women looking at me funny).

The only explanation I have for this sudden unnerving look that I have been on the receiving end of countless times now, is that I'm now proper blond and before I was not.

Which suggests that everyone should be reacting to me differently, but what confuses me most is that I do not think men have been. I've received no more or less attention, have not been treated any worse or better, I maybe get served quicker in bars than before but not by any noticeable amount and I think that's just due to the white blond being fairly eye-catching. So why has it affected the way the female of the species respond to me?

I only mention it because it happened noticeably twice today; from the members of a Young Parent' Group in a particularly joyous part of town (lie) and once from Felicity Kendal (truth).

The young parents of the Young Parents Group all trooped in to the 'Sensory Room' (a.k.a. a room with some throw pillows and lava lamps) and plonked themselves down with a degree of force not becoming of a 'Senory Room' vibe (man) and each made eye contact with me in turn as I smiled and welcomed them to sit down so I could tell them what I was about.

Each gave me 'the look'.

I wouldn't have thought too much about it because these chicks don't need another do-gooder coming in and telling them how they can live their lives better. They've constantly got people telling them how abysmally they're doing and like I know shit to be telling them what to do (I do not know shit). They giving me 'the look' wasn't particularly pleasant but wasn't entirely surprising either so, genuinely, I would not have given it too much consideration had not every lady I'd come into contact with since walking into this 'wrong side of town' centre not given me the exact same reaction. It's like they're trying to stare past my face and see the real me concealed beneath. So obviously when I got out I went and checked my teeth for big bits of lunch still stuck in there - nothing. I gave my face the once over for blobs of make up or pen - nothing. I checked my hair for bits of lettuce or other stray foodstuffs - nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

'She's paranoid' you're saying to yourself. 'She's paranoid and she's crazy. People look at each other all the time, it's nothing to get freaked out about'.

Fine. Think that if you will but riddle me this dear reader, why did Felicity Kendal of The Good Life fame make eye contact with me multiple times during the play I just saw her in?

Hmm? Why, in the middle of a performance, is the professional actor Felicity Kendal distracted by, of all things, MY FACE? WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY FACE?

Actually, don't answer that. Maybe it's best I don't know.

Basic Lessons

I learned something intensely disturbing the other day. I think I do most of the things that I do in the hope that someone, somewhere will say 'good job you'. Like, even as far back as doing well at exams and shit; I'm not sure if I studied cos I wanted to do well or if I wanted to do well so that someone, somewhere would be mildly impressed by how well I did.

It's become a worry.

Mostly because, at the moment, my boss won't actually acknowledge my good work. And I know I'm doing good because I'm putting at least 7% effort in which is 163% more effort than I usually put in to jobs where I am getting a paycheck. All I am craving at the moment is a pat on the head from pseudo-mommy and she refuses to give it to me. It's frustrating to say the least. Curiously, this is making me work harder and at this rate I will become proficient and capable at my job. Which is making me wonder if she's some kind of Machiavellian Sazz motivator. There's college level courses in that right? Seeing as how I am centre of the universe and all. Yeah, I figured. Like an HND course or something? I'm sure most colleges offer it. I'm guessing she's head of the Sazz motivating department at one of those colleges cos her approach to the way she treats me is making me do my job. Lots of people have taken the HND in Sazz Motivation and failed miserably. In fact, pretty much every boss I've ever had prior to this have failed that course. Thing is, if you (i.e. 'me') don't give a shit about the work your doing*, turn in the bare minimum of what's been asked of you, procrastinate up until the very last moment of whatever it is you've been asked to do is due and still get praised for the wonderful work you're doing then you rarely carry on trying even a soupçon. It's kind of 'People 101' (this is a pre-requirement course for getting on the Sazz college level courses because, contrary to popular belief, I am, technically, 'people'). It makes me wonder how little other people do in order that every boss I've had think me such an industrious and conscientious worker. Perhaps it's just because I wear glasses and am quite quiet? People who wear glasses and are generally not very loud are always conscientious. This is basic science. They teach you this in physics, chemistry AND biology classes at school because of how basic the science involved in that equation is. So that is probably what it is.

The irony being of course that when I actually am trying (oh Sazz, you are VERY trying!! HAHAHahahahahhalolroflhahahalolololol etc), no-one has noticed.

Basically I am saying trying is for losers because nothing good (i.e. praise, which is as addictive as crack and just as healthy) ever came from giving something your best shot.

That's basically the lesson here.


*Although I kinda of do in this new job so that might be a contributing factor to me, you know, doing the job itself.

Love hurts

It's fairly well known that I don't have the rosiest view of relationships. I'm constantly being called out on being too harsh or too cynical in matters of the heart. I choose to believe that I am, in actual fact, a realist not a cynic (but I also acknowledge that my presentation of this may be akin to the person who stands on street corners shouting 'YOU'RE ALL GOING TO HELL' who, deep down, just wants you to believe in God and not to come across as a crazy person (but, does indeed, come across as a crazy person). I'm working on it at any rate).

Having said all that there are some things I thought I could believe in and, to that end, I'm genuinely a bit distressed that the BT couple have split up.

I didn't even know I gave a shit and then, all of a sudden, they're trying to sell me cable tv packages by having a recently dumped man sitting in his batchelor pad considering PAYING to see Bee Movie. Is there anything more gut-wrenchingly melancholic than a man, on his own, thinking about spending money to watch Bee Movie? Plus, there were kids involved! He was learning how to be a good step-dad through all the different telecomms and internet deals that BT offer! He was booking holidays for his missus! And now he sits in the sort of chair that only single men ever own, filling up the lonely days with sub-par films like Bee Movie.

I, for one, am gutted.

Someone once said to me that they found the whole thing fascinating because 'he looks like he only gets to see the bits of their relationship that we do whilst she's living out the whole thing' which may be why he's so nonchalant about them splitting (and did she really dump him because his laptop lost it's internet connection when they were having an argument over instant messaging? Seems extreme). And wasn't he always the one who was getting all the BT packages? So why did he go for a different company in that instance? It's not his M.O. I want my fake commercial couples to BE CONSISTENT if nothing else. And who has important relationship discussions over instant messaging in the first place? How do you convey utter dismay with a emoticon?
Like this I suppose - :/
What about unending disappointment at someone else's actions?
Maybe... like this - :S
Ok, I think I'm getting it.

But what about a sarcastic or ironic tone? Think of all the times you've typed something glib whilst involved in an MSN chat and then had to spend 10 minutes clearing up any confusion about whether or not you are sexually attracted to Sting. Or when you've thought someone was joking and responded in kind but it turns out their cat really did die last night. Aaawkward.

I just don't know how BT expect to shift more shit by making us all depressed. It doesn't seem the smartest marketing tool ever deployed. I can only hope this is all going to be resolved in the (please god) inevitable reunion where they find themselves brought back together through a mutual love of cheap minutes on the telephone after 6pm.

(Please note: It does worry me somewhat that I'm more invested in this than I ever have been with anyone I've dated personally. You don't need to mention it. I'm already aware.)

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I've not been able to write for a while. Every now and then I need to live in my head for a while - to let the ideas and thoughts just formulate and percolate for a bit before turning them into something real and tangible by writing them down. I love writing for that reason, it helps me understand myself and others much better than just letting the thoughts occur and then allowing them to float away - but once there's evidence that those thoughts existed I have to accept the reality and face up to the consequences. Reality is not my friend. Reality is my older sister that I begrudgingly put up with because I have to, not because I want to (even if she always is fucking right about fucking everything. Bitch).

The thoughts I've been having for a long time just constituted pain. Pain for the things I'd been through and the things I would never have. Pain for what I'd gained and lost and pain for the things in me that had changed. Something I read somewhere in the last fw days resonated extremely deeply with me but I can't remember where I read it or by whom but it was this: it wouldn't be change if it didn't fucking hurt. Word. A thousand times word. Change hurts and it aches and it needs to do those things because if it doesn't then it's not change. It might be something that looks like change but if you can free yourself of a situation or a feeling with no battle scars then all you've done is change the screensaver, not the laptop. It's not real change.

I do find it interesting that I find it most hard to write when I'm not ready to face certain realities. Even when the things that occur to me to write about aren't even connected to whatever I'm denying. Like, if life is going swell and everything is hunky dory then seeing a Doctor Who-a-like at a wedding do a power slide to Enter Sandman would get reams and reams of blogspace. A meeting with gay ex's current beau would lead to a shit load of verbs and nouns and adjectives all poured into something that resembled a witty bon mot. Learning that aforementioned current beau knew that gay ex was my 'favourite failed relationship' (his, rather presumptuous, but similarly true summation of my feelings for him) and his reaction had been revulsion that gay ex had 'ever been anywhere near a vagina' (direct quote) would get at least a paragraph or two within the confines of these webpages. But I can't write a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g because I'm scared and unwilling and unable to write about the one thing that's on my mind the most - the journey of getting over 'him'.

'Him'? Who he? you may well ask. 'Him' is an idea, a person, a future, a past, and one of the very very few that I ever let get close enough to actually hurt me. I have spent the last few years either locking myself away in a tall tower with no ladders or stairs growing my hair and waiting for my prince to come, or going out and being a bitch to men that I (honestly deep down kind of believe even if I don't really want to) think deserve it purely for the fact that they are male, or running away from any situation in which it looked like I might get hurt. Don't put yourself out there. Hide it all inside. The minute there's a problem just move on. Rather that then make yourself vulnerable and have all your fears about what that could mean confirmed. Better to be safe than ripped apart and let down and shit on. Like 'him' did.

The thing is though, all that pain was a fucking doddle compared to what came next as, when the pain started to fade, the thoughts and the feeling stuck around. Constantly. They've just been there. Sometimes slightly out of my field of vision but always ready to pounce back into view the minute I would let my mind wander. I've just been bored by them in recent weeks. Like, 'I'm still having the same conversations in my head? I'm still feeling worthless because of him? His name is STILL twirling constantly round my head 24/7? WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END?!' and I admitted shit like that to my friends and every single one of them went 'just get over him' and when I asked them how they said 'by just... doing it'. And I got what they were saying, and knew they were right, but getting and knowing doesn't always translate into doing. I'm ill equipped for this stuff. I'm supposed to be the one that walks away with nought but a scratch upon her. I'm supposed to be made of teflon. But then, if it doesn't hurt then it's not change. You've just changed the screensaver. The view may be different but everything else remains the same. I figure, maybe this time, going through the hurt, getting the scratches, letting it all stick, maybe that's what I need. I don't think it'll make me stronger or better - I think it just might let me be more me than I was before.

And this is the interesting thing about change - it allows you to accept all the sides of yourself - the good, the bad and the ugly. Honesty will set you free. Honesty about whether you fancy boys or girls the most means you can go out and be more you than you were before. Honesty about the secrets you hold so dearly, that you think will fuck everything up, when they're given light rather than kept in the dark, more often than not you realise how much bigger they were when you couldn't see them properly - when the shadows were exaggerating their size and their effect. Honesty about who you are, what you feel, whether it's good stuff or bad stuff or ugly stuff. When you absorb it back into yourself rather than la-la-la-ing that it doesn't exist - it gives you freedom. You can be more of you than you ever were before. And that I think is the point. We all just want to be ourselves, we spend a long time going off on adventures and searching for who we are in foreign climes, piles of drugs, gallons of alcohol. Turns out we were there all along, watching, judging, thinking, but never really able to fully exist. To fully exist you need to accept everything and accepting everything means being honest and being honest means change and change fucking hurts. Which is why I still have a part of me wishing it all away. Wishing I'd never met him. Wishing he hadn't made me into such a fucking lame-ass girl. Wishing I could take back all the good and all the bad and be left with nothing. Nothing is better than all the somethings I've been dealing with. But the wishes are subsiding. Now I'm turning towards reality. I'm looking at what new laptop to buy. I'm not just changing the screensaver and thinking that'll do the trick just as well.

So this is the process. I mean, I've written about this shit before. I think I'm 'there' and then something happens and I realise I was nowhere near 'there' (note to self: snuggling with guy you're trying to get over while he reveals deeply personal things about himself and then going home and listening to the songs that played at the time again and again will NOT help you get over said guy) but when I think about 'him' now I also remind myself of the things, the people, the routines, that do make me happy. 'Him', on average, definately does not. I'm making conscious efforts to take each day as it comes and asking God to grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage the change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. It's not easy. In fact it's really fucking hard but if it wasn't, it wouldn't be change. But at least I know what I can change now. God granted me the serentity to see it - it's me. I can change me.

Pretty good. Pret-ty pret-ty pret-ty good.

Yeah. Pretty good I am. A couple of days into my new awesomo regime and it's all going quite well. Not that I've actually been doing awesome, or anything of note at all. I've been living, existing, I managed to fit in some time for breathing and sending sarcastic text messages to various people (the last two are pretty much one and the same as far as I am concerned). I bought some FUCK OFF gold hoops and this freak-ass ring even though this month I am determined to not spend money on fripperies (but then I consider accessories to be just as important as food or water). I dyed my hair RED so it is now very very RED. Weirdly, it looks great when I'm wearing my own clothes and kind of jarring at work. I don't know if this is because the lighting in the bathrooms at work are designed to make you want to kill yourself even more so than you do anyway because you're, you know, AT WORK, or if it's because my hometime outfits are better suited to hair which is the colour of RED than my work outfits that are more designed for someone that doesn't mind having their soul sucked slowly out in exchange for a decent wage slip at the end of the month. It's probably a little from column a and a little from column b. Speaking of which, I have 19 work days left at the council. Shit. I have NINETEEN work days left at the council! How sweet is that? Until I start thinking about what I'm going to do for money before I go offski on my travails. Ideally I would like to get paid to sit at home with my brother for a month whilst we watch all of Veronica Mars, The Wire, Curb Your Enthusiasm (although aficionados will realise from the blog title that I've been chomping through a large chunk of it recently by myself anyway), Battlestar Galatica and then somehow, in amongst that whirlwind of activity, finding time to fit in some Guitar Hero and perhap a smidge of painting. However, never mind what I'm going to do for money in the month before I swan off to live a life of decadence and degeneracy, what am I going to do when I come home again? Half of me is thinking of just losing a shit load of weight, getting a kick-ass body, and becoming a stripper for a while. I mean, I like leopard print and dancing and I couldn't hate men any more if I tried. It seems ideal. Up until the point where my goddamned politics get in the way and I start questioning whether I'd miss making eye contact with myself in the mirror. I do know what I DON'T want to do - anything in an office. Offices fuck my shit up well bad. And not in a good way. I can't settle in an office, which is weird given my love of stationary and sitting down. At the moment I think I might just try and scale the dizzying heights of waitressing or working in a bookshop. As Larry David says 'I don't like talking to people I KNOW, but strangers, I have no problem with'. In fact, on the right day, in the right mood, when the breeze is blowing in the right direction, I'm even sort of (whisper it) charming and shit. Unreal right? Yeah I know. It's more the having-to-talk-to-the-same-people-on-a-daily-basis thing that gets to me after a while. I need variety and lights and shiny things. Anything but what an office contains in fact. Even if I will miss having a free store of highlighters and glue sticks from which to pilfer from (slowly but surely my contraband collection is growing and making every single second of boredom worth it). Still, the point is, I don't care. I'm going to live in the present for a while. Fuck the past with all it's pain and shit, fuck the future where I have no idea what's going to happen. Let me just be. I forgot that was an ever an option.

Anyway, here's one of my favourite Curb'd moments. This may or may not be unrelated to the bell hop being Zachary Levi. Back when I first saw this he was still known to me as Kipp Steadman but now he's Chuck and my lust cup runeth over. Enjoy!

I'm the poor example from which your greatness can be conceived

I may be a comedy ‘fan’ but I find it very difficult to laugh at normal jokes. Not jokes that come up in everyday conversation, not jokes as told by professional stand-ups (although there are some notable exceptions), I mean joke jokes. Proper jokes. The jokes that the ‘wacky’ office colleague tells you while you stand waiting for the kettle to boil, the jokes that your boss tells you when you happen to mention you’re going to see some comedians performing soon and he wants you to think he’s hip. Those jokes. The jokes that may be slightly saucy and a soupson risqué but I’m pretty sure aren’t funny. However, to save time and effort explaining why I’m not laughing and having an awkward social interaction (what don’t I like? AWKWARD SOCIAL INTERACTIONS. This is covered in class Sazz 101 of ‘Sazzology’). This means, that I often have to try and guess where the laughter should be. I don’t mean I’m guessing where the punch line is, I mean I have to try and gauge the exact amount of time I should leave between the punch line being told and when laughter should appear.

The difference of a few milliseconds can make the difference between people either thinking you didn’t really ‘get’ the joke, or thinking that you’re only laughing to humour them (as it were). Fake laughter is an incredibly difficult art form to master in the first place. Let alone fake laughter in the exact right place so that people don’t think you’re laughing at rather than with them.

Of course, the other option available to me is just to groan, tut, lift my eyes to the sky and shake my head with a wry smile. But there are two issues with that. Firstly, it takes longer than just a quick burst of fake laughter and I really don’t like to extend any kind of polite chit chat for longer than I have to; secondly, there’s only so many times you can do that without starting to hate yourself a bit and I use up my yearly quotient at Christmas time when the cracker jokes are being bandied about.

So the fake laughter route I go.

However, as I say, timing is key. And unfortunately I am not the queen of timing. In any way, shape, or form. So the last two days I’ve found myself laughing just a fraction too soon and a fraction too late respectively. I can cope when people tell you a lame joke and they know it’s lame. I just don’t do so well when people are looking at you expectantly for a positive reaction. It’s the same feeling as when you’re listening to music or a film that someone is obsessed with and instead of you being able to enjoy it (or not as the case may be) for what it is, you have to endure people watching you watching (or listening to) it. If anything is guaranteed to suck the fun out of something it is that. The pressure is too immense. And I think that’s why I fret so much about laughing when I’m supposed to laugh at jokes. It’s a give-and-take process. Someone is putting themselves out there just to provide you with entertainment and, as payment, you are expected to reciprocate with laughter. But the right kind of laughter.

Of course, it’s possible that I’m over thinking this a touch. That the only pressure is coming from myself but I can’t help but think, at times like this, am I not just deficient socially but actually afflicted with some type of autism. No-one else worries about stuff like this do they?

Oh well. At least I know when to laugh at Maria Bamford’s efforts. That may just be because she’s awesome personified though.