Game Over

My flatmate came bounding into my room last week, threw her blackberry at me and my unconscious boyfriend and screamed "Help!" at the top of her lungs. She recently started seeing a boy- if seeing is what you can really call it, they're careful not to put a label on it- and apparently she had taken the relationship(?) as far as it could go and needed me to help her push it towards the let’s-go-out-for-coffee-direction. Naturally it wasn’t going to be a challenge as conversations were based through texting.

It wasn’t because English wasn’t her first language that she needed my help, it was because they were playing 'games' with each other. He had definitely been winning so far and she had decided she needed to get the power back.

Why do we do this to each other? Two people that genuinely like one another have to submit to this complex mating ritual that causes frustration and, in this case, desperation. Having said all this, out of the two of this I am definitely the professional game player and she left me to "not just get the ball in your court, but get his actual balls in your court" whilst my boyfriend tried to explain she needed to counter-act what was probably going through his mind whenever they text each other. Sex, if you were wondering. 

The boy was dealt the perfect opportunity to quit the games and take her out for dinner but instead he decided to twist the conversation into a cheeky anecdote from his end. I'm not quite sure where it's gone from there but I do know that she is now very bored of a boy she once thought was cheeky in a charming way.

And a lesson to all men out there – Don’t bother, everyone knows it’s always going to be the woman that ends up with the power.

Morning Glory

Bambi came crashing into my room last night after a night out, jumped on my bed and yelled: "Rach! You're not RACH anymore!"
To a drunk person this statement obviously made sense but I had to wrap my head around the fact that as far as I was aware I was still me - same uni, same friends, same beliefs. But as she snuggled into my pillow, making it obvious she was planning on staying there for the rest of the night, she yawned and said "You're so tiiiiiiired all the time."
Annoyingly, I totally understood that one and answered with a mopey and apologetic "I know."
After working very hard over summer and only getting a holiday just a week or so ago I'm totally shattered, as they say, and catching up on months of sleep takes a long time for a pathetic person like myself who can hardly function if she doesn't get at least eight hours a night! The fact that this had been impacting on my studies I had fruitfully ignored, doing manic catch ups every few weeks but now that it's started affecting my social life Bambi was having none of it.
"You're tired! You didn't come out tonight! YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN OUT TONIGHT! You're not enjoying anything. You're not doing the things that you love. I miss you!"
Not the best thing to be told at 3am (needless to say she almost had me in tears, must have been over-tired) but we came up with a plan. A flawless plan -
a Routine.
Whilst most students shy away from the thought - or so I've been led to believe - that word was like the eleventh commandment shouted down from the clouds in a great god-like/mufasa-type voice that had the ability to save me from my shambles of a life! I've finally realised I need to start scheduling in important stuff (like sleep) and making time for important stuff (like friends) and just manning up and getting drunk (says Bambi).
Of course, I woke up this morning shattered and decided I could start all that tomorrow but got cattle-prodded out of bed by what I'm assuming was a still drunk flatmate and now I'm in the library doing all the little things I should have done over the past few weeks, including important stuff like work experience, but that can wait til post-blog.
I called the long-distance man on the walk to the library and told him I was routining, and nothing was going to screw this up and this was what I needed and gaaawd boy I'm so jealous you have a routine! To which I got a "Um, kid, my routine is that I don't have any free time..You're jealous of  that?"
I'm your woman, I can be jealous of anything I want to!


But I'm not being stupid about it, I know I need to ease myself in to this clever, sophisticated, structured way of life. Which is why Bambi and I are having a scheduled lunch break after an hour of being here.


Well, at least it's something, right?

Making or Breaking or Gaming

There are many milestones in a relationship – the first kiss, the first time you sleep together, the first date, the ‘six monthaversary’, the first time you get a bit kinky, meeting the parents, the day you split if off with the other people you were seeing… But without doubt, I would say, the biggest ‘make or break it’ moment is (if you can even afford it as a student) the first holiday.

Choosing the location is pretty difficult. You have to decide who’s side of the family you’re going to leech off first, if the destination suits you both. Pretty normal, right? Not so different from a family holiday. But then you get the packing: do we share bags? Why don’t we just take hand luggage? What do you mean take hand luggage I can’t get my five pairs of shoes into my hand luggage! Why the hell do you need five pairs of shoes?! HOW DARE YOU!

If you finally reach your destination unscathed there’s the big problem of what to do. On my first holiday with my first boyfriend it was obvious we hadn’t filled our days with enough to do, and after a year we didn’t have that much to say to each other, so we spent five days abroad sunbathing and playing angry birds; reading and playing angry birds; travelling and playing angry birds and not having a lot of sex and playing angry birds.

Another couple I know ended up in Edinburgh and bickering the whole time they were there: “At one point we were both sitting in that grassy bit in St Andrew’s square with our backs to each other! And it gets worse – I was in a full length dress after we abandoned dinner early because we were getting rowdy… and not in the way we used to.”

I, myself, recently went to Paris with my fiancée (guess we should have done the holiday test first, but luckily we were fine) and had a fantastic time. Needless to say there was drama – mostly because of my getting the Eurostar time wrong, or forgetting to secure beds for the night in London until the day before – but that was what made it so much fun! We could laugh about it all day and even after over a year we could still sit up all night talking. When I got stuck in immigration control and he was forced to get on a train he did the most romantic thing – ran off the Eurostar at the last minute yelling “Non!” at the security guards, running round them and running straight into me at the gate. Think we’re in the “winning” category.

He did start to play Angry Birds on the way back which I initially found very worrying but, then again, I had my nose in a book and at that moment neither of us were particularly interested in joining the train equivalent of the ‘mile-high club’. Especially after all the talking in gay Paree…

TMFBI

= Too Much Facebook Information.


I had a catch up with an old friend from school yesterday and, needless to say, we started having a little gossip about what our mutual friends had been up to since we had departed ye old fancy establishment. Obviously, we had kept up with a few people so had no problem filling in the gaps with certain folk but when it came to pure nosiness we ended up talking about what we had seen on facebook. Isn't that a bit weird? That we can tell you about somebody's life completely from their posting on a social networking site?
Obviously it depends on the person's background/schooling/area of birth/whether they were organised enough to sort out internet in their home but the modest (and religious) folk tend to keep themselves to themselves a bit more and actually see their mates in person, or play computer games, but for plenty of people it is a tool to boast to what I'm sure they believe is the whole world. And when I say boast I mean jump up in the air waving their arms screaming "OVER HERE".
Now sure, if Gaddafi had had facebook or twitter in his last few days I would have been on that quicker than you can say "Good Riddance" but for everyone else who just isn't that interesting yet (key word being yet) I don't really understand what the point is. My friend eventually admitted blocking people off his news feed that he was still friendly with and still very much liked but found "pointless", "dull"" and "self-centred" on facebook.
Now, hey, we all have faults - I write a blog about my life (which he called "arsey", and I certainly can be) but it's not something I do every two hours of every day because I know people would rather claw their own eyeballs out than read about what I had for breakfast or how hammered I got last night or what my Halloween costume looks like two days in advance. Or at least, I hope they would.
Sure, I screamed the place down with shock when I was told a girl in my year had had a baby two weeks previously but when I was greeted with the chorus of: "How did you not know that? It's all over facebook!!" I responded with an answer along the lines of : 'we never spoke so I deleted her ages ago..' Obviously this was met with shock by some - does that mean my friend count is lower than the average? God forbid.
I'm as good a gossiper as the next but it's much juicier to find something out from the horse's mouth than from a URL.


And anyway, all of the above is exactly what Twitter was built for.

Are we there yet?

I am one of these unfortunate idiots in life that have an inane ability to over-think everything in the same way a scientist will try relentlessly to figure out the cure for cancer, or how the earth sort of 'happened' -the difference being that their thought patterns are wholly more acceptable and productive than my own. I can lie awake for hours letting my brain go at hundreds of miles an hour without even knowing the reason for my eyes popping out of my skull and the train of 'SHIIIIT', I'm just content being worried. And when I say content I mean I would happily swap brains with somebody else even if that included clawing the physical thing out of my skull myself.
My good friends laugh at what they call my inability to be happy, one said on the phone last night: "God, why are you so unhappy being happy? You don't need to moan about everything all the time you know! Just go with it!"
Well yes that's all very well for the rest of the world but I'm happy being unhappy with happiness in the small things because that means I don't have to think about the fact that - hey, I'm broke; I'm bored at university; I'm constantly exhausted; I'm considering buggering off to some forgotten land just to get my 'oomph' back.
Except, it's all very well to panic about how to cook a chicken, or where you're meant to be this evening, or does your tutor think you're hitting on him, but when I started panicking about my very happy relationship I was in desperate need of a severe kick up the arse (I was hoping there would be a chance it would go so far as to kick my brain into gear). 
But, to be fair to me, everything took a bit of a sudden turn recently into the 'serious' nature of life..and I hadn't particularly noticed, or had decided not to cotton on at the least, until it was a black-hole sized difference in the way he was talking rather than a bunch of little stars to admire at the time of passing on our little bubble of luuurve. But when the man turned round to me with a big grin on his face and said he had a huge urge to go riding on a tandem I started sweating instantaneously and I'm pretty sure the room was deprived of oxygen for a good few seconds before I said: "Tandem?! Are you nuts?!" Not only did it feel like I was being swallowed up by my future, I was being blinded by all the little cute things all at once - and let me tell you, there's a reason 'blind panic' holds such negative connotations. He didn't quite understand my reaction -luckily for him I couldn't figure out the nearest exit - but for me it was that image of us on a two person bicycle that made me realise just how far along we were in the couple time-scale. A tandem to me represents trust, dependency, sharing, equality - everything a (god-forbid) healthy relationship should be built upon. I just didn't know if I was ready to put it to the test. It felt so married couple-esque, so damned cute, so 'us'. For two people that had been flirting with the idea of a future together previously and had spent a lot of time together I'm not quite sure why it was this moment that it hit me, but there you go - I'm in the tandem stage of a relationship: we go shopping together, we're rational, we make plans, we think in terms of 'we' and we've already distinguished who the main breadwinner is (Oh come on, who do you think? I may be an idiot a lot of the time but I do know how to pick 'em!)
But after an hour long conversation at 2am last night - I woke him up and decided to panic directly at him for the first time - I've figured I really need to get a grip and enjoy it all. Supposedly happiness is good for the soul, which is a difficult thought for someone like me to entertain who was brought up to believe booze was good for the soul. I've since realised it is, in fact, the cure for the soul.
Anyway, a tandem also makes you think of summer love, being carefree, celebrating (or trying to recapture) youth and, most importantly, rolling around the hay - so I guess all is not lost.

"Students"

I hope a standard night for most of you students out there doesn't end in A&E, however, one of mine did recently - and I didn't even have the luxury of being hammered beforehand. I'd been working in the bar and my lot had shown up completely hammered and having a great time, casually rubbing in the fact that I was having to work (and still having the cheek to ask for free drinks) and then about 11:30 they all stumbled out to Liquid. That in itself should have been an indicator that they were far too drunk to be anywhere but bed. I eventually got home at a nice 2am on the phone to my boyo casually gossiping about work and get harassed in the hallway by a surprisingly sober Hettie who starts explaining a long winded story that ended with: "So yeah, Bambi's pretty much dead in bed, cracked her head of an iron bar!" Eh? So we walk into Bambi's room who's looking all innocent drooling on the pillow, like someone in a very happy drunken sleep - apart from the fact she wouldn't wake up. Now I'm very good at pretending not to panic but my head was just screaming "OH MY GOD SHE'S DEAD HOW AM I GOING TO FIND A REPLACEMENT FOR HER PARENTS SHITTT!!" My man tells me to get her awake no matter what and eventually she wakes up and starts speaking nonsense French - I kid you not. The only person I've met when horrifically concussed that attempts to explain the situation in another langugage. Muppet.
So we haul her ass out of bed into a taxi to the hospital, meanwhile bundling out our token 'Gap Yah' pal out of Hettie's bed who is also very drunk and falling over. I almost caught myself reaching for the gin during all this! So we get to the hospital, I'm outside treating myself to a well-deserved fag when GY and myself realise Hettie and Bambi have disappeared. I try running through to the treatment area whilst she distracts the receptionist which almost gets both of us chucked out the bloody hospital. So we sit and yell obscenities at the crone of a receptionist - probably a standard wednesday night for her!
Either way, drama's been averted right? Well sure, whilst Bambi's getting her head fixed two of our friends show up - one in a dressing gown and one in chinos and just a jacket. When asked how they got there the one in the dressing gown who can hardly see straight says: "I drove...HOLY SHIT I DROVE!" So I had one drunk in a treatment room, one in reception and two drink-driving. Was fucking brilliant.
The receptionist by this time won't let us out of her sight and when we eventually sneak our way through to the treatment rooms it's hardly a stealth mission what with B tripping over his dressing gown and R complaining about his stiff nips.
What's more R and GY were trying to reconcile a relationship, I won't go into details but how do you think those conversations go between two drunk people stuck in a hospital both having forgotten important items of clothing - the receptionist was tuning into her own personal soap!
Meanwhile Bambi's claiming it's 1992 and she's in a black box and she has no idea how old she is or even where she lives, and she's finding the whole thing hilarious. I could see the nurse's hand twitch towards the big knock-out drugs, and I wouldn't have blamed her.
Eventually 6 of us bundled into a three-door car and made our way home at 7am. Bambi's still concussed - an excuse she is finding works extremely well on her tutors. There's always a silver lining! Just so long as they all know next time it's their turn to look after me..

Wheel of Fortune

My whole "I'm not binge-drinking ever again" thing lasted approximately a month and a half - a valiant effort for a student, I'm sure you will agree! But my downfall was, as ever, The Medics. This time it was taken to a whole new level and I found myself doing a pub crawl in orange tights, an orange tank top, half a tin of orange body paint asphyxiating me and eyeliner whiskers claiming (loudly) that I was a fox. Naturally, nobody thought to tell me the tights were see through but by the time the third person had slapped my ass - and after a very ballsy man had bitten it - I'd gotten the gist. Needless to say I was far too hammered to care, although I did attempt to bite him back! Guess it was my own fault for mistaking the Gents for the Ladies.

The night was great and included me getting thrown out of my own place of work (the bar staff thought it was hilarious, the bouncers did not) and bumping into an old acquaintance from school and saying all the wrong things: "Are you still gay??" I also woke up this morning with a text from a medic who's tooth I may have chipped - now that's never going to be the start of a great love story, just need to now break the news that the chip was all in vain. Anyway, I chipped my own man's tooth in a much more interesting manner only a few weeks to go, got the tee shirt type thing!

It was definitely one of the more surreal nights; I saw the future of the NHS dressed as animals, celebrities and even bananas getting chased by a big gorilla. Now, I'd always worried that some of my friends were going to be doctors but I hadn't quite clicked that they're the intelligent ones - all I'm saying is, hold onto your penicillen. 

It's not the most surreal night I've had in the past week, though. On Saturday I went to a ball for charity and the theme was "Slim back into your wedding dress". Seeing 50 women on the dance floor doing the macarena had me in splits. The fact that I was there with the boy's family and they mentioned that they were all married by the time they were our age had me in tears.. However, I did have a fantastic night and they are a great laugh, but there were definite moments I was reaching for a paper bag. Apparently they were just pulling my leg, quite frankly they can keep my leg as long as I have time to hop away! It's all very well having romantic moments with your other half, or catching yourself day-dreaming about the future, but nobody else is allowed to know that you have any form of emotional depth at 18! It's a difficult concept to cope with - people knowing that you might be romantic, or loved up, or happy. As long as my mother never finds out I'll survive, she'd die if she thought I was ever planning on getting a ring on my finger, something about a 'lack of independence'. But when I mentioned to her that if she was married and had two big ol' incomes to play with she could have that holiday, or those shoes, or that party..There's definitely always one way to wing it with the women in my family!

With all the pressure in the air I'm surprised I'm not drinking right now..

Hole In One.

"Relationship". It's a word that is thrown around so much today what with our being able to put it online and then cancel it as easily as getting a refund the minute it gets 'old news'. Chatting to a friend last night she said "I think I'm going to try dating" as if it was a massive revelation that no one had considered before, but her tone did hold some weight - nobody actually does it, there's no journey anymore. Nobody just goes out for dinner, or cocktails, or the movies or whatever just to get to know each other without consuming copious amounts of alcohol and having a cheeky grope on the dance floor (as fun as it is, I've gotten to that stage where I've started wearing kirbie grips in my hair just to stab at whoever's wandering hand that thinks it doesn't have to work for it). But this can lead on to the rest of your life faster than it takes to buy a drink! One minute you're hooking up in a club, next you're meeting the parents via video-call. What ever happened to pace, guys? Admittedly, dating probably wouldn't suit me as the whole rules on sleeping together (first date, third date, fifth date, wedding day blah blah blaaaah) would confuse, and probbaly restrict, me and undoubtedly lead to too much drama that comes when british people sleep together 'Must NOT talk about my emotions...must NOT betray enjoyment...must NOT ask where this is going' yadda yadda yadda. Obviously it's more men that torment themselves with this train of thought - they do tend to have very fragile hearts! My man now (a year on) talks about how stressful the first few months of our sleeping together was as he was in love with me from the word go and didn't have a "fucking clue how to deal with it". Course, I just thought we were sleeping together...ish. My point is the modern-day man can easily be more fragile than us modern valkyrie-type, condom-toting girls.

However it wasn't until last night when I realised quite HOW fragile they can be! I was chatting away to a pal who's in his mid-20s and has never ever had a relationship that has lasted over 2 months - now that is quite a feat in 8 years of being sexually active, right? He was harping on about never wanting a woman and definitely never EVER god-forbid-would-rather-die-first needing a woman. He was giving the big macho chat about independence (yeah that's all fine til you want breakfast in bed) and casual sex (even though his magic number has minimal strings attached) which makes every man the most unattractive bloke alive - fine if you feel that way, just don't write it on your forehead? It means the likelihood of our sleeping together is minimal due to his moaning - probably never dated because women find it like looking into a mirror that talks back, over you, or any other way

. Anyway it suddenly hit me that he was just being a freaking pussy - that he was shit scared of women! I told him to grow some balls and actually open up to someone, he answered by starting a conversation about his two rather large (apparently) balls and, in my head, I wished him luck- he's going to be hard pushed to find a girl willing to engage in lengthy conversations about his genitals. Boys, stop being so egotistical, they might not all look the same, or be the same size or colour but they have the same goal, and, depending on who you are, there are things out there that do the job better than you lot without the backchat- and they ARE all the same size, shape and colour.

Simply because I can..

I've just copied and pasted the column today because although it would make more sense on paper this guy bugged me a lot today so the more space I fill up with his name next to a negative anecdote the happier I am!

I had a very awkward situation to warn you of today (University is a perilous place - I asked a girl who she was and she replied "We sat next to each other in tutorials for the whole of first year". I tried to pull it off as an innocent mistake) but instead I am going to rant about some "Josh Lee" who has been making smart-arse comments to me on facebook all day through some public English students group and generally barging his way into my stream of consciousness - not a good idea when I am a tired, hungry student with a column. All I did was ask everyone if the lectures this year are being recorded and put on WebCT (or myaberdeen or some other dusty, unused corner in cyberspace that Aberdeen latches onto to make it seem more accessible to the 'youth of today' - if it's not somewhere we can brag about our lifestyles, we don't care. You're more likely to have success on bebo, which is saying something for sure). Anyway, this Josh bloke makes a completely useless comment by noting that if I'd been there this morning I would have known.

Oh my, what WONDERFUL words of wisdom from my fellow teenager - to think if I'd gone to the lecture I would have known the content? What an incredible thought! Please allow me to lick your shoes and get your inspiring knowledge tattoed across my own forehead backwards so that I can read it in the miror!

Seriously - no duhr! What a waste of my time in reading and responding; if you're going to make a joke make it funny, original and preferably self-depracating. You, on the other hand, made yourself seem like a friendless prick who hasn't seen daylight since WWII and who's weapon of choice in his arduous daily battles is his iphone.

Baby, you can try and get me from your own one-size-fits-all hole in cyberspace, but I've got the power of the printed word. So unless your iphone has a physical cell to contain me in...bite me - or, in your case, *bite me*.

Testing the waters

It's certainly been a while since I last wrote but I do have the excuse of being awfully, terribly, horrendously busy! I've moved into the flat for university but in a moment of fever decided to be a fantastic family member and loving girlfriend and travelled up and down to home more times than I care to remember. Saying that, though, the free food was definitely worth it. Got a text from my mother the first time I went down saying: "Just because you haven't told me you're about doesn't mean I don't know - my bloody cupboards are empty!" She sent warning signals out to the rest of the family before I could get there, if my aunt could have legally branded kitchen knives at me to protect her food supply I'm sure she would have. In all fairness I did get sent away with a packed lunch for the bus -I'm surprised I didn't get a 'good riddance' note with it.

In other news this blog has landed me a column in the student newspaper! Surprised I wangled it after telling the editor his newspaper was 'shit with no sex appeal', maybe it's my job to jazz it up although probably not as much as they were hoping - my first one was filled with "****"s and all sorts. 

I'm totally knackered as I've been massively enjoying freshers week and working and blah blah blah and the funniest thing that happened to me all week was when I got high and made up a pet white elephant whilst my friend was trying to do psycho-analysis tests on me which resulted in him getting a fit of giggles and my wondering about the way my brain (doesn't) work. But apparently I see myself as "bold, sexy and classic"
"Yeah, bold enough to tell you you aint getting laid tonight, baby."

Don't try and sexually manipulate a girl with a white elephant - she'll trample all over that shit.

Tree trunks and dead wood.

My creative juices have been refuesing to flow in the last few days, probably because all I do at work now is sit and stare at a computer screen as I've finished my assignment but didn't tell anyone because I desperately didn't want to be the office scanning bitch. Thankfully more work came through. And when I say thankfully I don't mean thank god for the work, I mean thank god for keeping my hands busy so I dont attempt to staple my eye balls in a bid to feel!
Feeling..there's been a distinct lack of it recently! I had a bit of a midlife crisis the other day (a few decades early but what the heck, I can pull them off in my work clothes) and decided that life is shit, work is shit, plans are shit, my course is shit, everything's shit. This was all voiced at my friend during lunch and he proceeded to answer "Well...my bagel's not shit - do you want some of that?"
Sorry what? I'm talking about dropping out of uni, fucking off to Vietnam or Chernobyl to pick up some radioactive disease that will make my life slightly more interesting and your solution to that is pesto?! You're practically making me a packed lunch to go with my failure! You're telling me that the best thing in my life is green Italian substance in a jar, and you're rubbing salt in the wound by reminding me pretty much everything else has done more travelling than me this summer. In an bid to save his bagel from assasination-by-water
 he managed to wing a shpeel about "joie de vivre", and our need for it. So good was his spontaneous speech about 'living life to the full' and 'we could be dead tomorrow' the medic somehow managed to persuade me to cycle with him across Europe next year. I blindly agreed and then stopped dead five minutes later half way through a conversation about financing it with "Wait, will I get big thighs?" please no please no please no please no plea-
"Yeah, they'll probably get about 40% bigger." hey look at that, cold sweats...find solution find solution find - aha!
"Cool, well when I said bike, you know I meant motorbike, right?"
"You're such a woman."

No freaking duhr! After moments of clarity like this I honestly don't understand how men and women swap sentences on a daily basis let alone form relationships. During the brief exchanges above you can blatantly see near fatal miscommunications going on - I want to change my life and my friend is offering me carbs or thunder thighs? Do you not know usat all? How many of you coerce women into relationships I shall never understand..I'm assuming many of them have been flown over from Thailand..

But thankfully I'm getting written a programme by my personal training man and he promises he won't give me thunder thighs. We shook on it: "If I do, you're never getting them wrapped round you again. Ever. Hear me?"
Not that this is really an issue seeing as there are months in the year when there is to be no leg-wrapping activites due to his being an athlete. He looked in horror when I suggested injecting some testosterone...look, do you want to play by the law or do you wanna keep me?
Anyway, it's one of the 'fasts' or 'bans' at the moment and so his coach's mantra is "Women make the legs weak" (apparently the man can always tell) , and I think I'm starting to go a bit mad from a lack of having weak legs. I'm so highly strung that when I asked him where we were going tonight and he replied "Bar, club, pub, whatever, I don't know." I managed to freak out at the fact I didn't know what  to wear because they all have such different vibes/moods/lighting.. Naturally, this was not metwith understanding, although he did concede to give me prior warning before we head off -the fact that I may have suggested prolonging the ban after competition season surely helped, it was certainly not compassion for my womanly craziness. "You're all crazy, sure you're not the craziest I know but when you have your moments...you're just scary."

Once again, well done Sherlock, have a congratulatory blowjob. Oh wait...

I've just pulled through a mid life crisis and all I want to do is celebrate my new found joy/substance/love for life..
Good luck relationship.

"It's a desert landscape, duhr!"

So as hopefully more than a few know, last night was the end of the Fringe fireworks show which involved, for anyone with a sense of duty, a lot of alcohol, merriment and wet grass. I wasn't originally intending to go, the plan was to trekk in to slap a very good friend of mine silly out of his emotions - I would have thought with his being a boy this would never happen - and then go home for a good night's sleep and positively leap out of bed at 7am for work.
Well, none of the above happened. My boy had already been slapped silly and, after moving through the stages of grief concerning his finished relationship faster than he can justify another round to everybody present, we headed off to his family's flat to watch the fireworks with bottles of wine in hand. Unfortunately, his brother had just moved into the flat and, if I can give you one word of advice, don't wake up a nurse after a long and arduous night shift by yelling at his door to open up - they don't appreciate it, if looks could kill he would have been giving CPR within a second flat of us bursting through his door. So back we trekked to the links where my friend had to try to persuade me to sit on the grass for five minutes, and we eventually compromised by my on the plastic bags after I attempted to coerce him into sacrificing some minor comforts for me: "No, girl, you are NOT taking my clothes off to sit on."
During this time the others had arrived with the corkscrew and muffins we had cleverly forgotten and already started delving into the red. And it was a wonderful night - the radio was playing the accompanying music and giving analysis of the fireworks which I attempted to relay to everybody sitting in Bruntsfield Links, we warmed our bellies and destroyed our livers with cheap red wine and simply let the world go by - something I had genuinely forgotten how to do! Obviously, the solution was to drink until your thought process slows down or stops entirely. Then we managed to look like the poshest yobs in Edinburgh by prancing down through the meadows drinking wine out of real wine glasses yelling - an attempt at singing - Tchaikovsky to the late evening air.
Meeting up with the other half of the group was slightly awkward as there were two recently broken couples brought together by our joining that were painfully attempting to avoid each other and so I joined a long list of martyrs to aid this situation - I took on the mantle of the village idiot. Skipping down the grassmarket with a traffic cone on my head I passed two woman who said, and I quote, "Dear oh dear - students." It made my night, for sure. Next was the task to sneak my cone into the pub which involved hiding it just inside the doors to scan out the place for security/sober people and then wrap my jacket around it, cradle it, and pelt through to the back. Unfortunately, my new friend had to be left behind at the pub as I decided (slightly tipsy) that I didn't have enough money to pay for its train fare home.

Pretty much if any awkward sitation arises head for the nearest roadworks. Might not work for them but it'll sure as hell work for you.

Don't look directly at it..

Let me just start off by pointing out that this never ever happens and I can't believe I'm even going to talk about it but..here goes..
Today, I'm clashing navy and black. And I'm wearing sneakers.
What, did you think I'd actually give away something juicy? Never do that - you might get pounded on.
I don't really know what happened this morning - I'm pretty sure I turned on the lights, and it wasn't as if I didn't have time to change after putting this disaster on - I simply went with it, totally knew what I was doing. And now I'm freaking horrified! After learning at 12 years old to never do what I have sufficiently over-done you'd think this shit just wouldn't happen, and I'm not too sure why it did. Maybe a lack of sleep, a lack of morning shower (I'm going out tonight ergo evening shower: money-saving-student) a lack of goddamm self respect because I can hardly face the outside world.
I went shopping in my lunch hour, not that I haven't been shopping online all day anyway, and headed straight for my local vintage haunts (check out http://www.bangonstyle.blogspot.com/ if you want the top five places to go in Edinburgh). Ususally I get a little bit of acknowledgement that I actually know what to look for in a vintage store whilst I'm there but today I could practically feel the disgust coming off the girl at the counter, and the dead fox that was wrapped around her neck. I hadn't realised quite how bad it was but there I am, standing staring at a reflection of navy wide leg trousers and a black half turtle neck that doesn't even FIT!
I managed to not hyperventilate and remain on my steady course round the coats and jackets hoping nobody would notice if I stuck to the shadowy bits but, of course, people did and I got the whole "Darling, M&S is over there. You won't find what you're looking for here." Well, nobody actually said that but I could taste the horrifying betrayal to style in the air, just like a snake can taste the fact its the closest creature to the dirt...Scratch that I just felt like a fucking snake - betrayer, reject, callous, evil, not-good-in-the-mornings.
Whatever.
To gain some pride back I practically whirled round the shop looking for a designer label that would render me worthy of such an enticing place once more. One classic Burberry mac later (bargain and a half!) and an Emporio Armani basque I was accepted once more. The woman behind the counter even complemented me on my finds - but I knew this glorious moment of basking in my vintage skill would be over the minute I stepped out into the street and threw myself to the open public that had not been witness to my shopping skills.


So I did what any girl on the edge does.
I bought a pair of over-sized sunglasses.

Facebook realtime

Facebook. It's so important to my generation - it's how we live and document our lives, as well as keep on top of everyone else's to make sure they're simply not having as much fun as me me me!!! It's very self-indulgent (much like this) but on a grander scale - less alias, more revealing the clogs of your brain to the world, although that does depend on your privacy settings.
Don't get me wrong, it's great for keeping up with family on the other side of the world and sharing moments with your friends but....well, the bad thing about facebook is that it never forgets - and not in the cute way that elephants manage to pull off - facebook hardly stands by the skeleton of its dead friend for years, I'm pretty sure it shot myspace in the back!
You see now 'fb' has started putting these little things up like "Your status one year ago" or "your friend's status one year ago" or "that photo you thought you detagged but actually didn't one year ago" and gradually everything comes flooding back - that bitch of a boss that you've tried to forget, that hangover you can barely remember in itself and the most excruciating one - that boy/girl you really did care for.
I've already talked about 'the ex' and it's easy to look back on it in a humourous manner when it's a year ago and, let's be honest, you can't really remember anything. But then facebook comes along and kicks up the shit and you're left with that memory of your anniversary (we had a fight), or your new boyfriend's old attitude (whipped - thoroughly unattractive).
So this got me thinking to the fact that, well, my ex and I don't talk - it's the same for most people, especially concerning their 'first love' (anagram for 'underage sex') - so why the hell are we still "friends" with each other on facebook if he would rather eat glass than admit a closer-than-friendship-aren't-we-made-for-each-other-past with me face to face?
Facebook is that real to us yet we cannot bring ourselves to let go online. But, when you think about it, it's just a quagmire bog of your life since the first day you logged in and told everyone how you were feeling/what you were thinking/how long it had been since you last slit your wrists...I wouldn't take a stray dog out for a walk in that shit, let alone my Carvelas.
So I deleted my ex, I kicked his ass straight outta my facebook park, not because I don't respect or like him, but because when you move on you have to do it all the way. I don't want those little photos of us being browsed through by people - it's not real anymore; I don't like to think of our 'wall-to-wall' conversations - again, not real; I don't want to be friends with someone with whom the memories I have are obsolete!
Facebook aint real, if it was real this stuff would go the minute your friendship went, it would know to chuck out the old photos and letters just the same as you did when you held that burning ritual. Because when you split up, that's it - you divvy up the tent (or not) and then get rid of the rest because, hey, it didn't work for whatever reason so why hold on to a failure? Even if it was an experience something, at some point, must have hurt. Or, in my case, I must have been a bit of a bitch..


Euphamism much? I don't know, ask him. But don't- for the love of god- go online to dig it up, even if you own wellies that go up to your armpits.

Warning Lights

So I had my first experience of a booty call on Saturday night..And it was highly amusing. There I am, sitting in bed, Gin and Tonic in one hand, good read in the other, it's not hit 10pm yet and I get an email from an old acquaintance (even that's pushing it) wondering if I'm in Aberdeen all looonely like he is.
Well, I do all the right things like be difficult, ballsy, nazi-esque to put him off but apparently the boy was just that bored so I concede he can come round for a drink - if he provides the drink.
Of course, of COURSE he has to pitch up with a bottle of vodka and, as anyone who knows me can tell you, that shit floors me.
And of course I have this total masochistic, masculine wanna-be, pathetic habit of attempting to keep up with the boys - especially if it's just one boy. If it's a group I can pretend to be all maidenly/be a bitch about it/keep up with the girls (hard enough as it is, I really can't handle my drink) but when it's someone you're trying to coerce into not wanting to sleep with you - bottoms up, lads! (no pun intended).
So I gradually-no, that's a lie- I swiftly get hammered to the point of no return and suddenly this guy is taking opportune moments to have a litte graze of the fingers or kiss of the neck and all the while I'm yelling "I'M NOT SINGLE!" and attempting to bat him off. Then he relays some story about one time I also wasn't single and we hooked up or something but, as previously mentioned- I am a woman, I am complex, I had an excuse, and who the hell is he to use my weaknesses against me!
So I keep parroting my punchline (to no avail - I should have been wearing a padlock and flashing lights) and keep drinking and chatting about the stockmarket because, believe it or not, despite the perv factor I'm enjoying his company and gaining the investing skills to make money!
Anyway, turns out I get too hammered and end up with my head down the toilet, giggling to myself whilst this poor man stands outside trying to drunkenly persuade me to "bin" some water. By the time I'm up and running and ready for bed turns out the cheeky bugger's already in there! (thankfully having not taken my side). So I climb in plastered, roll over ready to pass out and his whole little game starts again and so I do the only thing I can that doesn't involve having to move - I start growling, pure and simple. This triggers another vomit attack which finally puts him off. Honestly, it must have been a long time since he'd last gotten some luurvin because you couldn't have paid any self-respecting bloke to sleep with me in that state - I was certainly not a pretty sight!
Anyway in the morning I did the classic Hollywood move (roll over and scream your head off at the random in bed next to you, for those who have not yet tried it out) and proceed to help him throw himself out at 7:30 in the morning causing a ruccus in the hall because I don't yet know how to use my new door in my new flat which oh shit I now have to totally spring clean again..It wasn't pleasant.

Thank god my man is too dyselxic to attempt to read this, I told him a watered down version to which he still replied: "Sounds like the boy doesn't need his kneecaps if he's so busy with his hands - I can sort that out for him."

Good thing I also forgot his name, then.

A day in the life; missing my shotgun

Today has just been..you know, one of those menial wastes of times (I swear I sat in that office for years today) in which we all question our existence and admit our futility at well, everything.
The biggest kicks I got today were by stealing post-its and staplers from work because, let's face it, I probably won't be hired back next year after this morning:
I've been ill once (and so didn't come in) and late another morning- so far so...okay. But I was late again this morning, too, and had to come up with some rambling excuse that the family dog (the one I was deigned too irresponsible to look after) had gotten the shits in the middle of the night, and I'd woken up to it this morning (stick to what you know when you're lying - obviously everyone in the family thought this was a likely situation).
Sure, my boss sympathised, but I definitely went a bit too far at replying to his "Well, I suppose something like that is completely out of your hands." with: "Oh, I don't know about that if you get what I mean..."
Yeah, I think he did.
So I've had pretty much no lunchbreak and have spent the entire day single handedly bringing down Mongolia with the amount of papers I have to print and file. Printing is a surprisingly difficult job, the whole two-sided to one-sided thing, and vice-versa, boggles me. I almost asked a co-worker's help but I doubt she'd have appreciated the fact that it was my CV I was trying to spice up.
Having been practically injecting coffee into my veins to stay alive - correct, alive - today I was thinking about the whole graduation steps we take from childhood to adulthood. The first day I had my coffee black, the way my mum does, I knew I had just bypassed my twenties entirely and skipped straight to bitter. My gagging-for-the-future-friend put milk in what I thought was my coffee yesterday and I almost burst right into tears. I'm a woman now - 'A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.'
What the hell does it matter to her, she's looking forward to pregnancy.


Becoming a woman is like joining a religion - there are so many things you can simply no longer do or pull off anymore. Take grazing your knees: I was a big one for that when I was a kid because I was one of those tomboy-type things that my parents hoped would fall out of a tree and be finally be silenced - perfectly understandable. But if you have grazed knees now as an adult people are either going to think you were involved in some spontaneous sex act or you can't walk in heels. The latter scares me the most - how embarassing, frankly. I only think of this because the night I was due to start my new job I completely decked myself on a step and cut my knees open; not only did this completely ruin my outfit for the next day (I was hardly going to wear a skirt, see reasons above) but it also meant I had to put up with another set of pain on top of my heels rubbing - dammit I can walk in them, but I didn't say it wouldn't be painful!
As a woman it is also impossible to talk to a man without their thinking it means you want to sleep with them - okay so sure, teenage boys were like that when we were younger but now it applies to older men too! Not that there's anything wrong with a silver fox but to the train conductor that's on his last hip replacement- never gonna happen, sweetheart.


But the funniest thing about being a woman is recognising all these little traits in other woman, particularly the ones you don't know so well. You see, we all have this miniature race going on - who gets the best job quickest, who gets the long term boyfriend to stay put, who loses that holiday weight first blah blah blah but when you're outwith that race (sometimes for having won it) it's a brilliant sight - I'm jealous of the men that get to laugh at us all day.
You see, when the man bought me a diamond at 18, I knew I'd struck gold (or white-gold) for myself and my friends because if we're ever out and anyone is ever arrogant or rude it somehow just gets dropped into conversation and all of a sudden you see that glazed look in their eyes as they desperately try and figure out what it's worth, where it's from and how quickly they could get one. Now this isn't a vicious thing on woman but, let's be honest there's ones out there you just want to make shut up.


And I get all the back-chat about the 'serious' nature of it all and "you know it won't last, right?"
Do you think that's the point? The point is when we split up I will make a mint pawning it! But, when you split up with your's, all you'll be left with is a gaping hole where your DVD player used to be when he moves his x-box out.


Moral of the story? I need  to start using sweetener.

"We didn't burn our bras for this shit!"

Meeting up with a friend for lunch yesterday we got onto the topic of "the future of love" which more concerned her's than mine, as I'm perfectly happy to consider this an adventure - or, when it's bad, myself as a character that it's not actually happening to.
This is a very good friend of mine from school who yo-yos from relationship to relationship like a man goes through x-box games; when they're completed it's time to find a new one as fast as possible, otherwise they'll be wasting 80% of their time. You can die from not playing x box you know.. The minute a girlfriend manages to lure one of them away from the tv into a private wooded area...Well, we're all making the world a better place, one wanker at a time.
But she'll be the first to admit this 'half-of-a-whole' behaviour. When she's single she moans about not having anyone (astonishing when she has such funny and insightful friends) and when she's all tied up in commitment even that's not enough! She can hardly wait for the day that life (and everything amazing that comes free of charge with it) ends as we know it: getting dolled up and marched down between rows of extended family and friends- who you really don't know that well, it turns out- by a man who carries knives in his socks (and in some sort of bum-bag thing over his skirt) like a lamb for the slaughter. Which is how I'm sure it must feel for many woman that blanch at the idea of not having a dishwasher. And this fiasco is just the beginning of my friend's 'dream'.
Yupp, she simply can't wait for it all and as I stood there in the street scaring tourists with what must have looked like a violent expression trying to stage an intervention, desperately calling for back up at a group muslims (the point was wasted on them) she delivered the death blow to feminism everywhere: "Well yeah, I'd rather spend my husband's money than my own."
It was worse than I thought and I considered hitting her with the Bayswater Mulberry I had bought for myself only a few months ago but, then again, I'm not going to damage good leather for a lost cause - which was what how it seemed.

But I did spend about five minutes trying to scare it out of her verbally (and concocting a plan that involved her mother and I abducting her) but when she wasn't budging I drew out the big guns and waffled a speech which was as painful as swallowing nails along the lines of: "for the sake of your children, have something to show for yourself". At the 'c word' her eyes lit up, god help me.

Now, don't get me wrong - I want all of the above, but I don't think about how good it would be to put up with now and the last thing I would want to do for the rest of my life would be looking after cretins that start off: screaming at you and keeping you up all night; then throw crap all over the walls and furniture (child-proofing can bite me); run away from you in your local supermarket (I would probably use a trick of my mother's which would be to run away from it, too); become a smart-ass little shit at school; start giving you back talk; have underage sex (imagine the dent on the car after I have to go and run some young boy down); screw up their exams because of all the drama drama drama that is their lives; squeeze every last penny out of you and then fuck off to some educational establishment to drink themselves into an early grave.
By that point I'd be years ahead in the race.
Sure they eventually come to their senses in their twenties and apologise but by then, with my lack of patience.. well I'd probably tell them they were adopted to get them off my back. It's probable social work would get to them first though:
"Is this your child?"
"Only if you're willing to buy it.."

A casing point of my lack of feminine instincts - I'm more femme fatale - would be the fact that I attempted to cook last night and, after googling what the pan looked like and even then managing to use the wrong one, I ended up with hot couscous and cold salmon fillets. In my opinion it was totally justified as the story I had been telling whilst cooking (far more important) was well worth the potential food poisoning. I must say, though, bless my man for wolfing it down, although the illusion was shattered when he proclaimed, "I'm easy - I'll eat anything!" In my view, such an insult deserves the punishment of not cooking for him for a year. However, that may have been his plan in the first place..

I'm going to see my friend for lunch again today and, as long as she doesn't ask whether or not I used a non-stick pan last night with genuine interest, there is still hope.

The added 'X' chromosome.

No, I'm not talking about the difference between men and women and how we come from different planets yadda yadda yadda (although whoever wrote that ought to be checked out by NASA, obviously there's information out there that they just don't know about!). No, I'm talking about the not so elusive 'ex' that seems impossible to get rid of the first time you deal with it, whether it's yours or a partner's. Never mind "a part of me is missing since we split up", it's like having a 3rd dead arm that uncontrollably hits you in the face whenever you turn the corner quickly for the first while post-split. And let me tell you, sometimes the split is just the eye of the storm.

First I have to explain how I came onto such a topic this early in the morning - Last night I was deigned unsuitable and untrustworthy to the extent that I am not allowed to look after the family dog by myself for two nights. Now this to me is absurd - yes I had possibly made plans to leave the dog by itself for a few hours in the evening and even forgot I was looking after it one night but still! I look after myself fine don't I and I've only got two legs to balance on!
Anyway, after being hounded for an explanation as to my 'sneaky behaviour' I stopped listening and started thinking - is this where love leads? To arguments over a mutt with a third party? Is this me in twenty years time? And as I could hardly bear thinking about 'the future' when faced with this, I looked elsewhere for material.
I already knew that you can't change the past having watched "The Lion King" unashamedly on end from the age of two, but I was not aware that your future is a whole other trap of pointless things just waiting to take hold and annoy you..
Because, honestly, I had just been enjoying the past few months of having a normal amount of arms and minimal bruising. You see, at university it was constant because - hey kids, big mistake coming up - there is a small possibility that my ex and I went to the same university and there is a tiny chance that we may have split up not very far into term time (9 days, in fact) and there is a miniscule- ah screw it, all those things happened and we ended up in an 'intimate' tutorial together..Now that's karma for cheating, although I would have rather had one of my nine lives removed (or whatever) than suffer that.

Now, when you're still at the "let's be friends phase" (good luck with that) you try and talk, and share, and laugh but certainly not not not love. Under any circumstances you are NOT to seem attractive, or fun, or upset or whatever - in fact, your relationship hardly happened. What's that? We used to date? "Oh we don't really like to talk about it we're so much better as friends hahaha". Yeah we fooled nobody. If you can bypass that stage, I suggest it. Now anyway, following those rules I would throw in the odd anecdote about the 'new man' on the scene and he would pretend to listen. However, after one week he turned around and said: "Yeah I'm doing great, I'm totally over."

Excuse me?

EXCUSE ME?!

I think my exact response was: "What?! How dare you!" You can't be over me!"
Ex: "Why not?"
Me: "I'm not over you yet! I'm meant to get there first!"
Ex: "You're the one sleeping with someone else!"
Me: "I AM A WOMAN. I am allowed to do this and still think about you because I am complex! Now take it back!"

I got my revenge a few months later when we - 'new man' and myself - bumped into him and his friend on the street. The fact that he greeted us (me) with a wink and had difficulty meeting us (new man) in the eye led to the almighty feeling that can be translated to: Over me my ass. Ha.
He'd just finished making a friend a birthday present, one of those build-a-bear things. As we were walking away I said to new man: "Ever get me one of those and I am never putting out ever....Hey that's it! He's sleeping with her!"
Turns out I was right.

Anyway, now we don't talk after we spent one night playing mind games (any woman knows this is no euphamism) which resulted in my being kicked out of his bed. Well, he tried anyway. We turned into a bit of a divorced couple, actually. After buying a tent together to go on holiday with the year before (I was never quite sure if I actually paid my half but who even reads the small print - principles anyone?) and I wanted to borrow it to go away again as apparently I was going camping. Key word, apparently.
After trying to get in touch through text and phone calls, even emails I had heard nothing back. I settled on a compromise which read: Look, it's half and half so I'll come pick up the canvas and you can keep the poles to stick up your arse.
I think that sealed the deal.

But this wasn't the only 'ex' to exchange pleasantries with 'on set' (it felt like a drama) during first year - there was his 'ex' too, who lived in the same halls as us. At least mine had agreed to be in different halls (where did it go wrong, we were such clever people..) in case anything did go awry- which it usually always does, let me just point out. Anyway, it really was rather unnerving having a serious 'ex' wandering about halls (not that he particularly cared) who had a slight tendency to initiate these pleasantries. Admittedly the worst, and scariest thing about their being in the same halls was pointing out to the rest of the world how similarly they dressed in freaking trackies and hoodies and graffitied tees. One of my friends was known to mistake one for the other and try to grasp at some understanding of 'casual'. She got as far as: "Does this mean you have no self respesct?!" But it's first year - the achievement was getting out of bed and putting on clothes in the first place.
However, I did desperately try and hide his wardrobe during winter but he hit back with the argument "If I don't wear layers everyone will have to put up with my nips.." He has the most extraordinarily pointy nipples, which I wasn't cruel enough to let loose on the public. Maybe that was her issue too. I never really asked.
Women all react similarly when they find out their ex has moved on before them (see above) but I don't think anyone expected him to land me, especially me as I was newly single and drilled into him "This isn't serious, got it?" But there you have it, all of a sudden it was and apparently this raised issues. Key word being apparently, I have little knowledge of such facts and I'm sure anything I was to know would be too sad to attempt to put a comic twist on, although he did attempt to when he left university early to explore new avenues of life: "Wheeey, I don't have to be see her on a daily basis now!"
For the sake of woman kind...Just you wait til I'm your ex, boy.


Having left the proximity of mine he's hardly an added chromosome now, more a grown-out fringe who looks a lot better on his new girl, good on him.
It's all about putting the past behind you and, well, putting out.


Just not at the same time.

Let's see where this ends up..

Hello me- as I'm assuming it's only really going to be me that reads this- the title of this hints at either a kind of culturally warped, confused human being or an incredibly arrogant, uncultured, patritotic sheep right? Well, I'm neither. I just realised today when I'm really thinking, like reeeally thinking in sentences and shit, it sounds all american in my head.
Just to help you get your bearings I was born in Scotland and have lived there all my life but I'm a quarter American which is the biggest hold I have on any place in the world. Apparently my brain has staked its claim.
But you would certainly rather that than a I-can't-see-sunlight-because-my-head-is-up-my-jodpurred-arse-English accent, and it's certainly preferable compared to the whine of the Fife accent (my lovely specific place of birth, shoot me) which sends people from the capital running away for fear of their lives. Frequently, however, they get waylayed in the minutes it takes them to choose what car to drive. Whadda life. (If they wait, they won't get a choice).

Okay so this is possibly turning into a bit of a piss-take of the culture I know best but surely that's understandable and predictable seeing as I choose not even to think similarly! Don't get me wrong, I love Scotland, I think it's great. I could wax lyrical about the beauty of Edinburgh, the rolling hills of the North, the pollution of the Forth and the thank-fuck attitude we take when tourists descend and make us look welcoming and friendly - which is precious as I knock down about 5 tourists a day on the Royal Mile on my walk from work to the train station, your patience runs thin by 5pm.
And I'll probably decide to stay in Scotland (education system, good universities for kids, safer than other places, lack of jodpurred pricks etc) except wouldn't it be lovely to escape just for a little bit to somewhere like say..Oh I don't know-NEW YORK. I would looove to have the life of our 4 favourite women, although perhaps better taste in men,a nd I always say I'm halfway there what with my boyfriend having the same knickname for me as Mr Big does for his lady (my dad sometimes calls me it too, but we don't really go there). But imagine just writing about love, sex, clothes, problems - everything we talk about in great depth - for a living! And maybe even being trusted with a political story or two! The thrill of deadlines, the buzz of NY city, art, theatre, music. Now I'm not saying we don't get that in Scotland but...if NY is the big apple then Scotland is very much the blueberry. Or whatever the prickly one is.


But my love for America does end there to be fair, at least Scotland is a whole country you can get your teeth into.
But getting your teeth into the men.. now this is where it gets tricky. You see, from my experience, American men up until their mid-20s have some peculiar problem which means they have annoyingly high voices, I'm not kidding. When they hit 25 it's like they've dropped another pair of balls but until then I wouldn't go near them with any form of bargepole - especially seeing as their "frat years" start later and so bye bye thought processes.
But then again in Scotland you've not quite got the luck of the gene pool what with it being soo small and....well there just not being that many great looking guys. There was never a perfect one at school - the one with the good cheekbones had skinny legs, good hair was a bit chubby and mr built-like-a-brick-shit-house? well the less said about that nose the better.
In the end I settled for some abominably short, carrot-haired boy because of his lovely personality (a mistake I have been careful not to repeat, don't worry). But the first time we slept together I did get a wonderfully big surprise..and so it lasted awhile.
Ooooh maybe this will be a relationship blog...


But here is the problem- good looking americans with no sexual attraction once they open their mouths vs okaaay looking Scots within whom you can find some very interesting, genuine men.
I, myself, have settled for a Scot - or so we think - but if and when that ends what a dilemma I will have, especially with the dual nationailty making it so easy to go between the two! I've considered Europeans but my mother gave me the advice at quite a young age to just "not bother, very disappointing, all words no play."


Well, now we know her style.