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.