Pre Uni Cum

Topic: Belle de Jour


Jatb said I had to blog the rest of my birthday festivities, as she bought me a highly expensive repast in a Hungarian restaurant (no prizes for guessing where) last night.
After yesterday's supreme confidence about being 34, I had a slight set back. Accidentally spilling coffee all over the carpet, breaking half the dishes and finding a four inch millipede on the filthy carpet, I inadvertently wore a hideous combination of clothes out, (White empire line flares and pringle sweater? Would Modom like a 50s knitting catalogue pose with that?) and not even sucking in, tucking and posture would hide the previous day's ice cream related gluttony. I can truthfully tell you that the best best best recipe for an attack of the olds is to walk into a restaurant with champagne waiting, and your oldest friend to whisper 'look: no competition; we're the most attractive people in here by miles'.
After that boost, it was mere icing on the strudel to witness jatb 'innocently' ordering a glass of industrial waste disguised as a liqueur, and rather revoltingly named 'unicum', from a bottle shaped like a bollock. Yes, it is pronounced like that.
Billy was very very lucky to excape a drunken phonecall from either of us...
So tonight, I shall be attending this thing, recommended by this blogger, and this, and accompanied by this blogger too. Does that count as a blogmeet then, if we all refuse to own up to them?
And that will conclude my birthday festivities, as well as my blog festivities. Just one Best Present mention for Toulouse, and his gay erotica sent from the Cayman Islands. I haven't watched it yet....

Screaming Searches

Topic: Belle de Jour


Latest Searchengine Queries

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Best Blo'te of the Day So Far: Lost in Hype
"Obviously she'd been there before. Obviously she was smarter than me.
Then in the space of a second the following happened:
1. I realised where I recognised the girl from.
2. I remembered her face from her book.
3. I remembered her photo in City Life.
4. I remembered her voice from a radio interview.
5. I remembered her smile from a TV interview.
6. I knew that the girl was Gwendoline Riley.
7. I remembered that I actually had her first book, 'Cold Water', in my Technics bag.
8. I considered talking to her.
9. I remembered another interview with her where the journalist called her a 'sourpuss'
10. I considered asking her for help with the terrifying Easy-Internet ticket machine from hell.
11. I considered some sort of lame 'oh hello aren't you Gwendoline Riley?' sort of greeting.
And then, finally, 12. I completely bottled it, imagining that I would probably sound like some sort of deranged stalker, incapable of working the ticket machine, and Gwendoline would quote a line from a Russian classic at me and I would be forced to retreat to the Disney store and find solace with a life-sized Tigger."

You Doan' Know Me

Topic: Belle de Jour


Taken almost verbatim from comments to Lemonpillows here, and a discussion in Missuh's comments:

The process of saying things on a blog, and thus, actually 'saying' them to almost everybody indiscriminately has rendered me awfully, in fact horribly, open IRL. There's barely nothing left I won't tell people I've just met, these days.

Suprnovr, someone I've known all my life commented in passing the other day that we "never talk about anything real", and I had to differ: pointing out that there aren't any great secrets left for me; anything I'd secretly wanted her to know, I've already said.
There isn't any deep held darkness left in my soul that needs unburdening, and that's largely thanks to the blog.
The blog and coming out, anyway.
It makes you see how silly the idea of 'privacy' is. What's there you can say that everybody else isn't also worried about or secretly fearing?

I did used to be like that - open, generous with my truths - some years ago, but events and situations made me become a lot more circumspect. It feels good to have lost it. It feels more like me to have lost it.

I dunno if it was actually coming out, years ago that did it, that first forced me to be myself in front of people whose judgement I truly feared. I had been teetering on this precipice of never speaking to my family again, out of fear that they'd disapprove (they couldn't have been more supportive), and a comment from Suprnovr forced me forward out of the stasis of hiding behind inscrutability: "if telling someone who you really are is enough to make you never speak to them again, then the issue is not really about who you are, is it? It's about the fact that you have no relationship at all with them."

I try very hard to show everyone as much of me as possible these days. I have to admit the blog has had an influence on that, and one of the reasons I started it was to gain more openness in my life, after a period where I found myself lying and hiding from *everybody*. It wasn't nice, and I felt more unsupported than I ever had before. After a year of that, of ignoring people who cared about me, for my own spurious reasons, I worry constantly that my friends needed and still need years and years of coaxing to feel that I trust and need them. As Krystal mentioned once, I had made it more than difficult to feel you were getting to know me.

It doesn't help that I was so incredibly nasty and cutting to people back when I was on the run from myself. I read things I wrote two years ago, and I don't even know the person who wrote them. Anyone with so little self awareness as to not even see the unhappiness and dissatisfaction that lay behind the snidey quips and cutting asides must have been either truly stupid, or really definitely on the lam from themselves.
Yeah, that was me then. Who knows if it's any better now?

It wasn't just those two years, though - as a teenager I had prided myself on being 'different' on being someone else to every other figure I had any relationship with. Nobody could pin me down. I thought.
It didn't help that I was always the kid at every school (eight! count 'em!) who was new, who came from somewhere else, who didn't hear so well, who had a funny accent, who everybody thought was queer.
One of my earliest memories is of feeling no-one knew me - kneeling in dirt in a wood, my knees damp, scratched and hurting, my hands smeared, a sharp stick in my right fist, stabbing the left palm angrily, till it cut, trying to make myself remember. Hissing to myself "it is the fifth of April, nineteen seventy seven, my name is Vanessa *******, I am seven years old and for as long as I can remember I have always hated my parents. They don't know me." The tears and the snot and the hissing and the blood and the dirt are all mixed up in my memory with the smell of the woods, the feeling of forgotten seven year old injustice that prompted it - but it worked. I remember.

I look back at the person I was, the adult, the teenager, the child - all the way through it, the person who hid parts of myself, and I wonder: did I know what I was hiding it for?
I mean, if there was a reason, a person, a thing, to gain access to all these hidden parts of myself, then that's ... well, that's a reason, maybe. Although I'd question how fair it is if it's *one* person. (How d'you know they can carry that load? And you want them to carry it forever?)

For me, there wasn't a reason - I just didn't want people to pin me down. But why? What would happen to me if they *did* pin me down? What would curl up and die if people knew who I was inside?

It reminds me of that Onion mock shock headline: "Mom finds son's blog!" - the killer was in the subheading: "Knows Him Better".
Why in heck is that something we're taught to avoid?

Is it some weird hangover of adolescence? Dammit, I wish I could smash a lot of my wrongheaded theories from adolescence - knowing what the worst thing in the world is, babies ruin your life, you already know everything, most other people are really stupid, your family must never know you better, there's a group of insiders who are really cool, nobody understands you, you are intrinsically good, it's not your fault - all of them are lies, and if our society didn't damn well encourage us to act adolescent until our late fifties these days, we'd be embarrassed to defend these points of view as adults by now.

Coming out to my family helped me, because it made me confront some of these issues, in passing. Issues like: How is it bad for my family to know me better? They can still select what they want to know, and reject what they don't. What, they don't live in the world?
If my family are hurt, and reject me, then I'll outgrow it, they'll outgrow it, and we'll mend it. If I hide from people, then what the hell shitty sort of a thin relationship do I really have with them? Don't I trust them or something?

I asked Duch, a friend of 14 year's standing, what she had thought during those two whole years when I wasn't communicating with her (not anything meaningful, anyway). What had she assumed was going on with me when the well of self-revelation and sharing ran dry?
"You just seemed like you were having a really good time."
That line scared the hell out of me - it taught me that my defences are *good*. Too good. If I need help, I have to ask for it. Why? Because I built too good a wall.
People won't question why you won't let them in. They're human, and they'll assume you don't need them.
But you do.

Anyway, I'm starting to rant, but this is a topic that touches on where I live at the moment: if I'm going to be true to myself, not lie to myself, then I owe it to others to be open.

If I'm less than open, there's something there that I fear.

And I need to know that thing, I need to analyse what it is. That's the way things are around here right now.


Hope this makes some damn sense without the key.

Guest Blog: Found

Mood:  amorous
Topic: Belle de Jour
Oh no! I'm blogging too late! So now it's technically Sunday, and that means a day has been missed on the blog.. Sorry, Vanessa... But I will try to make up for it.....

YOU

I always knew I would meet her. Eventually. Yes, I had made mistakes. Thought that I'd found her, then discovered I had been wrong all along. But I always knew she was still out there. Waiting for me to find her. I always kept that hope: kept on looking.

The first time we met, I had been so nervous that I hadn't eaten for three days. I was living on adrenaline and nicotine, hoping my stomach would calm down enough to give me at least a fighting chance of not looking exhausted. And malnourished. I needn't have worried: she looked exactly the same. As soon as I saw her, I began to laugh. A hearty chuckle born out of relief and an end to weeks of longing. She wound down the window.

"What are you laughing at?"
"Nothing. You just look as nervous as I am." She blushed, her top lip curling into that point I now know so well, and told me to "Get in you silly bugger"

The drive to my house seemed to take an age. Every traffic light on red, every crossing busy. And she was nervous - missing gears and jumping on the clutch. I tried not to look at her, to ease her nerves, but I couldn't help it. Here she was. With me. After all this time. I wanted to remember every minute. Soak up every second with her.

We dumped her bag in my room and, both suddenly shy, moved into the kitchen.
"How was the drive, then?" I asked. A normal, nothing question to try and calm both our nerves.
"Oh, you know. Ok."
She smiled at me. "Could murder a cuppa though."

I jumped at the chance of having something to do. Something to take my mind off the way she was making me feel. Just by being there. Leaning against the wall looking at me.

"White, half a sugar, right?" I hoped I'd got that right. I had heard somewhere that it was important to remember these things - like how someone took their tea and coffee. It meant something important, though what could be more important than just being with her right then, I couldn't for the life of me remember.

"Well remembered", she exclaimed. She sounded impressed. I hoped she was. I grinned to myself as I filled the kettle.

She moved to the window.
"Lovely view" she giggled.
"Mm" I mumbled, not meaning the wall of the yard she was looking at, but the view of her, in my kitchen, leaning over the sink to get a better look at the yard.

"Oh my God! We so have the same cd collection! I have almost all of these albums. That's freaky."
The tea made, biscuits produced, we had moved back to my room and she was examining everything on display. As if, by knowing what was contained within those walls, she would know me completely. She soon gave up: the only thing anyone could conclude from the jumble of artefacts in my room is that I am a person who collects 'stuff'.

But she was devouring the cd collection like it was full of treasures. Like a little girl in a toyshop.

"Can you put this one on? Please?" She handed me a Kristin Hersch cd. "I've not heard this one. Thanks"

I removed some random home-made compilation from the cd player and put her cd in. The Hi-fi refused to play. Typical. I pressed some buttons, jiggled the cd around, not wanting to seem the kind of person who would shout at an inanimate piece of machinery.

"What's wrong?"
"Oh, nothing. It's not playing. Does this sometimes."

I decided to hit the damned thing anyway and she laughed.

And then. Then she did something I will never forget. She moved up behind me. I felt her getting closer. She put her hands on my waist, then slowly, she moved them into the pockets of my jeans. I must have groaned. Or gasped. Or both. I don't remember. I just remember that wonderful feeling. I was afraid my legs were going to buckle and fail me. So I moved. Turned around to face her. She had that grin on her face. Like she knows she's 'got' me, and I don't need to say anything. Because she knows exactly how I'm feeling.

"I, er, ", I gasped.
"Shhhh", she implored, pressing her finger to my lips. I began to move my lips again, to say something, but she shook her head, so I stopped.

And then she kissed me.

Looking into my eyes, she stood on tippy-toes, and she kissed me.
Softly. Slowly. Brilliantly. Passionately. It was a kiss like I had never experienced before.

It was everything I had ever dreamed of and more. I put my arms around her waist and pulled her closer. She didn't resist, and I felt her buckle under the weight of what we were feeling.

She pulled her lips away and looked at me. Just looked, mouth open, for a few seconds. (though it felt like an age) And began to speak.

"I have wanted to do that for so long. I thought today would never come."

And right then, as she spoke, I could see my plans, the future I had mapped out, drift away, like a morning mist which, when cleared, reveals the most beatiful droplets of dew.

And I knew then, as she smiled at me, that I had finally found who I was looking for.

--------------------------------------------------

Well, I hope that 'cuts it' as a worthy post on the esteemed blog of Vanessa. I shall probably *not* be asked to return (he he).

I have enjoyed messing with your mind :o)

xxx
GuestBlogger
xxx

The Art of Lesbian Online Dating, Vol # 2

Topic: Belle de Jour

Courtesy of Merc.


Welcome back young grasshoppers..
Hopefully with the assistance of the lesbian rules volume one.. you have managed to procure yourselves a woman for the evening..
Excellent.

Here are a few simple guidelines to ease your passage (fnar fnar) through that hazardous jungle also known as the first date.

This volume is going to concentrate on "the date at the meet" .. the favoured pre luurve scenario for the w.i (woefully inept)

• what to wear:
  
  This is an often debated subject amongst pre daters.. it requires multi phone calls to friends.. the hiring of a homosexual male for the evening so that he can give you an unbiased view of your backside "in this".
  
  The answer to this quandry, my friends is simple:
  CLASSIC.
  
  something along the lines of nicely aged levis, a black v-neck something in *lightweight wool*.. and boots, not white hi-tec's thankyouverymuch.
  
  accessorise well.. do not approach the first date by wearing a sovreign on every finger for 2 reasons -
  1) green fingers are not attractive on anybody.. 2) as women are genetically predisposed to notice everything, lust object will take one look at your "decoration" and decide that you obviously never take them off, ergo you havent been laid in a very long time. this may be offputting. go easy tigers.
  
  nb* .. by lightweight i do not mean something large and arran favoured by the military or shephards in nova scotia - you do not want your object of desire to think that you spend your life looking like a large shiny beetroot.



• what not to wear:
  
  the answer to this question my friends, is also simple.
  
  ANYTHING FLAMMABLE
  
  the reasons for this are three fold..
  
  1) - flammable garments are a crime against fa-h-sh-un.. loud hawaii prints and manga cartooned shirts should have been banned when "miami vice" finished its t.v run..
  if you have problems letting go of your polyester.. take a deep breath.. stand in front of a mirror.. and repeat after me:
  i am not don johnson.
  i am not don johnson.
  i am not don johnson.
  
  (for the cheaters out there - neither are you thomas magnum p.i - that excuse is unacceptable)
  
  2) there is always one person at a meet that holds a grudge against wearers of polyfabrics.. it is likely that they have evolved further than you.. so they may be aware of the destructive properties of fire.. and more to the point.. willing to use them..
  beware the quiet one in the corner holding a cigarette, rest assured that her motives will not be innocent.
  avoid prolonged trips to the hospital burns department by adhering strictly to this rule.
  
  3) can you say "sweaty betty?"



• the discussion of drinks..
  
  so.. you have got this far.. you are appropriately dressed.. you have managed to tempt o-o-d out on a date.. you hit the bar.. the question will arise:
  
  what are you drinking?
  
  a. - go for a spirit and mixer.. think vodka redbull.. TVR.. vodka & cranberry (although when opting for this bevarage it may be wise to jokingly tell lust object that no, you dont have a urinary tract infection.. you just like the taste).. tequila and fresh orange.. etc.. etc
  
  why not beer i hear you cry?
  
  1) .. nobody likes a beery burper..
  2) .. ordering a pint of beer speaks volumes.. it says: "i like to drink pints, i belch alot, on a sunday morning i like to sit on the sofa wearing my favourite football teams strip and read the news of the world whilst scratching things"
  3) .. pints = large volume of liquid.. large volume of liquid = many trips to the toilet.. beware of leaving o-o-d frequently when going on loo runs.. this leaves her as easy pray to the other w.i meeters.. drink small.. unless you want to dig her out from underneath a pack of leeches on your lavatorial return.
  
  shandy - its an absolute no no.. its like beer.. but for the alcoholically inept.. it just screams.. "im a secret lemonade drinker.. but i like to disguise the lemon as beer when im out so that i can still keep some semblance of social credibility" .. (urban myth #13775)



• the early date "getting to know each other" chatting..
  
  young grasshoppers.. here we have an infallable plot.. you see, you have chosen a "meet" as your first date.. this means that you will be in a smoky and loud environment.. surrounded by bad dancing and other assorted shennanigans..
  
  this will work in your favour..
  
  a) - object of desire will not be able to pump you for the kind of information that you dont want to divulge for 2 simple reasons..
  1- she cant hear you, you cant hear her.
  2- smoke. she cant see you, you cant see her.
  
  your date is likely to avoid conversation as she feels that you may find her less attractive if every time she speaks you can see her tonsils..
  
  b) - as all conversation is out.. you will have to resort to finding other forms of entertainment..
  ladies and gentlewomen..
  i give you..
  the dancers!
  even when sound has been compromised by the environment.. it is still perfectly possible to observe and mock flailing on the dancefloor.. this is a win/win situation..
  1) - she will assume by your mocking of the uncoordinated limbs afflicted that you yourself can dance.. an assumption that never needs to be disproven.. - WIN
  2) - the amusement value of the above is endless.. so a dull evening of stilted conversation and stuttering has been well and truly avoided.. - WIN



• temptations as the evening and alcoholic consumption progresses..
  
  temptation 1 - lift your top to expose your bra.
  temptation 2 - drop your trousers to expose your underwear.
  temptation 3 - dance.
  
  oh, where to begin.
  
  1 - NO .. this is an abysmal tactic.. i cannot be emphatic enough..
  
  breasts are nothing more (when publicly displayed btw, bedroom frolics not included) ..than bags of fat.. udders.. do you really want to show the the woman that youre attempting to impress 2 fat-sacks poorly contained in an "originally white but now multiwash gray" bra? ..
  no, you dont..
  it is guaranteed that if the grrl youre attempting to bed sees this she will run a mile.. even if she is polite enough not to run forrest, run.. you will not be getting any goods at the end of the evening.. this is a fact.
  
  2 - NO .. this is THE MOST abysmal tactic.. once again, i cannot be emphatic enough..
  
  odds are #1000 to #1 that you are not famke janssen, angelina jolie, milla jovovich, pamela anderson etc.. you may think that you are.. but believe me.. this is the alcohol taking control of your brain..
  you are not a supermodel.
  you are not an underwear model.
  you are not a fetish lingere model.
  even if you ARE any of the above.. it is good taste not to prove this until you are out of the public eye.
  
  odds are #100 to #1 that you are wearing boxer shorts (i have no idea why, but that isnt the point) .. what you are planning on doing in your drunken state.. is to remove your outer leg cladding garments.. to reveal enough reams of fabric to house a small family of refugees.. also.. boxers are made for men.. they have that little slit down the middle that in a cruel twist of fate is likely to be gaping to reveal the proverbial god-knows-what.. also.. in the downwards dragging of denim.. you run the risk of taking some short with you.. thus enabling the woman of your dreams to make some serious judgements about you regarding ass crack cleavage..
  prospective shag has every right to run at this point.. in fact i would positively encourage it.
  
  3 - you are drunk.. you are poorly coordinated.. you are attempting to strut your stuff.. you think you look like john travolta in the days of saturday night fever.. this is alcoholica dancia.. a halucinatory state, if you will..
  you actually look like youre having some sort of seizure.. this is no good thing..
  women.. being intelligent, observant, and worldly wise associate dancing with bedroom skills.. why?.. rhythm..
  if you can dance.. you have rhythm.. therefore the motion of your ocean will guarantee one sweet ride..
  if you cant dance.. you dont have rhythm.. therefore it would be fair of your date to assume that the motion of your ocean will be choppy at best.. you may become over excited and fall off whichever surface you choose for "amour".. and basically.. she will decide to ditch you on the spot as you clearly couldnt fuck your way out of a paper bag.



• have we reached the point where we bring in our mumandbestfriend who explains the route of our allergies?
  have we explained why we only drink decaf tea?
  have we discussed whether deodrant is a good idea or a bad idea and if that sandalwood stuff from Lush is really lush? (or just hums like a lesbian)



• the do's and donts of small gestures of affection..
  
  welcome to rocky territory grasshoppers..
  
  the hand hold - on a tricky scale of 1-10.. the to hold or not to hold comes in at around 8..
  
  it is my belief that you should ALWAYS wait for the other person to make this move..
  
  if you dont wait.. and she accepts your hand.. this is a signal..
  it says - i love you.. i want to settle down with you.. raise kittens.. and then impregnate you with a turkey baster.. i know its only our first date.. but i want our child to be called moonbeam.
  
  if you dont wait.. and she is oblivious to the reaching to grab hand movement.. or rejects it so that you quickly have to compensate by fluidly moving the failed move into some sort of other gesture.. you will end up looking like you have some sort of motor functioning problem.. possibly a twitch..
  really.. if you dont believe me.. try it in front of a mirror.. failed hand grasping always leaves you looking "twitchy"
  not particularly attractive i think you will agree.
  
  the light and flirtatious touch -
  dont make that move.. leave it to the object of affection..*
  hell you dont want to appear needy do you?
  
  nb* if object of affection does make this move.. this is not your cue to pounce and put your tongue down her throat.
  
  kissing.. (pre club leaving.. pre bedroom.. la la)
  dont make that move.. leave it to the o-o-a..
  so, your hormones may be running riot.. you may be primed.. you may be feeling quite unable to wait..
  BUT..
  if lust object rejects this move.. you have no way of compensating to make it look like anything else except a failed attempt at smoochage.. unless you have the brass balls to follow through with the lip swing and risk planting a smacker on the cheek of the next passer by.. (a move that undoubtedly the woman that you are with will NOT appreciate, and no, the risk of flight is not enough to make her kiss you just so that you dont go slavering on strangers)
  
  all this aside.. if you have followed the rules vol:1 and vol:2 this far.. youve done enough damned work.. let ms prospective make some effort for a change..
  (plus.. it never pays to look easy)

Source

The Art of Lesbian Online Dating, Vol #1

Topic: Belle de Jour

Courtesy of Merc.

Volume 1 - the art of online woo (trans: pulling that burd you fancy)

First of all young grasshoppers.. ask yourself this..

• q. - is she a social worker?
  
  a. - no.. she isnt..
  (excellent.. then we shall begin)
  
  b. - yes.. she is..
  (do not pass go.. do not collect #200.. run like the wind.. she is clearly insane.. save your efforts)



• q. - when asked what you are watching..
  
  a. - you are watching something along the lines of red/white/blue.. amelie.. or anything by jean luc besson..
  
  why? ..because you are sensitive.. and subconsciously women will assimilate watching foreign films with you being intelligent enough to read subtitles at speed..
  
  what you are really watching -
  die hard.. yippie kai yay motherfucker..



• q. - when asked what you are listening to..
  
  a. - some amazingl new band from finland/ greenland/ iceland/ the far reaches of lithuania.. (insert band name of choice - google if you have to).. a band so nouveau that the majority of music listeners havent even heard of them.. (actually.. just make up a random bizarre word if you cant be bothered googling)
  
  why? .. this demonstrates that you are "up" on new trends.. deeply fashionable.. and you score 10 cool points on the ability alone to translate the bands name into something relatively pronouncable..
  
  what you are really listening to - NWA.. findum fuckum and flee..



• q. when asked what website you are reading..
  
  a. - www.lonelyplanet.com
  
  why?.. websites like this show that you are interested in other cultures.. like travel.. like to expand your knowledge base.. and generally are a tad on the adventurous side.. plus.. subconsciously.. object of desire is probably planning the fantastic filthy holiday abroad that you might take her on if she gives it up..
  
  what you are really reading.. multi optional -
  porn.
  online mini golf.
  surfing ebay and amusing yourself by putting in random keywords like "enema" and seeing what you come up with.. then checking out the feedback profiles on people bidding on enema equipment and laying bets with your friends that you will eventially find feedback for a leather underwear purchase among the high payers..
  gossip columns.



• q. when asked what you are doing after a moment of online silence..
  
  a. making coffee.. (preferably utilising a PROPER coffee machine..)
  
  why? .. because you are cultured.. and coffee as a beverage is indicative of enjoying cafe society.. plus.. if you can make real coffee.. then you can get your arse out of bed in the morning and make her one while she lies about thinking how marvellous you are..
  nb - instant doesnt count, you cheapo scumbag.
  
  what you are actually doing -
  sitting on the toilet reading a copy of "heat" magazine.



• q. - when asked what book are you reading..
  
  a. - "bitch" or "prozac nation" by elizabeth wurtzel..
  
  why? - intelligent books for bad girls.. instant kudos.. how to misbehave in the sleekest manner possible.. this gives you the edge of having associated brains and a bit of a dangerous side..
  
  what you are really reading -
  heat,
  on the toilet.



• q. - when asked what you are wearing..
  
  a. - high quality denim (pick a brand, not bon marche).. something black up top.. decent footwear (pick a brand, not clarks)..
  an easy combo.. not one youre likely to forget.. and please.. no designer names that youre likely to give yourself away over when you spell them atrociously.. eg - john paul gootiyay.. NO!
  
  why? - because women dont date those with no idea of couture.. (at least not the ones worth pulling)
  
  what youre really wearing - pyjamas and fluffy bunny slippers.. its 2am for fucks sake..



• q. when asked about your previous relationship..
  
  a. she just wasnt right for you (you know?).. it ended badly.. but you arent bitter.. some things just arent meant to be.. sure you got burnt.. but who doesnt get hurt at times?.. you hope things turn out ok for her.. no hard feelings..
  
  why? .. this kind of phrasiology gives the impression that you only have minor baggage.. and women just love a fixer-upper.. shes thinking that with a few well placed "holding patterns" she can put your world to rights.. and have sex.
  
  what you really think -
  you hope that the cheating lying whore of an ex gets thrush.. if you never see her again then itll be too damned soon.. you would like to open the newspaper tomorrow and read all about how shes just been imprisoned for life and is going to spend the rest of her days in a cramped cell with a 300lb bulldyke called "sandra the slasher" being a prison bitch..



• on reciept of a semi provocative picture of the object of desire..
  
  appropriate response -
  shes very attractive.. but personality counts too.. youd like to get to know her better..
  
  the response that you arent supposed to verbalise -
  you want to fk her until she howls.. youd like to see her in nothing more than agent provocateur lingere.. a provoctive smile.. and wrist cuffs.. you would quite like her to walk up your back wearing heels and brandishing a whip..
  you want to kiss her belly button..
  ..from the inside.



• the discussion about butt-love.. (it always comes up, somehow)
  
  q. what are your thoughts..
  
  a. - for the moment, NOTHING.. be vague.. be noncommital.. do not shriek "eeeeeewww" like a big girls blouse.. do not laugh in a filthy manner and mutter "hubba hubba"
  
  this is a tricky subject.. it requires treading softly.. it requires being brushed over if at all possible..
  
  reason -
  of course you love it.. youre an asshound and proud.. any woman that shrieks eew and runs is clearly vanilla with no imagination and no idea about eroticism..
  BUT..
  if object of desire has not experimented with this.. she will not know the joys.. so the initial reaction will be "eeewww" .. we do not want this discussion right now.. particularly when we havent even reached "bedding" stage..
  
  *its a discussion best left to when shes writhing about telling you how youre most certainly the shag of the century*
  
  (*nb, some of you will not reach this stage to begin discourse, fret not, there are handbooks available from various online stores should the neccessity arise)



• sending a photograph..
  ahh another tricky tricky game..
  
  a - if you are attractive and you know it (clap your hands).. send.. subtle.. show no "pink".. possibly a little cleavage.. check FHM for pose ideas..
  
  b - if you are not so attractive: adobe photoshop.



• the discussion about -
  
  thai beads..
  fisting..
  swings n slings..
  dildo's, harnesses, vibrators..
  leather..
  control..
  restraint..
  b..
  d..
  s..
  m..
  sex in public..
  fetishism..
  kinks..
  
  .. see above buttlove posting and take similar noncommital 5th ammendment style action..



• now that the sex has been sorted..
  
  q. - ideally where would you take object of desire on a first date.. (object of desire will add - "anywhere in the world" - beware.. this is a culture test)
  
  a. - prague.. rome.. florence.. anywhere european thats known for class and culture..
  you will - go for a coffee in a chic bar with sidewalk seating (daytime).. go take in some sights.. buildings.. vibe.. art.. blah blah.. have a meal in a softly lit (pref candlelight - but dont push it, you soft shite) restaurant in the balmy evening open air.. have a few drinks.. go for a walk on cobbled streets.. go find a secluded view somewhere and grope alot..
  
  why? .. you are romantic.. cultured.. you dont want to go "clubbing" where the emphasis would no longer be 100% on object of desire.. you give the impression of being at ease with her company alone.. you sound like you may have a vague knowledge of what youre talking about.. women assiociate european influences with good bedroom skills.. women have a thing about plein air gropage.. i think it makes them feel "naughty"..
  
  where you would really like to go -
  vegas baby!.. neon.. strippers.. casinos.. clubs..
  
  or blackpool.. neon.. strippers.. casinos.. clubs.. chips.. beer.. and the pepsi max ride - woot!



• and when it comes to meeting up...
  of course
  you can't make it/keep putting it off/avoiding it because
  
  you are - dying of a disease/nursing a sick parent/child/busy doing an important job/hurt your back/penniless/computer keeps crashing/
  
  but actually
  
  you are - seriously socially inept with severe OCD, agaraphobia and an 80's perm plus several other disorders listed under the letter P in the DSM IV, a husband and 3 kids and the computer crashes because your # ran out in the local internet cafe..



• and finally..
  
  q. - its not just sex is it..?
  
  a. - of course not..
  
  why? .. you are deeper than a puddle.
  
  (this rule is subject to change at any time)

Source

It's incipient early hay fever that makes me pick my nose, it's not a case of poor manners you know

Mood:  sharp
Topic: Belle de Jour

Having done my seven hours of unpaid overtime for the day, and hoping for a break before I crack on with the last two hours of stuff I've brought home, I'm sitting on the loo, blogging while:

• texting Harv, whom I forgot I was to meet tonight,
• picking the dirt from my thumbnail with a nail file,
• listening to Tybalt trying to over-complicate things on the voicemail,
• having a poo,
• stripped to my push up bra , old socks and too small knickers,
• chatting to my bored under-stimulated cats,
• composing my pick up lines for a phone call to someone I fancy,
• browsing blogs on kinja, particularly ones with cute pictures of kittycats,
• planning what to eat, and trying to motivate myself to include large amounts of vegetable matter in it,
• picking my nose,
• skim-reading 152 e-mails (Quote ":) I remember reading that even into the Victorian age to spell uniformly was considered crass. Spelling uniquely made you fashionable.
  Or should I say fashenebel."),
• wondering if I have time to wash the dishes before I fall asleep on the sofa like yesterday,
• trying to suck in my gut,
• realising that several doors and curtains are open, and I can be seen by any passersby.
• who will not only see me on the porcelain, but blogging from there

Overtly critical comments welcomed.

Torn Tortured Tendons

Mood:  energetic
Topic: Belle de Jour

Every single muscle in my body is screaming. I've had eight days off work, my job's pretty active anyway (there's no desk sitting, so you're moving all day), and added to this was the utter lunacy that made me decide to run to work early yesterday(complete with weighted backpack).

Hold up, let me say that again - after being completely horizontal all day for two weeks, I decided to run to work.

How transparent is the stupid that is this decision?
Easy peasy stupid, mega dunderhead stupid, or should I just lay down in the A road and let the Darwin effect take its course now?

I made it in 25 minutes, and was impressed with my speed, with the fact it only took me two minutes to cool off after, with the fact that despite not stretching at either end, my legs felt fine.
Till I tried to walk up the hill home again.

I ended up lain on the living room floor, whimpering every time I tried to crack the rigor mortis setting into my limbs in order to reach for a packet of crisps (super fit runner's food, doncha know?), and staggering clumsily to bed at seven. Where my tendons performed a tarantella rictus on me for the next seven hours.
Three in the morning, and, oh yeah, now I'm stretching. Now I'm desperately yanking the kinks out of my stiff leaden legs by hurting them as much as I can stand. I forgot to feed the cats, so there's scratches and no sympathy there.

Aww, cummon, don't you pity me a little bit?
It's not easy being this retarded.

Turn Off TV Week ~ I'm spending a week living an imaginary life as a couch potato, to see if it's any more fulfilling.

Daily Selection: I might have watched ~

1. 8pm, C4, Relocation, Relocation ~ Kirstie and Phil help a couple up sticks from London's Elephant and Castle to the Wiltshire countryside, while still maintaining a small flat in the city. This is almost the reverse of my migration, fourteen years ago, into London. (And I have ended up stuck in a second home small flat in the city.) Should be interesting to see how they deal with the complete and utter lack of any cultural life or diversity in Wiltshire, however pretty the rolling Downs are. Property buying is almost a mania in London, and property buying reality tv is double that if you own a property that's risen in value by 200% in the last few years (not that I can sell the damn thing). Duch regularly telephones me with commands to switch on the teev of a Friday morning and give my opinion of the property relocation prices in Tennessee to her. It's not nice, but it's widespread.
2. 9pm, BBC1, May 33rd ~ Lia Williams stars as a woman with multiple personality disorder, who tries to escape her abusive past in a hard hitting depressing drama special, continue after the news at ten. This sounds dreadful, really dreadful, but believe me, there's sod all else on, apart from prison dramas and reality tv. You never see men in tv biopics of people with multiple personalities, do you? Way to give yourself nightmares.
3. 11pm, C4, Frasier ~ News of Sam and Luka's romance doesn't go down well with Alex. Repeat. I haven't watched Frasier in so long that I don't recognise a single one of those names, but any port in a storm - Frasier at least is always well scripted, with great timing, and it would make me feel less like death (particularly running on from the proggy above) than watching the bloody appalling Sex and the City repeats.

Verdict: That is one fucking huge waste of hours of your life. If you want to watch this stuff, might I suggest that simultaneously beating your head against a kitchen knife would rid the world of a moron, Vanessa?

drug free

Topic: Belle de Jour

And I wonder if anyone else at the greasy spoon cafe where I'm meeting Krystal in an effort to impose a sleep pattern can tell that I've not washed, not slept last night, that I was in the middle of watching Frida in bed with the sound turned down, and now I want to be inlove with Alfred Molina, that I've not combed my hair, which is a bloody mistake when there's that much Dax in it from last night's booze fest, that my mouth still tastes of last night's Thai even though I cleaned my teeth till they bled four damn times, that I've gained about a stone in the last month and my clothes feel all wrong, that my tits aren't usually this big, that my look of intense annoyance is because coming off the pills I've been taking makes you grind your teeth, as well as manic, insomniac and more than a little too introspective?
Is late spring too early to wear shades?

What in hell do you think this place is, anyway?

Topic: Belle de Jour

I haven't had a spare moment for ages to post things that have been happening IRL, and now it's all building up, madly, until I have two lives - no, three, no four: bloggable, unbloggable, secret, and anecdotal. Time to do a mass catch up.
To recap, the strange, inexplicable occurrence of A Life caused a warp in the blog-time continuum, rectified only slightly by the acrostic worm hole of a post on my first evening off for ages.
Sleeping too much again has had a lot to do with it; I can't count the number of nights I've had to pass out utterly cream crackered at about six or seven o clock lately. Thank christ I have next week off and not a single thing to do, not even for fun. Heaven.

Movies have been fun, but somehow I've been stuck on the letter M. I noticed that I tended to veer towards the end of the alphabet, mostly out of panic when wandering round alphabetically stacked video shop shelves. But lately it's been Mona Lisa Smile, Mystic River, Master and Commander. I've tried repeatedly to see 21 Grams, as my best film for the past two years was Amores Perros, by the same director, but it's not even alpha, that, it's numeric, so the dice is against me so far.
Yeah, Mystic River was okay, but 'M' movies are pretty ropey - two bags of crap aren't really balanced out by one mediocre. And who does Sean Penn think he is, with that embarrassing Al Pacino pisstake he's been dining out on of late?


Farting is my new secret hobby. Farting horribly. Full of beans and fruit. Mind you, I'm awful regular. Mr Kellogg would be proud.
Upset stomachs aren't the source of the - ahem - 'high fibre provision' my water system is having to cope with, though. For some reason every month I have a stronger period than previously. There's a respite every three or four months, when it's just heavy, but jesus crikey frig, man, when it's not, then twenty minutes is all it takes for my womb lining to rip through any type of non-drip barrier. Think of the creature's acid blood in 'Alien'. Mmm-hmm. That's about right.
City of Culture? Birmingham? City of weirdo acid flashbacks, more like. Have you seen that new attempt to make the old bullring's admittedly supremely shitty 800 year old market site into a Gaudiesque work of art? They've created a miniature city where once stood a shitty bus station - you think you're in a shopping centre, and you see the street outside, but there are still four floors beneath you, two of which lead to streets outside. The whole thing is a little spiral city, winding over on top of itself to fool you into thinking any directions are simple. Once you've looked straight on at the silver monstrosity, your eyes stay crossed for a good ten minutes, slowly uncrossing, which doesn't help. It's not just my bad sense of direction, either. Believe me, we asked several locals how to get to the mainline rail station two minutes away and got about fifteen different directions from all of them. None of which were right. And if they're going to build winding streets in mid air, why build them all on a constant incline, so that, still bug eyed from looking at the eyesore, you permanently wonder if you're falling upwards off the pavement at a forty five degree angle?
Keeping my wits about me is hard enough in Birmingham as it is, already, after an unfortunate incident about nine years ago, when, while staying there with fmc, I raided her fridge for what I thought were tasty cookies and spent the next eight hours fingering street signs in the Bullring, asking people in lifts if the lift was real, going into bookshops to count how many books they sold, etc. I remembered my own name sat in the front seat of a car somewhere on the M4 several hours later. Brrrr.
I've fallen off the wagon three times in the last fortnight. I drank in the pub with Yidaho, with the result that: we forgot to go see 21 Grams, I started to find short fat middle aged Iranians fascinating conversationalists, and we ended up in the same old same old local bar at three am, eating chips and flinging wine about. The hangover was like a bloody hurricane, lasted for two days solid. And what did I learn from this?
Nothing - the Friday after, I drank three glasses at a work do, then spent the rest of the weekend getting trashed in Birmingham, being chatted up by overly short fat middle aged Britishers*.
God I'm so off booze now. The hangovers were rank. Staying off it by choice, not coercion, this time.

Been blogging elsewhere in secret. Which has been fun. Not so I can bitch - heck I'd have to actually bother speaking to people I dislike to do that, but just because I wanted to try a 'topic blog'. I have a total of 8 visitors over there now, compared to the 150 a day here. Four of them were me, two were wrong numbers, and one was a referral from 2001, bizarrely. Hah. I offer two free cats, slightly naughty, to the first person to find where. (As if.)
Lousy daughter, that's what I was on mother's day. I had the great idea of going to visit my parents, hanging out, relaxing and stuff, and taking some yumlicious stuff as a present. As it turned out, I rolled in six hours late, passed out asleep as soon as I'd eaten, didn't wake for another fourteen hours, ate all the food in the house (which my mum had to then cook for me), then slumped in a sad hungover stupor on the sofa till it was too late to do anything but go home again. If there ever was an inheritance, it's yours, Sue, after that. The shame!
Only my lazy-lousy-daughter plans were thwarted (jebus, that's nearly a poem - well, okay, a limerick) by yet more bloody terror alerts on the railways, trying to get home. Stuck for two hours in a siding somewhere just west of Paddington station, we listened quietly to the driver's scarily descriptive 'information bulletins' about the two abandoned packages on platforms 2 and 9, and texted people. It was the same train that smashed into another in a fireball several years back. Although fourteen years of living in London makes you pretty immured to bomb threats, this was the first time I can remember since 1992 (when a car backfired, and everyone in Russell Square threw themselves flat to the ground - don't know many European countries where such a response would have been as instinctual before 9/11) that I noticed genuine fear in the saucer shaped eyes around me. Everyone was pretending to be irritated and disgruntled at the delay, but their eyes told a different story - told the driver to take as long as he liked, just get us home in one piece. Freaky.
Greek food frenzies, though - mustn't forget the Greek food frenzies. A chance comment on the blog led to Krystal frighteningly generously offering to come get me from work in her under used chariot, collect my dirty smalls, and go wash them at her house while she cooked me a smorgasbord of Greek delicacies to satisfy the idle fantasies that reading 200 pages of 'Middlesex' (a greek diaspora epic type thingy - you know, long, full of greek things) had infected me with. Bloody hell, I could hardly walk after that.

(*with apologies to Lux!)

True Love

Topic: Belle de Jour

Never done this before (repeated something from a dating website on my blog, I mean), and please forgive me for being so malicious and crass, grovel, grovel, but I must just share with you one or two traits I found unappealing about someone whom I was mailed by an online dating thingy as being a particularly good match for me. Far from reading as a potential shag, several things struck me as hitting bullseye on my 'cross the street there's a lunatic coming' radar.

I dunno, what do you think? Could this be my perfect significant other? Does she sound my type?

Strike 1: Gabrielle seeks her Xena
Strike 2: located in: Nottingham
Strike 3: my bust is 104ff
Strike 4: I am a huge fan of multi-culturalism, and make it my business to embrace as much of different ways of life as possible
Strike 5: When I go out, I dress in bright colors, such as sarees, & other eastern dress, however when I'm in all-female company, where allowed, I just go naked, it's very liberating.
Strike 6: I also indulge in white witchcraft, watch talk/reality tv shows
Strike 7: My big trademark, though is my fetish for other womens feet and shoes, which really turn me on
Strike 8: I have even learnt to use my feet as I do, my hands, writing & doing my hair & make-up with my feet.
Strike 9: I already have hundreds of pairs of sandals & mules, I'm a bit like a lesbian Sex & The City girl
Strike 10: The lady I'm looking for has dark/ish skin, is feminine, could be gay,bi or straight, If the latter, I'd still like friendship. I'd also like to get to know other white ladies, who are like me
Strike 11: I'd like to get to know other women with bi-racial children we can discuss the issues surrounding that
Strike 12: Oh and I 'd like a tall woman, with long hair or short hair
Strike 13: Body Art: Visible tattoo, Strategically placed tattoo, Inked all over, Belly button ring, Piercings you?ll have to ask about, Fanged
Strike 14: Best Feature: Feet
Strike 15: I practice yoga, & practice my pschic skills. I'm also into clubbing, & latin dancing
Strike 16: Favourite Things: Basically, womens feet/shoes, TV talk shows, like |Trisha, reality shows, the books I read are mostly about feminism, nature and spirituality.
Strike 17: Last Read: The Female Eunach
Strike 18: I keep Reptiles, Birds, Exotic pets
Strike 19: Education: PhD Post Doctoral - I garduated in Nootingham, UK [I *swear* I didn't edit that bit]
Strike 20: About My Date: only requirement is ehtnicity: Black / African descent, Asian, Latino / Hispanic
Strike 21: My turn ons: Tattoos, Body piercings, Long hair, Skinny dipping, Flirting, Thrills, Public displays of affection, Dancing, Sarcasm

Good God! And my profile appealed to this freako undoubtedly kind and worthwhile individual?!

Mosaic

Topic: Belle de Jour

Forewarning: I only just this week discovered how to do a < strike > html2 thingumah, so I'm going to over use it even more than the italicising for the next few months.

If you have two hours of sleep over a three day period, then you see a grey lady walking through the kitchen at the corner of your vision, sudden holographic large spiders scuttly up walls, and even indoors, it looks like a fine rain is falling.

Last Thursday, someone at work puked in technicolour down a stairwell, mananging to splatter three flights of stairs, vertically. I was the most senior person onsite, so of course I did the senior thing, and walked away, pretending not to have noticed the streaming puke shower behind me.

Yesterday I was sat researching something on the office pc at work when I fell off the chair. The whole thing tipped on its side.
There was nothing wrong with the chair. Some subconscious part of me simply decided to sink in a south westerly direction, and take the comfy wheelie chair with me.

I just about managed to quell a fit of sheer, futile pointless fury on Monday morning, on the grounds that it was stupid. Somehow I became incensed that most British blogs I've read this weekend (excepting four bloggers whom I've already thanked) didn't bother to abate their tales of deoderant and how supercilious they were when they went to Sheffield for even one millisecond to mention what happened in Madrid.
I swear, I was shaking with pent up rage about it - I was all set to delete every link apart from the four who mentioned there'd been a terrorist massacre, like, next door.
Dunno where that came from. I can't surely have pre- mid- post- and inter- menstrual ferociousness tension, can I?

When I don't sleep, my stomach bulges into this perfectly round, protruding pot belly very rapidly, until I do. I've been patting it and feeding it Snickers all day. Seriously, today I had to wear an old oversized gap skirt of Tybalt's, because not one single pair of jeans or trousers I owned (in a wide range of sizes!) would close over the pot. Me! In a skirt! With a bowling ball belly! What larks, Pip, what larks.

If I hide my sock drawer in the hallway, and sit in the space, I can pretend I have a very low very uncomfortable desk, and imagine the pain in my legs is because I'm not used to Japanese furniture.

I'm trying to resist the impulse to take my walkman on the morning / afternoon walk to and from work. It's not like the deep throaty rowrrr of traffic is particularly precious to me. I just want to hold off the wealthy isolation that music affords me as long as possible. This morning, not having a walkman as I walked to the area office, unsure of my way and stumbling slightly to make my deadlines, I heard:
A loon-grinned pretty older woman asking me if I'd like to share a tract about Jesus.
The morning chorus being shattered by a particularly resonant and hoarsely grouching crow.
My footsteps, which made me look at the mist hanging aroung the fountain in Mayow Park as I passed it.
The sound of a street sweeper on almost every single street corner of Lewisham. Come on, Mister Mayor, you blobby self congratulatory tosser (I met him last week, this is true) - six street sweepers in one mile of quiet side streets is more than entropy. No-one could chuck out empty crisp packets fast enough to keep them all employed, surely?
The three or four pairs of small boys wrestling.
It's obscene to have so much energy as small boys do.
The office workers who are quietly, insanely singing to themselves. But not quite quietly enough. I like to think of them as nascent Jeffrey Dahmers - I imagine that the tedium of their cubicle-centric environments have unhinged them six years ago, and today is the day they'll allow the other staff to notice; the day of becoming - of taking back their stapler and burning down the building.
(Well, you have to have some way of feeling superior of a morning.)

Someone in my building lobs half a loaf of mouldy bread into the communal garden outside my window every day, and I get to sit and watch Cyril and five wood pigeons (my most hated feathered foe) fight for it.

Cyril

Frosty brought her (to be fair, very pretty and well behaved) newborn baby into work today and asked me to hold it. It was involuntary, I swear. The flinching: "eww, no! What if I drop it?"
Anyway, she swears she's dropped it, too.

Back on the coldest night of February, I ordered a large mink blanket (fake fur, though) online, to curb the shivers. It still hasn't arrived, and now every day I walk past the nasty nylon cyan navy and turquoise spattered fleece throws labelled "MINK!" in their plastic carry cases in the fifty pee shop window, and shiver a little inside.

Scenery

Topic: Belle de Jour

I'm not done with thinking about the issues raised in a previous post - the one that tried to explain why the dyke scene scares me. It's going to temporarily make the blog look a bit like a messageboard if I do this, and I'm sorry, but the guys who commented on that post got me wondering about several things, and I want your responses. (Gay or straight, if it needs saying.)

Why does what we 'identify' as have such an impact on the kinds of spaces we make available on the scene? Isn't 'gay' a broad enough genus to allow for some individualism?

And why the clothing rules? What's wrong with long hair, with skirts or heels? Okay, so it's covertly enforced, but you try getting a snog if you don't fit the mould in these places. What's so threatening about looking different?