When you have nothing to say

A few weeks ago someone suddenly flitted into my mind. It was a girl I used to talk to every day. I never met her, but I considered her a friend, in the sense that I enjoyed our conversations and I felt I could share my thoughts and fears with her.

Mainly we would talk about our illnesses, we had a lot in common in that area, unfortunately I guess. Anorexia, OCD, HA... our experiences were so similar it was uncanny. For a long time she was the only person I could share my thoughts with, and I still haven't told 'real life people' some of the things I told her. Probably because I don't find a need to, I am mostly ok with handling my crazy now. I feel it's acceptable to refer to myself as crazy, yet if someone else were to call me that in reference to my illnesses I would be incredibly pissed off. Funny that.

I haven't spoken to her in almost a year now, and the other day I suddenly found myself wondering how she was. I popped onto the site where I 'met' her and she has been fairly inactive, and hasn't posted for months. I was saddened in a way to find she had been admitted to a psych unit for a little while, but also I felt relieved for her that she might finally be getting the help she needed.

I almost sent her a message, asking how she is. I really hope she is doing well. The only thing stopping me is that I want to forget about my problems I had back then, I don't want to talk about them and get sucked into the cycle again. I don't mind talking about them with an air of ambiguity, but if I delve into it in detail and start reminiscing as it were about those times, I might fall into the mental trap of my own mind, and I wont allow myself that to happen.

I don't know why I had the urge to write all of this, probably because I haven't written in ages. I just don't seem to have anything to say lately.

You're a freak, you're a weirdo...what the hell are you doing here?... Ok, seriously, get away from me...

I've always been a bit of a weirdo magnet, I don't know what it is about me, something just seems to make the freaks, nut jobs and whackos of the free world gravitate towards me. I don't mean weirdo's in the sense of some people thinking themselves as weird or unique in a bid to look cool, for example Emo's are often bragging about being weirdos, well they're not, they're just socially inept fuck nuggets. There's a difference.

With the help of facebook and twitter, now I can attract virtual weirdos too. People following you and striking up conversation, and then jumping on you like a fly on shit as soon as you come online EVERY time you come online. You can't ignore them, ignoring does not work with these people. I tried it, and all I got was a barrage of tweets asking if I was annoyed or upset with the person. Well, not upset, just outright fucked off. You can't say that though, well I can't anyway, I'm a cyberwuss. So I chose to pip my trusty friend the Block button. As if by magic, calm and sanity was restored to my feed...well as sane as that ever gets, anyway. I thought that was the end. BUT NO.  Said person then went on a huge rant about me on their page, about how I was arrogant and thought I was too good to talk to them, why did I hate them and could they "return the favour" by blocking me back. This made me laugh like hell, for one why bother blocking me when there is no chance in hell that I would ever unblock them? Why would I ever subject myself to striking up any kind of contact with them ever again? I was free damnit, I wasn't going back. If this was arrogant of me then so be it, but it is my Twitter, I will do with it what the fuck I like, talk to whomever the fuck I like, and block whomever I want to block.

The problem still stands though, that real life has no block button. The one that sticks out in my mind the most is the creep that kind of 'stalked' me for a while a few years ago. I first noticed him on my bus back from school, he used to stare. Constantly. Middle aged, glasses and balding, leering at me. At first I assumed it was a one off, and didn't think anything more of it. Until the next time he was on my bus, and it was exactly the same. Again, I was dismissive, I used to travel home with a lad from school who lived close by, so I never felt particularly threatened, just a bit disgusted. After it happened a few more times, my friend picked up on it one day and told me there was a "sick freak" staring at me. I'd been doing my best to ignore him, and tried not to check my bus to see if he was there, but I wasn't surprised at all to hear he was, he was practically every day at that point.

I told my sister about it one day when we seen him out in town, she reminded me about him a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about local crazies. He kept popping up pretty much everywhere I was for months, not just the bus home. He was on my bus morning and night, and I would see him in the village where he would physically stop and stand still and leer at me. One day in the summer, I had just left school and I was in the bus station near where I live. In he came, and hovered around close by. It seemed like he was there for ages but it would have only been a couple of minutes. Same as usual, just standing still looking at me. I kept my head tuned away but could see him in my peripheral the whole time. I felt a bit claustrophobic, even though there was only about 5 people in there. I persevered in ignoring him, until he strode over, hands in his pockets and smiled this god awful smile, one of the creepiest things I have ever seen, looking down at me with those pervy leery eyes and he uttered the only sentence he ever said to me. It wasn't threatening, or outright perverse. "I see you alot. You're a schoolgirl aren't you?" And I kid you not as he drawled the word schoolgirl he actually licked his lips. Evidently I wasn't the only person who thought this was a bit fucking weird, as the young lad close by in his white tracksuit and knock off Nike Air trainers stepped in front of him and kindly told him if he didn't get away from me, he would knock him the fuck out. Never have I felt such affection towards a chav, and doubt I ever will again, it was a strange phenomena.

Fortunately since then, my run in with the wackos have been brief, although still fucking regular. There was the druggy who talks to himself, asking me to pass him his pills off the floor, the girl who sat next to me on the bus and told me her name address and life history, invited me to her house and then said she wanted to be my best friend, among countless others. And lets not miss out the wanker who was groaning like a perv watching me eat a chocolate eclair. The most recent example is probably the other day, out with friends to celebrate a birthday. It had been a pretty nutty week, I had a few minor run ins with crazies last week, thanks mainly to the psycho-assessments going on here, and once again, merry old public transport. Anyway, back to Saturday night. I am used to the pervs on nights out, they affect everyone, we just shrug them off and escape. There have been some spectacular ones, there was the pissed little chav who kept grabbing my arse and trying to hug and kiss me, in front of my other half. The guy who was trying to chat me up with dried blue drool on his chin from his bottle of WKD (manly) the ginger bloke who looked older than my dad who simply opened with the line "howay love bring yasel owarere" with a wink, and my personal favourite chat up line from a drunken teenager "Wheres the nearest Premier Inn because I think I'm in love with you." None of these people were what I would class as nutjobs, but they do fall quite nicely into the creep/weirdo/perv category.

Saturday was no exception to the rule of perv, and within minutes of stepping into the streets of the town, we were accosted by a group of men out on the pull. I should point out that we were categorically not on the pull, as all of us are pleasantly bound to a better half. But anywho, back to the story... Me and another friend were bringing up the rear, as the two with the most ridiculous shoes on. The resounding thought for the night was WHY THE FUCK IS THIS TOWN SO COBBLED? So as my friend pottered like Bambi up the giant hill of wayward uneven rockage, the group of said men noticed her struggling, one kindly put her on the flat path, swapping his place to join me on the ankle-breaking floor of doom. I don't mean to brag, but I walk damn well in heels (up until about 6 hours into a night when I have to abandon them due to FireFeet, that horrible burning pain where it actually surprises you that the skin isn't ripped apart and bleeding) one of the men noticed my marvellous efficiency, and somehow worked out it was down to "those fucking legs!" My friend, now on the level path, was closing the distance between herself and the rest of our group, the other OnThePullMen having dispersed to somewhere further up the road, I think they stopped off to piss some-where. She powered on, getting further and further away, I literally would have had to get a jog on to catch up. Naturally, the only bloke from the group that was left, the one who had so nicely popped my mate onto the flat path, had limpeted onto me (figuratively speaking, fortunately he didn't actually attempt physical contact.)

Making conversation in the typical way of a man who is half cut desperately searching for a shag, I tried to quicken my pace. We were approaching the top of the hill, and I was trying to fob him off with as curt responses to him as possible. The hill was getting steeper, and he made another comment about my FuckingLegs, and I turned and looked at him properly for the first time, he was well dressed, in those trendy jeans and a nice shirt, he had a skinhead and was probably in his mid twenties. That was when I thought "Fuck it" and started to jog, as best as one can up a miniature mountain in 7 inch heels. Catching up to my group I breathlessly shouted "Thanks for that!" at my mates. Seemingly they thought I was still quite close to the group, and that the group of men looked generally to be "alright" anyway. (Their opinion was changed when said group of men appeared everywhere we went, FuckingLeg comments aplenty). I asked if they had actually looked at the one who had taken a fancy to me and they admitted they hadn't, but, like they said, on the whole, the group looked "alright". To which I responded "HE HAD A FUCKING TATTOO DOWN THE WHOLE SIDE OF HIS FACE."

A day of mindless self-indulgence, and oops.

Yesterday I started the day in a fantastic mood. For hours me and my favourite and only sister sat and fucked about. She'd stayed the night, as she often does when she needs a break from being a wife and mother. We set aside at least one day a month where we have "nim and psycho night" - it is a night purely for us to get together and do everything we love doing together, its like recreating the nights we had when we still lived with our parents. We watch stupid films, sing along to hilarious songs, eat vast quantities of takeaway, chocolate and kiddies sweets. Most of the time these nights are specifically sober, she isn't a big drinker, and hasn't been for years, around the time that she met her husband and had her daughter. I'm beginning to think these things might very well be related.

After our night of utter brilliance that was (like every other time we get together) so fucking hilarious I can't possibly convey it in words (It wouldn't make sense anyway) I was unspeakably happy.

Waking up on Saturday, I jumped out of bed and was bouncing around like Tigger, the sun was shining and I was in an amazingly good mood. We got ready, I had a couple of cider's in the process, all in all it took us 2 hours to get out of the house to embark on our mission for bacon. We'd been singing like Russian gangsters, dancing like happy starfish and generally other mad shit. As we headed downstairs to where Dave and his friends were rousing from their alcohol induced stupour we noticed, first of all, that one of them had buggered off in the night. Dave was awake, his other drunken mate was still somewhat foetal. This is where things went downhill. Somehow in a matter of minutes, Dave managed to wind me right up and the less said about this the better.

I slammed my way out of the house, and by the time I was at the end of the street me and the sis were laughing again. I was still in a good mood, but with an undertone of self indulgent anger. When I'm angry it turns out I am very self absorbed. We walked the few miles into town, pondering and bitching about men in general and eating burgers in the sun. My anger was gone by the time we got there, but the general mood of conversation had been set. The thing about me and my sister is that predominantly we talk hilarious bollocks to eachother and 90% of our conversations are snorting with laughter. The rest of the time, we do like a good bitch. Having a bitching session is good for the soul. Or the chakra. Or something. When I'm annoyed about something, bitching with her is the one thing garaunteed to make me feel better, it's like we can be in a bubble where we throw everything out and get it out of our systems, laugh about it, and then let it go. But until we get to the point of letting it go, I don't like anything to burst that bubble. Her husband rang asking if she was coming home, she blew him off, opting to stay in our little bubble for a bit longer.

She decided we should pop in and see if our gran was at work, I was resistant at first, saying I didn't want to talk to anyone else, because if they found out I had had an argument with Dave I would be met with a chorus of "knowing looks" and judgemental man-hating comments (we come from a long line of women who hate men, Im not sure why any of them got married, but nevermind) and they think that one argument is "a show of things to come" and other such negative shit that I couldn't be bothered with. You see what I mean about the self-absobption? Anyway, the sis brought up a good point. I didn't have to tell her. Brilliant idea. So we popped our head into the dingy cave of gambling. Looked beyond the flashy lights from the machines, to the back office, and saw she wasnt at work anyway. Fair enough, we would go in a couple of shops and then head to our other grandparent's house, making plenty of twisted jokes surely only we would laugh at along the way.

It wasn't until today when I seen the gran we intended on visiting at work that I remembered that self indulgent bubble, rumbling along bitching and laughing in the sun. It seems in the midst of it all, amongst the flashy lights and mind battering music we encountered for the brief 5 seconds to ascertain that she wasn't at work, we had managed to totally overlook my aunty, who also works there. Having a heart attack.

Oops doesn't quite seem to cover it.

Observing chaos from a safe distance

It hasn't been long since my last post, but I feel compelled to try and write something about the situation in Japan. Is situation the right word? Carnage possibly describes it better. When I first heard about it, I had just arrived at work on Friday. I got very little work done that day. I was compelled to keep watching, hoping for something but I had no idea what. What was I hoping for? That the scale of tragedy and destruction wasn't as bad as it looked? Seeing the video footage of the tsunami hitting; it was painfully obvious it was going to be a total catastrophe, and me watching and hoping, and the millions of people praying, would not change that.

There has been constant news feeds about it all over the weekend, I've caught it when I can, the first thing I do when I put the computer on is see if there has been any major updates. It's bizarre, because for the rest of the day I have been going about my business, same as usual. The concept of me, going to the shops, visiting my family, sitting here right now, writing this in my pyjamas, with nothing major happening anywhere around me, while somewhere else in the world is millions of people, surrounded by chaos, is kind if mind blowing. For them, their shops have been destroyed, they don't know whether their families are alive or dead, thousands of them lost their homes, their livelihoods, and most likely loved ones.

I woke up this morning and saw the new pictures, old men, young children, mothers, brothers, daughters, everyone in the affected areas totally devestated. Alive, but with no idea what life will be like from now on. Amongst them, thousands of people lay, tragic victims of perpetrator who will never face justice.

Perhaps one of the saddest realisations I have had, and what I am trying to convey here, is that once this post has been finished, and I have done my moral duty; reading/watching of the coverage for the day, I will close my laptop, turn off the television, and step out into the world, where the sun is shining, and birds are tweeting, hop on a bus and soon be with my family, eating a lovingly prepared lunch. I'll carry on my day as normal, because there is nothing else I can do.

It's been a while...

So yesterday I found 3 empty rum bottles behind my bedside table. This can be explained by the fact that I am a pirate in disguise, and also my other half has a somewhat questionable tidying technique. Out of sight out of mind has never been more true.

We actually got a glass recycling box this week, we’ve lived in our home for 8 months and the council never provided us with one. Well, now my brother in law works for them, on their recycling vans, so finally it is there. A green plastic box of joy. Sitting in the yard, making me contemplate myself and our society merely by flaunting all of the empty rum bottles I have collected since Christmas, when I had to stop putting glass in the ordinary bin after being told I would be fined for it. Of course my argument was what do they expect me to do with it, when they wont give me a pissing glass box? But anyway, I digress.

I looked at the mountain of abandoned captain morgan bottles, and I wasn’t sure whether to be proud or ashamed, I feel I should take a moment to thank, and apologise to, my liver.

I said on twitter last night, how I manage to run a house and a full time job when I drink as much as I do is beyond me, well actually its not. I know exactly how I manage, I have been trained by the best.

Since the age of16, I have drank pretty much every night. The date coincides with when  I started working. Every night I would come in, and settle down to my tea with my parents, each of us with a bottle of wine, or cider, depending on whether my mam had done the alcohol run.

A few months after I started work, my parents began making home-brew. You can see where this is heading. Batches of wine that would produce roughly a dozen bottles a time, and the alcohol content could not be established. The hydrometer reading was literally off the scale. Abandoning all methods of measuring the alcohol, we applied a drink a bottle and then stand up method. If after a bottle you could stand up, and carry on as normal, it was relatively piss week, so always make sure you had another one close by. If you drank a bottle, stood up, and stumbled about, laughing at how drunk you are, you know you’ll still get up for work on time. If you pass out before you remember to do the stand up test, remember to grab a bottle of irn bru and some skittles to sober you up on the way to work.

When my other half moved into my home, he couldn’t believe how much we drank. He quickly got over the shock however, and it wasn’t long until he got into the habit of picking up cans on his way home from work. Every night we would all settle down together and drink, listen to music and philosophise. I think in large part this made the awkwardness of us living with my parents somewhat easier to bear, for him and for my dad.

Some people will read this and assume we are a family of lushes. Well, I suppose by their standards, we are. But in our society we are quite your average family. The social class of our town is divided between those of us who are hardworking, go out early every day and work a full shift – where common practice is to stop off on the way home for the nights booze; 8 cans of pils for the blokes, a bottle of wine for the women – and the rest of the people who have never worked an honest day in their life; more on them later.

If the man works, but the wife stays home, as is common round here, food will be on the table when he walks through the door. If, like our family, the women work too we provide 95% of the trade for the local Indian. It is an award winning restaurant, the chef is amazing. He is well regarded as one of the best Indian chefs in the district. As well as it being a top class restaurant, he does deliveries. The food is fantastic, why cook when you can have food like that delivered to your door? Is my argument every time I consider making a home made curry. The home deliveries must make up roughly 99% of his income, with people popping into the restaurant for a “proper sit down meal” if it is a special occasion, like a birthday. In the 24 years it has been open, we have eaten from there almost every week, sometimes several times a week, and yet no one in my family has ever eaten in the restaurant and yet until I wrote that down, it never occurred to me as being odd.

I’ve carried on my tradition of evening drinking even after we moved out of my parent’s house 2 years ago. Dave rarely drinks, but he smokes like a bloody chimney, of which I remind him every time he dares to give me a judging glance as I throw back half a bottle of rum in one sitting.

A lot of people would read this and regard us as one of the problems with this country, a family of binge drinkers blah blah blah and broken Britain. I strongly disagree. I can drink like a sailor, and still get up at 7 and go to work. I am proud of that. I hold down a job, 11 hours a day I m out, working and earning money, paying my taxes to line the pockets of the others in our town. Our area has always had a notorious unemployment rate, thanks in large part to the colossal fuck over courtesy of Maggie Thatcher. The day that loathsome twat dies, there will be parties in the streets for miles around here. There are many people who have never worked, and will never work. I have 3 uncles who go through life living on their giro, I am working to keep them in baccy and beer. It’s a thought that irks me every day.

This morning, there was a new driver being trained on my bus. He was being trained by a Polish man. This is a touchy subject around here. In around 2006 there was a massive influx of Polish people to our area, Consett is widely referred to as Little Poland now. You go to any pub round here where theres a table of the perpetually jobless sat round necking back bottles of newcy brown, and ask them why they’re in the pub at 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon. They’d sit there more than happy to tell you its because of “these bloody foreigners coming in and stealing all the jobs”.

Its an excuse used by pretty much every lard-arsed waste of space round here. The Polish came in, and stole all of their jobs. It doesn’t matter to them, that they have never worked, they have selective memories you see. As far as they’re concerned the jobs in Consett are for the people of Consett. It doesn’t matter to them that for the past however many years that no one in Consett has actually got off their arse to do the fucking jobs.  The jobs were there for them all along, they were just too lazy to go out and get them. Too happy to sit back in the house that the government pays for for them, drinking beers and eating food bought with handouts from my pay packet. If all of the migrant workers suddenly upped sticks and left, would all of these hard done by ProudBritishMen actually go out and reprise the roles the Poles left behind? Would they shite. They’d throw back another can of Special Brew, scratch their nuts and complain about how the buses had stopped running and the factories were shutting down.

I don’t think the Poles will leave, and I hope they don’t. The Daily Mail is always going on about how we have too many immigrants and how we need to get Britain back to it’s “best”. Tarring all migrants with the same brush, when it is not a problem with the migrant WORKERS at all. I watched that bus driver this morning, I see him frequently, he has been driving buses for a couple of years now, and until this morning I had no clue he was foreign. He has adapted a Geordie twang to the words he says regularly “Five pund twenty please. Ta. Cheers.” Standing at the front with his work bag, a flask of tea and his sarnies for bait. Perfectly integrated into our mad little society. Today when he’s finished training his apprentice, he’ll be back at the wheel. Shuttling the scroungers to the job centre, the scapegoat for their laziness, listening on an as they bellow and swear, angry at a situation that is no ones fault but their own.

Just like I will do my shift, travel for an hour and a half to get back to my little terraced house, and finish the other half of the bottle of rum. Another day spent working then drinking, drinking then working. But at least I am working. And the drinking? Well, it just helps take my mind off the fact that at another hour of my shift today will be going straight into the sweaty palm of another waster who thinks he’s somehow earned it.

Just another day in the North East.