Awakening

I have managed to lose 11lb in 3 weeks. This pleases me but it doesn't come easy. For a start I'm not eating lunch. I know, I know...the way to lose weight is slowly and sensibly in order for it to stay off forever. Well sorry but slowly and sensibly isn't cutting it with me any more. I eat a tiny box of cereal in the morning, an apple or a Go Ahead bar for lunch, gallons of diet Coke to stem the hunger pains and either heated chopped tomatoes or veg goulash with a chicken breast or sweet potato in the evening. I'm also doing a Davina work out DVD when I can. Scoff if you will (I'm bloody not) but it's working. Unfortunately I am just now the weight I was the last time I thought 'Jesus I'm a porker, better go on a diet' so it's hardly a great achievement but it's a start. Case in point; it's Saturday night and although I'm drinking wine which is calorific, instead of my usual curry, snacks & chocolate fest of last year I have made goulash and had it with a chicken breast. I also worked out this morning and spent the afternoon helping my brother move house so I think I've earned a few glasses of wine. Tomorrow is a family do which are always heavy on booze and food but I'll just have to stick to spirits and avoid all puddings. I actually find I enjoy the feeling of hunger - it shows me I'm not overindulging.

Surfer Boy came to see me on Thursday night. I booked the Friday off work in a display of utter presumtiousness which fortunately paid off. He arrived in the hood and I took him straight to a bar and got the drinks in. He paid last time and he paid for the train up here so I figured it was only fair. Me being me went mad and ended up spending £50 but it was worth it. We clicked again from the start. He made me laugh and we talked non-stop. He put his hand on my leg more than once and watched my lips for just slightly too long while I was talking.
I took him to my favourite Brixton pub, The Dogstar where I know the staff very well and knew we'd get a good welcome. It couldn't have gone better - as we approached the head doorman spotted me and immediately went into Wayne's World style 'we're not worthy' bowing, elliciting a 'wow' from SB. Inside we were warmly welcomed and immediately bought into the fold, resulting in a lock in and a prolonged period mucking about with the lost and found glasses box. SB was impressed with the gang and I loved them for being so effusive. We headed back to mine at which point I became more nervous than I've been in a long time. My body confidence is very low but he seemed to be really into my body which I found astonishing as someone who spends every day loathing it. Somehow he relaxed me and I fooled around without worrying about my arse/thighs.
We didn't have sex. It was actually really nice because it feels like there's still something to discover. He stayed the night and the next day was spent on the sofa, kissing, chatting, laughing, watching DVDs and basically being as couply as you can be. My warning bells were going off purely because I felt myself starting to yearn. I can't be hurt again, I really can't and I really like this boy so I continually extricated myself from embraces and joked where I probably shouldn't have. Still, he left around 9pm and texted me on the way home saying he couldn't wait to see me again. He texted me again today asking to see me in a few day's time. I love the fact he's not dicking about or hiding the fact he likes me. Whether he wants something long term remains to be seen but right now I'm not sure I even do. It's just nice to feel alive again. I feel like I've been woken up after a year and a half of hiding away and being scared. It's like running through a rainstorm and right now I can't wait to get wet again...

It's Been a While

I pick up my blog a whole 21 months after I last posted. I am not going to go into detail here about the last 21 months because they've been shocking. Here instead are a few handy bullet points.

• Had a year long relationship with a guy who turned out to be a manic depressive. He attempted suicide when I dumped him. I found him. When it was finally over he stalked me for three months. It ended in March 09 and I am still wounded.
• Developed an allergy to perfume which resulted in hideous rashes on my face and severely swollen eyes. This happened three times before the allergy patch tests revealed it was perfume. I have since discovered it's mainly aerosol perfume that exacerbates it.
• I was made redundant. Spent 10 weeks over the summer navel gazing and panicking only to get a much better job with a much better company. I now work in advertising.
• Got a flat on my own. Still rental but I live by myself and I love it.

Since the horror relationship ended I hadn't been touched let alone kissed by another man until one night over Christmas when I met up with a guy I hadn't seen since I was 19. Surfer Boy (because he does) was a crush of mine from when I was about 15. In the days before Facebook or mobile phones there was no way of keeping in touch with crushes unless you exchanged full postal addresses and landline numbers (which ran the risk of speaking to someone's dad). So whenever we bumped into each other we'd end up 'getting off' with each other. Since then he's been married and is now in the final stages of divorce. We've been in contact on Facebook since middle of last year and in the last 5 months or so the contact has been almost daily. Unfortunately my weight has skyrocketed (comfort eating) so I had been dodging his occasional suggestions of meeting up. However, he lives in my hometown and over Christmas I decided it was about time we met up.

He looked just the same. I mean, I'd seen pics on Facebook of course but this was different. I felt 15 years old again. It was bank holiday so everywhere was shut but we found an open Cafe Rouge and settled in for a couple of bottles of red and a catch up. Early closing came too soon and we had a lock in, then continued drinking and talking in his car. We kissed and it was just the same only maybe a little more practised on both sides. He mentioned coming up to see me and I agreed but since there has been no mention of that. We're still in touch virtually every day one way or another and I am in full blown crush overload. It's made my diet all the more vital as I would give anything to go to bed with him. I haven't had sex for 15 months which, if you read back over this blog, is pretty shocking for me.

I need to lose 2 stone. I don't imagine it'll be quick but it must happen and stay off. I have started my diet with earnest and the desire for Surfer Boy coupled with the fact none of my clothes fit properly is spurring me on. I've done it before...I can do it again.

The Fool

The combination of gallons of rosé, PMT and a genuinely upsetting situation can only lead to one thing. With all the inevitability of seeing your ex when you're hungover, last night I made an utter fool of myself.

I should start from the beginning. A year or so ago I met a guy on Myspace (S) who, although flirtatious, never really became anything more than an online buddy. That was until New Year's Eve when we ended up at the same club and met for the first time. I didn't particularly fancy him but liked him a lot and so we became real-life friends, occasionally meeting for drinks. We kissed a couple of times but things never really went any further so I just took it to be a clumsy display of friendship and affection.
S has four brothers and one night he bought his youngest brother W, along for drinks with me and my friend R. That night, R slept with W and I slept with S (it was a ridiculously messy night fuelled by Grolsch). From that night I developed a crippling crush on S, who sadly appeared to have no interest in actually taking things beyond friendship so I was left to suffer through my tumultuous and confusing emotions while pretending to him everything was fine. Meanwhile, R and W began seeing each other which I found annoying but wasn't totally sure why.

That was a couple of months ago. R and W are still going strong, S and I have slept together once more, three weeks ago but S now seems to be largely ignoring me again. R is spending more and more time at their house (S and W live together), and is getting really close to S. They all went clubbing without me on Friday night (I was busy but it still hurt), and I've since heard nothing but how wonderful S was and how much fun they all had and I just don't think I can take it any more. I am crippled with jealousy over my best friend's blossoming friendship with MY FRIEND S. I hate the fact that she has usurped me as his mate both online and in real life and I loathe the fact that no one seems to think this might bother me. "But I was there FIRST!" I want to scream.
Instead I am left, bitter and bruised, to deal with my emotions in silence. I know it's childish and I know I should be more in control of how I feel but I'm not. In this situation I am a jealous, petulant teenager slamming their door and blaring music while smoking out the window.
It came to a head last night while I was very drunk. I ended up standing outside a pub in Clapham, bellowing at Steve down the phone about how he is neglecting our friendship and demanding to know why he can spend virtually an entire 24 hours with my friend R, but can't spare time for one pint with me. I was then rude to R and strode home through the hood with poor A running after me, as I bellowed expletives about S, prompting stares from the local crazies at the bus stop.

I know what I need. I need a guy of my own. I need someone to take my mind off this ridiculous situation and take the focus off S because actually, he is a totally inappropriate crush. He's a loser, a player and has the maturity of a 14 year old boy. I believe I only have this crush because I have no one else to focus on. Fighting my apathy I have rejoined a couple of dating websites. I really can't face any more 'first dates' but I've failed to meet anyone whilst out and about of late so clearly this is my only recourse. I'm spending today veiled in shame and depression and wallowing in an acidic hangover. When will I learn?

Change

I just deleted my Myspace profile. I feel strangely nervous and unsettled. For a year and a half I've used that site for music, friendship and dating but it's gone from being a buzzy, exciting site to a trawling ground for freaks and perverts. If I received one more email from someone calling themselves 'The Dark Lord' and asking if I have a webcam and time to play, I think I would have smashed my screen with my in-tray.

I am still on Facebook, though (no social networking sites at all? are you crazy?!). Along with everyone else in my life, including several people I met on Myspace who have never even spoken to on the phone let alone met but who feel like proper friends. I resisted Facebook for ages because I thought it was juvenile and vaccuous. I couldn't understand why I might want to throw a sheep at someone or write on their 'wall', but of course over time it became even more addictive than Myspace. Those stupid little applications start to appeal more and more and suddenly I really want to be able to tell people which 1950's pin up girl I most resemble. The excitment! Facebook just seems more...wholesome somehow. Every friend I have on there is either someone I know or a friend of a friend which I'm fine with. I've had no pervy emails, no stalkers and no bands trying to add me so they can use my profile to advertise their next shitty little gig at some back alley community centre in Birmingham. It's the future!

Elsewhere I was able to feel particularly smug this week when KOKO emailed me out of the blue after callously dumping me for 'someone special' a few weeks ago. After a few back and forth messages I was able to ascertain that his 'someone special' turned out to be 'someone crashingly dull' and he finished it. Apparently she didn't share his passions for drinking heavily, taking recreational drugs and spanking cash on pointless things like massive TV's. What a crying shame. I have decided, despite the mild humiliation of his finishing our liaison, that I will see him again. I have no emotions for him - I don't want to go to dinner with him, meet his family/friends or discuss the future with him. What I do want to do is spend some QT with him and his astonishing cock. KOKO is poles apart from me in terms of personality and background but physically we just clicked and had the most amazing sex. Obviously I'm making him work for it at the moment but in the long run, why would I be so stupid as to miss out on a repeat performance, especially given the sexual drought of late?

Bits and Pieces

There is a famous quote about bad girls not keeping diaries because they don't have time (ridiculously paraphrased but you get the point). Well lately my blog has quite clearly fallen by the wayside - not because I've had nothing to tell but purely because I've been so darned busy. I guess another of my patented 'don't know if you actually care or not but...' round-ups is due (on the day the world found out Patrick Swayze has pancreatic cancer - poor man).

I have just got back from Berlin. A's sister lives there so R, A and I went over for a week. It's a strange city. Obviously it's recent past is still evident and you just can't escape the WW2 resonance. It's a city of wide-open spaces, due mainly I believe to most of it being obliterated by bombing during the war. We visited the Brandenburg Gate and the Museum for Murdered Jews which reduced the three of us to silent, pouring tears. It was a very difficult place to be but so, so worth it.
The social scene is typically European - everyone tends to go out at midnight and doesn't return home until dawn. The house/electro scene is incredible and I can highly recommend Panorama Bar. When dawn breaks the over-populated club lifts the shutters that cover the huge windows and briefly let the daylight flood over the previously dark and dirty dancefloors before lowering them again and plunging the whole place back into darkness. It's the most surreal thing but acted as a rejuvenator for all present and the DJs definitely play on that moment, allowing tracks to break dramatically and euphorically throughout. Ambulance Bar is also a must - the music is very 'Jaded'.

I have also finally had my tattoo done which I'm really pleased with. Six hollow, five-point stars of differing sizes are sprinkled down my left ankle and across the top of my foot. I am happy with it but I do keep having slightly worrying anxiety dreams about tattoos, involving me accidentally having a huge piece of work done across my back or a tattoo getting scuffed and not healing properly. I remember this happening 10 years ago when I had my first tattoo done so I guess it's just going to take time for my subconcious to accept what I've done!

On the man front things are a little quiet. I pulled a guy a few weeks ago at an afterparty. He was ridiculously handsome and I wasn't surprised when he told me he was an actor and lead singer in a band (he is - I've Googled him). He came home with me on the Sunday morning and we began to fool around together. Unfortunately due to the amount of chemicals in my system I was bone dry and as a result got a severely bruised labia meaning we had to stop immediately while I freaked out about what might have happened to my vagina (I was still wasted and could make no sense of the scary swelling). Bless him, B was fantastic - just lay with me and cuddled me as I quaked and fretted. I was shocked when he texted asking to see me again but jumped at the chance of erasing the memory of the make-up smeared, gibbering weirdo he'd last seen. We went for drinks and did lots of lovely snogging and I'm hoping we get together again soon. Unfortunately with me in Berlin and him in Amsterdam this week, time apart is rapidly elapsing which can be a death knell after a brief meeting such as ours. I find you have to maintain the contact to a reasonable degree or apathy sets in. I'm really hoping that doesn't happen with B! We shall see...

It shouldn't bother me, but...

It had been two weeks since I'd last seen him and a week since his last, extremely non-committal text. It had always been a fuck thing with us, I knew this. The whole 'never going out only staying in together' theme of our 'dates' was a dead giveaway. We were great at filling the gaps between sessions with light chit chat and giggling and the sex was unbelieveable but I knew it was never more than that. We were far too different to ever have a relationship.

So when C, the guy I met in KOKO before Christmas, rang me one night this week after a two week silence I was surprised. I had assumed he was letting things fizzle and although I was a bit disappointed at the thought of no more sessions with him, I had started to accept whatever it had been was over. His phone call perked me up no end and I went from a pyjama-clad slob watching Masterchef and eating pasta and pesto with a spoon, to a hair-flicking, throaty-laughing party girl. Well, vocally at least. For fifteen minutes we caught up, laughed and chatted and just as I thought he was going to suggest another meeting, he says the immortal words: 'Actually, there is a reason I'm calling...'

He didn't have to use the word 'special' now, did he? "I've met someone special and we're seeing each other.' Of course I heard 'You're not special enough' which really annoyed me because I absolutely didn't want to be special enough for him, I never actually wanted him as my boyfriend but suddenly I found myself experiencing intense feelings of rejection. I guess this says more about my fragile ego and the fact that sex is still, no matter how emotionally healthy I try to be about it, a form of validation for me than the fact that I liked him. I was pretty pleased with my response although I did call him 'mate' about four times towards the end of the call, probably to emphasise the distance I was already putting between us. I hope I got away with it. Anyway, I have deleted him from MSN/Facebook/mobile and have already moved on but I'm still annoyed with myself for caring at all.

The girl can't help it

I wrap my arms around my body and hug myself, using the internationally recognised 'I'm cold' noise...'ooohhhoooohhooh'. It's no wonder I'm cold. The time is 5.25am and I've just spent 7 hours in the club Turnmills, sweating my booty off. As I stand in the queue outside the after party, the increasing daylight and chilly winds are seriously threatening my buzz. I glance to my left and notice him. Firstly, due to the fact that he is wearing a navy blazer over a white shirt and jeans with a pair of tan loafters. This is incongruous attire to say the least, being as he is surrounded by clubbers decked out in their finest regalia. The second reason I notice him is because he is very tall and ridiculously handsome. He catches my eye and we grin at each other, inhibitions shattered by hours of substance abuse. We chat for a few minutes, in which time I discover he is a stockbroker (big shock) and clearly extraordinarily arrogant and self-assured. This, of course, ensures I am completely enamoured within a matter of minutes. After a while our conversation includes a gay guy who has decided I look warm and is huddling against me, shivering. The gay guy and I, being on the guestlist are ushered in ahead of stockbroker, a great relief given that I was close to freezing at this point.

Once inside my group find each other, drinks are bought and the dancefloor hit. Around an hour later I spot stockbroker and the gay guy chatting at the bar. Stockbroker catches my eye and flashes the knee-wobbling grin at me. I leant into R who is dancing beside me and tell her that suddenly, I have an overwhelming compulsion to go down on him. This is, apparently, the best idea I've had all night and she urges me to go for it. Bolstered by her encouragement and my inner euphoria I approach and beckon him away from the gay guy.
"This is going to sound weird," I begin, standing on tip toe to speak into his ear. "But I'd really like to go down on you. Now." His grin fades and he looks incredulous. "If you're interested, we'll find somewhere. Just let me know."
I leave him and rejoin my friends on the dancefloor. I see him lean into the gay guy and start whispering furiously. I see lots of nodding and smiling from the gay guy, and the stockbroker rubs his face vigorously. He beckons me back.
"Are you serious?"
"Of course. Look, I know it's weird but I don't want anything in return, I just really want to suck your cock. That's basically it. Are you up for it?"
He gives me a sideways look and snorts. "Of course I bloody am."
"I'm SO coming." Stockbroker and I turn and look at the gay guy.
"No you're not!" Exclaims Stockbroker.
"Listen, if this is happening there's no way I'm missing it. I'm coming."
Stockbroker and I gaze helplessly at each other. Frankly if I didn't think I'd get arrested I'd drop to my knees on the dancefloor so having a random watching really doesn't bother me. The stockbroker weighs up his options which are: experience a mildly homoerotic moment and get a blow job or succumb to stereotypes and outmoded fears and miss getting no strings attached head. His libido wins.
The female loos are pretty empty, so gay guy pays the toilet attendant £10 to turn a blind eye and the three of us pile into a cubicle. Gay guy leans against the door, sipping his gin and tonic through a straw. I drop to my knees and get down to it. As I suspected he's in possesion of an amazing cock and as I stroke him to erection and see his look of disbelief I feel an unexpected sense of power wash over me and wonder, briefly, if that's why I wanted to do this. Maybe this is my way of cutting an arrogant man down to size. After all, I have him by the balls.
I begin and for a few moments, stockbroker has trouble relaxing, constantly shooting glances toward the gay guy. After a while stockbroker pulls his blazer round to hide what's happening but it's largely ineffectual. It doesn't take long before there's a stifled moan, a shudder and I'm reaching for the tissues. I had put my all into it and it definitely paid off, for myself as well as stockbroker because I realise at this point I'm wet. We all smile at each other and adjust dress where necessary, then leave the cubicle much to the astonishment of the girls primping in the mirrors.
Once we're back upstairs stockbroker catches my arm and says 'thank you' into my ear. I turn back, flash him a smile and push through the crowds to the dancefloor to find R and tell her everything. I never found out his surname, I never asked where he worked or where he lived. I wanted more than anything to suck him off and I did.

We stick around at Jaded until about 10am and the daylight pouring through the skylights is beginning to ensure we all start to feel pretty grimy. As we are leaving I spot the stockbroker across the bar with a blonde girl perched on his lap. I feel nothing.