In Dreams

Sometimes when I close me eyes at night and I can't sleep and my mind goes on a little expedition. I get either one of two really mental trains of thought, both of which fascinate and terrify me in equal measure.

One is a weird ethereal sense of having a great deal of pent-up energy, like an atom bomb or a geyser, but being unable to vent it, because everything is in slow motion. I'll lie there, with music pounding in my head and this inner video footage of me trying to run or act as fast as my mind is whirring but being constrained by the slow motion. Then I'll open my eyes and realise I've been clenching my jaw. It's like the seratonin storm that jolted through me when I used to take antidepressants.

The other is another inner piece of video footage. I'll be in a room and, as if with a camera, my focus will zoom into a small part on it, onto something unobtrusive like the leg of a chair or a square of the wall. Very slowly, like Chinese water torture, like my eyes are attached to one of those massive crawler tracked-platforms that NASA use to move the Space Shuttle into position. Then, when I get really freaked out by this, and my mind's eye jerks away from this image, and I relax again, the whole fucking process starts again.

Sometimes the two combine.
They're not exactly dreams, but I think there's probably some lovely Freudian subtext about fear of dying or something.

Hmmmm.


It's kinda like this, but less chirpy:






Sleep Tight.

In which I inadvertantly join the sex industry, win an award and pimp a wheelchair.

Right, so this definitely not a Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive post. The last two days have been rather weird.

As you may (or more like may not, and don't care) be aware. I have been unemployed now for about a month, after the whole boss-getting-me-drunk-and-cheating-money-off-me thing, and I've been a bit...bored. Well, as a tonic to that I went to the jobcentre in Kilburn yesterday to sign on (free money = ka-ching!) and start as a 'jobseeker'. I hadn't slept in like 30 hours when this happened, so yesterday was fun.

Now first of all, the whole dole thing is depressing. Very depressing. They ask you a million questions ("Now Mr D, when was the last time you shat on a toadstool" etc etc) that make you think about how broke you are, then they patronise the fuck out of you. ("Can you read? Oh, you can? Good for you") in a manner that clearly says "Well, I have a job, I'm better than you".

So, after three hours of that, I walked home, and decided to stop in the bank to open an account. The lady who I was dealing with was a beautiful Iranian lady called Shihraz, and she had a wheelchair. I didn't even notice this, as she was busy telling me about the Super Deluxe Multi Omni Hyper Gold-plate Account. I'm not sure how, but we began chatting about how it would be great to be wealthy, and me, trying to be funny, suggested that she could pimp out her wheelchair. That did it, forgetting the account, we went into a fifteen minute conversation talking about how great she could make her wheels, with platinum plating, sub-woofer speakers, bling. The works. It was the best bank-trip ever, and she's my new bff bank buddy. She spent the whole time giggling, and is the best bank person I've ever met, so I'm opening an account there.

Also, I did a shift in the pub last night..while almost crying with tiredness....fun.

-----


Yesterday was also a great day for me (tiredness and unemployment aside) because, the ever-cool Novelista Barista has given me an award. Ironically called the Coffee Cup Award I'm very honoured for the recognition and would like to thank NB for her words, she's very kind! Also, as a complete coffee addict, it's very gratifying to know that my future massive heart attack will be caused by something that I love so much.












Now, the porn thing. As part of my attempts to find work, I applied to loads of radio stations and voiceover companies; hoping against hope that someone would pluck me out of the ether and give me a prime-time breakfast slot. Well, they didn't. The only people who got back to me were a specialist fiction company.

Here's what happened :




(ps - by looking at the screen, I'm not trying to be intense or anything, the script is on screen at the time of recording)

So yeah, I've accidentally become a sex-worker. The pay's not atrociously bad, and I can dress like an unshaven bum but...here's the question...does that technically make me a form of hooker, or is it okay for me to do that and keep my head on high?? Responses please. Also, my laughably bad attempt to sound sexy is bound to return to haunt me at some point.
We'll see...


Anyway, I hope you're all well, what've y'all been up to?


x

Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Curse of the Hairy Man-Bra Part 2

So, yeah, I made a video right after accidentally shaving my chest...

I must warn you, I have paaaaaaale skin, so if there's any chance that the glare may damage your eyes, please put on some sunglasses and sun-lotion.

Also, yeah, my hair looks like Christopher Walken's.





So yeah, seriously...never have a razor in the bath when you're bored.






In other news, I've flown back to my parents' place, getting ready for graduation on Monday. I know it's a big solemn ceremony and we all have to act lawerly etc, but I just know that at some point I'm going to have to do a little sprint, just to feel my robes swoosh about. I'll be like a wizard.

"Arigh Harry?" I'll get one of my bigger, hairier friends to say.

"Hello Hagrid" I'll reply.

Then we'll laugh, and get drunk.



Oh, oh, also, I've been idiot baiting this week, seeing as it's frowned upon when you do it to bears. Some absolutely fucking feeble-minded lady-face (I shall dub her Bonkers McFucking-Idiot-who-overcompensates-for-her-dull-life-and-lack-of-imagination-by-loving-god-a-bit-too-much) has written this post about Twilight (the series of teen vampiric romance novels - don't worry if you haven't heard of them, they're quite obscure..) and how it is evil and a tool of the devil. She claims that the books possessed her and other completely logical things. Totally has nothing to do with the faint whiff of erotica that clearly was too much for her. Anyway, her family burned the books.

Bookburning's not really kosher with me.

Anyway, read the blog, actually read it from front to end, and try not to say 'what the fuck?' loudly as you go through.

Then the comments section...it's just...it's too much fun. Some guy called Pizza Devil keeps adding more and more silly comments, obviously having far too much fun haha. I think he might be a friend of Happy-go-fucking-lucky - perhaps.


(Ps - I totally have nothing against people with any sort of faith, it's something which I probably envy at some level. People are free to worship whatever they like, be it Yahweh, RPatz or East-German Olympic female shot put champion Margitta Gummel-Helmboldt, and there's no call to judge them for that...BUT...read the article, and the comments, and see for yourself.)

Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Curse of the Hairy Man-Bra

The Devil makes work...

Being the 70-year-old retired widow that I am, I’ve begun to have a bath a few days a week instead of a shower. Basically, I read in some important man’s magazine (like Elle or Cosmo or Gaghappy Cumdumpster Cheerleaders something) that if you have trouble sleeping, you should have a bath.
Apparently, your body relaxes in the hour following a bath; your heartbeat slows, your blood pressure drops and you become sleepy. As I have pretty heavy-duty insomnia, I desperately try most old wives’ remedies and have started having a regular radox hour…plus, baths are fucking thrash!
(ps, when I say I’ve started having baths, I mean that I’ve started having a bath in lieu of my usual shower. I’ve not just learned how to clean myself or anything, it’s okay… also, when I say I try everything to sleep, that may or may not include using an lavender linen spray for my pillow – surely that’s worthy of a TMIT)

So tonight was no different. After my penultimate (37th) cup of tea of the day, I drew a ridiculously over-hot bath, brought in my laptop to listen to music (it sits on the toilet-I have a system, critics) and sang ‘I am what I am’ as the mirrors steamed up.

It. Was. Awesome.

Overheated Conor, listening to the Ricky Gervais podcast, drinking soda. Fucking bliss.
Anyway, there I was, listening away, soaking in the steaming water, and letting my mind wander when I realised that I was holding my razor. They say that ‘the Devil makes work for idle hands’, and that’s definitely true because, without realizing it, as I listened and chuckled away, I had sorta begun to shave my belly. Why? I have no idea, but for some reason I had subconsciously begun to shear my happy trail.

(happy trail = the little desire line of hair from a guy’s belly button to his man-candy)

“Okay, my right hand has, without recourse to conscious thought, begun the process of de-hairing my body. That’s a bit odd.” I thought, but I let it run.

Before long I was hooked. Maybe it’s a guy thing, but I can get absolutely obsessed with little simple things. Give me a tap and an empty bottle, and I can spend ages refilling and emptying it, like I was a six year old doing science. Within ten minutes, the Trail was gone, and the area where well-toned people have abs (what I call my ‘Guinness Baby’) was hairless, pale and looking somewhat forlorn.

I panicked. WTF? Grown-ups don’t do this do they? They don’t experiment with shaving themselves. I mean, all guys do it to some extent when they’re drunk, giving themselves handlebar moustaches and falling asleep to wake and realise they look like daft pricks, but I was sober. Perhaps the hours and hours of free time I have, the empty hours of insomnia and the listless days of unemployment, those 165 free hours a week have gotten to me? I mean, instead of working on writing, or practicing music, here I was…shaving my belly in the bath. What if my Mother called tomorrow?


[‘Hello Con?’

‘Hi Mum!’

‘How’s the job hunt going?’

‘Not the best Mum, it’s harder to find work than I thought’

‘Oh well, just keep at it..’

‘Okay, I will’

‘So, how are you spending your days, are you volunteering? Studying? Writing?’

‘No, Mum, I spend my days waiting for free internet and eating cherry bakewell tart then I buy the paper, have a bath, and shave my torso’

‘Oh, good lad, we’re so proud son.’

‘Thanks mum, I do try.’]

So I had a bald pink belly…what next?

Even as the thought manifested itself, my hand had begun to inch up my sternum (is that the word? Maybe thorax?) and was shaving shapes and patterns into the trail of hair leading to my tits.

So far so cool.

Before long, I had a white belly, a pink sternum and a sorta man-boob bra, made of hair.

Single file,ladies…single file. No pushing, please.

Anyway, by that stage I was legitimately fucked. Seriously. How could I ever risk anyone, anywhere, ever seeing the hair-bra? Not that I imagine I’ll ever be taking my top off (despite the obvious sex-appeal of the hair-bra) but on the off chance of one of the following two potential scenarios happening:

1) Being caught in a nuclear explosion and in the millisecond between the shockwave from the blast ripping my clothes off and my skin catching on fire, someone seeing the wispy, underwired home for my bosom, distinctive only because of the Casper whiteness of the rest of my torso. Even a nuclear holocaust deserves to be as non-socially-awkward as possible, right?

And,

2) A horse eating my shirt because, as I suspect, horses have a vendetta for something I did when I was young but can’t remember.
The hair-bra had to go.

Now, the razor was (as all guys out there will understand) near the end of the several-shave razor cycle; that very finite, but unwritten, time period during which a razor blade will go from Gillette to ruthless Guillotine, from multi-blade face-smoothation system to bona fide nipple remover. Anyway, it was fucking awful. It was pain dot com forwardslash holy fuck forward slash ouch.

I had my chest waxed for charity last year. There wasn’t a helluva lot to remove I’ll admit, but the process was made bearable and fun by the fact that I was being toughish in public, and that it was for cancer research (and also because it was in the ‘nice’ spectrum of pain, like when I got my tattoo or used to get punched in boxing, that I’ll admit to actually liking – btw, no, I’m not a perv, you know what I mean). After the waxing, I had gone home to shave the remaining wax tears out of my chest and wash off the fake tan that the girl had rubbed over me (we really know how to raise money for charity the fun way in Ireland!)

This bath shave required a steel jaw, it was like strolling merrily towards the German trenches during the Somme. Dragging an ever-blunter razor across my chest and willing the hair to disappear, all the while waiting for that little slice that meant that I had cut off a nipple, and trying desperately not to clog the little balde-ettes with hair or dead skin. At the very least, it was a fucking great way to exfoliate…by removing a layer of skin.

So now, I sit, at 3 am, having just recorded a video. I’m trying to sleep but my belly and chest feel wrong. My only consolation is this: I’ve maybe potentially kinda sorta started seeing someone, and she’s great. I really don’t ever want to take my top off for at least two months now because of the pale stubbly itchy blotchy meringue of a mess that it will be, so I think I might as well strap the chastity belt on til February. I'll take it slowly, and hope to Christ that no horses come anywhere near me.

So yeah, tomorrow/today is Monday, and I’ve GOT to find work, and maybe hide the razor when I’m in the bath. Otherwise, who knows…maybe next time I’ll end up with Venus ‘oh baby you’ve got it’ silky legs, or a DIY bris.