Future phone interviews, my Bleary Godmother, and dreams of Bill Murray.

My grumpiness has paid off, I’ve got a phone interview for a call centre tomorrow. I applied not long after I made my last post and got a call on my mobile early this morning asking if I could come in for an “information session,” which seemed like a quick way of seeing who was really wanting the job without having to bother with one-on-one interviews. It was good to see my competition was a motley crew of nutters and stoney faced miserable cunts. Full-time work and a permanent position as well, not bad all things considered. I was told it was a largely inbound job so can’t see there being any great chance of earning extra money with a commission. Still, it’s four times as much as I’m making just now so I’m not turning my nose up at it. The office I was in absolutely stank of hash for some reason.

Once I got back in the house I sat down, looked out the window at the blue skies and sunshine and thought about how nice it would be if I had a little joint to go with it. Fate must be feeling generous today because right on cue my phone started ringing and it was my Bleary Godmother who I haven’t heard from in ages. We took business together so knew all about the ups and down, pitfalls and ramifications of the town running dry of decent grass. Supply and demand, TQM, various other buzzwords that I’ve already forgotten the definition of. Now I’ve got something to do tonight, had something to do in the morning, but am struggling to make myself productive in the empty bit in between. I’ll have to get out and find a way to use my new favourite word: fuck-shite. Eg “That feckin’ bastard is a useless fuck-shite.” Try and tell me you don’t love it.

My sleep schedule has been all messed up over the past couple of days. Instead of sleeping all through the night I’ve been getting maybe four or five hours, getting up, then later on taking another few hours. Can’t think of much reason for it, just been fragmented, keeping me going but not really wide awake and refreshed. Had some completely mental dreams as a result. I’d describe them, but it’s too convoluted in the way dreams can be for everyone bar the dreamer, and I’m trying to maintain that I’m a sane, normal, employable fella, so the one with Bill Murray and spectral basketball player will have to wait. I’m going to use them as the basis of the horror film I’ll make one day.

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Breadless, senseless, tailless, hopeless.

Been roughly a week since I had my last slice of bread and stopped eating a load of shit so I decided I’d hop on the scales and see if it’d made any kind of difference. Now, I wasn’t exactly scientific about it the last I’d checked, it was later on in the day and I’d already had a couple of meals under my belt and all the rest of it whereas today I hadn’t eaten anything and it was not long after I’d gotten up. With that in mind, the scales told me I’d lost eight pounds. That’s a hell of a lot in the space of a week, but the majority of that will have come from both what I’d eaten that day and the fact that a whole load of junk food I’d pigged out on in the few days before was still in my system. Which is a polite way of saying I simply shat out nearly two-thirds of a stone. I’ll check weekly, but I’m under no illusions that it’ll be anything near that next time. I’m also not looking to simply aim for a number, I’m using it as an indication that my work is paying off, but the main thing is that I get fitter, which requires hard work. Losing pounds is a piece of piss so far, at the end of the day it’s about making sure more goes out than comes in, but I’ll still be weak and unfit at the end of it without working out. Still, it’s progress so I can’t complain, and I’m perfectly happy with slow and steady, not as if I have a dress to fit into or anything.

For once I did end up taking the dog out to where I had originally planned, and on a whim gave 28F a text to see if she wanted to tag along. Sure, she put my dog into Cheech and Chong territory, but I can’t be arsed holding grudges over making a labrador have a heavier case of the munchies than normal. Plus I needed someone who didn’t mind trekking through mud and had a dog that wouldn’t run over a cliff. And yeah, it was good I suppose, we talked and laughed, the two dogs ran wild and tired each other out, could’ve been a lot worse. She looked a bit more pale and gaunt than usual too. Where it was normally the kind of thing that looked nice in that kind of scene/goth kind of way, it’d veered into unwell chic. The reasons for this seem to be two-fold, one of which she told me about then and the other which I found out tonight. The first was that she was “poisoned” by a mutual friend of ours. All in good spirit of course. She works with a guy I used to go to school with, my brain is running short on nice describey words so I’ll just say he looks and acts in a similar fashion to this guy:

"I don't advise a haircut, man. All hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hair are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos and transmit them directly into the brain. This is the reason bald-headed men are uptight."

Except skinnier, less imposing, and more akin to a picture of an effeminate Weimaraner I saw a couple of weeks back but can’t for the life of me get my hands on now. He’s treading the fine line between youthful experimentation with anything going and apprentice junkie. And he shagged 28F a few moons ago, I keep forgetting that I secretly loathe him for it, the long haired runtish cunt. Anyway, they were in his house and he had procured or grown whatever brand of psychedelic he thought would grant him an audience with god this week and they took it with a special beta-blocking brew he’d made to try and offset… something, who fucking knows, I figured he’d have been talking out his arse so didn’t bother memorising the recipe for future use. Long story short she drank the tea knowing there was a chance of it making her sick, which it did, making her vomit to the point she’d hacked up bits of stomach lining as that’s all that was left, and was still feeling the effects that day. Oh, and flashbacks too. I was wandering around the woods in a tracksuit/army jacket combo with a girl that looked like death warmed up who kept seeing streaks of light and colour on occasion, and a dog that’d chewed its own tail off.

The second and rather more sad part I found out tonight when I was out with Marsha. We had a catch up and she gave me the usual hangover debrief of my birthday night out three weeks previously given my propensity to make sure I have the “can’t remember therefore I’m innocent” defense when setting foot anywhere that sells drink. I found out why Phill was so happy to find out it was me his girlfriend was dancing with, but don’t worry I was well behaved. I’d went for a drunken wander to sample the different music the club had to offer, couldn’t find anyone I’d come with, and ending up drinking my pint at the edge of the main dancefloor. Phill’s girlfriend comes wandering past in much the same boat, a decent song comes on, and the pair of us wander onto the dancefloor. Two or three songs later we come back off again and find Phill standing not ten feet from where we’d been with a couple of other people from our group. He’d worked himself up into a state thinking that his lady had been lost/stolen/went home in a huff. I got treated like a valiant knight. Go me. Not a very interesting story, but it’d been nagging me, I couldn’t join all the dots up. Aside from that it was the usual thrills, spills and the odd spot of drunken violence I’m never quick enough to witness or be a part of.

It was then that I found out that 28F had phoned Marsha crying, telling her that she thinks she’s gay, is only into girls and doesn’t like guys anymore. None of which is very surprising, she’s fairly open about being bi. I thought when I was out walking the dogs with her that there was something else on her mind that she wasn’t saying, guess that was it. And I can understand why she didn’t tell me, I can’t do the “oh dear that’s such a shame” kind of consoling or counsel. If she had told me I’d have no doubt said “Who gives a fuck? You’ve shagged plenty of girls, now you’re telling everyone you’re not having cock for the foreseeable future. Congratulations, you’ve turned into a middle-aged divorcee.” Which is harsh, but I don’t mean it to be. I’ve gotten into the habit of ridiculing the problem, showing that it’s meaningless and isn’t worth giving two fucks about. Some people appreciate it, some people think it’s them I’m getting at or just want a shoulder to cry on. Of course when I’d said all that I probably wouldn’t have taken the time to think and realise that it was more than just an internal struggle, she’d have to come out to her family and other friends as well. It’s a shit state of affairs to be in, when something private that harms no-one can cast such a shadow over every other aspect of your life as well. I’ve never doubted my sexuality, so I really don’t know what it is she’s going through. Course, I’ll need to make sure that if she decides to take a dick on one last test drive, that it’s my turn… [/pig man]

Something far worse happened later on tonight though, and more importantly, it happened to me! I’d told Marsha I was looking for an emergency vagoo to commemorate the upcoming anniversary of the split and were there any girls she knew who were free. She rattled off a few names, one of which was nicknamed “The Bear,” which I had to turn down there and then, another couple of names I forgot by the time I’d gotten home, but there was still one that was firmly in my head. As is custom I immediately jumped on Facebook to see what she was like. She was beautiful, absolutely fucking stunning. Naturally tanned skin, light blue eyes, a gorgeous wide smile, awesome full lips… she had this air of complete chilled-outness to her and not one picture looked posed, it was like every time she laughed someone had to capture the moment on film… there had to be something seriously wrong with her. I looked, and at first I couldn’t find anything. She works, comes from an alright place, is into stuff that I am, seemed really fun. I wish I had just stopped there, admired some nice pictures and arranged to meet on Saturday. But I didn’t, I kept on digging and I wish to fuck I hadn’t. I noticed a few pictures of her with a girl, the best friend of a distant ex. Alright, it could be worse, maybe that girl isn’t friends with my ex, it was a long time ago after all. But no, I kept on clicking, and there I found it, a picture of this beautiful girl and my ex, arm in arm, bestos. She’d even been tagged in it. If it was any other schooltime girlfriend I wouldn’t have cared, but this was the first proper one, I’d went with her for over a year and when we split it was far, faaaar from amicable. This goddess was unreachable, too far within the Auld Enemy’s camp. I could’ve fucking cried man.

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Rabbit cocks, rendezvous, and absent zombies.

So the interview was yesterday, and it went alright I think. Got there just before the shop opened, there were three other people already waiting: one other guy who seemed a bit quiet, a girl who seemed a bit prim and proper, and one woman who I hope actually knew the people who worked there, because she never shut up. We were split up and had different people showing different parts of the shop, first was the tills. I’d never used them before but they seemed easy enough to pick up, I’ll have to work on my hellos though. They’d made a big point about the till monkey being the first and last thing you see in the shop so you had to make sure you made a good impression on the customer. At first I tried a breezy, almost campy “Hello!” that felt like a lime green g-string cutting into my bollocks, so for the next customer I a normal “Mornin’.” They seemed to change their mind for what I’m sure was an entirely unrelated reason and promptly turned heel and walked back out of the shop. Next was the warehouse, or shelf stacking, side of things. So mundane was this section of the business not even my tour guide couldn’t think of much to say about it. Though she was kind enough to tell me how she’d just had to serve a gypsy she used to shag, which served a nice wee ice breaker. The one-on-one interview came after that, featuring the kind of idiotic questions that I can’t imagine ever give an accurate reflection of what a candidate is actually like as a person. All the same, I fed them the usual shit that’s gotten me work in the past: I worked as part of a team when I captained the rugby squad for a few years, my friends would say I’m reliable and punctual, of course I love answering questions, yadda yadda. That part went alright, the interviewer was friendly, we both liked to read and I guess it doesn’t hurt to have something in common with the people who decide whether or not you get off the dole.

Last up was working with the animals themselves. The girl showing me was around a foot shorter and surprisingly cute until I noticed The Thing. Everyone has it, there’s that certain part of them that stands out, like a freckle or the way their ears are, or they bear a resemblance to someone you know or who is on the telly so that afterwards each and every time you see them from a certain angle or have they a certain look on their face, it always reminds you of it. So what ruined this otherwise quite pretty girl? She gave a wee coy smile and I caught a glimpse of Limmy:

RUINED!

I could barely look her in the eye from then on. It was as if he was chopped at the knees and had undergone a few months of hormone treatment, I was horrified. But she was nice, and took great pleasure in showing me how to tell the sex of any small furry creature she could get her hands on. Hamster vagina, phwoar! I was shown mostly stuff I’d picked up while at the kennels, cleaning, caring, all the usual shit. We were all brought back together to be told that we’d hear if we got the job in a week or two. There’s supposed to be another couple of groups to come in in the meantime, so I’m guessing that maybe four or five jobs with roughly twelve candidates to choose from. Better odds than a lot of places. Tits McGee was nowhere to be seen, fingers crossed we both get the job.

When I got home I got a phone call from a girl I went to college with, who I shall call Hans despite it being a guy’s name, because she’s German and it’s short. Thinking of it now she makes up a kind of trinity of the people I spent most time with when I was there. 28F was like the Id, who had a habit of making me go “fuck it” and fall for whatever impulses were around at the time. Marsha would probably be the Ego, who broached the middle ground, indulging baser instincts but in a less self-destructive way. So Hans would be the Super-ego, which is a retarded fucking name, but she’s the one who encourages me to be on the straight and narrow, study, do well, and thinks I should be a writer. According to the wikipedia page on the matter (which I checked in the hope that my lack of Psychology knowledge wasn’t too obvious) the “super-ego works in contradiction to the id.” Hey, that’s foreshadowing! Maybe there’s something to that whole being a writer idea…

Anyway, after the exams Hans disappeared off the map, didn’t answer anyone’s calls, didn’t reply to any messages on the internet. Bunch of ideas got thrown around: she’d decided to just close one chapter of her life and move on, her teacher boyfriend didn’t approve of us, she was in a state over the exams, she plain didn’t like us… Loads of stuff. Marsha made more of a fuss over it than anyone else, got quite hurt at being snubbed. I was slightly too, but in all honesty I thought that I’d end up not seeing anyone either, and most of us have drifted apart anyway. So no-one had seen her for months, but she messaged a few times. Like a bitter ex, it’d only be when she was drunk, but she seemed happy enough and I just let her get on with it. On Wednesday night she’d messaged again asking if I could come in with her to an interview for uni the next day, obviously couldn’t because of my own interview, but I wished her luck and figured it’d be another few weeks before I heard from her again.

So she phoned, asked if I wanted to come into Glasgow, where she was with another girl from college, Missy (as in Elliot, she loves her rap music). Figured it was time for a catch up and I’d nothing better to do, so I got the train in. George Square in the center of town has been turned into a mini Philadelphia for the filming of World War Z. This has caused an outbreak of yokelism as papers and people make a big deal of Brad Pitt being in town and a few American cars parked on the street. It’s embarrassing really. We met up there, picked up exactly where we’d left off, no awkwardness or bad blood between us. Hans said after the exams were done she’d gotten depressed about it all and spent a month inside, then the rest of the time travelling and going back to Germany for a bit. Getting worked up to the point of acting like a hermit sounded like her, so I accepted it, told her she was a daft bitch, and we forgot about it. We went to a pub, had a few pints and shot the shit. Turns out that neither Hans nor Missy are, nor ever were, particularly fond of 28F. I had an inkling, but didn’t think it was that bad. My annoyance at her feeding my dog hash cakes has grown rapidly larger over time, and if I wasn’t still drunk and partly high myself the next morning I would have most likely told her to fuck off out of my sight. Having her laugh after my dog managed to make it out of bed and be sick in the back garden pisses me off more each day. I knew that dope wasn’t going to hurt her, just make her thirsty and tired, but it shows a lack of common fucking sense for 28F to have done it in the first place. Rant adjourned. Hans felt bad about not replying to any of Marsha’s messages, I told her that the pair of them could pussy-foot around it and end up not seeing each other again, or just meet up, which Marsha would be happy to do. A few more jars later and we got the train home together. Got dropped off by Hans’ boyfriend on the way to take Missy home. He’s a nice enough guy, but I’ve yet to see him not talk like he was a teacher, though it is funny for one of the first questions I hear him ask people is “what school did you go to?” even if they’d left years ago. Not sure what to make of him, don’t think he’s too fond of me, but I see him little enough that making sure he’s won over isn’t high on my list of priorities. I’ll get the cunt drunk one night and see what he’s really like.

This run is really looming into view now too. My default reaction to somebody saying “you can’t do that” is for me to go “wanna fuckin’ bet?” and then doing it just to prove a point. I’m liable to have a heart attack doing this thing. But I’m committed, and it’s better to just fucking get on with something and make a memory than do nothing and watch one day bleed into the next.

 

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Results, and old self-cockblocks.

And the results are in! Expectations weren’t high, especially after the night before when a few people got their results in early after signing up to email and text notifications and a couple of folk who I thought would get good grades didn’t. Three that I know of so far failed all four subjects outright, including Marsha, which part of me is convinced is down to some computer error. We were neck and neck most times in regards to marks on any tests, and she was far ahead of me in the prelims, and revised more in a day than I did in a month. I thought that if she’d failed, when I opened up my letter it’d have been four straight “no awards.” But it wasn’t! I actually did far better than I thought I would:

• B for English. Despite my second essay being terrible and so lacking in sleep that I couldn’t focus in the exam and actually forgot the name of the poet I was writing about. Had to ask someone after the exam had finished who it was so I could quickly put the name in before the invigilator collected the papers. An upgrade from a C that I got in school.
• B for Modern Studies. Really surprised at this one, as knowledge-wise I was one of the best in the class, knowing a lot background shite that for once served a purpose, but structuring the essays and reports I always seemed to be struggling. Perhaps the tutor marked me more harshly during the year, maybe I just pulled it out of the bag. Biggest surprise either way, as I honestly thought I had fucked it, being just as tired as during the English exam.
• C for Business Management. Slightly disappointed in this one to be honest, I thought it was one of my strongest subjects, and as it was an afternoon exam instead of in the morning I managed to get a good night’s sleep beforehand. Left the exam feeling quite confident as well. Mostly likely I lost marks by giving a list of the right stuff, but not explaining it properly. Endurance subjects are a cunt.
• Biology was a no award. I wasn’t surprised by it, and to be honest if I had even gotten a D I would’ve been shocked. I never found it hard, it just bored me to tears, and I didn’t do enough revision. My own fault, fuck it.

So it wasn’t the three As and a B Thickness got at the same time, but it’s two more highers than I had last week. Now I need to figure out what in fuck’s good name I want to do with them, or indeed what I can do with them. And there’s still that nagging sensation that I know for a fact that I could’ve done better, could’ve worked harder. Then I remember that my best marks came from the times I was sleep deprived and carrying a hashover, so maybe things are as they’re meant to be, fuck knows. The grades aren’t bad, but they aren’t brilliant either, and I’m tempted to go back and try to upgrade them, make it easier to get into Glasgow or Strathclyde uni. So I’ve got a few more avenues open, but can’t decide what I want to do. Same old story. At least I don’t have to make excuse of why I spent nine months and got nothing out of it.

Was woken by an unexpected phone call from 28F of all people (who I now realise I haven’t mentioned before, but I’ll leave that until the end) asking how I’d gotten on. The postman hadn’t been yet (In Scotland, I’ve yet to see post get delivered as you have your breakfast, like in every film ever. And postage classes are When It Gets There and Good Fucking Luck Bud) and I was still asleep. We had a short chat, her avoiding the word boyfriend like it could give you cancer when she said what she had been up to the night before, and me sleepily hearing what she was saying through three feet of muffling sleep. I told her goodbye, realising later that I’m not sure if she heard me say it, the phone being most of the way to the bedside table at the time. That opened the floodgates, and reaffirmed my determination never to work in a call centre or be anyone’s secretary. Was nice to be able to say a little bit of good news for once, and though it’s naughty of me to admit it wasn’t totally bad that I did better than some people either. My mum had a day off from finding everything I did negative as well, a well deserved break.

Got a call from the Jobcentre today about an opening at a new branch of Pets At Home that was opening near where I stayed, from the sounds of it they need a fair few staff and soon. The number of hours isn’t great, but it’ll double what I get just now on the dole (I’m trying not to think of the fucking tax) and it’s easier to get a job when you’ve got a job. And as it’s only sixteen hours a week, that could work out at either four “after-school” shifts or two full ones at the weekend. Either way with a little bit of luck I could maybe go to college during the day. Hopefully having worked with animals before gets me a foot in the door. Though I pray that they don’t bother to phone up that particular reference, and 1) I didn’t tell her that I was using her as a reference. and 2) I’m almost certain she couldn’t wait to see the back of me. Decentish exam results and the chance of a job all in the space of 48 hours? All I need is to bang a wee dirty tomorrow and I’ve gained myself a Triforce.

28F’s story after the jump.

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A Tale of Two Ladies

I’m at a bit of a loss where to start with this one. Would you like a happy ending or a sad one? Let’s have a happy(er) one, as that means I don’t need to fuck with the chronological order of things, I’m too tired right now to pretend I’m Tarantino. It’s the Ex first. It’s a biggie, so there’s a wee fancy jump button, go click it.

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The paint dries.

I need some sort of structure in my life, because right now I have absolutely none at all. The family spent a couple of weeks on holiday not long ago, and I really enjoyed it. Partly because it was my holiday too, peace and quiet is hard to find when living with four other people, but a sizeable chunk of it was because I had to look after myself, and had the responsibility of caring for the dog. I don’t want to build it up into something larger than it is, it was just living alone for a fortnight, but it felt good. They came back on Friday and I slipped back into doing fuck all. Woke up after three o’clock in the afternoon today. Didn’t mean to, just that I subconsciously knew that there was no shit needing doing so I slapped the alarm clock off when it started ringing and carried on sleeping. A waste of an entire day. Lying in until the afternoon means that I’ll stay up later, flipping myself back onto nocturnal living, which I’ve been trying to avoid, as it’s harder to find anything to do other than sit on my arse for five hours in the middle of the night watching downloaded TV shows. Still, less than a week since I slipped back into bad habits, easily rectified. I’ll get up earlier tomorrow, take the dog out for a long walk in the woods, and spend the afternoon firing off lovely personalised CVs to all and sundry in the hopes of gaining employment.

As I’ve mentioned them, I’ll take a note of the immediate family: Mum is Mum, Dad is Dad, and I have two little brothers a few years younger than me (I’m the eldest) called Thickness and Goggles. Thickness is the middle brother, a bit chubby, a little bit shy and awkward in social situations. I worry that his brotherly beatings by me when he was younger has made him that way. He’s coming out of his shell a bit more as time goes on, one day he’ll have his “fuck it” epiphany and be fine. Goggles, so-called because he wears glasses when he isn’t around the “ladies”, is the youngest and a bit of an indie/emo kid. The opposite of Thickness, he’s a skinny wee runt who for years lived on a staple diet of plain pasta and Haribo. He’s outgoing, spends more time out of the house than in it, and probably goes to more adventurous lengths to fund his gigs-n-drink lifestyle than I’m currently aware of. They’re five and six years younger than me, respectively, so we’ve never really been that close growing up as I had so much of a head start. While they were still thinking of Pokemon, I was worrying about booze and getting my hole. Now that they’re a bit older the difference isn’t as big, and we can do more stuff together now. So that’s the immediate family, no real drama with any of them, a fairly normal household, not much more that can be said about them. There’s the dog too, who’s just the dog.

It’s far too easy to sit down and mean to check a couple of sites then end up spending a few hours sat in front of a computer screen doing absolutely nothing productive. It’s like the world’s shittest time machine that only goes one way. At the end of August I have a six mile assault course to do, my dad put me onto it and in a brief moment of “why the hell not” I signed up for it. Doing it will be good for me, but having something like that on the horizon is also very good at making a week fly by without even noticing. The race itself is in Glasgow, alongside (and partially in) the Clyde, so bound to be tough. I want to push myself as hard as I can, and as I’m not working right now, there’s no reason why I can’t do it for a couple of hours each day. The actual doing it part is fun, the making myself start part is the main obstacle. And what to do for the rest of the day? It’s nearly 10pm here, the sun is setting. and my plans to go over to Marsha’s flat fell apart when she texted saying she’d locked out her bank card and so couldn’t put money in her electricity meter, meaning we’d have been sitting in the dark. We met at college and have grown close, though for once I can safely say it’s entirely platonic. My next entry will probably be about how we met, which will no doubt encompass the epic tale of The Ex as well, as the end of one relationship overlapped with the beginning of the other, though not in any romantic way. For now, I’ll make do with trying to write for the first time in more than a week, which for some reason I haven’t been able to bring myself to do, and maybe watch six or fourteen episodes of Supernatural…

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