Monthly Archives: May 2004

George Benson‘s “Give Me The Night” is just so damn fine. So lush and multilayered- That Quincy Jones goodness as heard on “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”. The perfect underwear parade soundtrack. The music is meant to facilitate room-based moving of a booty shaking flavour in a more subtle way than the lap dance list. Strip to the appropriate amount of clothing (ideally pants and bra/vest as these can be used for artistic effect; Stetson optional), clear a space, turn the music up to eleven and just move. There is some music that just rubs up against your insides and you have to dance or you feel like you’ll explode. Yeah, I know, I haven’t had a sexual playmate in a long time.

Independent observers can attest that I can dance but I am too shy to dance sober. Once alcohol has been consumed much Pulp Fiction-esque twisting and eye shading will commence along with that old favourite the sexay robot. Moving to music in my room just fills me with such joy. Put on some lipstick, Stetson and shorty shorts and just jump, twist, writhe, sashay, you name it I do it. Usually half way through this session I think I am an idiot, then I think I look rather good. I really want a pair of pasties for this purpose, I should make some. Hmmm, number 28 on the list of things to do.

Cyd Charisse.net

“Filming of the Cyd Charisse dance number had to be stopped for several hours after it was discovered that her pubic hair was visible through her costume. When they finally fixed the problem the director said, ‘It’s ok guy’s, we’ve finally got Cyd’s crotch licked.'”

Not Safe For Work (you shouldn’t be browsing this site)

How to masturbate in Japanese: Onanie

I love the illustrations. No penile tissue on show and all the more evocative (i.e. funny). You can get an idea of the content from this Japanese dictionary– just copy and paste the URL

Find other names to sully here: Barren’s GPK Reference Guide

“Of course, giving my brother, who I would guess was around 23 at the time, a Boglin while I was in clear view was ultimately a huge mistake. In my house, it sort of worked the way it worked in other houses when food fell on the floor. Floor food is claimed by the dog, all toys are claimed by me. I don’t remember if I threw a tantrum or whatever, but I do know that eventually I ended up with the Boglin.

If you’re curious to see why I’d go through all that trouble to steal one of my graduating brother’s gifts, I invite you to take a look at the magnitute of this hand puppet. Then you’ll see, it had to be mine:

Look at those things! Mysterious monsters, not only in a window box, but in a prison window box? Dangling this thing in front of my face was like drinking bourbon in front of a recovering alcoholic. I can’t be blamed for my sinister actions.” Matt Caracappa, UGO.com

Boglins. I used to play with them in Toys R Us when my Dad would take my bro to look at model cars. They were kinda gross, but as mentioned above the box was very cool: take away the bars and you have nothing but the deformed inside of a football that’s been savaged by a German Shepherd. There were Mini Boglins too but they sucked. You can see all of them obsessively described on The Mini Boglins Collector’s Archive. I thought the big Boglins were a bit unnerving, so the Baby Boglins and the Boglins about the size of a grapefruit were the best. Ew and the hairy ones were just plain freaky. The Baby Boglins used to remind me of that lil pocket dwelling creature from Flight of The Navigator (the one with the hooky arms and tail who stays with David). If only I could remember it’s name. Darn. This was the era of my Flower Fairies lunchbox with matching flask and being made to feel sick by the Garbage Pail Kids stickers on the boy opposite’s lunchbox. I’m gagging even now.

 
 

GPK Central (with card images)
Wayne’s GPK References
Barren’s GPK Reference Guide
The Garbage Pail Kids Archive (with card images)
John Pound (GPK Artist)

Great 1980’s Movies: 80’s Movies Rewind (BMX Bandits, Willow anyone?)

The Boglins Den (Fantastic box pictures)

Oooooooo: Toydreams.co.uk have a fantastic selection of Boglins, as well as SW, Thundercats, M.A.S.K., Masters of The Universe and much more. Oh, to have disposable income…

Crayons have a nice smell

I was wandering through a toy shop in Houston when I spied a wall of Crayola crayon sets. All the golden yellow boxes with the lovely colours illustrated were very enticing, and I bought a flip-top box of 64 (with built-in sharpener).

I used to have a Crayola writing desk. It was yellow moulded plastic with slanted board to lean on that could be flipped to become green blackboard. It was great. I used to store lots of paper inside it and there were built in wells for a box of chalk, board rubber and crayons. I was bought some Rose Art crayons but they were simply not the same. Even at a young age I could see that they were but a pale imitation of the glorious Crayolas, i.e. I was brand aware at 8.

I was very pleased with my Texan crayons but I did not really draw with them very much. I just liked taking them out and reading the names on their wrappers and comparing the colours. There are many colours I particularly like but I have no favourite. Purple Heart is very pretty along with Periwinkle and Midnight (Prussian) Blue. One of my favourite things to do in life is to arrange a mixed up selection of crayons, pastels, pencils, paints etc into colour graduated order. Starting with white, then yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green, ochre, brown through to black. The names of current crayons bother me. They got rid of simple names like lemon yellow, green blue or raw umber because they thought kids would find them boring. Boring? Replacing them with things like Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown, Macaroni and Cheese or Jungle Green is not going to make any difference. You rummage through the box or ice cream tub you have them in to find the right colour for what you need, you don’t read the label then decide. Sure, the names can be educational or representational but Fuzzy Wuzzy? Eugh.

“Crayola crayons take us all back with their fondly remembered look, scent and feel on paper.” Excellent article from Smithsonian Magazine: The Colors of Childhood

The Lost Crayolas

Favourite crayons? If you were a crayon colour, which would it be?

I still remember when at the age of 5 I coloured in two pairs of shoes to show I understood the concept of sets and halves. I coloured one set blue, the other red. They were big, stumpy crayons, easy to grip. Except I got a bit carried away. I was colouring merrily away when I went outside the lines. Uh oh. I tried to correct my mistake by going slowly but it just got worse. I hid my maths workbook behind my fringed, embossed pencil case (courtesy of Gran Canaria) and sank down in my wooden seat in shame. At the end of the lesson I had to show my teacher what I had done so she could mark it. I knew I was in big trouble and I was not wrong. The teacher actually spoke to my parents about my work. It was awful. I was trying so hard, and it’s not like I did messy scribbling on a regular basis so I have come to remember my treatment as rather harsh. My Dad drew things for me in pencil on squared paper and showed me that first I had to shade around the inside edge of the shape then fill in the middle. The trauma is still with me. I should thank that teacher for turning me into such a wildly sucessful artist.

Suzanne’s Crayons

Crayola also produce Silly Putty. This was to be seen bouncing off walls, windows and heads during my Primary school years. I followed the instructions on the packaging and produced copies of comics from newsprint and did the thing where you trapped a pocket of air inside it and squidged it in your hand. It made excellent popping and farting noises and Silly Putty was hence very popular amongst my classmates. It also provided a precursor to the deviant life I would eventually live.

From the ages of about 5 to 12 I was very into Barbie. I did not have many but around the age of 10-12 I used to enjoy hosting soirees with Barbie, Princess Laura (AKA Jewel Secrets Whitney), Skipper and Action Man. In an orgy. Skipper was not really invited to these events, being underage and all. My favourite thing to do was hide in my room behind my wardrobe door and set up various scenarios for my toys to get some lurve. One Barbie was quite the trend setter with a pink fringe (courtesy of Inscribe felt tips) and Princess Laura had a cool tiara that could be used as a belt. Their waists were that small. Anyway, Action Man would be decked out in BDU or a flight suit and I would make the girls slowly unzip him and slide his clothes off. Then it would get really crazy. I would not really do much action involving Action Man but I would use my “flesh-coloured” Silly Putty to give the Princess a rather disturbing strap on. Then she and the Barbie(s) would get down to it, whilst Action Man watched or joined in. A strange child grew into a strange adult aka monky.

These are amusing, scarily expensive and disturbing all at the same time:

Barbie Collector (“Modern Circle… This cutting edge collection features Barbie as an independent film producer with a flair for fashion and a crush on Ken, a brooding artist with super stylin’ colored hair streaks and a “thing” for Melody, the bright blue haired sweetheart, and then there’s Simone, an exotic makeup artist who’s always dressed to impress!”)
If You Were A Barbie, Which Messed Up Version Would You Be?
Barbie Bazaar
Susan’s Dolls
Margie’s Dollhouse (Mulder and Scully Dolls)
Old Joe Infirmary (GI Joe and cool medical dolls)
Band of Brothers Action Figures: Wishbook Toys

Thinking about my future at the moment. It’s that time of year. Of the grandiose things i’d like to accomplish:

1. Produce spawn of some description and equip it for life as best I can. Make sure it’s eyes are open to the world and that it knows it is loved.

2. Open a shop called “Cop Shop” which will be a late night establishment selling doughnuts and coffee. Maybe a few select pastries and muffins but mostly doughnuts. Open ’til 2am, unfussy decor (wooden floors, music or films on a tv, few tables etc), no attitude.

3. Open a sex shop that will cater to all. Not like Sh with it’s no solo men policy but like the glorious Toys In Babeland, open to metrosexuals everywhere. No Ann Summers crap either. Toys taken out of their nasty boxes and placed out for the clientele to cop a feel. As the sign next to the harnesses in the Babeland NY store said “You can try them on, but not in.” No idea as to the name of the establishment.

“The pop of fucking” Babes n Horny: Babe Rainbow (Riley pictured above)

The first item is more likely to happen than the other two. Wonders of modern technology etc, but the sex shop thing I am quite passionate about. I am very knowledgeable about the products and market but my financial abilities are probably quite bad. Bottom of the bottom maths group and all. The licensing laws are really draconian and around £5000 is required just to apply for a license. I’d like to open my sex shop and Cop Shop in my hometown to bring a little oral pleasure to the locals, but sadly I think they will be but two in a long list of my unfullfilled fantasies.

I think the hat looks good on you Owen

Hmmm. No more upgrading for me. MT has gone pay in a horrible covert op. I’ve enjoyed using MT this last month or so but I think the licences are a little fubar. The cheapskate that I am I will peruse the blog tools that are still free and still a “Personal Publishing System.” I like the look of WordPress but I will probably just stick with MT and not upgrade anymore.

I read with delight the wrath that is being directed towards the creators of MT Six Apart. A lot of people seem to be shipping out to greener pastures.

From the MT News page:

“The next version of Movable Type will be version 3.0, a significant and free upgrade.”

“Movable Type 3.0 will be a free download and upgrade.”

I am going to monitor the situation and see what unfolds. It seems to change from day to day, and i’m not sure if Six Apart know what is going on.

Great site with some excellent discussions as to the real meaning behind cinema. Metaphilm has a critique of Kill Bill Volume 2 that is called “Mommy kills Daddy: Tarantino finishes his therapy session by showing Uma what it means to be a natural woman. And, this time, it’s a Western!”

The author is the editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer

Basically it comes down to Uma doesn’t need her phallic symbol of male power (her Hanzo sword) to kick arse. She can do it just as well being more feminine and using her own body thus freeing her from male control, being able to wear a skirt and getting her daughter away from the corrupting influences of Bill. Basically.

In a similar vein, The Late Story this week on Radio Four: “Women on Men. Five stories by women that take a short, hard look at men.” A Naked Eye by Sarah Duncan is well worth a listen.

“The crickets and the rust-beetles scuttled among the nettles of the sage thicket. “Vamanos, amigos,” he whispered, and threw the busted leather flintcraw over the loose weave of the saddlecock. And they rode on in the friscalating dusklight.”

I love friscalating. It’s a very interesting-sounding word. Existant only in the world of Wes Anderson and those who appreciate his films. His partner in crime Owen Wilson explained how the word came to be:

“Friscalating,” Owen whispers to me. “Wes made up that word. It’s what you see on the horizon at sunset with the light kind of shimmering.” Only after they’d written the scene, Owen admits, “did we try to figure out, Well, how can we get that in?” Los Angeles Magazine, Dec 2001.

The meaning behind it seems to fit so perfectly.

Courtesy of Jackman’s Landing

Oh Lordy. I went to see Van Helsing this evening. I had a great time. In my non-existant list of great comic films it is nowhere for the length of laughs produced. Not up there with say Ace Ventura: Pet Detective or Manhattan but for the sheer number of laughs it must be right near the top. With Singin’ in the Rain. The minor problem was that most laughs were very unintentional.

Now, I really enjoyed The Mummy but The Mummy Returns was very very bad. I love Brendan running about doing his Indy Lite routine but the man is not a miracle worker. Van Helsing is just as bad but somehow I really enjoyed laughing at all the unintentional bad lines, bad cgi and bad continuity. I am no continuity queen nor usually am I one of those pathetic geeks that pick holes in every pixel, polygon or wireframe. If the story and acting is good enough it does not matter. Or, as in the case of the Hulk you have eye candy running around in various states of undress, I am prepared to overlook such small transgressions as a non-existant plot or bad acting. The first ten minutes of VH are very good. Schlocky, black and white goodness ahoy.

The rest of the film not so good. The “actors” in Van Helsing did not seem to know what to do. Some behaved splendidly, all camp and overacting, others seemed to struggle with their “motivation.” I liked Dracula (Richard Roxburgh) in his shiny riding boots, frock coat and long dark hair (Oldman Lite) but the love interest (Kate Beckinsale) just pissed me off. And not just because she got a bit of quick lip-lockage with Van Helsing. Tottering about in corset and heels is not the same as being bedecked in sandals and crop top in a sai fight against a defiled Priest’s lovah. Anna is no Evie. Evie could be ditzy yes, but at the same time clever and strong, or at least she was before Imhotep Returned. Oh, and her bloody continuity killing hair. Carl the monk (David Wenham) with the monk-y hair started off badly but gained the John Hannah comedy sidekick with brains thing as the film progressed. Faramir looked disturbingly small in comparison to the statuesque Gabriel Van H, proving once again the urban legend that the men of LotR look terrible outside of Middle Earth. Dracula was not really very threatening nor creepy but he did what was needed playing it more or less straight as the bad guy. The Brides sighed and simpered efficiently with all the heaving bosoms expected of their roles but Mr Sommers, just because you did the jaw lengthening thing in The Mummy does not mean it is particularly clever to roll it out again. I just wanted good old fangs thanks. No cgi crap. And where was the blood? You’ve got to have some claret adorning the lips of the vamps for that “look at me, my mouth is oozing bodily fluids, aren’t I erotik” look. We got a drop on Beckinsale (is she ever going to make a good movie? do I really care?) but that’s about the size of it.

The music was bizarre. Lurching from rehashed Mummy score to twangy East European kitsch.

Oh and the accents… Where oh where was Hugh supposed to hail from? Cork via Sydney via Boston? Anyone? Drac’s one was as expected and okay, the Brides were as expected but once again, wooden old Beckinsale brings up the rear. Will Kemp you need to work on your emotional range- blank to uncomfortable is not all encompassing. The best person in this was Frankenstein’s Monster, Shuler Hensley. I felt sorrow for the Sharp Featured Man. Even through the tonne of makeup and prostheses I thought he was the most beliveable character. Not that a fantasy/comedy/disaster has to be believeable but his performance seemed to sit just right. He also slipped in a few choice camp moments. Whenever I saw his green heart in a globe I automatically thought he had a Persil Liquigel capsule stuck on him. The costume was good in a monstery way but the cgi green electricity buzzing out his head was just distracting. Shuler Hensley played the wonderfully creepy Jud Fry (he’s just misunderstood) in the National Theatre version of Oklahoma! starring Hugh Jackman and Maureen Lipman. Well worth a rental if you’re into your musicals or Jackman. Who the hell isn’t?

On that subject- Darn it, I wanted more Wolverine-esque topless running about. Towards the end of VH he strips off for action and he is just fiine. It just amazes me how, er, broad he is. In muscle like. All wet and ready to battle the Count mwah mwah mwah. That end face off between Drac and Gabe just sucked. I want Roxburgh vs Jackman, not flappy unfollowable mess vs furry scrabbly thing.

The end had me thinking “He’s not dead. He’s not dead. No. No. He’s not dead. Noooo!” back when Carl was looking a little more dirty and photogenic. And the final scene- WTF? Ponderings on mortality and the afterlife are not supposed to exist in this movie. And God help us all if there’s a sequel, but at least we’ll get some entertainment out of it at the expense of our cultural souls.

Apologies for that excursion into fantasyland. Sorry Owen. Don’t know what is up with me recently. Me being me I guess.

That dream made me grin from ear to ear all day so I felt I needed to record such a happy false memory. Wish fullfillment is good occasionally. Yeah, escapism. To have a relationship like me and Owen had together (where I was loved, complimented, made to laugh, kissed lots, kept interested, and had a nice car) would obviously be just fiiine. Here’s a picture of the lucky man who got to have me:

Courtesy of World of Owen

Owen pushed me up against the wall and into the clematis that crawled up the side of the garage. His head and skin were surrounded by a halo as the security light caught his blonde hair and the silken seed heads as they showered around us. I grinned behind each oral attack as he moved one hand down my torso, pushed up my T-shirt and rested it on the skin of my stomach just above my combats button. No, that is not a euphemism. I pulled his body up against mine, trampling the flowers around the base of the climber, and bit gently on his lower lip as he slid his hand around my waist and up under my shirt towards my bra strap. I was living the school girl life I never led. I felt dirty and it was wonderful.

The security light flicked off as we slipped further into the plants and beyond its angle of attack. No discussion, query, complaint. We just kissed. To be honest, eating face is probably a better description of what we were getting down to. In the gloom I could see moonlit tiger stripes falling across his shoulders, the pale sliver of his smile and the dark slash of his mouth. The warmth from his body carried the scent of salty ocean air and a bitterness that made me want to dive headlong into him. Yes, just plain wrong. He pulled back and brushed some tendrils off my face with a heavy sigh.

“Darlin’, I have to go.”
I stuck my lower lip out and pouted. “Oh, come on, just a little longer…” I pleaded, pulling him by the belt back into our bower. His protestations became muffled as we kissed. I ran my hand through his fuzz, across his stomach and up under his shirt, brushing nipple before he popped my bra strap and pulled away laughing.
“You fuck!” I muttered as I rearranged myself. He put his arms around me and did me up, gave me a kiss and then moved back onto the path, setting off the security light as he did so. I pulled my top back into it’s society-accepted position and stepped out into the light.
“God, I’m covered” I said as I picked the seed heads off my clothes and brushed them out my hair.

“How do I look?” I gave a quick twirl.
“You look just gorgeous, Sweetheart.” I grinned. He stepped over and picked an errant leaf out of the back of my hair and pulled up a drooping bra strap.

“You want to go into town tomorrow evening? For a drink(s) and some food?”
“I’m busy tomorrow. Going to see The Fog of War down at the Waterfront with Luke.”
“Darn. I’d have liked to have seen that.” I folded the sticking-up label back inside his t shirt.

“Saturday? You can come over mine, I’ll cook and we can get drunk and fool around.” Bad behaviour was implicit with an intense look and a sly grin.
“Sure. Sounds delightful.”
I picked up my coat from the ground and shook out the dirt it had collected on our excursion into the clematis.

“I’ll bring a bottle of bad wine and a some lube shall I?”
Owen smiled as he swung into the seat of his car.
“You do that.”
He started it up. God I am such a sucker for bucket seats. He reversed out of the driveway, flicked the lights on and pulled away.
“See you Saturday” he shouted as he turned out onto the main road.

I watched the tail lights fade as he whipped away down the road then turned back to the house on decidedly unsteady legs. I went in, closed the door with my foot and collapsed dumbly into a seat in the kitchen. My Mum was making a cake. Flour covered her blue and white striped apron and the work surfaces.

“You have a nice evening?”
“Yeah. It was… good.”
“Where did you go?”
“Oh, just around and about. We went out in the country. He has a really nice car.”
“I think your brother was talking to him about it the other day”
“Not surprised. It’s just the sort of car he’d drool over. I bet he’d love to take a ride in it.”
“He did, earlier on. When you were in the bath.” She rubbed butter into the flour and sugar mix. I levered each shoe off and picked at a wisp of clematis on the hem of my t shirt.
“I’m going out again on Saturday. Few drinks at his house.”
“Oh, that will be nice.” Mum added a capful of vanilla essence and mixed it in with a wooden spoon.

“What’re you making?”
“That one you gave me the recipe to last week.”
I smiled absentmindedly and looked out the kitchen window.

“You seem to be getting on well with Owen. Everything going all right? You should invite him in for tea sometime.”

My phone began buzzing in my pocket. Ooh, vicarious thrills. I stood up and walked out into the garden to talk.

“Hey Cowboy.” The sound of wind whipping past objects filled my ear.

“I just wanted to tell you that you are an evil minx and that you’d better bring an extra large economy sized bottle of lube with you on Saturday.”

I managed to get out an “Okay” before he ended the call and I collapsed onto the grass. I was laughing so much it was painful to breathe.

I heard my Dad yell angrily from somewhere inside the house “That Owen is bad news!”

I awoke grinning and out of breath

Now I could see that Owen was actually looking at me, taking in my face, legs and bag in a neat inventory of my personal “assets” (if you could call them that). I looked over at him. His arms were folded across his chest. He nodded at me and offered a “Hey.” I turned redder with a “Hi” in reply and went back to my screen.

“You okay?” he asked.
“Yup”
“Good, good.” He paused and leaned further back in his chair. “What you up to? Aside from typing, obviously”
“Oh, I’m busy fucking up an essay that has to be in by Friday”
“Going well then?”
“Suprisingly no” I laughed.
“Well, it sounds like it is going well, in that you’re fucking it up”
“Yeah, I’m good at fucking stuff up. Fucked up, that’d be me”

He smiled and picked at a non-existent loose thread at the bottom of his shirt. I could see sandy fuzz above his waistband and immediately I slapped a steel lock across my thoughts trying to prohibit any further internal elaboration. Of course that never works and impure thoughts flooded through me as I flicked across his features. He simply sat there coolly with a slight grin on his face. I could practically see the cogs working behind the intense look in his eyes. I coughed and shifted from side to side in my seat, adjusting my skirt and pulling myself up taller. I was buzzing. I felt so uncomfortable. All this flirting was causing my brain to have severe difficulties functioning. How very pathetic. I thought women were supposed to be able to multitask.

I queued more junk, hauled myself up and over to the printer, collected it all up and inserted myself back into the hot seat. Still he sat observing me. I picked up the paper and felt for the folder again, trying not to look at Owen and consequently losing my grasp on the stack, the sheets sliding out onto the floor. Bollocks. Trying to be cool and fucking it all up in front of the one person I did not want to look a fool to. I dumped the rest of the pile back on the desk and reached for the errant sheets, at the same time nearly colliding with Owen. I swerved in avoiding action, blurted out a flustered “Sorry” and realised Owen was using my ankle as a handhold as he picked up a sheet from underneath the desk. He narrowed his clear sky eyes as he brought up the stray sheet and placed it on the pile. At the same time running his hand in one sweeping, nerve frying movement across my skin all the way up from my ankle to my knee. Thank goodness I remembered to shave. He held onto my knee, spun me round and pulled me in.

Our chairs bumped gently together as we became enthusiastically anoxic.

Part three later.

I was on Campus the other day. A rare event indeed. I was dressed unusually in skirt and blouse as I had recently returned from a Tattoo show where I was being exhibited. Me, put on a pedestal. Ooh ee. My newly inked back and arms were quite the attraction. I managed to annoy one of the judges Harry Knowles as it had been rumoured that I had thirty new designs. I apologised for any misinformation he might have heard. He accepted this and continued to admire the Polynesian, Japanese and Art Deco designs swirling through my skin.

Anyway, I was on Campus in the library trying to finish off an essay I had to hand in. The IT pit was fairly empty of people, the noise of typing and computer fans prevalent. Boys in hoodies played Bejewelled and IM’d. They leant on laser printers and scooped up sheaves of code, chains swishing against combats as they ambled back to their workstation. It was quite warm and the small breeze trickling from the air con vents above me was a welcome source of relief. I leant back in my chair, stretched out and slipped my shoes off, slumping down to take in the lazy scene before me. I rested for a while, daydreaming of meadows and skinny dipping in warm Texan rivers; absentmindedly pushing the mouse backwards and forwards trying to smooth out a patch of rough pixels on the desktop. I switched my gaze to the small girl wearing her backpack whilst sat at her machine, studying her long rough hair gently undulating in the air con. She was covertly sucking on a coke below the partition and obviously attempting to consume a pack of prawn cocktail Walkers in as quiet and efficient way as possible; cautiously removing single crisps and placing them deep within her mouth before beginning to suck them into silent oblivion.

I glanced back to my monitor and checked my email. No messages. As usual. The number of times you check your email is surely proportionally linked to the amount of correspondence that you actually receive. I scrolled up and down the page and signed out. I heard someone coming towards my area and turned my head as Owen swung into the chair next to me. Owen. Hmmm. I’d watched him from afar as they say, being the awkward girl in the group who was always on the periphery of whatever was going on. I’d blush when he’d bump into me during the crush at the bar, inwardly cringing at my behaviour whilst he fended off the apologies I offered. He’d offer to buy me a drink and I’d smile nervously and proffer a “Thanks, I’m okay at the moment” and watch him cart away a line of tequila shots back to his table. He was polite to me but we’d never talked about politics, sexy injuries or the best brand of lube on the market. So, what was he doing sitting next to me? He wore a pale blue shirt, (obligatory wife beater) green combats that looked like they’d see a bit too much washing machine action and scuffed and dirty Adidas shell toes. Nothing either original or flashy. He did look good though, eyes narrow in concentration as he stared at the sign in box, typed and absently pushed blonde tousled hair out of his eyes. Hmmm. I don’t usually go for blondes.

I squinted intently at my screen, pretending to find Yahoo UK & Ireland extremely interesting whilst at the same time sneaking the occasional look at Owen to my right. He twisted about on his chair as he waited to log on to the University network. I continued at my essay typing sentences that made no sense and having to spell check every fourth word or so. I had that tight, adrenaline-based feeling in my stomach as I typed. I tried to ignore my right hand man and in desperation I stumbled off towards the yellow printer, stuffed my card in and turned away so I could get some breathing space. Several “What a retard/juvenile/loser you are” type-thoughts fought for dominance in my mind. I think it was a draw. Or maybe a no contest. The print run finished and I collected up my sheets, took a few calming breaths and walked back to my machine. Owen was still there, concentration stamped across his features. I sat down, pulled my purple folder from my bag and slipped the sheets into the clear plastic pockets. I stole a sly glance as I bent under the desk to put the folder back and caught Owen’s baby blues flicking from me back to his screen. A wave of warm panic swept through me as I settled back into my chair. “Ignore. Ignore!” I urged myself as I checked my email account once again. Prickles ran up my back from the base of my spine to the red blush on my hot cheeks. “Fuck” I chided. Damn you biology. It was if I could feel his eyes on me. Yeah, it’s a terrible cliché but I am bad at self censorship. In my peripheral zone I could see Owen stop typing and stretch out in his chair. He raised his arms above his head and reached towards the air con, cracked his joints a little and then sank back into his seat. His long legs splayed out in front of him in that way males have of advertising their package. Which I hate. It’s always that bloke on the bus or train who takes up two seats with his crotch baring display, and always when I would appreciate parking myself there. Not in his crotch but the seat. Obviously.

Part two later.

Have decided that when I win the lottery or marry a rich man (or in total fantasy land, earn enough money) I shall purchase a De Tomaso Mangusta or Pantera. The Mongoose is Bill’s ride from Kiru Biru Vol 2. I saw it parked next to Budd’s trailer and was rather taken by its beautiful wedge-shaped style. I particularly like this Purple Passion Pantera. The alloys are not quite to my liking but the colour is fabuloso.

To have a racing version with a big Lambo-style spoiler on the back would be most excellent, like this GT5. Oh and go faster stripes. I am such a car whore. I love muscle cars and have a horrible soft spot for kev’d up vehicles. There are so many cars I would love to drive, or maybe just sort of sprawl about on the bonnet for a while at least. As long as they don’t have chromed petrol caps.

Pantera Cars Lots of great photos
De Tomaso UK Drivers Club
Italian Concors

Here’s some gratuitous car crawling:

The 1961 Chevrolet Corvette XP-755 Mako Shark Concept Car

Mako Shark

Geeky concept discussion: Corvette Action Center

Strange interest in swimwear at the moment. I guess longing for some heat and a bit of screened sun.

Ever get the feeling that your face is just a warm mask? You know you look unhappy, your face is fixed in a downward way, eyes staring into space in the neutral zone, or downcast towards the pavement? Feels foreign, like it’s floating over your muscle structure? Maybe it’s just me. I have one of those naturally grumpy faces. So when i’m relaxed and not particularly bothered by life people express concern, but when I am feeling unhappy no questions are asked. I look after other people, i’m not the one going to be the one to cause the concern.

“You should live happily ever after, you’ve got a big heart, you’re intellegent, you’re great…” Yeah, that’s a clincher there. What a catch.

“Oh, you’re having problems in your 6 month long relationship?” I’ll be very concerned and try to help yet internally I am “somewhat” dismissive.

I get esteem-boosting (ego massaging) compliments from people I don’t seek them from and I create “perfect” evenings but I still feel fairly undervalued and inconsequential. I should be content within myself with having to resort to others to give me self worth. All this I know. It’s just nice to feel good about myself and that I am intellegent/attractive/interesting once in a while, even if it is all selfish bullshit. I give not to receive but because I’m there for the long haul, I care a hellalot. I may complain about being there for people, but I can’t imagine not being there.

Such is the life of a Monky.