little green bag - george baker selection

i got ready fast, with a minimum of self-doubt over what i should wear. fast shower, washed my hair and played some louder, even faster stuff; bauhaus, sisters of mercy, type o negative.

i do this so rarely, my neighbours couldn't care less.

drying myself to "telegram sam". by the time i'd finished belting out "this corrosion", my hair was dry and i was pulling on my boots. "queen bitch" and i was combing my hair, striking faintly embarrassing gothic poses in the full-length mirror. it all goes back to bowie, doesn't it? every time.

i texted tam back before i left. i'd read his text as i was just about to hop in the shower. at the bus stop, i got one back from him. from the pub.

the bus was due in five. i texted elaine to let her know i was on the move. she replied at once. just leaving - and would i be there when she arrived? i noticed my stomach knotting as it sank in. going out. club. mischief.

of course, the bus didn't show as promised. i stood there, i smoked, i took out my phone for timechecks. much like the white rabbit in "alice in wonderland".

the bus eventually showed, crawling towards me like a terminal tortoise. i paid, decided to stay downstairs. saturday nights aren't the best time to be trapped on the top deck by something designed by h.r. giger.

the old queen's head (or, the tranny-skull, to give the place its sunday-best name!) was packed when i pushed in. leather, rubber, uniforms, all piled in on top of the pub's usual clientele. i caught sight of tam, already in the old technicolor battledress, lecturing a table of cross-dressers, his massive fists punctuating what he was telling them.

as i got closer, i saw that they were all gazing up at him the way teenagers do to drug dealers they just met.

and it was his julia roberts story. if she ever reads this, i bet she never travels by taxi again in her life. or if she does, i bet she'll have her driver executed on arriving at her destination.

tam notices me, shouts and waves a bearlike arm in my direction. his audience, hypnotised, rotate, taking me in like squirrels, unsure if i'm going to throw peanuts or pull out a gun.

i caught his eye, pointed towards the bar. he nodded - vigorously - then returned to his story. "so, i sais to her - polite as i can, likes - ms roberts?"

he looks around the expectant faces.

"it is ms roberts, isn't it? is it awright if i shut that windae and open this one, aye?"

he pauses for effect at this point and i lose him under the pub soundtrack. jukebox, fragments of blether, cash registers.

at the bar, i spot elaine as she enters, looking around her while not making eye-contact. with anyone. head down, she cuts through the crowd and out of sight. checking there's no sign of me getting served in the next thirty seconds, i pull out my phone and text her something poorly spelt with coordinates.

she's beside me shortly after, smiling and pointing at the bottles of magners in the fridge.

we stayed for the one pint, then crossed the road en masse. i always get that "reservoir dogs" feeling when i'm with a posse of perverts. that "let's go to work" moment, "little green bag" playing as we move in slow motion and tax-payers get out of our way.

She was the first thing i noticed on entering the club. ok, i was scanning for Her, my eyes taking in the room like the terminator. She was at the bar, Her back to me, talking to a skeletal and androgenous goth i didn't recognise.

i arrived beside Her and a little behind Her. She turned, took me in, returned to Her conversation. the goth/ette didn't even register my existence. i waited.

after a few minutes, She turned to me, shutting out the goth (i'd sort of decided he was male by then) and taking my arm, leading me quickly towards the bar.

i got served fairly fast and followed Her back around the way we came until She stopped just beyond the perimiter of the play area.

She sat in the only seat and took Her drink from me, sipped it and handed it back. i stood beside Her, holding my pint and Her whiskey-and-pepsi. from time to time, She'd reach up for it, take the tiniest sip and hold it out for me to take from Her. most of the time, She just watched the players, mostly in silence. when She wanted a cigarette, i was left to guard Her seat until She returned.

i didn't get a cigarette-break, until She sent me back to the bar. around midnight, i think it was.

periodically, She'd wave to someone or other, Her face would light up with that radiant smile. now and again, one would come over and they'd talk in whispers for a moment or two.

it was gone one when She gave me Her reciept for the cloakroom. without a word, She pointed at the end of the queue. without a word, i complied.

in the queue, i watched Her watching the last few still playing on the equipment. last orders in a fetish club. where the bouncers tell you not to drink up, but to untie the one you're with and get out.

"fuck off" is the same in any language, isn't it?

i helped Her into Her coat and followed a couple of steps behind Her until we reached the street.

She took out a cigarette, waited for me to light it and indicated that i was to have one. i obeyed at once. it wasn't cold and i could have stayed there with Her all night if required. all too soon, Her taxi arrived and i held the door open for Her.

She got in - in slow motion, it felt like - and, as She passed me, Her fingertips traced gently across my cheek. it felt like electricity. massive tingles spread out from Her touch like ripples in a lake.

and She was gone. i stood there, like greyfriars' bobby, still tasting the exhaust She'd left in Her wake and with the last few ripples of Her touch still pulsing through me.

future days - can

She was at the munch this afternoon! i'd walked in, spotted tam and was on my way across, via the bar, when i felt a cool weight on my shoulder. turning, i saw Who it was and felt my eyes widen, my jaw drop open. She just smiled back at me.

no explanation for the radio-silence, just that smile. and that voice, asking if i was going tonight.

it's strange, the way Her proximity shifts my sense of bouyancy. seeing Her inflates my self-worth, lifts me up like now-that's-what-i-call-amphetamines-3000-a.d.

talking, She reached into her bag for her - silk cut! i knew there had to be a reason i chose them! a wash of embarrassment floods over me. i feel as if i've been caught out, doing something i shouldn't. i feel stalky and mortified.

we went outside for a cigarette and my self-consciousness kicked in. i felt every part of taking it out, lighting it, inhaling, exhaling. i'm not sure whether She noticed a thing, but it felt like She was staring hard, sucking in everything.

we chatted together most of the afternoon, occasionally allowing another into our enclosed space. from time to time, She'd send me to the bar for us.

one thing She wasn't forthcoming with though, was any sort of explanation. no reason she'd disappeared like that, no reason for Her radio silence.

going back to last night, i started watching a dvd i'd picked up the other week, "time trumpet". a bizarre comedy, set in the future - and written by armando iannucci.

it was pretty funny, david beckham in his mid-fifties, having had a real vagina implanted in his arm, "to keep his car keys in"...

i must've seen about the first three, before being swallowed up by the sandman.

brilliant! i must watch the rest.

telephone thing - the fall

i got a text from elaine. it's ages since i heard from her. she'd said she was "going to have a wee scene-break". that was in january.

she must've finally had enough of her own company. the gist of her text was that she'd be attending tomorrow night. and would i like to meet in a pub first?

i rang tam, which i'd been putting off doing all week. it went to answering machine. i started to yitter fragments of what i was planning to say, when a jagged string of clicks and rubbing cut into what i was saying.

surprised, i let him rabbit for a minute or two before i asked him if we had a jumping-off point for tomorrow.

of course he did - anyone as focused on driving as tam is, will have planned out his non-driving nights like a military operation. we'd be assembling in the old queen's head between seven and eight, moving onto the club en masse between half-eight and nine, smooth as clockwork.

i got rid of him and texted elaine back. we texted each other back and forth for a while, just like in the old days.

i'd known elaine since i'd been on the scene here. met her at my second-or-third munch, i think it was.

one of those relationships that can lie fallow for a time, then recommence exactly where we left off.

so, a brand new club wasn't a bad punctuation point for us to re-start hanging out again. we've had breaks before; everybody needs to get out of all this every once in a while, the same as we all feel the need to immerse ourselves sometimes.

and, that time i had the operation, elaine was totally there for me.

cigarettes - prag vec

it doesn't appear She's going to get in touch. that's been days now. sunday was the last time She proved She was alive. worryingly, i keep catching myself wondering if something's happened to Her. something accidental, something fatal.

i've been checking ic, fetlife - even collarme. searching the profiles by Her age and location, just in case She'd left a wee footprint somewhere.

anyway, saturday's the daytime munch and that new club kicks off the same night. with all the palaver i've been making about Her, i'd forgotten all about them.

tam, of course, is over the moon about a new club starting here. he's texted me every day this week, like it was christmas morning or something.

and i bought fags. yesterday morning. watched the bus move off without me, thought "fuck it". headed into tesco's, bought twenty silk cut. and a lighter. when she asked me what colour, i shrugged. she made it a purple one, which matched the fags i was buying, i suppose.

so i took my place at the bus stop with all the other lepers. started hanging with the smokers - the other smokers - outside the main entrance.

the funny thing about starting again is, no matter how long you've been off, you're always welcomed back like the prodigal son.

useless - tv smith

i went to bed after last night's entry. ok, i lay there for hours, watching headlights sweep the walls and ceiling, but - an early night, nonetheless.

gave me a chance to think about things, anyway. i remember noticing the clock, just after two, the angry red digits like an accusation. still wanting a fag, still no word from Her.

i realise i have no patience with the imbeciles at work any more. management are a coalition of everything stupid i can think of. and the rest of them, just skilled mutton.

this morning, some cretin or other deleted some file or other. in the past, i've gone over, had a look, often been able to sort it out. for all that i 'm not permitted to swan about with a widescreen laptop i can barely lift, i am considered one of the resident computer geeks.

today though, i simply couldn't be bothered. i had no curiosity about whatever their pissy crisis happened to be and less interest in helping - or even finding out how it all ended.

of course, since i'm a mere temp, if i don't volunteer my assistance, nobody's going to ask me for it. that would be like admitting i had some sort of value.

so i busied myself with the mundane. fetched my own case-files, put each back when i was done with it. actually, i think i managed to avoid speaking to any of them all day.

ducked out, dead on four. normally, i'd try to put in a little flexi, save up a bit of free time. not today, though.

i realise i'm angry with myself for starting smoking again. it's been years and yet it's still lying in wait for me.

i read somewhere that, once the addict has quit, it's harder to stay off the fags than it is to stay stopped from heroin. although cigarette-advertising is quaint and historical these days, tobacco still pays for sports and cultural events, which smack never did.

i mean, have you ever seen the inside of a drug dealer's house?

of course, another reason i'm pissed off is, there's been no word from Her. nothing since that limp and half-hearted text yesterday.

ok, there's nothing between us, no promises, no happy-ever-after, but letting Her in, under my skin has made me vulnerable to these breaks in transmission. this radio silence is killing me.

ashes to ashes - david bowie

work was quiet, the sort of deep silence that follows an explosion or natural disaster. i was still reeling from last night's in-pub entertainment. most others were too, i suppose.

heads were being kept down, making me think of the sex offenders' register. there wasn't a whole lot of eye-contact action, either.

it struck me - around mid-morning, this was - that when i'm single, i have next-to-no patience with vanillas. i realise i've felt like this before. once, when i'd recently broken up with Someone, i'd simply stopped going anywhere other than scene events.

i was unemployed at the time, so work hadn't been an issue.

occasionally - usually in shops - i'd be forced to interact with someone who preferred relationships where both parties fought for control. i tried to keep it short.

i also tried to keep the disgust 'n' contempt out of my words, tone-of-voice and body language, with varied degrees of success.

last night was like a nightmare, pumped direct from those days.

i got a text from Her, just after eight. there wasn't much too it. a curt hello, followed by a half-hearted enquiry as to how i was. not a clue as regards how *She* was, though. i put my paper down and replied. then nothing.

this happens occasionally. She casually severs all contact. no explanation, just disappears without even the obligatory puff of smoke.

i decided to head out for a cigarette at that point. did i mention i'd started smoking again? i don't think so. it's been five, five-and-a-half years since the last time i smoked.

after the dust cleared last night, i had an overpowering urge for a fag. unfortunately, this reared its ugly wee head just as someone was crashing the ash outside the pub. so i succumbed.

it's funny how, faced with stress, we all fall back on our old programming. an explosion, an example of man's inhumanity to man and we start communicating. cigarettes are so integral to communication, that they're played as soon as the talking starts.

and me. my response to stress is to reach out for the cancer-nipple.

i don't like mondays - the boomtown rats

it's bad enough being forced at money-point to drag myself back into work on a monday, without these insensitive swine insisting on it being someone's birthday, too. so, as of four o'clock, we started trooping across to the pub as fast as flexi-time would allow.

i put it off as long as i could, watching the office empty, particle by particle.

soon, i was alone. well, pretty much. a couple of desks were dotted with others who'd come to the same conclusions i had: (1) peace and quiet meant getting more work done and (2) a pub visit featuring this lot sounded far too much like hard work, anyway.

i'd heard occasional tales of young women who'd once worked there; drinkers, fighters and fornicators, their exploits lived on in song and legend.

but that was the past; the glory days of the millenium and these tiger-women, if they ever existed in the first place, were long gone now. i gave up on what i was doing and headed over to the tedium.

as i'd predicted, the party, such as it was, was in full swing. about as lively as it would ever get. all the freudean return-of-the-repressed games - and all being played under-the-counter. with subtitles.

the courtship games where only one party was intetested. displays of power and demonstrations of weakness. alliances formed and severed by those with one eye fixed on the throne.

as a temp, i wasn't eligible to play any of it, although temps can, i believe, be used as pawns, coerced into the firing-line and sacrificed in pursuance of some greater good.

by eight-thirty, the kissing had begun in earnest. by tomorrow, the hangovers would be battling it out with the guilt for control. and by nine, i was almost at the door. well on my way to escaping unscathed.

suddenly my concentration was smashed 'n' grabbed by a commotion by the toilets. something had kicked off. it was one of those - every rational atom of my consciousness told me to get out of the door while everybody was distracted elsewhere; that perverse and prurient part of my skull barked at me to go over, to see, to get involved.

guess which won?

that's right.

on closer inspection, two of my male colleagues had been caught in a spot of face-sucking. big deal, you're probably thinking. it's 2010, we live in a world of graham norton and same-sex civil ceremonies. nobody actually believes that "gay" or even "bi" equates with hiv or paedophilia any more... the world has moved on, right?

not this shower, though. pointed remarks, jostling, guilt 'n' mortification. it was embarrassing to watch, like bumfights or the circus maximus. you know where a situation's too horrible to contemplate - and you can't even bring yourself to look away? a rabbit in headlights, that's what i was like.

certain men are so hell-bent on being considered heterosexual that any deviation from this sends them into a rage, a panic, or both.

and so it came to pass that there was much beating of breasts and gnashing of teeth. also wailing.

like a crowd scene from leviticus, the populace roared and bayed for blood.

at the bus stop, i remembered that the term faggots came from the medieval tendency to burn homosexuals at the stake.

i crawled - swans

it must have been around three when She texted, brief and breezy. we played text-tennis for maybe fifteen minutes before She suggested She rang me.

i told Her about the club, about tam's various faux pas and She told me she'd seen mine-and-tam's posts about it on fetlife. i made a mental note to check it, being unaware tam - or anyone else - had replied to mine.

like the sad bastard i am, i'd come home and posted on ic and fetlife - just to let E/everyone, everywhere know that i'd been out. and that i hadn't pulled - or even been invited anywhere good afterwards.

then i'd crawled off to bed, cursing an unjust universe where E/everybody else got to go places, purely to spite me.

we chatted for just over the hour. i dropped a few soft hints, to see if She'd let slip where She'd been over the weekend, but nothing.

after talking to Her, i got up and pottered around the flat for a bit, but couldn't really apply myself to anything. i started sorting the washing into piles, checked the dates on a couple of things in the fridge.

i went online, checked what had been said in reply to my postings. tried to ascertain who these commentators were. why is it nobody ever resembles their pictures on these things? wasted ten minutes scanning through some Domme's photographs, trying to work out if i knew Her or not.

i made a coffee and typed this up, still thinking about Her.

club country - the associates

last night's club was about an hour-and-a-half from here. tam's pushing fifty, but acts roughly a third of his age. a taxi-driver by day - and i have seen him in his civvies - when he gets dressed, he makes a pretty convincing woman. right up until he opens his gob.

the missing tooth is a dead giveaway and the west lothian accent rams the point right home. plus, he has the tastes in football, television and politics that all taxi drivers are issued with at birth. and the ability, in any situation, to create faux pas without any specialised equipment whatsoever.

thankfully, because he drives for a living, he rarely drinks. drunk, his social skills turn into circus-skills.

tam picked me up around eight. i'd been ready for over an hour, flicking idly around the internet, looking for i don't know what. whatever it was, i was quite relieved when i heard the bell and grabbed my jacket.

en route, we have one of those discussions. each of us telling the other what's been happening to us - without naming anyone else.

the club was half full when we arrived. we annexed ourselves a seat and i mounted an assault on the bar. tam's first drink - as always - was lager, preferably european (or at least, pseudo-euro) and diet pepsi after that.

at the bar, i spot - and say hello to - a woman whose name i never manage to remember. come to think of it, my mind refuses to retain Her partner's name, either. or which one's the sub and which is the Dom/me.

the club wasn't bad. i've been to worse. the music, of course, was shit. but then that's governed by european legislation nowadays.

no fetish club is permitted to play decent music more than three times per year. stunners in edinburgh gets around this by not having a play area, but by and large, most clubs comply or die.

by the time i got back with the drinks, i'd lost my seat to two familiar-looking blokes and a woman i hadn't seen before. tam, of course, was in full swing. some story about something that happened to - or in - his fast black once.

i figured i'd give it till he started telling the julia roberts story and fuck off.

as usual, he'd gathered a crowd around him before he started.

"you know that julia roberts? "sleepin' wi the enemy"? "pretty woman"?

i got to my feet as subtly as i possibly could.

i had a look round the club. "just seeing whose here", i told myself. "it's not Her i'm looking for - not really."

out of the blue - roxy music

She messaged me a couple of times during the day yesterday and each time, i slammed one right back by return-of-text.

sometimes, someone just drops out of the sky into your life - and it's as if you've known them all your life without noticing them before.

sometimes, you can meet someone who just "fits". someone who gets you - and who you get right back.

at work, even the imbeciles are bugging me less than usual. it turns out She, too, works beside cretins, so we share our favorite idiot stories - did i mention that She rang me late last night and we talked for over an hour?

bits of this and that. work/exes/music/tv/films/books... a mad rush of fragments, the most memorable bits of two lives bouncing off each other. agreeing about so much - but from totally different directions. and laughter. shitloads of laughter.

i came off the phone and lay back on my bed. a sudden flash of wanting-a-fag. i stopped years ago, hadn't even thought about smoking in christ knows how long.

i let my mind drift. caught myself thinking about what it would be like to belong to someone like that - to Her.

you know how you can catch yourself daydreaming and be shocked at what you're thinking about? especially when the subject of the fantasy's so far from where you are?

that's what this was like.

surprise surprise - cop shoot cop

the munch last night was excellent - far more so than i might sensibly have expected.

i arrived late. the traffic was hideous, huge tail-backs from the city centre outwards in all directions. and my bus hit each and every one.

so, by the time i got there, the place was packed. not just better-attended, but actually crowded. nowhere to sit, just faces, familiar and otherwise.

and - oh yeah - i ran into Someone i've only spoken to online til now.

around the middle of last month, there was a thread on ic i replied to. it wasn't even a subject i particularly cared one way or the other about.

the only reason i stuck my tuppenceworth in was, a friend of an Ex of mine had commented on it. i spotted her and, since i hadn't seen her in a while - years - i posted a reply.

and this Woman i 'd never heard of replied to my post. a couple of earlier posters replied to Hers - and, by association, mine. She struck me as bright - and popular. i still couldn't place Her, though and her profile, while brutally direct, had no pictures whatsoever.

She was a ghost, one that everyone else could see, but flitting through me like a pale grey shudder.

since then, She and i have run into one another from time to time. we chat lightly, there's an edge of flirting there, but nothing you could put your finger on. nothing tangible.

so last night, i was talking to a girl i know, occasionally, one or both us would raise an arm - or smile - over at someone. a Woman approached, slipped an arm around my friend.

the two thoughts that collided in my head as my friend introduced us, were (1) this is the Most Beautiful Woman i've ever laid eyes on. and (2) She has no inkling that i even exist.

my friend introduced us. Her smile widened at my name - as mine no doubt did at Hers. my on-line Friend. my Pen-Pal, if you like.

we exchanged a few sentences and drifted our separate ways. occasionally, i'd glance over at Her like a stalker.

towards the end of the night, i was chatting to tam. a number of people had already left and those of us left were gravitating to the same couple of tables by the door.

She must have been outside, cigaretting. She joined us at the table, opposite me. She smiled over and then we were talking...

Girls – beastie boys

the munch is tonight. there's something about it moving to a new venue that makes me want to head along there. it's a couple of years since i last bothered.

fed up of sitting around the same table in the same pub, the same night every month. same three or four faces, but a touch more miserable every time.

and, it was a guaranteed women-free zone. for some reason, women weren't exactly beating a path to the door. almost as if wasting an entire evening on men-without-girlfriends wasn't that alluring an idea.

not exactly the social event of the season, then. the guy that runs it always seemed like a nice bloke. i still run into him and/or his mate at clubs from time to time and i always say i'll go this month.

there were threads on ic and fetlife about the new! improved! munch venue and how much more exciting it was all going to be.

chances are, there'll be no change - or if there are, they'll be a) purely cosmetic and b) short-lived. even if everybody else thinks like me and shows up tonight, next month will be business as usual. three old men and a dog that needs an operation.

still, you never know...

it was cold – the ruts

i hate this fucking place. it's freezing all summer because of a union demand back in the seventies; from the first of october to the first of march, the underfloor heating's at a brutally satanic level. throughout the "winter", everybody's in shirtsleeves, thin cotton, light shoes.

from march onwards, it's big jumpers, heavy trousers, even bigger boots.

they just seem to accept it. even the ones who complain the most bitterly about fifteen years of labour rule and the stranglehold of the unions, blythely get on with it.

it's funny now, with this month's election fever and the subsequent country-wide split, how everybody's so polarised. as if there were only two parties. no third force, no far-left-or-right, no loonies or independents.

i read somewhere once that all political thought could be filtered through an individual's relationship with kink. the further to the right someone's politics are, the more into it they are - and the more fervently they believe that the lower orders and untermensch should be kept away from it.

the near-and-far-left, on the other hand, don't do anything kinky themselves. nor do they know anyone who does (apart from tommy sheridan, of course) and don't believe anyone else should be permitted to, either. apart from tommy sheridan, obviously.

were there a political party whose promises meant something to me, would i bother voting?

cowboys in cuba - chris and cosey

back to the grind. at work, they chatter in short staccato bursts about where they shopped, what nearly didn't fit in the boot. when they ask me, out of politeness, what i did, i make up some nonsense about an imaginary western.

i twist together strands from an old john wayne picture and something even older in black and white. something where a train gets robbed. i add in the end of a german film about terrorists and they all nod as if they wish they'd seen it too.

a boss moves vaguely in our direction and all conversation dies. the crowd turns back into whirling particles that shoot away from each other as if doing something.

i lift a folder from my desk and walk almost purposefully towards the grey-with-scratches filing cabinets. out of the corner of my eye, i see that the manager has stopped by the desk of one of his cronies. i watch them pretending not to talk about golf.

lunchtime comes and goes. i spend mine looking around the market. a stall by the name of Mistress Honey Bunny has rails and rails of the sort of thing i should be buying, but nothing jumps out at me.

the problem is, this new club that's opening a week on saturday. various people have said they're going so i might as well. i looked at their website and their fetlife group, but it gave me no idea of the specifics of their dress code.

i pause by another stall, more to kill time than for anything else and scan the dvds there. sadly, as i'd expected, it's all brain-dead hollywood nonsense from the last couple of years. remakes of oriental movies that i quite liked. i see ben stiller's name a lot as my eyes rove.

i tend to store up info on a lot more films than i actually sit through. when i was at college, when i was, in fact, a film buff, i noticed that people switch off when you start talking about music or films that they're unfamiliar with. i do it myself, during lectures on boy-bands or blockbusters. or tv quiz shows.

sometimes, encouraging people to pidgeon-hole you and write you off is the closest most of us get to a cloak of invisibility.

friends - adam and the ants

a sunday hangover always feels different to the rest of the week. probably because so many other people are hamstrung the same way.

we wake up somewhere between ten and two. headaches, light too bright, colours feel wrong as a jail-rape. we adjust, try to remember, give up. sink back into the pillows and the warm damp trench of bed.

i breathe out. fragments of the night before swirl in my skull like putting soya milk in my coffee by mistake.

eventually, i'll put enough fragments together to make some sort of narrative. who was there. what they were wearing. who i talked to. i'll get enough detail to figure out most of where the night before went.

it's only the sequence that defeats me. like a jigsaw where none of the pieces fit. endless variables and permutations, where all the colours have run.

and then it hits me! back to the grind tomorrow. it's hard to enjoy what's left of the weekend when monday morning's staring you out like a hoody with a pool-cue.

i could text somebody, but i don't bother. most of the people i know, i don't have numbers for anyway. the face in the club; just dead dots on an empty screen now.

thinking about last night, it occurs to me that some people i remember by their online nicks, others by their secret identities. there's no rhyme nor reason; i think of her by the same forename she pays rent 'n' taxes under, her Partner as The Name Of A Coil Song.

when i first meet someone, it's usually their online name i get first. for most of us, part of getting to know someone is sharing the names our parents gave us.

i read somewhere that social-networking sites, as well as robbing us of our attention-span, has altered the core definition of "friendship". made us measure "friends" by different criteria than previous generations.

when we're on facebook, not only are we keeping tabs on our friends, but more commonly, we're seeing how many friends they have. less than us means they're sad bastards who need to get a grip. more than us, they're sad bastards that ought to get a life.

a lot more than us and they're making it up; those aren't real friends; not in the real sense. not like you and me.

saturday night - bay city rollers

saturdays are great. i can lie in bed til getting up turns into a good idea. i can eat at a more relaxed pace - not that i ever do. too many years of throwing food down without tasting it.

still, i can make it at less of a gallop. take my time. it's only when i get to the table and sit, i turn into the tasmanian devil. in a feeding frenzy.

the weekends are when i catch up on all that e-mail. those anonymous names who inhabit the same yahoo groups i do. the ones who keep being interesting - even on a school night.

leaving it til saturday means that most of the more obvious replies have already been made.

and to be honest, i rarely answer anyone – even at the weekend - any more.

i check my inboxes on the two or three dating sites i'm using at that time. i'm forever joining the damn things, but i only tend to put any effort into a couple at a time. whatever i joined last, one or two of the older ones.

same old pictures, same tired old jokes.

Those who don't bite (unless you ask nicely)...

Nineteen-Year-Olds with "years of experience as a Mistress", looking for credit for her phone.

husband finally jettisoned, kids grown up and rarely home, trying to climb aboard A New Identity.

maybe i'm just too jaded and cynical, but after a few years, there's nothing new on the worldwide web. i read somewhere that human beings have only twenty-four possible personality types to choose from.

this is as true of the developed world as it is of the most primitive tribesmen. ultimately, we might not look much alike, but there are only two dozen of us around.

everyone you meet, no matter where you go, is one or other of these.

torch - soft cell

i wasn't always on my own. i fell for Someone a few years ago, threw my full weight behind it. we were blissfully happy for a couple of months, then She ended it.

that happens sometimes.

we'd made all these promises to each other. used a lot of words like "forever" and "ever". woke up one morning and it'd already died. the honeymoon was great but when it came to an end, that's all there was. there wasn't anything else to keep us connected.

no music, no books, no movies. just savage, blinding sex. desire and capitulation. lust, sweat and tears. and when it was over, She moved on while i carried the same stupid torch and itch i always do.

i was a raw wound, waiting to be cauterised. waiting with a ragged edge that felt like it would never heal.

i think about Her sometimes. sometimes when sleep knocks me back. i'd masturbate about the good times, but i know my mind'll soon drift. either to the not-so-good times or to Somebody Else who once made me feel like this.

there seems little point and i give up. roll over and wish i could sleep.

i wonder where She is now. whether She's happy or unhappy. still, there are far too many variables to push that sort of thinking to any sort of a conclusion - logical or otherwise.

it occurs to me that i'm wondering where each and every one of Them are today. Exes and Formers; the great wall of past that separates me from the world as it is today.

ich und die wirklichkeit - deutsch amerikanishe freundschaft

trying to concentrate at work. what i do - fuck it - i work in an office. you know what that's like.

is there anybody left on god's green earth who hasn't sat at a desk and shuffled paper for a living?

anyway, that's what i do. thirty-five, forty hours a week. overtime if i want it. i've worked there for quite a few months now - being a temp, i have no relationship with any of my colleagues.

they look down on me and talk in hushed whispers about their careers. they talk about their homes and the things that they've bought for these homes, but they never talk about actually doing anything with any of it.

i hear them talking about their fifty-inch hd plasmas but they never seem to say, "i watched -" or, "did you see -"

birthdays and christmases, we all troop to one of the subtly garish pubs nearby. they're uncomfortable having the mere menials at the same table, but hey - it's christmas, innit?

and you got to make the effort. like masking your disappointment when the secret santa's unveiled. oh great! a piece of shit i can see no use for!

no, it's fantastic - if you'd given me the money, i'd probably just have spent it on the same shitty after-shave whoever-it-was got lumbered with last christmas.

do i sound cynical? fed up? good. you're paying attention.

it's a funny thing about work - we spend a large percentage of our lives there, but never actually connect with the people we encounter there.

sometimes it feels like being trapped in a bubble. a thin membrane that comes between me and the world.

and at other times, i care even less.

black no 1 - type o negative

it's not getting any easier, i know that. night-time's the worst. i flop around in the swallowing darkness, click the tv off, can't keep my eyes open.

flopped on the couch, not following what's on. one minute, hard polish snow falls on the third reich. next moment, australians are talking about the shark attack they survived in blazing golden sunshine.

stuttering flickering dreams. hitler with a dorsal fin upon his back. herman goering moves silently, hugging the seabed until he's directly below the toothy expendable blonde teens...

i sigh. i click it off and lumber to my bed like the hulk with a hangover. the whole flat's warm these days. the junkies downstairs must have fixed their meter again. it's always like this now. when my bare feet cross the floor, i can feel their heat.

in bed though, it's another story. all the ghosts of my life, circling the bed like vultures. they feint, move in suddenly, going for my eyes. ramming themselves down my throat and rubbing my face in it.

the most hideous horror-movie ever made. the holy grail of teenage bloodshed. slaughterhouse sex and gratuitous virulence.

it's not like watching. not a goldfish-bowl spectator. i'm embedded in it, wriggling like a thing on a pin. soft pulpy flesh ripped open by skeleton keys. and when i scream, only nothing comes out.