And the news, in your underpants today, is...

A hotel room can be a terribly lonely place. A Corby Trouser Press isn’t much company. There was one chair at the desk, and another at a small round table. This was room 628, but I imagined that it was the same as pretty much any room in the whole building. There’s nothing like the anonymity of a one-night visit to make you feel like a cog in the machine. I put my trousers in the Corby, and sat down to watch telly in my underpants.

Good day, weird evening

After a belting study period in the morning, I met Kate and we checked out the cup cake shop in Chorlton. Lovely! I had Johnny Cash (oreo cookies) and Iggy Pop (vanilla and peanut), and Kate had Omar Sherif (pistachio and Turkish delight) and Chaka Khan (coconut and chocolate). In our sugar high, we charity shopped, and I found American Pie on vinyl for a pound. Smashing stuff!

After a few beers in West Didsbury with Parsonage and 57, I had another one of those weird confidence vacuums, and made my excuses. It had been coming all evening – I’d wobbled on the barbecue and on Ryan’s Irish Centre party – but I was shocked it hit me so hard and so suddenly. It was home or bust, and I went home.

The evening air by Chorlton Park smelt of sulphur, like there’d been a gunshot.

Toejam and Earl

Lewis’ new house in Melton Mowbray is lovely. It’s a huge three-bedroomed semi with a nice garden and a vast kitchen. It would suit children. They’re practicing with a couple of cats for now. Lewis and Ange are very dependent on each other, I guess in part because they don’t know many people in Melton apart from each other. I was stunned by just how far this dependence went though. Yes, it was Ange’s first Christmas Day off work for ages. But Lewis had decided to spend Christmas Eve in with Ange, rather than catch up with his old schoolfriends. On Christmas Day, Lewis was planning to go to Ange’s parents house all day, and not pay anything other than a flying visit to Owen’s to see Lenny. On the day we plan to meet our old schoolfriends, Lewis was planning to leave around the time that Ange finished work. It was clear to me that keeping her happy was the most important thing to Lewis now.

As we sat and played Toejam and Earl, I pondered a little on the phrase “Bros before hoes.” I don’t know how many people that say actually mean it. Just because something rhymes doesn’t mean it’s true. It’s something that young men say, I think, single men. Nobody that’s married says it. Nobody with kids says it. Nobody with a shared mortgage with their partner, like Lewis, says it. If putting friends ahead of lovers is the meaning of the phrase, then it ought to be “Bros UNTIL hoes.” Friends come first, until you find someone who is special enough to dominate your affections. I felt happy and sad all at once. I’m happy Lewis is so in love, but sad that I’m getting a more thinly spread portion of my friend. So it goes.

Market turmoil

I met Pete, a policeman that I used to work with, after work for a few drinks at the German market in town. We nattered on about one thing and another. Pete is retiring to the South of France in about four years time, and I was glad to hear about how his preparations are developing. He’s looking at a well-paid retirement, thanks to his decent police pension, so he won’t need to work to get by. Work will be about passing time, so Pete has enrolled for a sports massage course. He’ll get involved with a local rugby club, or a cycling club, and spend a few days now and then rubbing down athletes. What a neat plan. What a great thing to work towards. How inspiring!

After a few drinks to many, I felt decidedly woozy, and staggered onto the bus home. Three teenage girls, none older than fourteen, were sat around me on the top deck discussing which colleges they wanted to go to. One was better for art, apparently, and another for science. Drunk as I was, I’ve forgotten most of the details. But each of them had a clear idea of what they wanted to do, where they wanted to do it, and why.

What do I want to do with the future? Find a new place to live, to start with. And then… Hmmmm.

Moan, moan, moan, all you do is bloody moan...

I really hate moaning, but I’ve had a shitty old week, and I’m going to splurge a little.

I’ve been ill. I’ve spent the week coughing up phlegm – syrupy, foul-tasting phlegm – and lounging around with no energy at all. I broke the controller for the playstation on the first day that I was off work, and even the internet has started to bore me. The whole of the wordwide, wonderful, wonderful web to explore, and I’m bored. No smoking, for the sake of my lungs, and no booze, to help me recover. My mood has been rotten all week.

But there’s more. I’ve had the break-up blues in a way I hadn’t imagined I would. I’d been second guessing my own feelings about breaking up for a while before it actually happened. I’d glibly told Liz that, when we broke up, I might not want to be in touch with her for a while afterwards. Months, I’d said. I bet that sounded really strong at the time. It did in my head.

Entirely opposite to what I said, I’ve wanted to get in touch with Liz every single day this week. I've really wanted to see her, to speak to her. In part it’s been because I’ve been so bored, but that’s the smallest part of why. It isn’t because I want the chance to change her mind about breaking up – I don’t believe you can change a mind that’s made up. It’s two things. Firstly, I miss her. I miss her voice, the way she'd listen to me, the lift of her eyebrows that said, “do you really think that?” Secondly, I’m impatient. I really want to be friends with Liz. I’ve grown very close to her, and she’s very important to me. And I want to get started on being friends as soon as possible. I’m itching to get the next step underway. Let's start now!

Siemens S45

I found this old phone when I was re-arranging my room and sorting through some junk. It was my first good phone, and it brought back some great memories. I got it from my friend Nick after I lost my phone in the interval bar garden. We'd been to Bed to see some house DJ. I remember the remix of 'Clocks' by Coldplay that they played three times.



I remember texting Rigby with it for the whole of the time we went out. I remember some of her delicious texts I'd saved to it so that I could read them again and again and again. I remember the day that it finally stopped working, about two weeks after Rigby and I broke up. I really loved her. And she loved me. It was a good time. It was a good phone.

Polytechnic Clam

Tom and I went to see Polytechnic at Chorlton Irish on Friday. Tom’s a drum and bass head first and foremost, and has gotten into guitar music reasonably recently. This night at the Irish is very trendy, in a way that means pork-pie hats and facial hair for the guys, and Alice bands and hair-grips for the girls. He didn’t feel particularly comfortable. It’s funny how an ‘alternative’ crowd can be so homogenous.

I met a beautiful girl called Helen, who works near me, and is also studying for a Masters in textiles. She was articulate, intelligent, and very indie. But I clammed up, and didn’t know what to say. When the band started, she edged away, and I didn’t see her again that evening. I want to have a look for her on Facebook, but I got the vibe that she wouldn’t be that interested.

Maybe I’m not indie enough to appeal to the kind of girl that I fancy. Maybe I should buy some new shoes. Brown shoes.

In the Mood For Love

In a moment eerily reminiscent of the Wong Kar-Wai film, I spent five minutes last night talking to a young lady who I developed a crush on when she worked behind the bar at my local. We were talking about the way that, in her new bar job, she has gotten quite good at giving overly amorous customers scathing put-downs. She asked me to 'test her' - to give her a chat-up line for her to demonstrate her proficiency at batting them away. Does she know that I like her? I think I've made it pretty obvious. So was she playing with me? Was it a twisted sort of flirting?

I want a hole in the wall that I can fill up with secrets.

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UPDATE 06-04-08:

1. I found my hole in the wall, up by the Peveril of the Peak.



2. It's stupid and unfair for me to be angry about the incident above. I've known for three months that the person I've got a crush on isn't available - in fact, she's got a boyfriend, and she's really happy with him. I'm far too cowardly to seek out a new target for my affection - it's so much easier to put energy into something that's never going to come off than to invest in something that might fail, because at least I know the outcome of running down the dead end. I wasn't being toyed with, I was being given an gentle reminder by my crush that she isn't really that into me and I should be grateful for the delicacy of the message, rather than angry at its content. Why have an unreachable dream? Because at least I know how it'll turn out.

A moment of realisation

To realise that something that you want is unreachable is an awful feeling.

Tonight I went out to a bar with a group of people that I've wanted to befriend for an age. Collectively, they are or were bar staff from my local. One of them is someone I've had a big old crush on for quite a long time. Maybe it was because I was the only bloke in the group (poor me, surrounded by twelve glamorous young women), maybe it was because I was the only sober one amongst drunks (I have a driving lesson in the morning), maybe it was because they were dressed to the nines heading for a burlesque night and I looked like some mid nineties dogshit indie band bass player in my tracksuit top, check shirt, jeans and trainers - but as I left I knew that I would never be part of that world. I never could. As I said goodnight, it hit me.

Our dreams are worth nothing unless we dare to chase them.

But what is the value of chasing something that can't be caught? When should I dare to let go of an impossible dream?

Do men get PMT?

After work I've had an inexplicable burst of emotion that I don't know what to do with, or how to handle. I feel like I want to cry. How confusing.

Dull

Feeling like a dull-train crashed into me today and spilled its dull load all over me. Feeling like little in the world interests me, and little of me interests the world. I saw Pippa at lunch, and felt dull. I saw Clare after work, and felt dull. I'm home now, alone, and I feel dull.

And if I'm dull, who else am I likely to inspire? Nobody. Because dullness doesn't inspire.