doug liman, vince vaughn and knowing it all already

But if you marry her and then decide you do not like her, you must let her go free. You may not sell her or treat her as a slave, for you have humiliated her. (Deuteronomy 21:14)

Fucking love Film Four. Until it became all commercial. But still.

Spent a total of 4 hours watching it tonight, which is more than I've watched tv in weeks... First of all Spellbound, which reminded me slightly of the Channel4 documentary on pre-pubescent beauty queens a few years ago. Something they should repeat on the heels of the JoBenet case if only so we can play "Spot the pervert father".

Spellbound sent my Mum out the room in embarrassment when Harry, the boy with ADHD or something certifiably weird about him, was allowed screen time. Adorable kid, but seriously? Sadly my own father had called me "certifiably weird" only 24 hours before. He tried to ameliorate (A-M-E-L-I-O-R-I-A-T-E, ameliorate) the situation with "he's officially wierd, you're certifiably weird but seem normal." Still not sure how that makes things better.

Loved seeing the geeks in action. These are people only glimpsed as amusing cameos in teen movies and as "best friends who don't get it" in programmes like Made. We decided that Neil may well get beaten when he got home and they would all rebel at some point in the next few years. Here's hoping... Brilliant film. Several moments stood out, the most amusing being at a family dinner table, when the mother pauses in verbally abusing the father and the precocious little spelling champ says "you remind me of Archie and Ethel, cos Archie's always telling Ethel how dumb she is."
Silence.
The dog barks.

Then Swingers: Vince Vaughn in his early thirties, looking skinny and more Italian than he may actually be. Jon Favreau, better know for being chubbier and Monica's "Ultimate Fighting Champ" boyfriend several series ago of Friends also stars and incidentally wrote, he has automatically shot up in my estimation. And Doug Liman, of Go fame directed, as his debut. I love discovering earlier directors' works. It reminds me of the feeling when I first heard Definitely Maybe, having been of the What's the Story (Morning Glory) age when I first discovered Oasis. Go is an enjoyable and engaging film. Swingers is more so, perhaps because it involves very few ridiculously attractive women with accompanying charisma, or because Katie Holmes will always be annoying to her female watchers...

There's a moment in Swingers when Vaughn explains what women want to his friend. It made me laugh because I have had that conversation, with a male friend. Frighteningly enough I identified most with the Vaughn character. I'm the dickhead that drags you out when you just want to mope. I'm the one that pulls without the ethical angst, I'm the one that toasts your success from afar. That's as far as the comparison goes, but still - very enjoyable film.

However, I think Vaughn is more attractive older and with a little more girth. Perhaps like the chest hair thing, taste veers towards the genuinely manly as time goes on...

back to the point

Do not defile your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will be filled with promiscuity and detestable wickedness. (Leviticus 19:29)

So back to the point of this whole exercise...

Since starting this blog, almost a month ago, I have been out drinking and dancing just once, when I was on my best behaviour. Over the next few weeks/months I'm going to be seeing more of my friends again and this will involve more nights out, but I am feeling confident.

Students are back this week and I met a very cute fourth year, which was tempting. Fortunately I lost him in the crowd.

One of the things I am hoping to learn from this is to take a step back. Not initiate the conversation or throw myself upon someone for fear they would never want to get to know me if I didn't.

I do have to confess to a flirty text message with a trainee surgeon (half Pakistani and no interest in cricket, this will clearly have no future!) but that was yesterday and this is today and I will not succomb again.

The verse is in reference to a conversation I had with my Dad yesterday. A guy I know - young, brash and not a little annoying when he's on a roll - had said "you are a bloody flirty, you flirt with everyone." In itself this comment shouldn't have annoyed me, because I've had people tell me that since I was a geeky 13 year old. It was more the hypocrisy of his statement, since he went on to tell me about kissing a beautiful student the night before and how it didn't matter that he has a girlfriend because he didn't sleep with this girl.

At home later that night I told my Dad what he'd said and how insulted I felt. He dismissed it with, "we all flirt: you, me, Mum, don't worry about it."

He's great!

fat and famous

All that time I had eaten no rich food or meat, had drunk no wine, and had used no fragrant oils. (Daniel 10:3)

Tonight I caught a programme on BBC3 that has sent me on two linked but very disparate tangents: famous people and fat people. The programme was Fuck Me, I'm Fat! presented by the comedian Ricky Grover. I met Ricky a few years ago. We chatted for ages and he is a very funny guy. I had hoped to book him for a University gig but our budget was limited to student bands and a six-piece funk troup from the next county. I have also got weight issues: I am a 10, sometimes an 8 on my upper half, with a neck and collar bone that has made me seem waif-like in the right light. But have a very stocky lower body, with hips that sometimes need a 16 and calf muscles that will only wear boots from Evans. A few weekends ago I wore a short denim skirt, my first ever in public without it being part of some fancy dress party. Tonight, sitting with my impromptu cocktail of Polish vodka and cranberry juice, I found that seeing Ricky on tv and women in size 20s and with far slimmer, more attractive legs than mine, set me thinking.

Famous people first. A friend of mine was in a film last year. It was huge and she featured on the poster plastering tube stations across London. I was, and still am, so proud. Her ex-boyfriend is in a nationwide advert at the moment, which always prompts me to say that I know him, but leaves me biting my lip when I know in reality he's a bit of a wanker. Meanwhile an ex of mine has just appeared on another nationwide advert and it feels even stranger.

I sent him an e-mail to say well done. Although now in my paranoia I worry it sounded patronising. Thing is, I always felt we could have been friends, except he's as weird about that kind of thing as me. The last time we ever met, at a club at Uni, we hugged and chatted and he told me he hoped to be famous. I said that I knew that already and wished him the best. He begged that I never "kiss and tell" to the papers. I laughed, because in my mind the girls that kiss and tell are money-grabbing whores with no sense of self-respect or the impact of their avarice and insensitivity. Now I see him every few hours on the plasma screen at work, helping marketing gurus to sell their product to teenagers. He looks good.

Thing is, I don't want to go out with him, I just want him to be happy. It's weird, but all of the guys I've slept with I want to be happy, find love, find success, whatever it is they need or desire. I'd quite like to bump into them in a bar and hear about it all, without any feeling of being uncomfortable. In many ways I'd like to reel off right now the guys I could pinpoint the ambitions of - for someone who talks too much, I'm surprisingly good at listening! Maybe a few: Roly wants to matter in the world, ideally as a comedian, more realistically as a favourite staff nurse; Andy wants to be rich, with a penthouse apartment, all mod-cons; Lee wanted to be an Aussie Rules footballer, but he felt too pressured by his Dad to make it his life; Tom wants to be famous, maybe as an actor but only one who's infamously intelligent; Matt would love to play football, but it's too late and he hates what he's doing right now.

Embarrassingly there are names I've forgotten, how awful is that! My "number" is hardly of record-breaking proportions, but when you can remember everything else except their damn name, it doesn't reflect well.

Fat people, now there's a topic of subjective proportions. My Dad reckons he's fat and while his BMI isn't healthy, he's only on the cusp of fat, and always has been. The guy in The Full Monty is apparently fat and yet he's much like the average 30-something man, with his beer gut and mini-jowls. When I look in the mirror I see fat, but my friends - and strangers - see slim. Although I don't know how they see my legs. You see, they're disproportionally huge. I saw a woman the other day, fat by anyone's standards, with pins that could rival Heidi Klum's. Meanwhile I've tried not eating, and throwing it up, with little to no change at all in my lower-body.

The reason I've chosen to rant is because superficially it matters. In the BBC3 programme, 2 girls who were a size 20 stood outside Miss Selfridge's with "No Fat" banners, exclaiming that they "didn't care" what people thought, as passers-by stared. Good on you, girls! Except that sometimes you do. Two weekends ago, when I walked in my high heels and short skirt (iPod blaring, because it drowns out reality) I strutted through pride, but cringed at every down-turned glance. Here is a girl with a slim, conventionally attractive upper-half, and legs that could serve you cold Kronenburg of a night. A month ago I decided to wear a short skirt I'd bought at Oxfam, only to have my Dad tell me that I looked awful. While I may never have been his princess in terms of looks and pretty blonde locks, that hurt. I changed into jeans, like always.

I can't sympathise with people who are fat because I'm not. I will literally starve myself before I reach anything that could be seen as overly chubby. I have habitually eaten cake to cheer myself up and then flushed it down the toilet an hour afterwards in fear of getting fat. And yet, even at my skinniest weight, when I was eating just 2 pieces of toast a day, my legs would not fit into the most generous of Topshop boots and my arse could find the bare minimum of room in size 12 jeans.

With that in mind, I can't help but attempt to sympathise. Perhaps, like me, they cannot lose that particular weight. Like me they dream of wearing the outfit they saw in Vogue without feeling like a fashion fraud, it's just that the focus is different. Passing someone and thinking that they shouldn't be wearing that is not a unique thought, they probably had it first. And they're probably reciting the mantra "I don't care," even if, every once in a while, they do.

The quote from Daniel is rather apt, when you think of the diets that famous Hollywood types adhere to. Apparently restaurants in LA no longer serve bread as a side dish, or indeed as any dish. Vegetarianism is on the up because it is less fattening. Fragrant oils are probably still popular, but nothing too greasy, we wouldn't want spots. I hope my friend doesn't become like that, it's so difficult eating with someone skinny. It's also difficult eating with someone famous.

While few of us woud wish to fade away in anonymous obscurity, nor waddle into heart-threatening obesity, fame, infamy and the inevitable fear over love-handles that translate onto tabloid-size photos are equally distasteful. What to do?

Fuck knows. I know that if I ever have the capital I might actually resort to surgery, although there are risks I may never walk again, so deep the insecurity runs. Other than that, there are no conclusions as of yet. Fat people, famous people, rarely do the twain meet. For now.

driving lessons

Every day God gives us is a gift. That's why we call it the present. (Jeremy Brock, Driving Lessons)

Suffering a split shift on Sunday, I used my spare 2 hours to watch Driving Lessons, a coming of age tale with Rupert Grint (Ron in Harry Potter), Julie Walters and Laura Linney. It had been that or The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and since I can quote Anchorman back to front, I thought I'd wait for a better quality Will Ferrell offering.

For anyone who has grown up in a Christian household, Driving Lessons is not easy watching. The resignedly good-natured Ben Marshall (seventeen and a half), who over the course of the movie breaks free of his doormat status, may live in very different circumstances from the average Christian teenager, but for anyone who has made a fool of themselves in a Sunday school production, or used their free Saturday afternoon to serve food to elderly people, or simply sung through classic Church dirges rather than run free and unencumbered out of the building, the film will resonate.

I'm not going to bother explaining what happens, leave that to film critics and bloggers with too much time on their hands. The small cast is, however, an intriguing mix. Apart from Ben, whose facial features range from bored to blank to bemused with the barest of disctinction, the characters appear quite derivative: Julie Walters returns to Acorn Antiques and Laura Linney is an English version of her Truman Show character. However, they are both exquisite in these roles. Walters, whose character is a retired actress with delusions of grandeur, revels in the lines and scenes when she can recite Shakespeare and Chekhov, reminding us that her movie work is a dim shadow of her acting talent. The supporting cast are well imagined and well cast, both the downtrodden vicar and the Marshall's odd houseguest bring comedy and interest to a film that would have suffered without them. The curate is smarmy excellence, with enough screen time to strike a chord but not enough to become a nuisance. However, Ben's Scottish amour is too old to make their relationship believable, a sure sign that the writer is male!

Apart from a denouement that had me cringing in the aisles, this was a film I was very glad to have caught. My only regret is that, as a daughter still willing to do any stupid thing my Mum or Dad need at church of a weekend, Driving Lessons has left me wondering if I've really grown up yet. The film takes an easy route out: a Miramax conclusion without life's little greys blurring the soft-focus black and white.

It does, however, make great use of the word "fuck". Don't be surprised if Julie Walters makes a cameo in Tarantino's next outing, this was a great audition for the part of his grandma.

ideals

So I tell you, don't worry about everyday life - whether you have enough food, drink and clothes. Doesn't life consist of more than food and clothing? (Matthew 6:25)

Years ago my Mum pilfered some oversized framed photos from her workplace. They were the annual winners of an amateur photography competition, mostly wrought iron buildings at sunset and poppies in situ. One was different, she gave it to me and I immediately loved it. The picture depicts two people standing together looking at dawn breaking over the sea. The only colour is a pale glow from between the clouds and reflected on the water, while the couple stand in silhouette in the foreground. Their pose is ambiguous: they could be friends or lovers.

They represent how I see my close friendships and also my relationship hopes. Sometimes I look at them and wonder about their friendship, or their hopes. For me they are both projection and metaphor. Unlike living breathing family and friends, theirs is the relationship I aspire to.

People tell me I'm odd, strange, even mentally deranged (in a good way). Occasionally I don't see it, usually on the heels of trying so hard to blend in, but I'm not stupid and I recognise that I will do or say things that others don't. Ergo 'strange'.

I think that in a similar way my ideals of what a relationship should be are 'strange'. At the very least they are not the relationships my friends inhabit, nor they ones they revere in films and televison programmes. There's a song out at the moment, Chasing Cars; it's over-played, which doesn't help, but it reflects some of my ideals. I think too much, I talk too much and I "love" a lot of things in life. I want someone who would lie with me without thinking, without needing to express feelings, without needing to say the cliches of love and committment that pervade every facet of pop culture...

There's someone I like. I am intrigued by him. I don't know him very well and I feel like a pillock in his vicinity (a cliche in itself!). He seems to be funny, I would like to think he has a great personality and he's got nice eyes. All slightly irrelevant if you can't get past the initial hello. More importantly I can imagine being able to be silent in his company; not a silence caused by lack of conversation but rather its excess. I can envisage being allowed to be different, saying things that avoid cliche and explore what's new and different. I could imagine being the girl in my photo, leaning on his shoulder.

It's all so tragic: the girl sitting at her computer dreaming of her Mr Right. If I were 3 stone heavier it would make a great film, provided I got off my fat arse to the local gym and showed him that an eloquent personality can look good in a thong.

This is why I would fuck any cute guy willing to give me the time of day: because every average girl has an ugly girl inside her saying "Take what you can." Maybe it wouldn't make sense to people who know me, or maybe it would. Truth is, when you can't talk honestly to the people you want to, you find a deceitful truth in the people you will eventually want to avoid.

Don't expect a happy ending. I still haven't been able to get past the initial hello and I probably never will. It's not his fault. My own insecurities are definitely not his fault. However, when you're the girl standing at the side (or even centre) of the room, desperately hoping that he will ignore all the superficial issues for a chance of one dance, one moment where you do not feel stupid or ugly or, worst of all, as if you need to impress him beyond all others like the prize pig at a county fair, it becomes his fault. Ergo 'all men are bastards'.

It makes the resulting sting less acute.

the weekend began...and ended

The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense. (Proverbs 27:9)

At 9.23pm (I had just looked at the time on my phone) the song came on and it closed the elipses of the weekend's beginning. A few hours before I had gone to a play with my London-shy friend(s) for her birthday. It was hilarious, which is always a good start to an evening. We ate at a plush restaurant, one of those places where if you haven't already clocked the veg is under "side dishes" you're severely disappointed at what eleven quid bought you, and the waitresses sneer at yet another order of three jugs of cocktails. If you were next to a table of girls singing along with the guy on the piano (Easy Like Sunday Morning, if you weren't) I do apologise.

A little while later we found ourselves in Covent Garden and people started to talk of outside bars and chilled atmospheres. I know the birthday girl too fucking well to let the night slide into respectability so I dragged them (my ho's to the bouncers) into the Roadhouse. She loved it. Heck, we all loved it. And at 9.23pm I Can't Wait for the Weekend to Begin came on.

At one point in the night, when I Don't Feel Like Dancing was playing, her little sister leaned in to drunkenly tell me "You're the best dancer!" I stopped doing the Charleston and stared back at her bemused.
"But I take the fucking piss!" I scoff.
"I know," she says. "But you look so good doing it."
Big grin!

As we walked out of the club/dive one of the girls remarked, "I love going out with just the girls!" We all agreed and carried on walking. I started thinking of course and over-analysing the situation. The night had been about my friend whose birthday it was. There were some cute guys in the vicinity but they were wallpaper to the showpiece of a night spent talking, laughing and dancing. These are the nights that empower: when in your unselfconscious rhythmic swaying you catch the gaze of someone you not only like and are comfortable with, but who is not appraising you and are not themselves being appraised. Oh, unless you're taking the piss in a stylish way...

The whole weekend was wonderful. I stayed with a friend on Friday night and enjoyed cigarettes, wine and conversation. One of those evenings/nights/birdsong at dawns that give you a lot to think about, from the superficial or trivial to matters far more significant.

Perhaps I do think too much, but I'm inspired by so much I hear and see (shades of my father) and more often the people I meet. It could be the attitude someone takes to their workplace or the intensity with which they communicate - both verbally and non - their passion for a subject I care nothing for, or their verbal tics and facial scars. I think I collect people. Does that make sense? Not in the manner of getting contact details and making new friends with every new acquaintance, far from it. I remember those I meet and what interests/fascinates/appalls me about them. Friends are different because they become more than a categorisation of their parts, but there is still a part of me that says: "That! And that!" These things, these are what I want to pin down and display in a glass-fronted case that may one day be donated to the Royal Sociological Society for public exhibition.

So didn't sleep with anyone this weekend. Did not kiss anyone. Flirted only from afar (cheeky wave to the piano player, cheeky wink flew back) and all this with the equivalent of 2 jugs of cocktails in the system. On some level knowing that I had this blog to write on Sunday was a guiding force. Feeling pretty good about myself helped too. Now I desperately need some sleep.

can't wait for the weekend to begin

But we prayed to our God and guarded the city day and night to protect ourselves. (Nehemiah 4:9)

I'm probably cheating at this. If I was (were?) back at Uni this blog would be far more interesting, fraught with anxieties and disappointments, valleys and peaks and a lot more temptation. At the moment, however, I'm not inviting temptation. Last Saturday's few hours in the pub were the nearest I got to taking some time out in the local dives. Compared to the time I tried to give up drinking (13 days, but a very good excuse for the wine that broke the camel's back) I feel as though I can do this.

Things are currently conspiring to give me excuses: the raw chicken, a late shift last night that meant I couldn't join some mates on the lash, and this weekend coming when I have to be somewhere at 10am and can't stay out the whole night. Ooh, am I growing up? These excuses are sounding kinda mature!

The raw chicken can also be explained by my passionate love of food. This is how I justify the inability to give up drinking. By drinking I mean a few glasses of wine here, a pint or two there, I have never been able to binge heavily. I sit and growl menacingly at the sparky bastards who claim they "never get hangovers". In my mind I am a dog with large teeth and barely controlled rage raising my hackles at the fluffy bunny that has seen fit to bounce across my lawn. The fluffy bunny is blissfully ignorant of the danger approaching and if it wasn't for the damn chain shackling me to the house (see what I did there, the chain is my own hangover...) I would spring with all manner of force on the innocent little tyke.

In all honesty, I like my sleep and I like to feel vaguely fresh in the mornings. I am not a pretty sight when the sun comes up, even after a day of fruit, veg and water. So it makes sense that I'm avoiding the drinking dancing temptation of nights out. This verse seemed to sum it up: I'm guarding the city. It won't last, but an initial burst of zealous enthusiasm couldn't hurt in the long run.

Last night I agreed to go for a drink with someone. Immediately my shoulders have slumped and my face dissolved into a frown. It's not as if I get asked out on dates often, but it's irrelevent how many people register their interest if your interest is minimal at best. I hate letting people down, but the last thing you need is to be spending time with someone out of duress. My uber-boss - the hierarchy at work is mostly linear and entirely male - asked if I had a boyfriend, I said no, he asked why, I said because I hadn't met anyone I wanted to go out with, he asked what I did when I needed affection and companionship (and sex of course, but that's a different issue altogether). I paused and told him that I would want those things with someone I liked rather than someone I was using for my own purposes.

I have known too many friends at school and Uni who did just that: went out with people because they felt they should, they wanted to feel special, they had become dependent on being in relationship status. I don't get it. Ally McBeal - may she rest in peace - talked about getting the "ick", although this would happen after a few dates. I seem to get the ick on being asked for a date. It does mean I have more nights free, but then I use it to watch shite tv! I need a hobby.

So do I tell the boy no, actually, I don't want to meet you for a drink? Or do I go for the drink, have a pleasant chat and a free glass of something cold and hope he doesn't upgrade to dinner? Or, should I do what characters in derivative Western youth programmes do and act so appallingly that he never wants to see me again; only to discover he is in fact so fascinated by my brutal honesty and engaging liveliness that he turns up at my door the next day with flowers. Hmm, methinks option 2, just in case.

This weekend will officially begin on Friday afternoon, can't wait.

keeping it real

For though I do my work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, I must leave everything I gain to people who haven't worked to earn it. This is not only foolishness but highly unfair. (Ecclesiastes 2:21)

There are several books in the bible that I've never really looked at; Ecclesiastes had only registered because it was my Mum's favourite evil charade to give someone at Christmas. I found this verse on a random trawl and was immediately struck by how un-Jesus it is. Read it, can you imagine the man who told the rich young noble to give all his money to the poor adding the words:"Yes, this is unfair, but life's a bitch."

In one way, this verse describes teaching (bear with me). Teachers - the good ones - spend hours devising lesson plans that will stimulate and educate the children. They summarise pages of GCSE knowledge into easily mangaeable bits. They create templates for coursework that will make getting it done in time that much easier. They use their own wisdom, knowledge and skill to encourage and educate those without these things. However, there's a positive ending to the teaching metaphor, it is not foolishness or unjust, but a progressive and altruistic way of life.

(At least in theory, some of the little rascals don't help things.)

Similarly the rise of the charitable organisation. Here are companies that could take as their mission statement the first part of this verse. Foolishness it may be to the conglomerates and investment bankers, but the work that people do in charities benefits people who by and large will not be able to repay that effort. "People who haven't worked to earn it" is a phrase that sounds petty, and one can imagine a rich man strolling the golf course with his buddies of a Sunday morning using it, but it is true. However, when the people who have stood to gain are able to, they do work. Besides, the "gain" that the writer of Ecclesiastes is talking about is probably monetary, it is something that can be counted and respected. How many millions of people around the world work dusk till dawn to feed themselves and their children, and that's it? The work that charities do creates capital that is then used to help anyone without the resources to help themselves. This is not foolish, it is admirable.

I had a conversation with a friend a while ago where we talking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I am no sociologist and would not presume to analyse it here, when there are enough papers available already, but I believe it highlights the different attitudes people have to respect and fulfilment in different circumstances and cultures. I had seen an episode of MTV cribs recently and was appalled at how opulent the house this inarticulate skinny white guy was showing off. Maybe I'm just not that into the idea of being rich, but with the personal and safety needs dealt with, he had taken the need for esteem, belonging and actualisation to a tacky, widescreen, petrol-pumping extreme. I get so angry at these programmes. Extreme Makeoever: Home Edition as well. Sure, there are people who have been through some serious personal crisis, with no home to speak of, but if they took a quarter of the budget on these houses and went over to Rwanda, they could build as large and as beautiful a home there as in the US. As I said, I'm no sociologist, but there are some massive things wrong with Western society when its people seek love, status and actualisation in third homes and walk-in wardrobes, and are encouraged to do so.

Back to Ecclesiastes. Turns out, the entire book is a poetic extension of the adage "Life's a bitch". Scholars reckon that some of the more depressing - and therefore impious - passages were toned down over the years. The author's premise is that Death makes no distinctions, so life itself and finding joy in life is pointless. There are quite a few theological books out at the moment on the nature and possibility of an afterlife. Some conclude that there is no life after death, but that it should not stop us from leading lives of humility and Jesus-led grace. For thousands of years, Jews lived according to the laws of the Torah, dedicated to God, without believing that at the end of their lives they would find reward in an afterlife. Perhaps if we lived as if there was no reward, the gift of life would be enough. In fact, if we ceased using the rhetoric of "seeing the Lord face to face" or "when I stand in glory", it might encourage more selfless lives. If Christians believed that they were living for a better world now and after they died, rather than an existence now and a better world for themselves after they died, there would be so much activism and fervour for justice and respect in the world that things might change.

This blog isn't just about keeping myself accountable to lewd behaviour, it's being held accountable full stop. I say these things, I think these things and yet I'm not pushing my way to the front line. I'm not trying the chaste thing so that one day God will pat me on the head and usher me into heaven. Plenty of non-Christian girls out there would quite like to find someone who respects them enough to wait, or who doesn't pile on the pressure (and the vodka). For the next few days its about looking for a way I can work and toil and use my skills in such a way that others gain, because it is foolishness in the world's eyes but it is just and it's what Jesus would have wanted.

Saturday afternoon

He who loves pleasure will become poor; whoever loves wine and oil will never be rich. (Proverbs 21:17)

I like this bible verse, along with much of Proverbs. While many of the verses in Proverbs are truisms that are repeated throughout every generation and culture, some of them are very specific to the time and the situation in which they were spoken. This one is probably somewhere in between, in that today it would only be uttered on a regular basis by a certain type of person: doom-monger puritan folk. I suppose it's true. What am I saying, I know it's true! Fortunately if I consolidate my existing debts I can continue getting pissed every weekend without the feeling that I'm throwing my income to the liver.


Finished work early yesterday but unfortunately just missed the bus. (If you heard a girl screaming "Wanker" at a Number 1 bus on Saturday afternoon, that was me). So popped into the nearest bar and bought a coffee... except that a few tables in sat my friends Lou and Sue (wow, never said that together before, they sound like a Sesame Street duo). A shot of Jamesons in the coffee and standing in The Eagle watching the United/Spurs match later, I was holding another pint of Harveys (back to that later) and feeling kinda tipsy. I was also flirting with Sue and Sue's boyfriend - I usually put multitasking under Additional Skills on the CV - oh and a guy called Adam, and Sue's boyfriend's flatmate Phil, and Melinda, and staring lustfully at Neil, who's arguably the sexiest man in town. It was at this point that I realised I, and the uncooked chicken I'd bought 3 hours earlier, needed to get home.

It wasn't really self-control on my part, I used the chicken as an excuse, but I didn't stay out, I didn't get wankered and I didn't end up pulling some random. This is progress.

pulp fiction

Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights. No one said a word to Job, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words. (Job 2:13)

I love this film. I love this film so much that in a period of my life when I was getting little sleep through worry and having to crawl out of bed every day at half 6, I willingly watched it until 2am on the black and white TV in my possession.

Several occasions in the film resonate in particular: when Mia Wallace says: "That's when you know you've found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence," when Jules does his bit of spontaneous exegesis in a roadside diner, when the young black guy gets his head blown off and Walken's monologue. These are moments that stand out in an outstanding film.

First example because of a pathetic need for romance. Girls are feeble when it comes to moments where fantasy meets real life. The vision of being able to enjoy silence (which involves acres of unspoken profundity) with a man is very seductive, especially for girls who have things to say, and feel pressurised - by the fear of being boring - to say them. The character of Mia Wallace, who is infinitely cool and composed, even when recovering from an adrenaline hypodermic in her torso (one of the funniest moments in film) , wants to enjoy silence with someone. Perhaps it's not so unusual that girls see enjoying silence as some kind of pinnacle for a relationship: men traditionally enjoy sport/films/computer games together that means the minimal of communication, women traditionally enjoy hours together of chatting, sharing and much meaningful communication. Being able to defer to your man's interests by shutting the fuck up represents feminine deference, and a tangible relationship difference between that of you and your girlfriends. Not only that, if you can shut the fuck up and the guy doesn't dump you for being dull, or even keeps you because you're not a mouthy bitch, then the relationship has, at the very least, a short term future.

Second, because I believe Jules' conversion represents one that rivals Paul's, particularly because there is the comparison of Vincent's response to the divine intervention. One man sees the experience as something life changing, the other sees it as coincidence. Surely on some level this is the essence of faith? True, this is a gross generalisaion, but when talking to people, there are elements of explaining one's faith that have to be understood on an instinctual basis. Vincent does not hear what Jules has to say - we never find out what the Tim Roth character makes of the personal exegesis - and it makes sense, because even with examples of God's power that equate to having six rounds of a magnum fired at you, point-blank range, without hitting their mark, some people do not hear.

Third because it's a powerful moment of film that is somehow funny (helped by Tarantino's turn as a metrosexual housewife) and existential. Fourth because Walken is talented and gorgeous. This is a contraversial comment, although less so since he was in the Fat Boy Slim video. I love the moment when he turns from it being Bruce's family history to his own: "I hid this uncomfortable piece of metal up my ass for two years." Brilliant! Apparently he doesn't turn down film offers. Pretty sure this is admirably altruistic. At the very least I want it to be. I contend that the film still where he was his most attractive was Deer Hunter, in the Vietnamese cage, when the camera panned to him and he was young, vulnerable and sexy.

If I were to turn these disparate insights into moments of religious clarity I'd fail. Pulp Fiction is way too secular to resonate on a wider basis, which is a pity. Maybe I would get on with more Christians if they watched and enjoyed films like this more often.

I'm going to bed. I have drunk too much wine, and while I am alone this is good because I am not being easy, it is also not good because I am alone. Drinking that is. Alone can be good at times.

a voice in the night

What you are doing is not right! Should you not walk in the fear of our God in order to avoid being mocked by enemy nations? (Nehemiah 5:9)

I had a phone call last night at 2am from a number I didn't recognise. The guy on the other end of the phone said that his name was Ben and did I want to come suck his cock.

I hung up and I turned the phone off. Then I turned over and felt afraid. Who was this guy? Why did he have my number? And was my past behaviour entirely to blame for this call? I found myself trying to remember any Bens I had met, or friends of guys I knew who were called Ben. Nothing. Still I felt scared, as though somewhere there were people sitting around who had suggested I'd be a good target for such abuse. Or worse still, that I would be someone interested in taking up the offer.

I turned the phone back on, wondering if this mysterious 'Ben' might have sent a text, a clue as to who he was; naively I imagined he might send an apology. Neither came.

Is there anything I can do about this? In the short term I may turn my phone off before falling asleep at night. In the long term I do nothing.

One of the reasons I am eager to move away from where I'm living now is the knowledge that I can find new friends, with this new understanding of who I am and how I should relate to people. But is this a coward's way out? By not doing the things I used to, I am not sending an obvious and direct message to the people around me that I have changed (and therefore paved the way for some transformative evangelism). If I had been fucking strangers every night the difference would be clear, but this is a simple and understated change. People would still remember that I had slept with Rob the year before. This is information that lives on, because in communities people are the sum of the gossip they have created. The fact I had not slept with anyone since would be irrelevant. I am no longer a virgin, therefore I have nothing pure to offer in the way of sexual evangelism. I am suddenly more aware than ever of the power of reputation to affect the present.

I hope Ben doesn't call again, or anyone else. I hope it was a prank and nothing more serious. I hope a lot of things, but can't articulate them. I suppose most of all I wish, yet again, that I hadn't been this way for the last few years. I wish someone could have taken me aside and showed me how to find confidence and affirmation in other places. I wish they could do that now.

Tyler Moore or Burchill?

Some people have wandered from the faith by following such foolishness. (1 Timothy 6:21)

My boss has a girlfriend. Yippee I cry and promptly decide the slightly lesser boss has lovely eyes.

I am thinking that perhaps a healthy and potentially more lucrative way of approaching the situation is to pre-empt things imaginatively: write a Mills and Boon novel of workplace romance starring me, my boss and my lesser boss. And if I get started early enough, anything even approaching 'shenanigans' will be infinitely less satisfying than those which my imagination has already envisaged.

The idea came to me on the late shift last night, when I found myself in one of the cellar rooms with a head full of soft-core uses for the space. Do other people do this as well? Men according to 90s statistics do every few seconds and so they're given leeway. Women, however, have only recently been allowed to voice these kinds of ideas and even then it's frowned upon in polite society. Men who seem otherwise sound will suddenly spout off that they'd prefer to settle down with someone like Mary Tyler Moore than Julie Burchill. Ok, who wouldn't, but in the long term I think I'd put up with the anger and eloquent bile in favour of the insight and intelligent humour. Perfect hair and a pretty smile can have the same long-term effects as Chintz wallpaper: originally charming to look at, but sickly and almost certainly doomed to be out-of-fashion after too long.

VS

I am a voicer. Really? Hadn't noticed, says the stranger in the bus queue, who listened to my views on misinformant timetables for the last ten minutes. They say that it's the quiet ones who are getting all the sex, the ones who talk about it all the time aren't. I can agree with that, on some level. But for me, most of my encounters were fuel for entertainment and reflection. Perhaps if I had a bit more money I'd have just gone to Peru or Iceland, or taken flying lessons or swum with Walruses (Walrii?). Perhaps once I'd realised how interesting the whole sexual encounter thing could be, I wanted to investigate more? Perhaps this is another excuse!

Had a brilliant time this weekend, a friend's birthday/leaving party. We went to a dingy yet funky bowling alley off Russell Square that had a DJ, a bar and a late licence. Needless to say I got drunk and played the worst game of my life, but it didn't matter because it was a party and they were playing candy floss dance and popular indie. It's difficult to take yourself seriously when Shampoo are following the Killers and you've just dropped the bowling ball backwards into your waiting friends.

Another great part of the night was having no one I could risk seducing. I could get drunk without fear of throwing myself at some poor unfortunate whose only crime was walking past and looking cute. With that in mind I have decided to rate the potential temptation of nights out on a scale of 'lonely' to 'too many friends to get lonely'. Of course if a night out could be classed as 'lonely' there's very little likelihood I'd bother to make the trip.

I might just stay home and get started on that romance novel.