“Gimme a ring some time.”

  

On Sunday morning I woke up with this pretty young thing and, rather than my usual post-coitus flight-mechanism kicking in straight away, I turned over and lay there for a moment listening to her snoring away. Her blonde hair was in a sprawl over the pillow and I bat a few loose locks away from my neck to stop them tickling me. I lay there as still as I could, so as not to stir her. After a while, as I prepared to move, I brought my hand to my face to rub the morning stubble a little for comfort. I got a shock.

  

I had Danny’s ring on my finger, or rather – the ring that she’d given me – I must have been plastered! – I can’t remember what made me put it on. I felt for the chain, that it had been on around my neck, and it wasn’t there. I’d worn it around my neck since I broke up with Danny, because I liked the ring, just not her.

  

It had been a throwback to joke from the first week of our relationship. It could barely be called that at the start. We’d fuck, I’d dress and then I’d say. “Thanks, I had fun, gimme a ring some time.”

  

I’m not sure when she came up with the notion, but a few weeks, after a few more satisfying sessions, she gave me this ring, just a little silver thing.

  

“There,” she said “now you’ll never be able to say that to me again.”

  

I’d not yet connected the dots. “Say what?” I asked.

  

“Gimme a ring some time.”

  

“Oh.” I was still trying my hardest to focus on the objective of understanding. I got it almost the next second, but I was still slow at making pace.

  

“If you do, I can just say ‘I already have’ and then you have to ring me.”

  

It was corny, but it tugged on my ventricles. Got me all mushy inside for a moment. I stiffened up and said, “I love you.” My fate was sealed. I was going to crash and burn trying to be selfless. I had, and still have, no idea what ‘love’ is.

  

Now here I was, in bed with a girl and suddenly a squirm of ugliness wriggled in my stomach.

  I felt sick.  Enough of that… i’m going to try to fathom my feeling.  Next post will be about my pad!   

So, to these last six months…

I met the aforementioned ‘Danny’ on the back end of a barroom brawl. I’d been with a few friends at the University Leavers event back up in Manchester and, aside from getting plastered; I turned into a bit of a lech for a girl in hold-ups and a hipster skirt. The rest of her in unimportant, I hardly paid that attention anyway.

Turns out that the reason she was alone at the table wasn’t because I hadn’t done her the pleasure of introducing myself it was actually because her lanky piss-stain of a man-boy had gone to the bar to purchase another round. Well how was I to know? I mean those bar staff are far too efficient! I was looking for two glasses, so at least I tried to take precautions!

Anyway, she was quite a sadistic siren. It was Greek tragedy from the start and for me there was no mast in sight to strap myself to. After she lured me in with a smile, she kept me engaged; basically she chatted shit about being newly graduated and I stared at her legs.

The man-boy wasn’t impressed upon his return, not only had he just shelled-out a packet on a pint (for her) and a Smirnoff Ice (for him), he had come back to find a slick geezer like me smoothing in on his broad.

After shouting the odds at each other, and a shove or two later, we were all asked to leave by a bull-dike of a barmaid. Once outside it was clear neither of us was in the mood for a scuffle, so we both backed off and walked in opposite directions down the road. Funny sight it was too, looking back at them, him storming off out front and her trotting along behind him squealing her apologies. And they say Manchester is a rough place!

So brawl it wasn’t, not butch at all, but I’m hardly going to admit, right off the bat, that it was a slagging-match and bitch-slap at best!

Late as it was, I fancied calling it a night and made heel homeward. I hadn’t got over three or four roads before I’d forgotten my lesson from the bar and another siren entered my headlights.  This one was alone, without doubt, so being the plucky little fellow that I am, I made my way over to ask if she’d had a good night – an hour later, when she climbed off me, I guessed she had.

She was the face that launched a thousand fists.

These last few months have see me move mountains (of her stuff) halfway down the country, spend a night in a holding cell (for being ‘drunk and disorderly’) and beaten so many times that I can’t believe I’m still not black and blue. Most of the other cliché I’ve avoided. No transmitted infections, impregnations or abortions; thankfully.

I made a mess of myself mentally and physically, until I got up the energy and money to make a run for it. I didn’t have to run far because without my income she had to run further.

So now I’m held up in Bath in a job as an admin monkey, answering phones. I live in a nice-enough place, but all my savings were eaten up on ‘our’ move down here; hence my procurement of funds from Danny. Yes, by less than reputable means! But it made sure I had enough for a deposit.

I’m comfortable but miserable. Day by day waiting the reloading of my finances and a change of luck. As my dad always said though, and I hope is true, ‘Don’t worry son, you’re a Mitchell.’

Such is life

Chalk up 6 months of inactivity to my inability to escape from a certain person who was in my proximity. It’s over now. I’m back.

 

Was I missed at all? I don’t really care. Any confirmation of your affection for me would be water off a duck’s back, just a feather-light tickle over my ego. Feel free.

 

Name: Danny

Age: 19

Hair Colour: Blonde

Breast Size: Epic

Sex: Well both female and incredible

 

I had fun with her, I left Manchester for her and came to Bath for her and rented a place with her and took a new job for her (which I am still a slave to, for now) and then I lost interest in her, stole money from her and moved to a place without her.

 

Such is life.

 

It was turbulent, but longer lasting than anything I have had before – so the experience was at once uniquely interesting and also dreadful.

 

I’m not sure what to write, this is just cathartic release at the moment; me continuing my tyrannous attempt to impact, to inspire and to impress.

 

They’ve opened the window in the office and I’m cold and when I told them I was cold they told me “You’re male, your opinion doesn’t count.”

 

I’m left wondering, ‘If my dick drops off from the cold, do I qualify then as having a valid opinion?’ and ‘Are they joking?’ and then ‘This wouldn’t have happened in the good old days!’

 

I know I’m falling a distance of years right now, which is surprising when my days are timed by coffee cups and teaspoons.

 

All through the day my chief effort is locating stray facial hair, that has escaped an inefficient razor, and wiggling each with my fingertip. It’s a curious exhibit of ennui.

 

I’m going to get a tea next time the round comes.

how far is far enough that far becomes close and close far?

“I cheated on Alice”

 That’s Warped! Seriously Warped (she’s beautiful, funny and cute)

 I want her myself but then i’m dealing with the issue and not the reason that i’m addressing it

 When it comes to relationships i subscribe to God’s Philosophy

You can look, but don’t touch

Touch, but don’t taste

Taste, but don’t swallow

 Its all about how far we go – i myself never carry on with anything if i know that i don’t have the desire to continue on its own terms

Meaning, if the girl wants me all to herself – then i cut short of making that untrue

Other people should adopt this – its called ‘respect’ – try it mate!

my highs and mylos

So I was thinking the other day that i’d get into more writing on the move, seeing as that is how I tend to enjoy writing the most. I usually have my little moleskin notebook, but have started looking for more high-tech and sexier ways to write on the move. It’s either buy a Mont Blanc pen or buy a Sony Mylo.

Now they don’t sell the Sony Mylo in the UK – so i’m going to get a friend to send one through to me from Japan.

So expect to have a lot more writing from me. I get paid for the designs I did for the band and from another few odd jobs.

Can’t wait to get a good job. Be good to get about and drink and chase skirt again.

of stairwells and strangers

Half to hurt you, half to make you aware, which hurts you more.

They do it all the time, tell you these stories about how they fucked some stranger in the stairwell of a club, in the back of a car, or were forced up against a wet wall by some guy with his pants around his ankles. They either don’t understand that we don’t want to know that shit, or they don’t care that we don’t.

Even if you are that stranger from the stairwell from time to time with other girls, it doesn’t change the fact that some other stranger fucked your current girl before you’d ever even focused on her. It’s a fallacy in the extreme that these things help relationships. I’m speaking of course about my ex, and that is exactly the reason why she is my ‘ex’. I got thinking about that last conversation with her after reading a blog. I’m not sure what to say about it, other than I’ve never been good at sharing, even if it was before we’d met.

Interview from hell and back again

Calling the interviewer a douche bag is not the normal way one goes about getting themselves a job. It’s almost a surefire way to ace yourself out of a job. Shit, it probably doesn’t even go over well at an interview for executive jizzmopper at the local spankbank, but this was a special day.This day didn’t start out that different from any other. My sleepover guest and I woke up early because she had to get to work by 9:00. Well, she woke up because she had to get to work by 9:00. I was already awake due to her uncanny ability to steal every bit of sheet, blanket, comforter, and pillow off of the bed, and then, once she wrapped herself in a cozy coating, she proceeded to roll all over the fucking bed like a wrecking ball. Sounds pleasant don’t it? Anyway, I got up, made breakfast, and invaded her shower until she was dirty-clean enough to get dress and eat it. She started to hog the water in protest of my invasion, so I used the secret weapon.

I sang all the Arctic Monkeys songs I knew at the top of my lungs until she left.

I’m thinking it was “Fluorescent Adolescent” or “Put Your Dukes Up, John” that did it, but I don’t really care.

By the time I was all done washing myself, she was ready to leave, she asked what I was going to do, and “I think I’m going to go grab some coffee and write” was my initial thought, so, I said it.

“I think I’m going to go grab some coffee and write!”

The door wasn’t even fully shut behind her before I was on the couch playing Mario kart. Fuck the city at this time in the morning.

At around 11:00 I turned my television to channel 3. Midsummer Murders. It was at that instant that I remembered something. The moment I saw that a book dealer had been the victim. I remembered. The single solitary thing that I actually had to do that day. The thing I wrote down in every notebook. On the bathroom mirror. The thing I would have written on the stomach of last night’s fling, in black permanent marker, had she let me. “Interview. 12:00. Waterstones’. And just as I bound out the door, 20mins later that I noticed some Jehovah witness’ were at the door of my neighbors, but its was all just a second too late, as I’d already shouted “HOLY JESUS, I’M GONNA BE FUCKING LATE!!”Running to the bus stop I catching the next bus into the center, I take a seat in the corner of the top deck, where I can bash on the drivers mirror shaft when the train stops or takes too long to close the doors. I don’t think it does much. But hey, everyone needs a hobby.

After a while the bus finally gets going and a girl sits next to me. A little old, but totally cute. We began to talk and had a very pleasant conversation while on the ride into town. Then some dick sits behind us with his music blasting. Looking like a smug fratboy prick. We try our best to keep talking, but he was such a dick-sweat that after just 5mins I just have to turn to her and say what he is “a complete douche bag”. I shouldn’t have looked at him when I said it, because next thing I know he’s taken the headphones out and he’s peering right at me and asking “what did you just say to her?!”. So I repeated it. I kept eye contact and articulated like a motherfucker so that he didn’t miss a syllable. I waited. His mind ticked. He looked at the girl, then me. Then he rolled his eyes and said, “whatever!” and went right back to listening to his headphones.

I gave up my attempt to get her number and just got off at the next stop, its my stop anyway. I get to the address and I double-checked the address in my email to make sure I was going to the right building outlet. Lord knows there are enough of the fucking places in my city. I get to my floor and check in with the till guy. I’m a little early. Apparently Mallory just got in. Mallory. Score. I’ve never interviewed with a vagina owner and not got the job. People with tits like me. Go fig.

I sit down on a couch next to a few customers reading the typical bestseller bullshit that these big publishers shit out. I’m completely confidant. Even if I have to hump this chick Mallory, I’ll get is job. Mallory. On her desk until my knees give out. Believe it.

Finally, after 26 years, it’s time. Till boy calls me over. I get up and walk towards the door. Empty office. I see the nameplate on the desk. Mallory James. This is a fucking lock. I haven’t entered the office yet at this point. There is an archaic but effective technique I base a lot of things on. The 70’s sitcom entrance.Step 1: Reach the doorframe.
Get right up in there. If a piece of shit like the Mona Lisa has a frame, why shouldn’t you?

Step 2: Old school freeze frame,
Don’t move till you score some eye contact, but don’t hover too long. You’ll end up looking like Steve Buschemi.

Step 3: Give a salutation of some sort depending on the situation.
State your name as if the audience has never seen you before, pause for applause, and then make your way to the handshake. Step out of your frame and take the stage.

It’s golden. So yea, I’m hovering just outside to wait for my moment, and it comes. I hear a bathroom door close. Smoldering hot boy pose is a go! Hands in pockets, head slightly tilted, crotch slightly extended, I hit the doorframe perfectly and I’m totally centered in it. (shallow bastard aren’t I?) and I start the salutation..

“Hey Mallory, I’m,..” and there it is, I’m halted. Completely. Because I’m looking at Mallory Stevens.

A douche bag who likes listening to Bloc Party at high volume and enjoyed busting my efforts at non-platonic bus-top conversations about the virtues of poetry. Apparently, he took the bus one more stop down than I did. Prolly went to the shop to get something, ignoring the fact that he’d scheduled this fucking interview. Just my fucking luck!

“I’m I’m …. Nicholas Mitchell.” and with that I go for the handshake. He gives it, but is ice cold. So I figure why not go for broke. I unbutton my jacket and start to sit down. His eyes are on me the entire time.

Just when my ass touches leather I say “don’t worry. Drop an ‘s’ and I’ve got a girls name too.” He cracks a smile.

“So I guess I’m a big surprise. I hope you don’t feel too bad, but then I recon I did you a fucking favor on that bus! She was a munter.”

Crisis averted. We ended up spending the rest of the interview talking shit about bagging girls. When the interview questions did come up, I was the consummate professional.

He ended up being a cool guy, and we’re grabbing drinks and skirts together later this week at Socio Rehab.I didn’t get the job. He didn’t want to let me get stuck in a retail bitch job, but he’s giving me a call next week when they get rid of some prep supervisor.

 

 

Crash Landing

In the past 3 days I’ve…

[1 – Monday Night.]

Had a drink thrown at me by a crazy ex. Not the old soap opera ‘splash in the face’, she threw the whole glass across a club and it narrowly missed the new girl I’m seeing’s head. Then it took all the energy I had to keep them apart long enough for the bouncers to figure out who to toss out. With my crime being… you know… being on a date with a hotter girl than her, and her crime being… being… a fucking nut-job! But to be honest I only won that battle by a slim margin, by the end I was turning into a bit of a head-case myself. But isn’t that always the way.

I’m a bit of a ‘get hurt and move on’ kind of guy. I don’t tend to linger and lick a girl’s heels if she decides she’s got to sort her head out, or that she doesn’t love me and that she wants to see other people and then turns around and confesses that she was confused and that she does actually love me, two weeks later. I’m not the kind of guy who can sit still and single for long, I need to get out there and make things happen.

This whole event prompting my decision to shuffle off to Greece.

[2 – Tuesday Night.]

I stubbed my toe. And busted my hand hitting a counter out of anger and pain.

[3 – Wednesday Night – The night I made this blog.]

I found out that someone that I really kind of like. A lot. And was planning my summer around, is pregnant. Like knocked up. For real. It’s not mine, but it also means I could either spend my summer in Greece trying to bone a beautiful girl who just happens to be pregnant with someone else’s kid, or…I could be a human being.

You see, I’m not that bad a guy. I just fall for a lot of people. If they are beautiful and half-interested then I make it my mission to make them full-interested. I can love. Like I loved my ex before she chucked me aside. But I’m having fun, going out and drinking and playing the game. I don’t string them along. We all know what it’s all about before we blanket surf, but then… that was how I fell for my ex. You start off playing about, testing your desires against each other, then you take a jump and wear your heart on your sleeve and say. ‘OK, I like you. Let’s Date’.

So how do you react to an email at 12pm at night from a pissed mate telling me… ‘That bird you’re off to Greece to see… I think I know her… Used to hang around with Checkers and his crew… You should know that she’s prego now! Just heard from Bozza… Ha Ha, just thought I’d give you a heads up…’

I’m going to decline the invitation and see what my city has to offer me this summer.

All I can say is that I’m glad I’ve got my heart tucked away right now. 

 

 

On the next plane

Call me a glutton for punishment. Some delusional Don Quixote knight in rusty armor, but being here, now, the beginning of what should be summer, I’m saying things I shouldn’t say, and doing things I shouldn’t do. It’s hard. You manage trying to humanize envy. Give volume and feeling to emptiness. Make something fleeting and ethereal an ever lasting monument to your tainted past and doomed future.

This city does that. You’re either alone, grasping and flailing for the first thing to come along to relieve that loneliness, filling in the blanks that you know they’re missing. Sticking words like “great” and “amazing” over “just ok” or “second best” like a sticky label over a botched address hoping that the smile that washes over their complacent faces is enough to get you through the day.

Or you stick yourself in the middle of retarded social scenes and circles. Where everyone has a nickname and speaks in broken codes. Where words get shortened for no reason, and people talk like text messages just to make conversation all the more brief. That’s not what they’re there for anyway. You can hear the credit cards tapping on the glass topped tables separating lines of the main event. You can hear the ice tumble as it melts in rocks glasses waiting to be refilled. Accompanied by the quick tapping foot of someone impatient to be intoxicated. Annoyed heads whip around for a waitress. By the end of nights like these, you say things like “we have an amazing connection” or “Me and that guy have been tight forever” into the air, like magic incantations. Attempting to conjure up something real. Credit cards won’t work due to all the abundance of coke residue. Gravity won’t work due to all the vodka. All you have is a bunch of unpaid tabs and sprawled out drunks.

Into to the air you’ll hear “I love this place, it’s a really good scene.” in no direction in particular. echoing between the DJ booth and the bar. the hollow spaces people put between themselves and the world.

More abracadabras. More hocus pocus.

You won’t. Until you’re there, in that moment. Until you can be loved and supported, there might as well not even be a ‘here’.

here, the only “real world” is the big brother house. this manchester. this nightmare city.
So I’m leaving. Again. To find something. There used to be a here for me. And falling from it, I don’t think I have enough time to stack enough women to climb back up there.

Maybe I need to be somewhere else.

I think I’m going to Greece for a week or two. To chase as many skirts as I goddamn please. At least there they have a tan.