Thoughts

For years I naively believed that men were far more competitive than women. From a young age my Mother explained to me the complexities of the male ‘ego’. Ah yes…so very complicated. Basically I had to let my brothers beat me or something overwhelmingly tragic would occur to them in later life, like learning that they’re not the best at everything or heaven forbid, how to lose graciously. But maybe my Mum was right, after all you know what it’s like when you’re a middle class white man, there are so many hurdles to jump and barriers to face and…hang on a sec. I should never have let them beat me at squash when I was 12! Damn them!

Still, despite the obvious nagging resentment between myself and my brothers, it simply doesn’t compare to the competition I experience from my sisters. Yes I said ’sisters’ mainly because I know it’s annoying but also because I have three brothers and I’ve always wanted a sister…that’s a different story.

I blame trashy magazines, apparently I can’t name them but they’re usually about 99p and have headlines like, “Cheryl Cole loses 2 stone from her head. Is her hair anorexic?” Probably, or at least her frontal lobes. Ok, that was harsh so maybe I’m competing with Cheryl Cole or at least her hair, which unlike her personality actually doesn’t seem that limp, lifeless…I can’t help myself. Back to the magazines. The fact is I don’t want to see big yellow circles around D list celebrities thighs and back sides. Mainly because if there was a photo of me in a bikini they’d have to circle my entire body, including my head. I’m also not interested in the latest diet or how to get thin, stay thin, eat yourself thin, eat thin people to stay thin….you get the idea.

We don’t just compete about weight or how young we look, it’s also about our jobs, our partners and now, our children. I’ve had to suffer competitive Mums and I don’t even have kids. Yes I’m barren, well I’m not barren I probably could have kids if any of that spermy stuff found its way up there. It’s just that I’m not using my womb in the way God intended, I’m actually renting it out as a gymnasium to some local street kids, they were complaining that they didn’t have anywhere to hang out and be themselves so I said, “Ok, ok you can use my uterus” You’d think they’d be happy with an X Box.

Competitive Mums are the worst, I have a friend who has two kids and hanging out with her Mum friends is one of the more painful experiences I’ve been forced to undergo without swearing or becoming physically violent. They come out with bilge like, “I’m so proud of Henry he’s already talking and he’s not even two.” Yeah right, he just threw up on his chest, if that’s talking then my cat’s fluent. “I actually gave Molly a rattle but she hasn’t used it and I heard that if a child delays pleasure it’s a sign of genius” I wish I had a kid just so I could’ve said, “Yeah kids are so complex, there was a whiff coming from Charlie’s nappy yesterday and he was looking at me with a funny face and I thought what is he trying to tell me? Turns out he’d had a sh*t. I think he might be a genius.”

Life’s too short and the truth is I don’t want to be in competition with anyone mainly because I have incredibly low expectations and I don’t like to be reminded there’s something better out there. The truth is we’re not all following the same road and as women we’re not one big homogeneous mass. One person’s success or happiness doesn’t detract or add to my own. I’ve got my own path to follow and yes there will always be thinner, more successful, happier people out there and to them I would say, “Could you please not rub it in!” 

It has been drawn to my attention that on occasion, Ok on more than one occasion, Ok several occasions, that I’m actually quite annoying. As if! Do I look annoying..I mean….what the…? Alright maybe I am a bit. Apparently I have an extremely irritating habit of explaining something three or four different ways when the first time was sufficient. This has led more than one friend to shout, “You’re BORING me!” halfway through a bout of verbal diarrhoea. I have to explain to them that it’s not my fault, it’s actually genetic. There isn’t a single person in my family that has the ability to respond succinctly. There are times in conversation where I’ve had to get my sleeping bag and set up a drip because the story has gone on and on and on…I remember watching The Neverending Story as a kid and feeling disappointed that not a single member of my family was involved, just some kid on a flying Muppet.

I also manage to lose anything and everything, if it’s valuable or important I’ll lose it. Wallets, ipods, cameras, shoes…yes SHOES. I think I must be the only person that has bought two pairs of shoes and left them on public transport . I know what you’re going to say, that’s irritating for me but it doesn’t really affect anyone else. Wrong. I remember being asked to be a bridesmaid at my friend’s wedding. It was being held in Wales, so a group of us got a train up together. It was only when I arrived that I realised I’d left my bridesmaid dress on the station platform. Happy Wedding thingy!…what dress? You wanted me to wear a dress..? I don’t think I got the memo….is that a no to jeans? Arse.

More recently my girlfriend has informed me of my most annoying habit, wait for it….I leave cupboard doors open. I never close them. I walk into a room open all the cupboard doors and then leave. To be honest I have ignored her nagging I mean objective observations for some time now. It was only when she decided not to close any of the doors I opened that I understood how irritating I really am. Every single door was open, including cupboards I have no reason to open, like my girlfriend’s for example….oh yeah and her Mum’s wardrobe.

It was at that moment that I realised EVERYONE is annoying! In fact there are very few people who don’t irritate me. Women who put their make up on in public get on my tits, anyone who ends a sentence with, “You know what I mean…?” or starts a sentence with, “I’m not being funny but…” chances are you’ve never been funny mate and I’m sorry but if you’re eating chicken out of a box we can’t be friends. As for my lovely girlfriend, well she’s annoying too. Yes she is! For example I’ve never been in a car with anyone who has no idea how to use the gears. She’s in first when she should be in second, she takes corners in third and she never and I mean never uses fourth gear. What is that about? She also gets really upset if I mention she needs to go up a gear, she starts screaming something about ‘back seat drivers’ and what she’d like to do with them. Just so you know it usually ends with her running over my face repeatedly, stabbing me in the eye with a windscreen wiper or throwing me out of a moving vehicle at 70 miles an hour (probably in third gear). So I have to come up with new and innovative ways to get across what I’m saying without invoking her wrath. I’ll be honest with you they’re pretty ingenious, only the other day I was telling her about the time I came ‘fourth’ running the 60 meters sprint when I was 9 ( I actually came first but my egos not that big…still have the medal….) or how my favourite sitcom is Blackadder goes Fourth…yes FOURTH!!! She hasn’t cottoned on but then to be fair she hasn’t moved up a gear either.

So, I’m going to embrace my annoying habits and rename them as interesting quirks and I’m not being funny but that’s how it’s going to be from now on, you know what I mean? Now where did I put that box of chicken?

I saw a play last night and I have to reluctantly admit that I enjoyed it. In fact I think I may have had a good time…who knew? I’m going to sound like a philistine, but generally I find the theatre pretty dull. In fact the whole experience leaves me cold. For a start I can never get comfortable I always have too many bags and a huge coat and then I have to figure out how to stuff them under my seat and while I’m doing this several hundred people have to squeeze past me to get to their seats, or to get to the loo, or to get on my nerves! Then the play starts and….I’M BORED! The amount of times I’ve found myself sneaking a look at my watch 3 minutes in to the performance. Sometimes I’m so bored I find myself crying, people think I’m really connecting with the play, but actually I’m panicking that my inertia is so acute I might flat line before the intermission. How fast can an ambulance make it to Shaftsbury Avenue? Have you seen the traffic?

I also have a tiny bladder, which means that I need the loo as soon as I arrive at the theatre so I go,  but by the time I’ve climbed over 40 people to get to my seat my bladder is telling me I need to pee again. Yes I know it’s psychological, I know I don’t really need the toilet, but then that’s all I can think about! You’d think the performance would distract me! It’s then that I experience the real problem with going to see ‘plays’, they’re just so….theatrical. God if I know you’re acting how can I believe the story? Halfway through I want to shout, “I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!” There’s only ever one person in the play that can actually act, the rest of the cast look like they’ve been taught to act by the cast of Hollyoaks. “Oh darling I can’t believe what’s happening, I’m ever so sad…” REALLY? Tell your face then! Maybe it’s the botox, if you’re an actor why would you botox your face? Surely having more than one facial expression is essential to ‘act.’ You don’t see cricketers botoxing their arms, ”I was getting flabby arms, I can’t be seen at Lords with bat wings! So I botoxed them…yes I’ll admit I can’t bowl, catch or bat but look how good my triceps look?” Not bloody likely.

So, I think I’ve discovered the new clutured me, I do like the theatre I just don’t like theatres…or I do like the theatre I just don’t like bad actors…or I do like the theatre but I just need a catheta. I can’t wait to start liking art…

I seem to spend most of my life either bored or excruciatingly embarrassed. My embarrassment is nearly always associated with alcohol. I go out, I get drunk and then I wake up with this feeling of dread. I always wake up feeling guilty – as if I accidentally pooed in someone’s pint glass when they turned their back. What did I say? What did I do ? Did I shout at that cab driver? It only seems to be getting worse as I get older. Sometimes the guilt wakes me up in the middle of the night! It’s like I’ve got someone leering over my bed whispering paranoid thoughts in my ear while I try and sleep. I try to rationalise it, “I didn’t do anything wrong, apart from getting my sister in law in a headlock…” The voice in my ear is going, “She’ll never speak to you again, everyone in the room was looking at you like you were mental. No one likes you, not even your Mum. She told everyone that she thinks your hair looks like a hat and that your forehead is abnormally large!” Whatever actually happened on the night has now been replayed so many times in my head that I am now convinced that I must have stripped naked at the dinner table and force fed every guest rice pudding from my arse crack. I can’t sleep now. How many apologetic text messages will I need to send in the morning? I probably won’t have any friends left, my family will have disowned me. I WILL SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE ALONE! So far these feelings of dread, depression, anxiety and paranoia haven’t stopped me drinking. I’m either mentally ill or truly British.

I  have just got back from a snowboarding holiday. I say holiday  beacuse I wasn’t working. I suspect that most people wouldn’t consider continually falling on their backside and face with a board attached to both feet as fun. They’d be right.

There are some things that you do cause you know you’re going to enjoy them and there are others that you do because someone tells you you’re going to enjoy them.  Snowboarding is a sport that only people who can actually snowboard will enjoy. If you’re like me and you’re average bordering on utter rubbish then every trip down the mountain will be punctuated by several falls. These falls will either be extremely painful eg.  attempting to turn on sheet ice only to land heavily on your right knee causing an agonising bolt of pain to shoot up your leg straight through your body and out of your nose and eyes culminating in a 34 year old woman weeping, dribbling and snotting herself on a mountain while attempting not to be run over by a wall of German skiiers shouting pigeon French to get out the way. Good times I hear you cry! No. The other type of fall may not hurt as much but it will be spectacular,  it involves something like a somersault. It’s likely that you will be in a heap and awake to find your head next to your backside and your arms wrapped round your neck. Whilst extricating yourself from your yogic position you will be humiliated by a 6 year old on skis who will race past you at 100 miles an hour spraying snow in your face whilst singing along to the Black Eyed Peas. Yeah “I gotta feeling” too and that is if I hear that song again it’s going to make me punch someone in the face… not the 6 year old obviously…ok maybe the 6 year old.

The truth is when you go skiing or snowboarding, you’re not going on a skiing holiday ‘with’ people because essentially no one else is on your skis or board apart from you.  So, while they may be having the time of their lives carving up the black slopes and really connecting with the mountain man! You may well find yourself connecting with the mountain, but on your face.  So whilst I wasn’t having the time of my life, my girlfriend was having a whale of a time speeding down on her skis.  As a good and supportive partner I obviously thought, “Hey at least she’s having a good time, that’s the most important thing..?. Right? What are you stupid? OF COURSE IT ISN’T!! If I’m having a crap time, she has to have a crap time too. Those are the rules, I don’t make them up but I’m sure as hell going to follow them!  I found myself willing her to fall as she shot by me ” Fall for God’s sake…FALL!!!” Is it bad that I set up three booby traps? Don’t panic! She missed all of them, the six year old on the other hand…I’m kidding! Jeez.

I think there are lessons to be learned from any new experience and the lesson I learned above everything else is that the next holiday I go on has to be doing something that I’m brilliant at and my girfriend hates. Who said ‘petty?’  It’s the natural order of things and it’s time to redress the balance!

I think the Edinburgh Festival is like child birth and here’s why… There is always an element of excitement and anticipation before arriving, possibly an air of optimism. (ha ha optimism…ha ha…oh dear)  For the first few days the sun is shining,  you’re eating healthy, you’re not drinking this year, this is a fresh new Festival and you’re going to enjoy every day. You enthusiastically start saying yes to performing several other gigs a day other than the shows you’re already in. The first week goes by and you start to tire a bit, hang on there’s 3 more weeks to go! You decide it’s ok to start drinking now, just a couple for heaven’s sake! You have one too many conversations in the bar with people you barely know, you wake up paranoid, did you really tell that woman you had no idea that she’d lost her personality as a child and never rediscovered it. You’re hungover, the shows don’t go so well over the next few days. You start the day with a berocca, a fried egg sandwich and a gallon of coffee, sod being healthy you’re hungover after all. On the way to your show you bump into another comic, “heard about your show last night”  ”Really?”     ” Yeah…never mind mate…”  ”What…?”  ”Got a Four star review in the Times, have a good show!”  Who was that? You’ve agreed to do another 4 gigs on top of the two shows you’re already doing, why did you do that? It’s 2am you’ve finished your last show of the day, just a cheeky pint before bed, you wake up with a kebab on your chest and a half chewed berocca foaming in your mouth. Two weeks to go, for the love of God why did you agree to do a live ‘chat show’ at 12pm, no one knows who you are, you look hungover. You’re asked not to swear, you swear three time in the first two minutes, people groan, you have no peripheral vision, you just get through it and stagger back home. It starts raining and you get soaked through to the skin, someone bumps into you they tell you how much they loved your show you feel good for a second till you realise they think your someone else. You feel a cold sore forming on your top lip and you find yourself wanting to punch the chugger in the face just for smiling at you, twenty five people try to flyer you down Nicolson Street, you pretend to be on your mobile, they’re all feigning energy and optimism, everyone looks cloudy behind the eyes but that could be your hangover. Numbers have dropped and audiences  have gone from 150 to 30, you can feel the tumbleweed as you walk on stage, why is that man looking at you like he wants to hurt you? One more week to go, you’ve stopped replying to friends text messages telling you they can’t wait to hear about Edinburgh, you haven’t cooked for yourself in over a week. You buy yourself a Dominos pizza and eat it in bed in your underwear whilst watching Battlestar Galactica on your laptop. Shouldn’t this Festival have finished a week ago and there’s still a week to go, you’re out every night to keep sane you tell yourself, you really have nothing to say to approximately 80% of the people in this bar, you keep drinking and avoid anyone that is more upbeat than you, why are you still here? The last few days are painful, the nominations are out and everyone has lost the will to live, the countdown begins, you’re onstage but your care factor about the audiences enjoyment has dropped to below zero, so what if they don’t like me,  I don’t like them! Ha! Seriously though…please love me…the last Monday arrives, the Festival feels like it finished last Wednesday and has just dragged on, everyone you know had their final show on Sunday, you’re the only one with a show at 10.45pm on Monday night, dear Lord… the show is surprisingly fun, you enjoy it, that wasn’t so bad, you get to the bar and start drinking, you’re going home tomorrow and you can’t wait, you chat to your friends who are equally exhausted, equally elated. Will I be back next year? Hell yeah! it wasn’t that painful was it?