Adrenaline Can Make Me Do Superhuman Things. Ish.

Last week was probably the most stressful week of my working career so far. It was so stressful that my hair has actually started falling out.

Therefore the last thing I needed on a Wednesday evening was to get home and find that there had been some kind of Noah’s ark type explosion in my flat.

Please note that the explosion was almost 100% my fault. I suffer from/enjoy the comedy value of dyspraxia, which I may have mentioned in a previous post. When I get stressed the short term memory loss symptoms of this particular disability increase tenfold, and with the stress at work, I’ve been getting extremely forgetful.

So, when I fed zee derbils (the gerbils to all you sane people out there) Muse and Florence, that morning before work, I left the cage door open. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal – Zee Derbs are a bit too fat and lazy to bother making a break for it when they both know they can get their food from INSIDE the cage with far less effort. I know this because this is NOT the first time I have made this mistake. Not even the first time I have made this mistake THIS WEEK. I always come home, swear a bit, and then close the cage.

This time it was a little different. It was different because as I opened my front door (which happens to be located down a gated alleyway) I heard my neighbour call out from the garden, so I left my front door open to go and have a chat.

Despite my safe, locked, gated alleyway I should have KNOWN that my flat was not safe. I am well aware of a small furry thief – a regular criminal in my neighbourhood – who will take any opportunity to get into my flat, steal my food, and terrorise Zee Derbs (although they are really not fussed by his presence). It would have been ok if I hadn’t left the cage door open.

I finished my quick chat with my neighbour, walked back down my alleyway and as I turned to go into my flat spotted Monty sneaking out of the door, very quickly, very quietly, and with what was definitely a tail in his mouth.

I reacted with a speed I did not know I possessed. My neighbour was already unlocking the gate and I shot out, after the cat with a snack, in time to spot him heading into the fenced off construction site two doors down from me.

I shot after him, discovering that the gap between the fences was indeed too small for an alarmed ginger bird with big boobs. Nevertheless, in the battle between me and the fence, I won.

If I had been able to think rather than panic I would probably have entered the half finished building via the front door. Sadly, I was panicking, and decided that the only way to get into the building was via the 5 foot high window. On the plus side, it turns out that when I am full of adrenaline I am quite capable of leaping 5 foot into the air, and clearing the windowsill. On the other side of the window I spotted the cat leaping out of the window opposite. Having realised how stupid I had been to not use the front door, I decided to exit using the back door. There wasn’t one. And this windowsill was higher. I took a running leap, and thanks to adrenaline managed to clear this one too, in time to spot Monty and his snack disappearing into the jungle outside. At this point, Muse seems to have managed to manoeuvre into a position where she was able to plunge her teeth into Monty.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a gerbil bite. I have been bitten once by this pair of gerbils, when they had gotten into a fight with each other and Muse had an infected eye as a result. When cleaning the infected eye she had given me a ferocious nip due to the fact that she was in pain, and it HURT.

Monty dropped the Muse, giving me enough time to close the distance, and as I got to him he tried to pounce again. I reacted instinctively, and my foot shot out and connected with poor Monty, who immediately backed off and I scooped up the prize – one slightly alarmed gerbil. Monty realised that his snack had been confiscated and immediately started following me around, yowling pitifully at my heels. I realised that although I am able to clear the windowsill when full of adrenaline and with free hands, I had no method of getting back over the wall with a gerbil in my hands.

My only hope was to stand by the gap between the perimeter wall and the wall that was just big enough to fit my hand through and yell for my neighbour, hoping that she was waiting to see what the outcome was. Luckily for me she was. Unluckily for her, she’s scared of mice and other rodents of that size. She ended up using her dress to hold muse while I ran around the building, and with another spurt of adrenaline in case she let go of the poor furry mite and Monty got her again (he could fit through the gap) leapt over and cleared both windows - I’d forgotten about the front door again. Having retrieved muse (and consequently one hungry cat) from my neighbour, I hurried home, realising as I did that the cage was still open, and I did not know what had become of Florence.

I got in, dashed upstairs (my flat is upside down the living room is upstairs!) and found Florence sat in the cage, wondering idly where her sister was. I popped Muse back in with her, administered a few treats for shock and escorted the now pitiful looking Monty from the premises. After arriving back upstairs, I found both Gerbils curled up together, fast asleep as if nothing had happened. Not a scratch on either of them. I however, had lost a large portion of the skin on my hands.

Monty in the alley, outside my front door

Muse and Florence, Muse is on top

Eyebrows And Not Dating.

As with many of my previous posts, I am again writing about a date.

I got chatting to this lovely bloke from Rugby. Apres date, I am still of the opinion that he really is a lovely bloke - which is unusual.

The conversation started with a load of "pick one" questions, like "Curry or Chinese", "Summer or Winter" etc etc. I thought that this was hilarious, and certainly different from the usual "Hi, how are you" or, "hi, will you take your clothes off please" standard opening lines, and I simply had to answer. There was no other choice. And then I had to think about a whole load of questions to reply with. Which is actually a lot harder than it looks...

So anyway, after discovering that this guy has a penchant for Arthouse Independant Films, likes his steak medium and prefers pubs to bars, we got chatting. So far so good. He seemed funny, intelligent, kind and chatty.

So, after putting up a bit of a fight, I agreed to a date, despite having worked out the fact that I am definitely NOT looking for a relationship of any kind. Dating isn't really a relationship though, so I figured it'd be fine.

I started preparing for this date on Saturday. I had decided to get my eyebrows waxed by someone who knows what they're doing, rather than doing it myself, as I usually do. Really pulling out the stops for this one.

So I popped in at about lunch time, having booked the appointment the day before on my way home from work, bursting in at about 6:30 and being confronted by a woman; who, although lovely, didn't speak a word of English. So she may not have been lovely at all. I'm just choosing to interpret it as lovely.

Anyway, on the Saturday, I went back in to find another woman, who was just as lovely and had a few more English words in her vocabulary (although only a VERY few) who took me through to a back room. At this point I'm a tad worried about whether I've come to a beauty parlour or... another type of parlour. Involving possible prostitution. I was wondering what I'd booked myself in for. All I can tell you is that it was definitely a parlour.

The woman whips out her wax from god knows where, and approaches the bed where I am laying feeling extremely apprehensive about what it is she thinks she is waxing...

"Thick or thin?" she asks. "Medium" I reply. Apparently medium was NOT in her vocab. Neither was "Middle", "Intermediate", "Average" or "Between". I ended up settling with "Thick".

It has been a LONG time since I last got my eyebrows done at a salon. I had forgotten that it hurts far less when you do it yourself.

The feel of the warm wax going on was lovely and relaxing. I had let all the stresses and strains of the last week drift away while I enjoyed this little piece of luxury. And then she yanked.

I swear to god, it felt like my face was on fire. WHAT WAS IN THAT WAX?!?! Superglue?!? I am sure she took several layers of skin with the strip. At the time, of course, I had to sit still, and pretend like I was hard. Even though my eyes were streaming and I kept having to sniff because my nose had started to run. I WASN'T crying.

I managed, with a huge amount of courage and perseverance, to sit through it all until the last strip was gone. I believe she then did a bit of threading, something I've never had done before. I asked her but she just looked at me like I was mooing or something, so I gave up.

I was finally free, and about to sit up and run out of the room so I could find somewhere to cry about my lack of skin around the eyebrows privately, when she said "Top lip very hairy. You have remove?"

Now, I KNOW that my top lip is NOT hairy. and what's more, if it was, it'd be impossible to tell anyway, I'm ginger ffs, it is practically invisible in small quantities. Did I say this? Did I heck. I am incapable of saying "no" to bloody anyone, even if that person is subjecting me to extreme eyebrow torture.

So I say, "Oh, yes, that'd be lovely, thanks!", like a twat, and before I know it, my top lip is being paid the same kind of attention as the eyebrows. Surprisingly, I found that this hurt MORE than the eyebrows.

By the time I managed to escape (after almost losing my downstairs hair, but I drew the line at that) I was swollen and almost blinded by my running eyes (I STILL wasn't crying!).

When I made it back home I had a look in the mirror. and actually, the eyebrows were a good shape. her version of thin must be TINY.

The downside was that my face was puffy and red in odd places. I had to wait about 2 hours for it to all go back to normal before I could pop out to Narbs to pick up some crafty stuff and condoms (better safe than sorry kids ;)) managing to return with crafty stuff and forgetting the condoms (do what I say, not what I do).

The evening was spent at Sexie Lexie's Birthday do, although I had to leave early as I am faaar too out of practice when it comes to hardcore partying (how lame am I?) but I didn't have time to work up many "pre-date nerves".

Next morning, I woke in  a panic. The Flat was a mess from the crafting stuff I'd been doing the day before, I needed to shower, sort hair, face and make a final decision on what I was wearing that day... all things that take girls an average of three days to complete.

Somehow I managed it, except for the tidying part. I did some washing up though, so I was relatively pleased with myself.

As we were meeting at Tescos (managed to grab those condoms, yay me!) I headed out the door in my little heels (I so love those shoes. and every other pair of shoes I own...) and trotted off, getting there about a minute ahead of schedule and feeling pleased that I had had no major incidents (e.g. locking self in corridor, falling on face on dance floor, accidentally breaking anyone's nose... the list goes on) along the way. I was feeling pretty cocky, right up to the point where I actually had to behave like a relatively normal person. As you are all very aware, I am not capable of normality. Stupidity, over-excitement, ditziness (is that a word?), mentalness, yes. I can do all of those. Normality? Pffft. Nope.

Nevertheless, I think I managed quite well. We headed back to mine, I had an awesome time, he was chatty, friendly, funny, interesting (thank fuck), intelligent, etc, etc. Most importantly, he was.... NOT MENTAL. Yup. You heard me. I'm posting about a guy who WASN'T mental. Sorry to disappoint.

We spent a while chatting (really amused about the aggressive/antagonistic drunk stories. - "Would you like a drink? Cuz you're looking poor..." LMAO!) and getting to know each other. Ahem.

After all the fun at mine we decided to pop to that awesome restaurant on Narbs that does the awesome cheap 3 course meals. That's two awesomes, because it is so AWESOME. As he'd read my blog he complained bitterly about not having any coupons (Crazy Lloyd, for those of you who remember. Those who don't, you need to get yourself checked for Alzheimers; he was unforgettable. He haunts my nightmares.) before being completely awed by the price. Not surprisingly. £4.95 for three courses!!! And free poppadoms! Can't go wrong with that, can you?

By the time we'd eaten and got back to mine, we were both knackered (although I wasn't falling asleep on the sofa :P) and before I knew it he was heading off home.

To be perfectly honest, if I wasn't well aware of the fact that I am not in any way ready for a relationship yet, I'd be snapping this guy up. Whoever catches him is one lucky lady.

One more thing, You guys have probably noticed that I give most of the people I talk about nicknames, such as "The Mothership", "Crazy Lloyd", etc etc. And I had to do a lot of thinking about this one because "nice" sounds bland and boring, and this he was not, "funny" might mean funny in the head, etc etc.

So after a lot of thinking, I came up with one that I HOPE he will find funny (if not, text me and I can rethink!) - Mr Cocksure. To be fair, he has good reason. ;)

P.S. My top lip still feels weird.

If I bumped into Derren Brown...

If I were to bump into Derren Brown today and he said to me “I can teach you how to control one emotion, which will it be?” I’d choose fear. Not ALL fear, because it’s probably a good thing that I’m scared to go near the edges of cliffs and things, especially considering my amazing lack of coordination.

So, we’re talking about the fear of little things, like what people think of me, performing, having no friends and the man with a machete in my closet who preys on people who are pretending to be asleep.

If I wasn’t afraid of what people thought of me I could tell people what I really think. I could perform in front of others with a smile on my face and a twinkle in my eye. I wouldn’t worry about not having friends, which would make me confident, which would make people want to be my friend… and the man in my closet with a machete would realize that I really am asleep.At the moment I pretend I am confident. I am a little more blunt than most people I know, but I don’t want to be blunt; I want to be assertive. The problem with being assertive is that I fall into the circle of fear.

For example: I want to tell someone that I think that what they did was unfair.

Fear A - What if I’m wrong and it was fair?
Fear B - What if I hurt that persons feelings?
Fear C - What will that person think of me if I am wrong?
Fear D - What will everyone else think of me?
Fear E - What if there’s a man with a carving knife outside my bedroom window?


And so, after thinking all these things through I never actually get to the stage where I am assertive. Several times I have managed to utter the words that have been forming, but after all the build up of fear I end up blurting them out with a red face of shame and guilt; get all my words backwards and then often burst into tears of frustration and anger. If I have managed to prevent the tears I end up looking like an aggressive grizzly bear. In terms of communication that is; I don’t suddenly sprout fur and massive teeth and develop a penchant for honey.This is then added on to the circle of fear:


Fear F - What if I get all my words backwards again?
Fear G - What if I end up crying again?
Fear H - What if I look all Grizzly Bear-ish again?


This reduces the chances of me being assertive even more. 

Thing is, not being assertive helps even less. My mother, for example, always expect more from me than I am actually physically capable of. My grades were never good enough at school, I was always told “you’re putting weight on” (even though I was a size 10!), arguements between my brother and I were always my fault because I was “old enough to know better”. These are just a few minor examples and I know that she is only like it becasue she thinks I am awesome and therefore capable of being superhuman (I live in fear of the day she realises she’s wrong!).

Unfortunately this is still continuing today. For my birthday she’s paid for driving lessons. I have had my first ten hours, and things are going quite well. I seem to be relatively good at this driving lark. The other day I got a phone call from the mothership saying that she expects me to pass my test after the next 10 hours. The average person passes after 40 hours of lessons, and on their third practical test. My mother expects me to do it after 20 hours and on my first test.

Upon hearing this I felt my “assertive” gland attempt to boot up. What I actually ended up doing was being rude - ”You DO know the average number of hours before a test is 40 don’t you? And you know that the average number of tests taken is 3 I’m sure. Don’t be surprised when I fail.” (see, aggressive grizzly bear). Naturally, all this caused was a rise of anger and defensiveness in the mothership. After all, she didn’t have to pay for any lessons in the first place.

I do appreciate the lessons, really I do. But I’m now at the stage where I wish I hadn’t accepted because I’m under so much pressure to pass I’m making stupid mistakes and I no longer want to get in the bloody car. There might be a man in the boot with a garrotte anyway.

If I were more assertive I could talk to her and tell her that she expects too much from me. I am TERRIFIED of doing this.

Chances are I’m going to become a shrew type person with no personality and a fear of bears.

So Derren Brown, if you’re reading this, take pity on a girl who DEFINITELY has a man under her bed with a gun and teach me how to stop being so afraid all the time please?