Pixie and the Belgian

Hello mighty groovers.

When last I had time for a musing, I was waiting to take out young Rachel. Pixie McWorrying as she shall be known from here on, is by all accounts, a lovely girl. I can get past the disappointing propensity to get drunk and ring me which is fine and dandy on a Friday night but on a Tuesday when I’ve been up since half five, I could do without that phone call at midnight. Still, she’s fabulously cute and a great craic to be around. We went out to the Old Dairy in Finsbury Park (really should have gone to the 12 Pins and got involved with the £2.80 pints of Guinness but never mind) and got neatly tipsy. Now, I’m all for breaking the touch barrier on a date as soon as polite decorum allows; I do however think that trying to hold my hand across the table is a little much for date 1. At that point, I’m starting to think maybe the evening’s going a little too well and I start thinking about a decent way out. Imagine my dismay to find out that she lives on my way home. Before I can get on a bus too. I was going to have to walk her home. More hand holding. Back to hers for a bit of a snog on her doorstep… dammit woman I’ve got work in the morning. When she invited me in, a couple of thoughts darted guiltily across my mind.

“This could go one of two ways chap: either there’s some nookie and a period of ignoring your phone, or she’s going to kill you and wear your skin as a cape. How lucky are you feeling?”

I gambled. Death or glory in it’s literal sense. Turns out I was mistaken after all. Not only was I not ritualistically butchered, but I completely failed to get past the panty barrier. Instead, I spent a disappointing evening of inexpert fumbling before scampering back home at five in the morning to get to work on time. Ok, so I didn’t die but that was pretty much 2nd place in my worst case scenarios. Later on in the morning after, I get a text from her asking whether I was still coming out with her that night. Dear god, I hadn’t imagined it then… she’d asked half way through the evening and I’d forgotten. Apparently her flatmate was only allowed to bring her new fella if Pixie was bringing someone too and I’d been roped in. One non-committal response later and I’d mentally resolved to spend the evening having a relaxing time in the mighty Pembury round the corner drinking Moravka and chatting about football. I fielded a few more probing texts during the course of the evening but as I’m winding up and about to head home, she decides she’s going to abandon her friends and come to mine. I’m drunk and in no fit state to turn down even the possibility of some horizontal boogie so over she comes. In retrospect, that was a bad idea. Twice in two days is a little much. Yet again, there’s no sex on the cards which is fine considering we’d met barely 24 hours previously but at the time, I felt like Tom Hanks in Castaway after Wilson falls off the raft and floats away. The evening was saved in epic style when I walked her back to the bus stop the next day. The fact that she was wearing a little black dress from the night before and a set of heels she couldn’t walk in just made my day. The ultimate walk of shame and I was just thrilled to be there to witness it.

Sadly for me, that very afternoon, I got struck down with some kind of murderous flu. Had the whole swine flu medication thing (which may have destroyed my kidneys… thanks Roche) and spent the next week watching bad television from my sofa (one of the benefits of working in a hospital is that if you contract anything iffy, they don’t want you in the building!). After finally being declared fit again, I jumped back in the game, put some of the Pixie’s footprints on my ceiling and then re-arranged my date with Alex the Belgian for earlier this week. Now that’s a girl on a similar comedy hymn sheet to myself. Wonderfully weird with a brilliant Euro-lilt to her accent and a near unpronounceable surname. Had a couple of drinks at the Steam Passage in Angel where she delighted in mocking one of the regulars for having truly terrible ‘buggers grip’ sideburns. We ended up fleeing to the Bull (vastly underrated pub) and not to put too fine a point on it, getting completely shambled. The more she drinks, the funnier she gets and though I’m ashamed to admit it, I love drunk girls. Win/win for me. Dropped her back at the station and with a kiss on the cheek, I made my way home. That brings us just about up to date. There’s a possibility of some more Pixie action this evening and hopefully another evening in the company of the Belgian next week with the added caveat of a potential date with Charlie the newsreader. It’s all picking up pace so as soon as anything interesting happens, you shall of course be the first to know.

Until then my lovelies, be lucky x

Finger Painting

I have long held a simple opinion which applies to primary school teachers: It's not a real job if your schedule for the day reads "9:00 - Finger Painting, 10:00 - Potato Print, 11:00 - Playtime ..." and so on. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the need to educate the young and at an early age, such exercises are important. But let's be fair, it's advanced babysitting for the most part and while I acknowledge that it's a very vocational career choice for most people, the folk that just slide into the job for want of something better to do are lazy wastrels. You have to WANT to teach people. The best teachers I ever had were the ones that really wanted you to learn. These people I like; the people who see the 6 weeks off in summer as a reason for doing it are probably not as committed as I'd like.

Now I'm not an overtly opinionated person and believe in giving everyone a fair craic but with this subtext ingrained on my brain, I met up with Buttnose the primary school teacher. I say Buttnose for a simple and obvious reason: she has a buttnose. Actually a very pretty girl (marvelous figure) but tragically for her, she permanently looks like she got punched the night before. Maybe she did. On the advice of my astute compadré, we popped along to the Woodbine in Finsbury Park which is a pleasant enough little watering hole. Within about five minutes of sitting down, the writing was on the wall; this wasn't going to happen. Not even a little bit. It wasn't the Huddersfield accent (I quite like a little regional twang so long as it's not too strong), it wasn't the primary school thing and it wasn't even her nasal pooper... there was just no chemistry at all. It's worth mentioning at this stage that the night before was Halloween. I'd played footy in the day (which hurt) then scampered round three parties in a night wearing the most token attempt at a costume and eventually rolled in, cold and broken at just after four in the morning. So I take no small portion of the blame in this situation and credit where it's due, she gamely kept the conversation going when I couldn't. Three drinks later we went our separate ways. I suppose some people just don't go together like rama lama lama
ke ding a de dinga a dong and so I shall keep on looking.

Since then, it's all got a little bit busy. My brother just had his first child (small boy called Evan; hello to you young man) which has been a curious emotional experience. I've moved swiftly on from Buttnose and have dates pending with Alex the Belgian, Alex the triathlete and tomorrow night is young Rachel. Ah Rachel... it was all looking so easy. Cute as a bug, young and without baggage, psychiatric nurse ... why did she have to text me last night to tell me she was at a fucking Backstreet Boys concert? And how is it helping to tell me that it's ok that you like them because you were only thirteen when they were around? Firstly, that's only a flimsy excuse for terrible taste and secondly, it just makes me feel like an aging sex pest. I mean, I am but there's no need to bring it up. Anyhoo, that's all for now. Go forth and be strong interwebbers.

Well I’ve finally caved into the inevitable and resolved to create the Kinky Steve companion piece to display my shocking lack of comprehension of the female mind and the resulting slapstick tragicomedy that goes along with it. It’s a hard life being a single chap in London town but it does lead to the occasional amusing anecdote and so I shall begin with the present day.

I’ve been seeing a lovely young lady for a few weeks and by all accounts everything was going great. She’s smart and funny, ball achingly hot with a mole on her substantial cleavage that really does draw the eye and generally a very entertaining person to be around. Came along and met my friends and seemed to get on with them very well (though the scandalous amount of vino we got through may have been a contributing factor in that regard). But she’s a young lady with a demanding job which keeps her pretty busy so I don’t get to see her as often as I’d have liked.
I last saw her nearly two weeks ago. I last heard from her on Sunday. Since Sunday, she hasn't even text me. Anyway, I figure she’s probably not that into me after all. I've clearly misunderstood the state of play but I’m a big boy now and life roles on. I won't pretend I'm not upset by it because frankly, I liked the girl (still do if I'm honest) but there's no point in wallowing in self pity. That way madness and alcoholism lies.

So I took up a rather hasty offer last night and met up with a 23 year old student (I was undecided as to whether she was going to be quite hot, or look suspiciously like a mental aunt) in the hope that she could prove be a nice girl I can date for a while or possibly even be a potential hatefuck revenge doll (hope springs eternal). At least that was the plan.

I’m on my way over to meet her in the Lock tavern in Camden (nice pub, I’d recommend it) when she texts me to let me know her flatmate’s joined her for a sneaky snifter while she waits to meet someone else. Fine by me as she may just be trying to ensure I’m not an axe murderer or anything (I am but that has no bearing on this particular tale). So I rock up to the pub and go find these girls. Now, the smart thing to do when you’re meeting someone that only has a photo from the internet to work on is not to sit with your back facing the entire pub. It makes you rather more difficult to find. But fair enough; not everyone thinks like me. I grabbed myself a pint (“sure you don’t want one girls? Ok then”), sat myself down and put on my charming face. Stories were told, and drinks were drunk and things moved along at a pleasant enough pace. Then suddenly the flatmate’s going to be sticking around as the person she’s meeting is working late instead. My night has turned from a fairly vanilla first date experience to the slender possibility of covering myself in the glory of the smutty threes up. Being as life's not usually inclined to be THAT kind, I put Dangerous Dave on standby to come and assist with the flatmate and I go through the gears from charming to downright suave and go and fetch some more drinks.

On my return, the two ladies had been joined at the table by a couple of guys (seating being short). Not a problem in that they’re at one end and we’re at the other and by my estimations, I’m hopefully better looking than either of them. So I park up again and go back to the chat with flatmate as Mental Aunt makes small talk with one of the guys. Half an hour later and she's still chatting away happily with him. This guy’s 40 if he’s a day and looks like a walking drug habit but I can’t help but feel that polite small talk should be rather shorter than this. Not to mention that the flatmate’s been engaged by the other one and now I’m sitting here like a fucking prat basically just getting pissed on lager that’s started to feel very overpriced watching the girl that I’m meant to be on a date with get hit on by Crackman. By this point, my face had downshifted past charming and into thoroughly disinterested and if I hadn’t left my jacket on the table, I’d have excused myself to the bathroom and just sodded off home to watch the football.
The next words she said to me were “ hey should we have another drink?”. You mean you want me to go to the bar and buy you and your flatmate another glass of wine while you chat to some randoms and leave me sitting here with my thumb in my arse? I don’t think so young lady. So I politely declined and made the excuse that I had to be at work early so I’d better get off. The three of us left Crackman and his sidekick and made our exits. I could have walked them back to their station but by this point, I'd had more than enough of being karma'd in the face and so with a hug and a peck on the cheek, I made my way back to the station to find that my train had been delayed for half an hour. Giggling quietly at the obvious joke that some higher power was playing on me, I eventually got myself back to Hackney where Noodle Express saved my life for the thirty seventh time. Got home in plenty of time for the football highlights and then killed some zombies with Andy as seems to be the default status of my recent evenings.

Funnily enough, there’s been no contact with the rather inconsiderate young Mental Aunt and I don’t envisage any to be forthcoming, especially from my side except perhaps to say that her behaviour was entirely unacceptable and she should seriously consider cutting off one of her feet and beating herself around the face with it. In any case, life roles on at pace and I’ve lined up another date with a primary school teacher so we’ll see how that goes. Halloween beckons this weekend so maybe there’s a slutty ghost out there for me to sink my fake vampire teeth into. We shall see…