[Untitled].

Onceuponaparty I watched my friend fight with her boyfriend, decide to abruptly leave with a scrap of dignity and then proceed to fall down a flight of stairs onto her ass. I so desperately wanted to help her, but it was difficult to do so through my laughing convulsions.

Any monumental or remotely interesting anecdote to my life is littered with embarrassing incidents that I seem to save for the people I want to impress. I am the girl who will just happen to be wearing fur when I eventually meet Stella McCartney. I am the girl who laughs so hard at a joke that I run directly in to a glass door. And I am the girl who only eats white food because colours stain.
All this and more has culminated in me deciding that a life of reclusiveness is probably my best bet at respect.
I predict that stories prefaced with, “You know Sall? She hasn’t been seen in ten years,” will bode much better than the oft-used, “You know Sall? She is the girl who went to the airplane toilet and forgot to lock the door.”

For five days I have been high on painkillers after a tonsillectomy. My favourite boy friend, my Faux Husband, drove me to the emergency room for a Saturday night Pethodine injection.
“I suddenly understand drug addicts,” I told him while we drove home from the hospital in a magical bubble. “They contribute nothing worthwhile to society, but they don’t care. It feels amazing.”
“Wise words.”
“Lets go to the zoo!”
The feeling of floating at a similar axis to Jupiter has meant that not only is my mind and body completely numb, but so is my ability to be embarrassed.
“Just get ready for the injection,” the doctor instructed. I held out my bicep. “No, no. This one goes in the butt.”
Of course it was the day I chose to wear my oversized, yet often reclusive, novelty Care Bare underpants.

Being imprisoned into ones house, as a form of imposed reclusion, has resulted in ample time to spy on neighbours.
“I have never noticed this before,” I called AM at work because I was bored, high and needing validation. “But every one who lives around us is stunning.”
“Maybe you should take a break from the drugs?”
“Fuck that! I am going stalking! How old do you think the guy across the road is? I don’t even know what a guy my age might look like.”
“That is embarrassing.”

Every morning I wander the streets of my neighbourhood in my pyjamas and somehow manage to return home holding a hot chocolate.
“Where are you going dressed like that?” AM asked after I darted past wearing actual clothes for the first time ever before nine o’clock. My shirt was on backwards, but, you know, painkillers are distorting.
“Mother, I have just noticed that I live in an episode of Australia’s Next Top Model. I am not going to risk it by wearing something with an elasticised waist in public.”
She helped me fix my shirt.
“If you are not back in forty-five minutes, I am declaring you dead.” She gave me my next dose of magic beans and sent me on my way.

I live in an area that was once a notorious refuge for drug addicts, until wealthy people decided that they too wanted to live near the ocean. They built big concrete blocks around the bathtubs of crystal meth and beautiful surfers quickly replaced the dilapidated users.
I floated past the mansions, just how many would have done before me in times of yesteryear, flew around the corner on a unicorn and came to my desired location: the ramshackle home of a beautiful surfer. I continued walking so that I didn’t look like, you know, a freak but subtly searched for any form of life.
With metaphorical binoculars, I squinted into His windows, turning my head so it remained focused on his property despite my increasing distance, until…
CRASH.
I walked directly into a reversing magic bubble (read: car).
“Oh my god, are you ok?” the beautiful surfer yelled. “I almost ran over you!”
I so desperately wanted to say yes, but it was difficult to do so through my laughing convulsions and pain-killers.
I walked home with a scrap of dignity and locked myself in.

The Best And The Worst.

My grade five teacher was a morbidly obese woman named Miss Best. At story time, she failed to disguise the reality that she needed two chairs to be comfortable and was the type of teacher who kept a thigh-size jar of chocolate on her desk. When a student answered a question correctly, she rewarded herself by eating candy in front of us. Recess was generally spent plotting her death, but the goal was never achieved as, we reasoned, we would never be able to commission a crane strong enough to hang her over the lake full of alligators.

When my life was in the hands of a four-hundred-pound, twenty-six-year-old M&M addict, I followed the crowd and agreed with my classmates that the world sucked.
“What have we done to deserve this?” We would ask while drawing sketches of extra thick guillotines.
“The whole school must hate us,” we decided while researching chocolate-based poison recipes.
“She is the most horrible person who ever lived,” was the motto, until we discovered fold-away chairs and realized that they could provide us with at least a giggle.

One day, Miss Best caught a boy hiding a naked picture of Pamela Anderson in his pencil case and confiscated it.
“You’re just jealous!” He yelled at her, in a rage. “Because she is hot and the only thing best about you is your name.”
Hindsight makes me wonder how much chocolate was consumed that night and if Cadbury shareholders were suddenly able to buy summer houses come morning. But at the time, in my pre-adolescent innocence, I realized that what was said to Miss Best was the worst thing possible. I remember her facing the blackboard, fighting tears and staring at the near-empty candy jar in agony.

Suddenly I was overcome with sadness. We had spent months fantasizing the woman’s demise behind her back, but now someone had vocalized what we all thought to her face and it made us look stupid. The superficial words proved how wrong we all were. Unfortunately, Miss Best was going to hit the Freddo Frogs regardless of incorrectness.

If I had an M&M for every time I judged a person based on their appearance and then placed them into a stereotype, I would have about eight super-sized bags of coloured chocolate at my disposal right now and my chair would need to be made of a much more durable metal.
There is the little blonde whore who can’t possibly be intelligent, the intelligent geek who can’t possibly be sexy or the plus-sized woman who must not have feelings, just to name three. But there are hundreds, thousands, if not millions, of stereotypes that are disproved daily by the billions of people on the planet. Out of sheer laziness, we forget about the three-dimensional because, maybe, the reality of that is too heavy.
So we call someone a whore, boring or fat, because it is easier than plotting what their real personality must be like.

I was recently talking to a boy friend who asked, “You really like sex, don’t you?”
It was nine o’clock in the morning, I had not even brushed my teeth, and I was eating chocolate for breakfast. Shockingly, my mind just wasn’t There.
“I do. Yes. Just like everyone does.” I felt comfortable making a generalization in such a context. “The only difference between me and a lot of other people who enjoy sex is that I am vocal about my support for it.”
“True,” he conceded. “But there are still a lot of girls who are ho’s out there.”
I thought for a moment. I will never deny that there are a lot of people Out There who lie, cheat, steal and deceive. But sex in itself cannot be an amoral act. Only the aspects surrounding it. I explained this to boy friend.
“Notice how you only said ‘She’,” I highlighted. “You’re just following the crowd. Why don’t you start actually thinking about the situation and people as complex individuals? Otherwise, it just makes you look stupid.”

All of the chocolate in the world will never be as rewarding as it is to realize that someone is more than their appearance implies.
I sat on the beach and watched a morbidly obese girl self-consciously arrange an umbrella to cover her butt.
“That is brave,” my boy friend observed. “I wouldn’t go to the beach if I looked like that.”
“Why? You have no problem stepping inside a library.”
He took a moment to understand. And then the penny dropped.

So To Speak.

I was with Absolutely Stunning Hot Boy I Have Now Talked To and didn’t draw breath for an hour.
Because I was talking.
“Do you have something you need to tell me? You have raised the subject of paedophilia twice…” he laughed at me, possibly unsure as to whether I am actually human.

When I was in high school, sitting in maths class, I questioned why I would ever need to know mathematical navigation.
“Because one day you may be driving a boat,” my teacher tried to reason. “And you won’t want to drive directly into an island!”
“Please,” I smiled. “In the event that I am ever on a boat, I will be sunbaking on it while holding a cocktail. Even Gilligan had a Skipper.”

We learn a lot of things in life that we don’t actually want to know. But no one sits us down and explains, “This Is How You Talk To Someone You Like”.
If I had a unit of useful knowledge for every algebra equation I know, I would have…I would have….umm…at least one piece of important information. Which is more than I can say for my current state. Maybe some people just know that paedophilia is not a genius topic to bring up with a crush. But I am not most people. I have the romantic navigation skills of a blind girl who refuses to ask for directions.

“How did you first talk to Dad?” I asked AM over a pre-operation wine.
“I didn’t. He saw me from across a party and stared at my butt.”
I threw up in my mouth.
“So I am here because of a relationship founded in superficiality?”
It makes sense.
“No. We just talked. I was just myself.”
“Oh.” I swallowed. “So how did you have a second conversation?”
“I was really cute.”

When Being Yourself means talking about criminal offences and admitting that you have no idea what you are doing, attraction does not come easily and the wrong people are going to think you are cute.

Lonely Planet needs to release a Romantic Dictionary, to ensure that Mars and Venus don’t die lonely planets.

The first time a boy talked dirty to me in bed, I stopped, laughed, wondered if he was human and told him to, “Shhhh.”
I knew what was going on, and what he was doing, I just didn’t need to hear about it via slang from Urban Dictionary. He tried to coax me to join in on the banter, but I couldn’t. Pride, respect for the Kings English and an inability to multitask aside, I simply didn’t know what to say.
I had a quick flashback to grade ten, when my German oral test resulted in an English conversation within forty-five seconds, as it was quickly established that I didn’t have a clue how to speak the language.

Being monolingual is nothing new to me.

But unlike sex talk and German, I have studied The Language Of [Lust]. I have investigated, researched and trailed. I should know what I am doing. But instead I am walking right into the Clergy Sex Jokes Arena and few people find that place interesting, sexy or cute.
When I was younger, I knew when to giggle, when to smirk, when to smile and what to say. I firmly believe that the more you know, the less you know, so therefore you have less of an idea of what you are doing. Suddenly, being aware of Who You Are and What You Are Doing makes me…talk about priests taking advantage of little boys.

There is something to be said for not wanting to speak at all to a hot boy, like Absolutely Stunning Hot Boy I Have Now Talked To, for example.
“What are you going to do next then?” My boy friend asked.
“Speak the only language I am actually fluent in.”
“You can’t possibly mean English?”
“Think of it like mathematics. Subtracting things, multiplying other things…”
Just holding my breath, not talking and navigating a way to start something interesting.

Sugar Pie Honey Bunch.

I have a list of fifty things I want to do in my life. I want to go to the North Pole dressed as Santa and Mrs Claus. I want to buy a Hummar and drive over every car that can’t merge. And I want to go to McDonalds and eat one thousand chicken McNuggets in one sitting.
“Aim high!” RG toasts when I arrive home from another date with Jack Daniels and announce a new mission. “Will this be happening before or after your go abseiling with a midget?”

When I was sixteen, I decided to eat only natural food, became a bitch and looked like a concentration camp victim.
“At least your insides will be healthy,” a relative congratulated me.
She said more but I was too busy dreaming about eating a bowl of raw cookie dough. After I found myself sitting in the pantry eating sugar cubes at two o’clock in the morning, I decided to embrace my inner Oprah and go back to eating everything in sight.

There are two great things about going to hospital for surgery: cute doctors and the mandatory eat-your-body-weight-in-candy-before-fasting day.
“Eat everything in sight,” the not-cute tonsillectomy surgeon encouraged. “You won’t be eating for at least five days after the operation.”
He said more but I was too busy dreaming about a bowl of raw cookie dough I would be consuming upon arrival home.
“And another thing,” he warned. “You won’t be able to smoke.”
I have always been amazed at how quickly love can turn to hate.

When I lived in London, I slept on a couch in an apartment that was conveniently located across the street from a supermarket.
“Where are your shoes?” A homeless man sitting outside Sainsbury’s once asked me when I was dressed in my pyjamas to buy my breakfast Malteasers.
The people inside become even more acquainted with me.
“Have you ever eaten anything that doesn’t contain eight tablespoons of sugar?” One lady asked me.
“No.”
“Do you have company tonight?” Another surveyed my bottle of Jack Daniels, four litres of Coke and three boxes of chicken nuggets.
“No.”
“Did you know that an excess consumption of artificial cheese gives you gas?” A life-saver warned.
“No…”

Having the dream diet of a five year old has its advantages, the main one being an ability to create a meal with only Skittles and whipped cream at your disposal.
“Is that what you are having for breakfast?” AM surveyed my cupcakes.
“I am eating them with a spoon. So it is like cereal.”
After breakfast, I walked to the store to see what other pre-surgery-lard-ridden-things-on-a-stick I could find.
After ten o’clock I returned.
By one, I decided that life would be more convenient if I just stayed inside the IGA and ate the candy directly from the shelf.
“Are you having a party?” The man asked when I carried a basket of Smarties, M&Ms, Gummie Bears, Milk Duds, Jelly Beans, Redskins, Doritos, Freddo Frogs and Marlboro Lights to the counter.
“No.”

I frequently read magazine stories telling me that I should not put cheese on pasta because it will help my heart, or I should stop eating after seven o’clock so that my thighs have time to thank me. When I was five years old, eating whatever I wanted, there was never any worry about how many boxes of Hershey’s Kisses were consumed. They gave me the energy to run my parents crazy.
But then we get old and we are told to be health conscious instead of fun conscious, and anyone who has the audacity to eat ice-cream while watching The Biggest Loser is mocked or questioned.

There are so many things I feel I got right as a five year old. But have to admit that a sugar-decayed brain could be a reason for the downfall.

I sat with my last pre-surgery meal of a Quarter Pounder, fries, sushi, ice-cream and Krispy Kreme donuts.
“Your insides are going to be having a party with all that food inside you,” RG observed. “You don’t want to have gas on the operating table.”
I put down the artificial cheese in fear that I could become an even bigger loser.

My Name Is Sall [LOL].

A few years ago I arrived at my boyfriends house in Byron Bay.
“Hey, Ken, ya chicks here!” His roommate called out. I didn’t understand why he didn’t use my actual name, but assumed it must have been because I wasn’t wearing my collar that day.
Later, we were cooking dinner.
“Oi, Ken’s Chick, can ya chuck us a tea towel?”
“No problem, Ken’s Wanker Roommate!”
I chucked Him that tea towel so hard…

I think because my first word was “Dad”, RG took it upon himself to teach me the art of the English language. While other kids were being read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to go to sleep, I was filing through a dictionary and being read the history of the word The.
“Language is an art,” I was told. “It should be respected.”
There were no “ya’s”, “Yous” or “Cause I said so” in our house. Instead, it was “you”, “everybody” or “Because I am your Father”.
The result was that I had my first conversation with RG at eighteen-months-old. A skill he has long since regretted instilling.

When text-messages emerged, my proper use of the English language was rocked. All of a sudden, even Predictive Text was telling me that “LOL” was a legitimate word.
“I didn’t realize that you could spell fake laughter?” I questioned.
It only took a matter of months for people to evolve from Laughing Out Loud and start Rolling On the Floor Laughing. I tried to stop myself from being digitally funny so that I didn’t HTHS [Have To Hit Someone].
“I can’t stand it when someone puts ‘LOL’ at the end of a sentence,” I have said numerous times. “You may as well say ‘Cue Laughter’ at the end of your lame joke.”
Imagine if someone said something, laughed at their genius and then said, “I found that funny. Did you? Did you?”
We would slowly but immediately back away in the vain hope of not catching whatever socially awkward disease said person had.

Well…This actually happens. Text messages, Facebook, MySpace and the new little phenomenon called Twitter have made us oblivious to social awkwardness and linguistic laziness. Now someone is constantly Rolling On the Floor Laughing [alone] next to his MacBook, while other people are articulating appropriately in public.

“This is My Missus,” a boy friend once introduced his new girlfriend to me.
“Are you married?” I asked. I hadn’t dug out my laminated Singles Table Place Card, so unless I was really drunk, I couldn’t recall a shot-gun wedding.
“Nah,” (Read: No), “She’s just My Girl.”
“Oh. Ok. Does she have a name? Or just an array of insulting titles?”

When a nineteen-year-old boy refers to his Girlfriend as his Missus, Girl, Woman, Chick or Partner I start to ROFL.
“Do you realize how stupid you sound?” I have asked. Because someone has to. “You are not even Partners in Crime.”
“Why does it bother you so much?” One of my boy partners asked me. “Aren’t there bigger problems in the world?”
“Of course,” I replied. “But do we really need to bring the starving kids in Africa into this?”

We were all given names for a reason. And unless you are going through life with the names Apple and Moses Martin, there is no need to feel ashamed about using them. Shakespeare asked, “What’s in a name?” The answer is Nothing. It is a blank canvas that needs to be painted with personality and character. “My Partner”, however, is like a Picasso: utterly confusing, gender ambiguous and usually owned by the wrong people.

Giving a boyfriend or a girlfriend a stupid title of fake maturity is the verbal equivalent of nails down a chalkboard for me. I have a name and I like boys to introduce me with it and, if articulately appropriate, scream it.
Language is an amazing tool that is quite often taken for granted out of sheer laziness or rudeness. If people bothered to think about what they were saying, they might even get a better reaction.
“You’re [The Johnny’s] ex-girlfriend, aren’t you?” eight people at a party recently asked me.
I metaphorically rolled on the floor laughing.
“No,” I said to everyone. “I am Sall.”

Good Vibrations.

I went to a live sex show in Amsterdam with some very reluctant friends.
“Think of it as a tutorial!” I persuaded. “Think of all the wonderful things you will learn!”
When a black man dressed as Batman walked out on stage with a wang instead of a cape, ready to have his way with a pixie-like Dutch girl, my prudish friends covered their eyes.
“Something is very wrong here,” one said.
“I would call it progressive. Batman is usually white.”

Before Barack Obama became First Black President Barack Obama, my L.A Friend and I became obsessed with campaigned-based merchandise. I was fascinated to see if Bobble-Head-Barack or Chia-Pet-Obama had more sway than Fox News in the polls.
A race of sorts developed to see Who could find the best political ploy or toy.
“Can I interest you in an Obama vibrator?” L.A Friend enquired. “It comes in red, white or blue…”
…And managed to be both wrong and progressive at the same time.

There is little conversation about female masturbation. I blame, you know, society. Men, with all their millennia of sexual liberation, have developed their act to be a noun, verb, adjective and insult. Women, meanwhile, blush and then reapply make-up when asked whether they do or don’t. Few, it seems, scream, “Yes We Can!”

My GC Friends and I decided that research needed to be done (Read: vibrator shopping). My L.A Friend was jealous.
“I know it’s personal but I really wish I could be there to tell you what to avoid.”
“Avoid?”
I always thought that the attraction of a vibrator was that, unlike a boy, there was nothing to steer clear of.
“This is a big step for you, dear friend. The ultimate get-to-know-oneself-biblically experience. I’m proud.”
When anyone encourages me to go after a boy, I get in-the-good-way excited. But, suddenly, an inanimate object was intimidating me.

I hate going to the hairdresser because I can’t sit still for two hours.
“Do you want something to occupy yourself?” The colourist asked.
My mind boggled and I blushed.
“Here is a magazine.”
She walked away to let me and my colour sit and I started reading.
“Find The Best Vibrator For You!” I flipped to page eight-four and was suddenly anxious. I have seen less selection at a Hugo Boss model casting call.

When one is trying to decipher what they are looking for in a significant other, a power of elimination starts at puberty and ends when He (or She) is magically born out of a Pod. Early in the process, blonde verses brunette, green verses blue eyes and big arms or a big wang are decided on very quickly. And then one starts to get older and realize that no matter what someone looks like, it isn’t going to make them interesting or lovable in the long run.
“You have the most beautiful eyes,” a future boyfriend once told me.
“Thank you,” I blushed. “If you are impressed by them, wait until you see what is happening behind them.”
After three months, it turns out, he wasn’t won over. And I realized that choosing someone based only on pecs and a smile is unrewarding and careless.
Personal characteristics are notoriously difficult to get to know and like. What was important at eighteen, like having a driver’s license, becomes irrelevant after six years of dating when even the smallest flaws can drive you crazy. It is a constantly evolving process with no tutorial but a lot of lessons.

After the colourist finished prettying my hair, and I had read up on every race, creed and colour of vibrator available, I prepared to meet my GC Friends for research (Read: vibrator shopping).
Suddenly being knowledgeable didn’t make the process seem easier. It made it noticeably harder. Now I was looking for something specific, rather than being willing to try anything.
But I ignored the anxiety.
Because I never want to be reluctant.

A Fish Called Archimedes

Any time my dog hears the word “walk” he gets excited, followed by immediate frustration and intense depression because no one in the house is motivated enough to make his dream come true.
We started making new words for That Thing You Do To Get From A To B so that he never misunderstood our intentions but He soon caught on to them to.
“I am just going to saunter down to buy some milk.”
“Did you just toddle past my bedroom?”
“I am not going to have an argument with you. I am going to strut away with dignity!”
We then started spelling W.A.L.K but, it turns out, the poodle is lingual.

Sometimes (but not often) I want to show my dog that I care beyond cuddling him to the point of suffocation or pointing and saying, “Look at how damn cute you are!”
“Why don’t you feed him?” AM suggests at any given opportunity. It turns out, Puppy Me is much more attentive than the human[ized] equivalent.
“Come on Toby, let’s go for an amble.” I don’t say “walk”, in case I change my mind in an instant and push him onto Prozac.

The time (yes, singular) that the motivation exceeded beyond walking to the front door, Toby trotted for four hundred meters before stubbornly stopping.
“Come on!” I encouraged. He gave me a look that will be vocalized as, “Fuck no, you insane girl,” once he eventually takes the trick one step further and actually develops the ability to speak.
“This is why we never take you for a hike!”
I picked him up and carried him for the next three kilometers while he smugly snuggled into my shoulder and high-fived all of the dogs at sea level.
I would have been mad if I wasn’t so impressed by his manipulation as to want to start emulating his pick up technique myself.

One of my favorite boy friends has a pet fish.
“I am going away, can you look after Archimedes for three weeks?”
I waited for the punch line but there wasn’t one. He was serious.
“I call kids “its”, remember?” I warned. I have burnt soup. I should not supervise anything, let alone life.
“‘Its’ a fish. You will be fine.”
Boy friend arrived in my bedroom with a fish tank, food and cleaning products.
“He gets grumpy if you don’t feed him,” he explained. “And he gets grumpy if you feed him too much.”
“So basically the fish is just an asshole?”
I could sense paternal fear as boy friend backed out of my room, waving to Archimedes The Bipolar Fish for possibly the last time.

“What does one do with a fish for three weeks?” I asked my friends who have kids of their own. They seem to know how to occupy something grumpy, small and stupid.
“Might I suggest nothing?”
(Aside: Is it just me or do people become boring when they become parents?)
“Let’s take him on adventures!” My younger friend who was allowed to make suggestions exlaimed, thus confirming why I enjoy the company of people who weren’t alive in the 80s.

I was driving home from the gym when I stopped at a crossing to let a couple W.A.L.K. On their respective shoulders were a pet parrot and a pet cockatoo. They were taking their birds for a stride. I picked myself up off the accelerator I had fallen onto laughing and messaged my friend.
“I have the Best idea!”

Ideas usually start out rather innocently. World War One could have been quite subdued on paper. But then stupid people with stupid ideas get involved and all of a sudden a leash is wrapped around a fish tank on a boardwalk in broad daylight.

There are many fun things one can do with a fish other than eat it.
“Who wants sushi for lunch?”
“Archimedes does!”
“Who wants to go to the beach?”
“I will get the sunscreen for Archimedes!”
“Who wants to go for a W.A.L.K?”
Archimedes didn’t have a clue what was happening, but Toby almost had a fit.

Taking responsibility for something is much more fun than it sounds in theory. Which could have been the poorly executed idea behind World War One. Looking after something, whether it be yourself, another person or a fish, can be motivating to the point of euphoria. It should be done more often.
“Where should we take him next?” I wondered during an animal-free gym session.
“Archimedes First Sex Shop?”
“A fish in a sex shop…[?]“
The fish may not be grumpy. He could just be frustrated.

The Girl Half Liked.

There have been many occasions where people have requested to purchase crack or *insert mood elevating drug here* from me.
“[He Knows Who He Is] said you have stuff…”
“Um. No.” I shrug. I never know what more to say. There is no How To Deny You Are A Walking Pharmacy book available to me [yet].
The potential client then slinks away empty handed and I am left wanting to apologise for being far less interesting and dangerous in person.

OnceuponaCanadianiwassleepingwith, his roommate liked me just about as much as He did (Read: Not very much). In between the scowls, mocking and blatant insults, I got glimpses of Roommates body and desperately wanted to say, “If you are going to have a vocal problem with me being alive, can you at least do it shirtless?”
I never asked, or invested any thought, into his disdain, but I always assumed that he was judging my character based on the few mornings he saw me slink out of his lounge room. Which is [relatively] fair. I look like Jon Bon Jovi circa 1985 at dawn.
“You had sex with my friend!” Roommate said loudly one night in front of a large group of people, not long after I had decided to stop having sex with his friend.
I shrugged. I didn’t know what more to say. There is no Hurrah! Yeah I Did! book available to me [yet].

Roommate joined a laundry list of people who don’t [or didn’t] like me based on either a first impression or a preconceived idea. I have spent many hours (read: days) writing my Magic List, being conscientiously respectful enough to remember every name, but I have never wasted a second putting pen to paper regarding the people who dislike me. I would probably make a much larger carbon footprint than my size eight pump suggests but also it has occurred to me how similar those lists could read.

If one was to go through life seeking approval from other people, I imagine it would be very frustrating and unrewarding. Like trying to find healthy food at McDonalds or intellectual conversation with a twenty-year-old Californian Surfer. I have always figured that I am the only person who will be in my life for the duration of it, so I am really the only person who needs to be happy with It (read: me and my behaviour) overall.
I never try to win over Roommate or people like Him. What is the point? People will have a problem no matter what You do and I reason that if Lindsay Lohan can have fans, there really must be a platonic relationship Out There for all of us that will involve acceptance and encouragement.

I have a lot of respect for the people who hate me for Who I Am. They actually bothered to research and get to know the real characteristics and then, rightfully, conclude that they don’t [have to] like them. It is genuine hatred based on real qualities. It is the people who point and make a loud and uneducated decision that bother me.
But whether they really hate me or just think that they do, it makes no difference to Who I Am. I like me. And, I swear, that was the hardest person to win over.

“Can we be friends?” Roommate asked me at drunk o’clock. He wasn’t shirtless, but I listened to Him anyway. See, I never had an issue with him. The only information I had about him was that He had a problem with my sex life and possessed abs.
“Of course.”
“I used to think you were an idiot,” he admitted. (Aside: Mental note to self: Start reading Kafka while doing the walk of shame). “But I don’t anymore.”
I was going to enquire, “Why?” but the I remembered that it doesn’t matter. Because hate me or love me, I am still going to get up in the morning, find the way back to my house and go about living my life.

There isn’t enough time in life to not judge books by their cover. But there is ample time to not make ignorant assumptions.
“It fills that time,” one of my opinionated boy friends informed. “You can’t love everyone.”
“No, you’re right,” [but I am giving it the old college try]. “Just…why hate someone when you don’t even know them?”
“Because we have to put some kind of emotion to it.”
Personally, I like to think that book covers are half OK, the glass is half full [of scotch] or the person is half likable and so if I really need to place an emotion on something, it may as well be a positive one.
“I am going to get to know people. And then hate them.”

After Roommate became my new boy friend, a giant ab-less boy approached me.
“I hear you are a man eater,” he smirked.
“Um. No. I don’t even like eating lamb.”
“I would let you eat me.”
I shrugged. I didn’t know what more to say. There is no Assumption Is Not The Best Pick-up Technique book available to me [yet].
The potential Magic List member slunk away dejected and I was left wanting to apologise for not being a massive whore in person.

Making Music.

I was once aggressively pursued by a lesbian. Which was only nice because I like to have options.
“I am sorry, but I am the most heterosexual person you will ever meet,” I politely declined.
“Have you ever tried It?”
“No.”
“So how do you know?”
“The same reason I know I am not interested in seeing Paulie Shore movies. I just know.”
I don’t even like girls as friends [most of the time] so I can’t really articulate the frustration I would experience if my lover was missing the one appendage I actually like in a person.

There are only two girls in the world I would turn gay for: One is a Victoria Secret model and the other is Tinkerbelle. While I wait to meet either of them, I focus on the three billion members of the population whom I am actually attracted to.

When I was ten years old, I desperately wanted a xylophone so I could emerge as a musical prodigy and annoy the crap out of my parents. I begged for months and tried to settle for a saucepan and a wooden spoon, but the desire for a xylophone never left my mind.
“If I buy you one, will you stop asking?” AM begged in return.
“Of course.” Even at the age of ten I knew that there was no point in asking for something once I had it.
I was locked in my room with my new musical instrument and my parents reminisced back to an innocent past where the only loud, screeching and unbearable sound they heard was my voice.

Two weeks later, the xylophone was discarded into a pile of It-Didn’t-Really-Work-Out-Dreams. It collected dust on top of ballet slippers, a fishing rod and a poster of Jonathan Taylor Thomas. I found that once I had it, I didn’t really want it anymore. My mind began to be consumed by other things it couldn’t have but had decided it wanted.

We beg when we are having sex and we beg when we are not.
“We have already done It three times today. I am tired. Can I just sleep while you go about your business?” Someone in a long-term relationship will eventually say.
“I am a real person, with feelings and a brain. But right now I can’t even walk. Why don’t you want to get to know me?” A girl in a new relationship might ask.
“I bought a loaf of bread from a sixty year old baker and even he looked do-able,” I start to cry to my boy friend because I haven’t had sex since the Bush administration.

I was introduced to the Wonderful World of Getting Laid via a two-year-long relationship. As far as I am concerned, sex is meant to be enjoyed three times a day, while I am sleeping and if it gets to That point, the wheel chair has been invented. Taking sex out of my reality and throwing it into the pile of broken dreams means that what was once a real person with feelings and a brain quickly becomes someone who finds redheads attractive.

My morning hot chocolate buying ritual became a virtual joke on me.
“There were even girls who were attractive,” I cried to my boy friend after I returned from my walk. “Is it just me or has the entire global population suddenly become better looking?”
“It is just you,” he mumbled while ogling a picture of a Victoria Secret model.
“I am at the point where I am watching peoples hips movements when they walk to evaluate their ability in bed. And then there are those bitches who walk around with kids, which is basically just a rude advertisement for the fact that they have had sex.”
Boy friend put his arm around me. “Did you ever think that maybe abstinence isn’t for you?”

When The Only Boy I Have Ever Loved left the county, I was consumed with thoughts about him. One day, while driving in my car [and trying to drown out my own mind via instrumental Irish music] I realized that I was once a person with ideas and opinions but had let myself fall into the trap of obsessing over something I didn’t have. I had not learnt the lesson as a ten-year-old. There was very little difference between the xylophone and Him. Except I could play Him much better.

I decided to channel my negative thinking into a positive action.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” AM asked.
“I am going vibrator shopping.”
She shook her head and started to list all of the other instruments that have only ever been hurdles in the way of reaching my actual dreams.
“Why don’t you find yourself a nice boy instead?” She really does try to get involved in my bizarre life.
“What is the difference? A vibrator, like my brain and a boy, can be turned off.”

What’s Talk Got To Do With It (Read: Sex)?

The best pickup line I have ever heard was, “Hello. My name is [Mr L.A].”
The man could have proceeded to detail how he harms small animals for fun and it would not have stopped my underwear from metaphorically being ripped off and thrown across the room. I knew the moment I saw him that I wanted him.

Everyone else…takes a little bit of effort.

Any television series that has ever aired on HBO would have us believe that girls and boys seek sex in vastly different ways. Girls shave, wax, pluck, exfoliate, moisturize, buff, tone, cleanse, conceal, spray, roll, fluff, blush, highlight, underline, underwire, hide, tame, lick, prep, excite, smell, plump, jump, lunge, run, encourage talk, crunch, shine, drink, judge and find the perfect pair of shoes. A boy says, “Man, I think I’m going to bang a chick tonight.”

Sometimes (but very rarely) I can forgive a girl’s bad performance in bed: She is fucking exhausted.

Not having sex for six weeks made my preparation somewhat different.
After eight hours in the shower, I stopped what I was doing (read: enjoying a glass of scotch) and said, “Fuck. It.” With one leg half shaved, I took a stance. “If He wants It (read: sex), then all he has to do is ask.”

Intellectual stimulation can frequently be wasted on people we only want to stimulate physically. There is an often-believed misconception that only wanting sex diminishes ones self worth, when in reality the opposite is true. There is a respect to be had for motivation and ambition. But there is also a confusion about what is acceptable to say when you only want to rip of His clothes and throw him across the room. Do you have to find out too much? Do you want to find out too little? What is enough? What do you talk about when all that is going through your head is, “I want to sit on top of you.” And is it OK to really not care that his dog died when he was eight? Because unless that is going to get him naked, I really just don’t care.

Languages are notoriously difficult to learn.
“I learnt German for seven years!” I gloated to my travelling companions after we had spent a week in Italy pointing at alcohol and then our genitals. “We will be fine in Germany!”
In reality, I sat in German class for seven years.
“Möchten Sie fangen mit dem bus?” a member of the Arian race said to me. I pointed to my genitals in a wild guess/I am an opportunist.
The ability to learn a language is an admirably unique one – I firmly believe “Clueless” quotes are the last official dialect to be adapted by a mass population – but have always prided myself on being [relatively] bilingual.
“I can speak Sex Talk,” I have sporadically boasted.
“Like moaning?”
“No. Like How-To-Get-Him-Naked-Talk.”

Biologically, man are known as hunters and women, gathers. Which basically means that men like to find people to have sex with and girls like to acquire them. There is a hostorical expectation that a boy will take the lead and do all of the work involved in getting from point A to point Banging. He will approach, buy the drinks, pretend to listen to stories about her ex-boyfriend, trick her into believing that he is not staring at her boobs, nod when he needs to, frown when he has to, ask the right questions, pretend to care, look into her eyes, touch her back, buy more drinks and hopefully She will put out at the end of it. A girl says, “I want to fuck you.”

Sometimes (but very rarely) I am relieved that I am not a boy. Because, frankly, I just can’t pretend to care.

The introduction of HBO event television has encouraged role reversal and somewhat blurred the lines. When I see a hot boy, I am like a Nepalese Sherpa staring at Everest: It’s just There. What else am I going to do other than try to climb It? I enjoy the challenge of the hunt and trying to keep the conversation Just About Sex.
“I have a dream of having sex in the library,” I told Absolutely Stunning Hot Boy I Have Now Officially Talked To.
“Can I get your phone number?” He had a quiver in his voice that insinuated actual fear.
Later while I sat in the shower, I stopped what I was doing (read: enjoying a glass of scotch) and started counting how many hours there are in six weeks and one day.
Both genders may now be talking about It, but it doesn’t mean we know what to do with It (read: sex).

Girls worry about going after It (read: sex) because of the archaic social pretence of such an act. Boys get intimidated if a girl blatantly goes after It (read: sex) and doesn’t want to (really) speak to him. It isn’t a moral issue. It is about being ambitious, motivated and owning what you do. So much drama, judgement, insecurity, pity, envy, dishonesty, abdication, distrust and alcohol has been created around getting It (read: sex).

The reality is that we only do it if we want it [for whatever reason].

There doesn’t need to be the extravagant effort, because if He is interested…He is interested. And there doesn’t need to be the intense fear because…If she doesn’t want to talk, it means she wanted you from the first moment she saw You.