The misadventures of Batgirl

2008-07-18T03:49:00.001-07:00

Love Vendor

I have known my friend "Art" since I was 16 when I spent half the year at a coastal town high school in foster care. I think we were the only two kids in the entire school with shaved heads. Once while waiting to see a guidance counsellor, a little old lady behind the desk asked if Art and I were an item. I was puzzled and asked what made her think that. She then explained that it was obvious from the hair cuts (we both had shaved heads).

Though Art and I were never involved romantically, we have remained firm friends. He even stops and has dinner with me when in London on business and we email back and forth all the time. Recently, I got the most hilarious email from him:

ART: Betty had a crazy day yesterday. It all started with a message on her cell phone from a very angry man that simply said "you better stop fucking my wife"...

ME: Wow, so was she screwing his wife?

ART: While that sounds hot, sadly, no. He did, however, call 10 more times during the day, but didn't leave any messages. Betty went to the police then gave the guy a call. The police called my house (Betty wasn't home) and this was the conversation:

The FUZZ: Is your name Dell?

ART: No. It's Art.

The FUZZ: Do you take the commuter train to Lowell?

ART: No. Never.

The FUZZ: Do you sell hot dogs at the Lowell train station?

ART: (Now irritated) No. I don't sell hot dogs. I'm a fucking engineer.

The FUZZ: Well, you see, this guy came home early this morning and caught his wife with a hot dog vendor and he thought he found his phone number, but apparently transposed a couple of the numbers. He says he's really sorry. He was crying.

2008-07-18T03:47:00.001-07:00

Hotel Cat

I am in Amsterdam for work this week and also got in some training for my fight in Sweden next month. That has meant I really only got to explore Amsterdam this evening. Still in the 3 hours I walked around I saw loads of neat stuff.

Nobody seems to use curtains so you can't help but see into peoples' homes. One home had this group of people sitting on the sofa watching the window like a tv so I gave a quick wave, another window showed this elderly couple (think 85 years and older!) having a grope on their sofa. Luckily I only saw legs and arms! There was also this neat book shop with a group of people sitting in a circle chatting.

Then lots of people on bikes either together on regular bikes or these two chaps on a bicycle built for two! And there was one chap in an alcove with a dog and he was yelling at no one in particular in Italian.

Since I am staying an additional night to fight-train tomorrow I had to pay for thr hotel and opted for a cheaper one that happens to be this amazing old converted house near Central Station. It has a teeny room that is a bit drafty because of the old windows but it also has a hotel cat. Hotel cat is this little calico that followed me to room after I went to fetch a kettle. She's now curled up asleep on my legs and keeping me very warm! Cheers, Hotel Cat!!!

2008-07-18T03:46:00.000-07:00

East Enders

I was walking through Leather Lane on my way to the office this morning. For those not familiar with Leather Lane in London it's a streetmarket where you can buy cheap clothes, food, fresh juices and dodgy mobiles. I tend to hit the juice cart and get some off the nice Ecuadorian man or his wife while listening to South American radio and we talk about the lousy weather.

This particular morning there were two big, burly east London men setting up a stall. One was about 40 and looked like one of the guys who didn't make the try-outs for the original Run-DMC. The other guy was much older in his late 60's and could have easily been seen selling live bait or trawling supplies at the docks. They were setting up their pitch and seemed to be engaged in a heated discussion.

Run-DMC: You don't love me anymore.

Captain Birdseye: What?

Run-DMC: You don't love me no more.

Captainbirdseye: What rubbish are you talkin?

Run-DMC: If you don't love me anymore why don't you just say so?

Captainbirdseye: I don't love you anymore.

Run-DMC: Oh yeah, prove it!

Initially I thought he said "You don't want me no more" but as the argument progressed it was clear that this was lover's tiff and the word love was unabashedly being bandied about. All the other stall holders were watching this drama unfold and I admittedly was keen to see the two of them fall into a passionate embrace but was running late for work and my Ecuadorian juice man was beckoning.

2008-07-18T03:45:00.000-07:00

Hooker Rates

I can't recall if I ever mentioned one of my favourite London eateries, Melati. Hidden away on Peter St in Soho I found it by chance with my husband a few years ago. The Malaysian food is excellent although the location is a bit seedy. There are a string of whorehouses across the street which became an endless source of entertainment for me. I even bestowed the slogan "Come for the hookers, stay for the food". Is it really any wonder that I work in marketing?

On many a lunch hour, the owner or wait staff would direct me to my special seat by the window where I would order the same exact meal every time and proceed to hassle the hookers' customers. I couldn't help myself. The staff found it hilarious and I can assure you it had no impact whatsoever on the hookers' business as there was always a healthy bustle in and out of their doorways. There would be these furtive men of all ages and classes ducking into the doorways only to come out 5 or 10 minutes later with a bashful look and I would catch their eyes, point, laugh or look at my watch and raise my eyebrows.

A month or so back I had gone for lunch with a mate and noticed a few blokes in the street having a look and a woman appeared in one of the windows with a "menu" or ratecard! I was amazed. She had held it up briefly and from what I was able to see, sex would set you back £30 whereas a blowjob would cost £35.

This has now become a source of debate for my husband and myself. How is a blowjob more valuable than sex? Is it that many wives and girlfriends are reluctant (or know that they probably won't be recirpocated so don't bother)? Surely sex is a lot more trouble, time, clean up, etc for the hookers than a quick bit of head relief. Since I really don't think I'd ever bother going to the hooker or her madam I don't think I'll ever get an answer.

2008-07-18T03:44:00.000-07:00

CSI Aquarium

Last month I had read an article about how PETA had taken legal action against a film or television production company. The crime was having a goldfish in a goldfish bowl completely devoid of anything aside from the fish itself, water and probably some goldfish poo. The article went on to explain that this was wrong since there was no place for the fish to hide and there was no stimulus to keep the fish occupied. I rasied my eyebrows and thought little of it until I was having a glass of wine in my dining room and looked at our goldfish, Mr Patel.

Mr Patel has lived in a minimalist goldfish tank for over 5 years. He is a big lively fish whom we fed twice a day. Doubt began to set in abour Mr Patel's quality of life as I reflected upon that article. Perhaps he was desperately lonely and bored shitless.
I resolved to find him some goldfish furnishings and a companion. I bicycled down to the local pet store and picked him up am even larger tank, a day glo colour automobile with big passages to hide or swim through, a small rock bridge, freshwater filter and a little friend we named Mr Saito.

Mr Patel didn't really seem to notice his new digs,my interior decorating skills with the fish furnishings or Mr Saito. Then a week later I came down to find Mr Patel stuck in his car. I panicked and got my husband who swiftly performed a heroic rescue. Mr Patel was a bit bashed up but appeared to be recovering slowly. I went and got him some fish medicine at the pet store and we took the car out of the tank joking that he;d been in a car accident. About three days after that my husband informed me that he found a very dead Mr Patel under the rocky bridge.

I was sad about his unfortunate end though my husband and I can't help but wonder if it was in fact suicide on Mr Patel's part and we unknowingly provided the tools like some aquatic Dr Kevorkian. Maybe Mr Patel just never got the hang of judging small spaces due to his sheltered life in the minimalist tank. Either way I feel compelled to blame PETA.

2007-01-10T03:01:00.000-08:00

Hard Working

As seen in my older blogs, I am easily distracted and will often doodle during meetings at work. Today I had to chair a meeting and was rather impressed with my handiwork:
Don't worry too much about the victim bear. As bears don't have thumbs I don't think the robber bear can pull the trigger.

2007-01-10T03:00:00.000-08:00

Frozen Food

Being the oldest sibling of 3, I've pulled my share of wedgies. One sister Prunella, is 2 years my junior whereas Brunhilda, is ten years younger. As I was in care for most of Brunhilda's childhood, it wasn't so many wedgies (though the ones I did counted threefold) and only a few great stories about she was really a gorilla we rescued from the mist and had to shave her in order to return to the states. I think I even told her my parents used depilatory on her as she slept and that this was why she enjoyed watching the Lion King so many times.

Prunella got the worst. Though to be fair, she gave as good as she got. Somewhere in my attic is a photograph I took of her with a black eye I had given her for calling a rather nasty word. The photo was meant as a reminder to be nicer to her institutionalised sister when she was home for weekend passes.

One favourite incident was when I was no more than 6 or 8 and we were living in Everett. We were in the kitchen and I had somehow convinced my sister to stick her tongue to the freezer wall. I think it was curiosity that drove me to dare her and my curiosity was sated to see that her tongue did indeed stick to the freezer wall. My fascination and good humour quickly dissolved into fear when I realised she was stuck. I was more worried about the royal arse flogging I would be in for than her walking down the aisle with the freezer affixed to her mouth.

My parents eventually managed to free her from the icy grip of science but not without sacrificing a good bit of her tongue which remained stuck to the freezer wall for a good while after. I did feel a cloud of guilt as my poor sister's mouth bled profusely and she had difficulty eating for sometime after. The big sister in me still sniggers when I think of her being stuck to the freezer.

2006-03-13T13:35:00.000-08:00

Amateur Night

As mentioned in the Jesus’ Co-Worker entry, I once worked the holiday season at a Christian bookseller. At this fine establishment made up of Christians and townies I met many interesting and many more freaky people. One evening my friend Sid Sociopath took me to the local nudie bar. I went along as it was a hoot, something to do and every so often I could bring a sketch pad and either sketch the strippers or write funny cartoons about T-Rex dinosaurs getting manicures while I ordered drinks.

Sid's favourite night to go was amateur night at a dive strip bar in Revere, MA. For anyone unfamiliar with Revere it is a rough place where the entire state of Massachusetts wanted to dispose of "sludge" (some vague waste product that was probably eventually shipped to New Hampshire or Mexico City). It was also well known for big hair and dodgy accents. I spent many a night wasted in Revere. As with any amateur night in any industry there was a real mix of skill. There was one woman who I am certain was probably a lunch lady during the day who had frizzy hair, thunder thighs and cowboy boots. I didn't think anyone stripped in cowboy boots except maybe on the Hee-Haw casting couch.

The night wasn't even half over when a girl strutted out and looked familiar. As she tore off her clothes and began gyrating in our direction (Sid always brought lots of one dollar bills) it struck me that she was very familiar. I finally placed her and the dime must have dropped for her as well. Our eyes met and to our shared horror we realised we knew each other from the Christian booksellers. By this point she was pretty nekkid so I fumbled in my purse and gave her all my single bills. I felt really bad that this could have been her first time at a strip club on amateur night and ran into someone from the creepy religious office.

I never said anything to the Christian stripper at work for sheer lack of any conversational openers. Far be it for me to encourage or corrupt Christians. I also never returned to amateur night for fear of running into family members, bosses and anyone else I knew who lead a double life.

2006-03-01T02:11:00.000-08:00

Squirrel Bonding

Squirrels are great. This is a fact. Whether they are frantically trying to find the nuts they buried last autumn or hibernating in your walls and frightening small children squirrels are ace. One afternoon at my in-laws I watched an agitated squirrel sit on a fence and proceed to what can only be interpreted as bitching another squirrel out. I was transfixed; that little guy meant business. Sadly since our neighbourhood is overrun by the feline equivalent of the BNP there are no squirrels in my garden ever. It also doesn't help that all the trees are so small.

One thing I found fascinating about being homeless in Toronto was the squirrels. The little buggers were everywhere. They were jet black with scruffy tails. I still can't decide if they are cute or creepy.

One day homeless Bob and I visited one of the homeless drop-in shelters. For anyone who may find themselves homeless in Toronto it was the drop-in that mainly served hookers and trannies at 416 Dundas St. Neither homeless Bob nor myself were hookers or transvestites but they let you take naps there and sometimes had the Pac-Man cereal with the little marshmallow ghosts. I liked going there for the cereal though I worry Homeless Bob liked to make eyes at the hookers and trannies.

On one occasion they were out of Pac-Man cereal but they did have these health food cereal bars. They gave us the box and since it was a nice day Homeless Bob and I went for a walk in the park to enjoy our picnic of health food bars and stale muffins. When we arrived the park looked like the squirrel version of Night of the Living Dead. They were everywhere. I know that beggars can't be choosers but these particular health food bars were nasty. Since they were donated to us we couldn't return them and risk seeming ungrateful nor could we bear the thought of throwing them away.

We figured the only solution would be to see if the squirrels would eat them. And eat them they did. They feckin loved the health food bars! I was surprised at this since most urban critters seem to prefer fast food from generations of dumpster diving. Not these squirrels; they devoured the whole box and we had a fun time throwing bits of health food in the direction of people and watching the squirrels scramble after it to the disgust of others. It was almost like having a squirrel army for ten minutes. It was a great ten minutes even if we spent the rest of the day hungry.

See???? Like Night of the Living Dead.

2006-02-28T13:37:00.000-08:00

Gay pit

The first year we moved to London my husband took me to a Motorhead show in Kentish Town. It was a lot of fun. A lot of people assume that since the US and the UK speak a near identical language the cultures would also be similar. This is not true as I have often learned the hard way. Many a times I have offended someone or been the butt of jokes due to my cultural naiveté. I am indeed the gaijin, gringo, stupid foreigner, etc.

Anyway after managing to order drinks and consuming both my Guinness and tequila (not together, of course) I had decided to make my way to the pit. My husband was happy to gain a clear view and avoid writhing with smelly tattooed bodies and beer. Being a bigger venue and a very excited home crowd I quickly got swallowed in the masses. I managed to avoid injury which is always a plus and met lots of interesting people.

There was one guy who had a "Fist" t-shirt on. I had seen flyers for Fist at this vegetarian lesbian diner that has the best chocolate cake (thanks to all the lovely lesbian chefs at First Out!!! I love your cake!) and had wanted to know more. This was especially because the flyer was the cut-out of a fist covered in Vaseline; what sort of music did they play there? I asked the bloke about his shirt and he explained that it was in fact a hardcore sex night for leather fags. As I didn't have a handlebar moustache or an obsession with gay porn this nightclub would not be my cup of tea.

Another chap I met was this lanky skinhead. He was a friendly type and we chatted briefly between songs. When I saw him later after emerging from the crowd he took out a small brown vial. As I was into herbal remedies I assumed he had eucalyptus oil or lavender oil. He asked if I cared to try any after a vigorous sniff and politely declined. When I met up with my husband after the show I mentioned the funny chap with the essential oils. My husband then explained that the guy was probably sniffing poppers. I began to wonder if maybe I had been in the special gay area of the pit.

2006-02-26T13:37:00.000-08:00

Sexual Harassment

Several years ago I went to Brussels with my old company as a "team building exercise". This was normally an excuse to get trollied with your co-workers and the company paid.

The first night I was there we had gone for dinner and I had way too much to drink. At one point this flaky "new age" (she had a feng shui specialist organise her office) lady who was in some made up department (she would has cost a fortune to fire her so the company kept her on and distracted her with silly jobs like organising this trip. I'll call her Zelda. Zelda annoyed me a great deal for no apparent reason.

This evening after I had imbibed more than a bottle of wine Zelda had come over to our table to remind us about some lame "character building exercise" we had first thing in the morning. I had then asked her about the weather and grabbed her by the ears laying a big wet kiss on her lips. Luckily I was too drunk to recall if there were any tongues. I should also mention that Zelda was easily 30 years older than me. It was basically like if Robin the boy wonder downed a bottle of Mad Dog and snogged the Joker.

The next morning I managed to stumble down for breakfast where I ran into Zelda and the Company MD. Zelda asked if I was feeling better this morning to which I nodded. She then asked if I remembered anything from last night. After searching my foggy memories I asked if I happened to kiss her. Zelda's eyes seemed to smoulder as she exhaled "Oh yes!" I was scared and after nursing my hangover stayed sober for the remainder of the trip.

2006-02-22T02:48:00.000-08:00

Bird Feeder

Before moving to London my husband briefly worked as a temp. Having gotten a masters degree for studying film there wasn't a good deal of work in Boston for him unless he wanted to teach. He got an assignment at this small office in Lynn. They were amazed and impressed that my husband could use the cut & paste shortcuts on Word and that he could actually make a Power Point Presentation. My husband was surprised but happy that the money was good.

I am not entirely clear on what the company itself did but one day it had an assignment for my husband from their most prestigious client, General Electric. My husband was surprised at how many pots GE had their fingers in from making kitchen appliances that didn't work to fighter planes (hopefully they didn't let the engineers responsible for the kitchen appliances anywhere near the fighter planes!).

The assignment was to create a presentation with slides provided by GE. The slides were an assortment of pictures of birds big and small from finches to geese. Sadly they didn't have ostriches. Also the birds were all dead. I am not sure if they died of natural causes or what but they all looked like they were asleep so I like to think they went peacefully. Below the images were notes about the weight and size of the birds.

The next set of pictures were the remains of the birds after they were sucked into the propeller thingies. The images were probably an apt illustration of what would happen if Colonel Sanders was high on mescaline and visited the chicken plant. I should mention that my husband has been a strict vegetarian for over 10 years and that he frequently donates to animal causes like the RSPCA.

Yet he somehow managed to do the presentations every day. I thought it would have been great if he snuck a doctored image using Big Bird into the presentation but think the office would have noticed. Apparently the report was just to demonstrate how safe the planes are if a bird gets in the way. It would have been grim if he had a presentation on blenders or something where hands can get caught, though.

2006-02-18T02:54:00.000-08:00

The Iranian

Last year I was training for a cage fight I was due to have. On Saturdays I would go to this wrestling club to train. Sadly, it wasn't all lycra spandex or luchadores it was proper wrestling. There was only one other girl in the class who is a good friend of mine and also a force to be reckoned with on the mat. She is like those female action figures I had as a kid or like the She-Hulk so I didn't partner with her often as she was a lot more advanced. Most of the other guys were a lot bigger, too. And I hated partnering my husband as we would bicker and call each other names while we wrestled.

This is how I ended up with the Iranian. The Iranian was my size roughly and happy to partner with me. He had only been in the UK for a year or two. I should mention that in Iran wrestling is very popular (I think they wrestle in the school yards instead of playing kiss chase or touch tag) so I was grateful for his help. He also informed me that he was a pizza delivery man in Hackney and anytime I wanted pizza he would deliver for me.

He spoke in halting English and mainly would say things like "You! Look! Now! See how I am doing? Now you do!" When I got it right he would nod and exclaim "Yes! Yes! Now you see!" And if I got it wrong he would revert back to "You! Look! Now! See how I am doing? Now you do!" And so I would spend the mornings being thrown around by the Iranian pizza guy.

At one point I was face down on the mat and he said "You. How much you weigh?" I told him and then explained that I just started fight training so I would be shedding the nice padding around my hips for my upcoming fight. He nodded and then said "Yes! Yes! You. Too. Fat. Too. Fat. After class. You run. Ten minutes. Run ten minutes. Every day." As he said this he gestured towards my butt. I was initially speechless and then burst out laughing.

I never got to fight as I broke my foot training but I did get down to my fight weight and returned to the wrestling class a few months later. The Iranian was happy to see me and after taking me down to the mat grabbed my hips and said "Yes. Yes. You running? Your bum much better now."

I think that was the last time I partnered with him since I couldn't figure out if he was whittling my arse down to help my technique or he dug really pert bums.

2006-02-15T15:44:00.000-08:00

Stripper school

I took my daughter to an overpriced burger bar near Covent Garden. It's one of those expensive places where the menus tell you how the cows get massages and eat organic grass and they have vegetarian burgers in case you are jealous by the way the cows get treated and refuse to eat them. Since this was my daughter's choice she sat us near a window and happily settled in.

As my daughter went off to wash her hands I looked across the street and saw a pub. Upstairs from the pub was a private function with photographers and cocktails. Above that was a room that was well lit with a pole in the centre of the room. There appeared to be a dance class. They appeared to be learning a routine out of flash dance. I vaguely remembered reading that women in London were taking pole dancing classes to help them be more confident in the boudoir. I figured this must be one of those classes.

When my daughter returned she followed line of vision and promptly began pointing and laughing. Every so often she would critique the techniques or spins or hair tosses. Every so often a bra would fly by the window and elicit more snickers from us. We began to speculate who took the classes and more importantly who was teaching the class. Would strippers teach these classes? Surely they would be the most qualified to teach such classes? At any rate the class was more entertaining than my overpriced envy burger.

2006-02-13T12:06:00.000-08:00

Laying eggs

Sometimes I wish I laid eggs instead of having periods. This way I would be able to carry a few eggs around with me and lob them at ex-boyfriends, people who make me mad or boy racers that tear up my street. For practical jokes I could also make omelettes with these eggs and watch the unsuspecting person eat them before laughing and exclaiming that they were eating my eggs. This would also save me a few quid in tampons each month and lessen the monthly mood swings.

2006-02-11T02:21:00.000-08:00

Valentine bike

About ten years ago I moved back to the US from Toronto with Homeless Bob. Although I should point out that I got my own flat and Homeless Bob would sometimes show up strung out on drugs or in the middle of a psychotic episode. At the time I was fine with this as I lived alone and enjoyed having houseguests.

It was at least two weeks after Valentine's Day and Homeless Bob was at my door with a red bicycle. This was certainly a surprise since Homeless Bob was not the romantic or sentimental sort. He was also the sort that never had any money and when he did would usually disappear and spend it on himself. Nonetheless I thanked him and put the bike away somewhere. Having to take care of an infant made cycling unlikely for a while.

Several weeks later Homeless Bob visited with a few of his mates, one of which noticed the bike and remarked how it looked an awful lot like his kid sister's bike that had recently been stolen. The next day Homeless Bob sheepishly apologised and returned the bike which was fine since I had no intention of using it. I suppose it's the thought that counts as they say.

2006-02-09T01:21:00.000-08:00

Dog canvas

When my daughter was about 4 years old she had visited my parents who had a little white dog. It was a Bijon Frise that despite having had the snip had a real proclivity for humping legs and soft toys. I really didn’t like the dog. I also really didn't like my parents but would dutifully drop my daughter for visits as she loved both my parents and the dog.

One afternoon I went to pick my daughter up after her visit with the grandparents. My daughter ran up to the door waving excitedly with a handful of magic markers. I waved as I noticed that she managed to get purple and pink ink all over her hands and shirt. I was then surprised to see the dog run up to the door covered in pink and purple ink. She must have run out of paper.

2006-02-04T02:47:00.000-08:00

Hippo shower

It is a fact that more people are killed by hippos in Africa than any other animal. They look cute but are really moody and have a tendency to rip people's guts out in one nibble. Still, they are one of my favourite animals. I have two hippo stories which will support my decision.

When we first moved to London we went to the zoo. It was a hot day and we saw the pygmy hippo (He's much smaller so probably more likely to nibble your kneecaps off instead of of your stomach and intestines) wading out into his pygmy hippo pool for a swim. He proceeded to roll over and shake his legs gleefully before regainging composure and slinking off to a shady spot. My husband and I were smitten with the little fella. So much that I adopted the hippo for the husband. It wasn't as neat as when you adopt a stray dog or hobo; the pygmy hippo stayed at the zoo and we got a picture of the pygmy hippo. It was more like those adoptions Sally Struthers does.

The other hippo story was funnier. One of my friends had gone to the zoo and said that he saw a rgular sized hippo looking a bit annoyed. Since he was at the zoo the hippo was hardly in a position to disembowel anyone so he thought outside the box. Mr Hippo turned so his hippo bum was facing the zoo-goers. He then began to spray shit at a surprising speed and force. I should note that hippos also have little tails with bristle like hairs on the end. Mr Hippo used the tail to cover more ground and of course more families in hippo shit. I never found out what had pissed the hippo off that day but can safely assume that all present wouldn't be surprised to hear that hippos can be really mean.

The pygmy hippo we adopted Sally Struthers-style

2006-02-02T12:22:00.000-08:00

The butt dance

A few months ago two events occurred that would seem to be linked. It was early in the morning and we were in the kitchen preparing breakfast and I was about to leave for work. I stretched my back and yawned as my husband started to do the butt dance at me.

The butt dance was just my husband shaking his butt at me while getting stuff out of the fridge. According to him, it is a magnificent dance. I then fainted and fell to the floor. My giant blue dog was first to notice and attempted to help by "patting" me with her paws. My husband ceased the butt dance helped me up. I decided to see the doctor just to make sure I was okay.

The doctor explained that I probably pinched a nerve and fainted. He explained that lots of people pass out while they hang drapes since their necks are stretched back. I found this hilarious. My husband was convinced it was the butt dance.

2006-02-01T01:55:00.000-08:00

Tattoo Norbert

Years ago Sid the sociopath told me all about his friend Norbert. Norbert lived in the tree house in his parents' backyard and was a few French fries short a happy meal. Norbert became a bit of a legend in our circle of friends, actually.

He would do fun things like go to a restaurant and pretend he had Tourette's syndrome. This would require the assistance of a friend accompanying him and having a word with the management explaining that his friend suffered from Tourette's and was terribly embarrassed by it but as it was his birthday he really wanted to do something special. The manager would naturally assure Norbert's accomplice that the restaurant would do everything in its power to make the neurologically-challenged birthday boy feel welcome. Predictably, the dinner would be filled with colourful language, twitches, tics and screeching much to the obvious discomfort of other diners. I never did ask if the staff bothered with birthday cake and singing.

Norbert also had stick figures tattooed all over his body. Apparently this design was done with his free hand while driving across state lines on the highway to the tattoo parlour while Sid watched. Norbert sounded like a fun guy and I would often find myself wishing I were friends with him than Sid the sociopath. I also wondered if Norbert really existed or was a fantasy created by Sid who was admittedly a bit of a loser.

The first proof I had of Norbert's existence was actually at the same tattoo parlour he had gone for the stick figure montage throughout his body. I sat done as the tattooist started inking me and flipped through the book to see a legion of hastily drawn stick figures. The tattooist laughed about it saying that the guy was adamant about inking the stick figures exactly as he had drawn them.

The second time was while I was in line at an all-night drug store getting various candy, cough medicine and nail polish. I looked up to see a scruffy guy with stick figures peeking out of his sleeves. I gasped in awe whispering his name. He smiled and nodded as walked out of the CVS with his purchases. It was better than meeting the Easter Bunny.

2006-01-24T05:46:00.000-08:00

Stunt girl

One weekend I had decided to go on pass and stay with my parents. As usual we spent much of the weekend arguing. For all the time we spent arguing, I can't remember what we argued about. Asking them to pass the salt would cause an argument as would them asking me to change the channel on the telly.

For some reason this weekend in particular I had reached my Waterloo. My mother was driving me back to the children's home and was yelling at me about something. I just remember finally shouting that if that I would rather die than continue listening to her bitching. After saying this I simply opened the door as the car sped up the road at about 50mph and did a drop roll onto the road. I was amazed that I was uninjured and pleased to see that I managed to stop traffic.

My mother looked understandably shaken as she drove back and retrieved me from the road. I agreed on the condition that she just shut up and drive me back. It may have been a bit extreme but I did get a quiet ride back and got full control of the radio dial. I often think if I ever get bored of wearing a suit I could always try my hand as a stuntwoman.

2006-01-22T03:31:00.000-08:00

Ransom Note

History teachers are a strange breed. I think the only more bizarre breed of teacher would be Geometry; one was a former nun that had divorced God and was the subject of many perverse and sadistic scenarios scribbled by myself and the bloke sitting across from me. And then there was the guy who was drunk most days who would give you a pass to have a mid-class fag break, write the answers on the board during the test in case you didn't know and would run betting pools for boxing matches- I was the only one in class who knew Holyfield would beat Riddick Bowe.

The history teachers really took the biscuit, though. There was Mr Callahan who had chronic dandruff and wore elbow patches on his jacket with jeans (I held a grudge against him because he wrote a letter home to my parents saying I wasn't trying hard enough which resulted in beating. Thanks, Mr Callahan). There was also this woman who I will call Mrs. Smart. She actually taught us a lot about American history; the KKK dress in bed sheets to represent ghosts of dead soldiers in the civil war or that the Native Americans got a raw deal (this was news to us since they always looked so happy on the Thanksgiving illustrations we were accustomed to), however she was shagging one of her students in the school parking lot after school which wasn't so good.

The most memorable history teacher I had was Mr Brown. He taught Greek and Roman history and tried to make it relevant and interesting to a room full of apathetic teenagers. I felt a bit sorry since I often fell asleep in his class. This was due to being sat next to the radiator and that his class was right as was crashing from all the espresso I had in the morning. According to one of the guys in his class the previous year, Mr Brown once had a fuzzy plush donkey on his desk. It had been there for years. Every year the senior class would pull a prank as a last hurrah, they ran the gamut from leaving chalk outlines of students all over the grounds early one morning to setting a plague of locusts loose in the stairwell.

One morning Mr Brown's donkey was missing from his desk. In its place was a ransom note that read:

Dear Mr Brown,
We have kidnapped your ass. If you do not leave $20 in a history book and place it out in the hall during 2nd period or we will shave your ass.

I can't recall what they said he did or if the kidnappers shaved his ass but there was never a donkey on his desk when I was in his class.

2006-01-17T15:37:00.000-08:00

Mafia uncle

I learned fairly early on when I was a little girl that my dad was in the mafia. He wasn't terribly high up or anything like that, more of a henchman. I have fond memories of going to the mafia bar in Boston with my dad and eating a hot dog at the bar while he talked to other shifty looking guys named Vinnie or Tony. I found out later that my grandfather had met Jimmy Hoffa and a few other names were passed around that I would later see in post offices under FBI Most Wanted.

When I was younger I once declared to my father that when I grow up I wanted to be in the mafia, too. My father said don't be silly; they don't let girls in the mafia. Other aspects of my dad's "hobby" were maxims such as "What goes on in this house stays in this house." or "If anyone asks I was home all night." The latter was often said while he was dressed in a nice suit headed out. And aside from recognising similarities from any film starring Al Pacino and our family, we also had a lot of new uncles.

These uncles weren't like the uncles that divorced mummies brought home and took to the bedroom followed by moaning and creaking of bed coils. These uncles would call from jail or on crackly phone lines. Some of these uncles would sometimes get out of jail and visit for dinner. These dinners always followed with both "uncle" and my dad leaving in nice suits and instructing me that if anyone asks they were home all night.

One such uncle whom I will call Mario was over for dinner when I was a teenager. I was home on a weekend visitor pass and had just gone through an ugly break-up so was sulking. When Uncle Mario asked how I was I explained that the boy I had been dating was a real heel and that I was really angry about the whole thing.

Uncle Mario smiled and simply said that I shouldn't waste time feeling angry and should instead get even. He then explained that all I would need was a metal whistle and a phone. All I would need to do was ring my ex and when he answered blow the whistle into the phone as hard and loudly as possible. He explained that the surprise and noise was enough to deafen or seriously damage the person's ear on the other end of the receiver. My dad furrowed his brow and shook his head at Uncle Mario which made me wonder how often either had tried the whistle call. In the end I ended up just beating my ex-boyfriend up, but I have often wondered if the whistle trick really does work. I never did see Uncle Mario again to thank him, though.

2006-01-16T15:47:00.000-08:00

Answering service

Many years ago when I lived in the home for pregnant teenage mothers (don't dis it; wasn't the Virgin Mary an unwed teenage mother?) I would often get callers in the middle of the day. Sadly, it was never anything as thrilling as the Avon lady. It was normally the postman with a package, pizza delivery or the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Once when the pizza delivery man came I was just coming out of the bath when the door buzzer rang. This was mainly due to the abnormal sleeping patterns of a newborn and NOT the start of a cheesy porno film alas. I rushed down in a bathrobe to receive my pizza with extra cheese when my robe fell open. The pizza man was either shocked, surprised or horrified at the site of nature's D-cups so I paid him for the pizza and muttered that he already got his tip and ran upstairs. From that day on, the pizza guy was always punctual and the pizza perfect although he only ever received a dollar tip thereafter.

The other memorable visitors were the Jehovah's Witnesses. Let me be clear that I could honestly give a rat's arse what you do with your spare time or what religion you are part of; it is about as much my business as what you get up to in your bedroom. What does irk me are people who are so enamoured with their choice of faith that they feel moved to share it with me in my flat while I am trying to eat my fecking pizza! The JW's are always very neatly dressed gentlemen that insist on visiting the urban ghetto areas. They walk around crack house neighbourhoods wearing polyester suits and naive smiles not unlike girl scouts who just sold out of all of their cookies.

One afternoon I had just gotten my daughter down for a nap. The buzzer sounded and I rushed down hoping it was the postman or pizza guy. Instead I see two shiny happy religious men in the front hall eager to discuss religion with me. I did the best I could to sound like Anne Margaret as I breathlessly purred, "Hello boys, what a lovely surprise!"

Again I was wearing a robe and the men looked both afraid and intrigued. They tried to explain that they wanted to talk about god. I did my best to seem aroused by this proposal and suggested that they come up for a cup of "hot, wet, tea" and further expound on their ideas and theories in the evening. I winked at both lads and fled upstairs.

They never returned. Nor did any Jehovah's Witnesses come a' knocking the entire time I lived in that building. I am not sure if I frightened them away or they had the wrong address to begin with, but I can say that I received noticeably less callers after that incident. Nowadays I simply keep a Mexican Wrestling Mask by the door and tell all cold-callers that I will happily hear what they have to say once they've tried to wrestle me. Unsurprisingly we get few callers here, too.

2006-01-14T04:34:00.000-08:00

Mount Washington

Sadly, this entry has nothing to do with a dog and a stuffed toy named Washington. This is actually about the famous Mount Washington in New Hampshire. As I have mentioned before, in one of the group homes I lived in they would take us out on activities over the weekend. For whatever reason the staff thought it would be a super idea to take a bunch of dysfunctional teenagers on a road trip across state lines. Maybe they were really planning to use us in elaborate bank robbery but then got discouraged and just took us to Mount Washington.

Anyone who has kids knows that long car journeys stop being pleasant after children turn 3. This is because they no longer fall asleep in the car and instead use it as an opportunity to torment a captive audience. This journey was no different. I can recall chain-smoking and bickering with several of the "residents" who argued with me about topics ranging from my musical tastes to the classic invisible borders of one's space on the van's seating. At one point I resorted to serenading the other passengers with a rendition of the Divinyls' classic "I Touch Myself".

Looking back I am amazed the staff hadn't cracked, murdered us all and dumped us in the Mount Washington state park near some deer shit or something. We did make to the park and drove up to the mountain as we all declared that over our dead bodies would we be climbing that. I think for a short while the staff debated about driving up this massive pile of dirt and snow. I should also mention that this was the same van that I had climbed up and dented while screaming about Mojo Nixon. This vehicle was not about to make it up the highest peak in the north eastern US.

So we turned around and headed back. We didn't even get one of those lame bumper stickers that boasted "This car climbed Mount Washington". Instead we all got a lesson that day about how it always more about the journey than the destination.

2006-01-11T07:53:00.000-08:00

UPS Trophy

My friend's sex shop has seen many a manager behind its counter. One in particular was a busty blonde Canadian I will call Pamela. Pamela was your average pneumatic Canadian rocker chic with long blond hair, spiked heels and an endless collection of tight t-shirts. I am willing to bet that she has a few t-shirts that have fringe on the sleeves and midriff that were popular among carnie folk in the 80's. If Pamela had a car you can bet it was probably a pick-up truck with a feather roach clip hanging off the rear-view mirror and 80's hair band music blaring from the speakers.

I knew Pamela well as I was at the store quite a lot to see friends and meet up with Eddie. We even used Pamela as a model in one of Eddie's photo shoots and she did look great. To make a long drama-filled story short Pamela lost her job through her very metal lifestyle that also burned out countless Led Zeppelin groupies and Motley Crue video extras as well as some local controversy involving the local Goth/ S&M night club around the corner.

It wasn't until after she Pamela left that we realised just what sort of a legacy Pamela left behind. It was common knowledge that Pamela was a bit of a "go-er" and shagged Eddie (who was also a bit of a "go-er" in his day) here and there. What we didn't realised was that Pamela had her own roster of "groupies" like Led Zeppelin.

One of them was the local UPS delivery man for the sex shop. Somebody has to deliver dildos and for this shop it was UPS. It became apparent he was delivering more than sex toys after he was informed she left. He shrugged musing how she was a fantastic shag, so much so that he felt moved to give her his UPS delivery award. It was a small UPS truck that was fixed so that you could pump it up and down much in the way cars shake at make-out spots near local lakes or beaches.

Last I knew of Pamela she was in a few adult videos although my friend's shop didn't seem to carry those ones. Poor Pamela, how she could forget her UPS trophy is beyond me. Especially as she obviously worked hard to get it.

2006-01-10T02:09:00.000-08:00

Play doctor

The other day I was thinking of my old friend (and high school ex who broke my heart), Sumo. I met him when I was 12 and changed Catholic schools. He and his mates got me into smoking, drinking and other such mischief. He was also there the night I hid at the roller skating rink and my dad found me and a bit of the old ultra violence followed leaving me a bit battered and moving schools.

I saw him again by chance when I got moved to one of the many high schools I attended. Sumo was great; he did a spot on Homer Simpson imitation and had some cracking stories; like the time he was trying to fix his mum's phone line in the basement and forgot to switch off power so when the phone rang he could not figure out why he kept getting shocked. His mum was actually the one who took me to get my driving test with the cop and the hot dog as mentioned in previous stories.

My favourite Sumo story was about how when he was about 5 or 6 he would often play doctor with the girl who lived on his street. Obviously not real doctors with the ability and authority to write amazing scripts for drugs, they settled for checking each other out naked or in their knickers. Anyway, he was invited to her birthday party so he and his mum went to buy her a gift at the toy store she innocently asked if the birthday girl might not like a doctor kit set for birthday. Sumo lit up and concurred that a doctor kit would make a splendid gift. I don't know how long they continued to play doctor but last I checked Sumo never made it to med school.

2006-01-07T13:29:00.000-08:00

Viking funeral

Our house has at least 3 or 4 spiders squatting in it at any given time. They normally hang out in the corners on the ceiling and occasionally attempt to spin a crap web (never the cool decorative kind like in Charlotte's Web) on our light fixtures. I normally leave them be since they apparently eat bugs (I have never seen them do so but give them the benefit of the doubt as we are usually bug-free) and they don't bother me.

The only time they do incur my wrath is when I find them crawling around the floor. This seems to violate the unsung squatters’ agreement I have with the spiders. This will normally result in me grabbing a few pieces of toilet paper and squashing the little bugger. The wadded bit of spider corpse and loo roll then is tossed into the toilet where depending on my mood; I send them off with a yellow stream salute or just a flush. My husband thinks I ought to throw them outside but they are so frigging fiddly that it is impossible. Besides I rather enjoy picturing their journey over the rainbow bridge to the spider Valhalla after their Viking burial. My husband doesn't think I ought to piss on the spiders, though.

2006-01-03T14:20:00.000-08:00

Hard Work

Today was my first day back after a long break. I had to move desks and stumbled across this scrap of paper:

This masterpiece was created by yours truly during an especially dull meeting with my line manager at my old office. The line manager seemed to be a high-functioning autistic woman with a dark moustache (hence the affectionate nickname of "moustache c*nt" I would use behind her back). Mind you after studying the sketch, perhaps I am either more talented than Tracey Emin, particularly bored or a high functioning lunatic (sans moustache). As much as I like the sock puppet sketch, I sure am glad I moved jobs.

2006-01-01T03:17:00.000-08:00

Super hero

When I was about 6 or 7 I had a Wonder Woman underoos set. The set with the star spangled knickers and red and gold vest. I don't know how I convinced my mum to get them but somehow I did. At the time I watched the live action series of Wonder Woman with Linda Carter religiously and was convinced if I practiced running jumps off my front porch I would eventually fly. Maybe our drinking water was tainted with LSD?

One afternoon I was out collecting grasshoppers or running a lemonade stand or conducting some other important kid activity when somehow I discovered that the boy across the street was wearing Superman underoos. This was obviously more than mere coincidence that at that very same moment I had on my full Wonder Woman set under my kid civvies. Obviously the next logical course of action was to go behind my house and strip down to our underoos.

This plan was discovered and subsequently foiled by my mother the Crazy Roman Catholic (by far the scariest and most powerful super villain at the time). What happened next was a bit of a blur but I imagine we were scolded and "Superman's" mother was also notified that we had been hanging out in our underpants. Shortly after that incident I noticed that I couldn't find my Wonder Woman underoos and have a suspicion the Crazy Roman Catholic was involved in their disappearance. I never did replace the underoos even as an adult though I did go through a phase where I had a vast collection of Batgirl t-shirts.

2005-12-29T00:38:00.000-08:00

Dirty cup

I am on holiday a the moment in Brussels. It is my favourite city in Europe and has cool museums devoted to beer, cartoons and chocolate. However, it is still a European city so porn seems to be ubiquitous.

Yesterday morning I was trying to get the news or weather in the hotel and while going through the channels we happened to flash by two channels showing hardcore porn at 10 in the morning. Is this for guests with morning wood or something? Thankfully all those years as a kid playing Streetfighter paid off and I was able to quickly change the channel but not before having to explain to my daughter that one needs not douse themseleves in baby oil before engaging in sexual intercourse on a kitchen table. Eek!

After notifying the front desk that we would like a family block put on our television, we set out to tour the musems I previously mentioned. They were ace. We decided on Chinese for dinner since my husband is vegetarian and Europeans LOVE meat. At the resaurant I notice they have sake on the menu for only €3, which is a bargain and after a day of listening to my eleven year old talk endelessly about dogs, boys and hip hop I am ready for some form of alcoholic relaxation.

The sake arrives in a brandy snifter and a what appears to be a sake cup with a glass bubble in the middle. I assume that all of their sake flasks are broke or being used and pour some in the glass. As I go to sip some I nearly choke on its strength. I have never had such strong sake. I have never had absinthe that tasted as srong. I look inside the cup and am bewildered to see a woman with a shaved beaver (and not of the dam building variety, either) pleasuring herself in the nude.

I called the waitress over who looks like a Chinese grandmother and I am almost embarrassed to inquire about the naked woman in my cup. I ask what sort of sake this is and she explains that the Chinese have a different type of sake and that the Chinese word is hard for Westerners to pronounce so they simply call it sake. I thank her for the explanation and before she leaves I explain that there happens to be a naked lady in the cup. She smiles as she nods and tells us thqt the woman is supposed to be in the cup as the men find it funny while they drink. She chuckled and walked away. I never did finish my sake.

2005-12-25T03:26:00.000-08:00

Secret Santa

Around 8 years ago when I lived in the slumlord apartment, there was a good 6 months where I was living in the flat with just my daughter. Her biological father skipped the country to find himself on the reservation (for all I know he is probably still lost) and avoid paying child support. I was very skint that year since I was living in a flat in Massachusetts and was the only one paying rent. It wasn't Dickensian or tragic since there was snow to go sledding, marshmallow fluff for hot chocolate and in the New Year Crazy Stella was moving in with me so there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

One Christmas miracle was that the media agency I opened a few months earlier landed a big paying gig so I was able to get some presents at the last minute for my little one, close friends and arsehole Pete (I was dating Arsehole Pete at the time and he reciprocated the pair of creepers I got him with a fridge magnet & his old Cramps cd. Chivalry lives as does the spirit of giving.). On Christmas Eve I took my daughter to work at my day job at the phone company when they were still called NYNEX/ Bell Atlantic. She coloured on my desk and the crotchety harpies in the union took a break from bullying me for the day. That was actually a miracle in itself I think.

When we got back to our flat there were two wrapped gifts at the door of my flat addressed to my daughter. It was a really nice Barbie doll and pair of roller blades. Neither gift said who they were from and I asked around to friends, the Boston American Indian centre, my ex's family and no one knew anything about the gifts. My daughter was thrilled with the gifts but every year I can't help but wonder how the hell they got into my building and left the gifts. Whoever it was; thank you and Merry Christmas.

2005-12-18T10:53:00.000-08:00

Plot summary

The Wizard of Oz is on today and aside from Judy Garladn's drink and drug shenanigans the only other thing I can think of when I see this film is the plot summary my husband had seen at a library long ago. It was written on the description in the video section and said quite simply and accurately:

Upon arriving in a strange land, a girl kills the first person she meets then recruits three others to help her kill again.

2005-12-15T07:03:00.000-08:00

Santa Parade

Three years ago, my husband and I were in Soho to meet a friend for dinner. It was over the festive season and as we were heading to the Tube I saw a huge crowd of Santas (or people dressed as Santa) marching towards Old Compton St. I was mesmerised and quickly got excited. Neither my husband nor my dining partner could explain this phenomenon of marching Santas.

When this occurs with Hari Krishnas, I will often join their parade and dance until I get yelled at or they lose me by sidestepping down an alley or I get bored and leave. You could hardly blame me, though; where else can you jump around and make noise and dance like you did in preschool on the streets and have nobody pay you any mind. It's just a shame the whole religious fanaticism is involved.

Anyhow, despite not wearing anything that remotely looked like a Santa suit (I think I was sporting a leopard print coat and hat with cat ears), I decided to go hell for leather and join the Santa parade. After weaving well into the crowd I started asking one of the Santas what the hell was going on. He explained that it was organised online and people would meet dressed as Father Christmas and march through the streets of cities all over the world. I thanked him and returned to explain it to my husband and friend.

I wish I could recall the web address or even what the group was called, but alas I cannot. It was quite a spectacle, though. And unlike UFO sightings by rednecks, I have two other witnesses to back up my story.

2005-12-12T11:37:00.000-08:00

The True Chicken of Christmas

Years ago when I lived in the greater Boston area I would hold a bit of a shindig in December to get friends together and unload the gifts under the tree. One year someone showed up in a full chicken suit and Santa hat. I was thrilled and had all the guests line up and sit on Santa Chicken's lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas. I think I may have even taken polaroids. He even brought fried chicken. I think of this every December when I send out invites to our winter dinner or party. Too bad nobody I know in London owns a chicken suit.

Cluck, cluck, cluck. Merry x-mas.

2005-12-07T02:22:00.000-08:00

Off kilter

I spent a good deal of my early twenties attending some really weird parties. Not snuff film weird but more like Andy Warhol movie weird. At one such party there was a guy there from Quebec who talked like Jean-Claude VanDamme and was wearing a rubber kilt. His accent was entertaining enough and I was sipping a Guinness while he explained to me that he did not know any cool kickboxing moves nor could he do splits.

I have a thing about kilts for some random reason and have lots of photographs of me with people all over the world donning kilts in my living room. One photo that springs to mind is of me on holiday in Denmark with my husband when I ran into a Scottish kilt convention group in our hotel. I still have a picture of me grinning among a whole group of men wearing kilts. Anyway, back to the Warhol party and "Jean-Claude". After he explained that Van Damme is from Brussels I began to grow bored and decided to grab his kilt while I asked about what blokes wore under their kilts. To my horror and embarrassment, he wasn't wearing anything under the kilt and I basically plashed the whole party a nice glimpse at his meat and two veg.

Luckily he didn't seem to mind and I managed to wander off and chat to another group of people about the Slurpy Machines at the 7-11 stores. Looking back I realised that the fact his kilt was made of rubber really should have tipped me off that he was going commando underneath.

2005-12-04T12:33:00.000-08:00

Handicapped parking

One weekend during a home visit I ran errands with my mother. This suited me as I could select the radio station and smoke as many fags as I wanted while my mother tooled around running various errands and panic-buying a host of things from clothing to beef to bedding.

Sometimes there would be no place to place to park. Being a sullen teen that was extremely anti-social I would sometimes suggest my mother park in the handicapped spaces. At first she would look a bit unsure but then I would explain that I would pretend to be handicapped while she popped into the shops. She agreed as she was desperate to pick up a chuck shoulder or coffee machine or whatever. As she parked the car I would be to tick and shake with an arm close to my ear and rock back and forth with a cigarette in my mouth. I would do this until she returned and was never once ticketed or bothered while in handicapped spaces.

I now am a bit of a handicapped parking vigilante; pouring sugary coffee on leather interiors of topless sports cars illegally parked in handicapped spaces. Though I think back then I was just trying to help my mum and show her all the great stuff I learned while I was locked away in the looney bin.

2005-12-03T07:05:00.000-08:00

Punk rock

One great place to go when you were homeless in the 90's was Harvard Square. On any given day you could take the red line to Harvard Square and walk into the pit to find a place to stay or even a free lunch. I would often go and see if there were any local squats that I could stay at, or sofas I could sleep on or shows going on where I could then find a place to stay after.

Even on a slow day we would occupy ourselves by playing ring around the Christian where a group of crusty punks would circle round the evangelical jerk with the megaphone who thought it a good idea to read passages from the Bible to a group of cranky young people with funny hair. I also met lots of nice people that would take for pizza at the garage and one fella who was convinced everything he did was really puck rock. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were really punk rock as was crossing the street. I think he may have even shared a peanut butter jelly sandwich with me.

When I have visited Boston over the past few years I am dismayed to see how much different Harvard Square is. Like many other areas of character it is now sanitised and dull. There is a Gap and a line of other usual suspect shops that I can find anywhere else and either the crusty punks have found another place to hang out or like me they all got jobs and sold out to the man.

2005-12-01T03:25:00.000-08:00

Tampon machine

In a menstrual rage I accidentally broke the tampon machine in the employee bathroom. This was yesterday when I decided to use the ladies instead of the handicapped bathroom. In all the jobs I have had in London none of the tampon machines have ever worked. It's as if they keep the machines there to show that they are doing their bit but can't be arsed to stock them or ensure they work.

Discovering that I would require the services of the tampon machine I returned to my desk to extract 30p from my purse and began my second quest to the toilets. I fed my change into the machine and pulled the lever.... nothing. I then tried fiddling with the lever to see if it would help to no avail. Finally I gave the lever a firm tug and heard something mechanical give way and the lever slid out. Feeling like the Hulk and unable to locate the coin return button (because there was none you cheeky tampon con artists!!) I took the face off the coin slots with the happy tampon design. Still unable to produce either the desired tampon or my 30p I tried opening the face of the machine, which also made a funny mechanical groan. After a good ten minute struggle the tampon machine emerged victorious and I trudged back to my desk 30p poorer and defeated.

2005-11-30T02:08:00.000-08:00

Possessed to skate

When I was 15 one of the kids I hung out with in the high school I was passing through suggested trying out a few tricks on his deck. I got on and wiped out spectacularly skinning my forearm and knee. Undaunted, I was thrilled when he offered to teach me to skateboard. This school was the very same where I had the rather unfortunate incident with Converge on the radio and as one can imagine was in a nice wealthy suburb. A lot of the kids that went there were from financially comfortable families.

Augustus as I will call him came from a very comfortable family and had several skateboards. He offered me his old beat up black label deck, which I manage to equip with shocks, trucks and wheels by bothering the other rich kids at lunch for spare parts. I was also a deft hand at art (I actually had a few gallery showings in my late teens before selling out and going into the corporate world) so I painted a design of the Crimson Ghosts on the belly of the deck.

If only I could skate as well. I could do most things within the first month; curb slides, grinds, shove-its, tic-tacs but try as I might I could not ollie. I had some freak gravitational block and whenever I tried to do it would wipe out like a cartoon character slipping on a banana. This became a joke amongst the rest of the skaters in my group but after roughing one of them up, they stopped.

We would often sneak off to Copley Square to skate and engage in other angry youth activities like lobbing spit at train passengers staring at us in a hostile manner, pressing our hands and noses against the windows of expensive restaurants to leer at diners as they tried to eat while ignoring us or taking the local bums for picnics. I knew all of my rich suburban friends had money so when approached by bums for money I would tell them we'd treat them to food. One guy seemed surprised by this offer after having his heart set on a bottle of night train but he soon lit up and said that he hadn't had fig newtons in ages. We sat outside and had fig newtons with the bum (actually I did while the other kids practiced their ollies).

After Augustus spotted the design I put on the Black Label deck he gave me he forgot to tell me that he could only lend it to me and that he needed it back. I also ended up running away and changing schools so it effectively ended my dream of being the first female Frankie Hill. I got another skateboard eventually but really only ever used it to get from point a to point b. And I never did learn to ollie.

2005-11-29T02:26:00.000-08:00

Cow love

One of the children’s homes I lived in had this one staff member in her late 50s. Mildred as I will call her was a grandmother figure who a lot of the really messed up kids gravitated towards.

She always had terrific stories about growing up in the whole great American dream era. She wore poodle skirts as a teenager and apparently the big thing was wearing as many cardigans as you could manage. And when they were kids they believed you only had as often as you wanted kids which may have more to do with her being raised Catholic than her being from a more innocent era. One story in particular always stayed with me, however.

Mildred grew up in rural New England and down the road from her house was a dairy farmer. One cow in particular had a crush on this farmer. Whenever this cow spotted the farmer walking towards the pasture or barn she would moo and run towards him. Everyone agreed this cow was in love with the farmer. No one could explain why this happened or what the farmer had that nobody else had but this cow was mad about him.

One time the cow had actually tried hopping the gate to get to the object of her affections. Every once in a while in the dairy aisle of the stupid markets I will imagine this lust mad cow chasing some frightened farmer around for a kiss and smile. I often wonder if he stopped milking this one cow and got somebody else to do it. After all, you wouldn't want to mislead the dairy cow.

2005-11-28T02:16:00.000-08:00

Lap dog
A couple years ago I managed to convince my husband that our family was missing a dog. I begged and pleaded and reasoned until he finally gave in. It was an ugly battle but he relented since dogs are a lot easier than babies and won't often live past twelve. My daughter and I wanted a really small cartoonish dog but since my husband was the one who was home all day and hates small dogs we decided on a Neapolitan Mastiff. This breed won't hunt or eat the plethora of guinea pigs we have dotted about the house and this breed is often passed out most of the time.

Initially I wanted to adopt "Gus" who was a rescue dog weighing about 180 pounds and stood 5 ft on his hind legs. My husband wasn't so sure about this. In the end another family rescued Gus so we adopted "Sadie". Sadie was old for this breed at 6 since they usually only live to 8 or 10. She was trained and I figured it would be harder for her to get rescued since she'd be competing against puppies. Sadie was delivered to us from North Wales much like a pizza and settled in really well. She's a lot smaller than Gus at just over a hundred pounds and still has the same cartoon appeal that small dogs possess.

For a big dog she is really gentle and cuddly. She has velvety blue fur and is like a canine cross between Aunt Jemima and Bea Arthur. She mainly lays about the house snoring or crying if you haven't invited her into the room if you got up and moved without her. My husband is a lot less lonely working at home with her and I suspect he prefers the dog's company to mine at times. The only trouble with her is that she seems to think she is actually quite small.

Sadie has often tried to sit on my lap to be stroked or cuddled. Some days this works out fine but other times can be a bit ugly. One incident that springs to mind is the day after going for a walk she returned with my husband to find me sitting on the kitchen floor. As my husband and I chatted, Sadie tried planting her fat canine arse on my leg. As she is quite big she slid down next to me leaving a brown shitty skid in her wake. Needless to say this was the last time I ever let Sadie near my lap.

2005-11-27T03:18:00.000-08:00

Dance gestapo

Several years ago my husband and I took a capoeira class. For those unfamiliar, capoeira is a Brazilian dance started long ago by the native people enslaved by their Portuguese invaders. Since they were not allowed to fight back or sharpen their skills they explained to their captors that they weren't training but merely dancing. Capoeira looks a lot like a cross between a poorly choreographed fight scene and break dancing. For all of my British readers, it can be seen on the BBC station identification of those three guys dancing and kicking in slow motion.

The class was held in the old Brewery building in brick lane and taught by this guy who can best be described as the dance nazi. Dance nazi was high strung and took his discipline very seriously. I should point out that as someone who is a cage fighter; capoeira training was far more gruelling. On top of the rigorous training we had to learn the songs that were all in Portuguese as well as learn how to play an instrument. If you failed to get a move or lyric right, the dance nazi would look at you in disgust and then go on a tirade about how you obviously weren't committed enough to capoeira.

After nearly a year I was in great shape and could do handstands, sing in Portuguese and had great back muscles. However the dance nazi was still disappointed that my husband and I were not reporting to class in bright, spotless white clothes to practice. He had never mentioned this before. Neither of us owns anything white and we were both tired of the dance nazi's reign of terror as well as paying the fiver each week for him to yell at us.

We swapped capoeira for judo and will sometimes have a laugh about the dance Nazi. Lately I have been thinking about returning to a different capoeira class but if I run into any more soldiers of the dance Gestapo may say sod it and try free running instead.

2005-11-26T02:49:00.000-08:00

Zoo Shag

I go to the zoo a lot! We often get lots of snaps of the animals doing crazy things like eating our hats or in the camels' case, mugging me. Another series of pictures I am always keen to capture is that of critters having a shag.One image in particular was hysterical; there were two turtles and one was aggressively pushing the other one forward. As we watched thinking about what a complete arsehole this little fella was we were even more surprised when he mounted the very same turtle he had been pushing around. I am no David Attenborough buut the expression the turtle's face clearly communicates something along the lines of "Who's your daddy now, biatch?"

2005-11-21T12:58:00.000-08:00

Elderly treats

We have a neighbour down the road who is very old. He bears all the hallmarks of an old guy living alone; can't hear anything, thick smudgy spectacles, mismatched clothes circa 1972, cane, eats his meals at Wimpy and spends the day driving around the high street in death ambassador golf cart waving at pharmacists, waitresses and the like. He is in his mid seventies and owns a dog named Spot who has long since given up on barking; Spot merely mimes a bark now since he knows his owner can't hear even with his hearing aids. I'll call the man Montague.

Montague often runs into us while we take our dog for a walk and I will often holler a greeting while gesticulating like an Italian grandmother on meth to communicate with him. When my daughter is with me, she too will have to raise her voice so he can hear her. This is unusual as she is usually loud enough to wake the dead but has a hard time mastering this school for any useful purpose besides rousing me to check out the new Saturday morning telly presenter.

On one such occasion we had brought treats to make our dog run and do stupid tricks on her walk. This is in return for having to scoop her dog parcels. We had run into Montague and waved and yelled hello. He began to talk while spot sniffed the grass. Spot then sniffed us and noticed our dog treats. My daughter took a treat from the pouch and showed it to Montague asking if his dog could have one. Montague smiled and took the treat thanking my daughter. He took a bite himself and recoiled as my daughter hurriedly tried to explain it was for Spot. We all laughed about it after, but I wonder if he hasn't had that happen more than once.

2005-11-20T13:02:00.000-08:00

Celebrity Exit

There's a movie theatre in Chinatown that I go to every so often. It's got small screens and is on the third or fourth floor of a building. When you come out it can be a bit disorienting.

The year before last I had gone to see a movie there with my husband and while we were leaving there was a crowd outside. There was a red carpet with a limo at the end. We were baffled and as we exited the crowd looked a bit confused and disappointed as we walked through the doors. Not wanting to disappoint we waved like celebrities and walked through the centre carpet and left. I have no idea who that crowd was expecting but that was certainly the most disorienting exit out of that theatre I have ever had.

2005-11-17T02:15:00.000-08:00

Bear Mirage

During one stint of homelessness I stayed in the woods. I loved living in the woods and would do it several times as a teenager when I was on the streets. There was an entire weekend during my time in the woods where I didn't sleep. I can't recall if this was due to a story about some nut paedophile on the loose or what but I did not or could not sleep for an entire weekend.

I have heard stories about sleep deprivation as a form of torture and also stories that a person can go mad from lack of sleep and after that weekend I believe it. I was on a cliff with a group of friends who had managed to get alibis and stay the night in the woods with me. Actually I don't think their parents were that bothered. Anyway, we were sitting on this cliff eating chips and drinking cheap beer that we managed to get an over 21 to buy when all of a sudden I saw an old red velvet sofa near the trees.

This would have been believable except that I also saw about 4 or 5 stuffed teddy bears rolling around on the sofa. After a few moments of debating whether this was something I should share with the group, I asked if anyone else could see the sofa. No one could. I asked if anyone saw any bears or maybe cats or even raccoons and no one did. After exchanging glances, one of my friends asked if I was okay. I explained that I hadn't slept for 3 nights. My friends took shifts in staying awake while I slept in the woods that night and I never saw the sofa or the bears again.

2005-11-16T02:40:00.000-08:00

Limp Monkey

I have a crazy friend named Genki (well, that's not his real name but I do try to protect the crazy). Genki is an MMA fighter as well. He's actually pro fighter and has even helped me train here and there. I also like Genki since he's the mental version of the fat friend; he makes me look really grounded and sane. Plus he makes me laugh. He does crazy things like poos in padded envelopes and leaves them on his gran's sofa. His gran probably didn't find it funny.

Another funny story was about his South African mate, Fred. In South Africa monkeys are commonplace like raccoons in the USA or Foxes in the UK. Fred loved to play tricks on the local monkeys. Apparently monkeys are scared to death of snakes and upon seeing snakes they faint. Fred would get rubber snakes and sneak up on monkeys with them. When the monkey faints, Fred would tie the rubber snake to the monkey's tail and wait with a camera phone for the monkey to awaken.

When the monkey comes to, it spots the snake and immediately faints again ad infinitum. Even typing this anecdote fills me with giggles. Bringing rubber snakes to the zoo for the monkey house is definitely on my list of things to do before I die.

2005-11-15T02:40:00.000-08:00

Cat's play

I hate cats. We have a neighbourhood overrun with them thanks to a crazy old lady living among 18 feline Fausts. They congregate on some mornings with other cats in the area on the corner across from my house. I see them meeting from my bedroom window and it is quite sinister. Like freemasons or Klan meetings it just fills me with horror. I am not completely sure but a part of their congress must be dedicated to plotting out whose gardens to foul.

I actually have a super soaker for when these garden blitzes occur or when I am brave enough to disturb their meetings. I now own a giant blue dog so no longer fear their wrath. We once had a cat in our driveway and my husband lurched towards it to shoo it away and it frantically jumped up and miscalculated the height of the wall and bonked his head cartoon style fell and ran like a Tom and Jerry stray cat.

I didn't always fear/ hate cats. When I was a girl, like most girls, I loved cats. And as everyone knows little girls are the main adversaries of cats and small dogs. We had an old cranky neighbour who owned two cats when I was a girl. There was an old, sleepy cat named Rusty and ornery nipper named Monkey. We never bothered Monkey after a rather ugly inicident which left red ribbons streaming from our arms. Rusty could often be found napping in a tree when my sister and I would abduct him ala Patty Hearst, dress him in doll clothes and secure him in a doll's pram with skipping rope.

Rusty eventually took his naps in higher branches and I eventually stopped liking cats, which considering what we would do to Rusty was probably a good thing for the cats!

2005-11-12T03:42:00.000-08:00

Left field

My dad had always wanted sons so my sister and I were often finding ourselves on sports teams. Many times we would be the only girls on the team. I actually did great as a goalkeeper on a mixed soccer team and my sister was an excellent basketball player but if memory serves, we both sucked at baseball.

I was the only girl on our local little league team, the Orioles. There was one ginger haired boy would always try kissing me and get punched in the face for his efforts- I bet he frequents S&M clubs now that I think of it. I couldn't hit the ball if my life depended on it. I can still remember my father trying to show me how to bat in our backyard one Saturday and giving up.

The little league coach stuck me out in left field. For anyone unfamiliar with baseball, left fielders watch the grass grow or nap or walk in circles muttering to themselves. I watched the grass grow. A bulk of the season passed without any action until one game when the other team popped a fly ball headed straight for left field. This was my big chance. I watched the ball as it flew towards me elated to finally be able to prove my merit to the team. I was then overcome with fear as I realised that baseballs are rather hard and if I miscalculate the catch it could be painful. I turned tail and ran oblivious to the parents swearing and yelling (we were an inner city league).

The ball beaned me in the back of the head and I fell to the ground. We lost the game like every game and I felt like a muppet. I think that may have been the only summer I played baseball. It wasn't until years later when I had an eye test and got glasses that I realised my vision was on a slant and my depth perception was a bit off. I reckon now I could kick little league arse. At least with a bat I could.

2005-11-10T00:09:00.000-08:00

Movie boots

Many years ago I went to see a movie with 008 the pathological liar. I was dressed to go to a nightclub after. As there are lots of different nightclubs I should probably describe the attire; I had a corset which cinched my waist in so that I resembled a wasp or Jessica Rabbit, mini-skirt (I can not remember the last time I felt comfortable wearing one of those) and a pair of patent leather 8 inch stacked heel buckle boots. I threw on a leopard print ankle-length coat and figured people would think I was really tall. I had always wanted to be the 50 foot woman so this was at least a start.

In the theatre there was the inevitable gaggle of teenaged boys horsing around, giggling or participating in a host of obnoxious restless pent-up sexual frustration driven activities that irritate everyone else. They were 3 rows ahead of us and a quarter into the movie they became so disruptive that I stood up and actually managed to lean over the 3 rows in my heels and tap them on the shoulder. After assessing my height the ringleader boy looked startled as I hissed that they were getting on my fucking nerves and would they mind sitting quietly or pissing off. The other boys appeared scared and the group of them sat for the duration of the film in silence looking over their shoulders every so often to see if I really was sitting 3 rows back.

2005-11-07T13:29:00.000-08:00

Police Car

I love police cars! The loud noises they make, the ability to drive fast with loud noises streaming out of them and the little cage bit in the back, like being in a limo that's been ghetto-pimped. In one foster home town I lived in, the local coppers would sometimes give me a lift to work if it was a slow day. This was a real treat for me. I once flagged a police car down when I once decided to bike three towns away in a bad area and didn't feel like biking back. Those policemen laughed and drove away which wasn't very nice.

One of my first police car rides was one of many in Homeless Bob's hometown. Seems a bit of a paradox I guess but true nonetheless. The second time I bailed from the hospital where I met Homeless Bob he had already been released and I think I was bored. After the close call with the two junkies in the Impala I decided to hail a cab to Homeless Bob's town and ring him when I arrived from a payphone. Luckily he was at home and managed to get enough cash to pay the cabbie.

We spent a few days eating cheeseburger subs, buying punk rock t-shirts at Stairway To Heaven, taking egg-nog off of milk trucks for a snack (Homeless Bob did, I merely watched especially since I hate egg-nog) and shaving our heads. Actually, Homeless Bob already had the Statue of Liberty cut and gave me a Mohawk in a neighbour's backyard. After a few days we returned to Homeless Bob's house for cookies and milk but found the police there instead.

I cried like a girl. Inconsolable, the police said Homeless Bob could come for the ride to the station. As I cried Homeless Bob waved from the front seat and pulled faces. The police said he had to go shotgun since I was in custody. I cried more. The police asked what they could do to help and I asked for cigarettes. They actually stopped at a convenience store and scored me a pack of Camels which was rather nice of them. They let Homeless Bob walk next to me into the station and even when I got booked.

Homeless Bob stuck around for a bit as we waited for the ambulance to take me back to Arkham. The police showed us their control center and the holding cells. They also took my prints and my photograph. There is to this very day a picture of me with a big snot bubble and tears streaming sporting a Mohawk at the Stoneham Police station which I keep meaning to ring up for and request a copy.

2005-11-04T02:10:00.000-08:00

Teen magazine

They were talking about teen magazines this morning on BBC London and it had reminded me of my first kiss. I mainly read heavy metal magazines from the age of 9 until about 12. Actually I may have read wrestling magazines, too now that I think of it. Anyhow I didn't even start reading teen magazines until I was maybe 15 and Sassy magazine had courted all that controversy over printing graphic illustrations of tampon applications (Has anyone seen that issue or was it an urban myth?). By that time teen magazines were mostly irrelevant.

Growing up in a Catholic neighbourhood and attending Catholic school we were actively discouraged from thinking about sex, swearing or anything that is normal. I actually would dress with the lights off until I was about 17 and it took a while before I could walk around naked in the women's showers at the gym. Now I just hang out naked in the women’s changing room and intend to do so unless I am told not to by the gym staff.

I was disappointed to learn that my first kiss bore absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the ones described in the teen magazines. Metal magazines never discussed first kisses, but did have some pretty elaborate make-up and hairstyles in there. I was handcuffed to a telephone pole in my neighbourhood. How I came to be handcuffed to the telephone pole I still can not recall or understand. I was "going out with" with this boy in my class which meant that we'd sometimes hold hands on the bus and I would wave at him in the hall at school. We were both very metal so it worked.

His mum had pulled up into the driveway of a neighbour and he quickly grabbed me and stuck his tongue in my mouth. It was quick and painless and not a lot I could do since I was handcuffed to the bloody telephone pole. I think he broke up with me a few weeks later while I was spending a weekend at a friend's cottage in NH with her family and crashed some guy's Corvette. Driving the Corvette into the tree had nothing to do with being dumped my first kiss it just seemed to happen all in one weekend but as I said earlier it doesn't really seem like the sort of thing you'd write in a teen magazine.

2005-11-03T02:12:00.000-08:00

All nighter

At one of the first hospitals I went to I was there "under observation". I was only 13 and viewed the whole thing as a bit of fun. I fibbed on a lot of the tests. I told the doctor some of the Rorschach blots simply looked like someone slammed a book shut while a big bug was on the page or would randomly answer "yes" to the intake questions like:

"Do you ever hear voices?" Well, duh I am hearing one now ask me this question.

"Have you ever tried Cocaine, Heroin or LSD?" I didn't and figured the doctor would see this but surprisingly he took my response at face value and I had to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings with what appeared to be Hell's Angels members and Aerosmith roadies.

"Do you ever feel like hurting others?" Who hasn't?

For future reference, don't ever goof around on these tests as a lot of shrinks take your answers a little too seriously and someone may take your shoelaces away.

Part of the observation process was taking an EKG test. Basically you had to stay up all night and in the morning they took you into a room and attached electrode type things to your head to check how frazzled your brainwaves were after an all-nighter. As if crazy people don't get tired? The whole idea sounded fun and exciting as it was like going for shock treatment with all the props except that I wouldn't be a drooling zombie after that forgot everything.

Usually they would pair kids up so you had a buddy to keep you awake all night. They gave you free run of the ward's kitchen which was full of ice cream and you could play video games on a crusty old console that had something like Pac-man or Mario Brothers, watch telly or videos. The set-up seemed ideal to me. I was on the adolescent ward as I was deemed a mature 13. Unfortunately they paired me up with a patient on the kiddie ward. In theory this wouldn't be so bad. However, he also happened to be deaf. And since he was younger we could only watch Disney videos. After getting sick from eating to much ice cream and carving messages into the sundae cups for the other patients and sneaking them back into the freezer I attempted to communicate with my "buddy" I will call Tarzan.

Tarzan could not lip read or even read so what we had was a total failure to communicate. He also seemed to have ADHD since he was very busy with his hands and would squeal a lot. He did know a few inappropriate gestures which I gathered meant he either wanted to churn butter or make me his bitch. Fearing it was the latter I spent the remainder of the evening busily playing video games or talking to the staff while they took me for fag breaks.

It was indeed the longest night of my life but I managed to stay awake and get the whole electrode experience which looks far more glam and exciting than it actually was. Oddly enough I was a bit of a forgetful drooling zombie for a few days after until I caught up on my sleep, though.

2005-11-02T02:36:00.000-08:00

Horror taxi

Once upon a time before I had several terrible bad experiences with transvestites I would hang out with a few of them on weekends. They were always there to help if your stockings had a run or if you needed to know what to do to prevent lip colour from feathering. And they also had great stories. However, after several very ugly scenes with different tranny "friends" I just stay the hell away from them now. For those unaware, transvestites are entirely different from drag queens as they are usually straight and have more issues than Marvel Comics. Drag queens are a lot more fun and are usually playing with a full set of Monopoly pieces.

Anyhow, I used to hang out with Tranny Tim. Tranny Tim was really old and therefore had some great stories. In the 1980's he would often spend weekends in New York City and go to all sorts of clubs and events. Being a bloke that fancied wearing women's knickers he ended up hanging out with a group of drag queens. Actually, they ran a drag queen whore house in NYC and Tranny Tim would shack up there on weekends. Whether he earned his keep there was never completely clear but I am not one to ask questions. This story was one Tranny Tim would tell me and I always thought it a hoot. Apparently he was there that evening and saw the whole thing.

One evening a drag hooker was with a client when the client suddenly has a heart attack and dies right in the middle of the ride. The hooker runs out screaming and the madam hurries into the room and has a look at the bloke's wallet. Unsurprisingly there are photos of what appear to be a wife and kids. There is also a wad of cash. The madam is well aware that not only is prostitution illegal but would really be frowned on at a drag queen whore house. She (or he, I suppose) is also aware how terrible it would be for the family to realise their dad/ husband was shagging some bloke dressed as Diana Ross when he met his maker.

Thinking quickly the madam grabs the cash and rings a taxi to arrive two blocks away. The hooker's cut (and probably a bit extra to go buy an ice cream or Valium) is taken out of the wad. The drag queens threw on some civvies and dressed the corpse. They headed out to the corner and throw the dead guy in the back of the taxi. The madam (now dressed as Joe everyman) hands the driver the remaining wad of cash and gives some false address in a Connecticut suburb which is the complete opposite direction to what the address in his wallet is. They explain to the cabbie that their friend had too much to drink and waved good-bye to the taxi and the dead guy.

New York City was pretty rough back then so finding a dead guy in a taxi wouldn't make the headlines but it must have really freaked the cabbie out.

2005-11-01T04:27:00.000-08:00

Hang the DJ

At one of the really nice suburban high schools I attended they had a radio station. This was the only extracurricular activity I wanted to participate in besides the high school wrestling team. I couldn't do the wrestling team because I was caught smoking (Actually I outlined very specifically that I was smoking just off the school grounds and should be able to smoke as much as I want while I waited for my mother to pick me up after school. I was allowed to smoke across the street after this discussion with the principal took place). I am over it and wrestle whenever I want now so there, you hairy gym teaching ape.

The radio station had a crap frequency but could be found on the FM dial. I got in and had a terrific time during that one period each day where I could sit in the booth and root through the huge record and CD collection to select tunes. Oddly enough, we were banned from playing Up the Junction or Slap and Tickle by Squeeze. I still can't understand why. After a few weeks I put in a request for my own radio show. A few of the students had their own shows but in my estimation they were pants. It was usually the same garbage that we played during the day with the odd variation. There was one kid that did oldies which was cool and another that played show tunes which was lame.

I recruited my friend an sometimes love (read teenage make out partner) interest, Elvis to propose a punk and hardcore show. We endeavoured to play local bands as well as classic stuff from the usual suspects. Elvis and I took a break from necking one afternoon and created a proposal that actually impressed the student radio board. We were in. We actually were organised enough to present and create a programme schedule and for the most part stuck to it.

Our show was on Sunday nights and I would do most of the talking since Elvis was very shy so I would tell listeners I had him stuck to the ceiling with Velcro and was tickling or beating him in between songs. Elvis and I combined our collections to produce a rather nice play list. We started every show off playing the Dead Kennedys and ended each with Brain eaters by the Misfits. It was the in-between stuff that got us in trouble.

Often while the songs played I would go out and work on my crap skateboarding techniques or smoke and Elvis would spin. Sometimes we would bring a new 7 inch in and play it live without checking it out. This was problematic since we had to censor swears or explicit content. We had used this technique with Formaldehead by Sam Black Church. For anyone who has not heard this chestnut, it should have been censored a lot and Elvis and I would laugh at each refrain of "motherfucker" and censor it after to show we tried.

We also brought skinheads in for interviews and debates or fights with callers in true Geraldo form. And on our last evening on air we had Converge on. I was surprised and happy to see that they are still going (they were really nice blokes). This was when they first started, really and we brought the band in for an interview which was exciting for us and all of our friends. Some friends were so excited they came under the pretext of delivering pizza to hang out.

The interview was anarchy as most things were on the show and as we were chatting to the band, the station manager walked in dressed as a cop. He was a cop full-time, and a station manager part-time. We all froze and were taken off the air. The band left and our friends quickly followed. The station manager then proceeded to explain that we were controversial and had complaints phoned in over the few weeks we had the show. We were thrilled and surprised we had listeners. He then said that he listened to our show this evening and read a laundry list of offences and announced that we were fired and banned from the high school station.

Elvis shrugged it off but I was crushed. A group of students tried to reinstate my show through signatures but to no avail. Converge were even nice enough to mention and dedicate a show to me; I think it was the one at the Church in Harvard Square they played with Wargasm. I eventually forgot and had to move schools because I went back into foster care. I am happy I worked in radio and sometimes wish I had the chance to stick it out, especially considering all the crap radio personalities in London. But then again I know I’d still suck at censorship.

2005-10-31T02:29:00.000-08:00

Halloween Fright

While we were living in the US we were giving candy to trick-or-treaters. We, being me and my husband. Three boys made their way towards my parents' driveway (we took our daughter there for the expected visit and extra trick-or-treat action). My husband and I waved and asked each of the boys what they were supposed to be.

One was dressed as a ninja so my husband asked if he knew the touch of death. Ninja boy did not. My husband then asked if ninja boy wanted to see how to administer the touch of death. Ninja boy turned tail and ran like hell. We didn't even get to give him any treats.

2005-10-30T02:17:00.000-08:00

No Parking

When we bought our first and current house, I was delighted that we had a driveway! Most of the flats I lived in had first come first serve parking which sucked. One apartment building had this strange 7th dimension parking lot that no matter where you parked, your car was always covered in bird shit by morning. Being young and punk rock I drove around for the entire year I lived there with a blanket of guano on my hood and roof. I often told folks that it was a custom paint job in the style of Jackson Pollock.

At my house I grew territorial. We have a Bay leaf bush in the front that we grew 7 feet tall that I like to think of as my fortress. Plus, it's easy to point out to taxis when I take a drunken ride home on a Friday night "Just look for the shrubbery, and that's my house." I also am particular about my driveway and hate to see it obscured.

Every so often some wanker parks in front of it and I can't pull out of the driveway. This upsets me. I have egged windscreens or taken cat shit and rubbed that on the handle once (surprise you inconsiderate parker!) and even left angry letters written hastily on crayon (my daughter left crayon in that car, plus it did add that psychotic and unpredictable edge to the communication). The very last time any car parked in front of my driveway though, was about 2 years ago. I was nice enough to call out and see owned this vehicle and got no response. Fed up with being locked in (this is an analogy my make believe therapist would totally have me elaborate on), I tore the license plate from the car, broke it into a few pieces and stormed into my castle. I don't know if they noticed right away that some deranged maniac took the license plate or someone saw me and word got around but nobody obscures my driveway these days.

2005-10-28T09:16:00.000-07:00

Fry Bread

When I lived at the basement flat owned by the PTSD alcoholic woman with Homeless Bob in Toronto we were very poor. Homeless Bob would leave every morning under the pretence of going to find work and return late in the day with a new shirt or weird story. Sometimes, I would mow the lawns he was meant to or do random gardening for the alcoholic. Still, it wasn't much. Sometimes we got Pac-Man cereal from the local shelter who felt bad for us. I loved this cereal! It had marshmallow Pac-Mans and marshmallow ghosts with corn puff dot things that Pac-Man would eat. I usually picked out the marshmallows before Homeless Bob, and why not since I worked more?

We also got powdered milk where you added water and well, it was less gross than it sounds, really. When things got really desperate one afternoon, I had a scavenge through the kitchen and all we had was a bit of corn oil, flour, salt, pepper and mustard. Homeless Bob looked thoughtful and then explained that we had all the necessary ingredients to make bannock.

Bannock is fry bread made by Native Americans. Homeless Bob happened to be Native American. (this is what enabled me to cross the Canadian border with my high school i.d. card. Thank you, Ojibwe Nation!) And he knew how to make bannock. I was so grateful I almost regretted eating all the Pac-Man marshmallows. Almost.

Homeless Bob's recipe was just flour, water and salt fried in oil. It was delicious, though this may have been because I was starving. I also felt pretty cosmopolitan feasting on this epicurean equivalent of carnie food. We lived on bannock for the week with the occasional discount luncheon meat. This suited us fine since we had to move out at the end of the week. We left the pepper and mustard as well as a big mess for the alcoholic to mull over since she evicted us. I haven't made bannock since, though I did find another recipe for it if anyone is interested. I think the sugar is optional:

This recipe is adapted from one by Marion Ironstar in Our Daily Bread, a community cookbook from Enemy Swim Lake, Waubay, South Dakota. Serve the fry breads as the basis for savory "Indian tacos," topped with seasoned taco meat, shredded lettuce, and chopped tomato, or drizzle with a wild berry syrup for dessert.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup instant nonfat dry milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
Vegetable oil, for deep-frying

1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, dry milk, and salt together. Stir in the water until you have a sticky dough.

2. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and sprinkle with flour. Roll out to a 16-by-12-inch rectangle, about 1/2 inch thick. Cut the dough into twenty-four 2-inch squares. Cut a 1/2-inch slit in the middle of each square.

3. Add enough oil to a deep cast-iron skillet or a deep-fat fryer to reach a depth of 1 to 2 inches and heat it to 350 to 365 degrees. (The oil is ready when a piece of dough sizzles as soon as it is placed in the pan.) In batches, fry the squares of dough, turning once, until browned on both sides, about 3 minutes total. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Serve warm, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar or drizzled with wild berry syrup, or topped with taco fixings.

Makes 24

1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, dry milk, and salt together. Stir in the water until you have a sticky dough.

2005-10-27T04:44:00.000-07:00

Halloween Cake

I was surprised to find how different Halloween is here in England when I moved here 5 years ago. The first time I took my daughter trick-or-treating some people were confused at the door and would dig about their pockets and purses for loose change. My daughter was actually thrilled at taking cash instead of candy and actually preferred it to the US method.

The costumes are also pretty crap here. The kids will either sport a cheap mask with their school uniform or a black plastic garbage bag. The other thing that seems to differ is that instead of egging houses they seem to egg the high street. This is fine by me since I find scrubbing egg of my house tiresome (of scrubbing children’s guts off my pavement if I catch them). And instead of toilet paper the kids will accompany eggs with flour.

This year the local shops won't sell eggs or flour to kids but a few years ago I was at a stupid market as I noticed a boy making his way to the till with his mates carrying eggs and flour. I went up to them and asked what they planned to do with the eggs and flour. They shrugged and explained that they were going to make a cake. As I am a grown-up it was my duty to spoil their fun so I suggested they return the eggs and flour to the shelves and leave. I was mildly pleased that they did. Fat lot of good it did since the High street was still covered in egg and flour the day after Halloween anyway.

2005-10-26T02:05:00.000-07:00

New Friends

As I may have mentioned before, I was in hospital when I met Homeless Bob. That should have said enough but when you're 13 your criteria for friends is different. One day Homeless Bob flew the coop. I can't recall why and he might not even had reason to, but he was gone. As the day or two progressed, I grew worried since we were pals and spontaneously decided to go and search for him. I was out on a fag break and made a dash for it. One of the orderlies chased after me but right before I reached the pavement (they can't touch you once you leave the grounds)he stopped and looked at me either thinking that I'd be back or that he knew I had to go search for Homeless Bob. I like to think it was the latter but it was probably the former.

This hospital was in a suburb of Boston and though I didn't know the area, figured I'd eventually bump into Homeless Bob if I kept walking. I walked two towns over and stopped in a bar for a wazz. I looked a lot older than 13 so nobody seemed to think anything of me walking in. I used the bathroom and then sat down to figure out what direction to head. Some old guy (he was in his 40's which to a girl of 13 is old) at the bar waved and brought me over a drink. I explained I was looking for a friend but got on the wrong bus. He introduced himself and called a friend over. I will call them Vern and Ernest. They offered to give me a lift which I thought was really nice of them. I had seen the film When Susanna Smiles and figured all old men were really softies at heart.

As I hopped in the beat up old Impala I chatted to the two men about their jobs (they worked for the DMR helping out retarded people) and their hobbies (they were addicted to heroin and had to go pick some up on their way to driving me a few towns over). They stopped at the liquor store and thoughtfully picked me up 2 big bottles of wine cooler. As they stopped to get their fix I had one bottle. Upon returning they began to drive and I noticed both Vern and Ernest staring at me in a rather predatory way. I also noticed they were driving towards the hospital I was staying in.

Realising the situation could get ugly I opened the second bottle of wine cooler and stated that I had a confession to make. I proceeded to tell them that I had fibbed a bit and that instead of being just shy of 19 and stranded in the city I was in fact an escaped 13 year old mental patient. I then explained that the hospital was just around the corner andthat it may be better if I made my way back on foot. The two seemed really freaked out but this may have also just been the heroin. They stopped the car and I got out, thanking them for their hospitality and the drinks. I waved and carried on towards the hospital with my beverage.

A police car pulled over and called to me. I stopped as they explained that drinking on the streets was in fact illegal (who knew?) and that I would have to empty the bottle. I began to chug it and the officer calmly explained that I would have to empty it in the gutter. I asked if that wasn't a bit wasteful but the cop insisted so I complied. As he drove away, I thought that I should have asked him for a lift.

I continued on and as I reached the hospital Vern had run up behind me begging me not to go saying stuff that junkies probably say when they are keen to have an underage girlfriend.I was pretty trollied by this point but can still recall him asking to see my foot and kissing it (this scenario would occurseveral times later in life at NYC meat district night clubs except I'd tell them to get bent). He then grabbed me and urged me not to go in. By this time a few friends in my unit were at the window waving. I waved back, gesturing that I would be up in a moment. I then dragged Vern into the hospital with me to explain that he was on heroin and a DMH worker and needed help. Isn’t that what friends do? I should have also reported his creepy foot fetish but was too naive to know.

Vern did not come up but I did go back to the maximum security unit where I announced that I was totally wasted and that a urine test would not be necessary. They took one anyway and I scrutinised it with the nurse who exclaimed that I was indeed very drunk. I explained I went looking for Homeless Bob and they told me he returned earlier that night. Looking back that was indeed a close call but I still am bemused that the police hadn’t been more suspicious.

2005-10-25T02:54:00.000-07:00

Adult communications

I still don't have the hang of talking to important people/ institutions like an adult yet. I have often given presentations peppered with colourful words and phrases like a teamster or Tourette's syndrome sufferer (is sufferer too strong a word for being officially licensed to tell people to fuck off?).

When the insurance cold callers ring I explain that I don't need insurance since I intend to live forever. Or when the people come to our door to get us to switch to British Gas I will simply wail "Nooooooooooooooooo!" and gently shut the door. Recently I rang my bank and begged them to take my overdraft away because I wasn't responsible enough to have one. They said I would simply have to be more responsible and hung up. I nearly cried on the phone and they still wouldn't help. This is like telling an alcoholic that they'll just have to try and not fall off the wagon when they work at a bar.

I know my husband will try to poke fun at my manner, but he is just as bad. He's a professional angry letter writer. He seems quiet and shy and British with nice manners but it's a facade! About a year or so ago he got really cheesed off about a fee the bank was trying to charge him. As anyone who lives here will know, it is useless talking to the UK banks. My husband composed a letter full of sarcasm and the f-word. I was so proud. WE were both proud when the bank gave him his money back. He writes these letters all the time with satisfactory result.

I must learn to harness this power of writing polite yet jerky letters for myself. I imagine since he's more grown up these letters are the adult way to communicate.

2005-10-24T03:01:00.000-07:00

Felt shirt

Homeless Bob did a stint in kids' home himself. Unlike myself who took the soft option of basket weaving loony bins he ended up in DYS or as the Brits refer to it, Borstal. Homeless Bob would sometimes allude to being at borstal and confirmed that soap on a rope was indeed a necessity if one stayed at an all boys' facility. He also would elaborate on what some kids had done to land themselves there.

One story always stuck out, however. There was a kid Homeless Bob had roomed with that I will call Stuart mainly because I don't remember what his real name was. Stuart probably would have been better off taking the soft option but unfortunately managed to land himself in a DYS home. This home was for both boys and girls who were very nearly reformed (sort of) and would hopefully be able to take their place among society working as a greeter or stockperson at Wal-Mart and living in a trailer park or rented room near the train tracks.

Stuart was a big guy who might have been dropped on his head a few times as a baby. He once borrowed Homeless Bob's shoes which seemed to cause an unusual rash on Homeless Bob's feet. Some mornings Stuart would shave his face and then carry on and take off all the hair on his head or draw eyebrows and facial hair on himself with a marking pen.

Despite all of his foibles, Stuart managed to get a date. He realised at the very last moment that all of his clothes were dirty and had really wanted to impress this girl. Homeless Bob said he sat and watched as Stuart brought up two big pieces of felt to their room. He then crudely outlined a shirt shape against his chest and cut two pieces of shirt shape out. He stapled them together and through the "shirt" on and headed out to his date. I often picture this and it never fails to bring a smile to my face. I can only imagine what his date thought.

2005-10-22T04:21:00.000-07:00

Karaoke orgasm

I was a zombie yesterday; green complexion, Thorazine shuffle walk, mumbling and moaning, etc. I didn't eat brains or anything but I am willing to bet all zombies have dietary preferences. I was in this state because the night before I got trollied with some co-workers and went for karaoke. I was so sick I couldn't type a coherent sentence let alone a blog.

The first time I ever did karaoke was at a foster home. The foster mum loved to do karaoke and was really rather good at Patsy Cline so we often went to a karaoke night where she would compete. It would often be just her and I as the other kids were all under the age of 12. I was 16 if I remember correctly and this meant by US law I was unable to drink.

It takes a lot of liquor or balls to get up and sing especially if you know your singing sucks. I have no real sense of shame or danger so will often find myself doing things that scare the hell out of me just to see what happens. I wouldn't recommend this approach to anyone.

At one point I had gotten up and decided to try singing to Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love. I wasn't doing too badly as there were a lot of townies there that sang worse and a woman had recently mangled a Celine Dion or Whitney Houston ballad so I could have sung anything and looked good. Things were going okay until the song got to the bit where Robert Plant starts moaning. Because I was really quite nervous my moaning grew into something altogether more sinister and perverse as I moaned and writhed and wailed for the remainder of the song.

Yeah, I had a nerve-induced orgasm in front of a townie bar on karaoke night. Apparently this can happen when some women get on roller coasters or horse riding or any other such activities. I blame my Catholic upbringing. The entire bar was quiet when I finished and I was banned from singing for the rest of the night. Luckily that was the first and last time I ever sang Whole Lotta Love again. I am certain there were no Karaoke orgasms the other night but have already received a few suspect reports about my behaviour that I can neither confirm nor deny since I can't bloody remember.

2005-10-20T02:35:00.000-07:00

Pepper picking

Over the weekend I had to attend a lunch at a restaurant in the posh part of London. I knew it was posh because there were walking directions to Harrods’s at the tube station. I have never been able to come to terms with the British class system and find the upper classes make me terribly uncomfortable. I can't really put my finger on it, but they really freak me out.

As we came out of the station we passed the Ritz and I noticed in their window box that they had those small chilli plants in with the flowers. I am no Ikebana master but the peppers looked stupid with the pink and white flowers in their stuffy window boxes. Feeling mischievous I decided to pluck a few of the little orange chillies to take home to make salsa.

The whole plant came out, roots and all. My husband scolded me and I hastily arranged the plant with the flowers and ferns. Thinking it a fluke, I tried to pick chillies in the next window box with the same result. We were running late for the lunch and my husband was starting to get that look of embarrassment and impatience.

I finally managed to break a few chillies off and put them in my purse without raising any suspicion with the doormen! My husband teased saying I was a working class hero and hurried me off to lunch. I had vowed to liberate a whole plant on my way home but got drunk on the overpriced wine instead. Working class hero, indeed!

2005-10-19T02:13:00.000-07:00

Enlarge Your Cock

The Kids in the Hall once did a skit about an office worker borrowing another colleague's pen. The pen owner is obviously anxious about the possibility of losing his pen but loans it to his co-worker. When the pen isn't returned, he chases the suited borrower down the business district of Toronto screaming and raging. I am the pen owner.

In one office I was at I had a nice mug plastered with Maple Leafs saying how much I loved Toronto. This was no ironic statement, I really do love Toronto; it was a great city to be homeless in! Anyway, the mug went missing and I never saw it again. I was deeply traumatised by this and began to horde mugs in my desk drawers as a response to this.

After several years, I managed to find the strength to bring in another mug to enjoy my muddy coffee out of while I sit and contemplate my existence in this fluorescent lit hell I call work. It is an Evil Genius mug that I got from Cafe Press with an evil scientist and a giant chicken with the slogan "Enlarge Your Cock!” I printed my name on my mug- I am that neurotic.

This morning I sat down and to my horror could not find my mug. This shook me to my core. After fruitlessly searching both kitchens I bravely continued my quest to the other departments asking if anyone had seen a mug with a giant chicken and the words "Enlarge Your Cock" printed on it. This raised many eyebrows. I visited I.T. where they are still commenting on my cage-fighting pictures, Accounting where they looked intimidated that I should own such a mug and Magazines that were amused and intrigued by the mug and asked where they could purchase a mug like that.

I finally peered into the director's office to see my mug alone and abandoned with my cold green tea from yesterday. When the director finally arrived, I leapt into his office and recovered my sacred mug. Maybe I shouldn't bring my mugs to work.

2005-10-18T06:16:00.000-07:00

Theft protection

In one of the many jobs I had as a convenience store clerk I had the after school shift of 3-11. This shift required the counter person to have a keen eye as the little shits from the local schools were forever trying to pocket sweets or magazines or even tinned cat food (the cat made him do it!). As my other entries mention, I don't steal since I don't think it's very nice and it's just part of my moral code; it's one thing to beat someone up for their lunch, it is another thing entirely to steal. I also hate having things stolen from me as anyone who has been caught stealing from me will confirm.

One of the first children's homes I was ever in I had entered with a huge collection of cassette tapes and left with only one; a Jim Croce Greatest Hits tape that my grandfather listened to a lot before he died. I still can not figure out why anyone would covet my crappy music collection but that is another rant altogether.

Anyway, one afternoon a group of boys from my high school came into the shop. They were a few years younger than me but one in particular I had recognised from my bus route. He was squat and what his mother would probably consider husky; complete with the freckles, big ears and ginger hair. He was a fat version pf Alfred E. Newman. Everyday on the journey to and from school he would manage to shout and joke over the highest volume of my walkman (I had since replaced my cassette collection with mixed tapes, thank you.). He taunted younger girls, laughed at the quiet kids, shot spit balls and was just a general headache.

"Alfred" slipped out quickly but not without me noticing that he pocketed a box of Lemonheads. I was pretty pissed off but wasn't about to get off my chair until I finished my cigarette. The next morning I boarded the bus; a long, yellow school bus. I walked slowly over to where Alfred was drawing a crude penis on the seat.

I stood over him until he stopped and looked up at me. I simply told him that yesterday I saw him come into my store while I was working and steal something. I then picked him up by the shirt and informed him that if he ever came into that store while I working again I would beat him within an inch of his life. I put him back on the seat and spat a huge lob of phlegm in his face. I then calmly sat down and had the first quiet journey to school on that bus. No one ever stole during my shift at the convenience store again.

2005-10-17T02:18:00.000-07:00

Little People

Alas, this has nothing to do with midgets, dwarves or garden gnomes! I am thinking more of very small children. When they are between the ages of 2 to 4 you get the opportunity to catch a glimpse of them before they begin to be influenced by the outside world or what others think of them. I developed this theory when my daughter was in day care.

There was one boy who would spend a good deal of his time wearing this gold gown in the dress-up trunk. I would often see him spinning around like a lone ballerina whenever I picked up my daughter. I reckon that kid will either grown up be a drag queen or seriously repressed transvestite depending on what his folks thought of him wearing his favourite gold lame dress.

My favourite kid was this little boy who was always wearing cowboy boots and a cape. No matter what day it was or what the weather he always had the cowboy boots on and the red cape. I saw his mother at a parents' night and commented on her son's cool outfit and asked what super hero he was. Apparently, she had to sew Velcro onto the shoulders of every shirt he owned so that the caped could be affixed safely and he refuses to wear anything but those cowboy boots. She wasn't sure what hero he was exactly or even what super powers he possessed. I assured her that Superman's parents didn't have those answers either. I hope that kid still wears the same ensemble since super heroes are hard to come by.

2005-10-14T02:34:00.000-07:00

Free Fags

At one hospital I was sitting out in the courtyard having a fag with this boy everyone called Rat. I have no idea how he acquired the nickname but I quickly learned that it's usually best not to ask. I tried to savour the cigarette as it was my last and as a 13 year old mental patient I had no income to buy more. Thinking back I am not sure how I managed to smoke regularly as a kid.

When I got down to the filter, I reluctantly stubbed the fag out. Rat gave me a whole pack. I was amazed and then immediately suspicious as cigarettes can have the same currency value in hospital as they did in prison and I was nobody's bitch. Rat waved my concerns off and explained that his shrink gave him a carton each week. We had the same shrink so I was determined to get to the bottom of this.

During my next therapy session instead of making up stories about using narcotics and escaping alien invasions to amuse the shrink I spent an hour interrogating him about free smokes. I asked if I could participate in the free cigarette programme he was running since I was just as crazy or normal as Rat. I left my therapy session dejected and without a cigarette.

Ten years later, I read in the paper that the very same therapist had been convicted molesting his male patients. I read this and immediately recalled all the kids who were recipients of free cigarettes and realised that they were all boys. Suddenly, it made sense. I quit smoking years ago but even reading the article I figured I probably didn't need free fags that badly. I guess it's true that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

2005-10-13T05:33:00.000-07:00

Uncompromising photos

As I have mentioned before, I work in a corporate office. When I am not wearing a suit I participate in cage fights/ NHB fights. Over the weekend the IT guy was browsing about on the vast internet and found a few pictures of me in my first (and worst) fight. He then sent the images throughout the company. I am now the recipient of strange looks in the elevators and smiles that have a smartass comment behind them. Thanks I.T.

2005-10-12T13:53:00.000-07:00

Naked Sleepover

A few months ago I returned to Boston for two weddings. One of the weddings took place in Danversnear Danvers state hospital. It was one of the first loony bins built in the US and really spooky, like low budget slasher film spooky. Most of it had been closed by the 80's but you could still break in at night and have a wander. I told my friend the bride-to-be as much on the way to her wedding.

Sociopath Sid would go in there regularly since his property was near the grounds. He had patient records laying around his bedroom from the late 1800's where they still referred to the patients "lunatics". He also had an assortment of bottles and medical supplies that he would snag from his many nocturnal missions.

Naturally I thought it would be fun to organise a photo shoot in the hospital with Eddie and a group of people. Sociopath Sid was happy to help and the two of us “cased the joint” (I will never escape my mafia upbringing!) a week before the shoot was to take place. I got really spooked as there was snow on the ground and the place is just frigging eerie.

Oddly enough, the night of the shoot I was fine. I wore a gas mask since there were asbestos warnings about the place (actually they shot a crap slasher film about asbestos and ghosts with that ginger haired prat that used to be the star of NYPD blue and is now a ginger nobody). Everyone poked fun at me but the mask came in handy for the shoot. There are still postcards of me in a hospital gown, a gasmask in a room there where the floor is disintegrating.

Anyhow since we had to break in, we had to start out at midnight and after running around the underground tunnel work system and snapping scary photos we didn’t get back to my flat until 4 am. I told Eddie he could stay over since his house was farther away. He normally would sleep with Stella since she did put out for him now and then but I think Stella was asleep and hogging the bed. So I said he could sleep in my room.

Eddie is like a brother to me. I throw some pj’s on and flop into bed, knackered. Eddie strips down naked and with his gonads in my face explains that he normally sleeps naked and would I mind if he did in bed with me. Not at all was my reply as I made space for him and fell asleep. Nothing untoward happened at all, although ever since I have always had a futon out for Eddie to sleep on when he stayed over.

2005-10-10T03:52:00.000-07:00

Rat nostalgia

This morning I awoke to the news being read. I listen to BBC London since it announces which Tube lines are actually running in the morning which helps me decide what time I will try and leave for work. They also read traffic news which never ceases to amaze me that people actually drive in London during the weekdays. This morning they explained that a traffic light was out in the Marble Arch area due to rats chewing through the circuits.

This woke me up quickly and I showered thinking of an invasion of rats taking over the city and giving me the ideal excuse not to come in today. I hardly ever see rats in London; once when a Motorhead gig let out late and the Oxford Circus station closed I saw a giant black rat scurry past as the station gates closed and the other time in Camden when I realised the fuzzy brown critter scurrying across someone's front garden was a rat and not a squirrel. I am aware though, that this underground subculture of rats does exist in London, though. It's a neat though; perhaps they even have a complex society like that Secret of NIMH film I saw years ago.

It got me to thinking of my pet rat, Ben. I did not name him, he came named. One day while I crossed the NH border to buy a carton of fags I went upstairs to the pet shop. I had extra money from the fags and thought about getting a hamster or something and then saw this glass tank with a crack in the middle with a sign that read "Ben the Rat and tank $10.00". He was a big fella and I was worried that he'd be there for ages in his shitty aquarium so I threw the carton of fags in the tank next to the rat and headed home.

My foster mum was a bit freaked out but couldn't say much as she had a pet tarantula that I hated (I used to get really creeped out when he hung upside down from his tank and poke his feet til he fell like a cartoon. Sorry tarantula!). She was even less thrilled when I decided to let Ben roam free and dug a complex tunnel through the underside of her new sofa (sorry foster mum!). Ben was a friendly rat and I was immediately impressed by him when I laid his cage down and a fly flew in and he ate it like Venus fly trap. He was a big rat and at least 2 when I got him. He spent meals on my shoulder where I would share my food, coffee and mountain dew with him. He would eat anything! Sometimes I would dress him up in the other foster kids' doll clothes and take photos like a glamour shots photographer. I stopped letting Ben roam free when I found him in my waterbed and nearly rolled over on him one night.

Ben was one of my best mates and I felt so sad when I had to give him to Homeless Bob to look after when I got moved to a girls' home. Homeless Bob then gave Ben to his sister when we left for Canada who let Ben roam the house freely and even got him a girlfriend. They had lots and lots of baby rats. When she got a pit-bull, Ben went to live with Eddie from the orgy story and the naked sleepover tale (another story, maybe tomorrow!) at his dorm.

I now have lots of guinea pigs but every so often when I see wild rats I really miss Ben!

2005-10-09T04:32:00.000-07:00

Science Project

I am constantly burning myself. It's not like I am some pyromaniac masochist, I am just really clumsy and flaky. As I type this I have a burn mark on my arm from taking dinner out of the oven. The worst burn scar was shortly after I had my daughter and I was baking a potato in the oven. I completely flaked and removed the pan with my bare hands. It took a few moments to realise that the odd sensation I was feeling was my hands burning. I walked around for over a week with red, swollen cartoon hands like on the Tom & Jerry cartoons.

It occurred to me that this may in some strange way be connected to my 7th grade science show project. I was one of the most metal kids in the 7th grade (though cool at the time, I now find this a bit lame). Since Medusa was in a different class, I paired up with the only other friend I had in the class, Helga. Helga had a 100% Polish name but looked Korean. Her dad fought in the Korean War and brought her mum back to

America

along with PTSD. We would often go to Helga's after school and read through her father's war diaries and laugh. Her mum hated me since I wasn't Korean. I didn't imagine this, Helga informed me of this while her mother served kimchi and rice to us one afternoon.

Helga was metal, too. We decided the obvious choice for a science project would be to study fire. For our research I somehow managed to get my parents to let me build a bonfire in the back yard. Helga and I spent the afternoon throwing an assortment of flammable goodies into the flames and taking notes on the explosion while we sang classic metal anthems like Iron Man, Breaking the Law and Fire Woman. We were Beavis and Butthead with tits.

In the end our hard work paid off. We had our pictures in the local paper putting out a small scale fire with sand at our science fair table and I think we may have gotten third prize. Thinking back, though our project was pretty craptacular; I don't think we even knew the basics about fire on a chemical level or even had a decent display chart. Our table display consisted of lit candles and pictures of buildings burning and large-scale explosions. I am actually surprised we weren't referred to counselling for the display alone. Even if the project wasn't scientifically sound, it was totally metal.

2005-10-08T14:09:00.000-07:00

Poor squirrels

My daughter was thrilled to show me this story over lunch today and I have to admit it does explain a lot about the twitchy ways. I should probably be somewhat embarrassed to find this article on one of the sites I work on:

Squirrels on crack

Oct 7 2005

South London Press

NATURE lovers fear that squirrels could become hooked on crack cocaine plundered from addicts' hidden stashes.

The furry animals are thought to be behind a new drugs turf war in Brixton - stealing rocks of crack hidden in front gardens.

Tough police action to rid the town centre of dealers and addicts has seen crackheads abandon their usual drug stash hideouts.

But the blitz has displaced some dealing into nearby residential streets.

Drug addicts are known to be hiding small stashes of crack rocks in people's front lawns late at night.

Squirrels have been spotted in the same front gardens, seemingly hunting out the buried narcotics.

The discovery has led some residents to speculate that the squirrels are already in the grips of addiction. One resident, who asked for his name to be withheld, told the South London Press.

"I was chatting with my neighbour who told me that crack users and dealers sometimes use my front garden to hide bits of their stash.

"An hour earlier I'd seen a squirrel wandering round the garden, digging in the flowerbeds.

"It looked like it knew what it was looking for.

"It was ill-looking and its eyes looked bloodshot but it kept on desperately digging.

"It was almost as if it was trying to find hidden crack rocks."

Crack squirrels are a recognised phenomena in the US.

They are known to live in parks frequented by addicts in New York and Washington DC.

The squirrels have attacked park visitors in their frenzied search for their next fix.

An RSPCA spokesman said he was unaware of the squirrels taking crack in Brixton.

Gotta love Sauf London! http://icsouthlondon.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0400lambeth/tm_objectid=16217629&method=full&siteid=50100&headline=squirrels-on-crack-name_page.html

2005-10-08T02:58:00.000-07:00

Lousy kids!

I was a lousy kid. The more I think back on it, the more I am convinced I was a bit of a hell raiser. Mind you, I was a creative one and believe in many ways I used it as an art form. That may be pushing it, but the kids these days don't have a thing on my generation. I think the most amusing thing the local kids have done was a drive-by shooting with water pistols. This took me by complete surprise as I made my way home from work and after I got over the initial shock of being targeted I was quite pleased with their efforts.

The other thing I think I would applaud is after a paltry snow fall I saw the boy next door outside with a plastic bag and immediately knew what he was doing. My suspicions were confirmed after I asked him what he was doing. He was collecting snowballs to freeze for the summer! This brought a smile to my face as I pictured myself purchasing one of his snowballs with candy and walloping those little fuckers with the water pistols the next time they try and shoot at me in a drive-by.

2005-10-06T07:44:00.000-07:00

Jury Duty

I remember when I first got called for jury duty in the US. I was surprised to receive a letter calling me to jury duty just after I had gotten my driving licence. I can't remember if that was what had gotten me on the list or that I registered to vote (I didn't really vote for anyone but cartoon characters or Leonard Peltier). As a young adult I suspected the US justice system was a corrupt system of fiscal favouritism and shady political dealings. I was ashamed when my suspicions were confirmed on several occasions.

Anyhow, I think I got out of jury duty the first time claiming that I had no money, childcare or transport (I told them I was a lazy teenage mother and that seemed to work!). Several years later, I received another letter in the post and was fresh out of excuses so I decided to go.

On the drive up to the court house I was ready to paint myself in the worst possible light. If it was a woman on trial I was prepared to be a scary feminist who would go on long tirades about menstrual troubles and the poor designs of tampons. I had a variety of different rhetoric ready to spout that would horrify the court and ensure that this would be the last time I was ever called for jury duty. I was determined to make it onto the jury duty blacklist. I know that one has to exist and I was going to make it on there.

I think I was wearing stacked PVC thigh high boots and a matching corset and sauntered into the courthouse ignoring the disgusted (or desperate looks from closet perverts) stares. The case had been read out; it was a murder trial and did sound interesting. It was even more interesting when out marched a friend of the family as the accused. I happily and ostentatiously waved to her as she walked by. The lawyer was a bit freaked out by this gesture and prompted the question to the jury selection if any of us knew the prosecution or defence. Of course, I stood up extra tall in the 7 inch heels and waved explaining that they were friends of the family and I was quickly dismissed.

I didn't get blacklisted, though. A year after I moved to London I received a jury duty summons and happily wrote back that I didn't live in the country anymore and that I thought their justice system was a complete joke. I am sure that now I am blacklisted.

2005-10-05T02:08:00.000-07:00

First Cars

My first car was totalled within a few months of my getting it so I always think of the car I got straight after as my first car. It was a Pontiac Sunbird, I think it was a 1983 or a 1986. It cost me $400.00 and really took a beating. I could race anyone on the highway and usually win. It was admittedly an eyesore and since I was poor I would often have to rely on my creativity and "thinking out of the box" skills when it needed to be repaired.

For instance, when the hood latch broke, we taped it shut with electrical tape. We realised this could be problematic as the oil gasket leaked so we had to fill it with oil each week and ran out of electric tape often. To fix this problem, we screwed a metal latch on the hood and secured it with a pad lock. When the key broke off in the ignition, we didn't see this as another expensive trip to the garage. Instead, we were delighted to be able to make a fast getaway like the Dukes of Hazard since we didn't have to dither about with the key ring.

Of course, there was the security issue that some delirious lunatic or escaped convict would want to steal my precious vehicle so we installed our own anti-theft device. My friend Sukie suggested we go to the joke shop and buy one of those gag dirty diapers. She confided that she had done this and placed the shit-filled diaper on the passenger seat since most folks would think twice about breaking into a car on a hot summer's day that is gonna reek of crap. This idea appealed to me for several reasons, but in the end we decided on affixing a bumper sticker to the window that said "Get the fuck away from me". This worked surprisingly well as the car had never been broken into in the entire time I had it.

Another feature of the sunbird was the constant stream of smoke that crept from the hood. Other drivers would constantly motion to me at traffic lights to tell me my engine was overheating. I would often explain that it was simply the oil gasket and that I was certain that we wouldn't explode. I was still touched by the concern of fellow motorists and could say that the car had restored my faith in humanity a little.

My car also helped me file for bankruptcy. I tried to explain to the judge how broke I was, but at the end of my presentation, I pointed out the window to my car that was being held together with tape and stickers that was parked behind the dumpster. My lawyer friend, Steve laughed the whole way back to the office at my statement. I finally laid the car to rest when it refused to start on several consecutive mornings and my mechanic friend said it was better to move on. To this day, no other car I have ever owned has been as durable or as well-loved.

2005-10-03T04:15:00.000-07:00

Peaches

At the first psychiatric hospital I went to, I met Peaches. He was sitting nearby doing his hair up in liberty spikes with Elmer’s glue. He offered to do my hair and I agreed, curious at how it would look. As he started on my first lock of hair the nurses quickly grabbed him and escorted him back to the unit. I kept in touch with him briefly after I left (or maybe he left first?).

I had lost touch with him only to bump into him several years later at the Boston hemp festival. He was high and/ or very happy to see me and threw his arms around me which was a bit scary. We then kept in touch through letters and phone calls. The police even searched his house at 3 am when I ran away to Toronto.

When I had my daughter for her first birthday he gave her a stuffed Grover doll and explained that all kids should have one. He then told me how he never got over the fact that when he was in kindergarten some kids had taken his Grover toy and hidden it on him. He apparently never got over it. Having one Sesame Street would be enough, but Peaches also spent a year of his early childhood searching rubbish bins/ trash cans in the neighbourhood and alleys where he grew up in search of Oscar the Grouch.

I still can't walk past the old school metal trash cans without thinking of him.

2005-10-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

Skeleton party

I have often said that rather than bury me when I die, I want to be dressed up like a skydiver complete with parachute and flown over Disney World. Then I want my loved ones to push my corpse out of the plane so that the tourists can point at the parachutist and then watch in horror as I hit the pavement. I am still undecided on getting my organs removed first and donating them and then perhaps have them fill me candy like some great piñata from the sky. I wonder if anyone would eat the candy after I landed. This idea horrifies my husband and daughter. I have also suggested cremating me and throwing my ashes at my adversaries. This idea amused me to no end but my daughter flatly refused to throw my ashes at anyone.

My ex, smudge once told me this story that was in his local newspaper about vandals breaking into a cemetery. Apparently they brought a few beers and hit the mausoleum. In attempt to lighten the mood, they got out the bodies and posed them playing cards, dancing, dry humping, etc. This story always makes me smile when I think of it. I reckon it must get pretty boring being dead in a crypt and it was rather thoughtful to have the deceased join in the party. I begged Smudged to find the article and cut it out for me but he never did. I suppose if I could get some sort of guarantee that I would get invited to parties after I bit the dust I wouldn't mind a conventional burial as much.

2005-10-01T08:47:00.000-07:00

Phone sex

When I worked in Soho I often lunched with this slightly delusional girl I'll call Ophelia. Ophelia was this Scottish lass who worked a few blocks away that I met through a mutual friend. She was a bit whiney so I think I lied and told her I moved jobs to save her feelings and my own sanity.

Ophelia wasn't all moaning and self pity, though. She once told me how she had been heading back to her flat near Regents Park and heard someone chatting on their mobile phone behind her. She thought nothing of it until the chap began breathing heavy and grunting. Ophelia pretended to drop something and surreptitiously checked the creep behind her.

He was indeed on his mobile, although to her surprise he was having phone sex. His hand was in his trousers as he used the free hand to chat on the phone. What was really odd is that the bloke was strolling through the park having phone sex. Ophelia had followed him until after a lot of grunting he hung up and she went home.

2005-09-30T03:18:00.000-07:00

Long walk to school

I am lucky that my husband works from home. He's a writer. He's done books and also regularly writes for magazines which means he spends days watching movies or going to gigs and talking rock stars. In theory, I should be jealous as I squeeze onto a cramped and sweaty train every night to make my way home after spending all day in a fluorescent-lit hell sitting next to a man that can only be described as the archetype for the Office's David Brent. And he smells.

Anyway, I am not jealous in the least. I am not a paragon of virtue; it's just that my husband also has to do the school run. Every so often when I am working from home or simply bunking off, I will foolishly volunteer to do the school run. It’s a lot like those carnival bumper cars/ dodgems or even Enduro Car races with SUV's. These orange, silicone implanted, over-stylised women drive like stuntmen in action movies. I can’t understand what the hurry is. Maybe they are just dying to get rid of their kids or Rolondo, the pool guy is due over any minute to “clean the pool” and they don’t want to keep him waiting. I don’t know. The area we live in is full of perm-tanned orange skinned women that stay at home all day and use the school run as an excuse to don their finest designer clothing, stiletto heels and a full palette of make-up. I opt for my pyjamas, slippers and if it's cold out a tatty leopard print coat. Yeah, I'm styling.

Not according to my daughter, who bemoans how embarrassing I am. My daughter wants to know why I can't be like the other mothers- I will often tell her that hookers hate competition or that when she's older she will be glad I wasn't like the other mothers. One morning in attempt to see how embarrassing I could be, I decided to serenade my daughter as she walked to the school. Walking a good few steps ahead I sang to her about packing her lunch and the love a parent feels for their children. My daughter refused to be kissed that morning and as I stood by the school gate, I waved and hollered "I'll pine for you!"

My red-faced daughter hurried inside and has never again wished aloud about how she wishes I was the stay at home mum like her friends have. This is no skin off my nose since I hate the school run. I would almost feel bad for husband if it weren’t for the other perks of his job.

2005-09-29T02:18:00.000-07:00

Hair Mail

When I was in the seventh grade right before I left home and went into care I was friends with this tempestuous Portuguese girl with really big, bugged out eyes, banana curls and certain mental illness that I'll call Medusa. Medusa was the most feared girl in the Catholic school (big surprised I am a recovering Catholic, eh?) and it seemed almost natural that we would gravitate toward each other after my hasty transfer from another Catholic school where I had been caught smoking in the girls' room and had a rather scandalous incident at a school roller skating party that involved criminal charges and the police.

Medusa was a very intense friend and would visit me almost daily when I moved to my first foster home. Then, when I was sent to this locked girls facility on the other side of the state, she wrote to me every day. Very often Medusa would send me things like photos or a stuffed dog named Boogers that was also a tissue holder. It was nice corresponding with Medusa as I had decided to stop talking for a god thirty days at the facility- this vow of silence ensured that I was the first ever resident to leave before the mandatory 90 days. I left after only 60 days and was promptly admitted to my first psychiatric hospital. Well, at least I won and got out early, I suppose.

One day shortly before my release, I received a letter from Medusa. As I unfolded it a shower of pubic hairs landed on my lap. I was puzzled by this somewhat although I think it really freaked the staff out. I simply shrugged and carefully swept Medusa's (if they weren't Medusa's I shudder to think who the owner was!) pubes into the wastebasket. The letter contained nothing terribly unusual except at the end when she mentioned that she thought we could trade hair and that she ripped out a few of her pubes as a gesture of friendship.

Medusa had a boyfriend and of all the sleepovers we had never once had she made any advances, although I still can't fathom why she sent me her pubic hair to this day. I still write regularly to a lot of my friends although I don’t hear from Medusa any more as we just grew apart as one does with childhood friends, but to date that is still the most bizarre thing I have received in the mail.

2005-09-28T02:22:00.000-07:00

Uncle Fernando

Unlike my uncle Pedro, my uncle Fernando is still alive. And while I liked him enough, he was not my favourite uncle, but he did provide me with amusement and surprise. Unlike my uncle Pedro, Fernando did not dodge the draft. He went to Vietnam and came back with a fondness for heroin. Whether this is further proof for the damned if you do, damned if you don't argument or more evidence to the more-ish nature of heroin I don't know. Having never tried it myself, I imagine it must be a bit like when you have just one potato chip or one cookie and then before you know it, the whole bag is gone, although without the nodding off or throwing up or track marks. Perhaps it is a different thing entirely.

Anyhow, one thing that always struck me about Fernando is his consistent misfortune with pets. Some people just shouldn't keep pets. He once had a Great Dane when he lived on the third floor of a building. Like many dogs, the Great Dane was petrified of vacuum cleaners. My husband always says that if you want to pull off a robbery where there are guard dogs, one need only bring a vacuum along and the dog problem is sorted. I have mastiff that barks at the hoover whenever it's off as if she reckons that will teach it to make scary noises. Whatever. Anyhow, one sunny Saturday Fernando was vacuuming the carpets when the dog made a break for it like a Marvel superhero through the open window. Fernando leapt after the dog, grabbing the paws while the dog dangled out the window. Sadly, Great Danes are very heavy dogs and the pooch didn't survive.

Fernando was not one to accept his fate, and years later came to own an English Springer dog named Obie-dawg. I was quite young when he had Obie-dawg and even as a hyperactive child found the dog a bit much. This dog could have easily replaced Sonny the cuckoo bird in the cocoa puffs commercials he was that nutty. I have been to parties where guests have been under the influence and still not reached the infinite mania of Obie-dawg. Looking back on it, I think my sister and I may have been sent outside to play with Obie-dawg to not only give my parents a break, but to tire us out. One day, we had gone over and Obie-dawg was gone. Having the attention span of a housefly my sister and thought nothing more of the dog.

It wasn't until a few years ago I learned that the dog had driven my uncle Fernando crazy and being Fernando dismissed the conventional ideas of placing an ad or taking the dog to a shelter. Instead, he drove out to a neighbouring country town with two giant bags of expensive dog feed, a big sign and the dog. He tied the dog to a tree on the road side with several bowls of water and food. He set the two feed bags near a sign which clearly said, "Lovely dog, needs good home please".

The next day on the front page of the local paper was the photo of Obie-dawg tethered to the tree with the same impenetrably delirious expression all Springer spaniels posses with the sign and food bags. The headline read something to the effect of "Local jerk abandons dog" and went on to name Uncle Fernando as the irresponsible owner. Fear not, faithful readers as Obie-dawg was adopted by a loving family with a large farm land for the dog to run around in according to the paper. To be honest, I don't know who I pity more; my uncle Fernando for his bird-brained ideas or the dogs that were unfortunate enough to be in his care.

2005-09-27T06:10:00.000-07:00

Sheep stampede

Four years ago we took our daughter to the local village farm with her friend, Chubby, Chubby's brother Zippy and their mother, Lumpy. Sorry, these monikers just make it feel more like a kid's story instead of the usual John Doe names I use. Anyway, we bought animal feed for all of the children and took them around the farm. On the whole, this outing was going relatively smoothly with minimal whining and bickering.

The farm bore no resemblance whatsoever to those neat little toy farms you get as a kid with the red barn door that moos when you open it and silo full of plastic pigs. This farm looked more like the a concrete communist block in Russia or the branch Davidian complex in Waco, TX before it caught fire but with without the religious nuts or automatic weapons. The animals eyed us greedily when they realised we had food. Learning life's lessons early, the kids would only give the animals they liked food. Since the pigs were smelly and the goats and chickens were scary, this left only the cows who were happy with their grass or the fluffy sheep.

The sheep were grazing in the field and from a distance looked rather cute, like giant dust bunnies on a green floor. We made our way over to the grazing field with the children. As soon as we crossed the field's rickety little fence, the sheep caught sight of the children and their paper sacks fully of sheep snacks. Like a furious storm cloud of wool they thundered over towards the children. As sheep got closer, Zippy threw his bag in the air and beat a retreat with Chubby and our daughter following. The flock of sheep tore open two of the bags, with the third bag stuck on a sheep's head- this I found so amusing that I still recall the image while I am in meetings at work to pass the time.

Once the sheep had finished their orgy of animal feed destruction, they looked around and upon realising there was no more food they quietly made their way back to their grazing spot. It had all happened so quickly but the fear in the children's faces confirmed it. I am willing to bet that Zippy now has a pathological fear of sheep and cries at the sight of wool sweaters. The nice thing about the sheep stampede was that the kids didn't bother us for any more animal feed that day.

2005-09-26T02:44:00.000-07:00

Short Bus

The short bus is often sneered or jeered at by conventional American high-schoolers. Very often one can expect a comment about how they probably took the short bus to school whenever they do something stupid. It is obvious none of these kids ever took the short bus to school and they had no idea what they were missing.

For about a year and a half I took the short bus to the special school for clever delinquents that Harvard ran- how Ivy League am I! True, we had one suspect passenger on the short bus that had all the hallmark behaviours of a stereotypical short bus passenger short of licking the windows (window licker is the British term for short bus and I still can't utter it without bursting into a fit of giggles.). He probably would have licked windows if they sat him in a window seat, though.

This passenger went to a different school but was on our route for some reason. He was about 6 or 7 years younger than the rest of us Harvard delinquents. Unlike those cute doe eyed kids you see on crap Spielberg tearjerkers, this kid was a nightmare. He wouldn't make eye contact and would talk to his hands making furious Helen Keller style signals as he covered his mouth and uttered catch lines to either Indiana Jones films or Batman films over and over in the style a of a CB radio. Every so often he would shit his pants as soon as we reached the highway and we would shout obscenities at him that he incorporate into his hand talk repertoire.

We could smoke on the bus and would play games with fellow commuters in neighbouring vehicles. We would often stage fights or attempted murders in the back of the short bus in full view of horrified commuters stuck in traffic or the classic nose pick or mooning depending on what moods we were in.

Another perk was the bus monitors who were just out of high school and looking to make a fast, easy and amusing wage. They were all laid back although one time we had to listen to some awful Grateful Dead marathon on the crusty local college radio that drove us all to scream and complain. We were rewarded on his last day, though. The dead-head monitor brought in a bag of grass that we got to smoke on the way home. It was high quality stuff and we really missed him after he went despite hearing all that Grateful Dead stuff.

A few years later I was briefly at one high school where I took the traditional big yellow school bus and I can tell you first hand that the short bus was a lot more fun.

2005-09-24T04:41:00.000-07:00

Box Factory

I once knew this guy I'll call Ned. He was a super tall and goofy looking bloke that was friends with 008, the pathological liar. Before 008 had moved in I was still living with crazy Stella and we often had Ned over with his friend, Sociopath Sid who Stella rather fancied. Birds of a feather and all that, I suppose.

Anyway, the four of us were enjoying a few beverages when Ned suddenly told us that he used to work at a box factory in a neighbouring town. I found this really cool since it never really occurred to me that there were any box factories around. I knew boxes would have to be manufactured somehow and was suddenly thrilled at the prospect of a box factory nearby. This excitement was most likely due to the amount of alcohol I had consumed and my irrepressible love of mischief and mayhem.

Seeing that I was interested and possibly fuelled by the alcohol and the desire to get in my knickers, Ned began to tell me how working at the box factory wasn't as exciting as I thought and that it was in fact quite boring. Ned said it was so boring that he often found himself nipping into the gents' 3 or 4 times a day to rub one out.

Everyone fell silent at Ned's admission of habitually masturbating in the box factory toilets. Seconds later everyone but Ned had burst into fits of laughter. I managed in between my giggles to suggest that he was in effect being paid to masturbate and that he was possibly the envy of every 15 year old boy. Needless to say, Ned did not get laid that night and whenever I see a box I think of him.

2005-09-23T02:24:00.000-07:00

Garbage dog

On my way to the Tube station in the morning I have noticed for the past two mornings that someone has left their rubbish out to be collected. Ordinarily and aside from the stench I probably wouldn't notice, except that one of the rubbish bags happens to be in the shape of a Scottish terrier. I have walked by this twice and glanced across the green and can confirm this. Whether the canine shape is mere coincidence or deliberate I am not sure.

If it's the latter what sort of deranged individual sculpts their garbage? Perhaps they recently lost their beloved pet and created a memorial? Maybe the person is obsessed with the breed and wears sweaters decorated with the little black dogs and a matching kilt? Another intriguing supposition would be that it’s a mad scientist living in that little mid-terrace house creating an army of genetically modified garbage dogs.

If this is the case then I would definitely like to take one of their garbage dogs for a walk. I reckon that instead of hearing the happy panting on walkies you would hear the rustling of the bag and rubbish within. Each bark would be followed by a rotting smell and when it lifted its little garbage leg against a tree in the field cans or soiled papers would pour out. It would easily subsist on more garbage which there is certainly no shortage of. I can’t imagine it would be much for protection or security, though. And it would smell the house up. Maybe garbage dogs are a bad idea after all. I hope the dustman comes before I head to the Tube station on Monday and takes the garbage dog with him.

2005-09-22T03:23:00.000-07:00

Odd Couple

When I was 16, one of my favourite hangouts was a condo rented by two friends I'll call Victoria and Albert. Albert was just over 21 which meant the fridge was stocked with Guinness and there was a party at least once a month. Victoria was just shy of her 18th birthday which meant we could talk about high school and she was the ideal alibi for sleepovers.

I had a lot of fun at Victoria and Albert's. One night after too much Night Train, I foolishly volunteered to trim the back of Victoria's hair. I have a slight visual problem that affects my ability to see straight sober as many crooked pictures hanging in my house will attest. It's even harder to see straight after a bottle of Night train. In many ways, Victoria was silly to let me do it but she did, and so I shaved half the back of her head with Albert's electric razor one evening. She was a good sport about it, though.

One abundant source of entertainment was their neighbours that were so odd I often wondered if their building was somehow connected to a bizarre parallel universe. We would often invite different lots of them over at parties and watch them like most people watch the Discovery Channel.

My favourite was this strange couple. The woman was a pneumatic young thing who was by any definition attractive and seemingly normal. Her boyfriend on the other hand, was a good 15-20 years her senior, bald, sullen quadriplegic in a wheelchair. He obviously wasn't what anyone could call well off seeing that he was collecting state disability cheques and living in what can only be described as a condo from the Twilight Zone.

I spent the evening as usual in the corner stirring spoonfuls of sugar into my Guinness and watching the freaks. A few days later, Albert mentioned that the secret to the couple's success was in the size of the bloke's neck which after he mentioned it, was very thick. Apparently, he would don a headpiece with a big dildo attached and nod vigorously all night for the happy lass. To this day, I still can not imagine how that one activity could keep her there. Every so often I will enjoy a pint of regular Guinness and wonder if those two are still together or if she eventually managed to break his neck.

2005-09-21T04:26:00.000-07:00

Incognito

I love disguises! If it weren't for the corruption and military involvement, I would have happily joined the CIA or MI5 for the disguise potential alone! A few years ago, I was off sick with a nasty case of Agoraphobia and before obtaining orders from my GP to go out as a form of therapy, I would often trek into London to see friends dressed in a Hijab and exotic make-up.

Running away as a teenager provided countless opportunities for going incognito. One of my favourite disguises was after being shuffled from various friends of friends’ houses to hide in cupboards, under beds and in garages I finally figured the coast was clear to brave the elements and go out with friends.

Knowing that the local police weren't terribly busy in this little suburb, I figured that I may still be on their wanted lists. I was soon to discover that my concerns were not unfounded. At the time, I was a bit metal as were a good deal of my friends (I was 13, everyone was metal then!!!!) so I borrowed some skateboarding trousers and a few layers of shirts and a hooded sweatshirt. To top off the ensemble I added a hat and smudged a bit of grime- which when you are hanging out with scruffy skaters is in ample supply- under my nose.

We were all heading to the local dirt bike trails when an officer stopped us to ask what were doing. We all shrugged and mumbled about bike riding. The officer was just about to let us go when he asked if any of us had seen that girl who was on the run. The girl in question was me and we al shrugged and said no, we hadn't seen or heard of her.

Dressing as a bloke was pretty comfy, I must admit. And while I will sometimes throw on my husband's underpants if I can't find a comfy pair, I never use a fake moustache.

2005-09-16T03:34:00.000-07:00

Balloon Animals

When my daughter was about 3 I took her into Boston on the trains. It is highly likely that the train ride was the purpose of the journey, but I can't say for sure. For whatever reason I was wearing a bright blue wig that day, I guess I just like the colour blue.

At one point, an old guy in a clown suit got on and sat a few rows ahead of us. Catching site of my young daughter or my crazy blue wig he stood up and walked over. I was a bit apprehensive as I never quite got the purpose of clowns. He took out a few balloons and began creating a few balloon animals making a point to explain that they were blue like my hair. My daughter was delighted. I then started to daydream about balloon animal farms which led me to construct a whole imagined industry of balloon animal meats and latex coats and balloon animal protests. Perhaps the blue wig went to my head.

2005-09-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

Dentist Compliments

Having my wisdom teeth out was worse than childbirth and I did childbirth without any drugs or painkillers the natural way. I figured having them out would be like when I had my teeth knocked out in a rather unfortunate streetfight when I was 16 -don't worry! The emergency room doctor managed to pop them right back in and I still have my original teeth. I basically lived on my foster mum’s sofa, played streetfighter and subsisted on a steady diet of codeine, strawberry ice cream, egg salad, spinach and mountain dew. Those were the days.

Anyway, the wisdom teeth were a far more disturbing experience. I had arrived at the dental surgeon's a bit spaced out from being awake with terrible headaches which prompted the wisdom teeth removal. The dental surgeon was a young guy and he was saying lots of calming things about the procedure as he prepped me. As he started the sleepy gas he stroked my cheek and said that I had an exquisite jaw line. The last thing I recalled was worrying that I would wake up with his penis in my mouth.

When I came to I was led to reception where they handed me an envelope and explained that I had demanded that hey save my teeth and give them to me afterwards so I could make a necklace for my friend. I was baffled by this but took the envelope anyway. I never made a necklace with those teeth and am still a bout worried about what else transpired with the dental surgeon while I was unconscious.

2005-09-14T01:56:00.000-07:00

Kid Habits

Last night at dinner my daughter described how one of her friends keeps bursting into tears and running to the bathroom. As they are getting to that special age I had guessed the girl may have her period. After discounting this suggestion with the exaggerated eye roll, my daughter coninued eating dinner. My husband then suggested her friend had a cocaine habit and kept running into the bathroom to do a few lines. My daughter was indignant at the suggestion but it took the rest of dinner for me to stop laughing.

2005-09-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

Parting Crowds

HMV on Oxford Street is always mobbed. It's even worse during their sales- read a brief drop in their artificially inflated prices to boost sales figures. Picture if you will, a teeming, festering mass of fat sweaty tourists, fanboys and Hari Krishnas weaving, breathing, and smelling whilst simultaneously picking through CDs like vultures on corpses. I only ever go to HMV because they have a good jazz section and all the music I like is so out of date that it's always in the bargain bin.

Just over a year ago I was at HMV during one of their "sales" with my husband during my lunch break. David hates crowds. So much, in fact that when he showed me around London when we first moved here he avoided all major streets. This meant I knew every back alley in Soho but couldn't tell you where Hamley's Toy store is- it's on Regent Street.

David seemed a bit anxious about the crowd so I got fed up and began to emit a shrill intermittent howl. This had a remarkable effect. Like Moses and the red sea, the crowd parted to let the frightening crazy woman through. I only use this trick to get out of special jams but it works a charm since people are afraid of nut jobs. As if insanity is contagious.

2005-09-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

Accommodating Eatons

My second home when I was homeless in Toronto was Eaton Centre. Looming over Yonge Street, it was behemoth. It also offered a good deal to the city's homeless. You could easily acquire discarded cardboard which was a key element for insulating against the cold pavement at night and bed down in the multi-level garage late at night. As long as you avoided the security cameras, you were assured at least a few hours of sleep.

Another invaluable aspect of Eaton Centre was the department store itself. I spent many a Saturday trying to blend in with the teeming infestations of shoppers and sit down on a comfy display sofa, pretending to be a bored teenager waiting for their parents and steal a nap. Normally Homeless Bob would be up on the higher levels looking at stereo equipment or probably trying to pick up chicks- not an easy task when you're homeless, but an inspiration to all men for trying.

On the odd occasion that I did have access to a television or even a flat of my own, there were always commercials touting the benefits of Eatons to Canadians. These benefits were often presented in musical form by Celine Dion. I think I hated Celine Dion for this more than for any of the rubbish music she subsequently put out.

One afternoon while I was wandering around Eaton's Homeless Bob and I noticed that they had questionnaires for their customers to fill in. Seeing that we had nothing but time on our hands, we gleefully set about filling one in. If memory serves, it looked a bit like this:

Name: John Doe or Richard Nixon (I think we may have put Richard Nixon because he makes me giggle)

Address: Your parking garage, top level, piece of cardboard

Comments: Oh Eaton's even though we can never afford your shoddy goods, we enjoy spending time harassing your other snotty rich customers.

I also believe this may have been the impetus the night watch needed to beef up their campaign against rough sleepers in the garage as we were asked to leave a few nights later. Sorry to everyone else who could no longer sleep in the garage.

2005-09-11T04:02:00.000-07:00

Easter Hungry

This morning I had to burst a boil/zit/ unidentified pus-filled object on the back of my husband's head. Ain't love grand? It then reminded me of the Easter I spent homeless in Toronto.

I think I spent the week panhandling for money to buy Cadbury Cream Eggs or Oeufs Crèmes as they were also advertised as for the Quebecois. I spent a good part of that weekend demanding Easter Oeufs if I remember correctly.

Anyhow on Easter Sunday, Homeless Bob and I were starving and tired and broke since many folk weren't about due to the Easter holiday. Damn you, Easter! We decided to make our way to the women's & tranny hooker's homeless drop-in shelter on Dundas St.

Lucky for us they were serving an Easter dinner! It was ham (or gammon as they call it in the UK), mash, peas and if I recall I tasty dessert. We took our meal in the storage room in the basement for some reason; I think the tranny hookers freaked Homeless Bob out. As we eagerly tucked in to our dinner, Homeless Bob stopped to fiddle with a boil or bump on his knee. I ignored him as he was forever doing weird things and continued to eat.

As I was mixing the peas with the mash, Homeless Bob squeezed his boil sending a surge of greenish push cascading down his leg. As if I could have missed this disgusting display, Homeless Bob urged me to look and asked for my opinion on what it was.

I passed Homeless Bob my napkin and helped him clean up the toxic pus. Determined to finish my meal as it was easily 24 hours since I had last eaten, I held my nose and finished my Easter meal. However, I was unable to manage the dessert.

2005-09-10T10:08:00.000-07:00

Snake Hug

My first ever foster home was in a really bad area. It consisted of the foster mum who was this morbidly obese woman with a mullet and a moustache whom I'll call mullet mum. She had one foster daughter and an evil black long haired cat named Angus. Angus was a right bastard. In the first week I was there, he had managed to spray my purse, schoolbag and a pair of my shoes.

I asked mullet mum what Angus would look like if I shaved him and left only a moustache and she looked alarmed and replied that I shouldn’t shave Angus or I'd be in trouble. On the whole mullet mum was fine, though she smoked an awful lot of pot. Looking back on it, she left roach end all over the flat which had I been a few years older would have been clever enough to collect them and "redistribute" them throughout the shitty neighbourhood for a tidy sum.

One day mullet mum's friends popped by and they had a boa constrictor. It was about a year or so old so was the length of my arms outstretched. I was fascinated by the snake baby (well, it was still young and I don't recall ever hearing the correct term use so a snake baby it is!). The owner asked if I would like to hold it and I said yes. The snake immediately wrapped itself around my neck. The skin was cool to the touch, which I found spooky on a live creature.

I began to notice the snake getting tight around my neck. Sensing that this was more than a snake hug, I tried to remain as calm as possible since I saw on countless wildlife documentaries that animals react to human's feelings. I gently tapped mullet mum's friend on the shoulder and politely informed her that her snake was choking me. The woman grabbed the snake's tail and squeezed causing the snake to go slack. I handed the snake back to her and went outside to hitch-hike or buy candy or something. Since then, I have never let a snake hug me.

2005-09-09T02:59:00.000-07:00

Fish Heads

Many years ago, I went to NYC for a weekend of clubbing and a change of scenery from Boston. We stopped off at a Sushi bar with a big sign out front that was a fibreglass fish, if I remember correctly. And if I recall, the fibreglass fish is what lead me to pick that particular eating establishment.

It was virtually empty except for two old Japanese men wearing sushi chef suits that probably have a neat Japanese name that escapes me. They smiled as I walked in with my friend and scurried to their stations behind the sushi counter trying to look busy. We sat down and one of the men hurried over with a plate of fish heads.

No garnish, no disguise, these were unmistakeably fish heads that look as if they had been tossed in flour and lightly fried eyes and all. My dining companion looked at the plate and then at me. Trying to show him up, I merely shrugged and picked up one of the heads and daintily set about eating what little meat there was on them. They weren’t too bad especially as I was famished. I avoided the eyes, lips and the brains (if the brains were still in there). My friend seemed simultaneously horrified, fascinated and awestruck by my feat.

I had managed to finish off the whole plate of them, carefully leaving all the eyes in. The waiter smiled and made some exclamation in Japanese when he took the plate of fish skulls with all their eyes and lips in tact. In all the years since I have never encountered another Japanese restaurant that serves fish heads for an appetiser or even a menu item. Perhaps the fibreglass fish had something to do with it.

2005-09-07T07:23:00.000-07:00

Uncle Pedro

I was told today my Uncle Pedro died. I am not terribly close to my family but of all the family on my father's side, Pedro was my favourite- which is to say that he was the only one I really liked.

Surprisingly Pedro died quietly in his sleep which was a bit surprising since he had a bit of an "exciting" life. He had a glass eye after getting shot in the eye. He also was in and out of the Salvation Army shelter from being homeless but I was told that recently he had managed to shack up with a rich bird on Martha's Vineyard. He also had a heroin habit which some in the family mused that it may have been due to the radical crowd he fell in with dodging the Vietnam draft, although my uncle Fred also had a heroin habit which had been blamed on the trauma of serving in Vietnam.

I was close to Pedro because we share cigarettes whenever he crashed on my parent’s sofa and would discuss the merits of the Twilight Zone or Outer Limits TV shows or how cool the B-52's were. He also used to perform pretty cool tricks when he took out his eyeball and put it in his mouth. Oddly enough, we never exchanged homeless stories or swapped helpful hints. He also was a big AIDs activist, which I respected, even if it was because he was scared of sharing needles and catching it. One really early memory of him that I have is when he baby-sat me when I was probably about 3 or 4. I remember him sitting in the kitchen at the table -and looking back on it, he was probably nodding off- when I sat in the bathroom and cut my own hair probably out of boredom or misplaced creative ambition.

Since I am far away and probably won't make the funeral I figured I'd devote this to my favourite paternal uncle. Rock on, buddy.

2005-09-06T04:41:00.000-07:00

Irish Cursing

About a year after I moved to the UK, I met my friend whom I'll call Phineas. He is from Northern Ireland and has to be the most camp guy I have ever met. I love him to bits. I have had a few cultural mix-ups with Phineas; I once asked him if he liked Lucky Charms cereal. He had no idea what I was on about and it soon transpired that I wrongly thought Lucky Charms were the national breakfast of the Irish. They aren't.

Another time I had been chatting to Phineas and had cursed. I used the word cunt, which in the US is a bit offensive to some so apologised. Phineas waved it off with a laugh explaining that the word "cunt" is so commonly used that his grandmother says it all the time.

Some months later at work I had to meet with a decidedly tiresome old crone in another department. After the meeting as I watched her leave, I turned to my line manager and loudly declared, "Boy is she a cranky old cunt!" Suddenly the office grew very quiet. I was a bit puzzled and said, "Well, at least I didn't call her a cow."

Apparently it's a bit of a naughty word here, too.

2005-09-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

The Electric Company

For some reason as a very young child, I was obsessed with the show The Electric Company. The logo itself seemed to aptly capture drug-induced stupor that enabled many to go about their daily lives dressed in ill-fitting clothes and using shag carpets. The thing is, if you ask me what the programme was about, my mind goes blank and a strange sensation overtakes me. This puzzled me for a good five minutes one day while I was microwaving pizza until I realised why I had a block about the Electric Company.

About 11 years or so ago, I was living in a flat (read squat on Avenue Road in Toronto owned by an embittered alcoholic woman that would get drunk and burst into the flat to tell me how her father molested her and was an MP and that she could never have children but if she could she would like a girl like me.) I hated this particular flat and no matter how cheap the rent was out of pity or charity grant funding, it wasn't really worth it.

The flat had a television set that was easily ten years older than me. The knobs were broken so you had to plug and unplug the set whenever you wanted to turn it on. This television was a big source of sanity for me since I was feeling a bit withdrawn and Homeless Bob is not a fun flatmate to have since he would do freaky things like sleepwalk naked onto the main road or evacuate us from the house at 3am because there were angry ghosts so I would spend the night wandering the aisles of Shoppers Drug Mart until the sun was up and the angry ghosts had left, or so Homeless Bob would say.

One afternoon I was keen to watch Degrassi Junior High so I went to plug the set in. A surge of electricity surged through me. Having never felt this sensation before, I was dumbfounded and froze. Having quickly come to my senses, I managed to pull my hand free and fall back on the sofa. The telly came on and I sat there dazed. I shouldn't have been too surprised as the plug was old and the coppery wires were exposed.

I would like to say that this was the only time that it occurred, but I am afraid it isn't so. I managed to shock myself on a few other occasions before donning rubber gloves before reaching for the plug. I imagine this has somehow traumatised me, rendering me incapable of recalling much of the Electric Company show. In a way, I kinda wonder if it happened to Homeless Bob, too. That might explain the angry ghosts.