What a drag

Last night I went to a friend's stag party so, naturally, I dragged up and affixed a fairly realistic handlebar moustache to my face with liberal quantities of eyelash glue. Now, I walk around the streets of London in all kinds of fancy dress outfits, so I'm used to getting odd looks, but no previous ensemble has ever attracted as much attention as this simple tweeded, pinstriped, facial-haired combo. So many people stared at me; some of them with genuine looks of alarm or distaste. A nutjob preacher outside Oxford Circus tube station screamed out that I was going to Hell. Most unnerving though, were the ones who tried to pretend not to look, while their eyes surreptitiously flicked over me. You could see the thought processes as they looked from the men's clothes to the long hair, to the moustache, to the figure and tried to work out whether I was male or female, or en-route from one to the other. It actually made me quite uncomfortable, and gave me a strong feeling of sympathy for trans people, who must attract this blatant assessment of their appearance on a regular basis.

Then this afternoon as I was coming home, still in the chap outfit but sans soup strainer, a smiling old man put out his hand to stop me as I passed.
"I saw you yesterday. Where's your moustache?" he asked.
"Oh, I took it off" I replied, "It was itchy".
"I'm Samir. I see you a lot. You're very different, aren't you?"
"I guess so", I answered, starting to feel slightly uneasy.
"I like it. And you walk with such confidence. Me and my wife, you make us smile when we see you. I lift my hat to you. Bless you."

And with that he shook my hand and was gone. I know my mad-magnet causes me a fair bit of hassle, but I think the times when it pulls in the lovely crazy people more than make up for the bad ones. I don't mind if street preachers think I'm going to burn for all eternity, so long as Samir and his missus are getting a kick out of the strange girl with all the outfits.

Introducing......Mad Corgi Lady

Mad Corgi Lady is my downstairs next-door-neighbour. She is generally to be found in her garden, chatting loudly to her two corgis, Winnie and Teddy. Unlike my upstairs next-door-neighbour, Mad Shouty Man, who is also loud and often wakes me up at 3am by screaming at the apologetic and surprisingly patient man who may be either his son or his carer, she is quite likeable. She dispenses much wisdom unto her canine companions and I, by dint of being within hearing range (i.e. less than a mile away), feel I am also benefiting greatly.

Here are a few things I have learned to date:

• If you have a rash, you need to go to the doctor and get a ointment. Unless you're a dog. Dogs never get rashes but, when they do, they go to vets.
• The plural of egg is heggs. One egg, many heggs. The aitch is proper only she can't remember why.
• When you've been boiling vegetables you should put the used water onto the garden, as it's very good for the plants. Not potato water though. It's too starchy. Next time she'll boil the parsnips separately from the potatoes so she can put parsnip water on the roses. Roses like parsnip water.

I'm a little saddened that my education is likely to be called to a halt over the Winter, when I assume she will be spending less time in the garden. I must glean as much knowledge as I can while Summer lasts.

Really?

Inappropriate Pharmacist: That's a lot of painkillers. What have you done to yourself?
Me: I fractured my coccyx.
Inappropriate Pharmacist: Ouch! Well [winks], if that little lot doesn't sort it out, come back and we'll kiss it better.

To labour the point

Today I travelled into work on the tube, as usual. Less usually, I was perched bolt upright in my seat, trying to protect my fractured coccyx, and occasionally letting out an involuntary whimper or yelp as I was jolted by the movement of the train. After a couple of stops the woman opposite me leaned across the aisle, put her hand on my knee and said the only thing which could have made me more miserable at that moment in time........."Are you OK? Are you in labour?".

It's not just the crazies.....

.......even otherwise normal and pleasant people feel the need to insult me.

Girl: Hi, I'm ******
Me: Oh, we've met. At such-and-such a workshop.
Girl: Oh, well, there were lots of hot people there, so I didn't remember you.

Puppy love

I've been neglecting you, haven't I? Truth is, I've been feeling a little low lately, which always leaves me disinclined to write. I had a particularly draining day yesterday, followed by an anxious night with little sleep, so was in a horrendous mood when I left for work this morning. I really didn't know how I was going to force myself through the day, and wanted nothing more than to just go back to bed and nap it away.

When I took my seat on the tube, a hippyish girl got on and sat next to me. With her was a brindle staffordshire bull terrier, with a withered back leg and a leash made of two knotted together Tesco carrier bags. The girl pulled the dog onto her knee out of the way of the other passengers, and we both took out books. After a while, the staffy re-shuffled herself, yawned hugely and lay down, settling her head into the crook of my elbow. Thinking this was rather sweet, I said "Hallo puppy" and applied a tickling thumb to the back of her ear. The next thing I knew she had vaulted the armrest, and I had a lap full of large, adoring dog giving my face a tongue bath more enthusiastic than it was effective or hygenic. Her owner seemed remarkably unperturbed, but then I was laughing my head off, so it must have been pretty clear that I was neither upset nor scared by the incident. In fact, it cheered me up no end. I enjoyed doggy snuggles for another couple of stops, until we all got off the train, and continued my journey feeling more relaxed and at ease than I have in many days.

Thanks puppy. I owe you one!

Two mad magnets don't make a right.

I got out of work a little early on Friday, which led to me spending a half hour or so waiting at the pub for J to finish up in the office. Now, I know my last few posts have all been about my encounters with crazy people, and I should probably vary my subject matter, but I do just have to mention the elderly American Sikh man in a suit and broken glasses, who spent that entire half hour drunkenly lecturing me. I learned a lot. For instance, did you know that the basic physical law of thermodynamics means there is no such thing as a free lunch? How about that our knowledge of civilisation dates back only as far as the written word but that, as far as we know, neanderthals could have been very culturally advanced, just without a written tradition to prove it to us? Then did you know that the sun is going to die in two billion years, so we should all be devoting our energies to developing space travel? Or that, when we achieve this, the Kalahari tribesmen should be the first settlers on Mars? Incidentally, did you know that the Kalahari tribesmen can discern 50 different tones in language, and have you ever wondered why there are no Kalaharian opera singers? No...me neither.

It's also worth mentioning the three men who interrogated us about our outfits, demanding to know what we were trying to convey with them, the homeless woman who got angry with J because she deemed her cash donation insufficient, the till worker who requested I kiss his cheek so he could have a lipsitck print to match the one on J's cheek, the man who later grabbed J and scrubbed off said lipstick, and the boy who approached me when I got off the bus home to ask which way Tottenham Court Road was. "It's quite far away," I said, "and I'm not sure of the direction". "But isn't this Tottenham?" he replied. "Ah. Yes. That's really not the same thing".

I need a madmagnetectomy

An inebriated young man got on the bus and sat next to me, despite there being plenty of empty seats. As the journey continued he gradually eased further into my personal space. Eventually I was forced to speak up.

Me: Do you want to stop leaning on me please?
Him: I've had a shit night. I really need some human contact.
Me: What?
Him: And you kind of look like my mum.
Me: O-kaaaay. I'm going to go sit over there.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason I am single.

On Saturday night two men attempted to chat me up. The first was a tiny, creepy man in the pub. He approached me to tell me that he found me really attractive, mostly because I was clearly the kind of girl who would never look twice at a guy like him (I couldn't fault his accuracy), and he found that sort of thing really hot. The second was even creepier. He approached my friend and I while we were in a side street near Trafalgar Square; me, sqauatting in a corner having a crafty wee before getting on the night bus, my friend holding out her coat to afford me some modicum of modesty. We sent him on his way, that not being a moment at which one is particularly inclined to have an in depth conversation with a stranger, but he followed us back to the main road, seemingly with the sole purpose of telling us we were beautiful. Perhaps he had more to say but, as we told him (nice and clearly so it sunk in) to go away, we will never know.

St Valentine he aint!

A mad old man sitting on a bench in the cold with a can of some dubiously branded beer just yelled at me "You know why you not haulin any flowers? Cos you ugly through and through!". And they say romance is dead!

Where do you draw the line?

A lot of women do their make-up on the tube or train. I don't, if I can avoid it, since my manual dexterity is not up to much at the best of times, and adding unpredictably lurching vehicles to the equation is inevitably going to result in a glamorous streak of lipstick up my cheek, or a mascara wand to the eyeball. It doesn't bother me when I see other women making such use of their commute though. If they can successfully beautify themselves whilst being rattled around like beans in a maraca, then more power to them. There is a line though, and that line was well and truly crossed by the woman I saw this morning, who was thoroughly and matter of factly drying her hair with a towel on the train. Drying her hair! On the train! With a towel! That's odd, right? Nobody else even seemed to bat an eyelid.