Love Is Hell

I feel a bout of schizophrenia coming on, which is annoying because I'm enjoying my marmite toast. But I fear I cannot keep the beast at bay. Lots to spew about, all random and different, and certainly no hope of them making any sense. First off; Carnivale Fun!

A coin of two sides, to be sure (unlike those three-sided ones, which are buggers). Busiest night of the year if you work, as I do, in a booze emporium. As my chum Jonster has blogged so eloquently, customers in a booze emporium are a rancid bunch on the best of days, so imagine them just as rancid but pissed-up and overly friendly, totally ignoring the fact that you haven't had a drop of boozey juice yet and are simply trying to do a job. We have many, many panic buttons at work. What we need is a cattle-prod. Or gun.

"Why you dressed like Harry Potter?!", slurred a drunken bastard to me. To be fair, I was dressed as Harry Potter, otherwise this question would have been slightly more bizarre. I explained to said pea-brained yob that it was a last minute costume to try and get into Carnivale spirit whilst working. He then decided to quiz me on my boy-wizard knowledge, as if I needed to prove I had the right to wear this silly outfit. Surprisingly, his knowledge of the books was quite staggering, even more so if you consider he was probably seeing 3 of me. Of course, I knew the answers to his questions, as I am currently third in line to the crown of uber-geek among my friends, but there were more rancids to serve behind him, so I feigned ignorance and ushered his body-shaped smell away from me.

On the plus side though, Carnivale is a great opportunity to rope your non-employee friends into working the night with you to help, all the while enjoying lovely foody-nibbles and dressing up all fancily (witness the various pics, and this time the Feisty Hedgehog has given permission to be included). And when you finish you get to go to the pub dressed very strangely and not give a shit because you deserve BEER and god help any man (or woman or child) that gets in your way! So all in all, a shit and great day. Times that by life and it also applies.

Random rant #2: "Have you been seeing any girls lately?", asked a friend recently. In fact this is a question he asks me a lot. I would be worried as to his intentions, but I'm fairly certain I'm not his type.

"No, I haven't", I replied.

"How come?", asked the friend, in the manner someone would ask a person "Why haven't you breathed today yet?"

I spouted some pre-set jokey answers, such as not having time, or the bank balance to afford such an extravigance. But the more I thought about this later, the more agitated I became. Why should I need to defend this answer? In recent months I have made various attempts to 'see some girls' and all have ended in nothing, except stupid self-searching and questioning. And even these thwarted attempts were based on some ridiculous assumption that I'm getting older and should sort this situation out before I -god forbid! - hit 30 years old. It's become nothing more to me than the person that goes out to buy a new sofa, because you really should get that sofa soon before all the sofas are gone. This makes me angry at myself. I'm by no means the sharpest tool in the box, but I am not stupid. So to give in to such stupid thinking has lowered my opinion of myself. Why do I need a partner in life to feel happy about myself? If it happens, then fantastic, but why should I rely on it happening? I have great friends, and most days am pretty happy. So why stoop to this? Answers on a porn mag please!

Random rant #3: Why do all the girls on myspace look the same? Not even similar, but exactly the same! I don't think these 'girls' even exist, I just think myspace has a really good version of photoshop and has concocted thousands of different variations on the same girl.

Random rant #3b: Why do all 14 year old girls long to instantly be 25? And why do all 14 year old boys try and act 25 but in doing so actually come across as 9? My mind ponders the conundrum to no avail.

Not really a rant #4: Went to see 'Little Miss Sunshine' at the weekend and it is super-duper-tastic. The funniest, most uplifting film I've seen in years, and certainly the happiest I've left a cinema in quite a while. I left this part till last because I wanted to prove I have the ability to be happy and enjoy myself (although it was touch-and-go there for a while). And a simple thing like being put in such a good mood that you're still smiling an hour later can right all the wrongs I've mentioned before. I'm going to try and replay that film in my head all day long, every day. Because I'd like to live like that. And I think I can.