Crazy Lady is no more....

Today Crazy Lady came online and thanked me for her flowers, indicated that she had started seeing someone and then listed all the stuff she had bought people for Christmas.

When she had finished listing it all (the list was extensive) I said, "Are you bankrupt yet?".

Unfortunately my humorous aside, was responded to in the following fashion:

everytime you open your mouth it's always to say some crap it's really annoying
you are really a negative person to be around
kind annoying C
very possessive and tireding
go C stay where you are. find some else to take your chite

This was followed a few minutes later by an email, I'd post the content of it, but it is too long, rambling, poorly worded/spelt, and incoherent to be of use to you dear reader. In summary she thinks: I am possessive, I should have paid for everything, I should have loved to hear her bitch about her previous bloke, and she doesn't like me so can I please fuck off.

What I will say about the e-mail though, is that it was either the work of a deluded genius believing her own lies, or someone who thought I was so thick that I'd believe it and come begging for more.

Either way she is as mad as a lorry, or so thoroughly wrong about me that she thinks I have cottage cheese instead of brains, which ever it is, I think we can safely say I am better off without her in my life.

This is pretty tragic really, I have now met two people (face to face) from Face Party, and both of them have turned out to be complete and utter frigging loons.

I was kind of assuming that the women on there would be hard to speak to, what with being approached by scary/wierdo men all the time, but it seems that my nutter magnet works via the Internet too, and I'm two for two on the meeting nutters counter.

What am I to do?

I have to conclude that all the mentalists that I have been involved with (there have been many), have me in common. As the common element in all of these interactions is me, I have to assume that I am the common fault here. I don't want to turn into an absolute cock, and start treating women like shit. I'm a nice guy, I genuinely am, but it seems the nicer I get, the more likely I am to get shat on by a new-age-fruit-loop-nutter (V) or a half-crazed-mentalist-gold-digger (S/Crazy Lady).

I think I'll stick to speed dating, this whole Internet thing is shite for meeting people who aren't scary.

At least when I meet someone face to face for three minutes only, I can work at the Lizard Brain instinctual level, without getting the chance to use the higher mental functions to make allowances for people who are clearly lying cunts.

Just in case you were wondering, I'm not bitter, I just consider trust to be an important issue, and I'm getting kind of tired of having my trusting nature abused.

Another endless day

Suffice to say I was badgered into taking the job, but on condition, I'm out of there the minute I have more cash waiting elsewhere...

Less than an hour later, I got asked for a slot on Monday for an interview (for a better paid, closer to home, more relevant, etc. job).... Typical!

So now I have to go to work on Monday morning, tell them that I'm going to be in late on Tuesday, and go for an interview in the City, then head to work. Arse. Suffice to say I'm not comfortable with this, it feels unethical, but I have to think of me and my (potential) mortgage now. I have no idea why the client agreed to this, I can only assume that they are getting a very sugared version of the story from the agency.

What else has happened today? More progress on the home buying front.

I also went to see another house, it was bigger and had more potential, and it came with a garden (bad thing!) , but it would have cost at least £20-30K more and I've already semi-committed to this one anyway. Mustn't be greedy now. :)

I've had Angel here since 1PM this afternoon, she has a minor cough so her mother took her to the doctor's surgery, only to be told, "Yes she has a minor cough, make sure she takes plenty of fluids". No shit, I'm starting to think that my ex has some sort of displaced hypercondria!

We've spent the day together, and had plenty of fun, now she's gone to bed, and I am about to now too.

Sleep well.

Start the day as you mean to go on...

Or not. Since in this case I woke at the crack of dawn with a scorching hangover, I think you might agree, not something worth extending or continuing for the rest of the day.

Both J and I were bitter, twisted, and evil shadows of our former selves. J had spend most of the night in the bathroom, not being sick thankfully, but not being too well either.

Whilst I was constantly woken with dreams of being an estate agent in Jamaica, showing properties to my mate D, all of which were abysmal, one where you even had to climb between the front door frame and the wall to get in, in the basement of a tower block. Lord alone knows what dream analysts would make of that one!

At 10AM we both headed off to the place I'm buying, so that we could measure up and J could give me some ideas on decor and furniture arrangement. It was really good fun, we started the day with light hearted bickering like a married couple and then carried on with the same tone for the rest of the day.

After we had done the measuring up, we headed off to Brent Cross as J needed to buy a couple of things for her father for Christmas. While we were there, we had some pizza from the buffet at Pizza Hut, obviously I ate too much, but then nothing is new there. :)

We had a good look around in John Lewis', J was good with the ideas on the home front. We have decided that Red/Gold for the master bedroom with a wrought iron bed would be nice, and a brown/beige/leather/suede for the living room would be cool. Kitchen looks to be going in a green direction, and the bath in the bathroom is going to be made much larger, since there is so much room there. Oh and the guest bedroom and the fitted office have to swap places.

There has been news as regards the home purchase, which you can find here.

When we got back, I introduced J (now JG) to J (now JH) my other friend who runs the shop round the corner from me. They are both learning Spanish, so they had a little natter to each other while I looked on like a dumb fool. :)

I walked JG down to the bus station so she could start the journey home, and on the way she said how cool it was that I had introduced her to JH, she really liked him, which was really nice to know.

I headed back up to JH's shop and chatted to him for a few hours until he closed shop and headed for home himself. He's lost enthusiasm for the plan to convert the shop , I think he's getting the blues a little, I tried to enthuse him, but obviously I backed off before I started to sound like a broken record. JH also said how much of a breath of fresh air JG had been, and how he thought she was a really nice person. Cool, it's nice when friends from disparate parts of your life meet, and immediately get on with each other.

Yesterday when I was chatting with JH about my car, we covered the topic of the front windscreen washer jets. These need replacing on my car, they seem to have clogged up and are pretty much useless, unless I'm sat at the lights and the car is not moving. I joked that I should replace them and get some that light up when you switch on the light for the car. JH wasn't sure whether I was taking the mick or not, so he got me some of them. Luckily I was out in the car with JG so he didn't get the fit them. I've told him to fit them, but he must add an extra switch so that I can just turn them on for fun. It would be toooooooo embarrassing if they were switched on all the time!

All the while that the rest of the day was taking place, I completely forgot I had planned for an Estate Agent to drop by my place, so I had to get very apologetic later on the phone to him.

Talking of the phone, it never stopped ringing all bloody day long. Calls from the estate agent, my solicitor, my accountant, the mortgage brokerage. Not to mention LOADS of calls from various employment agencies.

On top of that I was being badgered to accept the low paid job on the other side of London, and after I had explained my position as regards the cash, the agent in question had a tax specialist from an accountancy firm contact me, to see if there was a way they could rearrange my accounts so that I could squeeze my bottom line out of the £400/day the client was willing to pay. Lots of emails were sent back and forth, and mucho chatto was done, the end result being that I agreed to head home at some point and read the documents this evening and get back to the agent tomorrow. (Phew!) Lots of pressure to sign!

As a steady background to all of the above, I received a number of texts from Crazy Lady, saying that she had finally got to work today, "thanks for the flowers, they are dead", "I'm ill, I've gone home", "The flowers were dead", "I couldn't take the flowers home", "I'm really ill I can't see you this weekend". All to be expected really, I just didn't bother responding to any messages with a negative connotation.

I mean, who the fuck says, "Thanks for the present" and follows it with, "It had died"? Isn't that the same as, "Thanks for the horse, but its teeth are looking a little shitty"? Gift horses and mouths anyone?

And what bullshit anyway, since when did flowers die in two fucking days. Such nonsense. I'll leave her to her own devices until she gets back to me. She really is a fucking mentalist, either that or she thinks I'm a thick as pig-shit. If she wasn't so goddamn sexy I'd have given her the push long ago. :)

Happy days! :D Who'd have thought I could be busy WITHOUT a job?

Christmas party

This evening I went to a Christmas party with a bunch of guys I used to work for a couple of years back.

It was good seeing them, even if I don't get to work for them any more. We met up at Waxy O'Connors pub, and had a few drinks. I was the first one there, I'm the anal control freak for a reason. :)

When we had had a couple of beers, we went on for a great meal at the Joy King Lau Chinese restaurant. Everyone ordered what they wanted, then we all dipped into whatever appeared on the Lazy Susan as she spun on by. Conversation was great, the food was great, the atmosphere and the booze were great too! I got to try Chinese style rice wine, warmed with a little sugar by comparison to the much subtler flavoured Japanese rice wine Sake which is cooled and unadulterated.

The service was great, and the only crappy part of the night was trying to get home, we finally fell out of the restaurant at just the point of the evening when every cab is taken by a drunkard stumbling out of a pub.

I even managed to hail a cab, but 10 yards short of me, he stopped at a crossing and the bloke on the crossing changed his mind and got in the cab. Bastard! That was all my Christmas good will for the evening lost. :)

J and I eventually got home and chatted for a while, then we've both gone to our respective beds exhausted. And here I laze typing my entry for the day, replentant, semi-drunk and thanking the Lord for laptops with wifi. :)

Oh yeah, there was one other thing... I have the job, the one I did the final telephone interview for when Crazy Lady came online to chat to me.

Problem is they want to pay £400/day (about £100-200/day less than I usually command). I can probably make the figures add up and buy the house comfortably, but I'll be spending all my liquid reserves to do so, and on that low an income, I won't be able to build up a reserve again. That's a bit of a bugger, as it means at the end of this contract, I'll have to get another one immediately, or I'll be in shit on the mortgage payments... Bummer.

Anyway, more tomorrow on how that turns out.

Nighty night.

Ordered the roses

Well I gave in and ordered the roses for delivery today...

And then S came online at about 2ish, saying she never got to work because she collapsed on the way to work, and had spent most of the day at the hospital.

So I guess she gets to receive the flowers tomorrow, if she gets to work. (Assuming that the collapsing and hospital thing wasn't an invention of her fevered mind.)

Unfortunately she came online about a minute before I was expecting a call for a telephone interview for a job, so I had to tell her that I would have to chip at short notice. Obviously she flounced off, but no surprise there.

She hasn't returned either of my texts this evening, so I guess I'm still in the dog house. :)

The telephone interview went well, and there has been plenty of progress on the whole buying a home front.

After that I popped out and bought what I think is the last of the Christmas prezzies.

Also I had a quick conversation with J, about her glasses, she was having headaches a few weeks ago, and I told her to get her eyes tested. She couldn't afford the test never mind the glasses, so I said I'd get them for her Christmas prezzie. I'm pretty sure I have bought for everyone now! (Thank the little baby Jesus!)

Now all I need to do, is get my flat tidied for the arrival of the landlady and another surveyor tomorrow.

If only I could stop yawning. I need my bed, maybe I'll get up early and tidy the house then... :)

I'm feeling good

I've been to the doc this morning, my mental health is looking fine, so all is well in that regard.

I've been entertained today by the insanity that is crazy chick.

And I'm considered dateable material for three women and friendship material for another three, all the results are not in yet, but I'm happy with what I got!

I've sent an e-mail out the one of them, hopefully we can meet up tomorrow night, or early next week as I'm busy all the rest of this week.

One of the other ones was completely gorgeous (as in model gorgeous), so much so that I just relaxed and was completely blaseé about the whole thing, reasoning that I didn't have a cat in hell's chance! I could come up with some great reasons why she ticked me for a date, all of which being bad for my self-esteem, so I'm just going to read it at face value, and go with it, I'll send her an email, and see where we get...

As for the entertainment with crazy chick, what's with that I hear you cry! Well, she asked me if I was going to be available for Wednesday night, and I mistakenly said yes.

She then said that she wanted me to make good on my promise. This would the flowers making their way into the world of weirdness again! I just didn't bother responding to that hint.

Later in the day I realised that I couldn't make it, in fact I'm going to a Christmas meal with some old work colleagues and J (from the same crowd, and who lives out of town) will be staying at my place too. I could cancel the meal, but it wouldn't be nice to cancel on J, and frankly I'm mercenary at the best of times, but not with friends, never with friends, and certainly not over someone who has been dicking me about for some time.

So I sent crazy chick (S) a text saying, "You're going to be pissed off, but can't make Wed, got something planned and someone visiting overnight".

I got a message back a couple of minutes later, "Is OK, no problem", followed by another one saying that she had booked us a table at a swanky restaurant and a room at an expensive hotel.

Now, I have noticed that S is only interested when, I am distant, as soon as I bend my will to meet her needs she loses interest. I guess I can see her point, if she wants a strong man to take care of her.... On the other hand she could just be a mentalist.

Anyway, theorising, that she was once more placing me in a test, "Who is more important, your friends and the friend you are having to stay, or me and a nice meal followed by a shag", I decided to test my theory.... I sent her a text saying, "Hang fire for a moment, let me see if I can rearrange my Wednesday...".

I'm pretty sure my theory was correct, and here's why, I received four (yes four) text messages in the next ten (yes ten) minutes:

• "Don't bother, I just wanted to put things right as you are keeping your promise(*), maybe next week"
• "I've cancelled the table and the hotel"
• "before I see you, you have to keep your word(*)"
• "No answer, forget it then"

* Reference to "The Flowers".

Now granted, I did suggest we keep to our original plan to just meet up on Sunday between messages two and three (although I started writing is before message one was received!). But I would like to point out that the delay between messages three and four was a whole two minutes.

My theory holds true, every time I bend to her whim, she gets uppity and freaks out.

Earlier this evening we had a chat by IM, she now claims to have lost a court case because of interference by her ex, and she wanted to rope me into her plans for revenge. Further testing my theory on her need for me to not bend in the slightest, I didn't bend, I just said, "No, its wrong and I don't want to do it". Oddly enough I got an "OK".

Why on Earth she wants to get revenge now, I have no idea, it would be obvious who was responsible so shortly after the court case (if it ever happened, don't forget she is a drama queen, and may be making all of this up). As it is frequently said, "Revenge is a dish best served cold", and in this case it will stop the plod knocking on your door the next morning.

After that, she said that she wanted to watch a film on Sunday, but didn't have a DVD player (which I took as a hint to buy her one), so I suggested she come round and we watch a film here (rather than buy her one).

So we are all back on, question is, do I send her the flowers, after last time she collected them, and then denied it. On the one hand, I may get a shag from someone who is sexy as hell who just needs a firm hand on the relationship's tiller, on the other hand it may be just more good money going after bad money.

See, I told you I could be mercenary!

Entered my ticks

Right then the e-mail has come and I've entered my speed dating ticks into the web site.

What with having very little sleep in the last week, I've spent most of the day sat on my backside making a mess of my home and carrying on like a slob.

Thinking about it, that is what I have been doing all week... Lucky think I didn't take Kathryn home last night, she'd have thought I was an un-house-trained-pig! :)

I have also eaten mostly raisin bread today too.

Christmas cake and speed dating...

Whew, what a day yesterday was!

I got up nice an early (after a hearty four hours sleep, eek!) and headed down to P's place, then the pair of us headed out to Borough Market and we did some of the Christmas food shopping... Yum!

I bought a huge Christmas cake and a massive Christmas pudding too! Then I realised that because of the alcohol, nuts and raisins, its just going to be me, ma and pa eating them! Wooooooooo Hoooooooo! I'm going to be weighing 20 stone by the end of the year! :)

Later I headed down to the West End, to meet D for a spot of Speed Dating. It is so long since I had that much fun!

D suggested it on Thursday night when we were down the pub, he gets really nervous around women, which is a bit weird as he does the same kind of work as me, and has to attend a lot of interviews. The way I see it the two things are not too dissimilar, your basically selling yourself to someone, and seeing in return what they have to offer to you, right?

We had a couple of drinks to calm down D's nerves (although, I must admit I was a tiny bit nervous about the whole thing too).

We signed in and we each moved to the assigned table to start our first date. I got a really great lady called Nicole, we were both speed dating virgins, so I suggested we go easy on each other! That got a laugh, and from then on it was easy. Then the bell rang, and we were told to start out first date. :) So Nicole and I got to have two speed dates... Do I expect sex the third time we meet? (Ha ha, I'm so funny!)

I was really worried that I was going to meet some really scary people there, and to be honest I did, but luckily they were blokes, thus reducing the competition! Heh.

In the end we had 24 dates all in all, and of those, only three people I would never want to see again, the rest I'd love to go on a date with or become friends with.

After the final date, you get to get up and mill about and chat if you want to. At this point a few of us got together and headed off to the Atlantic Bar, plenty of dancing ensued. It is years since I have been clubbing (apart from one isolated incident last year that is).

I spent most of the evening with a lovely lady called Kathryn (who happened to be my final date), doing some close up dancing and a bit of smooching. A couple of times she had to go and sit down, I think she was a little drunk, and then eventually her mate stepped in and took her home. I was so inebriated that I forgot to get her number, so I really hope she ticks me online, and we get to meet up again.

After that I was so high on life, I decided to walk home, (about 4.6m miles according to the RAC route planner) so I got in at about 3AM. I was utterly frazzled and went straight to my pit.

Then I was woken up by the gas man, come to fix my boiler at 9AM on the dot this morning. Bugger! Forgot about that appointment.

All the women are starting to mix in my head now, I can barely remember a distinct one already. And my notes (somewhat illegible at the best of time, but not helped by alcohol consumption) are worse than useless, what the hell does "Catsuit, Wig" or "Chips" mean anyway?

Having said that, I've done my ticking, and we'll see where we get. It makes more sense to go with gut instinct, which is what my ticks are, than trying to remember memories obscured by Ethanol. That's what the whole point of the three minutes is about right? Using gut instinct to determine a match...