Seen on the two hour journey back from a meeting this evening in traffic jams:

One woman removing facial hair with tweezers

A couple having a blazing row - two hands off the steering wheel and on head several times

One man reading a newspaper across the steering wheel and talking into a mobile lodged between shoulder and ear

More people using mobiles that weren’t hands free than I could keep up with

A lot of people smoking - which is something I can’t do when driving and am in awe of

One woman eating a banana

Two men in a builders van roaring with laughter - presumably at her nibbling (there was gesticulating)

A couple with the woman driving and him asleep in the passenger seat.  She didn’t look happy

and other assorted nonsense.

I was the woman - with MP3 on random play - singing along very loudly.  In other words, the one you thought was a nutter…

I don’t know who you are.  I don’t know where you are.  I don’t know when you are reading this.

If, however, you are reading this on the evening of the 13th October and you are in the UK (or surrounding areas) just look up at the moon.  It is beautiful….

I think I’m turning into a man.  No, seriously, despite the outward trappings of womanhood - and today a very uncomfortable bra - it’s occurred to me that I might have crossed the line.  Drinking Newcastle Brown whilst watching the football is one thing.  Being completely obsessed by sex - or the lack of it - is another entirely.

I remember being told that men think about sex every 7 seconds.  Now, that statistic may have been debunked as a glossy magazine headline - it being unusual for anyone to really tell a researcher the whole truth in a situation like that - but from discussions with my male friends and female friends, I still believe that they think about sex more - and that I’m becoming more like them. Next time you’re out and about - enjoying a coffee or a beer - look around.  Women may watch the people wandering by - in groups they may even comment about their fitness - but they don’t openly calculate in the same way that men do.  If they’re alone, they may play the people watching game* - but this isn’t overtly sexual, more fantasy lifestyle.  A man, sitting alone, reading a paper, enjoying a pint, on the other hand, will be looking.  Married, attached, single, regardless, they are always looking for who is around and any potential that’s on offer.  This isn’t meant to suggest anything negative, it’s just a difference between the species in my very humble opinion.

Now, 18 months ago, I was more female than male in the way I looked at people - if we take for one minute that what I’ve said in the previous paragraph is correct.  With female friends I would indulge in a spot of idle chatter about that “fit lad” who just walked past.  Even with the boys, I could go - to a certain point - with the “wow - she’s hot” banter, but there was a point after which, even though I could hide it quite well, inwardly I would find it uncomfortable.  Now, my point of reference is wandering so far from where it was that I’m sure I’m growing balls and secretly playing with them every 15 seconds (or, truthfully, pretending to secretly play, but being so overt about it that a sign should be displayed saying “Yes, I’ve got a big one, so big in fact, that I can’t contain it in my shorts..”).

I think about sex on my drive to work (and the drive back home).  There is a particular reason for this, connected to my crush - given I very often drive past him or am on the look out for him, but that’s twice, nonetheless.  In work I’m OK, unless someone new arrives.  Then I’m immediately sizing.  It’s not good.  Luckily, very few people who I even think are superficially attractive - personality-wise - ever enter the office, which is a good thing!  If I do get to go out - and that’s not often - I’m scouting from the get go.  Even in my horrific state at the end of the night the other week, I was still looking.  No-one was looking back, needless to say, but it didn’t stop me.

Whilst I was dancing at the now infamous Smiffs gig, there was the cutest lad bouncing around somewhere close to me.  Close to me, in this sense meaning that, every now and then, we brushed hands as they waved around wildly.  The first time he did the sorry look and shrug - to which I respond with the “don’t be daft” smile.  After that it felt somewhat more comfortable.  But how I moved it on from that to actually dancing with him, I had no idea - and certainly couldn’t work it out whilst drunk and trying to keep up with the wild abandon around me.  He was tall, slim, with just the merest hint of a quiff.  Perfect in my eyes.  By the end of the dancing, he was talking to a woman at the edge of the dance floor.  Possibly his girlfriend, possibly someone with a more advanced ability to hook the man.  I was drunkety-drunk at this point and completely unable to think in any logical terms.  This is probably where my subdued feminine side moved back in - and whilst I had been thinking that to take him home would be quite the plan whilst we danced around, it made me walk away in the end.
So, I’m turning into a boy when sober and an ineffectual woman when drunk.  Marvellous, just what I need.  And, if emphasis was in any way needed, I’ve been talking about renovating a loft and using terminology around spirit levels, plum lines and plasterboard for the last 30 minutes.  Bloody perfect!
* - Am I the only person that remembers Watching - ITV “comedy” with Liza Tarbuck?  God, it was awful, wasn’t it?