When sorting it out feels like getting dumped

Ever found yourself in a situation where it suddenly occurs to you that you have made someone else feel incredibly uncomfortable? And then trying to work out how you did it, in the hope of undoing it?

Like when you accidentally told your boss that you love your job, despite that time you tried to trap their head in the filing cabinet, and the awful, metallic croaking sound you made when you tried to laugh it off and make out you were just joking; or the time you were invited to a 'party' only to find that you were the only one who mysteriously had not arrived dressed as a Nazi, and the way they all looked at you, each one of them silent; or when you suddenly realized that you had been singing along to your walkman on the train; or wetting the bed the first time you slept with someone new.

Is it because you have said too much, or is it because you have not said enough? Could be either. Could be due to the fact that you were caught attempting to fake your own death, or caught in your neighbor's garage, dressed as the guy from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, At least with these things you know where you went wrong. Could be because no one can avoid talking about these things indefinitely.

And by these things, of course, I mean those moments when you realize you cannot keep kidding yourselves that you are 'just good friends', that there's something more to it than that [it's kind of like you've had a child, and the child's been around all this time, but you've both been pretending it's not there. The child is now a toddler. Maybe it's even left home and is studying Archeology or Sports Science at University somewhere, perhaps you get the odd postcard, but he or she won't be calling because they know you won't be able to detect the sound of their voice.]

Skirting around the perimiter of the truth, you test the water with an elbow of 'whatever's good for you' or 'I thought we weren't going to discuss this'. Because I've always been one for going with the flow, seeing how things develop. I'm not a big fan of attempting to persuadethe muscles that control my face to come to an agreement over a smile when all they want to do is look totally baffled, maybe a little bruised?

So you smile and agree - despite the fact that you have no idea on what you have agreed, and the fact that having sorted it all out and got it in the open leaves you feeling more confused than before.

I'm a product of my environment: I'm not very direct and I'm told it's a common Staffordshire trait. we beat about the bush, we allude, we speak in the language of farm-hands, miners and lumberjacks. Hints boardering on the metaphysical.

But agreeing that you'll both make efforts to behave, and not do anything that doesn't fit into the neat little 'just friends' package [so that means no sharing a bed, holding one another for twelve continuous hours, no subliminally flirtatious txt's], also comes with its own pitfalls: because it feels like you've been dumped anyway. Either way it feels like you've been in some kind of slow-motion car accident. Not that I don't enjoy the complexities of this kind of thing, but you see why I enjoy being single.

I'd like to have some kind of expertly crafted mask of my face made, complete with patches of dry skin, blotches, grey bits, scars, intermittent stubble, glassy eyes that I don't have to look out of, and life-like bags beneath them. And when their attentions are all turned, I can slip it on, emphasize that nothing funny is going on by cross my legs, tap my foot in the air, admiring the view with my fake Madame Tussaud's eyes, and keeping my molded mouth firmly shut.

Everything changes. You can never take anything for granted - as soon as you do it is gone: it's some kind of fundamental rule of perception and reality.

They say matter needs to be perceived to maintain form: I always agreed with the idea that familiarity renders things invisible. Maybe it's the same with information, with emotional states; you start ignoring the details, things disappear. Now all I have to do is pretend to be adult about it.

Rollo Kim

Asteroid buzzes Earth from "Blind Spot"

"The second largest asteroid ever seen zipping by our planet was not
seen until after it had passed."

From New Scientist.


"Would ET have been a better film if the alien was a grey? We'll never know. But an interesting result of the film featuring a pudgy “whatever-it-is” ET rather than a grey is that the film countered the skeptics' lie that the visualization of aliens is dependent upon how aliens have been depicted in the media. Despite millions of tickets sold, no one has ever seen an alien that looks like ET (or like the nasties in Independence Day, for that matter). No, primarily, people see Greys, beings which were depicted in the film Close Encounters, which based the beings on real-life descriptions recorded by J. Allen Hynek in the first few decades of the abduction project."
Will.

And in the great scheme of things, we are all too busy to admire the view. And joy, they say, is not joy unless it is shared.

Rollo Kim

You've Been Shamed

Coming soon to Sky Digital: Britney Spears: the early years. 'Smallville' style soap in which Speasrs stars as herself on a voyage of discovery as she uncovers one super-power after another. Episode 1: Britney hurts the blind with her super-smile.

You've Been Shamed Parents publicly 'out' their kids as bed-wetters, just for laughs: amateur video footage of kids utterly humiliated by their parents and guardians as the light comes on and they are suddenly snatched from their beds for the close-up of the wet-patch.

Portrait of a Celiac: 'hilarious' footage of food-based allergy sufferers as the 'You've Been Shamed' crew spike their hypoallergenic breakfasts with all manner of gluten-based food-stuffs: much cramping and lethargy based fun from the writers of 'Your Dad is one of the Undead' and the award-winning CBBC epic: 'We're coming to get you as soon as the light's are out, you little bastard."

Rollo 'The Rat' Kim

FREE CALENDAR OF ALL YOUR FAVOURITE BABES

So, sandwich packer turned light entertainer Britney Spears, 38, is to host his own prime-time Satruday night TV chat show "Why would anybody want to touch a kid's bike?" In which he discusses a plethora of fictional sexual turn-ons in a hopelessly indifferent delivery that would put Posh Spite to shame. Vacuous fun.

MORE MISANTHROPIC SLEAZE THINLY DISGUISED AS NEWS

What is the world coming too? Saturday night TV sums it all up: we have problems.

1997: Jim Davidson: caught on camera swimming in a pool of his own piss.

1996: Bob Monkhouse: photographed by tourists attempting to tunnel his way into a pregnant lady's mattress.

1998: Robbie Williams: paid thousands of dollars to watch beautiful women swallow one another's hand bags.

1997: Mick Jagger claims spooning out bum keeps him young looking and spritely. Why can't he just go to the toilet like the rest of us?

1998: Ginger Spice: entire weeks spent wanking made her thin and sickly.

1999: Shane Richie: squeezing a dogs arse for kicks. On live TV. And it was supposed to be a kids program.

2001: Cliff Richard: staring out at the world through 'Robbie Williams' skin made him feel 'just like Jesus.'

2002: Hugh Grant: arrested following his attempt to sexualy assaulting the contents of a news stand.

HOW DO THEY AWAY WITH IT?

In other news, child prodigy Bernhard Manning was arrested yesterday for publicly sodomising a woman's hand bag. Manning, 78, I mean look at him: the misanthropic bastard is rumored to have not taken a bath or even a fucking shower in over 35 years! 35 years. For fuck's sake.

Manning was also issued with a court order to remove the gas-powered burning cross that he has had blazing away on the front lawn of his council flat for the past 7 years. It's just not fucking on is it?


MIRACLE OF THE MUNCH MONSTER

Coming soon to Sky Digital: TELEVISED WANKATHON : BLUE PETERS : CANDID DEATH FACTORY CAMERA : DJ PETER SUTCLIFFE : YOU'VE BEEN KILLED : CELEBRITY LUNG SPONSORSHIP : FAMILY MISFORTUNES : ELTON JOHN : POP STARS PLUCKED FROM THE BRINK OF ANOREXIA NERVOSA : AND FAR TOO MUCH MUCH MORE.

Rollo 'The Rat' Kim