Giving out my love indescriminately like some kind of Martine McCutcheon

I fell in love on Friday night with a ginger, bearded barman (who shall henceforth be known as 'G.B.B'). I know it's true love for the following reasons:
a) He looked really good in a pair of Speedo's (please note: we did all go to a so-called 'beach party' at the Union, he wasn't just attention seeking) (he may have been a little attention seeking. Speedo's after 10pm for whatever reason is quite a bold fashion statement)
b) He has a beard.

I've spent the last two days on campus seeing if I could spot him anywhere to no avail. I have managed to find six different bearded ginger men but not MY ginger bearded barman. Of course, I *could* have seen him and just forgotten what he looks like exactly. You've seen the pictures of our pre-Beach party larks right? Well then, you know what state I was in (allowing for photographic proof of me Singstar-ing = bad news).

It's my birthday next Monday. No, no. Don't worry about getting me those Sabrina the Teenage Witch magnets. I got those for Christmas, remember? I havent had the birthday blues too bad, unlike... well pretty much every year since I was old enough to remember (there must be some real Freudian shit connected to that cos for one week prior and two weeks apres I get really glum; you could set your watch by it. DISCLAIMER: For practical purposes I would suggest setting your watch by the talking clock or teletext instead). I did have a gripping panic on Friday realising I am now SIX YEARS OLDER than most of the Freshers. Not helped by the fact that a very baby-faced young man started a conversation with me at the bar that night about how he'd been dumped the day before because his girlfriend couldn't have a long-distance relationship (I think that's what he said... to be fair I was a bit distracted by G.B.B. at the time). 'Well everyone has to have their heart broken at LEAST once', I said patronisingly 'I did for the first time when I was 19 and I'm all the better for it'

'You're 19 now?' he said hopefully.

'No... I'm 24 in a week'

'Ooh! Older woman!'

Which would have been flattering I guess if my brain hadn't started flashing up signs that read 'YOU NONCE!' in 20 foot high neon lettering. Plus, I'm pretty sure it wasn't just that they were at different universities... coming into contact with so many men in Freshers Week must have made her realise once and for all that her 'man' was a tad 'waggish' (read: closet homosexual).

But anyway, because I always have a rubbish birthday I've decided to have a birthday week. That way if one day of celebration is pants then I can always just pretend that I was really celebrating my birthday on Day X instead thereby removing the pressure to have a good time on a particular day.

Here's the basic outline of the plan so far:

Friday 29th September - Going to see 'The Smyths'. A Smiths tribute band (funnily enough). If they are anything like all the other tribute bands I've been to over the years (Kes and I got slightly addicted at one point) then they'll be 'kack but funny' (in the words of the lady herself). I am eager to see if they'll beat the Tina Turner tribute I once saw. She set the bar by which all other tribute acts are judged.

Saturday 30th September - Posh meal with folks and grand-folks. Not expecting anything too rowdy that night (but with Papa Mikey there anything is possible).

Sunday 1st October - Get the folks to drive me back to The Ford (after buying me my food shopping for the week. It's only fair after gracing them with my presence for a couple of days that they should return the favour with edible delights... She said only half ironically) and then watch movies all afternoon (on the list of must-sees is 'Grey Gardens' and 'Office Space' - any other suggestions you have are always welcome). Only eat microwave popcorn and rice pudding.

Monday 2nd October - D-DAY. 'Quiet' meal with housemates as I have a 9am lecture on Tuesday's.

Tuesday 3rd October - See how many episodes I can get through of 21 Jump Street in one go. (Tagline = 'Too cool for school' = exclamation point times infinity)

Wednesday 4th October - Go to Tate Modern for an hour or two and then enjoy an afternoon filled with strawberry milkshakes and mutual dissing with me mate Carlos (that's not a euphamism).

Thursday 5th October - The Brother visiting? Maybe perhaps. We'll see.

Friday 6th October - Collecting my group of ragamuffin pals together and forcing them into the 80's disco night at the Camden Underworld where they will be required by (Sazz) Law to dance until their feet fall off (hopefully not literally. That'd make me be sick in my mouth). Getting train home at 5am. Collapsing in heap. Not emerging till Sunday afternoon for milk and a paper from the Shell Garage.

So that's birthday week sorted. Knowing me something will go horribly wrong by virtue of me planning this whole thing in advance.

P.S. Blog title stolen borrowed from Adam Buxton's piss take affectionate remake of the Dog's Trust adverts (go to April 27th entry). You must watch it. I guarentee you will lol. Lol to your hearts content.

Confessional

I live with four other girls in my uni house. This would normally be my own personal vision of hell (for the reasons why please refer to the latest series of Britain's Next Top Model and watch a social experiment that provides the precise reasons as to why girls should never live in too close quarters to one another, i.e. girls are evil*) but actually I'm quite enjoying it. It's nice living somewhere where people clean up after themselves, where there are slightly fancy nik-naks dotted around to make the scummy hole of a house in which we live a slightly more pleasant experience, where you can put Sabrina the teenage Witch magnets on your fridge without fear of retribution.

The only thing is - the bathroom. More specifically the shower in the bathroom. As you can imagine, five girls in a house means the shower is pretty much in constant use (rotational not all-at-once-ical) and this means the shower curtain is always pulled across. Everytime I go to the toilet I'm frightened that someone is hiding behind there and then when I'm all in place and settled they'll jump out at the critical moment. It started out as a 'I wonder if someone would ever do that...' and has now turned into a mild phobia. My heartrate has actually started quickening everytime I go in there and I have to stop myself from pulling back the curtain before 'getting down to business'.

This irational fear has a basis (not just that I'm a paranoid freakazoid. That is only part of it) - living with boys. In my second year I lived with two boys. They went through a stage of terrorising me . I would wake up, pull back my curtains, and find that someone had pasted a life-sized picture of Shaggy's (the singer not the Scooby-Doo-er) face on my window. I would go to open my bedroom door and find 'REDRUM' written on it crudely with a flour-and-water paste ('well we didn't have any chalk and that seemed the second obvious choice'). Anytime I was listening to music and in my own little world someone would creep up behind me and scare the shit out of me (to be fair, Chloe still does this now). They even broke the head off my Virgin Mary statue because I was 'a slut' (alledgedly this was all an accident but I think they tried to infer that God had made them do it because of my slutty ways). This makes it sound like they bullied me. It wasn't like that at all. It's just boys innit? But it's obviously had a profound effect.

Anyway, all this is basically a way of letting you know that I'm scared of going to the toilet.



* Note the use of the plural 'girls'. Only in groups do females really start to exhibit their predispositon of working for the forces of evil. We hate on other females for being prettier or thinner than us. We immediately hate any female that has presently, or even in the past, caught the eye of the man we desire. If a man cheats on us then nine times out of ten it is THE PERSON HE CHEATED WITH that we despise and not THE MAN HIMSELF. This is one fucked up mind-set. Always pitting ourselves in competition with the other females in the (metaphorial) room. If we all spent less time worrying about whether that chicks hair is shinier than ours then Hilary would be president and we wouldn't all be hurtlingly head first to the inevitable demise that George Bush Jr has in store for the planet.**

**I don't want you to think I hate womankind. Far from it. I just hate the way we hate each other. I have consciously opted out of doing this now and think I'm much happier for it. /End of Woman's Studies Rant/

Welcome to the dollhouse

I've come round to the idea of freshers again. I think we can blame my little diatribe tother day on hormones (we can also maybe perhaps attribute today's entry on hormones too as you will see...). Walking home from my first lecture today I fell in love with at least 17 different individuals. Not that I, you know, fall in love really easily or am fickle or anything. God no. Although I am starting to suspect that I am easily pleased whee the mens are concerned after going to a club with my housemate Marianna the other day.

Me: How many men took your fancy?

Marianna: 2. You?

Me: Um.. 8.

I've found myself being in an unnaturally good mood recently. I'm pretty sure it's just because the light in this house is really bad so when I look in the mirror I'm approx. 27% more attractive than in real life.

I decorated my pink converse in red permanant marker today. Is this the first step on the slippery road to emos-ville?

Freshers a-go-go

Firstly, I have to admit that I am very attracted to Steve Carell's character in Little Miss Sunshine. He's suicidely depressed and gay. I think that says more about who I am than any questionnaire ever will. Even one that asks about your Oreo consumption.

It's fresher's week. They are everywhere. All clutching dog eared maps (how do maps always get so mangled after only holding them for five minutes. Maybe it's just the ones that I am given to 'look after' as I end up picking my teeth and/or nails with the corners and not folding them properly and managing to drop any food or liquid that happens to come within a 2 metre radius onto them. Helpful Hint of the Day #1: Don't ever let me hold any important pieces of paper)... but anyway, when I think of maps I think of smudged, torn, crumpled pieces of paper. The maps the freshers are holding might not be in that state - it's difficult to tell as you are walking past as quickly as possible hoping, wishing, praying no-one asks you directions - but that's what I see in my mind's eye.

Where was I? Oh yes, freshers... they also all look like they just fell out of the best/worst dressed pages of Heat (ankle boots are not everyones friend) as Surrey Uni has a higher than normal count of females. And of those females it has a higher than normal count of females that look like they could be extras in Hollyoaks. Every guy on my course managed to 'trade up' quite considerably due to this interesting ratio. Helpful Hint of the Day #2: Dudes, if you want to get laid by a Chantelle-a-like then head on down to the University of Surrey campus - where the girls are skinny, blonde and probably not all that bright! (Why this line isn't included in the University brochure I have no idea).

I can, for the most part, float through the campus without all these shrieking, happy, overly coiffed 18-year-olds causing me too much grief or reawkening too many body issues but I fear they will be inflitrating all the places where the coffee is and possibly impeding my attempts to buy the coffee from the coffee places. It is only then that I start to really freak out and curse them all to hell.

Elsewhere I have noticed that there seems to be more and more sweater vests appearing on the hip young man-things of late. I guess the sweater vest does offer the best for this sort of weather; humid yet with rain threatening to hit any second. It makes me feel like I'm walking around a John Hughes movie set. Now I just have to find someone that looks and acts exactly like Jon Cryer and I'll be pretty much set for life.

I do as I'm told

I am under instruction from the ever lovely Xine to complete this bad boy...

WHAT IS YOUR NAME?
Ms Sarah Jayne Mulholland

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
Sarah Jayne (when I'm in trouble with me mum)
Sazz
Lady

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE:
Lady Sazz
Sazzamatazz
I was what Willis was talkin' 'bout

THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
Sassiness
The ability to make people laugh (more often 'at' than 'with' but it still counts)
My wardrobe (or more specifically, the clothes there in)

THREE THINGS YOU HATE/DISLIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
My very English teeth
My procrastination skills
The fact that I overthink EVERY LITTLE THING

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
English
Irish
Foolish

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
Oompa Loompas
Ghosts (or just that feeling when you're the last person up at night and you get this weird sense like there's someone watching you. This may or may not be ghosts. Everyone gets that feeling right? Shit. I've got a ghost stalker)
Pigeons

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
Laptop access
Sleep
Teabags

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
Lou Reed t-shirt
Bottle green jumper
Denim skirt

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS:
The White Stripes
The Pixies
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS:
Writing a sitcom
Finishing a degree
Stalking Zach Braff

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A LOVE RELATIONSHIP:
Someone that laughs at my jokes
Someone I can be honest with
Someone who is Zach Braff

TWO LIES AND A TRUTH.. GUESS THE LIES:
I enjoy puns
I can tap dance
In 1987, I released an album that charted briefly

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX:
Twinkly eyes
Totally supercute smile
Someone who's either a little chubby or a bit of a skinny beanpole

THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO:
Cut onions in a satisfactory way
Touch dead things or anything that has touched a dead thing
Sit in a room full of Jim Davidson fans. Or sit in a room full of Jim Davidson for that matter (I'm not sure what that means either)

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
Reading
Being sassy
Making things pretty/making pretty things (eithor/or)

WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
Sleep. It's only 20 past midnight on a Friday. The older I get the more rock and roll I get.

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING:
Sitcom writer
Forensic psychologist
International spy

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
Mexico
Budapest
Montreal

THREE KID'S NAMES:
Nina
Ella
Rufus

THREE TRUE LOVES:
Gael Garcia Bernal
Zach Braff
Stewart Lee

THREE FAVORITE ANIMALS:
Dogs
Guinnea Pigs
Penguins

THREE REASONS WHY YOU’RE DOING THIS:
I have literally nothing better to do with my time
I started it yesterday and by gum, I'm going to finish this if it's the last thing I do
It's a good way to pass the time while I wait for my load of laundry to finish

THREE PEOPLE WHO HAVE TO TAKE THIS QUIZ:
Nic
The General
You

That's how I roll

I've had the Sanford and Son theme song in my head for near on 43 hours now. All thanks to this.

I don't think I've helped the situation by making it my new ringtone.

Because I know this has been bothering a lot of you for quite a while now here is a list of reasons why I could never become Quincy:
- I get squeamish at the words 'seeping' and 'moist' (even typing them out and then re-reading that makes me feel physically sick).
- I can't touch dead things (this includes daddy-long-legs and moths that have perished on my hallway carpet).
- Living on a boat would mean I would be sick approximately seven times a day (even though his boat was anchored in a harbour just looking at a boat makes me queasy).
- If people didn't believe my theories for that particular week... I mean, for a particular 'case'... then I would have to bring up the fact that I was right EVERY OTHER SINGLE TIME BEFORE. Why didn't Quince ever mention that: 'Look, I know it's a bit out there to suggest X/Y/Z but seriously, dudes, have I ever been wrong about this shit? Let's stop playing silly buggers here just accept that whatever I say is fact and let me get back to banging whatever hot mamma I've currently got on the go'. I'm sure that's all it would have taken.

It's a fairly short list but unfortunately it was comprehensive enough to stop me from pursuing my childhood ambitions. I think, if we are being sensible, then mostly it's the second bullet point that is the biggest hindrance to becoming a pathologist/medical examiner.

Luckily I have found my new calling in life: Finding a well-paid job that involves having to play Sing Star all day. You might suggest living life on the road and making money from Karaoke competitions ala 'Duets' (yes, of course I saw that movie. It had Huey Lewis in it) but I can't actually 'sing' per se, I just seem to be quite good at keeping in time and in pitch (which is all that counts in Sing Star). Hmm, this might require some more thought.

Ah

I think my next door neighbour has seen me naked. I saw him out of the kitchen window and he smiled the 'I've seen your boobs' smile.

Which geek are you?

Which geek are you?

Seriously? I'd like to think of myself as the chic geek but I have a feeling I'm more hobby geek as I get ridiculously excited about things that I'm passionate about. Although I'm a bit fickle so never obsessed by the same thing for long... Chic geek it is then.

I'm on IMDB. Just worked in the costume department on those two movies when I was 14 and 16 respectively and then decided never to work in the film industry again. Once you've worked alongside Elizabeth Berkely (of Saved By The Bell 'fame') then there's really nothing else left to achieve.

I learnt last night that I'm fairly adept at this 'rock' dancing that all the kids seem to be into these days. However, I could only keep it up for about 10 minutes at a time before my pure indie magma blood started to boil and my neck hurts this morning. Indie clubs are much more civilised affairs, if I ever wake up with mysterious aches or pains or bruises (no, that's not the name of an experimental dance troupe) then it's only self-inflicted in as much as I've had one too many shandies and managed inadvertantly fall over (that often happens whilst sober too)/bump into a lampost (that often happens whilst sober too)/worn the wrong shoes(that often hapens whilst sober too) but not because my dancing moves were constructed to leave me crippled the day after (the robot rarely causes harm to one's self nor those around one).

Thanks to a story Chloe's friend Matt told yesterday I now have the title of my eighth studio album: 'I Looked Out My Window Today and Saw An Old Woman In The Garden'. A little wordy perhaps but try telling me it's not catchy (you can't can you? My science is too tight).

A pocket full of post-its

Things I will miss now I'm back to The Ford:

TV: It's my car, my rules. That means no kissing the driver.

Me: We should have implemented that rule on our road trip.

Charlotte: But then we wouldn't have had nearly as much fun.

Ahh faux-lesbian humour, you really can't be beat (although on reflection we might be getting a step nearer to establishing why her boyfriend hates my guts. I also left town with a pocket full of post-its thanks to that lil lady. She knows her to treat a girl that one.

Me: Guess what I got from Brighton?

Brother: Syphallis?

That kind of wacky banter is what makes my brother the legend he is.

Kes: Do you think Prince has a big cock?

Me: I really don't know

Kes: Well find out and report back. I'm curious.

Oh Farr. Her philosophical queries keep me entertained no end.

How you know a Sazz has moved into your house:

• Ikea rugs mysteriously turn up in places where there had been no Ikea rugs there before
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch magnets are used to decorate your fridge
• You have someone who lives in their own world to sneak up on and scare the living crap out of

Being back at university was cool. I sat in the second row for both my lectures today as I didn't want to appear *too* geeky. Not on the first day.

Uni Crush Count (thus far): 2 (liable to increase exponentially as the term goes on)
- A guy who came up to me and mistook me for someone else. When asked 'Are you Sally?' I wish I had said 'I can be' rather than just saying 'No'
- One of my lecturers. I don't get him (as it were) till the second semester. He dresses like Jeremy Clarkson. I think it might be love this time.

I'm very upset about Steve Irwin. The man was awesome and very very weird. At least he died doing what he loved and getting stabbed through the heart by a stringray is probably one of the coolest deaths on record.