A message from the inside

Hello! Jen's immune system here. She thought she'd got away with it; burning the candle at both ends, caning it until dawn, stressing herself out and riding the emotional wave for over a month during her little project. She thought all she'd come home with was a vague weariness and a damaged ankle (beer-related injury).

Ha! That's what she thought....but I thought I'd make her pay for putting me through my paces. Teach her a lesson! So I let through a virus which incubates (contagiously, I might add) for roughly three weeks before bursting forth - literally, with an itchy pile of blistering spots.

Yep, I got her chicken pox. Mwahahahahahaha.

I apologise to anyone with a suppressed immune system who's been in contact with (or even in the same room as) Jen during the last 3 weeks or so; it's nothing personal, you're just unlucky. Watch out for blisters around the hairline or on the stomach.

Gotta go; the paracetamol's wearing off, so it's about time I pumped up her temperature and set her gangsta trippin' again.

I'm bringing sexy snacks

Justin Timberlake's latest video....hmmmm.....possibly the least sexy thing I've seen in quite some time (that was intended to be sexy, anyway). It's full of....well, sex. Justin himself and some bird, as well as flashes of all manner of different gender/number combinations (in different cubicles in the cleanest club toilets I've ever seen). There's a shot of Justin in a bed scenario leaning over the camera/bird, which I guess is supposed to get girls imagining he's leaning over them in bed and get them all excited, but in fact the first thought that springs to mind is, 'Isn't he quite ordinary looking? I'd be disappointed, to be honest'. Sex sex sex sex sex sex sex. That's all the video is.

But they forget one important thing:

Sex just ain't sexy.

The track's called Sexyback. Sexy is suggestion, not showing it. That's a bad miss, Mr Timberlake.

(/end role as pop culture commentator)

Bipolar bear

When I first mentioned becoming a comedian, many people gave me a shifty sideways look. Aren’t all comedians a bit….well….tragic? So many are manic depressives, or just depressives – tears of a clown and all that. Don’t worry about me, I chuckled, I’m sure I can cope. I’m in pretty stable shape at the moment, and I can cope with it. See! I’ve even lowered my expectations right down to basement level, to avoid excessive disappointment! So I’ll be fine. In fact, I’ll prove to you that not all comics are bipolar…

Now I’ve developed a theory. It’s not that manic depressives are drawn to comedy. It’s that comedy makes you manic depressive. I’ve only done it for, what, a little over a month, and I’m already having mood shifts worse than any I had as a hormonal teenager. Not that I’m at the ending-it-all end of the scale too much, but yesterday morning everything was annoying me. I was becoming a dead eyed maniac who wanted to destroy idiots who filled in a form for their child Jordan without ticking one of the gender boxes, or who called their child Shantel or Jaine or, horror of horrors, Jaden (what is that name?), or who called their female offspring Levi (IT’S A BOY’S NAME and I hate the fact that you’re making me into a SHOUTING gender fascist but you should get a FUCKING EDUCATION you IGNORAMUS). Spelling errors and jokes about Steve Irwin were making me develop a very nasty twitch, like you see on psychopaths about to flip in movies. You wouldn’t like me when I’m that angry – and angry for no good reason.

Then I went outside. The sun was shining. I got a sizzling chicken tikka wrap thing from a nice lady in a van, and I played with my new gadget, and ate an ice cream. Then the Hulk became Fotherington Thomas. Hullo sky, hullo trees. My shoulders untensed, I returned to work and was Miss Sociable for the rest of the day, trying (patiently) to explain the concept of quizzing to the women who sit with me and allowing them to advise me about boys and why I shouldn’t move down South but should stay and work in IT in Bolton.

Am I overly affected by Vitamin D or am I chemically imbalanced? Is it the comedy thing of spending the day moping about, then having to build up the energy to entertain people at night for an hour, then having nowhere to dispel the energy afterwards but in flinging myself about like “Tigger on speed” (direct quote from an observer), only for the cycle to begin again the next day?

My ding-a-thing

I have a new geek toy! My mobile contract was up, and I threatened to change network. So (on the verge of tears) monsieur tmobile begged me to stay, offering me the incentive of a shiny shiny pda thing. I can hardly use the thing yet .

However, this can only be a good thing, because if I can't operate it, then my phone hijacking "friends" certainly won't be able to use it to (a) announce to random phone contacts that ''I am gay" (my nana was a bit disappointed it wasn't when I put her right) (b) try to get me laid by propositioning males within a 5 mile radius (in an attempt to stop the rampage of Sexual Frustration Girl) (c) send lists of meat or fish via text or 3am voicemail as though ordering from a butcher or fishmonger.

I'd like to say miss this fun, but I'd be lying.

Crocodile tears

I’m very upset at the demise of Steve Irwin. Not sure why I’m so affected, but I am. Perhaps it is partly to do with the way the news was broken to me (bellowed by someone bursting into my room precisely three minutes before alarm time this morning). Perhaps it is because he was so Tiggerishly energetic and enthusiastic about everything that the thought of all that life being extinguished is nigh on impossible to envisage. Perhaps it is the thought of poor Terri and the little uns, bereft in their home in the zoo. But I think the main thing is all the watercooler conversations that will take place, along the lines of “Well, it’s how he would have wanted to go…”. Bollocks. Do you think he’d rather be dead at 44 from a stingray attack, or dead at 97, peacefully at home surrounded by lots of little great-grand-crocodile hunters?

Braindead

I'm a fool. I came home from a month of running myself ragged writing and presenting quizzes every single night – nigh on quizzing myself to pieces - stayed for a couple of (very uncomfortable, stupid mattress) nights, then went on another road trip. To quiz. For three days. How much of a sucker am I?

I had fun, despite doing kinda badly in the actual quizzing stakes.

And apart from having to sleep on a child-size foam mattress on a lower bunk in a cabin meant for 6 people on my own (slightly spooky).

And excepting both the fire alarm incidents (3.45 and 8.15 am respectively, cheers kids). And ignoring the fact that I have been stripped of whatever remained of my dignity in a ritual humiliation incident(s) (och, I’m seeing the funny side. A bit. Eventually.).

And excluding the incident in which I was helping my alcoholic-poisoned friend with hiccups walk across a very dark activity centre without inducing vomiting.

And apart from the fact the place was chocka block with groups of KIDS, reminding me why I’m not meant to be a teacher – because they annoy the hell out of me and I wanted to send them all to work down a mine or something(Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be a great mother one day, but there’ll only be one or two of them to deal with rather than 60 at a time).

And besides me be so tired me lose power of….something….

And apart from the Saturday morning hangover from over-consumption of vino and Captain Morgan (who I am going to marry, if he is a pirate. And real.).

Good Lord, I’m using the parentheses a lot tonight. This means it is distinctly time to leave it.

Soliloquising

Well, my crazy death wish project is over and done with, and my future stretches out in front of me like a big scary ocean. Which direction am I sailing in? Will there be land that way, or will I be sailing for ages? Do I even have a boat? I suppose I could carve my own out of a log, but can I physically remember how to kayak? What if there are pirates? (I hope there are pirates). I can’t help but worry that there’ll be some sort of shipwreck, so do we have a coastguard? Am I going to be sailing alone forever? How do I prevent scurvy and cabin fever?

It’s terrifying to have all these questions buzzing around, but also nice to know that I’m not merely at a crossroads in my life – I have many more potential paths than that which I can take. So I’m not rushing into anything this week, at least.