Lou Sanz

Finding out that someone might assess if they can be friends with you, date you or

continue to have some sort of association with you based on reading your short story ramblings on a blog, well I have to admit has been really rather confronting and not something I really thought would ever be an issue; I mean from where I stood and continue to stand they are just cute little, ok at times somewhat disturbing little vignettes from incidents based on encounters I have from time-to-time, with questionable spelling and grammar, but as usual and therefore thematically linked to my blog – I’m wrong- confused and wrong.

‘It’s like passing a police check’ a friend of mine told me at lunch today.

‘What you’ve created Lou is a very efficient way of finding out if anyone really wants to go there with you, without actually having to meet or talk to you; it’s been like doing everyone around you a really big favour.’

‘Charming’ I bemoaned as I stabbed at a cashew nut I wouldn’t be able to eat because I was allergic, but maybe if I went into anaphylactic shock I might have something more interesting to write about other than another problematic episode in my world.

‘Just out of curiousity’ I asked my friend ‘have you managed to top up your credit on your phone yet?’

‘No.’ He replied.

I pushed my cashew nut to the side, not wanting my life to end because my friend couldn’t afford to call 000 – I prided myself on finally having a standard, sure it was a standard of dying, but it was a standard nonetheless and what that said to me was progress.

‘Why’d you ask?’ he enquired.

‘Just trying to take an active interest in your life’ I smiled back.
‘Maybe you could start writing about mobile phone service providers’

‘Great idea, do you ever stop thinking?’

‘Don’t do that Lou, you see this is why I was warned off being friends with you.’

‘We can’t even have a conversation anymore? Is this why I need to start writing about mobile phone value deals, because I’m not doing that, I’m an artist.’

‘Ok Lou what have I told you about using that term in front of people who actually know what the definition of artist is?’

‘It’s all going to end in tears…’ I mumbled.

‘Yes and I wasn’t saying that we can’t have a conversation anymore Lou, but you know what? I’d be lying if I didn’t say that there was some concern when I mentioned to my friends that I was hanging out with you.’

‘But you’re friends already knew me; I did go out on a date with one of your friends, it is kinda how I met all of you.’

‘Ok, I don’t need a history lesson Lou, if I wanted that I’d just Wikipedia it, all I’m saying is that some of them have read your blog and just told to me to be aware that you might be a bit of handful and to be honest if anything this conversation highlights is that they might’ve been right.’

‘Of course it does.’

‘Anyway I told them it was far too superficial to base my understanding of you simply on your blog, or the fact that my friends read your stuff – I mean come on Lou it’s just a blog, everyone knows it’s all about Twitter these days. I just read your blog because well at least it means that someone out there is reading it and I do that because I consider you a friend – you know that they say about the tree falling the forest and all that.’

He ordered himself another coffee.

Perhaps he was right, I mean reading back over my backlog of stories even I have to admit that if you were to base your understanding of me on my stories then I’m distilled down to a slightly dim, sexually precocious, easily confused and neurotic young woman – who might or might not end up in a kitchen with rolled up towels and the oven door open at some point in her life with her husband masturbating on their yet to be paid off leather divan to secret video tapes of their baby sitter washing the children as the water clings to her nubile breasts.

‘Don’t get pissy with me Lou, at least it’s not as bad as someone dating you based on the fact they saw your show.’

He was right.

‘…and then ending it with you because of your blog.’

‘Ok I didn’t know that.’

‘Ah, look at you continually learning and they say you can’t teach old dog new tricks,’

‘I’m not a dog.’

‘I never said you were.’

‘But you alluded to it.’

‘Did I Lou? Or did you just take something I said and read a little bit too much into it? – are you going to blog about this?…ooh how very post-modern of you’

‘Are you sure you’re not allergic to nuts?’ I asked as I pushed the remainder of my cashews towards him.

‘Nup could all the nuts in the world and be fine, I think it’s a sign of good strong moral fibre, such a shame you’re allergic Lou but also kinda quite representative of you as a person as well.’

‘And I wasn’t being post-modern.’

“I didn’t say you were – you couldn’t be post-modern anyway, you live in Southbank.’

I watched as he played with his coffee.

The thing is I wasn’t annoyed with him, or his friend or friends in general, I was annoyed at myself for having created this – starting this whole online journey to begin with. This whole blog rose out of the fact that after going through a horrendous break-up and basically driving most of my friends away in the process because there’s a limit to how many times you can use bastard in a sentence in front of small children and couples in love, and so I started writing little stories pretty much inspired by the incident of waking up passed out in a friends house, drunk and naked with a post it stuck to me that read ‘Hi, thanks for the lend of the chairs. – Ps. I did not touch your friend, she was like that when I came by’ - the frightening realisation is that not much has changed in my life in the 3 years since then – I still pretty much wake up everyday, well not everyday, but lets say a fair few, lying on the floor with a figurative post-it stuck to me that reads ‘she was like that when I came by’ – but with the added inclusion of ‘and sure I was cool with that at the time, but then I realised she’s just not a writer but an actual living breathing human being and I really couldn’t cope with that because I have my own crap to deal with and also I hate to admit it but she’s really not very thorough when it comes to shaving her legs and I’m just not that big a fan of chaffing.’

So here it is, I’m announcing today that this blog will be coming to an end by the end of this year – now that’s not saying there won’t be some need in the future for a comeback concert of sorts, after all my career trajectory has greatly been influenced by the choices of Take That, but I think it’s gearing up to the time to put The Problematic World of Lou to rest (and when I say rest I mean take it out into my backyard with a shovel and beat it senseless, cut off it’s hands and remove it’s identifying teeth, so that beyond the miracles of facial recognition – this whole thing will just become a distant memory hidden beneath layers of concrete and that new patio I’m planning on building.)

I really thought the last time I would have to deal pants down/t-shirt wearing/ cock exposing boy was as he stood still half naked in the doorway to his friends slum/ chick pulling pad telling me he didn’t need a woman like me in his life (I think the fact that I breathe really would’ve been what drove us apart in the end) and the only thing really upsetting me was his flagrant display of genitals and the fact that he had some sort of piece of lint, I think it was lint, hanging from the tip and as far as tips go I was certain I never ever wanted to see it again, but like I said I’m pretty sure it was lint – f**k I hope it was, I just didn’t want to get that close ever again.

…I really should’ve been more specific – I never ever wanted to see the owner of said tip again, but as fate and I are not the best of friends, I must have blanked my fate in a post office or bar one day, I was destined from the moment he shut the door on me to run into him everywhere I go,  and in what can only be seen as an attempt to exacerbate his whole creepy, I’m not entirely a functioning member of society thing he’s got going on he doesn’t come up and speak to me, no, he sends me text messages after the fact telling me he saw me but chose not to speak to me, which leads me to more plaguing problem – he has my phone number, something I did not give him, he knows my surname something I’m sure again I did not mention throughout our encounter and in order to know both of these things it must mean we have mutual friends or a disgruntled acquaintance/ other genital adorning gent who wants my life to come to an end Deliverance/ Deer Hunter style.

‘You bring this on yourself, like a whore brings on annual STD checks’ said my friend after I’d confronted her over whether or not she’d given out my number to the aforementioned gentlemen.

‘I don’t even know him’ she went onto say ‘and I think a guy who thinks it’s ok to just get his cock out for no particular reason, well that reflects more on the type of people you know Lou.’

I really had to stop writing this blog; it was giving everyone in my life other than myself a very unfair advantage and I lot more people had started patting me on the head of late…with that look, that look that says ‘I’m glad you’re no child of mine’ or ‘you might want to invest in some more supportive underwear’ (ok, to be fair, only my mother looks at me with that intent in her eyes).

‘Yes, but you know people so my suspicions are perfectly justified’ – they clearly weren’t, as I went to confiscate her SIM card for further forensic analysis I knew I had gone too far as she snatched it back off me and hit me on the head.

‘Ouch’

‘Don’t touch my things’ she scolded ‘actually best you stop touching things in general, that’s how all this crap happens. I’m getting you one of those rings that Miley Cyrus wears – you know the ones that say ‘not to be opened before marriage.’”

…I was not to be rationalised with.

‘He told me he didn’t know who I was, I thought I was safe.’

‘You didn’t meet him dogging did you?’

‘No, opening of that writer’s festival a few weeks back.’

‘Oh well in that case you’re safe, yep certain never to run into him again and hey you can rest assured that no one in Melbourne, especially your circles would know who he is.’

‘Could you have lathered up that comment in anymore sarcasm?’ I snapped back.

‘What do you want from me Lou? If you’d met him at a rugby league gang bang in a Tasmanian hotel room then yeah constantly running into him would seem strange, but whinging about seeing him again at a gallery in Northcote well like I said, you bring this on yourself.’

‘I didn’t know he was there, he texted me at like 3 in the morning to tell me he saw me there and he even went as far as to reference people I was seen talking to and that I ate Indian food while crammed in a booth. I mean he was very, very specific.’

‘And you’ve never been too fond of those that specify have you Lou…’

‘I might even have to call the police.’

‘If he didn’t touch you with it you really won’t have much of a case.’

‘I’m not talking bout the other night, I’m talking about the stalking.’

‘Looking at you from afar Lou and texting abusive messages to you at 3 in the morning isn’t stalking Lou, if anything he appears to be taking a more developed interest in you than anyone you’ve gone out with lately has.’

‘That’s not true’ …ok, so it kinda was, but I was too busy tying my shoelace to say anything, I’m no good at multi-tasking you see.

‘Isn’t he a critic or something?’

‘You do know him!’

‘No, it was just an educated guess, I assumed based on his behaviour and emotional maturity that he worked in some arts related field, then I thought given it turns out he knows who you are, though god knows why there are surely more recognisable people around, like sometimes even I don’t realise it’s you till your right up in my face and as you know I have 20-20 vision Lou and I don’t drink.’

It wasn’t fair, I was being stalked by cock/ t-shirt boy and no one was taking me seriously – this was so going to end midday movie style and given that Sally Field was far to old to play me, the role was surely going to go to the younger sister from 7^th Heaven and that would just be bullshit.

As I walked down the street I wandered if my clothing was descriptive enough for people to remember their last citing of me when the police did a call out for my whereabouts, my photo splashed across newspapers and TV screens across the nation alongside grainy CTV footage of me being last spotted outside the 7 Eleven on Swanston St between the hours of 7pm and 7.03pm on Sunday night…I should’ve worn my white shoes, people always remember girls with white shoes. Of course the police would have to search my room for clues and in the process they’d find old diaries, cut out pictures of me and Joshua Jackson from the late 90’s, that sandwich I couldn’t find, but don’t remember losing and they’d pour over my emails to reveal my entirely dysfunctional relationship I have with an ex of mine and my phone records would reveal an entire encounter with a boy defined by a mass of ya mama jokes we sent each other – they’d give up looking for me and judge that I must’ve been a victim of my lifestyle choices….

Arriving home I logged on to my computer to find that he’d posted another comment on my blog, this time pointing out that my hair has since gotten shorter than the last picture he saw of me and that I should grow out my fringe again, it makes me look softer and more approachable which is only a positive thing in my line of work – maybe I was looking at this all wrong, sure we were talking about a guy with a penchant for bringing women back to a whore house and letting bits of lint hang off his cock, but maybe I’d been too harsh, after all I was no doubt going to be crossing paths with him again, I mean the Melbourne Film Festival is pretty much upon us and hey  perhaps stalkers can be handy, I mean who doesn’t need someone in their life to constantly point out the obvious?…quite clearly it is something I’m in desperate need of.

At an opening last week I spotted one of those guys – you know the type, you see them round from time to time, always at the same thing and the timing well it’s never quite right. The last time I saw him was about a month ago but once again the timing was off but four weeks after that episode I found myself face to face with him at a bar.

‘Hey, cute shoes.’

‘Cheers’ I blushed as I clicked my patent leather lace ups together.

‘So what’s new?’

‘Not much really’ I remarked as I nibbled on a hummus drenched carrot stick.

‘You seeing anyone right now?’

‘Nup‘

‘Cool’

‘Yep’

‘Wanna come back to mine for a drink?’

and in what can only be described as what will no doubt turn into a series of events that mark my departure from my twenties, I said yes.

Now the first clue should’ve been that he didn’t believe in taxis.

“Brothels on wheels’ he called them ‘I make it personal choice not to pay for service.’

I nodded as if I agreed, not willing to admit to myself that maybe I was confusing his conviction with blatant stupidity.

‘Oh is this your place?’ I asked startled, as he led me up the path to what could only be described as a half-way house minus the sign-in sheet.

He fumbled for a key under what might have at one stage been a pot plant prior to the apocalypse.

As we walked inside I felt my skin, my expensive shoes and my moisturiser try and jump off my body and escape the horror that lay before them. It was worse then I could imagine and I once lived with a guy who left rotting bits of seafood around our flat and claimed it was good for the circulation – kept your immune system on the defensive.

We waded through what I assumed was the corridor or the mouth of hell to what some might argue in a court of law was the kitchen but to be honest I don’t think was any evidence left to suggest that beneath the bucket bongs, soiled Playboy mags and cans of Not Quite Right Spaghetti.

I looked at him – nice glasses, clean hair, wool crepe jacket, laptop – maybe he was just here to drop off some food supplies, maybe his estranged brother was crack addict and I was only here to play witness to his humanity as his way of sealing the deal…but no, that wasn’t the case.

‘Wanna drink?’

‘Sure’ I watched as he stumbled around the room for some glasses, settling on some jars in the sink.

‘Let’s drink vintage style’ as he handed me a an old vegemite jar.

‘Southern Comfort alright with you?’

‘Um, do you have any wine?’

He picked up a box of goon and shook it.

‘Sounds like there’s a bit of sediment left, could just mix it up with a bit of water for you?’

‘Southern Comfort sounds great.’ – he broke the seal and the masochist in me reminded me ‘this isn’t so bad Lou’ – I searched my dignity or common sense and it was, as usual, no where to be found.

We adjourned to the sitting room and after a couple of awkward moments of trying to ignore the mammoth stack of late nineties porn in the middle of the room he leaned over and kissed me and as we’re all friends here and you people would never dare judge me – I kissed him back and then he pulled away suddenly. I couldn’t help but think to myself that a pattern had been developing between me and men of late.

‘Is everything ok?’

‘Yeah, I just want to make myself more comfortable if that’s cool.’

‘Fine by me’

Now, I would assume that taking ones shoes off would be enough to make someone comfortable but for this lad it took a whole lot more – he took off everything, and I mean everything…except his t-shirt, he left that on.

And so there I sat with a half naked man on a couch that had cling film on it and yet still I didn’t remove myself from the situation – it was the t-shirt, I needed to know why.

‘Um, what’s with the t-shirt?’

‘It’s cause I don’t want to give you the wrong impression, I’m a little old fashioned and just want tonight to be about getting to know each other.’

Ok…but he had no pants on, but part of me felt petulant for pointing out the obvious.

He went to kiss me again.

‘Ok, I’m sorry but it’s all well and good you being the old fashioned type but your genitals are on display.’

‘Can’t you look at a man Lou without sexualising him?’

‘Yes I can do that, but to be fair in this instance you have no pants on and are lying on top of me – is this another case of me getting my wires crossed?’

He sat up exacerbated and placed his hands on his head, neglecting to cover his cock.

‘Can’t you just put that away?’ I asked.

‘I just thought I could be myself with you Lou…I, I thought you were different.’

I felt a little bit of Catholic guilt creep up on me and not for the obvious reasons.

‘Do you have a scar or something? is that why the t-shirt?’

‘For fucks sake what is it with you girls always going on about the t-shirt!?’

I moved away.

‘Girls?’

‘Everytime it’s the same thing, so what if I want to wear a t-shirt, as I see it if I’m expected to go down on you then I can wear a fucking t-shirt – even Stevens Lou, even Stephens.’

‘Ok I think it’s time I left.’

I grabbed my bag but that Southern Comfort had gone straight through me.

‘I need to use your bathroom, where’s your bathroom.’

I watched as he put his jumper on, but still no pants!

‘I think it’s upstairs’ he mumbled.

‘You think? This is your house isn’t it?’

He went for his socks and yet still no pants.

‘Nup, my mate lets me use it to bring girls back to.’

…of course he does…

(I have no way to dignify this story with an ending – I just left).

Coffee and a biscuit was the only way to console me. I’d just found out I was decidedly average.

‘What have I told you about reading?’ my friend remarked as she took what was left of my biscuit – I’d never really liked her but no one else was answering their phone.

‘You can’t ban me from reading, you don’t have the power.’

‘No, you’re right’ she mused ‘but I know people who do and just knowing that is enough for me and Lou, right now it should be more than enough for you.’

I admired a crumb, but given I’d recently found my long misplaced dignity I refrained from stealing it from her saucer.

The problem was that earlier that morning I’d stumbled across an article about how the average woman was 163cm tall – with figures that specific and no doubt well researched from this local Melbourne tabloid paper, I was mortified, suddenly in just one sentence I had become common and I was having none of it.

‘I’m just surprised you didn’t know sooner’ was all my friend could muster in the way of support ‘like I remember when my mother first saw you she remarked that you were rather average and she didn’t know what all the fuss was about.’

‘I’m talking about my height.’

‘Height, measure of attractiveness, past 25 Lou it’s all pretty much the same thing – looking at you is like having bad vision; it all just blurs together.’

I fingered my shot gun concealed in my hand bag but reminded myself that there is a time and a place for spontaneous acts of violence and Madame Brussels on a Friday afternoon, well it just wouldn’t’ be proper, what with all those lovely gentlemen walking around in their little knee high socks…

The thing is though, I’d spent most of my life wanting to be average – average height, average weight, average looks and just as I’d started to come to terms with the fact that my search for average was merely a pipe dream only ever achieved by people who entered radio contests advertised on commercial radio networks, I’d discovered that they were my people and suddenly my fear of ending up with a guy who read FHM  and farted medley’s of national anthems was a lot closer to reality then it had ever been before.

‘You and your issue with farting Lou; it’s a phobia that will one day cripple you Lou. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that you’re intolerance of farter’s will send you to an early grave.’

‘I think that’s a slight exaggeration.’

‘I don’t, I heard the stories from Edinburgh, you think people don’t talk Lou, well they talk, we all talk…to each other.’

‘I gathered that was your inference.’

‘Don’t shove your Masters degree in my face Lou, that’s just low.’

‘I was just saying I knew what you were getting at and just for your information my reluctance to engage in a game of fart tennis in bed with another comic does not mean I’ll just up and die.’

‘Oh you won’t up and die, you’ll probably get something debilitating and soul destroying like MS or Parkinson’s.’

‘Thanks for that. I feel a lot better about everything.’

‘But hey it took your mind off being average right?’

We both laughed – yes, yes it had taken my mind off it cause nothings funnier than MS – she went to the bathroom and I found myself leaving without saying good bye – sure it was a nasty habit I was developing of late but I was loathed to break it – hey I don’t smoke, so allow me this one vice…

As I stepped into the Melbourne CBD I realised I could further exacerbate my averageness by just glancing around at all the other women in Melbourne of average height, with dark brown hair, flat shoes, black opaque stockings and Crumpler’s –f**k if you had a type and it was short smudgy dark looking girls then Melbourne was an unsupervised kids playground and you could be the pedo.

‘I don’t know what you’re complaining about’ my man friend said to me as I picked out a new nail polish in the bargain basement of Myer and bitched about my lack of cost cut options.

He watched me and I could see in his eyes how glad he was that he was gay and we weren’t dating anymore.

‘No one can make peach work Lou, not even you’ and he put my suggestion back in the bin and started steering me out of the store.

‘I’m not complaining, it’s just I’m not even short now, I’m just average and everyone else is a giant – this is what happened when they got rid of the small popcorn option at the movies and everything started at medium, it just became complete and utter chaos.’

‘Are you comparing yourself to pop corn again? It thought we agreed you wouldn’t do that anymore.’

‘Yeah, sorry, I forget’

‘That’s cool Lou’ he forgave me as he ruffled my hair.

‘No product today Lou?’

‘I was in a rush’

‘I think you should demand to stay the night, cause I mean if they been in –‘

‘- fuck off.’

‘Anyway angry girl you weren’t very average last night –what did the caption read? Oh that’s right ‘Tit-Tastic’.

‘Can you please not bring that up?’

‘If I did everything you told me Lou then I wouldn’t be gay now would I?’

‘Well done on over simplifying your sexual orientation.’

‘I had to tell mum something.’

‘Oh I’m pretty sure she figured it out when she worked in and saw you on your knees with what’s his name wearing double denim‘

‘-shut the f**k up.’

‘Oh it’s not so funny when the shoes on the other foot are it?’

‘My sex life isn’t funny Lou, it’s private and personal and sacred, whereas yours is…’ He started laughing…and laughing…

‘Stop that, stop laughing, people are starting to look.’

He wiped the tears away from his eyes

‘Christ I needed that laugh, thanks Lou, I love that we’re friends.’

I couldn’t even hit him; it would be considered a hate crime.

‘Anyway before you started in on your sex life…’

‘I didn’t bring it up, you did.’

‘That’s it blame the gay Lou.’

‘Stop that.’

‘Last night you were well above average.’

‘Stop laughing!’

I’d attended the opening night of a show about breasts that two of my friends were in. I sat in the back so as not to be called as a volunteer but luckily for me there were plenty of women over 40 more than willing to get them out and so I sat back to watch a comfortable evening of booby manipulation – that was until they decided to do an audience survey.

‘Ok ladies’ my friend called out to the hen’s night filled audience.

‘I think before we start  the show we need to get a feeling to what you girls are packing, so can we have all the A cups give us a show of hands!’

A couple of men in the audience shot their hands up and hi-fived each other in a show of solidarity.

‘And now the b’s’

A few more hands shot up, I noticed my companion for the evening looking at hers.’

‘Depends on the time of month she muttered…’

‘And the C’s!’

Half the room went ballistic and my friend conceding defeat shot her hand up.

‘and of course ladies of the D variety.’

What appeared to be the remainder of women in the audience who put their hands up in a victory celebration and the men took note and that was when the guy sitting next to me commented that I hadn’t put my hand up yet.

‘They haven’t called me out yet.’

‘Oh’ he sheepishly hi-fived his mate.

‘And do we have any E’s out there?’

…oh my god, how much longer could this go on…and I watched as one woman excitably jumped up to show the world her lack of averageness.

‘..and surely we don’t have any F’s in the audience tonight?’ my friend continued as the guy next to me had now started staring at me as if that act alone would make me jump up and throw my jacket off.

And then that bit of the show came to end, but this didn’t stop the guy next to me from raising the fact I didn’t put my hand up. The look on my face was enough to tell him never to breathe air again and so he stopped, well he just started drinking…same thing.

As we left the night I ran into some other friends of mine outside the toilet who were talking about the collective breast size call to arms. They had pretty much all been in the C range like boasty women are.

‘How’d you go Lou?’

‘I don’t do audience participation’

‘She’s just upset they didn’t call her size out.’

‘F**k off!’

‘It’s not that odd, there are lots of girls bigger than an F out there.’

‘What? People with frontal growths and tumours- like those people that find out they’ve been growing their twin on themselves.’

‘They’re not a growth.’

‘But I bet they grow!’ I watched as my two friends hi-fived each other over the party pies.

‘It’s just you don’t look that big up there.’

‘She wears a lot of black.’

‘But surely.. ..like what would a guy do with them that big…surely no one needs that much.’

I noticed the red carpet camera looming past us…

‘Let’s not do this tonight’ I insisted as I tried to find where the sandwich guy had gone.

‘Oh come on; let us have a quick look.’

…and like looking at that one puppy you saved from drowning I gave in…and took off my jacket and someone took a photo, yep a large flash went off.

‘Oh my god, please don’t print that’ I screamed.

‘Don’t worry lovely, probably won’t, lots of tits here tonight and well our readers want average but that said you’re the right height so, hey just to be on the safe side how do I spell your name – is that with a D or two Ds’

He laughed and so did everyone else and I watched and realised that I was average, that this was an average night for me – now if I could just find someone to throw up in my cleavage I could tick all of life’s boxes.

It’s very rare to have an evening out on the town culminate in a way that encapsulates your entire night with just one action, but that’s what happened to me this weekend when someone threw a kebab at me from a moving cab or maybe it was a cup of day old semen or as my friend suggested who was also on the receiving end of whatever liquid we ended up covered in, it could’ve been Yakult – it was really rather hard to tell at 3am in the morning and I really wasn’t nearly as well versed in flung foodstuffs or bodily liquids as I thought I was and in the year that I turn 30 my lack of experience in that area has no doubt begun to cause me concern.

The day itself didn’t start out that bad; I woke up at least and I’ve heard from some that’s a pretty good start. I was somewhat tired given a raging party next door had kept me up until 8am and I had somewhat indulged it when trying to slam the front door a few times loudly as code for ‘shut the fuck up’ at around 5am has resulted in me accepting an invitation from an ostensibly nice young man to come over and have a drink or to paraphrase – ‘here have a sip of my long neck’ and ‘hey boys, told you I could round up another girl’ and then turning to me ‘you don’t have kids do you, I’m just not that into fertile women’ – well at least a refreshing change from ‘I’m just not that into you…’

The bar had officially been set for the day to come and so when I found myself laughing so hard I cried while watching of all shows ‘Sex in the City’ (I need to point out at this point I’m the woman who on national radio called for a global boycott of the movie version and tried to make moves to set up a not-for-profit organisation to educate women around the world against the bullshit ideals that the film perpetuated)  as the character of Carrie rolled over in bed after the guy she’d just shagged told her he was in therapy because he loses interest in women once he sleeps with them and she declared she was in therapy because she picks the wrong men and spilt scolding hot coffee all over my new bra that I’d just put on and ended up suffering from 2nd degree burns on one of my nipples I thought to myself ‘…and you thought you’d get no action this weekend Lou, oh how foolish of you!’

After finding some sort of balm to stop the peeling (well at least stave it off for a few more hours) I rushed off to my friends farewell drinks at a nearby pub. Ok, so I shouldn’t have ordered the vegan burger (there is really only so much pattie a girl can handle) but perhaps also I shouldn’t have ended up sitting opposite a girl I only knew because she’d been the one an attachment of mine had been shagging when he was apparently seeing me and we’d never officially been introduced (I hear that complicates the whole cheating process and I mean who needs complicated these days…?). It wasn’t all that bad; there was heaps to read on the back of the toilet door I hid behind (I mean I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in how Mary managed to get it in so far…) and then of course there was the guy at the bar I was dying to speak with after he opened with the line ‘hey I’ve got some Ice in the car, wanna have some and then you and I can fuck for 5 hours?’…well you’ve got to give him credit, at least he was specific. Basically it turned out I had very little time to catch up with her and trade familiar tales about how when he wasn’t drunk he was asleep, but hey there’s always next time right?

Leaving behind ‘ice guy’ and the ‘other woman’ was hard, but I managed to drag myself away (in an attempt to prove to myself I’m not a masochist – just between you and I I’m losing the battle) and I ended up meeting up with some new friends of mine and was whisked away to a bar that was scattered predominantly with women and the occasional man wearing tucked in denim and drinking cider and found myself involved in what I thought was an engrossing discussion on gender roles in today’s society when I noticed the girl I was chatting with was texting her boyfriend a rescue note, yes, a note that opened with ‘Help – I’m stuck talking to Lou Sanz!’ – yep, it was official I’d reached the climax of my evening – I mean I couldn’t have asked for more fun and better company had I stabbed myself in the vagina with that rusted old tennis racket I’d been meaning to use again and it was then my nipple began to itch and I realised I’d left my balm at home (just as an aside, moisturised lipstick does not work as an anti-inflammatory on nipples, no matter how hard you rub it in, nor does it get you off in a pub toilet in the early hours of the morning – but at least I tried and that in itself screams volumes).

And so it was, it was time to call it a night, to cut my losses and just go home – back to comfort of Law and Order reruns and moments of disabling self-realisation with the help of Sex and the City and as a wave of contentment washed over me, well it was perfectly timed to coincide with a garden variety cock spanker tossing a kebab, semen, maybe even Yakult at me – and before you say it, yes, I’m well aware of how great it is to be me, especially when the cab driver tells you you smell and insists on driving you home with the windows down but not even that’s enough to stop him from dry heaving into his mouth at every traffic light – needless to say I will go out again next week cause after all isn’t that what prescription medication is for, fuck I hope so.

‘I don’t think it was that creepy’ he said, as I watched my friend lament with furrowed brow our decision to sit near the outdoor heater.

‘I thought it would be a good ice-breaker, you know straight off the bat we’d have something in common, you know like sharing a mother.’

‘Coming up to me and telling me we share the same birthday is not the same as sharing the same mother.’

‘Well it’s in the same vein.’

‘No, no it isn’t.’

‘But you get my point.’

‘Ok…’ I stabbed at a chip, momentarily thought about world hunger and then ate it.

‘Anyway at the time I thought you’d think it was cute.’

‘You Googled me, there’s really nothing cute about that. Stalkerish, yes – but cute, I’m not sure the whole opinion on guys who watch girls through their window while they stand wanking in the dark has somehow defaulted to cute in recent years, but hey I could be wrong, I could be out of touch with the zeitgeist’

‘It wasn’t any information I couldn’t find on your Facebook page Lou. I also know you like Kate Cebrano, hugs, Hamish and Andy and think you’re like Rizzo from the popular movie of the day; Grease.’

I poured myself another drink and being the polite girl that I am, I refilled his glass as well and then knocked it over – game on.

‘And for your information no one watches someone through a window anymore, we have Google Maps now Lou, Google Maps and last time I checked you don’t live in a black spot, in fact you live in a highly urbanised area.’ He paused a moment ‘ok, that was creepy.’

‘You were trying to sleep with me.’

‘Granted yes, but you have to admit it was smoother then buying you a drink, lacing it with something illegal/something I’d ground together myself out of over the counter meds and then trying to convince you that I too liked Kate Cebrano, cause come on Lou, no one really likes Kate Cebrano, well other than woman with a thing for minimising underwear and 90’s melancholy.’

‘But everyone’s got to be wanted, got to be loved.’

‘Don’t do that Lou.’

‘Sorry.’ I smooshed another chip. I would kill them all by the time the evening drew to a close.

Our conversation on dodgy ways to approach people you fancied had been brought on by a note that had only in recent hours been bought to my attention.

‘What’s with all the smiley faces on it?’ my friend remarked as he examined it further ‘oh my god, is that smiley face pregnant? And did you spill water on it?’

I shook my head ‘I don’t think its water…’

The note had appeared in my letterbox and contained some pleasantries, a little picture or two, ok well pictures that could’ve quite easily been interpreted if you turned the paper upside down as suggested activities for the two of us and a little reminder signed with a flourish to give this him a call sometime. The problem was, I didn’t know who he was and at first thought that this note was clearly not intended for me.

‘It says “Hi Lou Sanz.” 

‘What have a told you about being specific with me?’ I attempted to argue back.

‘I think it’s fair enough to say that this note is pick-up note.’

‘Well, well done Sherlock, time for your opiates yet?’

‘Hey don’t get snarky at me Sanz.’

‘Well then don’t call me a shark.’

‘I didn’t call you a shark, now did I Lou…’

‘No…’

It wasn’t his fault, he was right, I needed to keep my snarkiness to myself, it was just that in recent months I’d had a spate of guys trying to access me via email, notes, f**king carrier pigeon, radar, apparently if you listened to rumour; Google Maps and it was this avoidance of any of them to deal with me in the flesh (5’3” can be very intimidating I’ve been told)  had in fact got me so frustrated that I ended up asking one of them out myself and before you ask,  that encounter had been such a resounding success that we pretty much went straight back to dealing with each other via trained Siberian huskies and last time I checked one of them had been shot dead by a penguin poacher.

I put the note away.

‘Are you going to call him?’

‘There’s a clear, unidentifiable liquid on it, so no, I think not.’

‘Too bad, he has really nice penmanship and anyway that stuff might just be cat piss.’

‘It doesn’t make it any better.’

Finally unable to take the heat anymore he clicked off the heater.

‘You know what Lou, I reckon what’s happening here is a demonstration of your standards being slightly too high, I mean let’s not kid ourselves here, you are kinda like a diamond in the rough.’

…I started having violent image flashbacks to the Disney cartoon Aladdin….

‘Diamond in the rough, like I know I’ve been a bit lazy with my eyebrows of late, but I’ve made an appointment for Saturday so maybe just lay-off.’

He smirked.

‘Yeah, I noticed the eyebrows but you’re an ethnic so it’s all good…no what I was getting at…I’m saying that it’s like you’re not an obvious choice and so all this research is their way of understanding you.’

‘You’re making me sound like a deaf kid in a movie where her family and friends finally come to terms with the person she really beneath the hearing loss.’

‘Don’t play the disabled card Lou’

‘I don’t need to be understood, I need them to fulfil two very basic functions – to make me laugh and to make me…well I won’t go into that…’

‘Hey, maybe that’s what’s on the note…it is a little moist.’

‘What? Are all the guys I know latent sex-offenders!’

‘Don’t marginalise us Lou; I’m just trying to help.’

‘No you’re not, you just insinuated that some guy did something to a innocent note and left it for me to find and even if we never see each other again he can quite possibly rest assured in the knowledge that I’ve touched some part of him – you’re all wrong.’

We sat in paused silence for a bit.

‘Look if it makes you feel any better maybe we can get someone to watch you house tonight, you know just to be on the safe side.’

‘Oh there’s a gang of you now?’

‘Stop it.’

‘I’m ok, it was just a note, and it’s all pretty harmless.’

‘Well don’t blame me if you hear noises in your bushes tonight.’

‘Don’t be gross.’

‘Couldn’t resist.’

‘Anyway, you told me with today’s technology you guys prefer to be seedy and inappropriate from the comfort of your own home.’

‘Oh that’s true, but you know what Lou, sometimes there’s nothing like a classic window loiter, that freedom of having your hands down your pants, knowing that the world is yours and that you still hold the potential to do some good in this life.’

‘You think about all of that when you’ve got your hands down your pants.’

‘Well obviously I’m paraphrasing…’

‘Obviously.’

We went to part ways…

‘Sleep well Lou.’

‘Yeah, you too.’

‘And remember if you hear anyone outside tonight you can rest assured it won’t be one of us.’

‘Oh cheers, thanks for that.’

‘Anytime Lou, that’s what special friends are for…ok, that was creepy.’

‘Yes, yes it was.’

‘I like to be consistant.’

‘Good to know.’

‘Night.’

Friday night I was catching up with friends over what would end up being far too many glasses of wine, just going over ‘the week that was.’ Mine had started out innocently enough; a trip to the opening of a local film festival. I was certain it was going to be a mixed evening of ‘I’m sure I’ve seen them before….yes, they were in Pugwall’ and ‘I know I know him somehow’ (stare at them for a while, horrid realisation hits as I turn to my friend and say ‘We are never ever allowed to go over to that side of the room at all tonight. You hear me! Never!’) …as my mind reflects back to my days as a film student, a beanbag and penchant for boys who wore flannel, told me told me I smelt nice and had a thing for sleeping with my friends while I was in the room next door probably tattooing their name on my arse.

My partner in crime and I were savvy enough to figure out from which direction the free drinks were being handed out (we were allocated one each, but if you went back to them with two glasses and told them your friend was in a wheelchair then oh my how the rum poured..). Yes rum, so regardless to say, somehow I got home and woke up the next day fully clothed with a craving for a prostitute down by the docks, but that pretty much passed, like it does every time, after a nice cup of tea and a snack sized Mars Bar.

However, there was some concern over what might have transpired that night after a friend of mine rang to see if I was alright.

‘Of course I’m fine, a little rough, but fine.’

‘Oh it’s just that as I was leaving I saw a girl behind a tree with little white shoes sticking out and was worried it was you.’

‘But surely you realised it wasn’t me when you came over to see if the girl was ok?’

‘Well I didn’t stop to check I just really wanted to get home, but I’m calling now and that’s what’s important and isn’t it sad that in today’s modern times just being concerned about someone really doesn’t ever get the credit it deserves.’

‘So you pretty much left me in a park in St Kilda to freeze to death.’

‘Don’t be so dramatic Lou, it wasn’t you so what’s the big deal? Anyway I thought you might’ve been with someone.’

‘oh ok, so it’s come to that has it, that you honestly think on a weeknight that I’d take someone out behind a tree and just have a go? Really, it’s come to that?’

‘That fact you needed to clarify it was a weeknight just proves my point Lou…’

I raised this remark with a close male friend of mine at dinner a few nights later and as I suspected he did point out that my use of the word weeknight really didn’t give me any leverage in my argument that I am at heart a prude and not taken to shagging people in parks/ bus terminals/ shopping isles and Nando’s restaurants.

‘I’m not really sure you can argue you’re not a prude just because you don’t have go at in places of shared public convenience.’

‘Ok, so maybe I’m not a prude, but the assumption that I’m that sort of person just irks me.’

‘What? A person that has fun?’

‘Don’t be a word twister.’

‘I’m not twisting your words Lou; I’m just cutting straight to the subtext of your conceit.’

‘I’m not conceited.’

‘The word conceit does have other literary applications Lou. Do we need to visit the thesaurus store again Lou?’

‘No’…I mumbled – I hated the thesaurus store.

‘Well you don’t exactly date do you? You more or less have encounters and sure the tree thing while a little tacky could conceivably be in the realms of possibility.’

‘No, it could not, the heightened capacity for getting a splinter in that situation would put any one off and anyway I date, I have been known to date.’ (I remember back to 2002…)

‘Oh come on, even if you do ‘date’, even you have to admit they always end up more or less just being encounters and even then it’s like getting blood out a stone with you to confirm they’re anything beyond an encounter and even if they are beyond an encounter by the time any of us are even privy to this information the encounter has passed, leaving it as I said just an encounter, tree or no tree Lou.’

‘You make me sound like ET, an eco-warrior ET.’

‘You do have scarily small fingers Lou and eat a lot of salad, maybe I’m just putting two and two together here.’

‘I am not an alien.’

‘…and short legs, like really short legs, like disproportionally short and I bet if we shaved your head….’ He was lost in his own little world.

‘That does not make me an alien.’

‘No, based on that information alone I couldn’t prove you’re an alien, but give me time….’

…the next night I was at a friend’s house playing Monopoly when I raised the issue of me and the tree again. Given the company I was keeping I really shouldn’t have asked but I was anxious that my reputation was one based more on assumption then actual knowledge.

‘It’s not that you’re that type of person perse’ said my friend as eyed off my Pentonville Rd ‘…it’s just that if someone said guess who I caught behind a tree/ up a lane way/ school playground having a go, then yeah, sure, your name might at some point come up in the conversation as a possible.’

‘You’re making me sound like a sex-offender.’

‘Well technically if you do it in a school playground you are.’

‘I just don’t do stuff like that’ …as I watched myself get sent to jail again without passing Go ‘…I’m a romantic.’

‘Yep and as such you’re more impressionable. It’s not you Lou; it’s just sometimes you make decisions as if at some point in your life someone put you in a heshen sack and held your head under some water while they beat you a bit with a bat.’

‘That makes no sense’

‘You’re damaged Lou, sure you don’t look it with your jackets and nice shoes and stuff, but ultimately you’re damaged goods and as such a bit of how’s your father behind a tree, all I’m saying is I wouldn’t be surprised.’ And with that I landed on Mayfair and her 5 houses and declared myself bankrupt.

A few hours later I found myself at my friends after party in the wee hours of the morning talking to some girl who was somewhat amused, ok slightly far too amused, that she’d seen me on telly the night before and was now talking to me live in person, she kept saying things like ‘you’re funnier in real life.’…oh how I needed to book a cab home…

I was trying to pry myself away from the conversation when I noticed she had white shoes on, little white shoes.

‘You weren’t by chance in St Kilda on Tuesday night were you?’

She stammered a bit…

‘…oh yep, were you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why? Didn’t think they’d invite comics to those things.’

‘I make films and stuff as well.’

‘Let me guess? Comedy films?’

Damn if it weren’t for those white shoes and my need to now know if she was the girl behind the tree that night and as such I could get my reputation back then I would have quite happily stabbed her in the vagina and not in a sexual sadist kinda way, more because I’ve got one myself and I knew it would really, really hurt.

‘Yes, comedy films.’

‘BAM!’ she tried to hi-fi me, and as was my way, I went along with it…

‘You didn’t by chance end up behind a tree that night did you?’

She looked at me strangely, as if suddenly it all made sense, that I was the strange person watching from the bushes with the camera that knew far too much about what she fed her kids for dinner or how her husband really didn’t appreciate his birthday present last year, or for that matter really never appreciated her either…

‘..I’m only asking cause I have white shoes too and someone thought I was having a go behind a tree and it so wasn’t me and then I saw your shoes and you were there and I thought my god, it’s the tree shagger, so you see I wasn’t being creepy.’

She looked at me with pity as she finished off her beer.

‘Listen, it’s been lovely talking to you Lyn…’

‘It’s Lou.’

‘Yep, cool, but I’m not really sure I want to talk to someone who thinks just because I wear shoes that I shag behind trees. Do you how damaging it is just to assume that of someone?’

I did.

She past me her bottle.

‘Here, can you find somewhere to toss that, I need to pee.’

..and with that she went and squatted behind a tree, with her little white shoes, oh she was a tree shagger alright and maybe I was just creepy enough to just stare at her all night, willing her to prove me right….I left a little while after that – it’s one thing to have a reputation as a girl who shags behind trees, it’s quite another to be the girl who watches other girls pee behind trees, quite another.