Saturday night was nice (until the rodent almost-sighting, obviously).

I met up with a couple of friends as it was one of their birthdays. I was slightly late. (I couldn't leave my first friend in a different pub until I'd finished my pint, could I?) So, I only saw my friends for 20 minutes before they went to the theatre, and I ended up staying in the pub with their boyfriends/friends/people they kind of know...

It was actually quite nice. When I lived in Cambridge I'd always end up in a pub (or laying splayed on Parkers Piece following a trip to the offy) with people that I didn't know all that well because Cambridge being fairly small, I run into someone I knew in town, and then they'd run into someone they knew, and they'd run into someone they knew... before you know it there's ten of you, who barely know each other, all getting shit-faced and having a real laugh.

Those were the days... That never happens in London of course because of the vast expansiveness of the city. If you do manage to run into someone you know, there's no way in the world you're ever going to manage to bump into someone they know. If the haystack is small, you might have a chance of randomly finding the needle if you sit down and it sticks in your arse. In a haystack the size of London, the only needle you're going to find is a discarded used hypodermic laying around. Or something to that effect.

So, yes, all was going well, until out of the blue came:

"You know, being disabled doesn't make you unattractive..."

I promptly considered drowning myself in my cocktail of Envy. (Did you know that envy tastes like melted mint Vienetta? After that I went for the Sloth, which I think I managed to turn to butter by stirring it so vigorously. I was going to go through all seven of the deadly sins, but I gave up when I realised that I'm allergic to lust. Huh.)

"I know. Being fat, ugly and fairly dull makes me unattractive. Being disabled is one of the few things about me that I'm actually confident in."

"What makes you think you're fat and ugly?"

"I own a mirror."

"Oh..."

I loved the response of "Oh..." like I might actually have gone 26 years avoiding my reflection out of fear (more plausible would be going 26 years with being too short to see my reflection I suppose).

I'm always entertained when people who initially come off as fairly reasonable people make assumptions that every thought that crosses through my brain must somehow be related to me being a crip. In reality things are incredibly inverted. I'm sure there are some people for whom me being disabled is an ultimate turn-off, and I'm just ridiculously naïve in thinking that the only reason no-one is ever attracted to me is because I'm neither pretty nor interesting. But, I'm happy in my little land of inverted sense, so here I will stay. Ner.

At the end of my second year at uni, I actually spent a whole day sitting in the bar. I wasn't that popular, so it was quite a big thing for me to spend a day drinking with The Drama Crowd. At one point one guy left for a while, and as he did, he gave everyone sitting around our table a hug. I was naturally taken slightly aback when he leaned into me with his arms outstretched - we'd been on the same course for two years, and he'd never spoken to me before. And I'm not generally in the habit of hugging strangerss (certainly not the people I meet on a general jaunt around London anyway).

That night I actually went to one of only two Drama Parties I was invited to during my three years at uni (the other one being a fortnight later). It was summer and hot, so I went outside to get some air. The aforementioned person came and sat on the step next to me outside and said "You shouldn't have been paranoid about me hugging you earlier just because you're disabled..."

Riiiiight. Thanks for that validation, but I was quite aware that non-disabledness wasn't a huggily transmitted disease.