is having some sort of crisis and refusing to work, so I thought I'd just come along here and see how we're all doing. Hey you guys! How are you? I am fine thank you.
So, stuff that is happening, firstly and most excitingly we are pretty much moved in to our new place. It is odd what you will put up with when you are renting, certainly when you are renting in London. The new place is like some sort of magical fabulous dream. Here are some of the things that I can't actually believe about it:
The hot tap runs hot.
The cold tap runs cold.
The taps all turn in an intuitive direction (three years I lived in the old place and I still got soaked everytime I turned the kitchen tap on.)
The lights all work.
The outside light works.
There are curtains! In each room!
There is no 'knack' to opening the front door. Or any of the doors, for that matter.
There are pictures on the wall. Hideous pictures, but they are steadily being replaced by our own pictures.
The shower works.
The clicker on the oven works.
The light in the oven works.
The radiators all work.
There is an airing cupboard.
There are window boxes and a teeny teeny raised bed by the front door.
There are stairs. STAIRS!! To the two double bedrooms. TWO BEDROOMS!
Other stuff that is happening:
Oscar is still not well, I think he really is asthmatic and won't grow out of it, but the docs still don't want to say when he is so small. Thinking of taking him to a proper asthma drop in clinic.
I have wasted a hell of a lot of money on myself this month (a hell of a lot) and now I am in a stress about money. But I guess as long as I don't buy anything at all for the next couple of months it'll even up.
I am doing stuff at work that is really interesting and in fact quite good fun but... BUT... I am only a Grade Three and this is going way out of my payscale. But how else would I get the experience? And they did mention it in the interview and I did say it was okay. And anyway I'm not going to stick at this forever. And I'm enjoying myself. So why am I moaning? I don't know! I'm not really moaning. I'm more saying 'look how clever and trusted I am.' I think. I am really really unconfident at work for some weird reason. Oh well. i am just generally feeling a bit uncertain of my own abilities at the moment.
The Daily Mail is Brigadoon for crypto-fascists, a place where the local time is always 1950. But there must be anxious scenes in the bunker this weekend as it dawns on them that the UK is no longer populated by racist homophobic bigot like themselves.
Jan Moir’s hate spewing rant against Stephen Gately has been rightfully pilloried across the internet. The Press Complaints Commission have had record complaints and companies have asked for their ads to be withdrawn from the web page. This Facebook page lists their contact details, if you want to point out to companies that you’re not prepared to buy their products if they continue to fund bigotry.
The Daily Mail is increasing looking like the embarrassing elderly relative at a family function.
Damian Hirst’s paintings are not just bad, they are deliciously bad. These hesitant little daubs are a towering edifice of talentless tat. They’re canvasses only a mother could love. This is the Emperor shouting his nakedness to any who would listen.
The characteristically grandiose title ‘No Love Lost, Blue Paintings’ (Hirst modestly slipping himself between Picasso and Bacon) could be replaced with a simpler and more apposite ‘Why?’. Anyone who still thinks Hirst has talent (beyond self promotion) will view these and reconsider his entire output.
I've been archiving my 20six blog, on and off, for a while now, so I've been reading and not writing. Also I am ashamed to say that at one point I wrote 'I am 23 and impressed with someone being in a band. Sad.' I am 29 and, uh, still totally impressed by people being in bands.
So stuff wot has happened...
I am moving house, from SW to SE and I am kind of happy because I think the new place is fabola and everything (it's a HOUSE! with a GARDEN!) but also kinda sad because I'm leaving Streats. Even though it's only a 15 minute walk away. I pick up the keys this eve. Wowzer. Never. Moving. Again, by the way, although these new estate agents have been really great.
I am gonna do NaNoWriMo again this year cos I have a totally stonking chick-lit-murder-mystery-campus-novel which really needs to get out of my subconscious before I go bonkers.
Oscar is a genuis (Uh. Genius. I mean. I can't believe I just mistyped that.) apparently, according to his Sing n Sign teacher but really it's just that he's about 5 months older than all the other babies in the class so he is more able. Still his childminder also said he was good for his age, as he can say 'digger', 'swing' etc. I mean WHAT?! He's never said that to me. He's never even said 'Mummy.' Kids are weird.
Work is uh... work is... work will look good on my CV once I've left. And I am committed to at least another year, I think. The people are great, the job is okay, but I miss the students so hard. I miss the structure of the academic year as well, this is much more like working somewhere 'proper'. Ha! That looks awful. Oh you know what I mean. I don't actively dislike being here. In fact often I totally love it. Although one of my many bosses (one of the ones who isn't actually my boss although he totally is my boss really) is at least aware this isn't my 'proper' job (my 'proper' job being swanning around being an arty dick, although obviously that isn't really my 'proper' job either. My 'proper' job is being a mum, I suppose. I don't want to do that full time either though! Oh what do I want? When am I going to know what I want to do/be when I grow up?! When am I going to grow up?)
I'm not drinking. Again. Which is working out for me, actually.
Oh, I know what happened, we went on a BRILLIANT holiday that was BRILLIANT and one day (when I'm not at work and have an hour or so to myself) I will actually put the pics on Facebook.
I... nothing interesting is happening to me right now! My 20six blog is very high drama. Do I miss the drama? At least I kept a record.
I wasn't always this boring.
No.
My particular favourites are the boredom/hunger and the lack of productivity ones.
- More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.
- Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realise you're wrong.
- Have you ever been walking down the street and realised that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the pavement.
- I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.
- Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the "people you may know" feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?
- Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.
- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?
- I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a d*ck from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!
- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies".
- Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public, I feel like a kid on Christmas morning that just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!
- Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem …
- You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.
- Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.
- There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.
- I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
- I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?
- I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.
- Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
- Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time...
- I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
I've started up a new clubbing venture with Morgan and Sandy, a tiny Canadian with perfect hair. It's called Come Out 2Nite, named after the most perfect pop single by the most perfect pop band.
It's at the Betsey Trotwood, which is in Farringdon. Our first night is on Saturday 24th October, which will also be Morgan's 22nd birthday. To celebrate this, we're all playing sets from our birth years, 1977, 1979 and, errr, 1987.
My set will therefore involve The Only Ones, Sparks, The Cure, Squeeze and the B52s.
Come along if you can! Let me know if you can make it and I'll put you on our £2 guestlist. And please spread the word with past London Loves veterans, if you know where they live, in real life or on the internet.
How have the ways you use your PC to stay connected with family and friends changed over the years?
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Many years ago, when I was a wee lass, I remember my parents would use our local PC to send messages to our friends and family. Every time my mum would blow a special whistle he would turn up, bicycle clips still attached, his jolly, shiney face laughing away, ready to take the post card to Aunty Connie in Newton Abbot or the pair of socks to Grandpa in Usk.
On high days and holidays our PC would literally tie us together with lengths of string to our neighbours - the sense connection we felt to each other when we celebrated the Queen's silver jubilee in 1977 was something that has never been repeated. Oh the merriment we had when one of us needed to use the loo - you just can't imagine! The rope burns are just faint scars of a happy occasion.
Later, in my mis-spent youth, I used my PC to keep me in touch with far-flung friends. All I would have to do was to commit some sort of petty crime (brick through the window of a local cattery, impersonating Bros - that sort of thing) and my PC would take me to a station where I was allowed one free phone call. I'm telling you, before the invention of facebook - this was the most effective way of keeping in touch with the relatives you see infrequently.
As I grew older, I became PC myself - I started calling my friends and relations things like 'vertically challenged', 'hygienicly taxed', 'fiscally tested' - we found we could all connect by being PC - even our PC joined in and called us 'area squanderers' and 'gorey intellectually sub-normals'.
Since the days of the first PCs I think we have come a long way and I certainly feel more connected to my friends and family since it takes them ages to work out how I'm insulting them.
What's one thing you can't say no to?
Temptation. But you guys knew that already!
Are you more attracted to people whose personalities are similar or different to yours?
Hello internets. I am going to answer this question - well, wait technically I'm not because, I am going to answer this question by exploring my theory on attraction. Yes, my Theory on Attraction. It's got nowt to do with similar or different personalities. My theory is thus:
Say we really did have past lives. Say we are all just doomed to keep going round and around and around again. This would explain SO MUCH. Like, for instance the way some people are freakishly smart (they have been around loads of times - they just don't remember) and some people are just such dumbos (it's their first time.) So, okay, now you're with me on the past lives thang, stay with me...
All the people you ever knew, all of them, everyone you'll ever meet this life time, you already met. In other life times. You're all sort of tied together, and the ties loosen or tighten each time around. So for example, your husband in this life time might just have been the guy who worked in the corner shop that you thought was sort of cute in another life time and your best friend at school in another and some guy who stole your missus in another. Do you still follow me?
Because this totally explains how sometimes, when you meet someone and you are totally like 'oh my god! hello!' well, that explains what's happened. You were brothers in a past life, or something. But it's up to you how you navigate your way through these relationships - it's no good just dropping everything each time you have an 'oh my god! hello!' moment. I know, I am a fine one to talk, but anyways. I have made my choice now, and that's all there is to it. I am aware there will be some more 'oh my god! hello!' moments in my life - well, hopefully, because they are quite good fun - but it doesn't mean I actually have to do anything about it. Apart from be delighted our lives have crashed into one another again.
Also, this completely explains things like half of us 20sixers spinning about in quite similar social circles or clubs or workplaces or cities several years before we ever met. We easily could have met before, we just didn't. But now I think maybe I'm thinking of parallel universes.
My head hurts.
How times change...
So I'm at work on a Thursday to make up some time I owed, but I think this might backfire because I FEEL LIKE DEATH and there's every chance I'll end up wanting to take tomorrow off. Eurgh. I feel unwell.
This Sunday If You Dare have a slot as part of the Camden Fringe. It's 10.15pm (I know) in the Camden Head. Ask me if you'd like tickets, I have a couple of comps (if you've already bought a ticket send me the confirmation email and I'll sort you out a free drink or two.) There'll be a poet, I've written a crappy ten minute play for it (selling it, ain't I?) and we've a beautiful singer/songwriter. Should be good.
Work is... work is... so many different things. Work is not what I expected and everything I expected and difficult and tiring and funny and fun. The people are just fab. I am planning on writing a chick-lit murder mystery campus novel come NaNoWriMo this year, because it suddenly struck me that all campus novels concentrate on the academic staff or the students, when there is a rich and unexplored vein of simmering resentments, hopeless crushes and out and out insanity in the administrative staff (er, I mean, the admin staff in ALL unis, not just this one. Although obviously this one as well.) Watch this space! It's A-level results day, which in my old job meant a very, very, very difficult and long day (week, really) spent shattering peoples lives. I can't decide if I'm glad I'm out of it or not. I miss the students, very much. More than I thought.
Oscar is hilarious. Here he is on his birthday present, a trike (he had to go on it before he even got dressed.) :
