Sunday afternoon was spent in the pub, this was a bad idea for two reason; 1) I had to get up at 5 on Monday morning to drive Very Far Away and 2) Well there isn't really a second reason other than you know, catholic guilt. Not that we're catholic but we did both us go to Sunday school when we were little people (him for 1 day, me for 10 YEARS) to be educated in The Word Of The Lord, and The Lord, he did not say to run from the church to the nearest pub and drink away thy sins. Although He should have done, that would surely have made sunday school more fun.
We abandoned the house for the afternoon because we had DONE OUR TIME. Weener (who I should not be calling Weener because it makes her think of a penis and she is not a penis) worked on the living room with us for 5 HOURS on Friday night (she even made us dinner and brought it around, seriously, is she the nicest person in the history of the world or what?! THAT IS A RHETORICAL QUESTION, SHE ABSOLUTELY IS) and finally, yes, finally, the living room is ready to be painted.
I know how to plaster a wall now, Although Weener (last time, I promise) did most of the skimming, I did some of one wall all by myself. Oh yes, I am a truckers ideal girlfriend, I am master of the blow job and the plastering of the walls, and I bet I could do both at the same time, yes, yes I could.
You may wonder where Matt King of The BBQ, Lord of The Flame and Glenn were while Weesorrymochinbach and I were killing our oestrogen with handfulls of plaster and sand paper, well the former had to turn the electricity off to fix something to do with a wall socket (I didn't pay enough attention to tell you what it was which is LUDICROUS because if it ever goes wrong again I can pretty much guarantee he will be in AUSTRALIA or something) and Glenn was sort of watching, sort of sanding and making inappropriate sarcastic comments.
And I have nothing more to say about that.
So onto the kitchen! Living room should only really take a couple of days to get a couple of coats of paint on and meanwhile there is a whole kitchen to rip out and install from scratch, I can skim a wall so Goddammit I can install a kitchen.
Honestly, when I was a kid and Repenting Of My Sins at sunday school, when I was, like, 7 years old and begging The Almighty Fathers forgiveness for something I didn't understand, do you think he took any notice or do you think he just laughed and boomed 'Oh dear sweet child of heaven, you are so going to get it when you're 24, you just wait, I'm going to have so much fun with you, buy a house? I'll show YOU a house......'.
Well I am going to have some semblance of a last laugh because on Sunday you'll find me in the pub.
Sinning.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Monday, June 27, 2005
Two fat ladies.....
I'm reviewing my CV, not because I have a job in mind that I am going to send it into, just because you never know when you will find such a job and I want to be ready. My CV used to be brilliant, it has things like 'Bar Associate' where it should read 'Bar Maid', 'Administrative technician', where it should read 'Admin assistant', 'graduate trainee' where it should read 'general dogsbody who no-one at the company knows what to do with', and my proudest moment and personal favourite - 'Bingo Assistant', where it should read exactly that - 'Bingo Assistant'.
I have had a job since I was 14 years old and my mother pushed me through the door of a small supermarket that stank of rotting vegetables and said 'there's a sign on the door saying they want staff, go and get the job because pocket money stops here' (in case you were wondering, no, my sister was not given this 'talk' until she was 16). This particular store broke pretty much every law and EU regulation that tries to govern how many hours a CHILD should work, and I worked 25 hours a week for the princely sum of £2 whole pounds an hour (and I was lucky, some of the girls were on £10 a day) and this was on top of going to school.
I had enough of that after an exhausting four months and so my detailed job history began....
Before I was a till girl at Rotting Vegetable Mart I was a babysitter (£1 an hour, £2.50 an hour after midnight, I think I was the cheapest baby sitter in the WHOLE WORLD), then came the Rotting Vegetables, then I was a waitress at a tea room (complete with Victorian uniform including small white apron and head dress, no Glenn, I don't still have it), then I worked at Argos, and then I worked at Homebase for three years. I worked at GAP for a year (the single most miserable job I have EVER had, it turns out I am a rubbish sales person, I can't sell socks to the sockless). I spent a summer working in a bingo hall. I spent another summer working in a country pub. I worked at a starbucks type independant coffee shop (and that is every bit as cool as you think it should be, you chose your own music, you picked your own hours, you were allowed to LAUGH with the customers (try and explain that to the people in GAP), and all the coffee and haribo was absolutely free to staff. I spent another summer working at a wetherspoons. I worked at The Law Society for 6 months and that brings us right up to now, I have been in my current job for a little over two years.
I would just quickly like to state I have NEVER been sacked, I just get bored easily.
The best job out of all of them, the greatest, most fun job I have ever had is far and away the summer I spent between my 2nd and 3rd year at uni, as a Bingo Assistant. The job of bingo assistant is little talked about (I blame the uniform - bow tie and waistcoat, even for the girls) and the reputation of the staff as people who ended up there because they were too thick to do anything else (yearly staff turnover at the establishment where I worked was 450 in a place that needed 20 full time staffers), this is mostly due to the pay being so low no one can believe anyone would actually choose to do it, but they are forgetting the bingo! The old people who come religously EVERY SINGLE DAY to spend almost their entire pension on little cards with numbers on them and dabbers (industry term for maker pen, the professional's choice for ease and speed of eliminating the numbers called out).
I know why all old people are so poor, it isn't the lack of a pension, it's the lure of the bingo!
The silver haired lothario at the helm, calling out the numbers and referring to the old ladies as 'young girls', making them giggle like they haven't giggled in 50 years.
They get drunk at the bingo, drunk! and it's not even Christmas!
And young people wearing questionable bow ties attending to their every need, like they're millionaires. Bloody wonderful!
I made some lovely friends there who I have sadly lost touched with (including a couple of hard core lesbians, but we'll talk about my curious phase another time.....) and had an absolute riot the whole time I was there (although I was never allowed to call the numbers, oh no no no, the patrons were VERY PICKY about who called the numbers, amateurs were regularly booed off the stage). I'd been through the mill a bit at the tail end of time I was at uni and what I needed was to meet new people, do new things and forget about everything that had gone before. I did all of that and it gave me back some desperately needed self-confidance.
Anyone know if the local Bingo hall is recruiting?
I have had a job since I was 14 years old and my mother pushed me through the door of a small supermarket that stank of rotting vegetables and said 'there's a sign on the door saying they want staff, go and get the job because pocket money stops here' (in case you were wondering, no, my sister was not given this 'talk' until she was 16). This particular store broke pretty much every law and EU regulation that tries to govern how many hours a CHILD should work, and I worked 25 hours a week for the princely sum of £2 whole pounds an hour (and I was lucky, some of the girls were on £10 a day) and this was on top of going to school.
I had enough of that after an exhausting four months and so my detailed job history began....
Before I was a till girl at Rotting Vegetable Mart I was a babysitter (£1 an hour, £2.50 an hour after midnight, I think I was the cheapest baby sitter in the WHOLE WORLD), then came the Rotting Vegetables, then I was a waitress at a tea room (complete with Victorian uniform including small white apron and head dress, no Glenn, I don't still have it), then I worked at Argos, and then I worked at Homebase for three years. I worked at GAP for a year (the single most miserable job I have EVER had, it turns out I am a rubbish sales person, I can't sell socks to the sockless). I spent a summer working in a bingo hall. I spent another summer working in a country pub. I worked at a starbucks type independant coffee shop (and that is every bit as cool as you think it should be, you chose your own music, you picked your own hours, you were allowed to LAUGH with the customers (try and explain that to the people in GAP), and all the coffee and haribo was absolutely free to staff. I spent another summer working at a wetherspoons. I worked at The Law Society for 6 months and that brings us right up to now, I have been in my current job for a little over two years.
I would just quickly like to state I have NEVER been sacked, I just get bored easily.
The best job out of all of them, the greatest, most fun job I have ever had is far and away the summer I spent between my 2nd and 3rd year at uni, as a Bingo Assistant. The job of bingo assistant is little talked about (I blame the uniform - bow tie and waistcoat, even for the girls) and the reputation of the staff as people who ended up there because they were too thick to do anything else (yearly staff turnover at the establishment where I worked was 450 in a place that needed 20 full time staffers), this is mostly due to the pay being so low no one can believe anyone would actually choose to do it, but they are forgetting the bingo! The old people who come religously EVERY SINGLE DAY to spend almost their entire pension on little cards with numbers on them and dabbers (industry term for maker pen, the professional's choice for ease and speed of eliminating the numbers called out).
I know why all old people are so poor, it isn't the lack of a pension, it's the lure of the bingo!
The silver haired lothario at the helm, calling out the numbers and referring to the old ladies as 'young girls', making them giggle like they haven't giggled in 50 years.
They get drunk at the bingo, drunk! and it's not even Christmas!
And young people wearing questionable bow ties attending to their every need, like they're millionaires. Bloody wonderful!
I made some lovely friends there who I have sadly lost touched with (including a couple of hard core lesbians, but we'll talk about my curious phase another time.....) and had an absolute riot the whole time I was there (although I was never allowed to call the numbers, oh no no no, the patrons were VERY PICKY about who called the numbers, amateurs were regularly booed off the stage). I'd been through the mill a bit at the tail end of time I was at uni and what I needed was to meet new people, do new things and forget about everything that had gone before. I did all of that and it gave me back some desperately needed self-confidance.
Anyone know if the local Bingo hall is recruiting?
Friday, June 24, 2005
Cancelled
we are not going to Alton Towers, Glenn has vetoed it. This is not because I have an issue with amusement parks (expect a huge post any day now on the many seemingly innocent things I have issues with, you have already had amusement parks and friends reunited) it is because we have no money (£30 each to get into Alton Towers you know, £30 EACH!) and it would end up being a very expensive way to walk around a park holding people's coats while they, you know, enjoy themselves. It is also because we have to go to a christening (A WHOLE DAY OF BABIES AND GOD, WHY DO WE DO THIS TO OURSELVES?) so it would be a whole weekend away from the house that Jack built (and not the last one he built, the one on the good solid ground, no no, we bought the one he built on SAND).
I hope Weener understands that I would be there with bells on if I had any money that wasn't allocated to things like fixing a toilet that JUST WON'T FLUSH FOR LONG ENOUGH, NO MATTER HOW MUCH I BEG IT, and sandpaper, and yet more magnoliamattfinishonecoat(whichisn'teverenoughsowhyarewespendingtheextramoney)paint.
Also, I think I may have made a faux pas with her birthday present, although she likes the Lush Bath Bombs she thought I had bought her the posh pasta because the spaghetti she had cooked the previous week was rubbish. So I have to say that it was just chosen because she is a regular little Delia and I wanted to buy her gifts that mirrored a couple of the past times that relax her and give her joy, taking long lovely baths and cooking, that is all. The spaghetti was lovely.
(remind me to tell a story about how she once said Matt King of the BBQ, Lord of the Flame that they should buy his sister, S, bath bombs for her birthday because S once said to her that she like the way they fizzed when she sat on them in the bath, except Weener said this VERY LOUDLY in the middle of Lush without an honest to God clue WHY S likes the way they fizz, as she, you know, SITS ON THEM)
So we're not going to Alton Towers, we're going to work on the house instead. The house is looking promising though, I knew it would look bad before it looked good but I don't think I had any real clue just how bad it would look, and it's going to look even worse than this. Upstairs is ok, downstairs though, bloody hell, would not look out of place in Afghanistan. Two of the bedrooms are painted though, and the hall, stairs and landing so I just keep ticking these things off and adding new things to the bottom and hoping against hope I can cancel the house warming party and no one will notice.....?
So, from one tired business consultant cum painter and decorater to you - Happy Friday!
I hope Weener understands that I would be there with bells on if I had any money that wasn't allocated to things like fixing a toilet that JUST WON'T FLUSH FOR LONG ENOUGH, NO MATTER HOW MUCH I BEG IT, and sandpaper, and yet more magnoliamattfinishonecoat(whichisn'teverenoughsowhyarewespendingtheextramoney)paint.
Also, I think I may have made a faux pas with her birthday present, although she likes the Lush Bath Bombs she thought I had bought her the posh pasta because the spaghetti she had cooked the previous week was rubbish. So I have to say that it was just chosen because she is a regular little Delia and I wanted to buy her gifts that mirrored a couple of the past times that relax her and give her joy, taking long lovely baths and cooking, that is all. The spaghetti was lovely.
(remind me to tell a story about how she once said Matt King of the BBQ, Lord of the Flame that they should buy his sister, S, bath bombs for her birthday because S once said to her that she like the way they fizzed when she sat on them in the bath, except Weener said this VERY LOUDLY in the middle of Lush without an honest to God clue WHY S likes the way they fizz, as she, you know, SITS ON THEM)
So we're not going to Alton Towers, we're going to work on the house instead. The house is looking promising though, I knew it would look bad before it looked good but I don't think I had any real clue just how bad it would look, and it's going to look even worse than this. Upstairs is ok, downstairs though, bloody hell, would not look out of place in Afghanistan. Two of the bedrooms are painted though, and the hall, stairs and landing so I just keep ticking these things off and adding new things to the bottom and hoping against hope I can cancel the house warming party and no one will notice.....?
So, from one tired business consultant cum painter and decorater to you - Happy Friday!
Sadness
I have just discovered that Elizabeth Montgomery is dead. You may not know who Elizabeth Montgomery is immediately but if I write this then you will know....
Eeeeeeeeelizabeth Montgomery in... Beeeeeeeeewitched!
Now you know right? How sad is that?! She died in 1995 so I am a little slow on the uptake here but I just always thought she was one of the most beautiful women I ever saw. She was beautiful in a non-threatening, could have met you in the street, could be your favourite aunt, not snap-me-in-half-skinny, sort of way, just really beautiful, and I was looking forward to them pulling her from obscurity to give interviews about the new Bewitched film (starring most-certainly-is-snap-me-in-half-skinny Nicole Kidman) but now they can't because she is dead.
And that has made me sad today.
Eeeeeeeeelizabeth Montgomery in... Beeeeeeeeewitched!
Now you know right? How sad is that?! She died in 1995 so I am a little slow on the uptake here but I just always thought she was one of the most beautiful women I ever saw. She was beautiful in a non-threatening, could have met you in the street, could be your favourite aunt, not snap-me-in-half-skinny, sort of way, just really beautiful, and I was looking forward to them pulling her from obscurity to give interviews about the new Bewitched film (starring most-certainly-is-snap-me-in-half-skinny Nicole Kidman) but now they can't because she is dead.
And that has made me sad today.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Letter
Dear Glenn,
I love you very much and to show you how much I love you, I am going to come to Oasis with you next week and I am not going to make fun of them at all, not once. You have worked very hard on the house with me and also, as it was your Christmas present, I will make every effort to be the best fan of Oasis that ever was. I will scream, I will cheer, I will NOT mention how much Noel and Liam look like extras from Planet of the Apes, with all the intellligence and sensitivity of grapefruit. No no no, I will be attentive and thoughtful and appreciative.
I'm afraid that I have to stop short of allowing any albums (new or old) to be played in my car. This is a rule that was made when I bought my first car, it was transferred to the new car and, like the ebbing of the tide or the rising of the sun, cannot be changed. However, you can take a picture of Oasis and perhaps look at it while much better music is on, maybe that will be ok.
We are going to have two wonderful days in Manc Land, we will not shop or go out because we have just bought a (beautiful) kitchen and that means we are so poor now we can barely afford food, but we will make the best of it, at least we will be together, and other such vomit inducing niceties.
Yes! We will enjoy Oasis! I have not crossed my fingers and hoped the tickets get lost in the post AT ALL. No no no, it will be wonderful. We will have northern food, like chips and gravy and while in my head I will wonder how Liam has managed to spear so many lovely blonde ladies while smelling like a septic tank, aloud I will comment on his interesting vocal performance and amusing choice of overly large coat. If there's one thing these Oasis fans do well, it is ill fitting utility chic. I may invest in an army themed jacket with fur trim myself in the spirit of the evening (and to ceremoniously burn when I come back down to earth).
Yes, it will be a memorable evening, and you just remember baby, it's all for you.
love always,
ME
XX
I love you very much and to show you how much I love you, I am going to come to Oasis with you next week and I am not going to make fun of them at all, not once. You have worked very hard on the house with me and also, as it was your Christmas present, I will make every effort to be the best fan of Oasis that ever was. I will scream, I will cheer, I will NOT mention how much Noel and Liam look like extras from Planet of the Apes, with all the intellligence and sensitivity of grapefruit. No no no, I will be attentive and thoughtful and appreciative.
I'm afraid that I have to stop short of allowing any albums (new or old) to be played in my car. This is a rule that was made when I bought my first car, it was transferred to the new car and, like the ebbing of the tide or the rising of the sun, cannot be changed. However, you can take a picture of Oasis and perhaps look at it while much better music is on, maybe that will be ok.
We are going to have two wonderful days in Manc Land, we will not shop or go out because we have just bought a (beautiful) kitchen and that means we are so poor now we can barely afford food, but we will make the best of it, at least we will be together, and other such vomit inducing niceties.
Yes! We will enjoy Oasis! I have not crossed my fingers and hoped the tickets get lost in the post AT ALL. No no no, it will be wonderful. We will have northern food, like chips and gravy and while in my head I will wonder how Liam has managed to spear so many lovely blonde ladies while smelling like a septic tank, aloud I will comment on his interesting vocal performance and amusing choice of overly large coat. If there's one thing these Oasis fans do well, it is ill fitting utility chic. I may invest in an army themed jacket with fur trim myself in the spirit of the evening (and to ceremoniously burn when I come back down to earth).
Yes, it will be a memorable evening, and you just remember baby, it's all for you.
love always,
ME
XX
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Panic
I sold out, I know I did, and all those fantastic, creative, funny people I went to university with would be so ashamed of me, I am so ahamed of me.
The woman sat next to me in this office with no window or air conditioning just took her shoes off and I have no escape from the PUTRID STINK of her feet.
The woman sat next to me in this office with no window or air conditioning just took her shoes off and I have no escape from the PUTRID STINK of her feet.
If only I actually re-read these things before I hit the 'send' key...
Had row with someone over the email this morning which made me so annoyed I ended up sending this;
'Oh my God, could you make me feel anymore guilty? No really, please try, send me a video of you drowning kittens, cut your testicles off in a protest at me disclaiming your manhood, tie yourself to a cross with a sign saying 'paint for 135 Coombes Lane made me do this', please, I could really do with some hefty emotional baggage because clearly I am not doing enough for you.'
Oh dear, I should probably say sorry.
Again.
(Also not sure the bit about 'disclaiming' his manhood made sense, but I was typing too quickly to stop and think of the proper word.)
'Oh my God, could you make me feel anymore guilty? No really, please try, send me a video of you drowning kittens, cut your testicles off in a protest at me disclaiming your manhood, tie yourself to a cross with a sign saying 'paint for 135 Coombes Lane made me do this', please, I could really do with some hefty emotional baggage because clearly I am not doing enough for you.'
Oh dear, I should probably say sorry.
Again.
(Also not sure the bit about 'disclaiming' his manhood made sense, but I was typing too quickly to stop and think of the proper word.)
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
I hold the coats
To celebrate The Birthday Of Weener, we are going to Alton Towers on Saturday. I don't really do amusement parks because I don't really do the rides, I got tricked onto a log flume once but that's another story and involves me sitting next to my then boyfriend and screaming 'MOTHERFUCKERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!' as we plummet toward the earth, this would not have been so bad, has his mother not defied the G Force to turn around from her position DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME to give me the death stare.
The last time I went to Alton Towers was on a school trip where I was picked up and thrown Over the shoulder of the teacher I later made a complaint about and marched to some spinny, upside downy, giant wheel of terror and forced to queue with him and his monstrous breath while he tried to make me go on it with him (the ride, he tried to make me go on the ride with him, he didn't try and make me go on anything else, that came a good two years later, apparently once your pupil is 17 IT'S OK!).
So you see, amusement parks and I have a troubled history, I like Disney World, but I refused to go on Space Mountain and Terror Tower, I liked Universal Studios, until the Jurassic Park incident (see first paragraph and a wanton excuse to write MOTHERFUCKERRRRRRRRRRRR in caps again) but on Saturday I will go and I will have a good time, oh yes I will.
Yes.
I will.
If it kills me.
The last time I went to Alton Towers was on a school trip where I was picked up and thrown Over the shoulder of the teacher I later made a complaint about and marched to some spinny, upside downy, giant wheel of terror and forced to queue with him and his monstrous breath while he tried to make me go on it with him (the ride, he tried to make me go on the ride with him, he didn't try and make me go on anything else, that came a good two years later, apparently once your pupil is 17 IT'S OK!).
So you see, amusement parks and I have a troubled history, I like Disney World, but I refused to go on Space Mountain and Terror Tower, I liked Universal Studios, until the Jurassic Park incident (see first paragraph and a wanton excuse to write MOTHERFUCKERRRRRRRRRRRR in caps again) but on Saturday I will go and I will have a good time, oh yes I will.
Yes.
I will.
If it kills me.
For she's a jolly good fellow....
When my lovely bestest friend woke up this morning, I'm willing to bet my entire broken down house on her actually waking up in one piece, all in tact, nothing missing, all her hair still on her head, still a beautiful blonde. I bet she remembered her name, the name of the BBQ King who lay beside her, and the name of her two children (and by children I mean cats). I bet none of the horrendous things which I am convinced await me on the morning of the 9th March 2006 actually happened. I bet she went to work and educated the nation and they all left school better people than when they got there in the morning, I bet she gets home this evening and has a lovely meal, opens some lovely presents, goes to bed and gets ravaged by a tall man with a penchant for smokey meat products.
In short I bet today, the 21st July 2005, the day my lovely bestest friend turns 25, is a great day. For that is exactly what she deserves.
Happy Birthday Mochinbach. You rock.
In short I bet today, the 21st July 2005, the day my lovely bestest friend turns 25, is a great day. For that is exactly what she deserves.
Happy Birthday Mochinbach. You rock.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
House update
Well it was the end of day four on Sunday and thus far we have painted two bedrooms, cleared the garden, ordered the sofa, bed and dining furniture, and the living room is thisclose to being ready to paint, and I just have this to say;
OH THE DUST! WHO KNEW YOU HAD TO CREATE DUST LIKE IT?! WHO KNEW THERE EVEN WAS DUST LIKE IT?! IT'S TUESDAY NOW AND I STILL CAN'T BREATHE (the combination of dust and hay fever has murdered my previously unreasonably healthy lungs).
My heartfelt and eternal thanks to Matt (King of the BBQ, Lord of the Flame), Mr Dz and Mochinbach, whose contributions save my life on a weekly basis.
OH THE DUST! WHO KNEW YOU HAD TO CREATE DUST LIKE IT?! WHO KNEW THERE EVEN WAS DUST LIKE IT?! IT'S TUESDAY NOW AND I STILL CAN'T BREATHE (the combination of dust and hay fever has murdered my previously unreasonably healthy lungs).
My heartfelt and eternal thanks to Matt (King of the BBQ, Lord of the Flame), Mr Dz and Mochinbach, whose contributions save my life on a weekly basis.
Google - not necessarily a good thing.
I googled an ex-boyfriend this morning in a moment of INSANITY. When will I ever learn to leave well alone, it started when I had a look on friends reunited (see previous post about why that is evil) and he's doing well and sounds happy (actually his post was very much 'I am so cool and accomplished and have left you all so far behind that you barely register in the rearview mirror of my life')so I thought, I wonder what happens if I google him...
I google most people I meet, my boss has a picture of himself from 1995 dressed in a dubiously fitted cricket outfit, Mr Dz once delivered a presentation on the Wizard of Oz and a synopsis on the first episode of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', nobody else has ever brought up anything at all. Until now.
It turns out I once had an on/off relationship which lasted the best part of four years with the worlds most talented student of architecture. He got a 1st, was nominated for come kind of Presidents Medal from RIBA (some posh architecture thing), and is now studying at some posh architecture place in London where after graduation he will no doubt attempt to TAKE OVER THE WORLD.
Someone I used to be friends with (you know, the one who said I was FAT) emailed me recently to tell me they had seen him at some gig in London and he is 'looking wonderful', I almost drove to where she is living now to punch her in the face because I just didn't need to be told that considering how much of a total mess I was after we finally broke up. Actually though, now my head is split in two about the whole thing. I'm not going to deny that half A wishes he was dead, and if it can't have dead it will accept disabled, blind, comatose or just plain miserable, that man was the reason I spent a year of my life drunk (quite literally), I went OFF the rails and fell into Crazy Country. Part B however remembers just how much untapped potential he had in his fucked up crazy brain and is SO GLAD that that potential is being realised, he has a serious talent and it would be a crime against humanity if that were to have been wasted. So I think what I am going to do is let part B rule the professional and part A rule the personal. To that end I would like to write the following;
Dear R,
I recently google you and would like to congratulate you on your professional achievements, I always knew you were an outstandingly talented human being with so much to offer in terms of your design capabilities, I hope you continue to share these gifts with the world and reap the financial benefits they deserve. However, I hope that when you get home from a hard day in the office and open the door to your state of the art apartment with panoramic views of the city, you are totally alone and have to drink yourself to sleep, the pillow beneath your head wet from all the tears of unhappiness you weep... and wank.
From (because the love is dead my friend),
The girl whose life you didn't ruin after all.
I google most people I meet, my boss has a picture of himself from 1995 dressed in a dubiously fitted cricket outfit, Mr Dz once delivered a presentation on the Wizard of Oz and a synopsis on the first episode of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', nobody else has ever brought up anything at all. Until now.
It turns out I once had an on/off relationship which lasted the best part of four years with the worlds most talented student of architecture. He got a 1st, was nominated for come kind of Presidents Medal from RIBA (some posh architecture thing), and is now studying at some posh architecture place in London where after graduation he will no doubt attempt to TAKE OVER THE WORLD.
Someone I used to be friends with (you know, the one who said I was FAT) emailed me recently to tell me they had seen him at some gig in London and he is 'looking wonderful', I almost drove to where she is living now to punch her in the face because I just didn't need to be told that considering how much of a total mess I was after we finally broke up. Actually though, now my head is split in two about the whole thing. I'm not going to deny that half A wishes he was dead, and if it can't have dead it will accept disabled, blind, comatose or just plain miserable, that man was the reason I spent a year of my life drunk (quite literally), I went OFF the rails and fell into Crazy Country. Part B however remembers just how much untapped potential he had in his fucked up crazy brain and is SO GLAD that that potential is being realised, he has a serious talent and it would be a crime against humanity if that were to have been wasted. So I think what I am going to do is let part B rule the professional and part A rule the personal. To that end I would like to write the following;
Dear R,
I recently google you and would like to congratulate you on your professional achievements, I always knew you were an outstandingly talented human being with so much to offer in terms of your design capabilities, I hope you continue to share these gifts with the world and reap the financial benefits they deserve. However, I hope that when you get home from a hard day in the office and open the door to your state of the art apartment with panoramic views of the city, you are totally alone and have to drink yourself to sleep, the pillow beneath your head wet from all the tears of unhappiness you weep... and wank.
From (because the love is dead my friend),
The girl whose life you didn't ruin after all.
Friday, June 10, 2005
Secret Shame #1
Turning the radio up every time the new 50 Cent song comes on, it's just so damn catchy.
Now excuse me while I cut my fingers off for even typing this.
Now excuse me while I cut my fingers off for even typing this.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
The great thing about sleep....
.... is that you feel so much better about everything when you wake up. Especially when you have been to sleep in your own bed with your lovely boyfriend (even if when you got home from work the night before, the slightly unshaven shabby chic he was sporting when you left the house two days earlier had been cultivated into full blown beard territory and left you with the unsettling feeling you were living with your bearded father - just call me Electra - and ohmygod he's trying to kiss me and NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!).
So that's the end of all the profound nonsense about appearing and being and blah blah blah, I still stand by the fact that it's very important to live a life, not a lifestyle but I have too much to be getting on with to worry about that now. ONE THING AT A TIME.
Settled. Good. Forgotten about. Now, I have to work for 6 more hours and then I'm off to buy a bed, a kitchen, a sofa and 20,000 litres of magnoliaonecoatmattfinishpaint.
Such is life.
So that's the end of all the profound nonsense about appearing and being and blah blah blah, I still stand by the fact that it's very important to live a life, not a lifestyle but I have too much to be getting on with to worry about that now. ONE THING AT A TIME.
Settled. Good. Forgotten about. Now, I have to work for 6 more hours and then I'm off to buy a bed, a kitchen, a sofa and 20,000 litres of magnoliaonecoatmattfinishpaint.
Such is life.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Lost.
My mind is racing with all these things I want to do and I have to learn to CHILL OUT. I am getting so ahead of myself, planning things and wanting to be doing things that are not what I should be doing at this moment and it's so frustrating! Both because I have other things to be getting on with (you know, things that I get paid to do) and because it means I never have a clear head, my mind is always racing with the next thing and then the next thing and then the next thing.
I read something really interesting today, it was in a news article, I forget what the article was about (either that or I'm too embarassed to admit to what it was about - judge for yourself) but the writer said that it is so important not to confuse APPEARING with BEING. Isn't that just one of the most profound things you ever heard? It goes hand in hand with 'you should live a life, not a lifestyle' (only it's a prettier way of saying it). I think sometimes that's what I'm in danger of doing, especially when it comes to my job; like I like the idea of being this career girl who bombs around the country to different places and stays in nice hotels with her laptop and company credit card, but what does that mean really? It means long nights, alone in a hotel, a laptop that's full of numbers and hours and hours in traffic jams. I'm appearing to be living rather than actually living, but in my head there are so many things racing around that I don't have time to stop and think for a second, to order them into things which make sense and actually ACT on what I want to do.
I hate my job, it's taken me a long time to admit to that because this job was meant to be the Big One for me, all the senior people I work with say I have potential and I could take it far but then they stick me with the most menial tasks and the promises they make never come to fruition. I feel like I work surrounded by fog and no matter how much I try to clear it I just fall over another hurdle and then run into more fog (weak ass metaphor).
There is so much going on right now, with the house and work and everything, and all of it seems to be about APPEARING to have everything under control, about APPEARING to be living life to the full and making the most of everything.
I just want to BE for a while.
I read something really interesting today, it was in a news article, I forget what the article was about (either that or I'm too embarassed to admit to what it was about - judge for yourself) but the writer said that it is so important not to confuse APPEARING with BEING. Isn't that just one of the most profound things you ever heard? It goes hand in hand with 'you should live a life, not a lifestyle' (only it's a prettier way of saying it). I think sometimes that's what I'm in danger of doing, especially when it comes to my job; like I like the idea of being this career girl who bombs around the country to different places and stays in nice hotels with her laptop and company credit card, but what does that mean really? It means long nights, alone in a hotel, a laptop that's full of numbers and hours and hours in traffic jams. I'm appearing to be living rather than actually living, but in my head there are so many things racing around that I don't have time to stop and think for a second, to order them into things which make sense and actually ACT on what I want to do.
I hate my job, it's taken me a long time to admit to that because this job was meant to be the Big One for me, all the senior people I work with say I have potential and I could take it far but then they stick me with the most menial tasks and the promises they make never come to fruition. I feel like I work surrounded by fog and no matter how much I try to clear it I just fall over another hurdle and then run into more fog (weak ass metaphor).
There is so much going on right now, with the house and work and everything, and all of it seems to be about APPEARING to have everything under control, about APPEARING to be living life to the full and making the most of everything.
I just want to BE for a while.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
so... very.... tired.....
So we finally got into the house, I picked up the keys on Friday afternoon and we have spent what feels like every waking minute of the weekend there and worked VERY HARD. I cried a grand total of three times (once in the bath - it was the only place to sit!), ripped off two fingernails, ruined one pair of jeans, lost many hours of sleep and we are one room down, and five to go.
We started in the living room, we got in there at about 9 on Saturday morning and started ripping the thick yellow wallpaper (with HUGE swirly patterns) off the walls with the careless abandon of two very naive children. We were at first hugely relieved that the walls were actual walls, with actual plaster and they were not crumbling down. We discovered two layers of wallpaper, four layers of paint (yellow, pink, grey and green with little black flowers) and the hidden beast of misery that lurks underneath the happy visage of decorating.
Every room in this house is decorated with some kind of anaglypta wallpaper or lining paper, hiding untold miseries. I have found out this weekend that it's not just about pulling off the wallpaper, sanding a bit here and there and then painting with some inoffensive neutral shade of loveliness, OH NO! There is the pulling off of the wallpaper, then the sugarsoaping of every inch of the walls, then the plasting and filling of the cracks and craters, then sanding every inch of the goddamn fucking walls, paint with base coat, then, and only then can you paint ith your neutral shade of loveliness. Seriously, no one does this surely?! and if this was really what everyone had to do then someone out there could do it for a living and charge fucking huge amounts of money for it! Then I remembered - That's exactly what they do, a work colleague was recently charged £1500 for the decorating of three bedrooms, he was so pissed off with the final cost he has vowed to do it himself in future - He clearly has NO IDEA.
We bought five paint samples and tried them all out on the walls, finally chose the exact shade of cream that we liked (not too creamy, not too white, not too yellow), picked up the sample tin to discover we had decided to paint our house.... magnolia.
My parents, god bless their kind and generous souls came around on Sunday with a picnic (a PICNIC!) and lots of energy, for mine had been sucked out of me by some kind of sandpaper vampire. My mother made the executive decision that the three bedrooms will be painted on top of the wallpaper (and somewhere inside my soul, the future me who has to rip off that wallpaper is screaming)and painted the master bedroom in less than two hours (future me might be screaming but current me is bowing before her in awe). The living room meanwhile was causing me a huge headache so Glenn and I have made a decision, now he has got to grips with the concept of filling in gaps, cracks and craters (insert filthy joke here, frankly I'm too tired) I will paint the other two bedrooms and hall, stairs and landing.
We tried to talk about the kitchen but I started to cry so we had to stop.
And somewhere in all of this, the Garden Angel paid us a visit and cleared half of my garden of the waist high grass that has been cultivating; she found a wall, a flower bed and several hundred stinging nettles which she valiantly cut down. She found a rhythm that went something like - Chop with hedge trimmer, rake, chop with strimmer, rake, fix strimmer, mow with mower she has graciously bestowed on us, rake, move to next bit, begin again. That woman is heaven sent, possibly from the same place in heaven as the amazing painting mother.
Special shout out also to my father who I think is probably still there trying to fix the toilet, and also to Matt (King of the BBQ, Lord of The Flame) for spending flippin' ages trying to get the radiator off the wall so we could find another acre of wall to cause us pain and heartache. Also to Ant for coming on Sunday and making me smile, I told him we were going to knock down some of the wall upstairs and create a large cupboard to give us much needed storage space and he has suggested buying a manequin and a length of rope just to shit people up when they go in to get a towel and Ant, the more I think about it... the more attractive that suggestion is....
We were paid a visit by our new neighbours who dropped around a bottle of sherry (yeah, I know - Sherry?!) and a lovely card welcoming us, I was so touched by this I almost cried (AGAIN? ENOUGH ALREADY!).
I know it will all be worth it in the end, I know this, but right now, I'm just so damn tired, and it's only week one.
We started in the living room, we got in there at about 9 on Saturday morning and started ripping the thick yellow wallpaper (with HUGE swirly patterns) off the walls with the careless abandon of two very naive children. We were at first hugely relieved that the walls were actual walls, with actual plaster and they were not crumbling down. We discovered two layers of wallpaper, four layers of paint (yellow, pink, grey and green with little black flowers) and the hidden beast of misery that lurks underneath the happy visage of decorating.
Every room in this house is decorated with some kind of anaglypta wallpaper or lining paper, hiding untold miseries. I have found out this weekend that it's not just about pulling off the wallpaper, sanding a bit here and there and then painting with some inoffensive neutral shade of loveliness, OH NO! There is the pulling off of the wallpaper, then the sugarsoaping of every inch of the walls, then the plasting and filling of the cracks and craters, then sanding every inch of the goddamn fucking walls, paint with base coat, then, and only then can you paint ith your neutral shade of loveliness. Seriously, no one does this surely?! and if this was really what everyone had to do then someone out there could do it for a living and charge fucking huge amounts of money for it! Then I remembered - That's exactly what they do, a work colleague was recently charged £1500 for the decorating of three bedrooms, he was so pissed off with the final cost he has vowed to do it himself in future - He clearly has NO IDEA.
We bought five paint samples and tried them all out on the walls, finally chose the exact shade of cream that we liked (not too creamy, not too white, not too yellow), picked up the sample tin to discover we had decided to paint our house.... magnolia.
My parents, god bless their kind and generous souls came around on Sunday with a picnic (a PICNIC!) and lots of energy, for mine had been sucked out of me by some kind of sandpaper vampire. My mother made the executive decision that the three bedrooms will be painted on top of the wallpaper (and somewhere inside my soul, the future me who has to rip off that wallpaper is screaming)and painted the master bedroom in less than two hours (future me might be screaming but current me is bowing before her in awe). The living room meanwhile was causing me a huge headache so Glenn and I have made a decision, now he has got to grips with the concept of filling in gaps, cracks and craters (insert filthy joke here, frankly I'm too tired) I will paint the other two bedrooms and hall, stairs and landing.
We tried to talk about the kitchen but I started to cry so we had to stop.
And somewhere in all of this, the Garden Angel paid us a visit and cleared half of my garden of the waist high grass that has been cultivating; she found a wall, a flower bed and several hundred stinging nettles which she valiantly cut down. She found a rhythm that went something like - Chop with hedge trimmer, rake, chop with strimmer, rake, fix strimmer, mow with mower she has graciously bestowed on us, rake, move to next bit, begin again. That woman is heaven sent, possibly from the same place in heaven as the amazing painting mother.
Special shout out also to my father who I think is probably still there trying to fix the toilet, and also to Matt (King of the BBQ, Lord of The Flame) for spending flippin' ages trying to get the radiator off the wall so we could find another acre of wall to cause us pain and heartache. Also to Ant for coming on Sunday and making me smile, I told him we were going to knock down some of the wall upstairs and create a large cupboard to give us much needed storage space and he has suggested buying a manequin and a length of rope just to shit people up when they go in to get a towel and Ant, the more I think about it... the more attractive that suggestion is....
We were paid a visit by our new neighbours who dropped around a bottle of sherry (yeah, I know - Sherry?!) and a lovely card welcoming us, I was so touched by this I almost cried (AGAIN? ENOUGH ALREADY!).
I know it will all be worth it in the end, I know this, but right now, I'm just so damn tired, and it's only week one.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Son of a bitch
The previous owner of the house now owned by myself and my other 'alf that is. Who has neglected to hand over all the keys to the house now owned by me and NO LONGER OWNED BY HIM.
This means that yesterday, I left work early, drove from Oxford to south Birmingham, collected what I thought were all the keys from the estate agent and then stood in the porch of my new home and COULD NOT GET IN.
Apparently he is very sorry and will be sending the extra keys recorded delivery tomorrow.
In the meantime I will spend the next two days thinking about how his mother SUCKS COCKS IN HELL.
This means that yesterday, I left work early, drove from Oxford to south Birmingham, collected what I thought were all the keys from the estate agent and then stood in the porch of my new home and COULD NOT GET IN.
Apparently he is very sorry and will be sending the extra keys recorded delivery tomorrow.
In the meantime I will spend the next two days thinking about how his mother SUCKS COCKS IN HELL.
The inevitable is always eventual.
When I first met Glenn he was going to be a policeman. He had gone through the application process, the selection days and after a fair few months of wrangling they offered him a position in the met. The. Met. Which just screams DEATH to me, it just shouts of lots of walking around rough estates encountering junkies and trying to avoid getting stabbed, possibly in the face, and I love Glenn's face so I don't really want to see it get stabbed.
Anyway, after he met me (or should the be, after he opened the door of his happy life and let in the tornado) he was still on course for joining the met, but they were starting to mess him around, the waiting time for a start date seemed to be getting longer and longer and soon enough it was going to be two years since he first applied before he could start. He moved to my bit of the world to be with me and had a look around to see if any police forces around my way were taking applications, and they were. He applied to them. They lost his application, then they stopped taking them at all and we were back at facing what would happen to us when the met decided they wanted him down London way.
At this point he did a phenominal thing, a thing which is quite possibly the greatest thing a person has done for me since my parents decided to you know, have me and all. He gave it up. With no certainty of being able to get into another police force any time soon and the only work on offer being crappy office work, he just said no, and he did it for me, I mean he did for us, but really he did it for me. I could have given up my job and we could have moved down to London and I could have done the crappy office job while he persued his police career but he didn't even ask me to do it, not once. I have a job which takes up seriously huge chunks of my time, I am still looking for the job that I really love but in the meantime I am following a career which means I am best placed where I live right now, not London. So he told them to shove it and stayed with me.
Today he found out that the local police force are recruiting and he has requested an application and man, he is so excited! He can finally do what he wants to do AND he doesn't have to move to do it, life is perfect.
Trouble is me, I look forward and I can see long shifts, lonely nights and weekends, the fact that I will worry about him CONSTANTLY because that is just my nature. I am trying though, I am trying to stay positive, I am trying to look at this like it is such a good thing for him and if he is happy that can only bleed into our life together and make it even better. Thing is because the police has always been so far away I never took it seriously, and now I have to and it's a wee bit scary. I like my life right now, and I really don't want it to change, but it's going to and I have to deal with that and STOP BEING SO FUCKING SELFISH. Because that's all it is, a fear of change and an incredibly selfish attitude.
(NB: Do you see how I casually and unnecessarily used the word 'bleed' in that paragraph, that's where my head's at right now. Stabbed. In. The. Face.)
I love him, I appreciate the sacrifice he made for me more than he knows (even though when he did it I used to lie awake thinking 'Oh man, I really can't fuck this up like I did all the others now, this is a big thing he's done for me, holy crap, Must. Be. Responsible!') so I am going to think of all the many, many positive things that are going to come out of this (like more money!) and be very, very happy.
I will still worry about him being stabbed in the face though, but that's only because I love his face!
Anyway, after he met me (or should the be, after he opened the door of his happy life and let in the tornado) he was still on course for joining the met, but they were starting to mess him around, the waiting time for a start date seemed to be getting longer and longer and soon enough it was going to be two years since he first applied before he could start. He moved to my bit of the world to be with me and had a look around to see if any police forces around my way were taking applications, and they were. He applied to them. They lost his application, then they stopped taking them at all and we were back at facing what would happen to us when the met decided they wanted him down London way.
At this point he did a phenominal thing, a thing which is quite possibly the greatest thing a person has done for me since my parents decided to you know, have me and all. He gave it up. With no certainty of being able to get into another police force any time soon and the only work on offer being crappy office work, he just said no, and he did it for me, I mean he did for us, but really he did it for me. I could have given up my job and we could have moved down to London and I could have done the crappy office job while he persued his police career but he didn't even ask me to do it, not once. I have a job which takes up seriously huge chunks of my time, I am still looking for the job that I really love but in the meantime I am following a career which means I am best placed where I live right now, not London. So he told them to shove it and stayed with me.
Today he found out that the local police force are recruiting and he has requested an application and man, he is so excited! He can finally do what he wants to do AND he doesn't have to move to do it, life is perfect.
Trouble is me, I look forward and I can see long shifts, lonely nights and weekends, the fact that I will worry about him CONSTANTLY because that is just my nature. I am trying though, I am trying to stay positive, I am trying to look at this like it is such a good thing for him and if he is happy that can only bleed into our life together and make it even better. Thing is because the police has always been so far away I never took it seriously, and now I have to and it's a wee bit scary. I like my life right now, and I really don't want it to change, but it's going to and I have to deal with that and STOP BEING SO FUCKING SELFISH. Because that's all it is, a fear of change and an incredibly selfish attitude.
(NB: Do you see how I casually and unnecessarily used the word 'bleed' in that paragraph, that's where my head's at right now. Stabbed. In. The. Face.)
I love him, I appreciate the sacrifice he made for me more than he knows (even though when he did it I used to lie awake thinking 'Oh man, I really can't fuck this up like I did all the others now, this is a big thing he's done for me, holy crap, Must. Be. Responsible!') so I am going to think of all the many, many positive things that are going to come out of this (like more money!) and be very, very happy.
I will still worry about him being stabbed in the face though, but that's only because I love his face!
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
We've only went and bloody did it!
It's all over, just had a phone call from a very happy solicitor (and she should be bloody happy earning £900 for what is essentially PHOTOCOPYING) and the money is going through to the vendors solicitors as I type, meaning that in the next two hours she will call the estate agents and tell them to release the keys to us, meaning that IT IS ALL OVER! WE ARE HOME-OWNERS! WE CAN NOW CALL THOSE DEBT BUSTER PHONE LINES AND GET INTO UNTOLD AMOUNTS OF DEBT BORROWING AGAINST OUR HOUSE BECAUSE WE OWE NATIONWIDE BUILDING SOCIETY £105,450.
That amount again for those people who think a mortgage is just like rent, only better - £105,450.
What all this really means is it isn't actually all over, it has in fact only just begun, we aren't even going to live there for another two months because I want to make it acceptable for human habitation first (and pretty, don't forget pretty).
So anyone reading this can look forward to copious posts about stripping (wallpaper), painting, multiple disastrous DIY events and lots and lots of moaning about the price of things.
Can you see my quality of life deteriorating before your very eyes? CAN YA?!
That amount again for those people who think a mortgage is just like rent, only better - £105,450.
What all this really means is it isn't actually all over, it has in fact only just begun, we aren't even going to live there for another two months because I want to make it acceptable for human habitation first (and pretty, don't forget pretty).
So anyone reading this can look forward to copious posts about stripping (wallpaper), painting, multiple disastrous DIY events and lots and lots of moaning about the price of things.
Can you see my quality of life deteriorating before your very eyes? CAN YA?!
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