Being good and staying home

Ive been rather TOO well behaved of late. That, and I really cannot be bothered leaving my room when its just wet, and suddenly freezing, and miserable. Productive Saturdays have all but blown out of the window.  Instead I am starting to enter hibernation mode, stay home, get straight into bed, and watch Netflix. This, understandably, does not make for particularly thrilling blog entries.

But thats to say I have thrown all hope of a social life away entirely. Of course I have still been going out for ' just one drink' and five hours later passing out fully clothed on my bed.

There has been fierce debates by the dudes and wearing out my tastecard at Pizza Express. And if fifty per cent wasnt enough, Dean put half the tableware in my bag. Naughty.

I started to get a little socially fatigued at Gem this past Friday. Bruce and I sat nursing out free drinks like spoilt kids, bored shitless. Every Friday at work we listen to Kiss FM which essentially plays a megamix that I can pretty much time my watch to. They play So Solid Crew, and then Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and then Kriss Kross. You get the drift. I started to feel like I was trapped in Groundhog Day; it could have been any Friday in the past year. And then I would end up in Gem, listening to the same songs, drinking the same pink wine. URGH. Thank god my friends are at least interesting to talk to eh?

On Sunday me Erica and Rebecca had a little mooch around Spitilfields and Petticoat Lane, where you can essentially buy clothes from Primark, Topshop and Newlook for cheaps. Oh, and apparently, Tesco, where I brought my coat from last year

77

We were only out or a few hours (read: broke as, and it was cold) but its nice to break up a day that would have otherwise been spent in bed with eyes on a screen to get out, get a coffee and a cupcake and do what girls do best: bitch about people we know.

That said, I did come home, eat a pizza and drink cider watching tv. Well....it WAS a Sunday.

So a product of me being at home is actually applying myself to a creative project. I have been bending Alastairs ear for some time, getting him to read my work and give his (brutally honest) opinion when he told me of a site he and his friend have set up called Black Milk - they take new and interesting writers, illustrators, photographers, you name it, and publish their work. Well, apparently I am both new and interesting as Al said he would publish a story if I wrote one. CUE/; MELTDOWN.

I have written on and off for years, but never finished anything, and certainly never showed anyone. Putting my pride to one side, I knocked out a story thats been in my head for some time. Well, chapter 1 at least. The Irish, Erica and Al all helped and encouraged me and it went up on the site last wednesday. its pretty scary having a piece of fiction up - its feels different from crappy blog writing. People will judge you more. Anyway, I since got over that fear. Judge away by clicking here

 If the Carnaby Street christmas decorations dedicated to the Rolling Stones new album wasnt enough, I have just clocked that Oxford Street is sponsored by Marmite. Christmas just died.

Last night I went out with The Irish in Shoreditch where I stupidly matched him beer for beer. What an amateur mistake. I woke up this morning still drunk and couldnt get up for a few hours without my head spinning. Still, excellent night, even if there are huge gaps in my memory- how did I get home again?

Im not sure why he thought he could hide behind a lampost.

The next few weeks look set to be busy: two events on Friday, pub quiz, two sets of christmas drinks with the solicitors, something called bongo bingo, birthday party, christmas parties...yikes. I best detox my liver in preparation!

Sometimes you just need to go home

Ive had one of those weeks that just makes me realise how much I love living in London. Its strange; I lived here before as a student and despised it to the point i pretty much went home every single weekend without fail. I always said no whenever friends suggested I moved back.. I didnt want to, I loved living in Southend, leaving my job behind at 5pm and travelling out of the city.  Moving back into town was a literal spur of the minute decision when Felicity found a flat in here and offered me the chance to move in. I was planning on spending the summer with my aunt and uncle before getting my own (probably shithole) place in Essex and for some reason I went against the grain of my very being and was impulsive and came back. And it was the greatest thing I have ever done. So much so that when Michelle asked if I would get a flat back in Essex with her, I told her in no uncertain terms that I was staying put in London.

On wednesday I bummed about Primark with Erica to witness her shopping skills first hand ( terrifyingly efficient) before meeting Dean and Liz at the Banana Tree in Soho. I slurped mango and peach bellini and gobbled thai street food until I hit the food wall halfway through and left erica to finish my plate. two courses and a started, £15. Thanks tastecard!

On the walk down to Embankment I remarked: ' I dont know who I am today. I am not finishing meals, I am wearing pastels, and there are no holes in my tights. I dont recognise myself!' to which Erica blurted ' Its Halloween!'

Speaking of holey tights, they started a rather interesting conversation with my manager and H.R this week. Confused? You should be. Apparently laddered tights are a sign of a mental health breakdown. The less said about that the better.

I enjoyed a wonderous walk home that Halloween under the pale moonlight of East London and felt rather self satisfied and smug.

On Thursday I dragged EV and DD to Whitechapel for a sale at the East London Thrift Store. A quick bite to eat before we faced the throngs of aggressive hipsters grabbing £1 dresses. I made the amateur mistake of taking a free glass of wine which did not leave me with the two hands I desperaty needed to pull through the rails, so I downed it and shoved the \( not entirely empty) glass into my bag before grabbing as much as I could carry before running past the EV edit ' yes no, no, no, yes, no, no' and came away with two new thrift store bargs,

Ive always had a rather complicated and occasionally violent relationship with fashion. I dont read fashion magazines or have a clue whats in style. I have always been influenced by peers, scenes and music and film. Over the last few years my looks have varied - I had the Liza Minelli in Cabaret stage, the stage I only dressed in red white and black in homage to the white stripes, the hipster goth look for Interpol - corsets and pencil skirts and fitted jackets, the victoriana goth look, the karen o/ electroclash look ( plastic earings, drawing on my eyes with fluorescent marker pen, bowl cut fringe). These looks have always been aided by the fact I detest spending what little money I have on clothing. Ive wondered slightly directionless for a while, but I guess you could say my latest look is Warpaint (above). a 90s victorian I guess. And the discovery of the thrift store and dresses on the cheap has definitely opened my horizon of things i wouldnt normally try.

On Friday I took my tired ass home to Basildon as Mum was going away for the weekend. There I did nothing but lay with my dog in bed on the sofa watching shit on Sky and eating too much food that I need.It was so relaxing! The rain came hard onto the windows, and there i stayed snuggled 

with this ridiculous animal. I love her.

I also did have some time to drink a ridiculous amount of labrini and kir royal with my sister and indulge in a little posey shoot which we used to do pretty much every weekend a few years ago. If anything its quite interesting to see how and if time has changed out faces

this is us in 2006

and this is us a whole six years later.

We danced around the living room to the best of the 80s classics and woke up with sore heads and a hangover only junk and chinese food could fix.

I came back to London fully relaxed, refreshed, about half a stone heavier AND with fudge that my mum brought back from devon. Total wins!

My beautiful neighbourhood

Tonight the pub I live above had a ' fireworks party'. By this I mean six of the local blokes brought a huge box of fireworks, the pub put some packet sausage rolls on the bar and we were witness to some shocking fragant disregard for health and safety. Felicity Lois and I made some sausages and hot rolls and curly fries, and downed our respective drinks ready to enjoy the fireworks from our decking. What we got was our eyebrows almost singed off, our stairwell almost set on fire and a new healthy respect for the power of explosives. The men were letting the fireworks off from the picnic tables in out tiny beer garden out of empty bottles.

Then this happened

EXPLOSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then those bright sparks ( pun intended) nailed a catherine wheel to our stairwell and much like apes in a zoo, kept hitting it with an inlot rocket when it did nothing but smoke rather than spin. Thats ok guys. Its just my stairwell. The thing I need to use to get in and out of my flat.

My nerves were shot to shit after this and I made haste to Bow to meet the Irish to drink wine and watch him write shit for his new play.

 we debated hard about technology in music before retreating to his for tea, bakewell tarts, politics and then staring up at the constellations that are somehow burning their way through the London street light pollution.

And now I have realised I need to get up for work in four hours.

Bye!

monster mash

Fastest week ever?

I was off work Monday and Tuesday, firstly because I have alot of annual leave to take up before the end of the year, and secondly because its a good way to save a precious five pounds of travel money the week before pay day. Sigh. Im 29. When WILL i get my shit together? I stayed home and did nothing productive other than relive my childhood with this

Are You Afraid Of The Dark was one of my favourite  shows as a kid on nickelodeon ( along with the obvious favourites - kenan and kel, sabrina the teenage with, sister sister, moesha!) and I swear, I probably watched a good 18 episodes over two days. Standard.

Twice in the last week a magpie has thrown itself at my window. Im super superstitious about magpies along with my sister; if I see one magpie in the street, I have to do a little salute, despite strangers looking at me. So this one magpie at the window is of great concern. is bad luck throwing itself at my door?

 very creepy!

I will skip the parts about how wednesday to friday i did nothing but drown in work and eat 20p crisps for dinner (again, im 29.....) And then my favourite (read: only sensible) shoes just gave up on me. One minute they were fine,and the next the sole just...fell off. At work. And I had no money, obviously. So i wore them for two days until i replaced them with the exact same pair. I kind of like that about myself....i curled my hair, applied fake eyelashes and red lipstick, put on a dress, and also wore it with a pair of utterly destroyed shoes.

spot the difference?

After work Friday, Erica, Brucie and I hopskipped it around soho for last minute halloween bidness. WHO KNEW THERE WAS A POUND SHOP IN SOHO!? The queue into the fancy dress shop was actualy out the door on a one in one out basis. Gathering all my willpower to not have a panic attack shit fit in the middle of an overcrowded shop, I managed to grab the essentialist: fake blood, black wig. candles.

For the fifth Friday in a row we plodded off towards Gem Bar and general fatigue meant after one drink, Erica and I were ready to hot foot it home. But then more free wine presented itself and somehow I ended up an hour late than i intended to, however its free, so it doesnt count. right?

I hot footed it to Bow to meet The Irish at the Coburn Arms where he snuck in a surprise bar of chocolate into my pocket and a great time was had by all, even though he finally got to see me wasted doing Wuthering Heights,

Which goes like this!

Because of the amount of alcohol i consumed friday night i woke up with the most awful hangover saturday morning which was an epic fail I had said i would try and avoid all week because i had to be productiuve saturday morning! i scraped my sorry ass out of bed, surveyed the damage inflicted to my room ( oh, chinese food? dont remember that happening) before taking a cycle to whitechapel to gets food for the evening.

I was able to squeeze a quick hour nap in before meeting Erica and Dean and taking them to, where else, The Half Moon Spoons for a spot of lunch and the first of what felt like many many drinks that night, before being joined by Brucie and Steph. I normally have more fun getting ready for a night out than I do on the actual night out ( last halloween i spent four hours partying at home, one hour at the actual party) - however this year was to be different. We piled into a cab with our booze and the best of 90s club classics and made our way to an indie club in Islington where I was most pleased to walk in to the maccabre sounds of Nick Caves ' Red Right Hand.' There we met up with Mark, Liam, Bex and her friends, where I swilled cherry sourz and coke, danced like a fool and my ribs ached from laughing so hard. There was a point where I realised, after I had taken off my shitty wig, that technically i was no longer in costume. So..maybe I look like a dead doll more than I think?

Four hours later we are standing on City Road, freezing, with an hour wait for ANY cab. I couldnnt believe it. And the night bus was also nowhere to be found.  Moods dropped pretty quickly as we assessed our very limited options as to how to actually get home. Half an hour later we managed to finally flag (by flag, i mean we all ran screaming down the road) a taxi and make it home to sit on the kitchen floor destroying anything edible before passing out at a not unreasonable three am.


Of course, I woke up ridiculously early and decided to start pestering erica and dean to get up so we could go for breakfast which did not go down very well as expected.  we trudged our weary old bodies to The Half Moon for bacon eggs and pancakes and alot of coffee and cola.

Friends made their way home, and I got into bed, and ate some leftover slutty brownie that Erica and I had made. Il post a proper blog up with the recipe shortly! to.die.FOR.

(un)fortunately The Irish had his gig cancelled sunday night so i stayed in with pie and mash in the warm while he wrote new songs including one for me. Thats right. I am officially a muse. And the song is pretty great, even if I do say so myself!

Monday felt pretty desolate and cold after such a fun weekend. I was cheered up by The Irish buying me a mexican burger and chips and wine and beer. Which is pretty good going for Monday night, I feel.

This week looks pretty jam packed so I dont anticipate any time to recover before I go home for the weekend. Multiple coffee was needed just to get this crappy entry out. WAH!

You want sympathy? It's in the dictionary between shit and syphillis

Boy, have I been in a stinker of a mood this week. Its hormones, hormones I beseech thee! hormones and rain and work and general wahness. I am disappointed to learn that actually I am not that good at hiding my bad mood and thus have been constantly apologising all week to friends after what feels like every sentence i say in case i snapped it or it came out grumpy. i blame my low browline for making me look sterner than  maybe I am. Every day after work I have come home, shut my bedroom door and at one point, went to bed at seven thirty pm.

And although I love my time alone, my private time, the fact that I didnt go out sunday - thursday - it just made me sit at home stewing in my bad moods when i probably should have gone out, but thus funding did not allow with any of us.

My sister is also going back to New York shortly with her boyfriend and I guess thats made me feel sad too. I really miss New York.  I miss the air. And then I snap myself out of it and remind myself of how lucky I am to witness my favourite season in London.

my street

morning apocolypse

What probably hasnt helped is that ive been listening to jeff buckley this week. ALOT. at one point i sat in my room, in the dark, eating this while crying to his music. in a way its quite enjoyable, i felt 15 again!

Friday afternoon saw us work lot head to Ronnie Scotts for our quarterly 'arent we awesome' speeches from the directors while we sit poking at bits of sweaty cheese and cured meats with wooden sticks in a room with no air con whilst trying to drink as much free booze as I can without throwing up. 

We headed off to our local for what as always meant to be one drink which turned into.....more. damn you happy hour prices!

Spending some QT with some of my favourite people cheered me up no end and thanks to tina i had my first gin and lemonade. maybe it was where i was already drunk but...how could I have hated that my whole adult life?! It was delicious! or maybe thats another sign that i am getting really old, as gin is a nanas drink.

On Saturday I bravely cycled to whitechapel alone for food and was intent on going home and continuing to wallow in both hangover and hormones before Felicity persuaded me to go to the East London Thrift Shop which is a ten minute walk from my house. they had a pick and mix sale: you can buy a carrier bag for ten pounds or a larger one for twenty and you get to shove as much as humanly possible in the bag! oh dear lord. i go five dresses, two tops and a skirt. for ten pounds. really nice vintage stuff too! felicity is a pro at pick and mix sales and taught me how to fold everything down to make as much space as possible in the bag. we felt quite naughty still and asked the ( really hot) sales assistant if we were taking the piss,to which he replied ' dudes...keep on sticking stuff in that bag!' 

 i love this, it doesnt go with my general look of crazy Victorian nana however it appears to be a real waitress outfit from america!

to celebrate i stayed in and ate hot chocolate cake with custurd. BOOM!

sunday was going to be spent actually cleaning my room (which is impossible as the hoover has broken and no matter how much i tidy, i cant see carpet through crumbs so..) until the irish told me he was curating a theatre event later in dalston at the arcola theatre and he would put my name on the door and see me there at five.

I was understandably nervous about attending; from experience when a friend curates a night they are very busy and have to talk to lots of different people. and as i wouldnt know anyone else there but him i got the most awlful social anxiety at the thought of being left standing alone or worse, trying to converse with theatre types and looking like an idiot.

of course i was being silly and underestimating his ability to not be a perfect gent. i got to watch five very interesting short plays - my favourite being one about two brothers at their fathers funeral.

we continued to run to the shop several times for supplies and five hours few by in a haze of crisps, nuts, beer and ridiculously bad jokes that not even the soggy weather could dampen. 

not even the charm of the irish could stop another black hormonal mood descending though on the way home. i have never willed myself onto a period more. i am literally a prisoner to my own hormones and even i am getting tired of my own grumpyness!

hopefully this week will be better for all involved especially as i have so many nice new dresses to wear!!

and a ridiculously large lasagne to get through.

challenge accepted!!!