| On how self is shitting ones pants |
[11 Dec 2004|03:52pm] |
A meal tonight with all of owen's work mates and bosses.
Terrified.
rubbish at small talk, can't eat food in a civilised manner, the people are all pretty and "fun" and worst of all, the facist seating plan means I'm not sitting next to owen.
Going to get drunk now.
I know its no big deal in the scheme of things, but i've been dreading tonight since august.
This is one of those times when i believe I do actually have social phobia.
wish me luck
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[02 Dec 2004|05:59pm] |
The job fell through!
Bollocks.
I was such a baby- cried for an hour when I found out. Mostly because I had a crap day at work and the only thing that kept me going was the idea that tomorrow might be my last day. It took a two hour conversation about the wedding (I am turning into such a girl- at one point I even heard myself say "do you think the aubergine colour will go with the Sky blue or would the orchid be better?") to cheer me up, which Marie managed superbly.
Later I rang the organisation and asked them to keep me in mind for anything else that comes up, and the woman said there might be a couple of things. So that’s better than nothing I suppose.
I went to get my prescription filled from the chemist today and the pharmacist was so friendly it was almost alarming. I don't know why but I really like getting my tablets from the chemist, it fills me with a real sense of excitement. I think it dates back from the very desperate time (not so long ago really) when these tablets were new to me, and getting them seemed almost religious, like I was finally beginning on the road to recovery. I used to tear home and rip open the packs and read the information leaflets very very carefully, and then just look at the packaging and the tablets. I used to get excited about when it was time to take them and would arrange them all one by one along with the glass of water in a special order that would make them work more effectively (I still do that!). I’ve been on a lot of tablets over the years, not nearly as many as some folks, but enough to make people look a bit scared if you were to tell them. Which I don’t. Currently I am on a nice little cocktail of lithium (mood stabiliser) Risperdone (anti psychotic) Lofepramine (anti depressant) and sometimes Lorazepam- to help keep the blues at bay. They seem to be working nicely. Although I worry about the lithium, and my memory. And I don’t think drinking as much as I do when I’m on it is a great idea, but I’m not going to stop.
I don’t know why I started talking about that, but I did.
My favourite ever drug, by the way, is valium. I had that when I was in hospital and it made everything stop and turn floaty. They won’t give it me now though, no matter how many times I hint. (I don’t want to ask outright for fear of appearing like a junkie)
Anyhow, I have a tea to cook - macaroni cheese from a tin- I can never be bothered to cook when owens at work. Also, I feel another obsession forming- “Christmas flapjack with mincemeat” and since the shop have sold out of the almond ones I haven’t really got a lot of choice.
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| Crazy days |
[01 Dec 2004|04:30pm] |
Well its been another week so busy I’ve hardly had time to write in here.
Owens birthday was nice, we sat in the pub for hours (having cancelled Christmas shopping because we couldn't find the bit of paper that told us what we needed to Christmas shop for). We drank Guinness in a pub called the Blue Anchor that was so designed that it had a Dickensian street inside of it, actual houses and stuff, where the bar was. It's hard to explain. It was very bizarre, and the most bizarre thing was that I have been in that pub many times before and not noticed the houses or the streetlamps! I am totally unobservant- I only noticed it this time because Owen pointed it out.
So it was a nice day, after the pub we were naughty and snuck off to a takeaway to gorge on onion bargies, before proceeding to the Dukes cinema, where we watched the excellent "Supersize Me". It really was very good and thought provoking, I really am a sucker for a well made documentary with a bit of humour thrown in for good measure. I won't bore you with the clichéd comparisons with Michael Moore (me and Owen had a looooooong conversation that detailed that) but suffice it to say that they are along the same lines except Michael Moore probably wouldn't cover this story because it’s a topic too close to home! We were going to eat a cheeseboard at the Water Witch and drink wine afterwards, that was the plan, but somehow two hours of watching unhealthy people eat big Macs and get ill had put us off junk food. Instead, we went to Sainsbury’s, bought lots of vegetables and two skinless duck breasts (it was O’s birthday after all) and went home, shoved it all in a wok and ate well. No doubt the new healthy eating fad will last no more than a week before we start craving mayonnaise with everything and my almond flapjackometer gets too low. So that was O’s birthday.
Skip to Yesterday.
I came home from work in a good mood. It had been a relatively stress free day. I rang Owen on the mobile to tell him to open the door because I’d forgotten my keys, and found him in tears, which is something that very rarely happens. I raced home, and he was sobbing on the futon. I asked him what was the matter, and he told me a long and complicated tale that I have not the time nor inclination to write here, but he the jist of it is his was woken up by the head of the cleaning service at the university (my boss basically). She was accompanied by a porter who said there had been a number of complaints by our cleaner- that she basically felt sexually harassed by him. Although they didn’t use those exact words that was the implication, because, get this- often when they clean our corridor- they see him walking to the shower wearing, shock horror: boxer shorts or a towel!!!! I mean what is the fucking world coming to when a man can’t walk to the shower in his own home without pretty much being accused of sexual harassment? Who is he hurting? She said “isn’t it a coincidence that every time we’re here, you come for a shower. He gets up at the same time every day to go to work! That’s the only reason! Oh it made me so mad. It upset him so much, because people had been very aggressive and accusatory with him. I was furious. He was sad. And I’m thinking is this where women’s lib has really brought us to? Here?
Of course I see her at work every day, this cleaner, but Owen made me promise not to punch her, so I made do with an icy stare when I walked by. And naturally, all the other cleaners will no doubt take her side, so fuck knows what they’re saying about me behind my back. And you know what? Who fucking cares?
Skip to today….A normal day cleaning toilets and kitchens. Stressful, because there’s too much work and not enough time to do it, but ultimately fine. I get home and there’s a job offer on my answer machine!!
A one to one support assistant for £10:37 an hour!!!!
Hurrah!!!
That’s all I know right now. I rang back immediately and said a provisional yes- provisional on what subject the guy is studying and what exactly his disability is, but if those two things are cool, then I not only will have a worthwhile challenging job, but more money around the place, which with the wedding coming up is no little matter.
Beats cleaning toilets any day (though I will have to change the logo around here) Naturally I’m petrified, but more confident that I was three months ago when I applied for it.
So all in all a crazy rollercoaster of a few days, sorry for lumping them together, well done if you actually bothered to read all that. Will have to get better at making time for livejournal. I just find it so difficult to write three or four lines and no more…I have to stop being such a perfectionist, and lighten up a bit!
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| Hurrah! |
[26 Nov 2004|04:34pm] |
In the traditional spirit of celebrating the weekend. We have bought three bottles of wine for tonight, and might be going for owens birthday meal.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Indian food!
Work was slightly better today, although things slightly came to a head yesterday when I had two panic attacks at work and had to come home. (I told them I was feeling sick for fear of being considered a mentalist) Probably a wussy thing to do. But I fucking hate panic attacks. Today was back to normal, just lots of toilets and things.
I'm excited about tonight though...a couple of bottles of wine and a long chat is just what the doctor ordered.
Been watching a lot of the Royle Family since Owen got series two and three on DVD for his birthday. I love that show. Some of my friends say it depresses them, but not me, I find it quite heart-warming in a bleak sort of way. My favourite character is Denise, although I fear I may be a similar sort of mother to her, should I ever attempt the Kids thing.
Hurrah for the weekend, eh?
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| Stupid toilets |
[24 Nov 2004|01:16pm] |
Work was horrible today.
Supervisor on my back. I worked really hard and did really well in catching up with the workload we had. But I was running out of time, so I rushed a couple of bathrooms. And which ones did my supervisor choose to inspect? Not one of the thirty sparkling ones...no....you've guessed it, one of the botch jobs. So I was in trouble.
sigh
If you want the honest truth, I'm a pretty lousy cleaner. I don't know why, I just am. I just never manage to get…well….stuff clean. Hair follows me around everywhere, grime sticks to my cloth and my mop and I just seem to spread muck around rather than clean it up. And it doesn't do much for my self esteem that I can't seem to even wipe a few sinks down properly. I try not to care, because I know it doesn't matter. Tomorrow I've got to do overtime because I couldn't think of an excuse quick enough to get out of it.
"Think of the money"
Owen says, so I do, but I've never cared much for it, so its little consolation.
Sorry for moaning but these things really get to me, more than they should do, I know. I like to feel competent, at least.
In other news, somebody laughed in my dads face today, when he said we wanted the wedding in April
they said "This April???" and then fell about laughing.
He's annoyed, I'm worried. Is it really that unusual to organise a wedding in six months???
I thought it was plenty of time...but apparently lots of people are booked up till 2007!!!!
2007!!!!
Fucking crazy.
This is a whole new world to me. It really is.
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[19 Nov 2004|09:35pm] |
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music |
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Bob dylan compilation |
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Thank you very much for all your lovely congratulations. Me and Owen were very geeky and kept pressing refresh and reading them at regular intervals during the great engagement night. (it wasn’t the focus of our night, you understand, we were doing other things to celebrate as well, thankfully, otherwise it would have been a fairly boring night). But thank you anyway…you guys made a great night that tinsy bit greater.
The last few days have been a whirlwind. I am so happy, and so exhausted. I have spent approximately 12 hours on the phone in the last two days- phoning old friends, relatives, and most enjoyably for hours and hours to my best friend Marie who has herself recently got married so she was giving me all the goss.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have entered weddingville. Hold on to your hats, its going to be quite a ride.
I'd banked on at least a couple of weeks of just being engaged and enjoying that, but since I'm thinking of tying the knot as early as April, everybody is telling me I have to get my socks on and get organised. I really did get engaged to be married, you know, not just to drink champagne (or rather asti).
Good things that have happened over the last couple of days:
* My parents told me they'd pay for the wedding. I back peddled on my previous revolutionary feminist stance of rejecting such an antiquated patriarchal tradition and simply said "thank you".
* Marie agreed to be my Matron of Honour. She is the best wedding planner in the whole world. But most of all she's amazingly funny and caring and intelligent and I can’t imagine for there to be anybody better in my corner.
* Owens dad said "I have gained a daughter"
* My 16 year old brother changed his MSN name to "I'm gonna have a bro in law!!!!" which I thought was really cute. But could never tell him that, or he'd turn up the volume on "smells like teen spirit" even louder and never talk to me again.
* Owen keeps calling me "wifey to be". I like that.
* I keep calling him "dearest betrothed" and then collapsing in giggles.
* The library had a whole shelf full of books on getting married. I got 90% of them.
Bad things that have happened:
* I still haven't brushed my hair. Its getting silly now.
* One clever student decided to empty flour all over the halls of residence I clean. Fucker.
* I have only written 2000 words in the last few days. Life is more exciting than books. But the book will not write itself and the deadline is looming.
As you can see, the good outweighs the bad. By miles.
Too tired to write anything else except this: I am happy. Sleep now.
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| I am the happiest woman in the world |
[17 Nov 2004|10:32pm] |
I proposed to owen tonight...... (with a hula hoop and a jelly ring)
AND HE SAID YES!!!!
WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! We're gettin married!
(just thought I'd let you know)
Off to get drunk now
quite drunk already actually
lots of love
Jen xxx
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| The good life |
[15 Nov 2004|09:52pm] |
I want to tell you all about my wonderful afternoon.
I had come home from work and I was feeling run down and tired. My throat was hurting, I'm full of cold, and to top it all off I had accidentally knelt in a puddle of wee whilst I was cleaning so I felt horrible. We had agreed that today was the first day back working on the novel, so I felt stressed that I had to get on, right away, before I fell behind. I had a shower and then was preparing to write, you know, loading my computer up and choosing the music etc. I think Owen sensed bad vibes in the air, but he was working on his essay for his MA and was busy.
Bleak silence hung in the air for a couple of minutes.
And then, he broke it, saying "you know, why don't you do that later when I'm at work? Why don't we spend the afternoon together and do something nice?"
Hurrah!
So we did.
We went to the duck pond and fed the ducks copious amounts of bread since I had bought two loaves yesterday. We laughed at the duck with the silly waddle. I nearly got attacked by a goose but Owen rescued me. Then we walked around the campus, kicking the leaves and talking about this and that. To top it all off we went to the pub, the new one that’s just been built and I had a pint of Guinness with a shamrock drawn in the top. In my world, that’s very lucky. We sat at a table opposite each other, and mulled over the future (as we have a preoccupation at the moment) and the world just seemed so full of promise. Like we could do anything, be anything we wanted. In the whole world.
Writing it down it doesn't seem like that much, but it meant the world to me. You see, we spend so much time together, but mostly we spend it slobbing around the flat, and we don't make an effort to have "quality time" as much as we should. But when we make an effort, some of that tingly magic starts buzzing in the air, and its just brilliant.
All in all, life is good.
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| A quick Question |
[14 Nov 2004|08:49pm] |
Does anybody else stop breathing when they eat too much sugar?
Only for a few seconds, like, I'm not trying to alarm you, but its happened to me on and off since my early teens and its quite scary when it happens. It happened tonight.
Not that I was eating golden syrup by the spoonful, why would anybody do anything as greedy as that?
It happens to my mum too, so I guess its an inherited tic.
I just wondered if I was the only weird one or if it's very common.
The thought always rushes through my head "Oh dear. what if I never breathe again?" but usually articulated as "oh shit oh shit oh shit".
Aside from stopping breathing, a very ordinary day really. Have done nothing of worth, and lots of things with questionable value. Such as, since I had the flat to myself, practicing my top ten ideal karioke songs. Complete with half assed dance routines. Scary stuff.
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[13 Nov 2004|07:09pm] |
It has occurred to me today that I am surrounded by too much advice. Every song, every book, every film is jam packed full with philosophies, ethos, observations, or just "this is how it should be done" ness. And that’s without taking well meaning friends and family into account. Today, whether it was E from the eels advising me that
"A careful man tries to dodge the bullets, Whilst a happy man takes a walk"
or Thom York telling me to "stop whispering, start shouting"
or various people in the guardian telling me what to do or more importantly what not to do
or my brother telling me numerous strategies for the business
Or adverts telling me to buy certain things from certain places when I do not want a vanilla smoothie from Spar. Or anything else.
Or Michael Palin telling me how to correctly propose a toast in Russia.
etc etc
I'm just feeling overwhelmed.
Normally, I value advice very much, but today it just seems like there's far too much of it, and somehow each nugget of wisdom cancels the other ones out because I can't possibly remember all of them. Let alone remember them all at the appropriate times. Say for example I took that piece of advice by E (about the happy walking man) and thought of nothing else for a week, I might start living a more adventurous life. But in my life at the moment, no sooner have I digested one piece of advice, when another one rears its ugly head. Usually several in a minute.
Aggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I reckon life was much simpler when you just had the bible, and that was it.
I don't want to go back to that, but today it seems tempting.
Having thought about it, even the bible has like 20 million proverbs, all saying opposite things, so maybe nothing is that simple.
Once, my CPN said to me “I would never give you advice, Jen because you take it all too seriously.” He then, if I remember rightly, proceeded to give me some anyway.
I’m going to listen to Mozart now, because, even if he’s trying to tell me anything with his major fifths and minor sevenths, I won’t understand it, because I’ve forgotten all my music theory. So there.
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| Feeling sick |
[12 Nov 2004|05:47pm] |
Not feeling very well today. I still went to work this morning though, because of the desperately needing money situation. Not searching for sympathy, I've actually got plenty of that here, but just to inform you- for the record if you like. I've got what Owen's got and we're playing a fun game called "plague" where we hole ourselves up in the flat refusing to get dressed or do any work. Instead, we are playing on computer games, reading the guardian, napping, and eating chicken soup. It's a lot of fun.
Watched Arafats funeral today. I feel a bit hopeless about whether or not we will ever see a legitimate and fair Palestinian state. I don't often have a lot of hope about the middle east, but reading all about it in the paper today, it seems like they might not even be able to hold elections for a new president, such is the chaotic state of affairs over there. Obviously there will be international pressure for democracy, but if the Israelis don't lift the roadblocks and allow free access of movement all over the west bank and Gaza to the candidates and their campaigners, I don't see how it can be a fair and free election. Anyway, that’s all in the future. For now, and I know this is stupid, I just can't stop thinking about the rows and rows of inflatable Yasser Arafats that were on sale all over Gaza, when I was there four years ago. It makes me wish I had bought one, just for posterity, since it’s an image that has stuck with me through the years.. I can't claim to be an expert, by any means, and I know he was a complex man, did a lot of bad things, as well as good. But you've got to respect someone who lived so bravely and devotedly to fight oppression and injustice, and for the cause of his people.
I didn't mean this to be a political entry. I meant to talk about the wonders of chicken soup.
On a more mundane note, our supervisor said we were going to be inspected at work today, and we worked REALLY hard, despite both of us feeling ill, and she never showed up. I really want our own business to be successful, so I don't have to take any more of this shit.
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| Brush dilema |
[11 Nov 2004|06:58pm] |
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mood |
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 dirty |
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music |
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Tori Amos- tales of a Librarian |
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I haven't brushed my hair in over two weeks. I am such a scrubber. I look like one of those crazy old bag ladies who get described as having "a birds nest" in their hair. And its not like I have short, easy to manage so no one will notice I don't brush it hair, either. I have long hair, by anyone’s standards, and it looks a mess. The trouble is, such is my aversion to mirrors, or shiny surfaces in general, I don't actually notice how bad it's getting before it's too late. So the question that I ask myself is "why don't you brush your hair Jen, like any normal well adjusted human being?" Sometimes I come up with a bullshit answer, such as "I don't believe in all the superficial mumbo jumbo and am rebelling against society’s convention to judge me on the way I look." Which is true up to a certain point and that certain point is the fact that every time I have to do anything important i.e. go to a restaurant or have a job interview: I give my mane a good old going through. So much for rebellion.
Which brings us to the truth of the matter, which is laziness.
The point is, I have a boyfriend who loves me very much and to be honest these days he has quite low standards (not doing myself down, its just the way it is) basically, as long as I have a pair of breasts that he can play with and an arse that wobbles the right way, he’s not too fussy. He’s never given a shit about what I wore, how much I weighed or how I preened myself, (although he did object to my aversion to showers, which is a situation that has now been rectified. Twice a day thank you very much) . As long as I felt good about myself, he was happy. He’s a man of simple tastes. And I’m a girl with clear priorities, and personal appearance has never ranked highly among them. For me, there’s just not enough time in the day. My, lets call it “scruffiness” was noted by the teachers at school (“tuck your shirt in, put your tie on”) it has been noted by pretty much anyone who knows me: my only nickname to date was “Stig of the dump” and now, no doubt, it has been noted by all the cleaners who work with me. Such is life. I don’t think it makes me a bad person or anything. I don’t lose much sleep over it. I don’t really want to change, although part of me thinks it’s symptomatic of me still clinging to my student years and not wanting to GROW UP AND ACT LIKE AN ADULT. Which is probably the sensible thing to do. *sigh*
The trouble is, now I really don’t wanna brush the bastard, because it’s all knotty and it’s gonna hurt like hell. So I’m not going to. Hah!
I never bought that cleanliness is next to godliness shit anyway.
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[10 Nov 2004|08:53pm] |
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mood |
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 chipper |
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music |
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Bedroom Walls- I saw you coming back to me |
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Another day brought with it another load of shit, in the literal sense, not the metaphorical, because today has actually been quite good. I wrote two thousand words of the erotic novel, all of which is total drivel, but I like it because its my drivel, and in any case writing ridiculous sex scenes on a tropical island takes me far far away from the rain and general greyness of Lancaster. I have my own little world, I curl up on the bed, put some unobtrusive dance music on, and transport myself to somewhere else, I won’t say a better place, because I don’t know if a fictional Caribbean island can count as a better place, given that it is fictional. But anyway, I go somewhere else for a couple of hours. It generally takes me three hours to write two thousand words, but today I was on fire- coming in at under two hours.
Owen is sick. Not very sick, but a little bit poorly. He has a snotty nose and a headache, which is never pleasant. I put on some clothes (given that it is my habit at the moment to spend 90% of the non working day naked- which is all fine until someone knocks at the door unexpectedly then all hell breaks loose) and I bought him prawn cocktail crisps from the shop which cheered him up. I was even good and didn’t buy myself
a) almond flapjack or
b) any form of chocolate or
c) cheesecake
and decided to stick strictly to the bread, milk and crisps task which I had set myself.
Another thing that cheered him up was listening to this programme of In our Time which was all about tea, and for anyone who has broadband and is remotely interested in hearing three academics talk about the history of empire and tea, I would heartily recommend it.
Tomorrow is my Dad’s birthday. I don’t know how old he is, but it’s certainly older than anybody else in our family, except my Nan. I copied him a couple of Kathryn Williams CDs given the not very much money situation, and then realised that I could have bought him a present with the money it cost to post it next day delivery. It cost £4:50!!! When the post office man with the moustache told me that I spluttered and I nearly said “sod that for a game of soldiers”, but instead just thought of my dad without a present and handed over the money in grim silence. The worst thing is, it is totally my own fault for not being organised enough to post it yesterday when it would have cost me 50p. I can’t even remember what I did yesterday that was so hectic I couldn’t post a silly letter. Anyway, I am looking forward to having a birthday chat with Dad, although he’s got to work a twelve hour day tomorrow, as has Owen. I’m so lucky to have my ridiculously short working day. Its so nice to finish at 1pm and have the rest of the day stretching ahead of me.
Nothing else to report, really. I’d just like to officially welcome all my new livejournal buddies- I am so excited to finally have an audience- poor you- now I’ll never shut up!
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| Bowen the Owen |
[09 Nov 2004|09:30pm] |
Owen's back has been killing him, so as a birthday present I bought him a full body massage from the complementary therapy place in the health centre. It cost twenty five quid. Anyway, he went today whilst I was at work, and when he came home he had a very confused look on his face. So I asked him how it was, and he was like, "fine, I guess". Then he proceeded to ask me if it was usual for the masseuse to leave the room every five minutes to load up and play on her computer. She called her, um, unusual style the "bowen technique" and although it amused me no end to say "bowen the Owen" and even "Owen the bowen" I still can't help feeling that we might have been had. Hippy bullshit, anyone? She also told him that maybe one of his legs is a bit shorter than the other, causing the back pain that has so been troubling him. Nothing to do with thirteen hour shifts, then.
Listened to a CD of “I’m sorry I haven’t a clue” which had us both in stitches, followed by a debate over which is the best panel game in British broadcasting. “Have I got new for you” won by a whisker although I’m personally very fond of “just a minute”.
Really, really missing my friends Kie and Louise tonight. We rang them a few days ago but they still haven’t got back to us. So sad when friends move away, even more so when you drift apart. I hope we don’t become like strangers to each other, unable to ignore the awkward silences when we do finally meet up. Maybe it’ll be just like old times. I hope so.
Speaking of friends, I want some livejournal ones. I have one, so far, the lovely Rhodri whose journal I have devoured and very much enjoyed. But I’m hungry for more friends. Where do I get them from? I mean, I don’t know if I want to tell real world people about this. I tried hanging out in some Livejournal communities, but everybody seemed so…young. And inarticulate. And I’m not old. Or even that coherent. So I went away again. I guess friends are something I’ll just accumulate over time…or like in real life, they are something I will haemorrhage slowly over time until I am left a lonely old women with just a laptop for company.
Funny story: At work today I wiped the same 5” piece of glass for forty five minutes, just to look like I was working when my supervisor came around. I laughed till I cried.
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| Future talk |
[08 Nov 2004|09:33pm] |
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music |
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Tori Amos "cornflake girl" |
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Well the last couple of days have been a real treat. A projected night of pleasant drinking turned into a drunken "future talk" which me and O are particularly vulnerable to when things aren't going too well. That is, things really aren't going that well. The business has had 64 hits and not one sale- so internet millionaires by Christmas? I think not. Anyway, we got talking about the future, as you tend to do in a future talk, and decided amongst other things that we would
1)Move to Manchester IF the business were successful
2)Not move to Manchester if it wasn't and instead we would
3)Move abroad to teach TEFL. Where? I hear you cry...well we don't know where, but somewhere that's not here.
4)Maybe get married. If we can afford it. And if one of us actually can be bothered to propose.
My parents have offered to lend me about £4000 pounds to pay off my overdraft and help with said move abroad and TEFL courses etc. which is very kind of them indeed. However, I don't relish the thought of being in debt to my dad again, not that he does anything wrong, it just can so easily become a sore subject, like my brother just borrowed shitloads of money and never paid him back on time and those two nearly weren’t speaking to each other for weeks. Well maybe an exaggeration, but there was bad feeling all round. And I’m scared its just a massive step backwards, that on the one hand I’m seriously considering becoming Owen’s wife, yet my grand master plan to sort out my finances is to go running to ma and pa. Not that I ran, exactly. They offered. But still.
I have spent today listening to “cornflake girl” by Tori Amos if only for the lyrics “this is not really happening.
You bet your life it is”
which don’t look much written down, admittedly, but seem to really be speaking volumes today when it feels like I’ve made all these massive decisions yet I’m waiting for the emotional touchdown. I’m just not feeling it. Any of it.
I spent today at work feeling decidedly pissed off with the state of toilets and student hygiene. Other touchy subjects were my own perfectionism at work that never allows me to relax but simultaneously my own ineptitude that means I always seem to do a shit job. I was going to come home and rant to Owen, but he was feeling pants, sort of crumpled in the corner in his dressing gown, so I immediately felt better and helped him out. Its funny how it goes that way for us sometimes. We joke and say we’re like a seesaw. Most of the time we are balanced and stable, but if one of us is having a really bad day, the other one really comes through for them. Its one of the things I love about being us.
Tomorrow is Tuesday: therefore is hovering day at work, in which we attempt to make half an hours worth of hovering last four hours. Oh joy,
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[06 Nov 2004|09:38pm] |
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music |
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Kathryn Williams- Halleluiah |
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I usually look forward to the fireworks display in the town centre. Yet usually, something goes wrong and rains on my parade. Sometimes literally. Two years ago we all had a huge argument and fell out. Last year we were two preoccupied with whether our various drugs would kick in to really enjoy the display. Tonight, it was mostly uneventful- since most people have left now we met up with Dave and jen by the drizzly bus stop, that is after a bumpy journey sitting on the luggage rack as there were no seats left on the X2 since the whole of Lancaster university was attempting to get into town. After eating our bonfire lollies and having a nice chat, the fireworks began.
They were rather poor. At least, they began poorly, the first five minutes of the display being the same bloody blue and white rocket (which was unimpressive the first time) again and again and again. And whilst they did get better than this dismal effort, trying to get uplifted by the same patriotic rousing tunes as they played last year (badly coordinated with the display), well it totally failed to light my candle. Or my Catherine wheel, to get into the spirit of the night. I just didn't feel like land of hope and glory- to tell you the truth. I do like the fact that they play music, and you get the audio visual thing going on- but not the music they play. The night would have been more successful if the accompaniment was different versions of "halleluiah"- I've been listening a lot to the Kathryn Williams one which is quite mellow and melancholy all at the same time and couldn't stop singing it all night.
Owen’s family cat Twinkle died, I’ve just heard him say on the phone to his mum, he’s quite upset I guess, so I’m going to go and speak to him now.
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| No glory there |
[04 Nov 2004|09:53pm] |
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The election was ruined for me, not only by that sizable prick winning it, but more unexpectedly by the knickerbocker glory poisoning I underwent after eating half of a rancid aforementioned dessert. ("why did I eat half?" is the question I keep asking myself but get no reply except "you are silly") It was meant to be a treat, it poisoned me. I was violently sick and got such a raging temperature but was freezing cold. Am only really recovering now.
In other news yesterday we had our friend maz for dinner who got drunk and kept hinting at threesomes or having lesbian sex with me in front of owen. I got terribly scared and embarrased (and very conscious that I hadn't had a shower) but I don't think she was really being serious. Was she? (not that you'd know, but anyway) It was very strange. She said I looked attractive with my hair tucked behind my ears. Which is weird because I always thinks it makes my chin look massive. Oh me and my chin complex. I had a really good night though- lesbian comments aside. We played circle of death and it produced its usual drunken results. Hurrah for silly drinking games based on guessing what colour a card is.
Work is depressing me, so I won't talk about it here. That would depress me more.
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[02 Nov 2004|08:17pm] |
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Tonight is the American election and I have proposed a drinking game- every time George Bush wins a state we have a drink of commiseration, and every time John Kerry wins one we have two to celebrate. Owen agreed-we have a bit of money left over from this fortnights budget so I went to the shop and bought two bottles of wine. It is cheap wine- two litre bottles for eight pounds, and is merely called "Italian" in black bold writing, with no noticeable pretensions. Although it does say that the wine is "a blend of indigenous Italian grape varieties" you do get the distinct impression that it is in fact made from all the bits of grapes that were left at the end of the day and squashed between the wine crushers toes in a sweaty pulp. Even if they were Italian. Which I severely doubt. Anyhow, I am quite excited about the election, mainly because Owen is, the inner geek in him coming out as usual and I want to make it a bit of an event. We are going to stay up all night to see the results which, whilst the cynic in me says it doesn't make a blind bit of difference who wins, I have to admit I am keeping my fingers, toes and pubic hairs crossed for Kerry. I even bought us two packets of sensations crisps, talk about pushing the boat out out- I thought about putting up banners but Owen thought that was going a bit too far.
We went to Wong’s Kitchen, a Chinese on Campus that does a dinnertime special of "soup, two main courses, egg fried rice or chips" all for the very reasonable sum of £4:50. It was very nice actually. I went for the egg fried rice, by the way. It was a good lunch, marred only by the fact that Owen was telling me gossip about the English department and was half way through telling me when he realised that one of the professors was sat behind us. We stopped mid conversation, and tried to look like we had naturally changed the subject. I don’t think she heard though. I hope not. I liked that professor.
Dinner at Dave and Jen’s house was lovely last night. We caught up on all the gossip- they are still poor (even poorer than us if that is possible) yet managed to put on a fantastic spread. It made me think that I should really make the effort to do more stuff with those guys, so I invited them to a rock night on Thursday, although maybe it will be next Thursday when we actually get around to it. I challenged Dave to make me a compilation tape that would convert me to 80’s music since it is dawning on me that you can’t write off a whole decade as being crap just because you don’t like synthesizers very much.
Tomorrow I have to clean thirty toilets with no sleep. If someone has wiped their shit on the walls again I think I'll cry.
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[01 Nov 2004|04:09pm] |
There is an outbreak of mumps in the building that i clean. Given that I am responsible for scraping mumpish faeces from the sides of the toilet bowl, I wonder if there is some sort of injection they would give me to stop me becoming hidiously ill. I doubt it. Julia (my co worker) has some sort of faith in the system looking after us, and is going to demand an appointment for her injection this afternoon. I cowardly told her I'd see how she got on before commiting to anything. I don't like needles very much. But neither do I relish the thought of months in bed (although....) So anyway, I didn't write the car sex scene yet, but I did write something about a storm. Procrastinating? Moi?
Anyway, tonight brings with it dinner at our friends Dave and Jen's house. They used to be our flatmates, now they are living in a grown up house with grown up furtniture. I am looking forward to it, their cooking is usually excellent, and it will be nice to see them again. Bit scared though. We are taking Josh wedons "firefly" to watch, since we were all big buffy fans in our house when we lived together.
I might have a shot of absynth to calm the old nerves....
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