Friday, December 29, 2006

Painfully time between Christmas and New Years

Painful not emotionally, but physically, soley due to eating too much roast pork, smoked salmon, m&m's, rolos, Christmas pudding, Christmas Mince Pie Ice cream, cream in general, roasted spuds, crackers, cheese and chorizo. Unfortunately, none of my pain was booze related, for I couldn't try as I might, muster up any desire to drink. I hope I'm not getting old.

I'm currently gripped in the horror of realising I've eaten too much over Chritmas and am now carrying a fair old chunk of holiday weight, right in time for a New Years Eve. And, as you can see from the following conversation, I'm taking it very, very seriously:

K: "So do you want me to bring over a curry or chinese take away for dinner tonight"
Me: (slightly indignantly) "Neither thank you very much. I'm trying to not eat too much before New Years, because I have to fit into a dress, so I intend to eat either very healthily, or nothing at all, for the next 3 days"
K: "Oh ok. Um.. Are you eating right now?"
Me: (Not so indignant now) "Umm.. yeah.."
K: "What are you eating?"
Me: (in a very small, embarrased voice) "Big slice of cold roast pork, wedge of stilton cheese and a couple of crackers"
K: "You sure you don't want a take away then?"
Me: (resigned) "Oh, go on, bring us a large fish and chip then"

I'm hoping to be back before NY's, but if not, I hope you had a lovely Christmas, and a fantastic New Years. I'm off to a hotel in Kensington with 15 good friends, dinner, dancing in a ball room, and the dress above that I might need to be sewn into because I've chubbed up a treat in the last week!

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Christmas party update

Yes, I had a fucking good time. Yes, I didn't care that I don't look like a supermodel. After many years of careful experimentation, this is my personal recipe for a fantastic night out, direct from me to you:
  1. heavy self medication on G&T's, red wine, and other fun drinks
  2. a free bar that lasts the whole night
  3. cheesy good time music
  4. dancing your arse off with guys who know how to twirl a girl round a dance floor
I ended up wearing a black halter neck top, black skirt, and some heals that for once didn't rip my feet to shreds, and despite my low self esteem, I actually thought I looked pretty good for once. Don't worry, that was just a passing phase :)

The only problem I had with the whole night was that I constantly kept losing my drink! I swear I kept leaving my drinks on various tables and I didn't just skull them. There must have been some cleaning fairies that would just sweep half drunk drinks off tables.. damn them!!

Out of 150 people in our company, our little group of 12 or so were the last ones left on the night, until we got kicked out of The Clink at 2.30 in the morning. And, as is natural, we all ended up in our house for a SingStar sing off.. One of our bosses and his wife came home with us, and as people were singing and drinking, he kept looking really bewildered at us asking questions like: how often do we do this? Do we practice? How do we know the words? and saying that he couldn't believe that people would go to someonse house for kareoke. I think he thought we were all really sad, until he tried it himself. And then we couldn't keep him off the microphones. Kareoke fun? Well millions of Japanese think so, and they can't all be wrong my friends. Our house really is the party corner of South East London. Not only can our neighbours not hear us, but we have more booze than god lying around our house. At about 5.30 am people started going home, and the rest of us who were staying the night, passed out on my couch, voices raw, and eyes bleary.


Once I get some more pictures from The Flatmate and grow some balls, I'll put pictures on my flickr account of us lot, all dressed up, and dancing like it's 1999.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Your Friday Moment of Zen: Being paranoid at office Christmas parties

I've got my office Christmas party tonight, which I've been helping to organise since last February. Finally, after months of work, it's upon us. And I'm really not looking forward to it. At all.

The problem with my work is that there seems to be an abundance of very good looking girls who work in my team. You'd think that that wouldn't be the case since I work in IT, notorious as it is for being a male dominated industry, but there you go. These size 0 girls, who laugh allot in the way popular girls in high school do, and get chatted up by all the guys in my team, means that I end up just standing there like a nigel-no-friends, getting more and more pissed, trying to be funny and interesting to anyone who'll talk to me, in a desperate attempt to compensate for my lack of looks. (Why? Why do I care? Why do I often spend nights in the toilets texting the Flatmate screaming "it's not fair! Why can't I be annorexic. Then I'd be popular" Why? Because I like to eat food that's why. (I know, I know, being annorexic will not make you popular when your a walking skelaton, but from this end of the weight spectrum it sure seems to fucking help)).

Last night I spent about 2 hours in the bowels of my wardrobe trying on every single article of clothing that I own that vagully resembles something dressy to try and work out what dress/trousers/top/shoes/ear ring combination to wear. And since our house is so crap, we do not have one single mirror where you can see yourself in fully head to toe. So to check myself out from my head to my chest I have to go to my bathroom mirror, to see my chest to my lower thighs I have to go to the Flatmates room and look in the mirror on his bedside table, positioned just at the right height to be nicknamed "The Gut Mirror", from there down I'm on my own. This constant circular trek from my bedroom, to my bathroom, to the Flatmates room is exhausting and frustrating. Then I end up moaning at the Flatmate about how unattractive and wide I look , to which he at first replies "no you look fine", however a few hours later, after my millionth costume change and footstamp, he will just roll his eyes and go "I liked the first thing you had on, just wear that. Or just wear ANYTHING, I do not care any more. Please, it's 2 am. Go away".

The party is in 3 hours, and I still do not know what to wear. God damn it. I was going to leave now at 4pm to get home, shower, change and get ready, but then I realised that even though I am heffer like, even I do not need 2 hours to get ready for the ball.

Grrr. So there is no zen like moment today. Just angst and annoyance. Merry fucking Christmas

Thursday, December 14, 2006

I'm on DesignSponge!

Well, technically, the building that is next door to my office is on design*Sponge! I read this blog every day, and I'm so excited! When someone famous in the blogosphere has a post that vaguely has something to do with you, you get the same buz of excitement you feel when someone famous talks to you, or looks at you, or just looks in your general direction... Check out her post here.

That's my work, right there on the right side of the photo. The tiny sliver of brown building you can see right there. That's where I am currently sitting, typing away, listening to people talk about work, and the building site next door drilling right next to my desk.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

So Bittersweet it's palatable


The Flatmate wanted to show me a few pictures of his niece he got tonight from his brother in Oz. This quick 5 minute digital snapshot exhibit obviously turned into a 40 minute look at every digital picture he'd taken in the last 6 years of our lives in London. I love looking back at how we've changed, not only physically (more hair, less hair, wider, thinner, and back again), but also at all the random things we've done, and mostly how happy we've seemed doing it all. We've spent the better part of the last hour going "oh my god! Look at our old house in Swanley! We literally owned nothing back then! Remember how we were so poor, we could only buy one Christmas decoration a week!" and "yuck! What was I thinking wearing those clothes out? EEK!" and "You look much better with a beard. Definitely. Never shave it off again."

So many pictures are of our urban family - a collection of people, who, according to hundreds of pieces photographic evidence, seem to spend countless hours in pubs drinking their salaries away. None of us have family in London, so we seem to cling on to each other for support (or because we weren't drunk enough that we have to cling to the floor for dear life). Looking back 5 years worth of pictures, we've been such a great bunch of druken louts.

I guess seeing as The Flatmate is going home at the end of February, tonight has left me with a real bittersweet sense of pain. I love looking at these pictures, but I hate how it leaves me with a real deep in my guts, down to the marrow of my bones sadness. Sadness partly at getting older, but mostly because I really like my life this way, and I hate the idea of it all changing. It's almost a child like, foot stamping annoyance and anger that things have to move on, and that I can't make time stop and just keep things the way they are, because I can't see it ever being this good again.

Soon I'll be moving out of my home (finally my draft contract has come through) so I should be moving into my new place sometime in January. And I don't feel excited about this, I just feel scared. And, pathetically, I feel really lonely. This is so stupid, becuase I don't know why, since clearly looking at these pictures tonight, I am very, very, very lucky to have all these fantastic friends, and so I have no reason to feel like this at all. I know that whilst it might feel all dim and low at the moment, eventually, somehow, everything will work out, and I'll come through this fine, and not even understanding how I ever felt this upset.

OK, sad rant's over now. I just needed to vent. Tomorrow's topic: the sheer panic I'm currently feeling about my office Christmas party. I normally don't dread a good knees up mother brown. But this year, honestly, all I can think is eek: I will never look good enough to go to this stupid party, what with all the bloody model like "easy on the eye" girls I now work with, who don't look like they've ever eaten a proper meal. Fan-fucking-tastic.

Oh yes my friend, I am action packed full of issues. Action packed.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

You're Friday Moment of Zen: Too much religious chocolate

Having just mentioned our Advent calenders, I thought this would be a great moment of zen. We never, ever eat these on time, or on the days they're supposed to be eaten on, so we end up having about 5 all in one day. I've literally just eaten from the 1st til the 6th of December, and I feel a bit sick now. Nothing to do with the 4 pints of bitter I've drunk tonight.

Advent chocolate. Jesus was born so we could spent chuff loads of money on gifts people don't want, chocolate we shouldn't eat, and turkey that's dry and one one likes. Zen like.

Enjoy!

Random Conversations on My "Friday"

1. Quote The Flatmate: "But surely any type of fisting can't be good?"

2. Upon opening our advent calenders today 6 DAYS LATE:
The Flatmate: "ooh my milkybar advent calender today says 'Santa's coming'"
me: "Eww.. and it's white!"

So very childish. So very funny.

Today is "Friday" for me. I've got Friday off. I'm doing sweet fuck all tomorrow. Tools down time everyone. Tools down.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

My Perfect Guy


I am the sort of geek that loves a unix text editor called vi. You can keep your Word's or notepad's or whatever. Give me my text based editor that scorns mice, and uses only keystrokes to do everything. It rocks so much that I even wrote my thesis using it. But even as a sad geek, I am quite ashamed of this conversation today:

Me: "Why don't you pipe everything to a text file, and use vi to globally replace the commands, make the file executable, and run it. Loads easier"
Guy at work: "That's not a bad idea.. god you love vi don't you?"
Me: "Yeah, I do. If vi where a guy, I'd marry him. "
Guy at work: "Really?"
Me: "Yeah, and if vi were a guy, he'd be hot and everything. I'd definitely ask him for his number, go out for a date, romance him a bit, then marry and have his kids"
Guy at work (clearly losing any tiny bit of respect he might have had for me): "hmmm... ok.. that's pretty geeky"

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

What a catch! What a catch!

"Crash". "Defeat". "Losers".

These are all words used for the Aussie's win over those pommy bastards in the second test of the Ashes! And I don't care if I am English soon. I'll always be true blue!

Ok, enough of bragging. AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE! OI! OI! OI!

Monday, December 04, 2006

Cruelty Free With Added Punches

Calvin's sister, Li, who owns and runs veganstore.co.uk, asked me to help her on her stall at the Cruelty Free Christmas Fair yesterday. I jumped at the chance, because for years I'd listened in wonder of tales of the crazies who go to these shows, and I wanted to see them for myself. Plus I secretly quite like playing shop.

Once I got over my paranoia that people would be able to tell that I enjoy barely cooked steak and wearing leather just by looking at me, I really, really enjoyed myself. And whilst I knew being vegan isn't at all easy, with so many things being on the no-no list like meat, diary, or KFC Bargain buckets, I never appreciated all the little things someone who wants to be cruelty free can't eat, like fudge, jelly babies, white chocolate or marshmellows. And it's because Li sells all these things, and especially the little tuck shop bags of sweets, that meant we were completely swamped all day. We started the day with nearly 1000 bags of mixed, gelatine free lollies like licorice all sorts, jelly beans, dolly sweets, and within 4 hours had sold out completely.

At the end of the day, Li sent me home with loads of vegan chocolate and a couple of bags of vegan soya based cajun bacon flavoured jerky. Being a fully fledged meat eater, I feel strange about eating something I know is completely cruelty free, so I in order to keep a balance in the universe in check with the amount of cruelty I inflict on animals when I normally eat something, I am forced to punch the Flatmate everytime I eat a piece of the delicious dark, milk free chocolate. And to bring balance to the force, after a day spent being at a vegan fair, when I got home the Flatmate made me a lovely dinner of net caught tuna and pasta, with added dolphin for flavour.

As for the crazies? Unfortunately I didn't meet any of them, as every one was just incredibly friendly. Though, I did have a very wierd conversation with one wide eyed woman about soya milk:

Lady: "Do you sell soya milk? I'm looking for soya milk".
Me: "Soya milk? No, but we do have this vegan whipping cream, just in time for Christmas"
Lady: "Whipping cream? Cream is made with milk."
Me: "No, no, this is vegan whipping cream. It's made with soya "
Lady: "Cream? No I want soya"
Me: "This is soya."
Lady: "You said cream? This is a vegan festival you know"
Me: "No, this is whipping cream made of soy. It's completely vegan"
Lady: "No, I want soya milk, not soya cream. Didn't you hear me? Do you sell soya milk?"
Me: "No" (me thinking: oh go bugger off.)

Friday, December 01, 2006

Your Friday Moment of Zen: Love your pearlies


Last night I finally had "The Teeth Dream". Much like the going-to-school-naked dream, or the not-studying-for-exams dream, this one is pretty horrific and disturbing. It's the one where you lose your front teeth, for no particular reason.

Last night, I dreamt I'd lost my two front ones, plus the ones on both sides. They just dropped out in one clump, and behind my two front teeth I had grown one large front tooth. It was a pretty harrowing experience, because when I looked in the mirror I had the most hideous smile, all gummy, and toothless. And because it was really disturbing and in my dream I'd started crying, it felt really real, so when I did finally wake up, the first thing I did was touch my teeth and let out a massive "YES! Get in! I'm not ready to be photographed for the Big Book of British Smiles!".

So my Friday moment of Zen is a picture of some pretty perfect teeth. Not that mine are, but I sure as hell am gonna start treating them like a million bucks, so that hopefully I'll never have to actually live through that experience.

Dental hygenie. Random Moment of Zen