My New Hobby..

I think a drum roll might be necessary... Are you drum rolling?...



My new hobby, as of October, is Pole Dancing.



It suddenly struck me, as a hole ripped in the inner thigh of yet another pair of my jeans, that my size 18 arse isn't cute anymore. I can't stand the gym, and according to the bloke who wrote 'Eat Right For Your Blood Type' I ought to be doing less of the running and skipping, and more of the yoga and pole dancing. (Ok so maybe I made the last bit up. He just mentioned the yoga, but come on - stretching, stripping - same diff.) (And actually, according to him, I'm supposed to be a vegetarian too. A Greek vegetarian. Go figure.)



So, I mused as I cut my jeans into cropped shorts, I'm going to take a class. Or maybe a few classes. At a studio in Notting Hill, not a strip club. And no, there's no actual stripping involved. But it is a way to get super fit, lose a few pounds and gain what could become a rather useful skill. For when I'm married. Obviously.

I'm a little petrified at the thought of having to wear hot pants while dangling upside down (probably with flabby bits wobbling all over the place) - as rule of thumb, if I am going to venture into a gym I'm more of a trousers and three tops kind of girl. Just in case. But I think I'd be willing to make a few exceptions here, friction burns aside.

Ooh. Side note. Electro Boy just called. Admittedly, it was an 'accident' - the classic 'called the wrong person' line - but we had a good little chat, and God, I don't know why it's even newsworthy really because he's semi stood me up more than twice, and I should probably despise him anyway after him-drunkenly-trying-to-kiss-me incident at the Christmas party. Anyway, he was all like 'I'll call you later tonight, yadda yadda' and obviously he won't. I seem to be blessed with a magnetism that attracts muppets and time-wasters.

Speaking of which, got a call today from someone else who isn't stranger to standing me up. We'll call him Stripper Boy (apt, given today's theme) because of an particular incident I can only recall as being one of the weirdest and simultaneously funniest moments of my dating life. A story for another day. But today he called to say that he'd just had laser eye surgery, and wondered if I fancied going to his place later on. Presumably to cook him dinner or something. Fortunately, I still have this cold. Else I'd have had to make up a better excuse.

With a finger to the face of loneliness, I couldn't be less bothered right now about men who simply aren't raising the bar. Showing up late, not showing up at all, lack of imagination on dates and (my personal favourite) total disregard for personal hygiene - such a magnificent array of qualities. I may not be a barbie doll, but I can hold down several decent conversations at once, arrive on time and I know how to use a shower.

And anyway I'm sure that, given time, the Pole will take care of the barbie doll bit :)

Four Sleeps To Go...

Until my English Lang/Ling exam... Eek.

It's a three hour, mind numbing beast of an exam - on everything from the birth of English through to how we learn it as children, to how it's used abroad, right up to chat-room usage. I don't even know if my hand can write for three hours straight anymore. It might just seize up and start twitching...

Work is manic at the moment. The imminent release of a key product is throwing everyone into a frenzied headless-chicken state. My department deals with the online side of things, so getting the website done and making sure the consumers are kept in the loop is part of my job. The other day they had me reading .xml code and converting it into a database, and I sat there thinking that if I have to push any more information into my brain, it might fall out.

I'll be SO glad when October is done. There'll be no more assessments to hand in for uni until January, and I'll just have work and Christmas shopping to think about. Can't believe it's that time of year again. I'm hoping this year's festivities will be a little more...well...festive.

I really wanted to go to a Christmas market this year, maybe in Stuttgart or Prague, but I can't find anyone to go with. That's one thing I do miss about being in a relationship -

OHHH stop the presses..I interupt the broadcast to bring you the latest news from my bedroom - my mother just came home with these:

Yes, all three. Coconut icey goodness, the old-school but totally brilliant Rainbow Drops, and the classic girls best friend (next to diamonds) - Galaxy chocolate. She also bought two boxes of Balsam Kleenex. Not quite as exciting but necessary for the streaming nose etc. [Edit: Yes, I've got another cold] I love my mum.

This calls for a duvet night, definitely. Speaking of which - I just bought myself a feather duvet and it's incredible. I don't know why I'm trying to make it harder on myself in terms of the getting-out-of-bed-in-the-mornings situation, but nevermind - the duvet is aces. So the plan for this evening is:

1) Get into the girliest pyjamas I can find.

2) Get into bed with all of the sweetie-yumminess.

3) Stick the John Mayer DVD on.

4) Consume said sweetie-yumminess while swooning over John Mayer.

5) Fall asleep in a sticky and satisfied heap.

6) Not feel at all guilty over the calories in the morning.

Also...

This song says it better:



But don't worry, Palladium, I still love you.

Opening To Thunderous Applause...

Did anybody else know that Robert Downey Jr has an album out? What? Since when? And why?

Not that it makes me love him any less (come on, with those eyes? - I couldn't dislike him even if he stole my cookies and killed my cat. Not that I own a cat. Besides the point.), but it's pretty dire. There's this cover of 'Smile' (a song I love, by the way) which just sounds like somebody was playing trampoline on his chest when he was recording it.

That being said, he came a very close second to Tom Cruise (oddly enough) in the race for best actor in Tropic Thunder tonight. I thought he might clinch the top spot with his 'Dude' speech, but no, Cruise swooped in right at the end and annihilated him with the booty shaking routine, leaving the entire audience in the right sort of tears.

2008 has been a pretty decent year for Downey Jr actually. Loved Iron Man. I think I may have seen it three times already, and lord knows I'll be first in line for the DVD when it comes out. So Robert, my love, stick to the blockbusters and leave the crooning on the shelf.

Also, marry me?

FreeWrite

I miss music. He’s like a mate I haven’t rung in a while, and now I’m just avoiding him because I know that when we do start talking again, he’ll be pissed at me for leaving it so long.

But I hear ‘The Way It’s Not’ or ‘Something’, and it’s all there. The words I could write. The notes I could sing. The smile I could wear. And all the while he’s like ‘Call me up – I’ll kick your ass initially, but we’ll have fun’.

I can’t stand writing sad songs. It’s just depressing, and not in a cool-Feisty way either. There are no haunting piano solos and legato voices here, my friend. I seem to manage the overdone ‘I want to kill myself’ clichés and then I end on an ambiguous enough note that people assume I’m clearly a misunderstood genius.

I want to kiss someone. Ever get that craving? – A madly romantic, smoochies-under-the-moonlight kind of kiss. Better still. I want to kiss someone to a really great song. Preferably after reading a great book or drinking hot chocolate. And I really want to have an album of amazing songs to call my own, and not have to keep myself in a perpetual state of inspired gloom to do it. I’d also like to meet someone breathtaking. Everyone is special, no doubt about it. But there are certain people who make you forget how to inhale and as painful as that sounds, I’m really, really up for meeting that person. I’m thinking low brow, dark features, that gorgeous lip thing that for some reason makes my DNA get all reproductive-wanting. Maybe I’m not alone on the lip thing though. I figured it out a while back as a common denominator – all the men I seem to be drawn to have slightly larger top lips than bottom ones. Somehow, I find it irresistible, and I have no idea why.

I just got poked by Electro Boy. I don’t think he has the lip thing.

But I digress. Back to moonlight kisses and oxygen deprivation. I think if I made a list of all the things I wanted, it would probably include things that don’t mean anything by themselves – like, say, ‘colours’ or ‘bobble hats’ or ‘to sit inside a circle of sound’. I think what I want can be summed up in one word, which I’m loath to do because...well...it sort of makes me redundant – but I think I just want love.

I’m not saying that ‘love’ and ‘bobble hats’ are necessarily collocates, but go with it for now.

The other day I began to see that I’m coming to terms with the prospect that I’m almost ready to love again. It kinda means that I’m going to have to let go of a few things consciously that have already been cut loose emotionally. Sometimes it takes your head a while to catch up with your heart. This is one such situation. It’s time to move on, and my head can’t believe it. I think it has gotten so used to being unhappy that the prospect of coming out of that is alien.

And scary, too. As soon as I step out there, all manner of weirdness will no doubt crawl out of the woodwork. Trying to find the middle ground between ‘Open mind, open heart’ and wearing a sign that says ‘Ask me, I’ll knock you out’ might be a little more difficult that I thought. I mean, how do I know which of these guys to bother to get to know? Because while I can’t risk wasting a year or two on yet another maniac, I also don’t want to do any judging-book-cover business. Like I said, middle ground, not the easiest place to find.

I think this song puts it pretty well.

Stuff I Mainly Did Last Week

For the first time in a while...

I've sat here now for around seven minutes trying to scrounge together something considered blogworthy, but I've got to tell you, after an entire day of Spanish grammar revision, it's a wonder I'm managing to write two words in English.



I'm just so...tired. Had a real spurt of energy the other night, and since then I've been beavering away at assignment after assignment, verb table after verb table...and now that it's almost over my brain is numb. And not comfortably so. The crazy bit is that my week is only getting busier from here.



I'm happy though. Not enough time to inhale, but happy. Go figure.



I think my mother thinks I don't like her. That was my little realisation-of-the-day. The truth is, I do like her. I do. I just wish she'd stop trying so hard. Now that my blog is growing in popularity, maybe I shouldn't write such personal things (as a side note - to the person whose IP ends in .18 - six times daily is perhaps a little over-zealous no?) but I started this blog so that I could be unedited and call some space my own, so hec, that's what I'm gonna do.



Also, Beijing officially kicked London's arse already. Anyone else watch the big finale? Anyone else still lamenting our choice of logo? Anyone else laugh at Boris's terrible wardrobe and perplexed expression as he was (failing to) wave the flag?



I'm going to Carnival tomorrow with Kirst, KT, Chelli and about 500,000 Londoners. Actually, I just pulled that number out of the sky, but it's probably close. There's this whole thing when I'm around Kirst - her being Miss Model Fantastico with oodles of fashion knowledge, I get a little...well...intimidated. It's like being a whale and having a dolphin for a best friend. So obviously I have no idea what to wear tomorrow, and I know that whatever I choose, her outfit will top it by miles (and the fact that she buys half of her vintage wardrobe from Barnardos does nothing to help my inferiority complex either), and it sort of just makes me want to stick on jeans and a hoodie with a scruffy pair of Converses. I do love my Converse shoes though. They aren't even mine, but that's a secret. They're mums. Another reason why I like her so much.



Well, well. So much for having nothing to write about.