News just in..

I just walked into the big mirror in Topshop. I just didn't recognise myself- surely a bad sign.
I was on my mobile, and I saw me walking towards me and thought 'Ooh, I like her shoes.. ah, s'all good, I'm sure she'll move in a minute.' End of thought.
No. I did not.
As the nice and ultra pretty sales lady helped me to my feet, she said 'I've worked here for over a year now, and thats the first time I've seen anyone walk into the mirror.'
As I stomped out nursing my various bruises and damaged confidence, I realise I left my phone on the shop floor.
Do I go back and get it? No- I hijacked the nearest lovely person and begged them to fetch it.
I think the kindness of strangers may be underestimated. He even bought me coffee- I may have a date with him for tomorrow.

Of Flatmates and Fluorescence

This weekend flatmate Naomi brought home a fluorescent pink glowing Christmas tree. Now, while I'm all for a bit or even a lot of tack, pinkness and sparkle, this is taking things just a tad too far- so its now plugged in at the far end of the hall by the lift where it will, I imagine, remain until our delightful chav neighbours decide to liberate it. Although, that said, it's been in place for about four days now and its still in place and without amusing graffiti- pink radiation may have previously unforeseen power over the negative forces of the world.
An alternative Christmas tree was thenceforth required- which somehow necessitated a walk to Euston station in the rain, and a visit to the countryside, where we gathered sticks. Have you ever tried to smuggle branches on to a Virgin train? And yourself into first class? Not fun, even if the forty year old desperately single pot smoking men in the same carriage are willing to share.
And I spent most of Saturday evening sitting in the doorway to our building watching They With Whom I Live spray our ruthlessly garnered twigs silver and gold, although my cautious distance didn’t, unfortunately, stop me from magically getting indelible silver paint in my haiaginging me by about 40 years; I look far more like my mother than I previously thought or am anything close to comfortable with. Lack of scissors resulted in the ruthless removal of silver hairs with nail clippers.
I now look like I've been on the losing side of a tussle with a lawnmower- or my hairdresser. But on the plus side, our nouveau-ish Christmas tree looks fabulous, which I suppose is, in the spirit of Christmas and good will, all that really matters.
So that's phase one of the Christmas preparations finally done and dusted-that'sthats left is card giving and present buying. I hate this bit. The little bundle of charm that is Naomi reckons this is because I can't just sit on the sidelines and watch everyone else do it for me, an accusation I'm happy to admit to, because its perfectly true and there's just no use at all in denying it.

Of Skirts and Statistics

I heard on the radio just t'other day that the average woman spends 90 minutes getting ready to go out, and because I really have nothing better to occupy myself with I decided to test the theory- so heres my preparation itinery.

17:10- Crawl home and hurl freezing cold self in shower.
17:35- Watch neighbours, armed with tin and polka cup of coffee, mirror, brush and hair straightners.
17:40- Burn self on straightners.
17:42, 48, 53 and 55- see above
18:00- Throw straightners across room in hissy fit (all 3 feet of room) and beg my beautiful Sophie flatmate to take over.
18:30- Hair all done and dusted.
18:35- Find self irrevocably drawn to chess game hidden beneath sofa to avert ridicule and mockery; me and Sophie started this abut two weeks ago and keep coming back to it in quiet moments.
19:00- Realise Sophie and everyone else has been ready to leave for about half an hour.
19:01- Commence hunt for clean clothes; it would appear that yet again my clothes haven't washed themselves.
19:05- Commence hunt for red glittery boots.
19:08- Decide on underwear; progress.
19:10- Get changed. Swap skirts with my beautiful Sophie flatmate, and remove the remnants of days makeup. Start over.
19:15- Spill bottle of makeup remover on Sophie's skirt.
19:18- Contemplate wardrobe.
19:35- Decide on new outfit. Shimmy out of sodden clothes and shimmy self into teenytiny red dress.
19:40- Smudge lipstick in manner not unreminiscent of Marilyn Manson. Make coffee for all. Visit balcony, and nearly freeze to death.
19:50- Stare at pile of clothes, desperately seeking something similar to what I'm wearing, but warmer.
19:59- Give up.
20:17- Ensure cupboards are well stocked with Lemsip, coffee and paracetamol.
20:30- Fall off the back of the sofa and ladder stockings.
20:35- Swear. Loudly. And consistently, until someone pays attention to my plight.
20:45- Ready!

I ask you to bear in mind that it took me at least half an hour to find a working pen and some paper, even if I did give up and use eyeliner and a mirror for accurate note-taking.
*Mutters under breath, counting on fingers*
I can't count. How long is that?
I think its about four hours.
Good lord.

UPDATE: Todays Independent informs me that 98,000 people in the UK can't count- I'm not sure how comfortable I am with being in this classification, but the thought of enrolling in remedial maths lessons for those with More Important Things To Focus On During High School (namely, during a double lesson last thing on a Friday, which is, quite frankly, perverse) makes me want to cower behind the nearest Big Thing, with i-Pod on full blast.
Its one of the key joys of my life that no-one's likely to spring mathematical questions at me out of a kind of perverse enjoyment- or for any other reason. "Girl! Whats 9 45ths to the power of 3!?"

Of Curtains and Closure

Because of my somewhat socially limited upbringing, I tend to forget to close curtains, something that invariably means that more people than I'm comfortable with have seen me in my knickers. And while all my knickers are fabulous and perfectly showoffable, this just isn't something a good girl does .
There's a guy living in the building opposite us, the kind of guy everybody knows at least one of; balding, middle aged, single and desperate. He's seen me in my knickers, and quite possibly less- but if I'm naked in the front room of my flat then I'm beyond caring about the resident peeping types. As a general rule, I can live with the knowledge that strangers have seen my knickers, but never before has anybody actually come up to me in the street and informed me that this is so. I haven't quite decided if this was admirable honesty or overtly creepy, but either way I'm going to invest in some curtains for the living room- just as soon as I persuade someone to hire me; my bank balance hasn't quite recovered from the £500 dress I bought last week.
My more outlandish spending habits have got to stop, or I'll be living in a cardboard box by the time I finish university- no more buying outfits to match shoes, jewelry or handbags. Simple as that. Especially as I have no intention of wearing a dress again this winter; sub zero temperatures are not for going out in- they're for sitting at home with hot water bottles, blankets and coffee; I learned this lesson on Friday, when I came within an inch of develping hypothermia- apparently glitter isn't an ideal screen against the cold, nor is a wool coat, and the two combined are a dismal failure.
I might have to train the kitten to drape itself around my neck like a fur stole- fur accessories are at their best when you can honestly say no animals were harmed in the making, and only mildly in the training.

Day three

I was finally driven to checking exactly how close to non existent my "blogger knowledge" is.
Maybe I shouldn't have bothered? Although that said, I'm not sure asking me whether Donald Trump has a blog is really fair- surely noone cares about him enough to know?

Do You Even Know What a Blog Is?

You got 1/8 correct! What the heck are you doing at Blogthings?

How Much Do You Know About Blogging?

I'm still at my parents' place, but going home tomorrow- yes! So no more quizzes for a while; I imagine it'll be Christmas before they reappear.

A disadvantageous trip

On another note, I'm back at parents' this weekend, and am feeling more than a little taken for granted- I'm surely not old enough for role reversal yet? Although I openly admit to only returning out of fear of developing some nasty malnourishment related disease, from what I've seen so far i needn't have bothered with the train journey. Aftter spending five hours on various trains and being stranded in Craven Arms- which turns out to have been verrry aptly named, and being flashed at twice by the same guy, I finally dragged my damp little self back to my parent's house, expecting a warm welcome and real food, but found, instead, a note taped to the front door.
They'd gone to the pub, and I didn't have a key, which resulted in me scrambling in headfirst through a window- whilst wearing a skirt and heels, managing to duly ladder my tights, fall off the window ledge and smash a vase; but I never liked that one anyway, so s'all good. Righting myself, I turned to find a synchronised lace curtain twitching thing going on in the street outside- good to know the neighbours would intervene if they saw a nearby house being burgled, at least. Plus, I feel that my good deed for the day has been accomplished- some of these gentlemen neighbours clearly haven't seen a girls knickers since they married; divorce isn't really a social option in this neighbourhood, which has yet to catch up with this new fangled decimalisation idea.
Finding another note (along with the house key, which might have come in useful if they'd left it about 8 feet to the right of the kitchen table), i was instructed that a) they'd bought me a pizza "especially", as they know how much I like such things, and b) they wouldn't be back until late so would I kindly do the horses?
My mother collects ponies.
Whereas I, on the other hand, find them more than a little alarming and spending my first night back in the wilds of Cheshire out in the rain trudging through knee high mud is not my idea of fun. Far from it, but being the dutiful daughter I am- and being on the verge of informing them that I'm not going to stay with them for my entire Christmas holiday- I went.
An hour later, I remembered exactly why I fled to London, and had begun muttering obscenities under my breath.
Never again. I rolled back in and downed three fingers of the half frozen vodka* the mildly amoral Alec, flatmate and best friend, thoughtfully pressed on me as I was packing. He knows me so well.

* Its a pathetic excuse for vodka- what kind of alcohol freezes? The cheaper-than-a-days-worth-of-food breed, apparently.

A Series of Unfortunate Events 1

Over the last ten days I have-
- Gotten a black eye*
- And 3 piercings in the same ear, which, when combined with the black eye means that I can't sleep as both sides of my head hurt.
- Been to the doctors once, and been treated like a leper after expressing my concern for my mystery illness using Doctor Who jargon.
- Lost faith in the wise face of medicine, when he asked me if Spectrox Toxemia was "some kind of STD".
- Caused my boyfriend to get stopped in the street by two erstwhile unknown university people helpfully offering directions to nearby sexual health clinics.
- Broken four plates; I have a feeling that we'll soon have tin-and-polka-dot plates to match the cups, if I keep going at this rate.
- Been asked for directions to the London eye. This by a group of identically dressed overweight 13 year olds at 11pm
- Seen either Mr. T or a very good look alike wondering around Islington.
- Had four stitches in my palm, as result of alcohol induced idiocy; I was trying to pick up the pieces of a broken glass and lost my balance and fell on it. Yes, I know.
- I have looked at the forms for part time supermarket jobs that my charming and thoughtful boyfriend decided to pick up for me. And sulked. And then giggled, for about two hours- the Tesco application form is sheer hilarity in itself.
- Babysat for the Freakishly Maternal Lady across the hall far more often than I'm comfortable with- especially as, since I've been poorly, her children decided to make me a jelly rabbit. Which was all very well and good, as I'm not a one to turn my nose up at freely offered food, except they'd sprinkled glitter on it,. And it was black- god only knows how they managed that; is there such a thing as black food colouring? I have mental images of them patiently colouring it in with a black marker pen.
- Forgotten completely about the birthdays of two close friends, despite being invited to their respective parties. But fortunately being able to turn down party invites, due to my Spectrox Toxemia- for the modern age, of course.
- Just heard that my aunt, who lives in Hackney, wants me to babysit for my 7 year old cousin overnight on saturday.

All in all, this isn't turning out to be my best month, even if I have seen Mr T**. Roll on November!

*Update- as predicted, it lost all comedy value pretty rapidly, since its currently green and puffy, and is making me look like I'm in the early stages of leprosy.
** Where is he living these days? If its London I definitely saw him.