Waxy Tea is Not Okay

So on Sunday we met up with some friends in Brixton for Sunday Roast (the true cure for Saturday's drinking) everyone was a little be more stupid than they normally would be due to the cocktails at our costume party, The Black Cat certainly did it's part to knock me down a few pegs.

Anyhow, we all spoke slowly and ate our roast beef or veggie sausages and then we realized that the pub we were eating in had run out of desserts! The horror! Didn't they know we were hung over and craving sweets? Why didn't they know?!?!?!

So we went to the Prince Pub on Brixton Road. The Prince is a standard gastro pub that will forever live in infamy because it is the location of the great passport and Visa theft of 2006 wherein my handbag was lifted off the sofa I was sitting on and stolen away from me. As you may have guessed, at the time my purse contained not only my standard belongings but also my US Passport complete with UK Visa. This led to a soul killing day spent at the Home Office at Lunar House in Croydon which cost me approx £500 and sucked a few years off my life (sort of like The Machine in the Princess Bride but with a longer queue). But I didn't blame the pub for that, no, I blamed the thief. So I went back happily enough and ordered a peppermint tea and sticky toffee pudding from the distracted waitress.

45 minutes later I had my pudding but no tea. About ten minutes later the tea arrived covered by a white saucer. I took off the saucer and placed it under the mug and took a nice big drink (hung over = thirsty after all) I burnt my mouth so it took a minute to notice the strange film that had coated my mouth, but when I did I began to scrape at the roof of my mouth and found a strange white residue coming out on my fingers. We pointed this out to the gentleman delivering the last of our drinks and he said with a laugh, "Oh God, we used those saucers for candles last night, they must still have wax on them! Can I get you another?"

To which I responded, "Uh no," and tried not to vomit because I had dirty pub candle wax coating my mouth. I went up to complain more formally but all I could get out was something along the lines of "Seriously dude, I'm pretty grossed out about this, it's unacceptable."

They didn't charge me for my tea or anyone else for their hot drinks, but they never at any point apologized to me for the fact that I had a mouth full of dirty pub candle wax. Totally not cool.

So to The Prince Pub in Brixton I say the following:

Screw you and your thieving clientele and your crappy service and your dirty wax field tea. You suck.

Halloween!

We had our Halloween on Saturday. I was a cat burglar. Specifically, a burglar of cats. I should have a picture of me burgling Oliver soon too. But for now, I hope you will be satisfied with this dastardly image.

Our party was attended by the following characters:
Princess Diana fresh from the crash
Mr Bennet from Heroes (jeremy)
Electro Boy Electro Girl from the Mighty Boosh
Rosie the Riveter
Amy Winehouse
Anna Nicole Smith in clown makeup and toga
The Swirly faced pedophile
Poison Ivy
Dracula
Multiple zombies
Little Red Riding Hood
Carrie (in blood)
Dr. Zoidberg

Frankenstein's Monster and Bride
Twin Witches
One muderous pumpkin
Catwoman
A Pirate Zombie (the ultimate combination)
A few vampires
And a Plague doctor with a squeaky rat on his shoulder

We had almost 40 people in our tiny house and garden, and as far as I could tell they all had a good time. I don't know that we'll ever have such a large party again but it was good to have done it once.

Especially since it gave me an excuse to play my Bangles CD!

Where's my trust fund?

Back in high school I knew this kid who came from a sort of wealthy family (wealthy in Port Huron is pretty far from wealthy in London, but they seemed properly rich to me at the time) and he had plans to go onto some sort of lucrative and responsible career. I of course had plans to pursue an English degree and while that meant I would know words like lucrative, responsible and career, it was unlikely that they would ever work together to bring me money.

So, in our Senior year, I stumbled upon an absolutely genius idea! This kid (who I had totally wasted my time on Freshman year when I had a huge and foolish crush on him, he called me like four times and then met some girl at the mall and totally left me hanging. Jerk.) with his responsible plans leading him to the world of financial surplus, should set me up with a trust fund in order to finance my creative endeavours. Sort of like a patron system. He clearly thought it was a good idea. I have written proof in my year book from 1995 that he was at least considering it. Do you think that counts as any kind of binding legal contract? Because I could totally use a trust fund right about now. No joke. I'm not meant for a life of working, I'm meant for a life of leisure.

Creative Decisions

I have made a decision. I have decided to shelve my serious story ideas for right now and instead I am going to write a love story. It will be a traditional type love story about two people falling in love, but it will also be a love story about Detroit and about figuring out who you are. And there will be jokes and it will be fun. Fun to write, and hopefully, fun to read.

I've been putting all this emphasis on writing something important and deep. Something all full of truth and angst and I've been dreading it. And I've been hitting my snooze button to avoid it. And that is dumb. I love writing and I love creating stories and I used to love writing funny sweet stories about misfits and that's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to care how close it is or isn't to my real life I'm just going to start telling this new story and roll with it.

I did two pages long hand in thirty minutes at lunch today and it felt good and made me smile. I missed that feeling. I deserve to have it some more.

I am going to clean up the golden bit in the serious book idea and start submitting it as a short story, otherwise I am going to focus on telling some stories that make me feel joyful right now. They will probably venture into melancholy and even sorrow at points but ultimately I want them to make me happy.

Please not that this long hard look at my creative life is all down to my therapy sessions and reading a book written by someone who was born in 1980. It was her second book! It wasn't even that good. Not that I would admit it if it was. But, for real, it wasn't, I totally called the plot twist 1/4 of the way through! Since when are people who were born in 1980 old enough to read or write joined up letters anyhow? But the point is I was reading it for the fluff and the fun and while I was reading it i was like I could write a better more fun fluff book than the 1980 jerk! So I'm gonna.

1980 is stupid. 1977 is going to show her how it's done.

Dudes, why does beer hate me now?

I went out for some beers last night. I know, drinking on a Monday is a bad idea, but a friend and her husband and sister were in town from the good old U S of A so, y'know, I had to.

She's the friend who introduced me to Jeremy and set us up on our blind date despite my initial misgivings about dating and blind dating and meeting new people and dating. And we had a really nice time at this touristy pub near Blackfriar's Bridge. But good God, I am so so so so so sososososososososososososososo tired today. I mean it! I only had 4.5 pints. That's not anywhere near enough to make me this sleepy. I don't have a headache or anything and not any sort of traditional hangover, but damn do I feel sluggish.

When did I get so lame? I used to be able to drink until 4 in the morning, sleep for an hour and a half and then go to work still drunk. Of course, I use the word work really loosely here as my morning were spent handing out cassette tapes in the language lab at Wayne State University where I regularly napped on my desk for a good hour or two each day. But still, it's not like that was proper sleep, that was more like passing out a little bit. But I didn't need sleep! I only needed the promise of more booze later on in the evening.

But now, if I'm not wearing my JimJams and tucked into bed by 10pm I'm a freaking wreck the next day. I'm an old lady now. Too much imbibing and carrousing back in the day has ruined me for all weeknight carrousing in the future.

My Lower Intestine is Pink

Here are some things I learned yesterday

• Private insurance can be good to have, it means you get a lovely view of the Thames from your recovery bed.
• General Anesthetic is good too, especially when it helps you pass out right before the doctor puts a tube down your throat
• It's totally weird to wake up and see you lower intestine on a television screen and realize that there is a tube up your bum
• It is equally weird to see that two sachets of Picolax, a powder that clears out the intestines of most mortals, have not been enough to clear out your system.
• It is super duper weird to see yesterday's lunch while it is still inside your body!
• It is like super duper kaduper weird to watch someone taking biopsies from your intestine. I know I could have looked away and not watched Inside Carolyn TV, but it's sort of fascinating too.
• Just because it doesn't hurt right after you colonoscopy is finished, that doesn't mean it won't hurt later on in the day.
• In fact, it will probably hurt a lot and trying to get the peppermint tea off the top shelf will be a bad bad bad bad bad idea,
• There is also a good chance that your guts will still be sore the next day and the only thing that will make you feel better will be new green flannel pyjamas (I don't care what Cherry says about green. He's wrong, green is awesome) and some library books (although how could Lolita be missing? Who would steal The Annotated Lolita? Lame! And eveln worse, how is it possible that the lady working at the library had never heard of Nabokov? Super duper lame!) and a long afternoon nap.
• It is good to hear that your insides look normal even if your bowel likes to hold onto it's contents a little more stubbornly than most, and it is even better to hear that your doctor doesn't think you'll need to do this again. I mean new pyjamas are nice and all, but not really enough to make up for one tube down your throat and another up your butt.
• There's not much that can make that sort of thing worth it really, not even a nice view of the river.
  

The Girl Conundrum

My friend Chrystie and I were discussing this on Saturday. When is it no longer okay to refer to yourself as a girl? We're both thinking that we're probably reaching that point, her in her late 20s and about to aquire her PhD and me as a married 30 year old firmly ensconced in the world of middle management. Is it creepy for us to refer to ourselves as girls now? Is it time to take up the mantle of WOMAN?

I can see that at 30 I am pretty much out of the girl zone. I concede that I am a grown ass person now. I pay a mortgage, I think about maybe having babies someday (someday, Mom, don't get too excited yet), I have multiple bank accounts, I have investments (although truthfully I know fairly little about them, they are the domain of Auntie Pam), I attend weddings for more than just the open bar (not that I'll be turning down any of those free drinks, I just won't be trying to drink the cost of my dress this time), I have a degree, I have a proper job (sure I'm updating my Blog from it, who isn't?), I have quit smoking, I do a lot of ostensibly grown up things.

But the thing is, I do not feel like a grown up. Does that matter though? Does my interior battle to remain approximately 18 have any bearing on what I actually am? Am I a grown up despite my desire to still be in university staying out until 6AM with my friends? My actions are clearly not those of the drunk student I was in 1998. For one, that girl could hold her liquor a lot better than me. For two, she needed a lot less sleep. For three, she still had the metabolism of a 16 year old on crack. Not that I was ever on crack, just trying to make a point about my metabolism here.

But, really, what is it that makes us adults? Is age just a number (as R. Kelly and Aaliyah would have us believe)? Does anyone ever truly want to be an adult? Am I just in extreme denial about the loss of my youth? Is it creepy to refer to myself as a girl at the age of 30? When do we finally become women and men and how are those entities defined?

I seriously don't know, I think I used to have some vague idea but now that I am ticking all those boxes that used to define adulthood and I still don't feel especially adult, I wonder if I ever will.

New Pornographers, take 2

- The rumour that Neko Case would be there was just that, a rumour. Boo!
+ Kathryn Caldwell is a really good singer and I think she does an excellent job even if she isn't Neko
- the acoustics at KOKO are kind of crap
+ the venue itself is pretty cool looking
+ we got a really good spot on the second balcony with excellent view of band and crowd
+ I spotted a man doing the finger pointing dance early on and he became secondary entertainment for the night. he just couldn't. Stop. Pointing. Awesome!
- The first few songs were a little bit faster than they normally are
+ The band seemed livelier and less jet lagged than the last time we saw them
+ AC Newman made a Star Wars joke
+ Sing Me Spanish Techno, Use It, The Mary Martin Show, My Slow Descent into Alcoholism, From Blown Speakers, The Laws Have Changed, and many others
- No Letter from and Occupant! What the hell?
- Seriously, the accoustics at KOKO, not okay

+++++++++ no violent drunk Australians trying to bring me down all night!

+++++++++ I had lots of fun at the show despite the crap acoustics because I was there with a bunch of friends and everyone was in a good mood and it was nice. I think this is one of the first times that I've felt like I was solidly part of a group on my own. Normally, I can hide behind Jeremy, his personality is bigger than mine and if I'm feeling slow or down I can let him be our spokesperson, but this week I've been out and about on my own and it's been really good. Not that I never go out with friends by myself, but I usually feel more nervous and less able to function. But this week I've just felt a lot more confident on my own than I have in awhile, despite having really down days on Tuesday and Wednesday. I wasn't floundering for conversation and feeling awkward. Instead, I was making jokes and dancing like the pointer and having an all around awesome time. So, yay to that, despite the crap acoustics and lack of Neko Case.

Killer

That's right I'm committing murder, with kindness.

I am sweetness and light today bitches. I smile smile smile smile but if you look in my eyes it's all murderous rage. Or at least mild annoyance.

I also killed my skirt off about 20 minutes after getting to work this morning.

I saw a thread hanging and gave it a dug and down fell the hem of my H&M skirt. Sure it was 4 years old and cheap as hell when I bought it, but I felt a keen disappointment in my heart and then a keen increase in my credit card bill when I ran over to Monsoon and bought a pair of trousers to keep myself from looking like a slob in these hallowed halls of profit and greed.

They are very nice trousers.

And later this week I will hopefully not be driven to any sort of murderous rage at the New Pornographers show on Thursday. Neko Case is going to be there and if any drunk jerks try to ruin the night for me this time, well they'd just better watch out because I'm bottling up a lot right now and I might just go all green and Hulk like on them. Or cry. Probably cry.

In the Interests

of improving my attitude, they shall now be known as The Wonderful Ladies, Sunshine and Superstar.

I fear that this job is making me repress so many emotions every day that I shall soon turn into my mother. If, at any point, I begin discussing the merits of cutting off most of my hair and getting a permanent wave I grant everyone in the world permission to shoot me.

In other news, my stomach has been acting up pretty badly lately so I saw a specialist last week and has scheduled me in for a colonoscopy and a gastroscopy next week. I'm not looking forward to either procedure but am hopeful that we might find something to help make this better. He was really clear about the fact that while stress might be triggering these problems that stress exacerbates a lot of stomach problems and that we shouldn't rule anything out until he'd taken a closer and more intimate look at my bowel. Luckily he also said he would be giving me drugs so I won't be awake for the gastroscopy and I will be super groggy and out of it for the colonoscopy.

In more other news, Jeremy should be in Sao Paulo right now, or on his way to the town where he will be staying near there. He is giving some safety training this week and won't be back until Monday. It's very quiet and sort of eerie here. Luckily Oliver has been a little extra needy lately so I don't feel like Elmyra so much when i spend all my time picking him up and demanding cuddles.

peaks and valleys

I'm all ups and downs right now. After a lousy Friday at work I had a nice weekend spending time with friends and seeing Jeremy off on his way to Chicago and Brazil. But as you may have guessed if you were lucky enough to read my now deleted post (i'm getting paranoid-er in my old age) I was dreading work today and ended up spending most of the day feeling really ill. i left at four because I was having weird hot flashes and feeling super nauseated.

No fun.

I should have applied for a weekend extension. There has to be a way to make that happen.

I need to try to approach work with a better attitude. Sometimes i can manage it and when I do the days are better, but sometimes I just feel sucked into the evil web of The Horrible Ladies and i just want to cry. Or sweat excessively and suffer from stomach pains. One of those.