MIA

I know I know I’ve been neglecting you, dear reader (s)!  Don’t worry, it’s not just you, I’ve been neglecting everything except my job.  And just so you know, my job is not at all appreciative of the effort I have been making.  My job is sort of an entitled SOB who thinks he deserves my time 6 days a week.  He’s all like, I give you free coffee, I deserve your life.

So here I am all the time, for at least a few more weeks.

I did manage to slip out at around 3:30 on Saturday and go to a small party at a friend’s house.  That was nice, I’d sort of forgotten what things like friends and sunlight and wine not consumed straight from the bottle while sitting morosely on my sofa for half an hour before going to bed only to wake up and go back to work were like.

No that’s a lie, I always pour my wine into a glass, usually a wine glass, occasionally a juice glass, never a mug or pint glass, oh no never that.

Also I have been doing Kundalini Yoga in the mornings, using a set of DVDs I ordered when I finally realised how deeply unlikely it was that I would make it back to the Bikram Yoga Studio after working at least 9.5 hours everyday during the week and then 6 hours on Saturdays.  So I’m waking up early and opening the hell out of my chakras.

This is probably not how you’re supposed to talk about your chakras but i don’t care.  This week I’m working on the 1st chakra, which, according to my personal dvd instructor Maya Fiennes, is the chakra in charge of courage.  Next week creativity.  The whole series involves chanting which makes me laugh and therefore helps me feel less serious and dour about the act of exercising.  Which is good.

Wanna know what else is good?  Last week I touched the floor without bending my knees.  This is actually fucking remarkable given the state of my lower back.  Please be amazed.

But now I must return to the work.  Wanna know my newest coping mechanism? Turning all unreasonable requests into LOL Cat speak eg: o! Hai! We can has 30 drawrz arkivd an scand by april 23?  LOLZ!1!1!

It doesn’t change the unreasonable request, but it does make me think of kittens!

Ridiculous Good

In A shocking change of pace from the last two Saturdays I am once more at work.  Happily though I am listening to the new Gorillaz cd.  They are one of a few bands / musicians I will buy albums from without hearing anything first (also included The New Pornographers, Neko Case, Wilco, Arcade Fire, a few others.  Tori Amos used to be on this list but then she did that album about a beekeeper or some shit and we had to re-evaluate our relationship).

Anyhow I was bopping along to this new album and liking it just fine, more than really, and then this song came on

and I was totally in love. 100% percent.  When it started I was like yeah yeah whatever, and then the brass line and the wall of sound happened and oh that’s all it takes.  Ask anyone, give me a wall of sound and I’m yours forever. 

There are also songs featuring Mick Jones, Bobby Womack, Lou Reed,  and Snoop Dogg (not all at the same time though, don’t worry).  So thank you Damon Albarn and Mos Def and many more for helping to make my Saturday at work slightly more tolerable.

Last week Cheap Trick were making life better for me.  That’s just what Surrender does.  That song is made of magic.

Fashion-spiration

This weekend I used my mom circa 1977 as some fashion-spiration.

I was down in East Dulwich on Sunday looking for some new clothes and not having any luck at the regular clothing shops.  Everything was ugly.  Seriously, why is everything ugly right now?

Happily I saw that the Mind charity shop was open so I popped in to see what they might have stocked.  On the dress rack I found a green dress that reminded me A LOT of the one my mom is wearing in the photo at this link.  The only difference being that this one was a solid lime green and the straps don’t tie. And my mom looks pretty awesome in that dress, and let’s face facts here, I look a lot like my mom, so I tried it on and was all like, oh hell yeah Mom of the 70’s! I think managed to find a woven silver white and gold belt that will look really good with it and a couple new beaded necklaces as well!  One turquoise and the other coral pink (I do solemnly swear that I will not wear both necklaces at the same time, Amen).

All in all a pretty good score that came in at just under £17.

Sadly, no one on the bus ride home offered to eat my afterbirth.  I’ll try to live with the disappointment.

It is the first day of spring, after all

From the trenches

If you and I are friends on The Facebook then you’ve already heard about this.  Apologies.  But this version will have more detail, so that’s good (right?).

Last night I went out for Indian food at the always awesome Ganapati in Peckham with Jeremy and a couple friends.  we had some delicious curry and conversation.  The new Alice in Wonderland movie was discussed at length and with much venom.

After dinner I walked to the bus stop by Khan’s Bargain Store and waited for the 343.  I waited for a while.  About 30 minutes in all.  In the rain.  In that time I saw two old drunks (or two auld drunks as I like to think of them in my bad mental Scottish accent) stumbling around and shouting, not in a particularly aggressive way, just a sort of benign drunk way, at each other and passers-by.

Their bus came and they got on even though the lady didn’t have enough money on her Oyster card.  The driver told them to get off the bus.  They refused and sat down.  The cops came (really quickly too!) and after trying to convince them to get off  started to physically pull the lady off the bus and she began to scream, ‘Dave! Don’t leave me, Dave!’ And her partner stood in the doorway and stared at her.  One of the cops said, ‘Well, on or off?’ and Dave got off the bus and put his arm around his lady and off the walked down the road, arms around each other, cider cans still in hand.

Finally my bus showed up and many of us waiting under the shop awnings breathed a sigh of relief.  30 minutes of bus waiting time feels more like 3 hours while you’re living it.  6 hours in the rain.  So I got on my bus and sat down amidst all the soggy tired travellers when the guy sitting diagonally across from me in a single seat by the door started to sing: ‘TAKE ME DOWN OOH PARADISE CITY!  TAKE ME DOWN OOH PARADISE CITY!’ He would pause for a few seconds and then repeat.  Occasionally yelling ‘Grass is green!  Girls are pretty!’ as well.  When it was time to get off the bus he stood and shouted, and I promise you I am not making this up, ‘I wish I could eat all your afterbirths!  But I’m not allowed to do that anymore!  I really wish I could though!’  And then he got off the bus. 

Sometimes I hate taking the bus because of people like this, but sometimes I love it all the more.

Need to know

We’re having a Hallowe’en party again this year.  You should start planning your costume now, because if it sucks everyone will laugh at you and you’ll totally deserve it.

Sports related

So on Saturday, after working all morning and half the afternoon I went out bowling with some friends.  I used to go bowling ALL the time when I was a student at Wayne State University in scenic Detroit, MI.  My roommates both worked at the Garden Bowl, so I never had to pay for a lane or shoes and only intermittently did I have to pay for beer.  It was a good set up.  I was there nearly every weekend drinking Rolling Rock (‘A big ‘un, please, barkeep.’) and haphazardly throwing bowling balls down the lane.  It was always fun.  Sadly, I was never very good.

While waiting for my friends to show up on Saturday I started thinking about this and wondering.  I was sitting at the bar nursing a beer and thinking to myself, how is it that I went bowling at least once a week for 2.5 years and never got any better?  That, right there, is some serious dedication to sucking.  I rarely break 100 for crissakes.  I used to try to convince friends that we should play golf style, you know, lowest score wins.  No one ever went for this. Shocking, right?

So as I worked my way up to the humourous score of 66, yes, I said 66, I realised something else that was just as troubling.   Not only do I suck at bowling, I’m also really competitive.  Really competitive.  At one point I remember shouting out to the second to last place bowler, ‘Yeah Waine, 8 pins is all right, but it’s not a strike, is it?’  Only to immediately throw two gutter balls on my next turn. (Waine’s response, ‘You know they’re inanimate objects?  You can’t lull them into a false sense of security.’ I’m saving it for later).  You would think that with such a vicious competitive streak, I could at least be good.  There really ought to be some sort of innate talent to back up all the smack talk.

I’m thinking if I can get some friends together to form some sort of league maybe I can work on this.  Also, it would be an excuse to get customised bowling shirts.  In the mean time, I wonder if anybody in London sells Rolling Rock?  I kind of miss that stuff.

On repeat

I don’t know if you ever wake up in the morning and wonder to yourself. ‘Hmm, I wonder what Carolyn is listening to on repeat today?’  But just in case you do, today it’s this

A little sappy, but the percussion is done by tap shoe.  So that’s cool.

The good thing about working on a Saturday (the ONE good thing) is that I get to bring my iPod.

Oh Dear God

They’re testing the fire alarms this morning.

Saturday, Living Large

It’s 9 AM on Saturday morning.  I am at work.  This is a shameful state of affairs.

Also shameful, I have about 10 million papercuts.

At least there’s bowling in my future.