Doctor Who: My reaction to Matt Smith leaving, versus my family's reaction.

It's Christmas Day.

The closing credits to Matt Smith's final episode as the Doctor comes onto the screen. I can't take my eyes off the TV, for fear that my doing so will confirm the terrible future that is now laid out for me in my Whovian world. The room is silent but for the music that signals the end of the episode, as it escapes from the TV. I try my hardest to compose myself into some form of calm that will allow me to speak actual words without breaking out into uncontrollable sobs. Once I am as close to being able to do this as I can be, I take a deep breath and open my mouth.

"The transition from Matt Smith to Peter Capaldi was too quick. It came as a shock." I say.

"Really?" Marmie says. "I thought the whole thing was too long."

My gaze shoots from the screen and starts throwing deep, sharp and deadly daggers at my mother. I could forgive her for a great many things, but this? This is too much. Clearly not enough time has passed for her to be as insensitive as she is being.

"If you're going to insist on not understanding the magnitude of what has happened, then I suggest you don't say anything at all." I shoot back.

"Anyone up for a game of Munchkin?" Younger-Brother-Daniel offers to the room.

There are murmurs of agreement to this suggestion and both Marmie and The-Father begin to move from their seats, tidying away the remnants of the wrapping paper and snacks that still lay discarded around us.

"Let's everyone begin to tidy the room, before we start a game. It looks a mess at the moment." Marmie says, as she exits for the kitchen.

Younger-Brother-Daniel groans but his body creaks forward in an exasperated obligatory manner. He clearly doesn't like the idea of doing this, but accepts that it needs to be done anyway.

I glance back at the TV screen, still not able to find movement within my body. The opening credits to Eastenders begins and I hasten to turn the sound off, not interested in the depressing scene this classic soap is about to bring to Christmas day. However, this is the only thing that I am able to force myself to do. I'm still in shock. I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that there will never be another episode with Matt Smith playing the Doctor and, although there is a part of me who is incredibly excited at the notion of Peter Capaldi taking his place, I am not able to register that part because my love for Matt Smith's portrayal of my favourite fictional character of all time, is still so strong.

I have all these thoughts running through my head, all of which is only doubled by the emotional rollercoaster I have just experienced in seeing Amy Pond address her Raggedy Man once more. I am a wreck. The tears shed from Matt Smith's departure are still fresh on my cheeks; clinging on for dear life. They too, like the rest of me, aren't ready to let go of this moment.

I glance around at the now empty room, and manage to muster up the emotional stamina to open Facebook. I am outraged at the seemingly blase reaction my family have had to this devastating time in my life. I let out my outrage in the form of a facebook status, announcing to the world that my time for grieving is being forcibly cut short. I am spent. I am sad. I desperately search for anything; a vine, a funny picture, anything that might allow me to feel happiness again. I find one that fills me with a shot of happiness:

I find I am able to smile once more. I realise that there are always opportunities to go back and see Matt Smith. That the image of him taking his bow tie off one final time, doesn't have to be the last thing I see of him. No... I can go back and watch him put that bow tie on for the first time ever... just as he gives the first of his many, many kick-ass speeches; as he tells the Atraxi to "basically, run."

I nod my head in acceptance, as I come to terms with this new revelation and find it help me in the grieving process. I close my eyes, curl up into a ball and take a moment to mentally tell myself that everything will be okay.

The sound of Marmie's footsteps coming into the room interrupts my moment of self-healing.

"Seriously, Lisa." She says. "I did ask for your help in tidying this room. How else are we meant to enjoy Christmas, with a messy room?"

"Does no one care that Matt Smith just died?" I shout back.

Marmie throws me a perplexed look.

"Who?" She asks.

"Exactly!!" I shout as I throw my hands up in the air and storm out of the room.

Honestly... some people are just so insensitive.

To everyone else, I am so sorry for your loss.

Peace out my lovelies.

*Sighs* I'm just a social networking whore

I recently did something on Sunday. I was then given the challenge of doing this thing and then not mentioning that I did it on any social networking site. I've lasted two days so far and I'm struggling. I have all these little phrases and comments that I want to say about it, but I can't... because I was challenged... and I have a competitive streak in me that rivals all other competitive streaks. If I fail this challenge, I will hate myself and then Christmas will be ruined... for everyone. Personally, I don't want to be the person who ruins Christmas for everyone, so I'm soldiering on and not mentioning it, to save Christmas. You're welcome.

...

Before you say it, talking about it on this post doesn't count. I'm not mentioning what I did, just that I did it. Therefore, I'm not commenting on it and not advertising it and being totally comfortable within my own skin that I don't need to advertise my entire life on the internet...

...


Argh, who am I kidding? I do need the social networking. It's my drug. If I don't document my life then I am nothing. I am void of things. I am blank.

Guys, I don't want to be blank. It sounds boring... although it also sounds relaxing... maybe, I want to be part blank... maybe.

Anywho, my competitive side has the edge over my addiction and I'm not going to mention what I did. For those who are imagining that it was some form of life changing thing; it wasn't. My life is exactly the same. The people who were involved in The-Thing also have the exact same lives... as far as I know... Unless something happened after The-Thing and now their lives are dramatically altered. This could have happened. Although, I'm like 98.57% sure that this had nothing to do with The-Thing. This is because The-Thing was mundane and boring. But yet, I'm not allowed to talk about it...

I wonder if I would want to talk about it, if I hadn't been told that I couldn't talk about it. I am definitely one of those people who would press the shiny red button if I was told not to. It's just too tempting. But if it was a shiny red button that said "press me", would I still press it?

...

Yeah, I would. Because it's shiny and red and I like shiny things.

*Sigh*

Life is hard sometimes.

Peace out my lovelies.

Can I get a whoop whoop?... And other such hilarious noises.

Guys! Christmas is like really soon and shizzle!

Best Christmas present so far, I no longer have to move! Huzzah! This is the first Christmas in three years where I've been able to stay in a house and not have to pack and move my life once more! Awesomeness in a bag, that is... awesomeness in a bag.

Other stuff?? Well, I have a new job!

Yup, for the first time in 10 years, I am no longer employed by the NHS. I have become ex-employed by them, I've broken free!! ... Granted, I've just moved to another hospital in the private field, but still! It's progress.

Also! I have a uniform in this new place. People might not be so excited about this, but ladies and gents, I am. I am mega excited. No longer do I have to wake up and realise that I have absolutely nothing to wear... no longer do I have to work out what outfit is most comfortable and yet still looks presentable for work life. Nope. Instead, I throw on the same trousers, shirt, scarf and blazer every morning and whistle a happy tune as I skip out of my house... okay, I might not actually skip. And, truthfully, I have no clue how to whistle, but in my head I'm doing all those things as I shuffle down the street.

The other thing about the uniform is that there's a chance I may look like I still go to school. This would be laughable, given that I'm 28, if it wasn't for the fact that I still get ID'ed for 15 movies at the moment, so the school uniform look really does just encourage the teenage look in me...

Not that I'm complaining. It's actually becoming a little bit of a game with me nowadays... how old can I get, before people stop asking me for ID when I want to buy a bottle of wine? At the moment, I've managed to get it down to only being asked about 60% of the time, but that's largely due to the fact that the people at my local supermarket have finally come to terms with the fact that my birthyear isn't a lie, like they initially thought, and they've stopped asking. Occasionally, they look at me as if to say "you've hoodwinked me somehow" but when I show them a passport, debit card, drivers license and my birth certificate, it's kind of hard to dispute the age.

Anywho... I fear I've digressed (as per usual).

So, I've covered no longer having to move and my new job... anything else?

Oh! New book!!!! Eeek! Book 2 of the Utopia Series is so near completion I can almost taste the sweat and tears I'm forcing my characters to endure! I can promise you that all the faves from the first book are back, as well as some of the not so faves. There are also new faces and a whole load of people talking and stuff happening and all of this without the sheer number of people I killed in the first book. If you're worried that's a spoiler, I wouldn't really fret about it; given that in the first book, the entire population, except for 1,000 people, were killed. Following that logic, I could kill off the whole of the remaining characters and it still wouldn't even come close to the genaside I performed in the first book... Not that I'm going to kill them all off or anything... or am I??

The book's called A World Reborn, and I'm really trying to get it out for Christmas, although I might be cutting it a bit fine with that one, so might have to resort to the new year. I will keep you posted. Also, Oldest-Friend-Cafrin and One-And-Only-Daniela have both read it and have given it their approval, and we all know, if they like it the whole world will, because they're awesome.

If you haven't read the first one yet... check out the link in the right hand side (had to check my left from my right before typing that) and follow the link! It's available on Amazon. Go nuts!

Anything else?????


Ummmm... Well, nope. I'm pretty certain that's it. I am developing my second cold, a day after my first one went away, which is always fun and completely normal for me at this festive period of the year. But other than that, due to the sheer amount of typing and editing and Netflixing and having no moneying, I have done absolutely sod all with my social life recently. But I've still found ways of living dangerously... you see, instead of going to bed at 7:30pm, like I have done in the past, I've been staying up to 10pm and sometimes even 11pm!! Don't get me started... it's been mental. As if to prove it, it has just gone 11pm now and I'm typing this!

...

Actually, that is quite late. I should be getting some sleep. The last thing I want to do is become out of control.

Peace out my lovelies

My first Soapbox post: Christianity versus homosexuality... It does my freakin head in

Hi guys.

So, you may have picked up from me that I'm not one to get annoyed at much. Sure, I share indifference to things, sometimes I'm downright lazy about stuff, but usually I just coast through life and try not to get involved in anything too confrontational or angry. Mostly because I don't like it... it gives me weird ticks and I get all panicky and cry in inappropriate moments... I guess it's kinda entertaining to watch, but it tends to backfire on me most of the time.

However...

A topic has been raised recently that, when raised in the past, has always evoked some form of reaction out of me, and none more so than it did last week. I've grown up being sure of two main things in my life; 1. I'm a Christian and 2. I make a damn good Fag Hag. These two things have tended to conflict with each other over the years and caused me to battle with what I genuinely believe is right and what others have told me is so. This is what I would like to talk about today.

I would like to say right away, before you guys turn off from this post and never talk to me again for being a bigot; this is not a post discriminating against homosexuality. I am in no way against anything to do with same sex relationships, in fact I freakin love it. As I'm a person who finds relationships the teensiest bit hard, seeing someone fall for another person is completely awesome to me, regardless of the sex of either party.

My "beef", if we have to call it anything, is with the fact that, unfortunately, hearing a Christian person say that they are supportive of homosexuality is something that I, for one, have rarely (if ever) heard before. In fact, every time I hear of discrimination against same sex relationships, 9 times out of 10, the reason used is that "God sees it as wrong."

Ugh... if I have to hear that one more time, I swear I will lose it. I get so angry, not just because it discriminates against a group of people who haven't done anything wrong, but also because it alienates those people from ever thinking that there is any form of loving God out there for them. Both of these "facts" I have experienced, in all my 28 years, not to be true in any way.

So how are these opinions shown? I've found that there are two ways in which Churches today approach the topic of being against homosexuality:

1. The all out and angry "God hates Fags and you're all going to hell" approach. 

Yes, this is the one the world hears about the most. Mostly because, the statements are made to gain as much attention as possible and, usually, are so shocking that they then become newsworthy. This is the approach that depicts God as an angry and fearful God who is just chomping at the bit to bind people's souls into the fiery pits of hell so as enforce his overall power on the world... or something...

It's an approach that I, being a Christian who has attended church all her life, have seen in different ways, usually as a way to get more people to attend church. The idea that, if a person doesn't repent of their sins and immediately turn to God, they will live in eternal hell forever and ever amen. Now, I'm not going to go into the details of this, as to do so would mean that I would end up on some tangent and I have a lot to say, so am trying to be really strict on myself and my usual writing habits in this area. However, I do want to say this. Regardless of whether I believe the heaven and hell story, and all its implications, to be true, I've never been too keen on the fear approach in convincing people to become Christians and go to church. It seems a little like cheating to me, as playing on one's fear isn't really allowing them to come to the decision on their own, but rather because they feel they have no choice.

In the context of this post however, this approach tends to encourage some Christians to use it as a way of enforcing derogatory belief systems onto lifestyles, races and opinions that they might feel uncomfortable to be around. It would be refreshing, for once, to turn on the news or pick up a paper and hear that someone has been vocal about their own bigoted views and been honest in admitting it's more down to their own personal preference, instead of constantly bringing God into it. Every time I read about a hate crime against homosexuality, not only does the hate crime itself send me into despair but it almost always then has to go ahead and have one of the attackers say "I'm a Christian," or "God told me to" etc and so forth.

I seriously am getting a permanent bruise on my forehead from the sheer amount of times I have banged it against the table in frustration. Please, please, please, readers of this blog; do not think that all Christians behave this way. We don't. We're actually quite nice most of the time and realise there's more to life than finding new and interesting ways to discriminate against people. But, unfortunately, as is the way for any particular organisation or religious group, the extremists (although there aren't as many of them) are the ones who make the most amount of noise and therefore attract the most amount of attention.

Which brings me to the only other public approach I have seen with Christians and homosexuality.

2. The disapproval of the act and not the person

This is the approach that I am most familiar with. It is the one that I have seen in all of the different churches I have attended over the years. It is the idea that God loves everyone and would never hate a person because of their sexual orientation. God wants them to join the church and experience his love and no amount of previous "sexual immorality" in their past is going to stop that. So far, so good. However, there is a clause. In order for a gay person to be a Christian, they have to suppress their attraction towards those of the same sex. They are not chastised for previous experiences, nor for  finding a same sex person attractive, but they are expected to at least work incredibly hard at not acting on these feelings in order to be accepted into heaven by God. 

I have come across many a situation like this in the past. And for the longest time, I accepted that this is what should happen, although I was never happy with it entirely. In fact, most of the time, when I heard this preached, I would find myself getting downright uncomfortable, but I held my tongue and chalked it up to something that I would never fully understand but had to accept as true.

In my own life outside of church, and within my little Fag Hag circle, I had decided from a ridiculously early age, that I would strive to at least be one positive Christian person in my gay friends' lives. I made it very clear that I was a Christian to them and that I was also completely supportive of the lifestyle they had. Although, as I grew older, I found more and more of my friends get bitter towards the idea of Christianity and what it stood for. Their reasons for this was because they only really seemed to come into conflict with other Christians and, even when the Christian in question was being loving and kind, their words still cut deeply because the message was exactly the same as those in Approach No 1: This opinion was that who they were wasn't acceptable in God's eyes, or theirs.

I know the people who preach this particular message, and encourage Approach No 2 wholeheartedly. They are gorgeous people. They are loving and beautiful and so, so accepting of everyone. They have offered me kindness and support in times when I had nothing else. These people are good people. I wanted to make this very clear before I go on to what I have to say next. There are no good and bad guys in this scenario, just a difference of opinion; albeit one that is potentially very damaging.

I also think that some of these people promote Approach No 2 because the only other real option available is Approach No 1. However, I wanted to throw my 2 cents in here, something that I have been working on over the past 4 or 5 years within my head and have felt my resolve strengthen with every moment... how about if there was an Approach No 3?

3. Realise that perhaps there is nothing damaging to be outraged about and come to terms with accepting this lifestyle for the beautiful thing that it is.

Several years ago I went to a barbecue round two of my friends' house. They are a gay couple and have been living together for years. The barbecue was fun, there was food, laughter and silliness involved. That night I slept round theirs and woke up in the morning to find one of the guys cooking breakfast for his very hungover boyfriend. I watched them from under my duvet on the sofa, and  realised that they might actually be one of the most loving and functional relationships I had ever seen. This was the moment I realised that there was absolutely no reason for the God that I knew and loved, to have a single problem with what they shared. The only thing that they were guilty of was love, and love was the one main thing that was promoted in Church.

Another thought then came to me. If these two ever decided that they wanted to go to Church regularly in the future, they may very well be told that they could only stay if they break up with each other. Suddenly, I was angry. Not one part of that made any sense to me and I vowed to myself that I wouldn't sit quiet anymore, when it came to this.

When I have discussed this with fellow Christians, they have said that the very act of being a Christian means that we need to be ready to make sacrifices, should we need to. There is truth in this and it is something that I have had to do myself in the past. The whole prospect stems from the idea that, if you love someone, you would do anything for them. Similar to how you would be with a spouse or child. There have also been comparisons to Monks and Nuns who live their lives in celibacy out of their love for God.

Here is my answer to this... the act of self-sacrifice for someone you love, is only ever really a meaningful thing when it has been a decision made by the individual solely. Monks and Nuns, as far as I am aware, are all in the profession they are on a voluntary basis. They chose this lifestyle for themselves; it wasn't forced on them on the basis of there not being any other choice. There are gay people within the church who have chosen to stay within church and be celibate, never acting on the sexual orientation that comes so natural to them. This may well be a decision that they are happy with; the people that I have spoken to in this regard have certainly seemed at peace with the concept for the most part, although the strains and stresses involved to get them to this point has seemed heartbreaking to me, especially when I am really wondering whether or not the point of them doing this is really that necessary.

Truth is, and this is the controversial opinion that I'm sure will spark up all kinds of debate amongst the Christian friends who know me, but I just don't see how God could possibly see anything wrong with it. Yes, it's in the bible in clear black and white, but it just doesn't seem to really make sense when compared to most of the rest of the book. I also have formed the opinion that my being a Christian means that the thing I worship isn't a book made by man, but rather the relationship I have with the God I believe to be real. And yes, the bible is sanctioned and blessed by God, but the idea that every word is completely and utterly word perfect when created by imperfect people, makes me wonder. I'm just not ready to believe the words of some men who died thousands of years ago over what I really believe to be true today.

Fact of the matter is, the main lesson that I have always been taught in my growing up in the many churches I have attended, is that A: God made us exactly how he wanted us to be, and B: All he really wants is for us to show the love that he has to everyone who will listen.

So this is what I'm going to do. I believe that God made everyone, including their sexual orientation. I have spoken to enough people to know that a person's attraction to those of the same sex is no more of a choice for them as mine is for those of the opposite sex. Therefore, I have to believe that God made them this way. If this is the case, I can then hypothesise one of two things... that God is a sadist who has decided to cause unending pain to a large majority of our population by making them, by their very nature, an "abomination" to Him; or that He made them this way for a reason, because he really doesn't care all that much about who we love, as long as we love them.

Guys, I don't believe God is a sadist. I believe, in fact, that he spends more time tearing his hair out (if he has hair... I'm not too sure about that one) over the concept that the large majority of his representatives are acting on an archaic piece of text and using it as a way to discriminate against those he carefully and wonderfully made. I believe that he has been doing this for most of our existance as, let's face it, we don't exactly have the best track record when it comes to promoting God's tolerance with other cultures, races and sexes. In fact, the bible has been used to encourage bigotry and intolerance for almost all of our existance. A way of promoting racism, sexism and many more. I believe that this is just a repeat of history, and one that thankfully, seems to be getting better, although we are nowhere near being there yet.

When expressing this opinion last week, I was told that by defining homosexuality as a "race" I am therefore opening a whole can of worms of what else can be defined as a "race". This person then went on to compare this group of people with those of adulterers and paedophiles etc. I had never been so angry. To even consider that the act of man loving another man or woman loving another woman is considered to be on the same level as those types of things that cause harm and hurt to people around them, had my blood running cold. This is where the main irk lies in my anger, and my main plea for sanity to be restored to the Christian Church. There is this unexplained idea that somehow, same sex relationships are evil and wrong... to those people, I ask why? What on earth are they doing that promotes one iota of evil deed? They're not hurting people, they're just trying to get on with their lives. The only evil I see in this, is the intolerance that is bred against their lifestyle. This therefore suggesting that the evil and hurt lies within God's representatives, rather than any homosexual person. To alienate and shun a person for who they are is bullying, simple as. This is something that I know any Christian would agree as being the complete opposite of what Christianity promotes God to be.

The sad thing that I am facing at the moment is that I can't seem to find many people who share my view. There are odd friends, ones who support this concept, but to find an entire church that promotes unconditional support, love and acceptance in this area has been entirely fruitless for me. I'm sure they are out there. I've heard the odd story occasionally, but I've yet to experience it for myself.

About five months ago, I stopped going to Church for the first time in my entire life. My reason for this was simple; I could no longer sit and ignore the bigotry towards homosexual people, no matter how kindly it was portrayed. It seemed wrong for me to attend an organisation who openly admitted to hating the idea of homosexuality and wanted to find a way of eradicating it. But above all, it made me sad. The same way, I am really beginning to believe it makes God sad. This isn't the life that he had planned for his children, to fight against each other's views because they differ from their own. He made us different, so that we can learn from each other.

When making my decision to leave the church, I decided that I had a choice to make, I could either stay and accept that homosexuality is wrong, as this is what the bible preaches, or I could go and give up my beliefs.

I chose neither. I left, but I know that my anger wouldn't have been nearly as prominent had it not been for the fact that I knew that this was the wrong way Christian's should be approaching this topic. I am so upset over this because I believe that it is the Church who need to change their views, because I believe that it is wrong. I believe that someone can have an awesome life as a Christian and love a person who shares the same sex with them, at the same time. I believe that a change needs to happen and it needs to happen soon. I, for one, am going to strive to find a church who believes the same as me. I live in London, there must be one somewhere. And in the meantime, I will try my hardest to at least let any gay people out there know that it doesn't have to be one way or the other when it comes to being a Christian. If you want to be a Christian, you can be one, and love anyone you choose to in the process, because, if it's good enough for us "straight people", then it damn well should be good enough for you.

Peace out my lovelies.

A blog post that kinda got away from me...

Guys,

Not only have I disappeared of the scale of blogging, but I've also been a sucky tweeter. I know. I should be shot. I don't blame you if you feel the need to do the shooting... I would ask if you think about it before hand though. Although I would understand, I also don't particularly want to die just yet, so if you can find it in your heart to not kill me and just leave horse heads in my bed instead, that would be grand... Let me know, I'll send you the address.

So what have I been up to? Pretty damn well everything. Since last we spoke, I've moved jobs, almost finished my second book, (which is called "A World Reborn: Book two of the Utopia Series." (For book one, look to your right.... I've put it down the margin about 15,000 times, so you shouldn't be able to miss it)), I've also been editing another book which should be coming out to buy in the shops next year. This book is immense, and when I can, I will devote an entire post to it, it's an expose and very well put together. In addition to this, I've been preparing to move into my 5th house in 3 years and 13th house overall... I haven't found a place yet but I have been given a month to look... I'm not going to lie, I haven't really got to any proper substantial stage with this yet, apart from to randomly shout out "balls" whenever I remember that it's happening. I find the turrets is helping the coping process a little...

I would also like to stress that the reasons for having to move out aren't that I'm horrible to live with and the housemates have had enough (as far as I'm aware, but you never know, of course). It was rather that the landlord wants the house back and so we have to find somewhere else. It kinda sucks because, although I haven't really mentioned this house much on the blog, I have really enjoyed living here. I've lived with 4 other people. They are fun and sing lots around the house and I never feel lonely... also, the thought of moving house for the 13th time... I can't even... it's just ridiculous. No. Hate it. Brain collapsing... words no longer forming... "BALLS!!"

And now I feel better.

Anywho, news on the book front. I am aiming for a publishing date of Christmas-ish. I'm currently utilising the world of NaNoWriMo once more to finish it. It's been touch and go, mainly because of my new job starting, as well as the promise of the Doctor Who 50 years episode, for which I have been feverishly preparing, by re-watching all Doctor Who Episodes from Christopher Eccleston to current day. Some people may see this as procrastinating instead of working... to those people I say this... "What do you know? Huh? Have you even seen Doctor Who? If you have and still don't like it, I don't understand you, but I will acknowledge that people are entitled to their own opinion, even if that opinion is wrong. To those who haven't seen it and claim they hate it... You can't say that!!! You don't know. Don't form opinions over something so awesome without seeing the awesome for yourself... and if you ever find yourself against alien attack and that TARDIS sound never materialises, then you only have yourself to blame as you inevitably die, for not trusting in the doctor hard enough. Not that any of that made sense to you as you've never bothered to find out..."

... People have been telling me lately that my marathon watching of this programme appears to have changed me slightly. I don't know what that's about. I think it's perfectly normal to dream that your in a three way relationship with both David Tennant and Matt Smith, trying to make it work whilst aliens attack the house you live in, where the children to one, if not both, of them are also living. Then, say, if that dream were to progress so that you were suddenly at a party where some guy steals your purse and you end up having an argument with Matt Smith about how he's meant to be the Doctor and yet he didn't do anything to stop the mugging, which then turned into a nag about how you needed more from your husbands and it wouldn't kill them to do the dishes once in a while... that's normal, right?

Also, Younger-Brother-Daniel and I have got tickets for Leicester Square viewing of Doctor Who in 3D... Now, although nothing's been announced, Leicester Square is the place in London where the majority of our film Premieres take place. If anyone was going to turn up, it would be there... and that? That would be glorious.

....

I had every intention today to write a blog about my new job... however, it would appear that I have gone on a slight bit of a tangent... I guess this is just a very valid excuse for me to have to come back and tell you about it tomorrow... It's okay, I've finished the Doctor Who marathon now and, although I am now currently make my way through re-watching Green Wing (one of the weirdest and best comedy series this country has ever had to offer, I recommend it), it's only two series long of 8 episodes each and I'm already on season 2, so I'll have loads of time left... I promise I'll come back.

Peace out my lovelies

A night of London that was awesome: Part two

As promised, albeit a day late. Here is part 2 of my awesome Friday night in London. This part I shall call:

One-And-Only-Daniela and I try our hand at spontaneity. 

Okay, so we leave the darkness of Dans Le Noir to finally set eyes on the couple we had been chatting to all night. Dominique was a tall blonde woman and David a Chinese man. We hugged each other and apparently "The Rack and The Bum" lived up to expectations. Something I was oddly proud of. Dominique and David announced that they were going to Leceister Square to have a drink and asked if we wanted to go. Naturally, not wanting to pass up on a chance to drink, both One-And-Only-Daniela and I agreed whole heartedly and followed them out of the restaurant. 

Walking towards the station Dominique pointed at the sleeve of my cream top with glee and exclaimed, "Ha! You spilt something! Ha, no one else did!"

I looked and saw several splotches of red wine all down my sleeve. The same sleeve that had been closest to Dominique. 

"Um, I hate to break it to you." I replied. "But you were the only one drinking red wine in there."

Dominique's face changed from one of glee to dismay. "I did that? I'm so sorry! It was all that stupid and redundant gesturing I was doing! Who gestures in the dark? What's the point?"

I laughed at that. "No worries. I'll just buy some white wine and sprinkle it on the same spots. That'll even it out." 

"Are you sure? We could buy some Vanish?"

The thought of carrying around a bottle of Vanish on a night out seemed a little odd to me, the white wine option seemed a lot more feasible. Of course. 

Anywho, we made it to the underground station and got on a train with the single most amazing drunken man ever. He stood facing the door for the whole of the train journey, a tape player Walkman in his hand. I didn't even know they existed anymore, let alone be used by people. Immediately I loved him, due to the fact that anyone who is that retro deserves my respect and unconditional love. However, this wasn't even the best thing about him. You see, he was clearly listening to a Queen album. How did we know this, I hear you ask? It may have had something to do with him proceeding to serenade the entire carriage with Bohemian Rhapsody, together with every harmony and guitar solo. Every one of us in the carriage couldn't help but join in. Seriously, I felt like we were actually living in some form of Musical episode of my life, where spontaneous singing was the norm. We all also applauded his act, once finished, and was rewarded with an encore of We Will Rock You. Naturally we all clapped along and, sadly our little group of 4 had to leave him mid song as we reached our stop. 

Being a woman who has an unnatural obsession with all men ginger, One-And-Only-Daniela (along with pretty much every single one of my friends) has developed a habit of pointing out all ginger men to me when she spots them. An aspect that I love about her and my friends. 

One-And-Only-Daniela pointed one beautiful specimen to me and, after baffled looks were exchanged between Dominique and David, I explained to them my obsession. Dominique immediately started in on telling me about a beautiful ginger man both David and Dominique work with. They work as personal trainers at a gym and he was another personal trainer there. 

When we arrived at Leceister Square, we immediately saw a pub called "The Brewery Masters." I gazed in wonder. 

"What are the chances of that?" I said. "We need to drink and we happen to find a pub that not only sells drinks but are the masters of it!!"

"It must be fate." David added. 

We went in, ordered our drinks and Dominique immediately started back in on pimping out her ginger friend. Guys, she really went all out. Not only did she go to his Facebook page to show me pictures, but she also took my number and text me a selection of the best of them. Naturally, I was impressed and proceeded, after minimal encouragement from the group, to save these pictures as my screensaver... Now, not wanting to come across as a weird stalker without his knowledge, we all agreed that it would only be polite to let said ginger man know what we had done. As such, David took a picture of Dominique holding her phone up mid-sending of photo and myself holding up my phone showing my background image, thumbs up and a look of pure glee on my face. 

David then sent this photo to said ginger man, thus allowing us all to feel a little better, now that we had admitted our stalker behaviour. Apparently said ginger man found this all very funny, so I narrowly avoided being subject to any type of restraining order. Guys, this just proves that, once again, honesty is the best policy.

We all then decided to catch the midnight showing at The Comedy Store, one of the best comedy clubs London has to offer. 

One-And-Only-Daniela and I regularly go to this place. It's always a chance to laugh until we pee, and who doesn't love a chance to do that? However, in the past, One-And-Only-Daniela has always insisted on sitting on any row other than the front, as these tend to be the seats that the comedians at said club will pick on. I, on the other hand, being the natural attention seeking person that I am, have been dying to sit in these seats. Thankfully, Dominique announced that these were the seats that she was heading towards and finally One-And-Only-Daniela caved. Not only did we sit on the front row, but we sat right in front of the Mic. Awesome. 

As promised, we were subsequently picked on by the array of comedians all night. David seemed to get the brunt of the picking as, for some reason, talking about the Chinese race was something on all of the comedians repetoire. 

This started with the first comedian putting on a Chinese accent, noticing David and suddenly looking horrified. 

"You don't mind, do you?" He asked. "I don't want to offend you, you know. Are you offended?"

David feigned complete innocence. "What do you mean?" He asked.

"He's asking if you're offended because you are yellow." Dominique clarified, kissing him on the cheek. 

The room all looked at her in dismay; laughing in that way that suggested they really shouldn't be. However, the three of us who had spent the night with him and had heard him refer to himself as yellow at least five times, just laughed. 

David then gave a look as if the penny dropped. "Oh! In that case, sure. No problem. I'm not offended."

The comedian then carried on. "Can I ask, whereabouts are you from?" He asked David, clearly wanting to know what country he originated from. 

"Hounslow." Both David and Dominique said together. 

It was at this point, I turned to One-And-Only-Daniela and simply said. "These are two of the most amazing people I've ever met."

This was met with a look of complete agreement from One-And-Only-Daniela. 

The night continued and I was even hit on by an Irish comedian which was pretty cool. Then something happened that has officially been put into one of my proudest moments of my life. The penultimate comedian came on and was hella funny, although a little close to the mark with some of his jokes. Now, when this happens, and I find myself laughing at black humour that also leaves me questioning why I find it funny, I have a jerk reaction every time. Basically, I laugh, whilst simultaneously covering my face and burying my head in the shoulder of the person closest to me. 

This is what I was doing for the majority of this man's act. Of course, he picks up on this and singles me out. 

"You've been covering your mouth a lot during my act," he said. "Do I disgust you so much? I mean seriously, is what I'm saying having such an effect that you feel the need to vomit? Am I that bad?"

He then proceeded to wait for my response. When I realised that I was going to have to answer his question, I sat there, my face dead pan, looked him straight in the eye and in my most serious voice, answered; "you are very funny."

He gave me a look as if to say 'touché' and started to laugh. Not only that, but the rest of the club laughed too. Okay, now guys, I appreciate that I do tend to cause one or two people to laugh... Usually at me, rather than anything else, but right then? In that moment? It appeared I had attempted to make a funny and people liked it. I had also caused a professional comedian to fall silent at my words, as he struggled for his comeback...

I didn't quite know what to do with myself. Panic suddenly rose deep within me, what should I do now? What if I'm expected to say more? What if I ruin it by openly doing the jumping jacks my insides were doing in glee? That wasn't what comedians did, they made funnies and then followed it up with the calm, cool and collected attitude that says "Yes I'm that cool, I know it, you know it. Just another day for me in my awesome life."

Thing is, even in my recalling it now, it doesn't even seem that funny and totally falls in the "You had to be there" column but guys, I near off had a panic attack from the sudden fictional pressure I had formulated in my mind. 

And this is why I will never be a comedian. Even if I manage to come up with a few jokes that have people laughing, I don't think I'd survive the fallout. I'd get to my third joke and collapse to my death from the pressure of it. 

I don't know if One-And-Only-Daniela and I will ever see Dominique and David again. It was a fleeting romance... Four ships who met in the night, you might say. But all I know is they are both definitely two of the most awesome people I have ever met... After you guys, of course. 

Peace out my lovelies. 

A night of London that was awesome. Part one.

One-And-Only-Daniela and I recently went to see Richard Curtis' new movie "About Time." To say this film was the best thing to happen to me all year would... Well, probably not be exactly true as this year has probably been one of my favourite years ever, but it would probably come pretty close... Definitely it's in my top 10 or 20 things to happen to me... Possibly. Anyway, it's good. 

In the movie, the lovely Rachel McAdams meets the love of her life in a restaurant called Dans Le Noir. It's a restaurant in London that, once we saw the movie, both myself and One-And-Only-Daniela decided to make our life goal to go to. You may have heard of the concept before, and if you haven't, please find the nearest one to you, it's awesome. You see, it's a restaurant where you eat in complete darkness. 

Anywho, One-And-Only-Daniela, being the booking queen that she is, found the actual restaurant within a couple of days and we were booked in to go, moments later. 

This place is where I found myself Friday night. One-And-Only-Daniela and I rocked up at 7pm and was met in this dimly lit bar entrance/lobby by a smiling man who asked us if we had ever been to this restaurant before. We said no, he simply smiled and said. 

"You're in for a treat."

He then directed us to lockers where he asked us to put all out coats, bags, phones etc inside. We did as we were told and returned to the man with a slightly nervous and naked feeling... 

Next we were given a menu, on the menu were four colours. These colours represented the type of course we could choose. These were:

White: Surprise menu

Green: Vegetarian surprise menu

Blue: Fish surprise menu

Red: Meat surprise menu

He explained that we were to pick which one we wanted and left with that same knowing grin. I glanced nervously at One-And-Only-Daniela.

"Um, Daniela, I think we're going to have to eat the food without knowing what it is."

One-And-Only-Daniela looked at me with a look that said exactly what I was thinking... It was a look of 80% anticipation and 30% fear. 

"How brave are you feeling?" I asked, pointing at the White course, which could literally turn out to be anything.

"Not that brave." One-And-Only-Daniela mumbled. 

"Thank goodness." I replied, "I didn't want to seem like a wimp. If you had chosen that one, I'd have had to go with you..."

We both ended up settling for the meat surprise three course with a collection of surprise cocktails and surprise wines. Once we gave the menu back, we were guided to an even dimmer hallway where a woman was waiting for us, once again smiling that smile that made my stomach want to empty it's contents whilst simultaneously wanting to run for the hills. I turned to One-And-Only-Daniela. 

"Daniela, I'm worried. I'm pretty certain I'm going to go in there and suddenly I'm going to think that if someone wanted to stab me, I'd never know... Then I'll freak out and run about in the dark trying to find a light switch that probably doesn't exist, waving a fork around and stabbing everyone in the eye as I fight off the attacker in my mind. Then what? Will I be arrested? Will I have to serve time for attacking multiple people? I can't go to prison Daniela, I wouldn't survive one day. Seriously."

One-And-Only-Daniela thought about this for a moment. "Well, think of it this way, if you can't see the person then at least you won't have to worry about defending yourself, you'll only know about it when the knife is in your body."

I just stared at One-And-Only-Daniela with a look of dismay as she smiled back at me with a self-satisfaction that suggested her words had actually been helpful. 

"Do me a favour." I said. "If you are ever tempted to be a therapist, don't."

Before she could reply, the woman in the hallway came over and started in on her instructions. 

"Okay, in a minute, your waitress will arrive. Her name's Lisa and she will guide you to your seats. The important thing to know about all our waiters is that they are all blind. She knows the room better than anyone."

Lisa arrived then and smiled at us. After the first woman introduced us to her, she began in our next instructions. 

"Okay, now I need Lisa (me, in case you were confused) to hold onto my shoulder. Daniela, if you can hold onto Lisa's, and we'll go in."

We did as we were told and our waitress guided us into a room that had to be the darkest room I had ever been in. I tried to keep my calm, leaving all my thoughts of being stabbed at the door. However, One-And-Only-Daniela had decided that this was the perfect time to dig her nails into my shoulder and grab my free hand with a grip that felt as if every bone in my hand had crumbled to dust. Awesome. 

Waitress-Lisa then proceeded to talk to us, describing the room and informing us of what was to our left and right. Eventually she grabbed the hand I had on her shoulder and guided it down to a chair in front of me. She told me to pull it out and sit down... guys, I have trouble performing this task without falling over in broad daylight, let alone in this room. To make matters worse, she took One-And-Only-Daniela's hand off my shoulder and suddenly I felt completely exposed. I briefly considered turning and making a run for it, but figured that that would just cause even more mess than sitting down. So I stumbled around for the seat and collapsed onto it, resting my hands on the apparent table in front of me and clutching onto the edge of it as if my life depended on it. 

"Okay," Waitress-Lisa said. "Now that you are both sitting down, if you feel in front of you, you will find a knife and fork, napkin and two glasses."

... Yes you heard right, not only did this restaurant deem it safe enough to actually hold glass on its table, something that not even the dimly lit theatres and clubs would dare to do, it also had actual knives. Suddenly my worry of being stabbed by a stranger no longer seemed my biggest concern. No, a stranger wouldn't be stabbing me tonight, it would appear that this is something I'm quite clearly going to end up doing myself. 

Waitress-Lisa left to collect two other people and One-And-Only-Daniela and I turned into the most PDA couple in the world. We leant forward, found each other's hands and held on for dear life. 

The only way I can describe what it was to be in that room is to say that it felt as if I had actually lost my sight. I found myself gazing off at a diagonal direction whilst talking to Daniela and suddenly relying totally on touch and sound. It was the weirdest feeling. 

The other two people were guided to the seats next to us and we heard them voice every one of our own thoughts. Phrases like "Holy crap, I'm blind" and "There are knives on this table?" Were exclaimed. 

This broke the ice and soon One-And-Only-Daniela and I were chatting to this couple next to us as if we had known them all our lives. No word of a lie, these two were hilarious. Their names were Dominique and David. We had no clue who they were, but our joint blindness bonded us. 

David was the one that noticed the dimmest of red lights above our table. Realising that this was probably an infra-red camera, suddenly he exclaimed, "There are people who can see this!"

"Oh, this is definitely a video I want to see afterwards." Dominique added.

"Maybe they offer a service like at theme parks," David suggested. "Afterwards they show you a series of photos of you eating the food and ask which one you want to buy."

"If that's the case, I think we should all smile and wave." I offered. 

We did. We also embarked on a series of games throughout the night. There was the "try and poke the correct body part" game. I was hella good at this game. One-And-Only-Daniela sucked at it. Goodness knows how many times she stuck a finger in my nose or mouth. David also insisted on clinking glasses at every new drink brought over and high fiving each other. This actually went surprisingly well, especially as I usually suck at high fives when I can see. 

The food was awesome. I ate the first course with my fingers as I wasn't quite ready to handle sharp objects yet. It felt like salmon, which confused me as we had ordered a pure meat menu. Shortly after tasting it, I realised it was, in fact, raw beef. It was actually beautiful. Something I would never have tried if I had known. Wanna see a picture?

Doesn't it look scrummy? The main course was a selection of meat, all of which One-And-Only-Daniela and I got wrong. However, Dominique and David had braved the white menu, so our food wasn't as daring as what they had had, which I think involved Zebra and Ostrich. I had no choice but to use the knife and fork for this particular course as the plate alone almost burnt me. 

I had chosen, quite stupidly might I add, to wear a cream top that night. Thankfully I had also gained enough common sense to tuck my napkin safely into my neck line. This then saved my top when I leant forward to search for my drink and buried my breasts into my plate. 

"Ah crap." I said. "I've just dipped my boobs in my food."

"So, what I'm hearing from you," David replied. "Is that you have a big rack?"

"I'm not going to lie." I said. "They are rather large."

"I'm imagining a lolly pop figure." David said. 

"If the lolly is a Choc-Ice, then yes. You would be correct."

"I feel like we should dance." Dominique offered. 

"Daniela pretty much invented the wine." I explained. "She knows how to move her booty. Daniela, show them."

"Is she doing it yet?" Dominique asked into the darkness. "Because if so, it's amazing."

"So, what you're saying is," David chipped in, "Lisa has a rack and Daniela has a large arse?"

"That pretty much sums us up, right Daniela?" I said. 

"Pretty much."

"Well, I for one am looking forward to seeing you two when we get out." David added. 

And that was how cool the whole thing was, we couldn't see each other, we had no clue what the other looked like, yet we were chatting away for AGES. 

The rest of the meal consisted of David causing the whole restaurant to sing Happy Birthday to a random stranger we were pretty certain wasn't actually celebrating her birthday and a lot of exclamations along the lines of "why am I nodding to what you say? You can't see me!"

It was amazeballs. And the night didn't end there... But for now, my blog will... I fear I've talked enough and I want to give the second half of our night justice so I will write part 2 tomorrow... Tune in my lovelies, I'm making up for a hell of a lot of lost time. 

Peace hit my lovelies. 

Older-Brother-Glyn has apparently turned out to be quite the romantic

Okay, so those who follow me on Twitter might have heard some very excited tweets coming from my way a couple of weeks ago in relation to a certain family member of mine and a proposal that was simply out of this world.

Older-Brother-Glyn fought off the curse that seemed to have grabbed hold of myself and my siblings. One that has pretty much been our lives for as long as we can remember. You see, it's not just me that has seemed incapable of forming a romantic attachment to another human being, but one that both my brothers have (until recent years) also struggled with. We never knew why we seemed incapable of relationships, but we were all three seemingly without the ability for the majority of our lives.

This is why, when Older-Brother-Glyn announced initially, a year and a half ago, that he was now dating an actual real life human being, we were all a little bit shocked and not quite believing it to be true. Marmie, who loves us  three deeply and is desperate to see us hitched and withchild, seemed to treat the whole relationship with a "held-breath" kind of attitude, whispering words like "marriage" and "grandchildren" to anyone who would listen with a hint of hope for the first time.

Naturally, there was a little bit of scepticism over the whole thing at first. Not because Older-Brother-Glyn was horrible to date or disgusting or anything, but because, put simply, it had not been done in our family before.

The months continued and for some miraculous reason, Older-Brother-Glyn and The-Lovely-Amy continued to date. As for the rest of us in the family, we were in unchartered territory. We had not known a relationship to succeed within the confines of our family before (with the exception, of course of Marmie and Father, they have always worked like clockwork). We continued to watch with baited breath as Christmas began to approach in 2012. It was amazing, for the first time it looked as if we would have an actual +1 for the annual Christmas parties with the external family. No longer would we be the pariahs amongst a sea of cousins with loving and doting partners... we might actually have a person to present and say that, somehow, we had managed to finally show we were capable of this form of romantic attachment.

Naturally, you can see that I had decided to claim The-Lovely-Amy as a +1 for the family rather than just for Older-Brother-Glyn. In fairness, there was an air of desperation within that, as part of me assumed that this would be the only one we would get to show.

The way that I am describing this, makes it seem like myself, Older-Brother-Glyn and Younger-Brother-Daniel are trollish looking or the most annoying people to be around or just plain unloveable... I really don't mean that to be the case. And, in fairness, both Older-Brother-Glyn and Younger-Brother-Daniel had been able to actually hold relationships in the past, and were not nearly as hopeless as I appeared to be in that area. However, for whatever reason, none of us had ever been able to make one stick long enough to class the relationship as "serious."

Anywho, that's our curse. And, as I said, Older-Brother-Glyn seemed to have found a way to circumvent that with The-Lovely-Amy.

Needless to say however, that, due to our severe lack of long-term partners, when The-Lovely-Amy seemed to decide she wanted to stick around, our entire family was not quite sure how to behave around it. We hadn't the experience to know what to do. As such, it resulted in Marmie's inclination to mention weddings and marriages on almost every family outing with her and the rest of us to roll our eyes outwardly whilst inwardly crossing our fingers and hoping that something might actually come of it. We were like gossiping school children whenever we spoke to each other, always wanting to know how Older-Brother-Glyn was doing in his relationship and what they had done recently, etc.

And then, about three months ago, Older-Brother-Glyn announced to us that he was intending to pop the question. Thus started one of the longest three months of our lives, all of us secretly glad that we lived far away from the couple as otherwise one of us was sure to slip up and tell her... He gave us a clue of how he was going to do it, mentioning a treasure hunt around London, ending at a mutual friends' house where all friends and family would be waiting for her, secretly.

For the remainder of what had actually happened, I refer you to the below video that I put together of the day. But just so you know, The-Lovely-Amy did say yes... which means that now the entire family are in complete new territory. Trust me, Older-Brother-Glyn was majorly romantic in what he had done... watch the video... he really outdid himself!

Peace out my lovelies.

To cry or not to cry; that is the slightly less famous question.

Okay, so I know that Shakespeare didn't say this but I figured we'd still entertain it as a topic to look at today because, quite frankly, sometimes I like to live dangerously. 

2013 has been a year of self-discovery for me. I have been a recluse, a social pariah, which was the followed suddenly by becoming a woman who's social life is booked up months in advance. I have also been a push-over, followed suddenly by a push of assertiveness and sticking up for myself. In addition, I have gone from reserving my periods of drastic emotion to nights in with a bottle of wine and the movie One Day playing in the comfort of my own company only, to public displays in front of others and trying to accept that that's okay. 

All of this is, I've been told, a positive thing but I'm still battling with years of social programming to accept this. This is what I want to focus on today. 

If people reading know me, the subject of my public crying will come as surprise or be completely normal, depending on the period of my life you were introduced to me. I go through seasons of being emotional for a while then suddenly deciding that this is a bad thing and becoming completely void of all public emotion. 

At the moment, my source of public emotion seems to manifest itself out of my being angry. I get frustrated with things and then suddenly there are these tears that just fall and continue to fall and I'm all "well this is hardly productive, what the hell?"

However, throughout all of these changes, I am trying to accept that this is perfectly normal and that, if I'm the type of woman who decides that she wants to cry when annoyed, there's really nothing I can do about it and I should learn to accept it. Better out, than in and all... Although I'm pretty sure that saying applies to the manner of burping, I'm going to apply it here because I'm a rebel like that. 

There are several factors in my life at the moment that I won't go into detail here but I can safely assure you are pretty much hella frustrating. My go to reaction in these areas are that I should just lay down, close my eyes and let it happen, suppressing it from my mind once it's over. This is all derived from this bizarre inclination that I have whereby I want to be liked so, if I don't argue about it, people won't hate me unconditionally and will continue to adore me. 

However, what I have found in these situations is that doing this doesn't really make people like me but rather realise that they can get me to do anything because I don't argue. So I decided that a little gentle "no, sorry, I can't do that" or "I'm actually not happy with the way you have spoken to me" might be beneficial before I became known as the world's biggest push over. 

And this is what I have been doing. Let me tell you, my life before doing this was so much easier and... Well... Predictable. Since I decided that I was going to let people know of my limitations, it has felt a massive struggle just to get through the week sometimes. 

And this is where the crying comes in. There is one thing that I have been just ridiculously terrified of since as far as I can remember; confrontation. Confrontation is a bitch and something that gets me all freaked out and frustrated when it happens. Because I don't know really how to deal with these situations as I have generally avoided them like the plague, I am now finding myself in them and not knowing what the hell I am doing. I get all freaked out and my tone reflects it, all the terror comes to the front and manifests itself into some form of anger. 

When a person sits with me to discuss opposing views to what I feel, my brain automatically freaks out and screams at me and the following internal battle happens:

Programmed self: Lisa? What the hell? I know that people have a different opinion to us, but why are you gearing yourself up to verbally tell them that?

New self: Apparently this is what the rest of the world do when they disagree with something. We're trying new things this year, remember?

Programmed self: Yeah, but we don't know how to do it. Remember when we tried it six years ago and the world almost ended?

New self: Yeah, I've been thinking about that, we may have over-reacted slightly on that occasion. 

Programmed self: But if we tell them that we don't agree, then they're going to know we're not perfect and the world's easiest person to get along with. 

New self: Let's be honest, did we ever really believe we were that person?

Programmed self: Of course we weren't, but what happened to our life goal of striving to become that person?

New self: I've been told that that person might not exist. 

Programmed self: But how are we going to cope if this person gets angry at us an their opinion drops of us? We'll lose points!!!!!

New self: ... I've been thinking about that... Would that be such a bad thing? So one person doesn't like something about us. I think that that's the nature of the human race. 

Programmed self: Okay, now you're just not making sense. What if this person decides not to like us at all?

New self: Well... Maybe that's okay too. 

Programmed self: We don't know how to handle that. We'll self-combust. Remember that time-

New self: I think we can safely say that the previous times, we didn't quite react in a normal capacity. 

Programmed self: What is the normal way of reacting to things?

New self: I'm not sure. Let's find out. 

Programmed self: We don't know how to argue!

New self: We did it once. 

Programmed self: I don't remember that bit! I'm sorry but I'm freaking out. You're making me do something I don't like. I'm not happy. What if we get it wrong?

New self: Then we know what not to do the next time. Let's just go through this calmly-

Programmed Self: Nope, I'm not happy. I think I'm just going to make you sound angry and... And... Cry!! Cry uncontrollably and then see if your argument has any credibility or people actually pay attention to what you have to say. HA HA! I win. 

And then I am left with New Self making an argument and Programmed Self forcing me to seem uptight, rude, angry and with the overwhelming inclination that tears will help my argument when I'm trying to say that I'm not being over-emotional at the moment. 

I mean seriously, those tears just spike up and pour down while my Programmed Self is laughing in my head and saying "Yeah, that's right. Assume the foetal position and close down." 

And yesterday, I almost did. I almost decided that my opinions clearly didn't matter and I should just give up because people were starting to see my imperfections instead of the flawless persona I have tried so hard to bring across. Then I had this epiphany. So what if they see something they don't like? It's not the end of the world. Provided that what I'm doing with my life isn't spiteful or damaging to anyone and I steer clear of acts that might send me to jail (I wouldn't last two minutes in prison), I should embrace all the parts of me and let my freak flag fly... Or something. So I have parts of me that aren't that great. So what? Everyone else does. 

And then a weight lifted from my shoulders that was such a relief I didn't know whether to laugh or cry... And, in that instance, I didn't cry. 

Peace out my lovelies. 

WARNING: If you're not a fan of the complaint then I suggest checking out another of my posts instead of this one... That, or google image pictures of Otters because they never fail to be amusing.

I'm cold. I came out of the house without a jacket today... It's been what England likes to call a "Heatwave" recently. And granted, for what we're used to, the weather has been unbearingly hot. So much so, I took a week off, spent it in my garden and everyone now thinks I've been abroad. This has been awesome, but also has been a source of regular complaint amongst our cinical race. We do love a reason to complain. Of all the things that we British are good at, complaining is what we do best... That and sarcasm... Oh, and writing novels about kids going to a wizard school; we're good at that too. 

I have tried my very hardest not to make the heat we've experienced a source of complaint. I think I've managed quite well. Especially given that we probably won't experience heat like it again for at least another couple of decades if past years are anything to go by. 

However, suppressing my natural inclination towards the need to moan for a whole month has left me the teensiest bit pent up over the whole thing. As such, I have felt the first tinge of a breeze and its like I'm suddenly going through a rather chronic episode of verbal diarrhoea. Complaints are coming out of my mouth with no end. I am finding myself without a single filter or self-restraint. 

If these complaints had just limited themselves to the weather, then I could deal. I mean, sure, it would annoy people a little but overall it would be manageable. However, apparently this small breeze and drop in temperature has burst open the damn of suppression and I am now finding fault with almost everything around me... 

What's that you ask? You want a list of what I have found need to complain about? Well, if you insist...

1. The fact that we can't last longer than a month with hot weather.

2. How my £3 Sandals are now starting to fall apart... That's a whole £3 I'm never seeing again. 

3. How, no matter how much time I spend on it, my room is still looking as if I haven't unpacked since I moved in. 

4. How I don't have enough time in the day to do my day job, my freelancing editing job, write my second book and get to bed for 7:30pm. 

5. How Netflix seems to be taking all my time, imposing a tirade of TV Series on me that I can't seem to tear myself away from. 

6. How I'm almost finished with the series that Netflix has taken all my time with and I can't find another one that will take its place. 

7. And today? Why the hell does my train still feel the need to put on the air conditioning when it is clearly no longer hot anymore. 

Wow, I feel better now. Needed to get all that out. FYI. My verbal diarrhoea also doesn't like to listen to solutions, because then I'll have to admit that I can't complain about it anymore... I think it's clearly evident that sometimes a girl just needs to complain for the sake of complaining. It's what makes us women so complex and fascinating... It's also why there are so many gay men out there nowadays... Possibly... To be honest I have no facts to back that up. 

PS. I'm in my "I'm going to blog all the time because clearly the blogging community is the best community out there" phase at the moment. I'm kinda hoping that this time it will stick, although at least I feel safe in the knowledge that if it doesn't, I'll have something new to complain about. 

Silver linings and all. 

Peace out my lovelies. 

Monday night is the new night to party... Apparently.

Being a very dynamic and "with it" woman in her 20s, living in the bustling city of London, I naturally found myself dosing off at 8pm last night... Of course only after I had lived it up by moaning to my housemates for half an hour and eaten what was only meant to be one Galaxy Cake Bar which evolved into the whole pack... Yeah, I know, I'm nothing if not a rebel... Plus it's a school night.

Anywho, my sleep found its way to be disturbed at around midnight when a noise I can only describe as being something that equals to the world ending burst through my windows, waking me up from my slumber. I stirred, I looked around my dark room and I scolded myself for not being more pro-active in building my underground bunker underneath my new home. After all, I am the author of a book about the end of the world... I should be more prepared. 

Briefly I considered the irony of a woman who spends her whole life geared around survivors of an apocalypse, not actually having an escape route of her own and then figured that if I was going to die, I might as well do it sleeping and turned over, placed a pillow over my head to drown out the continuing noise and attempted to dose off once more. 

It was only after another ten minutes of this deafening noise that I realised something else might be up. I emerged from man-made cocoon and looked accusingly at my open windows as if they held the responsibility for the noise and so therefore should provide me with an explanation. When they stared back at me innocently and without a single sign of an apology, I realised that panes of glass bordered by plastic holdings probably weren't to blame. The noise continued... And continued... And apparently my accusing stare wasn't scaring it away. 

I growled and decided to move my accusing stare elsewhere, hoping this might stop the noise. I grabbed my dressing gown and opened my bedroom door. The noise increased in volume although still clearly originating from outside. I moved to the bathroom at the back of the house and transferred my glare to this direction of the house. It would appear I was now facing the correct direction to the sound although I was still non the wiser as to where it was coming from. 

I would like to point out at this section that when I am half asleep, I am not at my cleverest. I tend to deviate from logicality and search for an easy solution to things, even if the answer is something that might appear to be what the kids call "insane."

I therefore made my way downstairs and flung open my back door to my garden, walking barefoot into the middle of my garden and stared accusingly at the sky in the direction of the noise. It was at this point that I realised the noise was in fact music. Only this music wasn't coming from a sound system one might find in a house, no; this music sounded as if someone had just picked up Wembley Arena, tore down its walls and unleashed the concert music on the rest of the world. 

Now, although I live in London, I am just enough outside it that there are no clubs nearby, and my particular area is completely run by the Greek Community. So much so, that I can't remember ever hearing any music being played in this particular area that wasn't of the Greek variety. This was clear RnB. And on top of the music was a man who felt the need to repeat sentences of the song intermingled with a series of "yeah" and "Uh" and "say what?" I was officially not impressed. Where the hell was this music coming from?

Once again, not really applying logic to my reasonings, I decided that if the noise had woken me up, it was clearly news worthy and so would obviously be on the news, or at least Google. So I searched "noise in Palmers Green" and waited patiently for my phone to bring up what I was sure to be an endless list of reasons as to why there was music playing at the stupidly late hour of 12am. 

Imagine my surprise when google and my news apps came up empty. What's more, twitter was completely silent as well. (With the exception of a guy complaining about how he had to get three buses to get to Palmers Green and my own tweet complaining about the noise.) I was entirely bereft. My phone had failed me for the first time ever. This only meant one thing... I would have to go in search of the noise myself.

What exactly I planned to do when I found the noise, I was unsure. I think I was leaning towards finding the man talking over his "music" and ask him to minimise his ongoing commentary to a small introduction at the beginning of each tune as well as introducing some more mellow and sleep inducing numbers into his repertoire. This certainly had to be the better option rather than TLC's Scrubs which had just come on the sound system. Although apparently I was in the minority as now I could hear the sound of a throng of people singing along with the chorus...

I was close to crying at this moment. Did these people not have jobs to go to in the morning? Why were people still out and singing? That's just ridiculous. 

There was only one answer that seemed feasible to me; the end of the world was actually happening and they were all having one last party before falling to their inevitable deaths... Yes, the books I've been writing may have slightly warped my view on life. I should probably take a small break from writing this second one and work on gaining some form of sanity again. 

All of this was not important at what was now 12:30am. I was getting more and more angry and, mingled with my sleep deprivation, I was ready to find the source of the music and pull out the plug altogether. 

I walked back in the house and made my way to the front door, reaching up to open it before I remembered that I was, in fact wearing a dressing gown with nothing but a bikini underneath (it's been really hot here lately).

For all my half awake state, I still had enough brain cells to realise that I would need to change clothes before single handedly ruining someone's party. I thought about that for a moment and my own sleepiness won out; marching out in the middle of the night to an unknown location was one thing but actually getting dressed? That was too much energy. 

As such, I resorted to sitting on the bottom stair of my home and glancing longingly at the closed bedroom doors around me, mentally willing one of the men inside to come out and volunteer to be the saviour of my sleep.

Nothing happened. 

I stared more intensely. 

No movement was made. 

I began to question my sanity. 

Before I go into the reasons for my next thought process I would like to:

A) Remind you that I was half asleep still. 

B) Point out that I work around mental health on a daily basis and so voices in people's heads are pretty much like my bread and butter.

I deduced at this point that, due to the fact that the music was deafening, no one was announcing it on the news, and not one of my housemates had stirred, I was therefore clearly hearing music in my head. What if it was something only I could hear? What if, instead of the average Schizophrenic who tends to hear a voice talking to them, my brain had chosen to fill my head with catchy, slightly annoying tunes from the late 90s/early millennium? That would be typical of my brain. Stupid over achiever. 

This thought, as ridiculous as it may seem, scared my half awakened state into a state of fear that had me running back to my bed and crawl under my covers in a state of utmost denial. 

You'll be pleased to know that the possible insanity driven music turned itself off at about 2am. Apparently, even my brain has a curfew. 

Peace out my lovelies. 

A night of chatting with a famous person that was COMPLETELY wasted on me...

Myself, One-And-Only-Daniela and a few people from work decided that we would go out last Friday. We went to a pub in Stratford near where we work and sat and chatted...

My wonderful friend Laura had reserved an entire section of the pub that we had gone to, due to the fact that we were expecting a large amount of people from work. As it was, there was only about five of us for the majority of the night, although once the third drink was ordered in, we really forgot to care.

I was on duty as being the awkward 'person to hate' for the night as, due to not knowing who was going to turn up and being promised that others were "on their way," I had the joyous task of turning to the people jumping at a chance to sit in the 'standing room only' section of our local pub, and saying "sorry this place is reserved for our work colleagues." This was even more awkward as the night continued to roll on and very few additional people turned up, all making me look like I was the bitch who wanted four tables all to myself when we clearly only were enough people to fill one.

Anywho, all of this amounted to me starting to feel bad later on in the night and therefore allowing in a small group of people who had decided to sit at the far table in our section. We looked over, looked at each other with a resigned look and resorted to promise to chuck them out when more of us turned up.

This was fine. We thought nothing more of it until Laura and One-And-Only-Daniela, who happened to be positioned so that they were facing the small group of intruders, noticed that there seemed to be a few people who kept on coming up to this table and asking for their picture with one of the people they were with.

The next hour was taken up of trying to work out why this person seemed to be so popular with the majority of the rest of the pub... these were our conclusions:

1. The guy was famous
2. Not one of us had a CLUE who he was... seriously, he didn't even look slightly familiar.
3. Our conclusion? He must be a football player.

Due to the fact that none of us had a clue how to even begin to identify this man as we were all women who had very little interest in football, we resorted to taking a sneaky picture of him on our phone and sending it via text to Laura's brother for clarification purposes. We continued our conversations, ignoring the man who was getting more and more attention from the rest of the pub, until a text came through on Laura's phone, identifying him as David James, a man who had apparently been England's goal keeper for a VERY long time.

I feel I should add a little note in here for those of my readers who are reading from across the pond (AKA America), when I say football, I am, of course, referring to your Soccer. American Football is something that this country has never really gotten into, except when we watch any American teenage film/TV show ever and see them playing it there... Although this man was clearly unrecognisable to us being an English Football player, he would certainly have been unrecognisable to most people in the pub if he had indeed played American Football. So please feel free to go ahead and substitute the word Football for Soccer for clarity reasons in the remainder of this post...

Once we had identified him, the novelty of his fame quickly dissipated amongst us as we substituted our interest in him for conversation topics more relevant to us. 

It just so happened that, after I had returned from the bar at one point, I found myself standing by our table, talking to Laura. Suddenly a very tall man was looming over us and asking us if we wouldn't mind moving. We turned and saw it was David James. We smiled and moved to one side, he smiled said something I can't recall in a friendly manner and made his way to the toilets. We sat back down and I turned to Laura. 

"I need you to clarify something for me, Laura, as flirting is usually wasted on me due to having a completely clueless attitude towards it... However, did he just seem to go out of his way to talk to us? There was a large spot next to us he could have got round us... Everyone else who was rushing to see him, had."

Laura thought about this for a moment and then simply shrugged. 

"I didn't notice anything." She replied. 

We both shrugged and continued our drinks and conversations. Next thing I knew, someone had sat down on the sofa next to me and was introducing himself to us. I turned round and there was David James. 

I cannot stress how much this is apparently a big deal for every guy I know, however I had absolutely NO clue who the man was. None of us did. As such we sat and chatted to this guy for about four hours and, if he was used to people gushing over him and bigging him up, he did not receive that from us. 

I think, in the space of my conversation with him, I managed to argue with him, call him stupid, tell him that I didn't care he was a footballer as I had no clue who he was and straight out call him wrong in his views...

This may all seem like it was a disaster of a conversation but actually it was really interesting and he genuinely seemed like a nice guy. We also laughed and joked and all anger was in purely a "debate" setting. It was fun and, to me, it was no different to chatting to any other guy... Enough so, that I almost didnt blog about it. Although, I am assured that, although I have no interest in his celebrity-dom, it was still a massive deal so, for all those who saw a picture of me and him on my social network pages and wondered how the hell that happened... There you go. Now you know. 

To those who, like me, have absolutely no clue who this man is... Just disregard this post... I probably will. But perhaps a picture? Here he is. 

Peace out my lovelies. 

I can't decide if I should report my GP or just go right ahead and marry him...

Hey guys,

Remember when I told you about my session with the awesome new GP I had? If you don't, please feel free to click on the link here, and give it a read.

So, I had to go and see the man again recently as I seemed to have gotten a little overexcited about there actually being sun in England and it coinciding with my new absolutely massive garden. I had a week off work where I decided to spend it sitting in said garden and working on the editing of a book I've been given as a freelancing type gig.

I wasn't silly about it. Although my red hair may be from a bottle, my fair skin which seems to be prone to being burnt, is all natural. As such, I had my trusty Factor 50 sunblock and I applied generously for the entire week. However, and this is a problem that many single ladies may be able to relate to, there are certain sections of my back that are not accessible by me and so, even though I had a spray sunblock and I had tried by very hardest to spread this evenly over all of my back, I inevitably missed two spots just behind my shoulder blades.

This became even more evident when, after the first day, I went inside and saw that these areas were not only red raw but there were also these lovely little dots of white where I had sprayed the sunblock and not rubbed it in. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, and you'd be right, I looked hot.

Anywho, this happened and so I continued to sunbathe for the rest of the week, except now I had draped my top over my back to keep it from getting into any more trouble than it already was. In addition to this, I have my one and only mole on my back, a nice big one that sticks out and shouts hey to all who see it... I hate that mole; not for any vain reasons. If I'm honest, I couldn't really give a rat's arse how attractive my back is... I hardly ever see it anyway. However, it always seems to spark up the paranoid "Cancer!!" vibe whenever I look at it and so I'm never really that keen on burning it or aggrevating it in any way... I really should have thought of that before trying to sunbathe without having access to protecting my back...

I feel I should mention at this junction that this is by no means a comic post that is leading up to me now telling you all that I have an incurable disease... there are no cancer scares within this post... in case you were worried and required reassurance. I shall continue.

I continued to protect my back for the remainder of the week with my trust top flung over the entire area, not wanting to make my burn any worse than it was already. However, by Sunday, I realised that I only had one more day before I would have to go back to work and my back was feeling a hell of a lot better than it had done, the burning sensation easing away and being replaced by a nice bronze finish. To say the tan on my back was uneven however, is a little bit of an understatement. I had white patches all over the place, and I really wanted to at least find a way to even them out. As such, I decided that it was time to re-expose my back to the sun once more.

That day, I learnt a massive lesson. When one is sunbathing and sunbathing only, you tend to swap sides or go into the shade or totter around, for the sake of being even or (as in my case) because your pretty bored with the whole 'lying in one spot' routine. However, when you are camped out in the sun, editing a book that has you completely and utterly hooked and taking every part of your concentration, hours can go by and you haven't even realised. This is what happened that fateful Sunday.

I didn't notice that anything was wrong at first. Nothing felt burnt, and I still had enough of my self-awareness available that I continued to re-apply sunblock when I felt my skin start to complain. Once again, the issue didn't come to my attention until I entered the house once more and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

I really don't know how to write this next bit without it sounding like I'm exaggerating so I will just say this. When what I showed what had happened to my back to work colleagues the following day (bearing in mind that I work in a hospital), every single person had the same reaction; their face scrunched up into a look of either horror or disgust and they uttered the words "That is not right." The sections of my back that had previously been burnt had now turned an entirely different colour. The rest of me resembled a white girl from England with a slight bronzed finish and the two spots on my back represented a black girl who had never spent a day out of the sun in her life. Hell, someone even said it looked like I had had a dodgy winged tattoo done. My back was black. Not deeply tanned, not red, but black.

I was a little concerned, and so I decided (apparently forgetting the uselessness that is my doctor) to book an appointment with my GP that Saturday. Also, my one and only mole was all burnt and I freaking hate that thing for how paranoid it makes me.

Saturday comes and the black shade of my back was not as intense but still pretty prominent. I turn up at the appointment and our conversation goes a little like this:

Me: Hey, so I've got this problem, I was out sunbathing and there were parts of my back I couldn't reach and, well, I guess you should take a look.

I show him my back

GP: Oh, wow... that's interesting... 
Me: Should I be worried?
GP: Sunburns are weird.
Me: Yup.
GP: Turns to his computer and begins to type in the slowest 'one finger' fashion I have ever seen, the word 'SUNBURN' in all caps. Are you enjoying the sun?
Me: Well, I was but apparently my back has had enough.
GP: My son is coming home tomorrow. I'm considering taking the day off to see him.
Me: Okay.
GP: It's just going to be a lovely day and I really don't want to be working during it.
Me: Well, if you don't need to be in... go for it... About my back?
GP: I'm meant to be only at work until 6:30 today, but I just know I'm going to have stay longer than that, if I'm going to get everything done.
Me:  Work can be like that sometimes. Should I be worried about my mole? I would really like to get it removed.
GP: Sure.
Me: Sure, what? I should be worried?
GP: Let me see it.

I show him my mole

GP: That's well and truly cooked.
Me: Yup, kinda why I want to get it removed.
GP: The thing is, even if I do stay after work today, I know I'm still going to have come in tomorrow, and I really don't want to.

I look around the room to see if anyone is filming this whilst simultaneously wracking my brains, trying to remember when it was in the three appointments I've had with him, I became his best friend and not his patient... Needless to say, I came up empty.

Me: Ummm, I hate to be a pain, but can you refer me to someone to get my mole removed?
GP: Oh, ask someone outside.
Me: ... Anyone?
GP: The receptionist, I do appointments here where I can remove it for you.
Me: Oh, okay...
GP: So, I'll see you at your appointment. Thanks for dropping by.

It was only after I left the room, booked an appointment with the receptionist to have my mole removed and was on the bus home, that I realised he never really gave me an answer about what was going on with my back... People at work asked how the appointment was and I had to say that I didn't really know, except that my GP's apparent expert opinion was that it was "weird."

Yes people, I am trusting that man with minor surgery on my back... people ask why I keep on going back to him and not find another GP... it's kinda because it's fun to guess what he's going to say next and then be utterly amazed when my normally ridiculous imagination doesn't even come close... but mainly because I've yet to find a GP that does clinics on a Saturday which is really the only time that I can see them...

Also, to find a new GP requires work... and who can be arsed with that?

Peace out my lovelies.