1. My hits have doubled in the past few days. You are all voyeuristic. And whoever you are, who googled, "is it true billygean and mike split up," yes it is, but this is creepy.
2. Thank you for the post and the emails and flickr messages, amazon gift certificates. This is really rather overwhelming. I do not want to depart from the gumpiness of the blog-persona, but I am touched.
3. The Break Up is nothing to do with Awkwardness, or MindReader. These are characters.
4. I have been making extensive use of hot water bottles and vics vapour rub. I'm sure this is some kind of Freudian comfort. Also, I bought myself a selection of Easter cakes which I have been enjoying in the small hours with my essays.
5. I have been in the library since 9am.
6. When someone walks through the barrier with a book, it beeps, cutting right through beautiful Jeff Buckley on ipod. Why do you do this every 5 seconds, oh library people? Just don't do it. Just don't walk through the barrier with a book. IT IS NOT HARD.
7. I apologise if The Blog becomes a bit of a Revision Blog over the next few weeks. I honestly have nothing else to do. However, it'll be fun to all learn the law together... won't it?!
Labels: blogging
"And this is the living room," the Landlord says.
This is an improvement; the last place didn't have a living room.
Only a mild improvement, mind.
A guy in a beret (not a good start) is clearly smoking weed. I feel like SUCH a lawyer stood there in my neat clothes and my glasses. Having never smoked weed.
Incense is burning in the corner. This is good; I approve of incense.
There are no sofas, only beanbags. I suppose this is what cool arty types like. Perhaps I would have got on better with the poets on my English degree if I was like this.
The wall has no wallpaper. Well, not the conventional kind anyway. Drawings of hemp leaves, postcards, naked women.
There is definitely an alter.
There are 6 or 7 fairly hazy-looking people wandering from room to room. None of the rooms have furniture.
I look up at the ceiling and notice it's cracked. Fairly majorly.
"Right then, thanks for this," I say, reaching for the door.
The next house is the exactly opposite. It has peach carpet that's so deep it positively CURLS around your feet.
Spotlights in the ceiling.
Double beds.
En suites.
The same rent as I currently pay.
MARBLE COVERED COUNTERTOPS.
I gaze out of the beautiful double-glazed window. "What's the building joining this?" I say, idly.
The landlord pauses. "Oh," he says, shifting his seat. "Just Winson Green Prison."
"Okay," I say slowly, still thinking of the beautiful shelf above the bath and how perfectly my bath products would line up along it.
"And that one?" I say, pointing to the next building along.
"Mental hospital."
"Right then."
Labels: grumbles
Mike and I broke up on Sunday.
I went to uni today with a pasted smile on. I explained myself over coffee with friends. I tilted my head as I listened to them, whilst I felt the ridges in the paper cups between the tips of my fingers.
I stared at the nib of my pen in lectures, stock-still on the page. I must've stared at it for twenty minutes before I wrote anything.
I left campus as the Clock Tower was chiming 5pm. The sunlight was skating low across the campus, and the arches projected alternating rainbows of light and dark.
It felt like early summer. I could smell the blossom and the ferns and the early evening sky was white and whispy and the wind was finally soft; neither warm nor cool.
I walked alone down the path right through the middle of campus, with the sunlight right in my hair and the haunting strains of classical music in my ears, and out through the gates.
And it was exactly as if a chapter was sadly ending.
Labels: Mike
"You're still thinking about the clocks going forward, aren't you?"
MindReader, a fellow lawyer, says. For this is what he does.
"Yes," I say, my head in my hands. "I just don't understand what's going on."
"Well," he says, rubbing his hands together. "The sun's just having a night off."
"
Mmm," I say.
"Yeah," he says, his eyes dancing. "Because of the Human Rights Act he has to have two hours off a year."
Is it okay that this makes
perfect sense to me?
Labels: blonde moments
"Excuse me," the lady in the Bullring says.
I am Pissed Off. My bag weighs a tonne. As does the wedding-champagne (I know, right? Aren't my friends old?) and the textbook I took home for no reason. I take my ipod earphones out.
She gestures to the stand behind her.
"Would you like to come to a free accessories colour coordination workshop?" she says.
I stare.
Pardon? A what?
"An accessories colour coordinartion workshop," I say slowly. "So you tell me to wear blue shoes with a blue top?"
"Exactly," she says, like I know my alphabet and everything.
I laugh.
I'm sorry, lady, but I couldn't help it.
I laughed about accessories colour coordination workshop all the way home.
Labels: How to
I am walking up the road on the way home from Uni. I have already met two people and moaned about The Law therefore would quite like to go home to spaghetti and fishfingers.
There are some boys in front of me kicking a football up the road. Probably 17 - 18. Okay, okay I admit it, they were about 8 years old. They were in tracksuits and wore gold. I am saying this in a neutral tone but
you know what I am saying.
They stare at me a bit as I walk past. I stare back, probably more intimidated than they are.
One looks at me maliciously. He has vacant grey eyes. Big hands. Hair short at sides long on top.
"You're in there," he says to his friend.
I raise my eyebrows. It disturbs me when kids know about sex and swearing. I decide to set them straight.
"You are NOT in there," I say. I am cringing as I write this. Why must I be so cocky? And so
self-righteous. ARGH.
The boy with the grey eyes stares at me for a moment. He silently indicates his ball and his friend.
Ohhhh. His friend was inSIDE. WITH THE BALL.
"What did YOU mean?" Grey-eyed boy says.
I shudder. This is not happening. NOT HAPPENING.
"Nothing," I say, staring at the floor.
"You meant sex didn't you!"
"NO."
"Oh my God she meant sex," he says to his friends. They all laugh. I huff and walk off, as if this is not my fault.
"Hey lady," I hear as I stomp off.
I turn around. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY.
He is BARING HIS BOTTOM AT ME.
I am so shocked my hand actually goes to my mouth.
And then his Dad arrives. He looks from his son's bum to me and back again. And then he tuts at me.
Like I am a pervert.
Labels: blonde moments, embarrassing
It is half midnight. I crouch down in front of the washing machine.
A few hours ago I did battle with it. We hate each other, the washing machine and I. It's just like posting stuff: you have every intention and then things just get in the way. You have no stamps, or, you can't be bothered to walk twenty yards to the post box. It's the same with the washing machine. Every time I try and do some washing I seem to hit these
hurdles.
I do not know where the powder stuff goes (don't get me STARTED on where I think it goes once it's inside the washing machine). The stupid symbols that only housewives understand don't help either.
I don't understand why there are so many fucking options. Seriously, there are like 80. What is spin cycle? Is this not normal? Wool-only? Colour-fast? Why is there a massive dial and a big pie-chart and even a key for fuck's sake? Pre-wash? In my naivety I thought pre-wash might mean
wearing it.
Approached washing machine tentatively. Thought it had stopped. Watched it for a while. It stared back, unblinkingly. Reached out to open door and it bloody well started again.
A few minutes later it looked like it had really committed to the decision to stop. I was however too scared to try the door, so i just pressed start again. I'll deal with it in the morning. Problem solved.
Labels: grumbles
H rests her chin in her hands, after finishing her mammoth Man Story.
I sip my drink. "And by that, he means
blowjob," I say, nodding sagely.
"
Blowjob. Exactly," H says, running her hand through her curls.
I laugh. "I could so tell the
Internet about this entire conversation."
"Don't you fucking dare."
Labels: blogging
Am in bath. Water is bright pink and vanilla scented.
Should've known it would happen.
Have known for a few days now. The dreams, mostly.
I feel a tickle on my foot. I lift my head out of the water and stare.
And there it is. It is another Brown Bum kind, its legs splayed out rudely all over my foot.
Obviously, I flick my foot randomly, squealing and splashing. Spider hits wall across bathroom.
I look at it on the wall and cry pathetically. I text my dad, uselessly.
I am trapped in bath. Getting out is utterly out of the question.
I have a few episodes - palpitations, sweats, etc. Stare at spider for twenty minutes until bathwater is cold. Turning taps might alert the spider to my presence. As would, you know, breathing.
After a few more Episodes and what could be described as
Hissy Fits, there was nothing else for it. I swing my legs over the side of the bath, unlock the door and
I run out of bathroom. Without Towels. Thank God housemates did not see, for that would be inappropriate.
In a course last year my tutor once said a neurosis is an irrational fear of something which you understand is irrational. A psychosis is where you feel the spiders are plotting against you.
I have a worrying idea of which I am.
Labels: grumbles
I am walking up my road, my hair whipped by the wind. I cross the road and dial the numbers into my phone.
"Hello?" My Dad says.
"Hello," I say.
"How was your legally social thing?"
"My Lord. It was superb."
"That bad?"
"There was bowing and wine and cheese."
"Oh God," he says, laughing. "It's just etiquette, though."
"Spose so."
"I even have it with my Golf Club, you know, can't wear trainers around it and so on."
I pause. And Think. Because I am learning to do this.
"You mean your society club and not your actual golf club, don't you?"
"Oh you mean my 6 iron? Yes I bow to that all the time."
Labels: blonde moments, law
I eye the ball of meat on the counter. "What is that?" I say to my Dad.
He peers over it. "Dunno. It's your house." He pauses and prods it (hi, housemate!). "Looks like Haggis."
"Oh. Do they live in Scotland?"
My Dad raises an eyebrow. "Do
what live in Scotland?"
"Haggises," I say.
My Dad rubs his beard. "Yes," he says slowly. "They live on the mountains."
I stare at the ball of meat for a while.
"Yeah, Haggises don't exist, do they," I say.
"No," he says laughing. "It's just sheep's stomach and mincemeat etc. Like meatloaf."
"Meatloaf aren't animals?"
Labels: blonde moments, embarrassing
My hits are usually about 350 readers per day.
I know, taboo to say this, right?
Today I got 900. 450 of them were people googling Star Nosed Moles.
I know I wrote about this, but why are you all googling it? Someone please explain!
In other news,
he was there at the pub again tonight. Why must Awkwardness follow everywhere?
My friend, on seeing my reaction, and after asking me if I have shagged said Awkwardness (I have not), told me I did a good smile; a cross between flirty and incredibly awkward.
Well, that's something then?
I am slightly drunk and in the corner shop.
What? I know.
I am also slightly drunk now.
I am over by the freezers gazing at the Ben and Jerry's, and over by the sauces looking at the Nutella. It's suddenly very difficult to decide what to buy.
I go to the fridge section and go about my usual business NOT WANTING TO BE DISTURBED BY ANNOYING SHOPKEEPERS.
"Alright luv," Annoying Shopkeeper says. "Got enough coke cans there?"
I drop one. What? Isn't it against some social code for a shopkeeper to remark on your purchases?
"What?" I say, defensive. "I like it."
"Oh, I hate the stuff," Annoying Shopkeeper says.
I seethe a bit. I am protective of coke. And why start a conversation about something you don't even like? Oh, just go away will you, if I want to buy nine cans of coke when I have wine-breath I bloody well can.
Besides, it's my business. You just sell it to me. I don't have to say anything. Right?
Right.
"God you have got loads!" Other Shopkeeper chimes in.
"Oh, I'm having a party," I say.
What? What? Why did I say that?
Oh, yes, hello, I'm having a party with approximately NINE people coming and, as a special treat, I am going to give them all a can of coke!!
I exit the shop, bright red, after banging my head on the door (not my fault).
Labels: addictions, blonde moments, embarrassing
I am in the bath. On the phone, as usual.
"So I found a condom under my bed," my Dad says.
I gasp
slightly. How does one respond to this?
"Oh, really," I say.
"Yep. It's either yours or Suzanne's."
"
Ohh, right." Not blushing. Not blushing.
"Suzanne thought it was mine!" he says.
I laugh. "Was she there at the discovery too then?"
"No." My Dad pauses, which is when you know something completely inappropriate and usually untrue is coming. "I posted it to her."
*click*.
Labels: Dad
Have already had some minor issues with Fabulously Gay Tutor.
There was the time with the
Scratch Perverts. And then the other time, over Christmas when he didn't receive my emails and had a 2000 word one-way email shout when I dared ask him if my topic was okay.
This, added to his erratic pacing in lectures and staring moodily out of the window.
Email to Tutor:
Hello,
Just wondering about citations. If i've read a summary of legislation/cases in a textbook do I cite that or the actual leg/case?
Gilly.Email back approximately one minute and 15 seconds later.
Hello Gilly,
Obviously, these are textbooks, and, since you've read all the Acts and all the cases, so this isn't really relevant, is it?
Tutor.Oh my God.
OBVIOUSLY.
That's why I asked. Because I've read them and just wanted to let you know that I hadn't.
Why must you be this way?
Labels: grumbles, law
Doorbell goes. I debate not answering. Hair is poking up and looking generally haunted, but I answer anyway.
Is blond man with vacant eyes. Here for the TV aerial apparently. Worrying that the TV hasn't been working for two days and I haven't noticed?
Suspect he could be burglar but force myself to stop being ridiculous and judging him purely because he's wearing a burberry cap and finishes every sentence with "sort of like you know."
Offer him cup of tea. He perches on the worktop which makes me feel edgy.
He asks me whether I live here with my Mum. Vaguely embarrassed - but also used to the misconception that i am 12 - I tell him that no I'm a student.
We have inane chats like this.
Him: Ah this is first tea of the day.
Me: Oh, I have to have one in the morning.
Him: Oh, me too. i had two this morning.
Me: Right then.
Hand him his tea in my favourite mug in a vague attempt to be nice to people I would usually class as burglars.
And then he asks me out.
It would apparently not matter that he thought I was 12, then.
Pharmacies. Just what is the deal?
Went in today to get prescription. Already felt quite pissed off because of the noise the door was making. Man made me sign, etc etc. Their pen didn't work and every time I tried to lean over to write, my bag fell off my shoulder and equity book hit me on the way down.
The shop was empty.
Man takes prescription and tells me it will be ten minutes, and disappears into the back.
I get hotter and hotter as I sit in the chair. What, exactly, is he DOING?
Does he actually think I think he's mixing the chemicals? Or that he's wearing a white coat and goggles whilst a test tube smokes in front of him?
We know they're pre-packaged for fuck's sake. The pills get to the chemist's in the box.
And surely if it takes you ten fucking minutes to find the right box of drugs there is only one soluion?
ALPHABETISE THEM.
Labels: grumbles
