Friday 21 December 2012

The end of the world... well, it's not like I could exactly ignore it, could I?

Given what day it is and given that I have been prone to talk about the end of the world and preparations needed for said world end in my blog before, it would be remiss for me not to have an opinion/comment/musing on what it is that we have experienced today.

You see, out of all of the many ways people have predicted the end of the world to happen and the ridiculous amounts of predictions dates that have been "foretold," this day, the 21st December 2012, has to be one of the most famous. Today we have to endure one of the most horrific things that could possibly happen, today the Mayan Calendar ends...


I don't know about anyone else but I literally do not know what on EARTH I am going to do with myself now that I no longer have a Mayan calendar to follow and abide by. I mean, come on. Who else is literally cacking themselves right now?

Without the Mayan Calendar, we have... well... according to them, we have nothing. Because the Mayan's didn't believe in noting down the date past today, of course this means that the world will no longer exist. Because (and I was just saying this the other day to someone), if people don't live a life according to what the Mayan's want then there is no life worth living.

And so, in short, because of all of this sound factual evidence and complete belief in a culture who liked to sport beards (Mayan's wore beards and white robes, right? Or am I getting this confused with something else? (In my defense, if I am wrong, it's only because Heinakroon hasn't written a blog about it yet and I don't trust any other source of information as actual fact or education)) ... where was I? Oh yes, because of all of this being completely and utterly true and there being no chance that we could ever live in a world without the Mayan logic and order keeping us in check, the world is going to end. It is going to end... 8 hours ago?? At the end of the day??

I'm going to go with the end of the day as obviously it couldn't have been 8 hours ago because we are all still here!

So as we are not completely out of the woods just yet, I suggest a lot of last minute apologising for bad things and being nice to people and also finding underground bunkers with enough food to last the rest of your life in case it's a meteor that gets us.

Either that or get into the fetal position and cry and plead that somehow whatever evil is coming our way, it will mysteriously overlook the house that you are in... you never know, it might happen.

For more tips on how my subcconscious brain thought of surviving our impending doom... check out my Online Novel, which is conveniently on... The end of the world! Would you believe it? It's almost like I planned it that way! (If I did, then it was totally by accident, because I don't usually look past the end of the week and I wrote this last month).

Anywho... one post finished that is totally current and also a complete plug for my book! Isn't it great when things like that happen?

Peace out my lovelies.

Monday 17 December 2012

I've reached The Point of Laze and there is no going back

So I may have mentioned before that I am one of those people that has a tendency to procrastinate in lots of new and exciting ways (and by 'new and exciting' I mean 'same and boring', hence why it is called procrastination).

Through all of my many moments of procrastination I have developed a rule that I have tested, observed and now feel I am ready to share with you.

This rule is simply called 'The Point of Laze.'

The Point of Laze is a place that most of you will be all too familiar with but may not realise that it is called this... mainly because I gave it that name and haven't talked about it until now. But still, we're learning, people!

So in order to explain to you what The Point of Laze is, I want you to think in your head of something that you really need to do right now. It could be a big thing like pay a bill, or little like clean your teeth (not that I want to lower the importance of teeth cleanliness, remember children 'it's always good to keep all your teeth until you're at least 35... then you can start to let go a bit'). Anywho, think of a thing... have you got it in your head? No? Well, I'll just wait a little longer for you. It's okay. I have wine...

Okay. So now that everyone's got the thing in your head, I want you to then just sit and look at your computer. Don't do anything on it, just look at it. Maybe examine the photo on your wallpaper of your dog or cat or Eric Idle or whatever it is that you kids are into these days. Perhaps you want to squint at the photo and notice that your cat/dog/Eric Idle looks a lot like your son/daughter/John Cleese when you do that. How about you then go ahead and examine the actual screen of the computer. See if you can finally get round to scraping that bit of dust/mud/crap that has been there for goodness how long.

Once you've done this, your eyes might start to wonder to that little icon at the bottom/side/middle/top of your screen. The little icon that invites you to a wonderful neverending world of completely anything you can think of... the little icon that connects you to your internet provider. (For me it's a little fox hugging the world in such a loving way that I simply cannot resist trying to get in on that love.)

Go ahead and click on it. Your home page comes up. You don't really know what you want to do with the internet now that it's there but you figure it would be a waste if you didn't at least try searching for something. Perhaps you want to go to a friendly social networking site to help you on your way. Go ahead and check out youtube, surely there has to be something new that's been recommended to you. Or maybe facebook, perhaps someone's put up an adorable and yet hilarious video or photo of their child falling down. Or perhaps you could even go onto twitter. People are always posting links to a neverending series of blogs and videos and websites for people to enjoy. In fact I'm pretty sure a 'plumsauce10' is on there providing a link to an online novel? Could that be? And it's completely free? Wow, I'm so impressed, here's a link to it right from this blog.

So now you probably have a series of available things to look at, laugh at, cry at, throw things at and so on and so forth. It's about at this point you realise that the beaming sun outside your window has in fact disappeared completely and it is pitch black. Or you might have realised that the hot meal you had just cooked for yourself and is sitting by your computer waiting for you, is now completely stone cold. Or, if you are like me, you are now sitting in a dressing gown with a towel around your hair for a completely redundant reason because not only are you dry from the shower you swear you only just took, but your hair, which had been thoroughly washed and conditioned is also bone dry too. Which sucks because you know that you can only really have a decent chance at brushing it whilst it is wet as when it dries it just hates you and anything with bristles.

It's at this point where you are faced with the decision... either you can be sensible and do the decent thing and get on with your life and the really important things that you have to do in it, or you can go against everything that is sensible, open up your blogging site and start to write a blog on being in this state. If you chose the latter... ladies and gents you are officially in The Point of Laze.

FYI: The Point of Laze also works for the choice to tweet endlessly, look through a photo album on facebook that you uploaded three years ago... (which then leads to looking at the people you were with in those photos, wonder where they are now and then go search for them, stalking their facebook pages like a real pro), choosing to go through a particular person's youtube account's whole back log of videos... even if there are 200 to get through, going onto IMDB because you wonder what that child actor you loved is doing now or just simply typing 'monkeys falling off trees' into google.

I know you've all being dying to know what to call it. Now you do. You're welcome. And also, I only charge 50p every time you use it. It's like a copyright bargain.

Peace out my lovelies

Sunday 16 December 2012

Just in case you have a burning secret you want to tell me and shizzle

Hey peeps!

It was brought to my attention recently that I'm a little hard to contact should anyone really need to... aside from my blog, twitter, facebook fan page, my other blog and my other blog. But all of these are open for everyone to look at all the comments made and so if anyone of you beautiful chickadees fancied tellling me a secret you wouldn't be able to because there's no way.

As such, I decided that it was probably a good idea to get myself one of those new fangled electronic messaging things... I think they call them 'Shemail?'... Something like that anyway.

This process I decided to do via hotmail as it tends to be my go to place when I want to receive mail electronically. I went to fill in the form and enjoy the wonderful process that is 'trying to find an email address that hasn't been used yet on an email provider that caters for the entire world and has done since the internet was created.'

...


This was not a fun process.

I mean, it was... but for like five seconds until the fifteen thousandth email address I had tried was rejected and I was ready to throw my brand new lap top across the room in a move I was certain I would probably regret after I had done it...


Anywho, I started out with this little exercise all full of gusto and hope. Stupidly thinking that I could get away with using an email address like 'randomemailofaplum' or 'emailofaplum'. This was not the case. Instead I got the annoying little message from hotmail saying that it was not available.

So then I thought, well I can still have this awesome email address, I just need to add a complex amount of numbers after it and then things will be great. I started with the ever optimistic number 10 as this is the number on my username and so really easy to remember.

Nope.

I then went on to try a series of ridiculously long and complicated numbers that meant something to me so that I would remember it when it came to giving out said address, but that might be considered as too random for others to have used...

Obviously someone else was using the same secret number codes that I use. Not only that but they also consider themselves to be a plum who likes to be random in their thoughts and emails. I died a little inside over this as I felt my own individuality disappear through a deep and dark crevice. However, I didn't want this email provider to win in destroying my own creativeness. So I began to expand on the theme of email and plum, hoping that something would come out of it that would restore my sanity.

The options I went through (with added numbers and shizzle as well) were these:

howtocontactaplumonline
howtorandomlycontactaplumonline
aplumlikesemailssoemailme
iwanttoemailplumsauce10please
iwanttoemailarandomplumplease

and so on and so forth.

All of these not only had been taken but they had been taken enough times that adding 2785 at the end still came back as taken... I have never felt so generic...

So of course, by this point I was beginning to lose all kinds and forms of patience. Not only did I have to cotinuiously try email accounts that continued to state that I had a boring and unimaginative brain, but I also had to enter in that stupid little box code thing each time to prove that I wasn't some robot made of spam or something.

I was losing it well and truly. I was getting angry and IT WAS ALL HOTMAIL'S FAULT. As such, I decided to take it out on them by slagging them off in my new email address suggestions:

therearenouniqueemailaddressesleftanditsallhotmailsfault
iamsoboredoftypinginemailaddresssuggestions
ihatehavingtofindauniqueemailaddress

and so and so forth.

You guessed it people. All of these were already taken... I don't think I was particularly surprised by this given that I couldn't think of anyone having to go through this process and not then resorting to email addresses complaining of the frustrations involved in said email address.

I'm not ashamed to say that this was the point where I was getting frustrated to the point where there were actual tears forming in my eyes (I have had a very weird day today, my emotions aren't playing nice at all).

I wanted to scream... so I did. But of course, because I am one of those people who prefer to express my emotions internetually rather than deal with them in real life like a normal person. I resorted to typing my scream rather than actually speaking it out, (I didn't want to terrify The-Five-Year-Old).

So I wrote the following in the 'email suggestion' section:

aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh

Then realising that this was an email for my blog and so should have something in relation to the blog I changed it slightly:

aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhplum

I hit enter.

It went through.

It was accepted.

Due to this, ladies and gents, I now have a new email address that it completely unique without any numbers to prove that someone else is exactly like me... It is unique. My frustrations with the world and my choices in how to spell the sound of screaming and mixing it with a fruit is unique. Huzzah!!

So all that being said. If you would now like to contact me and have lots of secret conversations with me about secret things that may or may not then end up being published on this blog because... well... come on, you can't tell a person who writes every aspect of their every day down for the world to see, a secret and expect them to keep it... that's just ridiculous, then go ahead and write me a little something. I like getting mail.

Little tip when spelling the scream is to use 5 a's 5r's 4g's and 5h's. I would hate for you to spell it wrong and end up speaking to my doppleganger who grew up learning to spell her scream a little differently.

My new email address is:

aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhplum@live.co.uk

I'm working on sucking up to Younger-Brother-Daniel (who is responsible for the beautiful design you see on this blog) to get him to design the shizzle out of the email address so that it will appear down the side. Hopefully that will happen over Christmas!

Peace out my lovelies.

Saturday 15 December 2012

Saturdays rock

Saturday. The day when people get to relax and not worry about whatever stresses have been plaguing their days... Isn't it awesome?

For one day we get to not worry about whatever is going on. We get to be normal and think that the world is our oyster. We get to go through life for one day without thinking about what really matters.

It's an awesome day. It's a loop hole to all other stressors. It's the day where you get to say, "so what?" to all of the things that have been making you feel like crap.

So as such, I say enjoy today. Don't stress. Don't worry about what life is making you do. Just stop. For one blissful day. Stop and say, "yes, today I'm good, today there is nothing to worry about; Today, I don't have to feel like the world is on my shoulders. That thing that makes me feel bogged down and alone? It doesn't matter today." Today you can do anything. You can be anything. You can become all that you hoped to be. You can believe in the most ridiculous things and for some bizarre reason, it will happen. Because today is a Saturday which means that everything you dreamed will happen.

And if it doesn't? Don't worry, your life is littered with a neverending supply of Saturdays. Which means that whatever you want to happen, will happen one day. Because where would this world be without a Saturday? It would be lost. That's where. But we don't need to worry, because Saturdays will always exist forever and always.

I love Saturdays.

Saturdays mean hope.

Enjoy them.

Peace out my lovelies.

Wednesday 12 December 2012

Welcome to Procrastination town: Population - Me

Sup dudes.

I've been doing this whole 'go to bed at nine and actually have a decent night sleep' thing recently. It's been grand, I have to say. With the exception of the extremely bizarre dreams that I've been having but then again, if you know me by now, you will know that I am no stranger to the bizarre dream/terrifying nightmare. (In fact, I have taken the liberty of turning one of my nightmares into a novel which I am uploading onto the internet each day a chapter at a time (shameless plug I know (here's the link)))

Tonight appears to be the exception to the early to bed rule I have been setting myself. If I'm perfectly honest, I'm not too hopeful for the actual 'bed-going' to happen any time soon given that I have needed to pee for roughly about three hours but I have been too lazy to get up and go... I'm not kidding, it feels like there is a small hefty child sitting on my bladder. But apparently the extremely uncomfortable feeling I am experiencing (almost to the point of pain) is not enough incentive for me to get up and do anything about it.

All that being said, if I am unable to perform this small insignificant task, I am not predicting that the actual 'getting-ready-for-bed' routine will be happening any time soon.

Do you know what I've been doing instead? No? Good, then I will tell you.

18:30. Watched Vampire Diaries (do not judge) on my computer
19:30. Finished off a highly mundane game I had downloaded from Bigfishgames.com
20:00. Finished off the latest chapter of my Utopia novel (link available here) for One-And-Only-Daniela to read whilst simultaneously educating Lgalaviz about the wonders of Wine Gums over twitter (apparently the Americans don't have them which I personally think is a travesty)
20:30. Looked for a new game from bigfishgames.com that I had already bought but hadn't finished for some reason or another.
20:35. Found the game I was looking for
20:37. Started to download the game
20:40. Checked the daily general maintenance checks for my blog in the overly obsessive compulsive way that I do (most of that is code talk for checking out the stats)
20:45. Got distracted and started to read posts I wrote a couple of years ago but because I have the memory of a fish, it felt as if these were brand new posts written by someone else.
20:46. Threw insults at the posts from my blog, pointing out all the bad grammar and the unlikelihood that the events described actually happened.
20:50. Started to sing along with the Von Trap family I am now living with as they sang in the living room (and thoroughly enjoyed myself in the process)
20:55. Checked the stats on my blog again
21:15. Started playing the game that had just finished downloading.
21:30. Realised that I had actually already completed this game and that doing so the first time had creeped the living daylights out of me because there were creepy ghost girls and eerie broken dummies involved.
21:31. Stopped playing the game immediately
21:35. Checked the stats on my blog again
21:55. Went onto Facebook and spent the rest of the time until when I started to write this blog (at around 23:30) getting lost in the black void that is facebook. During this time I realised one very large and very dominating fact about me and photos... I do nothing but pull stupid faces... all the time.

Want to see? No? Good, here we go:









...

I think the word you are looking for is 'special.'

Peace out my lovelies.

Tuesday 11 December 2012

I'm fund raising!

So, I may have mentioned a couple hundred times that I am planning to move to America in July 2013 for 6 months... It's all very exciting, but since making such plans I have come up with two very ominous and concrete observations:

1. Moving to America is expensive.
2. I have no money.

...


Do you guys see my predicament here? All my lovely ideas in my head are so exciting and dancing around on the fluffy clouds constantly knocking aorund in my subconscious, but then reality hits and it's like 'Woah reality, you're kind of a bitch.'

Anywho, I have come up with two sure-fire ways of getting around this tiny-if-not-slightly-crucial hiccup I have now found myself in.

1. Move to a house that doesn't drain every single part of your income so that you find yourself hanging outside the local supermarket at the end of the month in the shadows, waiting for someone to accidentally drop some of their groceries as they are leaving... (not that I've ever done that, *cough cough*)

2. Find awesome and interesting ways to raise money so that you can go to America and not end up in a new country, hanging outside a new local supermarket after the first two weeks in the shadows, waiting for someone to accidentally drop some of their groceries as they are leaving...

Number one I HAVE DONE! I have written down my tiny little list on a sheet of paper and put a massive tick next to it, adding flourishes and stars and flowers and other such embellishments in order to show how super on top of things I am by being halfway through my list... Don't believe me?

Check it out:



Number two however, takes a little more planning... I've considered just walking around with my hand out and my best puppy dog expression in order to make everyone feel super sorry for me and just give me the money but I feel that as I'm essentially asking for money so that I can go travelling people aren't going to be fooled, no matter how adorable I may look.

As such, I have come up with an awesome plan that is drawing on a very old talent of mine that I haven't used in about five years... I'm going to be productive. I'm going to be organised. I'm going to use the organisation to put together a productive thing.

Ladies and gents, I'm going to put on a talent evening.

Now before you all start simultaneously jumping up and down in excitement, clapping your hands together and screaming "Horaay for Lisa, this will be the best thing ever!" Just simmer down. (If you haven't been jumping up and down because you react to things like a normal person instead of the weird way imaginary people react in my head, then... just stay as you were) Five years ago I used to put on events like this a lot. I ran a drama and dance group and spent a lot of my time singing and performing like the little monkey that I am. However, looking at it now, I have an enormous list of barriers to break through to get to the night that I am planning...

One

I have become ridiculously and immensely lazy. Yes. You see I can't so things by halves, never have been able to. So when I decided that I was going to take a break from the "every night working until 2am to get performances ready and on time so that they are perfect and nothing less", I jumped ship and landed in the complete other side of the spectrum. As such, for the past five years, I have been the kind of girl who likes... shall we say... Non-movement. Of any kind. I am telling you, I can sit on my arse and procrastinate for days at a time. In fact, nowadays, if I'm not being paid for the work I do, then I tend to just sit and stare. Sometimes I'll put some music on. Sometimes I'll even talk on the phone to people (although this tends to be limited to Family and One-And-Only-Daniela). But mostly I just sit.

There is no coincidence in the fact that writing has to be the least active thing a person can do. The only muscle work out that my body gets is my fingers as they type... that and the occasional arm stretches as I lift my lap top from the ground to my lap and then back again, of course I only move it back again when I want to grab a light snack... (I ate an entire box of 'Go Ahead' breakfast bars last night, which I know is completely healthy because they say so on the box)

So with that being said, from what I remember of organising events like what I am planning, there is a severe lack of sitting on my arse involved and a massive increase in getting up and doing stuff. This is going to take some doing, let me tell you. And I know you might all be saying, 'but Lisa, you just said yourself that you can jump from one end of the spectrum to the other'. That's all well and good, but apparently it's a little easier to jump into the 'doing nothing' spectrum than it is to jump into the 'doing everything and never stopping ever' spectrum.

Two

The title of the night is 'Talent night.' The talents involved in said night I was once able to do. Now however, thanks to the joyous period of my life outlined in point one, are not so easy anymore. My main reason? Guys, there is something that you all need to be aware of if you are planning for a five year stint of snacking and sitting... inevitably, unless you have the metabolism of Superman (is his metabolism fast? He never seems to gain weight and the rest of him seems to be pretty quick), then you will find that wieght gain is going to be a very strong factor in your every day life.

For me, yes, that has been a large (pun!) aspect of these past five years. To say that I have gained weight would be sugar coating it, I would just say that I've got fat. And I don't mean fat in the way that most members of the female gender complain about when suddenly their size 6 skinny jeans seem a little snug, no I'm a full blown member of the hefty club nowadays. In fact, I am five seconds away from finding the closest 'Big and beautiful' clothes shop and dancing my way down the street to it whilst listening to Mika's 'Big girls, you are beautiful' song on repeat.

I'm not exactly bothered by it, I'm not at a level where my hearts in any trouble and I only get out of breath when I run... anywhere... or walk fast. But overall I've accepted my new weight. However, when I have the plan to choreograph a dance routine like the ones I used to do all those years ago that involves bending my body in interesting shapes and moving around for longer than a minute, I do fear that I may come off as slightly rusty/out of shape/special. It should be interesting to see... I will make sure that I record said event so that you can all marvel/laugh at/cringe at my attempts.

The other contributions I shall be adding talent wise involve singing and writing (in script form for some small sketches) and then the rest I'm going to turn to my lovely volunteers to come up with their own beautiful routines and other such talents!

It's going to be exciting and (I hope) not a disaster at all. I'm aiming for end of February/beginning of March for the performance to take place. Of course, if you are in the London area and would like to take part/laugh at/pay money/throw things, then do let me know and I'll be happy to add in the acts!

Wow I wrote a lot today. I'll stop now.

Peace out my lovelies.

Monday 10 December 2012

Nothing like a bit of awkwardness to start your week

Line-Manager-Monica has been publicising my blog today. This is nice and I'm all for a bit of publicising as I do like people reading my wierdness and all that jazz.

However, I have a limit to how far someone can talk positively about me until I have to start counter-acting against them. Today my limit was reached.

You see, Line-Manager-Monica was talking with some people I work with as I was quietly sitting there playing my new 'I-have-to-be-obsessed-with-some-form-of-game-so-I've-chosen-this-one' game. At the moment it is 'The Simpson's Tapped Out' ... seriously, if you guys aren't playing it yet then do so. It's a free app game and is available on all your apple goods. I think it's also available for other android phones but my friend the other day was having trouble downloading it on his so I'm not too sure... Anywho. There I was, tapping away on my own self-built Springfield when one of the guys who was with me asked what I was doing.

I excitedly started in on my advertisment for the game whilst thinking to myself that Matt Groening should totally hire me as his publicist because I am totally winning in getting people to play the game. I had them all enthralled completely, they were hooked and wanted to know more, so I kept on going. All the while, Line-Manager-Monica sat there next to me and let me go on and on. After I had finished she turned to the two guys and simply said:

"One thing you need to know about Lisa is that she gets excited about pretty much anything. I won't even start talking about what she's like when a new shipment of stationary comes in." (best day in the office)

I simply shrugged outwardly, trying my hardest not to prove Line-Manager-Monica right, whilst inwardly I was dancing about and saying to myself I totally wrote about this just the other day! I have no filter for my excitement at all! How exciting that someone else has noticed that!

Anywho, Line-Manager-Monica then went on to publicise my blog to these two unsuspecting colleagues of ours. She said that my posts just proved how excited I get and that if they read it they would 'be on the floor, laughing.'

I stopped being excited at this point and a large level of dread fell on me. Suddenly there was all this pressure to be funny. What if my colleagues went on this blog thinking 'Hey, hey, I'm ready to laugh and wet myself and then have to stitch up my side due to all the splitting it will be doing' and then they get to it, read a bit and then just fall into an abyss of depression as they realised that I wasn't as funny as they thought and actually now they didn't get the laugh they were expecting so they just start to cry instead????!!!!

I wanted to say something along the lines of "actually I'm not that funny, chances are you will be bored stiff reading it and just want to jump off a cliff afterwards." But then I realised that this isn't a good way of publicising one's writing which is what I am really trying to get better at doing.

So I then thought of maybe still publicising it a little but downplaying Line-Manager-Monica's comments by saying something along the lines of "You may laugh, but the likelihood of laughter is really minimal so don't be too disappointed if you don't." However, that then opened me up to look like I was fishing for a compliment which I hate.

So after going through all this in my mind, I resorted to my default position whenever I receive a compliment of any kind... I start mumbling incoherent words under my breath and my body went into shut down mode. For those of you who are confused on what shut down mode looks like... it basically is me but hunched over, facing the floor and busying my hands with anything it can find (lucky for me, The Simpsons was still open on my phone). I stayed this way until the conversation had changed topic. Once it had, I rebooted again and straightened my back, engaging into eye contact once more.

After typing all of this, I realise that this now looks like one massive fish for a compliment. Please do not see it that way. In fact, if anyone dares say anything nice in the comment box I will send you a virtual slap. Only nasty insults and general slagging off allowed today please. Actually, if you don't make me cry then you don't win today. Sorry.

So that's it for today methinks. Except to say that my online novel is still going on, on my creative writing page. There are nine chapters uploaded now, with a new chapter uploaded each day. It's about the end of the world, so if you weren't depressed by reading this... go ahead and check it out.

Peace out my lovelies.

Thursday 6 December 2012

It is COLD!!!!

Dear all,

It is that time of year where I receive the first of my country's extreme weather and I decide I'm ready to complain about it in post form.

Ladies and gents, in case you wanted to know because you are interested in the types of weather throughout the world, here's my input... It is cold in London today.

I'm not kidding, I walked into work today and, due to the fact that all of my clothes are still in bin bags partly because I live in a world riddled with denial and partly because I have to use a hammer to put my chest of drawers together and whenever I get home The-Four-Year-Old I now live with is usually asleep, I cannot find my gloves at all.

...


After reading that last paragraph back, I feel that it would be important to highlight that I'm not living with just The-Four-Year-Old, her mum, dad and siblings live there too... just wanted to clarify that before any rumours started up.

Anywho, I have no gloves and so stepping outside into this weather this morning made my fingers complain non stop at me. Apparently they don't like being cold as much as the rest of me. And given that they were exposed to it the most, I swear I reached the point where they were so frozen, if I had tried to bend one, it would have just snapped away... luckily that didn't happen but just in case, I'm going to look for my gloves tonight... you know, because I like my fingers and would like to keep them and all. I get the feeling that without them, I would find typing these posts a lot more difficult... although I'm convinced I would master the art of typing with my nose eventually, I'm not denying that it would look bizarre to watch... especially in corporate meetings where I'm required to do the minutes at work... hmmmm, yes I think gloves are a necessity.

I'm spending Christmas again up in Scotland this year. (You may be all 'woah Lisa, a second ago you were talking about gloves and now you're onto Christmas? Some warning please!' But I would like to challenge anyone who is thinking about gloves not to also think about Christmas, those things obviously go hand in hand... unless you live in Australia, in that case I excuse you and welcome you to feel disorientated by the sudden topic swap.) I'm hoping that we may actually get snow on Christmas day this year, I hope this every year but I'm feeling especially good about this year, it feels like the one...

In other news (yes there's more, you lucky things), I'm loving my new little home. Earlier this week, I was leaving the house to hear a little voice call out 'Lisa!' I turned round to find The-Four-Year-Old come running up to me and give me a massive hug. I actually wanted to take the girl with me to work and just sit in my office and do cute things all day. However, she was still in her pyjamas and I think I would probably need to tell her parents in advance... Then yesterday morning, we sang disney songs before I left to work and I realised I may be falling into some form of happy-go-lucky fairy tale where everything is bright and fun and people break out into singing at any given moment and then the whole world joins in with perfect harmonies because they know exactly what's happening and are just excited to feel a part of the whole thing... Actually, I should probably check whether this is something that is actually happening. Judging by my extensive research of this (by watching Buffy episodes regularly), I gotta feeling, it could be demons, a dancing demon... no something isn't right there...

Anywho, I'm off to write some highly important fictional stuff. For those of you who haven't heard from my endless tweets, facebook comments and post updates (and if you haven't heard, I'm assuming you've been hiding under a rock somewhere with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears whilst humming loudly), I'm also uploading my NaNoWriMo novel in my creative writing blog. A chapter a day at the moment. Today's is chapter three. Would love to know what you think. Check it out here.

Thank you also to everyone who has already been reading it, your feedback has been awesome and I love you all deeply with all of my being and other stuff.

PS: For those of you who caught my Buffy quote in this post, well done, you get a gold star and a pat on the back and a big sloppy wet kiss from me... sorry about that last one, but it's kinda a package deal!

Peace out my lovelies.

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Fancy a little light apocalyptic reading?

Hey guys,

So I've decided that I'm going to just go ahead and publish the book I wrote last month on my Creative Writing blog. I'll be uploading a chapter a day and quite honestly, if you don't read it bad things will happen like ... ummm ... every time someone looks at this post and doesn't then follow the link to my creative writing page, somewhere a donkey will drop down dead. Come on, no one want's that on their conscience, especially around Christmas time, how else will all the pregnant women get to the hospital to have their babies?

Basically, any of you who have been reading my stuff for a while will know that I tend to focus quite a lot on the end of the world, be it through zombie apocalypses or fake predictions of the forthcoming rapture... I like to muse on these things, you know... for fun.

Having this tendency I should therefore not have been surprised when my over imaginative brain one night decided to give me a nightmare that scared the living daylights out of me... which was ironic, given that it was night time and so really there only were 'nightlights' available.

I woke up in a cold sweat, thinking that the entire world had ended only to realise that it was still ticking away on it's own and it was only my own subconscious that had destroyed it. Well, I was terrified for like fifteen whole minutes until I had gone through the whole dream again in my head and suddenly thought... holy crap, that would make an awesome book!

Then NaNoWriMo came up and I thought, 'meh, why not?' and so for the whole of last month I was rigorously writing my own interpretation of what the end of the world would in fact be like. It's been awesome.

I considered what I should do with this book now that it is almost finished and figured, well why not show it to you lovely people? So I am. In the link down the right hand side you will see the link to my Creative Writing page where for the next forseeable future I will be posting a new chapter of my book each day.

I'm a little nervous about doing this because so far I have really only showed my fictional stuff to people I know well and as of right now, the only person who has read this book is One-And-Only-Daniela. She likes it but she is a little biased given that I've written a character into the book called Daniela Davids who is pretty much her with the handy addition of being a genius. She liked that. Ladies and gents, I could not have picked a better way to completely play into One-And-Only-Daniela's ego. She is loving it.

So that being said, I'm taking a massive step in showing this to pretty much anyone who wants to look at it. But I really would love to know what you think. I am happy for all comments, constructive or nice... however if you are too nice I may shut down as a person and suddenly be incapable of talking to you... I have issues. But all in all, even if it's just 'hated it' or 'it was alright' I'd really appreciate it if you could pop a little comment underneath, either here or on the creative writing blog.

In fact I'm already starting to feel awkward as I'm not sure what the proper protocol is for advertising my work without sounding like I'm overselling it or loving myself too much or... or... I don't know.

I've given more than one chapter today because I wanted to introduce the four main characters that I will be moving in between throughout the book.

So without further ado... I present to you Utopia.

Peace out my lovelies.

Monday 3 December 2012

My awesome plans and where I'm at... An explanation

Okay, so after the last post, I do believe that I have caused a little worry/confusion on what it is that I am planning for 2013 and my trip to America. So I thought I'd explain it all to you...

In July 2013 I am planning to do an internship at a church/university in Kansas.

Some of you took the opinion of my brother in the fact that this meant I was joining some form of religious cult. That's my fault, I haven't really told you all about me when it comes to that part of my life. As you may have gathered, I am a Christian. I have been my whole life. My parents are priests in the Salvation Army (AKA Salvation Army Officers) and I myself go to church each week.

I've held back talking about this part for two reasons:

One.
I'm not a massive fan of shoving my beliefs in everyone else's faces. I don't think it is that beneficial as it, more often than not, just pisses people off, especially if they don't want to hear it and my experience of Christianity isn't like that, it's actually by far my favourite thing in my life. So, I'm of the opinion that if people want to know about it then it should be up to them if they want to find out more about it.

Two.
Religion of any kind tends to evoke a pretty emotional response out of a lot of people. I'm really not in the business of upsetting people on this blog or making people feel alienated/angry from what I have to say, however innocent it may be meant.

This is meant to be a light hearted blog where people can come to wind down after a stressful day and as such, I try to keep it as neutral as possible!

I had a really long conversation with my dad about this over the weekend. He made a good point in that I've never mentioned this aspect of my life on here which is a little weird given that it is a large part of me. So I'm telling you all now!

So I am going to a church in Kansas in July but it definitely is not some form of weird cult. I have two friends who have been and come back and said it was amazing. I have been looking for a time to work out what I want to do with my life, whether it be travelling, changing my career etc and 6 months there seemed like the perfect option.

I am proud of my faith and am pretty sure that without it, I would not be the awesome and not-in-any-way-crazy-at-all person that I am today. It has helped me a lot in all my emotional crap that I deal with regularly and without my church I would most definitely be living under a bridge right now...

...

Oh yeah! I totally didn't tell you! I moved this weekend! I'm living with an AWESOME family. They've given me their attic... It is converted, they're not locking me in, in a remote corner of the house, I'm allowed out and everything!

They really want me to go away in July so they're keeping me at a discount price so that I can save, they're awesome.

I'm living at the moment out of boxes because I'm living in a pretend world of denial where everything is already unpacked so that I don't have to do it. It has been a long weekend. It's also sad because Housemate-Anna is now No-Longer-Housemate-Anna and that's longer to type which will make writing about her in the future a lot more difficult... Also it's sad because I'll miss her.

But there you are! My plans for 2013 all laid out for you to see! It's all very exciting and not at all scary... Except it is scary a little bit. I'm going to attempt unpacking tonight... Maybe. I also have a new computer which is awesome and has Windows 8 which is weird and exciting all in one. I case you're wondering, yes, I am as excited about having Windows 8 as I am about going to America next year. I tend to have no filter or idea of what level of excitement fits what. I blame my awesome personality for that... That and the new awesome happy pills I'm now on!

Peace out my lovelies.

Thursday 22 November 2012

People don't seem to take me seriously anymore... No idea why.

Dinner with Marmie, Father and Older-Brother-Glyn

(Older-Brother-Glyn has been shortened to OBG)

Marmie: Have you heard that Lisa's planning to go to America for 6 months?
OBG: No! What's this about?
Me: I'm planning to go to Kansas, it's going to be awesome!
Father: *Rolls eyes*
Me: Well, that's hardly supportive is it?
Father: I'm sorry, but you come up with a lot of over the top ideas, it's hard to tell which ones are actually realistic enough to get supportive over.
Me: Give me some credit. I'm actually going to do this one.
Marmie: She's been really excited about it.
Father: Okay, I'm sorry. I'll try to be more supportive.
OBG: So whereabouts are you going?
Me: I'm going to Kansas City. *Eyes widen as a thought comes to me* Oh my days! I might get swept up in a tornado and end up in Oz!

Everyone stops eating and just stare at me

Me: What? It could happen.
Father: You seriously don't see my point?
Me: What? That's totally valid. They do get tornados in Kansas I'll have you know.
Father: Yes, that's what we're finding unrealistic.
OBG: Somehow I don't think you hold a realistic view of what would happen if you were to be hit by a tornado.
Me: *Shrugs* Whatever, I'm going to buy some ruby slippers just in case.
Father, Marmie and OBG: *Rolls eyes*
Me: You're all just jealous that you don't have an excuse to buy a dog and call it To To.


...


Comment put on my Facebook page after I put up a link to my post about being homeless in a couple of weeks

Marc: I can't tell if you're being serious about not having a house in two weeks or whether this is just another one of your whimsical posts, but if you are then I may have an idea...


...


Phone conversation with Younger-Brother-Daniel

(Younger-Brother-Daniel has been shortened to YBD)

YBD: Mum tells me you're going to America for 6 months.
Me: That's the plan.
YBD: It's a course at a church?
Me: Yup
YBD: ... Lisa, are you joining a cult?
Me: What? No! It's a bonafide university!
YBD: ... It sounds like you're joining a cult.
Me: In what way does it sound like a cult?
YBD: They have church cults in America.
Me: They have church cults here too. I'm not in one now.
YBD: I don't think you should do it, they may do weird things like take out your brain and stuff.
Me: I'm pretty sure if they did that, it would be on the prospectus... Or at least the news.
YBD:Not if they're clever about it.
Me: So, you're telling me that the only reason I could possibly be going to America is if I was joining a cult?
YBD: What other reason could there be?

I fear I may have turned my life into one big 'Boy who cried wolf' scenario. I make a couple hundred unrealistic comments and visions of my future and suddenly no one believes a single thing I say anymore.

Oh, and in case you're worried. I looked into it and the uni/church place I'm going to stopped stealing brains years ago. Something about not having the funds for the surgery anymore... Damn recession has ruined everything.

It's mainly just lessons and singing and stuff now. I'm very excited about it. I'm kind of hoping that my living on the streets will help me save the money needed to go. But I'm coming state side y'all! This is all due to happen in July if I haven't died from pneumonia or hep b or the plague or some other type of disease that one might find living on the streets.

Peace out my lovelies.

Tuesday 20 November 2012

The clock is ticking...meh

I don't know if anyone had ever found themselves reaching that point in their mental state where the situation that they are in has become so far fetched and ridiculous that normal conventional emotions no longer apply...

I'm there.

Ladies and gents, in two weeks time I will no longer live in the flat I am currently residing in. The lease will be up. The rent will no longer be taken. People will be giving me my deposit back and throwing me out of the flat.

This was all fine and dandy when I initially found out that we wouldn't be renewing the lease because I just assumed that I wouldn't need to worry too much about it as I would obviously have found myself a new place to go to in plenty of time and that when it got to the point where people were coming to look at the flat and we were starting to pack boxes, I would naturally know where I was taking those boxes to...

Guys, I have no clue where I'm taking my boxes to.

Literally none.

Nada.

Not a sausage.

In what is coming closer to a week and a half away, I will be what I believe the kids are calling 'homeless.'

Now, whenever I imagined a scenario where this kind of dilemma was looming over me, I always imagined that I would feel some form of dread or worry or general freak out type reaction to emanate from my person. However, I have found, now that I am facing said dilemma that there is no freak out happening. In fact, (and this is as baffling to me as I'm sure it may seem to you) I am pretty laid back about the whole thing.

Line-Manager-Monica keeps on checking with me at work to see whether I have chosen to freak out as of yet, but each time I tend to find myself shrugging and coming out with the ridiculously vomit-inducing optimistic phrase of "It'll all work out, I'm sure." (And when I say she keeps on checking, I think she was on 30 minute intervals today.)

I have several theories for this ultimate calm I am protraying...

One.
I am a psychopath and as such, am devoid of all emotion so could not care less about the tragedies of living without a home... if this is the case then this must be a very early onset of psychopathy (yes, that's a word... kinda) that has just kicked in over the past week... wait, no... couple of days... wait, no... today, *remembers seeing that there was a new burger at McDonalds today and doing a little dance of joy in the passenger seat of the car (much to Work-Buddy-James' disdain)* ah, crap. Never mind

Two.
I am in major denial about my whole situation. I will continue to pretend that it doesn't exist right up until my landlady takes my keys away from me and leaves me on the doorstep in the rain holding a bunch of wet cardboard boxes and my 2nd hand lap top... I wonder if I sat outside the window of my flat at that point, I'd still be able to pilfer the wifi... Note to self: Check the area outside my living room window tomorrow morning for possible crouching locations.

Three.
I have become the thing I never thought possible... a die-hard optimistic that simply doesn't know a bad situation when faced with one. Instead I look at each trial and face it with a smile and a can-do attitude! *Remembers the other day when she found herself stuck behind a really slow person at the train station, tutted impatiently and fought her way round him, only to find he was blind and was feeling his way with a cane...* Ah, crap. Never mind.

Four.
I am completely blinded by the sheer amount of extra money I am going to have next month by not having to pay any rent or bills plus getting back my deposit so I can't possibly see a downside to the whole thing. I'm telling you, this is something I can't help but feel a little bit excited about... I mean, I haven't had money in what feels like... well, I'm not too sure if I've ever had money. But anywho, the idea that my entire paycheck next month will be all mine without any rent or stupid unecessary things like bills for electricity and water taking it all is such a beautiful thing, I really am struggling to find a downside.

And yes, people have said to me that when I spend that first night out in the cold with no roof over my head, the downside might hit me. But I will say to you what I said to them, it won't hit me nearly as hard as they think because I plan to make me a duvet out of £20 notes. My friend Mike actually asked me today why I chose twenties instead of fifties... can you imagine? Clearly I'm going to be using my fifties to keep my fire alive. It has that really nice purple finish to the note that will add that extra colour to my man made bonfire.

And finally...

Five.
As mentioned in the first paragraph, I am so far beyond freaking out that I have now developed a brand new emotion which consists of an empty space of no emotion whatsoever... It sounds drastic and dark, but think about it really. Wouldn't we all want that? Someone comes up to you and says to you, "Hey guess what? The world's going to end!" Instead of freaking out about it and wasting the last moments you have alive, you just shrug it off, think 'oh well.' Get the biggest loan off Wonga.com you can and sod off on holiday! There you go! A dark cassim of empty feelings doesn't sound so weird and depressing anymore, does it?

So anyway, there we go. I'm without abode in just under two weeks and the main worry in my brain appears to be whether or not I'll find somewhere with wifi access so that I can still blog and shizzle.

Actually, I might just ask my current internet provider to keep the internet running after I'm gone and I know for a fact that if I sit on the stone step out by my back door, I can still reach the wifi... The new occupants will only notice I'm there when they need to use the kitchen. And how often do people use kitchens nowadays anyway really?

Besides, with all my new cash that I will have from not paying for a place to live, I could buy a perfect camouflage outfit that will make it look like I'm just a giant bush that has blown onto their porch by the wind. Or I could even mix it up and buy me a cats costume too. I could just perch myself on their porch and occasionally lick a paw and groom myself. Who knows, they may even take pity on the stray cat and leave me out a bowl of milk or something... awesome.

I know a lot of you reading this are probably screaming at me to get a move on and try to find a place to rent rather than dreaming of different cat costumes to wear (I'd be a black cat by the way, that way I get to be a cat and blend into my surroundings). But you see, it's a little more tricky than that... I'm kinda hoping next year, in around July time to pack up my troubles in my old kit bag and head off state side for 6 months... yes that is correct. I am aiming to come to America. It's a whole thing that I've been looking into and not finalised but am telling everyone like I have finalised because then that means it's true (damn, I might be that chippy optimist after all). But as such, I really don't want to sign a contract for a new lease because then I won't be able to go and blah blah blah.

This is a lot of information that I have thrown at you, sorry about that.
Let's summarise shall we?

1. I am homeless in just under two weeks.
2. I am surprisingly zen about the whole thing.
3. I will be looking into a cat costume for using wifi so that I can still blog, tweet and read internetual things.
4. I will be coming to Kansas, America (fingers crossed) in July 2013 for 6 months. More regarding that no doubt to follow.

So with all that, I bid you adieu as I head to bedfordshire without showering because I'm too tired and also slightly gross.

Peace out my lovelies.

Eureka! I've found the answer!

Had a bizarre 'The Script loving whilst pretty much unconscious' moment this morning.

My radio alarm went off this morning with The Script's new song playing. Without thinking or being properly awake, I reached for my trusty Shazam app, found it on iTunes and bought that shizzle only to fall asleep again.

About an hour later I woke up to The Script's previous song on the radio. This time, it had managed to weave itself into my dreams where, for some bizarre reason, Rihanna was in a sewer dancing to it with a bunch of dancers. Then I was there dancing along with them... Can I just say, I am an amazing dancer in my head... Seriously, I can move. Anywho, I ended up being pulled along by male dancers, some dressed in red, some blue, and some black and my subconscious read that to be the GB flag colours (I may not be that clever in my head (either that or I secretly think I'm German)) and I had to choose which colour I wanted. The red meant that I wanted to see famous people, and black meant I wanted to see politicians... I didn't get as far as what blue meant because I half woke up and was shazamming the second Script song before I knew what I was doing or had fully woken up. I don't know how they did it but The Script have some form of magical mind power that has me buying songs in my sleep. Kudos to you The Script... Clever boys.

In other "I'm sick" news. You'll be pleased to know that I am no longer throwing up over anything that moves. My work colleagues were also pleased to know this, not that any of them would come anywhere near me yesterday... Apparently being ill with something that is contagious means that people aren't too fond of being near you... I do believe I have found the answer to people leaving you alone on public transport.

Right, that's it, today whilst I am on the train I shall sneeze in a nice over dramatic way and when I receive the odd looks, I shall say "Don't worry, the doctors who quarantined me did say that the virus was almost definitely gone..."

Get in. Man. Heinakroon will be so proud of me.

Peace out my lovelies.

Monday 19 November 2012

Careful, you may catch a cold if you read this.

So I get to play a fun game today... It's the game of "how long in the day will I last before I pass out or die?"

You see, I'm sick. Like majorly so. As in, I am pretty sure that not only should I be in bed, but the bed should be in a government funded quarantined space to stop the entire world coming down with my life threatening virus.

But I'm not. I'm on my way to work, spreading my virus to all the unsuspecting passengers on the very many trains I have to take to get into work.

My reasons for this? Well, they are two-fold:

One.

I have a very important meeting to attend today with very important people and I'm the one that has to set up paperwork and audits and minutes and so on and so forth.

Two.

The regular readers of my blog will know that I am sick a lot... I mean, a ridiculous amount... It really is stupid and unbelievable how often I get sick. And it's not just the stupidly low immune system I have... Nope. I also have the tendency to undercook chicken and give myself food poisoning, or try and walk down stone steps with my hands full so that I almost break my leg.

Yes, my subconscious has a death wish and I appear powerless to stop it. But anywho, due to this, my sickness levels at work are not too great. I really try not to smack my head on the boiler in my bathroom a week into my new employment, but sometimes (especially to me) these things just happen.

So today, although I have spent the weekend holed up in my flat, trying my hardest not to chunder all over the place, I am on my way to work, trying really hard not to chunder all over a new space.

So I've set myself a bet, the longer I last without dying the bigger prize I get. Not too sure what the prize is yet but I'm pretty sure there are bonus points for not throwing up over the important people in this meeting this afternoon.

So my nose is red and swollen to twice its size thanks to the amount of tissue activity I've had to make it endure, my stomach is telling me that I categorically should not have got out of bed this morning and my voice sounds remarkably like how I would imagine a frog to sound if it could speak real English words, but I am going in! Lets hope I don't pass it on to everyone I come into contact with... I'm aiming for 40%... I think that's reasonable.

Peace out my lovelies.

Saturday 17 November 2012

It actually happened... My phone is fixed!

I'm feeling a little scared writing this post as I'm using the new blogger app on my phone and two days ago I spent an hour writing one on the app. It waited until I was good and finished and then it just decided to send it away, never to be seen again. As such, I'm a little suspicious if it and am scared its going to do a repeat performance... If it does I will kill it using all kinds of violence and death.

Lets just hope by doing so I don't also kill the phone that has just been beautifully recreated and allows me to do beautiful things like look at the screen and not see blue lines and shows me who's ringing when I look because its helpful. I love, love LOVE having a working phone. It has been a long cold and dark period of my life... A life without 3G which means I was writing tweet sized remarks about my day in my notebook and then commenting on them so that they looked popular and loved.

A life where I would force people to sit down and write about their day instead if telling me so that I had something to read... And it was hell to pay if they didn't have at least ten funny remarks and at least two mentions of either cannibalism, zombies, the fact that they are also socially awkward at times, the end of the world, and some form of scientific reference that I categorically do not follow but read anyway because I think it's making me smarter.

I lost a lot of friends over this time. Apparently, without an internetual outlet to express all my extra quirks, I become a little bizarre and strange and not worth hanging out with on account of people fearing for their lives or own sanity as if my crazy was contagious...

But I am back, I am raring to go, and now I think I'm going to vomit because I spent the night with a cat and now my allergies are turning into flu.

Peace out my lovelies!

Update.

I did in fact throw up. I know you wanted to know so... You're welcome.

Sunday 11 November 2012

There appears to be some kind of curse on me and phones

Okay, so by now you will all be aware of the ridiculousness of me and the mobile phones in my life.

I am currently functioning on two iphones due to the mistakes I make with them, one of them has a sim card but Lord Voldemort made me drop it and now you can't see the screen. I have got around this by learning how to use the phone without actually seeing what I'm doing. The main way in which I have learnt to do this is to use Siri to call all the people needed. This is all well and good and tends to work okay, however there are occasions like last Thursday when I asked to ring Oldest-Friend-Cafrin and Siri put me through to Kathleen instead... that always leads to interesting conversations when people answer the phone and ask who you are because you haven't called them in years and so they no longer have your number and you act shocked because the person on the other end of the phone does not sound like the person you wanted to call at all so the conversation usually ends up like:

Other person: Hello?
Me: ...Um, hello?
Other person: Who is this?
Me: ... Who's this?
Other person: You called me!
Me: I know, but I don't think I meant to.
Other person: What?
Me: I'm a little confused right now.
Other person: You're confused?
Me: Sorry about this.
Other person: Who are you??
Me: Who am I? WHO ARE YOU??

But that's only occasionally. 35% of the time I get the right person. The rest of the time Siri tells me he's having a problem or is unavailable and then I have to deal with my problems of feeling rejected by the only man I have ever felt comfortable enough to call on without throwing up over them due to commitment issues.

Anywho. That's phone number 1. Phone number 2 is the iphone I used to use before I got phone number 1. It's an iphone 3G and to say it's been a little abused is an understatement. I basically use it as a glorified ipod touch. You see, since getting the iphone 4S I upgraded to a mini sim card that doesn't like to be used in any other phone other than my iphone 4S. As such, I can't use my iphone 3G as my real phone but I can use it for games, the occasional text from iphone to iphone when in possession of wifi access and camera usage when I'm in a place that doesn't require a flash... oh and also the occasional tweet when I'm again in possession of wifi access. Mainly I use it to play mahjong, The Simpsons Tapped Out, and Jurassic Park.

Back to the abuse I mentioned. This phone has half the glass missing from the top of the screen and cracks running through the rest of the glass in every which way you can possibly imagine. It has been dropped a few times in the course of it's long and gruelling life with me. However, the screen still works which is a vast improvement on phone number 1 so it tends to go everywhere with me anyway.

Which brings me to the thing in question that has made me write this post. You see, the most annoying part of having a working iphone 4S with a broken screen is that I will get an influx of texts, hear that I have these texts, and not be able to do a damn thing about them. I do occasionally shout at the screen with words along the lines of

"WHY ARE YOU TEXTING ME WHEN I CAN'T READ THE TEXTS? I'M JUST GOING TO COME ACROSS AS RUDE AND SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T LOVE YOU BECAUSE I CAN'T RESPOND. WHY DOES THE WORLD NOT KNOW THAT I DON'T HAVE THE ABILITY TO READ TEXTS THAT IT SENDS ME?"

But on the other occasions I may be in places where shouting the above words would make me come across as 'weird' or 'a person of concern' to a passing policeman or psychiatrist (you think that sounds implausible but I work in a mental health hospital which is where apparently a lot of Psychiatrists like to hang out and get money). On these occasions I might ask Siri if he can read me the text, in the vain hope that he has learnt how to do this since the last time I asked him. He never has. I swear that man is so lazy.

It also forces me to ask others with the iphone 4S if I might borrow it to put my sim card in so that I can read a few texts or just send out a mass text that says, 'I can't read your texts people, please stop sending me them'. However, I have yet to ask a person that has said yes to this, including my own family.

I was out for a meal with Marmie, The-Father and Older-Brother-Glyn a few weeks ago and I asked them if I might be able to borrow either The-Father or Older-Brother-Glyn's phone so that I might be able to know what it feels like to have a working phone again. However, I was met with a great deal of reluctance. In fact they bother just said No and then hid their phones from me for the remainder of the meal. Apparently I can't be trusted for even five minutes at a restaurant table, in their full sight, with one of their phones. I found this a little over the top and harsh... until last Tuesday.

I was on the train, listening to phone number 2 as it also serves as a good source for playing music. I was sitting on the train and my stop came up. I got up and made the usual fight through the mass of people on the train to get to the doors before they decided to shut and force me to ride to the next station.

I had been successful right to the door as there had been a woman in front of me leading the way and I simply slipped into the path that she was paving away. However, just as I got to the door, I felt a snag on my earphones. A man, right in the doorway had decided to wear buttons that day. Who does that? Anyway, the earphones caught on the button and before I could salvage the situation, my iphone was dislodged from my pocket.

I watched it fall. Like it was in slow motion. I heard the people around me gasp and swear as they too saw it. Out my pocket it came, down it fell, past the other people standing, past the actual train itself as it managed to find it's way through the small gap between the train and the platform. It went down and down until it landed on the small bit of ground next to the track. I just stood there gobsmacked. I had made it to the platform, a few others were staring as well, most were just trying to get on the train.

A woman tapped me on the shoulder. "Go get one of the men that work here, they have a device that can pick it up."

I had approximately two minutes before the next train arrived, that is if this current train didn't trample it to death when it left the platform. I watched the train leave, luckily it didn't touch my phone. I felt a little hope within me and went on the search for this mysterious working man with the even more mysterious device, hoping that it might be something mystical and glowing.

I walked up and down the ridiculously long platform, (seriously, why do they build them so long?) I found no one. Another train was approaching, I could hear it and I could also feel my stomach about to heave up it's contents. The train came, I couldn't even bring myself to check on it. Instead I closed my eyes tight, crossed everything that I could possibly cross, sent out a desperate prayer and then made my journey up the stairs to the main entrance, which would mean another five trains would pass before I would be able to come back down with a man and his magical device.

There was an option 2 that I almost went with which was just jumping down and grabbing it, but due to the chance of death for the sake of not having a crushed phone, I decided that my family and loved ones might have preferred I find the magic man first.

It felt like the longest journey ever finding this man. It didn't help that my imagination had gone into overdrive and I was trying to convince myself that I wasn't in fact on a quest to look for a hobbit type creature with a magical golden staff...

I eventually found a man who was actually pretty ordinary looking for what I expected, he was normal sized and wearing the same uniform I've seen all the working people at the train stations wear... I was a little disappointed if I'm perfectly honest. Trying not to show my disappointment, I explained my situation and he went with me back down to the platform where the incident occurred. I still had hope for the device, imagining the latest in technology that could cause objects to levitate in front of our very eyes.

We get there and have to wait as another two trains go by. Apparently this man couldn't actually get my phone, he had just walked me down in case I got lost? I don't know, maybe he just wanted to see the magical device at work.

Eventually, after the second train left the station and, as far as I could tell, my phone still seemed to be intact. Another depressingly normal sized man in depressingly normal looking clothing turned up with his device.

It was a sodding stick for picking up rubbish. What an anti-climax.

Not to mention, the man dropped the phone after attempting to pick it up once and then, when he did get the phone up to the platform, instead of placing the phone carefully down on the platform floor where I could then pick it up, or even placing it my hands, the man noticed a paper that had been thrown on the platform floor under a bench. He became incredibly excited by this fact and threw my phone onto the platform floor with gusto as he (and I'm not exaggerating here) pounced on the paper to pick it up with his rather boring looking device.

I wasn't too sure how to react to this, on one hand he had just saved my phone from death by train, on the other hand, he might have caused more damage by throwing it on the platform floor. Do I say thanks? Do I complain and blame all the cracks on the screen on him in the vague hope that he buys me a new one?

I was so flustered and confused I went to my default British move which was politeness in all causes. I muttered a thanks and walked off.

There you have it. I should not be allowed near phones. Especially as I have bought a new screen for phone number 1 on ebay and received it to realise that I bought a white screen for a black phone... hmmmmm. Ah well, it will be unique. I just need to get it fixed on now...

Peace out my lovelies.

Saturday 10 November 2012

I have permanent finger cramp and an awesome word count to show for it.

Hey peeps,

Can I just say, this novel writing melarkey is awesome. I'm feeling all inspired and ready to face the world. And given that this novel is about the end of the world, then you can imagine how prepared I am!

For those who do not know, I am doing NaNoWriMo this month. Which is basically writing a novel of 50,000 words in a month. I have kept above the curve slightly for the month so I'm happy and am currently on a word count of 20,510 words.

My main motivator (as it was with the last book I wrote) is One-And-Only-Daniela. Seriously, when that woman wants something done, she will not rest until it is! And given that what she wants done is me writing a book, she tends to lean towards slave driving me to reach my goal each day.

You see, what I have done in this book is write in a character who has the name Daniela and has a few similar qualities to a certain One-And-Only person I know. As such, she is asking me for a new installment to the book every hour or so. I kid you not.

On Tuesday, I went to work, I had to work mainly on the ward in the morning, so I was away from my computer. I get into my office at about 1pm and find 5 emails all from One-And-Only-Daniela at different points in the morning demanding to know where her next installment was to read. With each email, the damands got more and more intense. I actually feared her towards the 5th email, I was almost convinced that she was going to pop out at any point and hold a gun to my head until I had another chapter to give her.

I then went on to write her a chapter, using my entire lunch break to do so. I was proud of it. I loved it. Something awesome happened in it between two of my characters, it was sweet and light and funny. I was really happy with myself, seeing that as my lot for the day.

I send it to One-And-Only-Daniela.

Five minutes later I get an email. "Finished it. Please write more. I'm WAITING!!"

As such I have been levelling off at three chapters a day which is a lot more than I thought I would be doing but is something that is completely down to One-And-Only-Daniela. If you ever need help getting something done, then she's your lady.

I do have two more things to discuss with you from my week, including another mishap with my phone (I know, I need serious help) and a wedding that was amazeballs but also painful (for me, not for the bride and groom, as far as I know they had a good time). I was going to do a run down of both in this post as well but I figure they're big enough for a blog on it's own so will keep you in suspense for a little longer!

Love you all.

Peace out my lovelies.

Friday 2 November 2012

Get in! Published writer here I come!

I have started the NaNoWriMo project today and I am over 6,000 words! This is awesome, given that I should be doing only 1,677 words a day. According to the website, I should finish my novel in one week.

Alas, the problem lies in the fact that the novel in my head is a lot longer than the word count NaNoWriMo expects. As such, it may look like I have won the challenge at the end of the month but the novel won't be finished!

Does this mean I fail or win? I'm a little confused on the outcome.

Peace out my lovelies.

Wednesday 31 October 2012

The "Property Ladder" explained... you're welcome

So tomorrow I embark on the wonderful world of NaNoWriMo.

For those who don't know, it is a writing challenge type thing where your mission is to write a novel in the space of one month.

I have my idea safe in my mind and I am ready and raring to go. This may mean that I am going to disappear once again from this blog. I do apologise in advance if this happens, I will try to write the occasional tid bit every now and then throughout the month. Especially as it happens to also be my birthday month and the month where there is a large possibility I will be moving once again... either that or I will be homeless.

You see, Housemate-Anna has decided to embark into a wonderful world that has a ladder called 'Property.' Apparently, this involves standing on the bottom step of this ladder and living there. Eventually, by doing this for a while, you will find yourself owning this particular part of the ladder. Once you have done this you can then make the decision to stay on that part of the ladder and not pay any more money or sell it to someone else and use the money to pay for the next step.

All of this, as exciting as it sounds, seems a little bizarre to me. Apparently people are paying a lot of money to live on a plank of wood (or metal, depending on the ladder of your choosing and how fancy you want it to be). And although you get to own this plank after a while, I fail to see how it can be especially comfortable to live on or how you stop from getting rained on and feeling cold in the winter... unless the ladder is located indoors with central heating and there is a blanket and hot water bottle available for this. However, if you're going to go so far as to place the ladder indoors, you might as well just buy the building you've put the ladder in as it should be able to provide a little more room and I would imagine it would be a lot more comfortable to sleep in. But who am I to judge?

I'm obviously missing something about it all anyway because it seems to be quite the fad in this country. A lot of people seem to like doing it and, even more bizarrely, like to move up the ladder when the time comes. Now, unless this is for the challenge, I once again find myself completely baffled by this notion... If you are on the bottom plank of wood then you have more accessibility to the floor around the ladder. It would ensure that you can have more stuff that you can balance against said ladder and, although you run the risk of having things from the higher steps falling on you, at least there is less chance of you falling from a great height to your death.

The higher up you go however, the farther it is to fall and the harder it is to balance all your stuff on the planks you now own. Also, you will have to attempt to climb the ladder around all the people below you and I don't like climbing ladders when they're empty! No thanks, I'll just keep to my buildings and the beds I'm able to keep in them instead.

There are a few conclusions I have come to after I thinking about this a little more.

1. Judging from the amount of people who like to join this ladder over the course of history, this world consists of a lot more dare devil type people than I imagined. Although recently I think we have been birthing a generation less so, as more and more people seem to be renting houses instead.

2. I think I now know why there are so many large houses and buildings now, they're not there for the fancy look of them, they are a necessity in order to house these "Property ladders."

3. I have not investigated this country well enough because I have yet to see one of these ladders for myself. Note to self: Ask to visit Housemate-Anna once she has found an available bottom plank of wood so that I can see this marvel with my own eyes.

4. People seem to be spending far too much money on these special ladders. Especially when they could just go to Homebase and get a whole ladder that they can own completely, top steps and all, for about £20.

5. It is possible that the ladders I have seen (for getting into lofts and getting cats out of trees etc) might not be to scale to these amazing ladders that Housemate-Anna has been talking to me about.

6. I should probably have this discussion with Housemate-Anna when I haven't been drinking copious amounts of wine as I might not have got an accurate understanding of how this works.

Anywho, as I'm not quite ready to live on a ladder, whether I own it or not, I am hoping to find myself another person to live in my lovely abode with, or find a person with a real home that I can live in. All of this needs to be organised for December 2nd (moving day) and as it stands at the moment, I have absolutely no plans whatsoever... none at all... not even a sausage.

All I do know is that I cannot afford to live in the flat I'm currently living in on my own, nor any other one bedroom flat in London, last year's flat taught me that well.

Surprisingly though, I have found myself completely de-stressed about it. I am at peace and not worried at all. This could be for two reasons:

1. I'm in denial and will end up homeless before I realise that I probably should have put more effort into the whole 'searching for someone to live with' thing.

or

2. Everything will just sort itself out as it always does, so what's the point in stressing about it?

I like the idea of reason 2 so I'm going to go with that one. And if worse comes to worst, I'm sure I can buy a ladder from Homebase as a back up plan.

Anywho, my point was that I will have stuff to talk to you guys about during the month of November, and now that I have found my way back to the internet, I really don't want to disappear again.

Also, after 6 months of procrastinating in what I have labelled "The World's Biggest Procrastination Of All Time" I have finally bought a new screen for my iphone so I shall be at least at a place of being able to tweet my frustrations over not being able to reach my word count goal each day for all of you lovely people to read. (You're welcome once again).

After mentioning the above procrastination, there is also a very real chance that, instead of writing this novel, I could just end up writing on this blog five times a day about random crap that doesn't mean anything... you know... for a change.

Peace out my lovelies.

Tuesday 30 October 2012

The song that will save the world... one professional dancer at a time.

Well, I had an awesome wake up this morning. My alarm is my radio and just as it came on, the song Gangnam Style came on. I have discovered that if there is ever a song that will get me up and out of bed, it is definitely that song.

I started by singing along (in my best attempt at the Korean language, which is amazing by the way). By the time it came to the chorus, I found myself wiggling around in bed doing the dance moves in a laying down motion. When I realised that this wasn't fulfilling my need of fully enjoying the song, I simply had to jump out of bed and dance around my room, singing at the top of my voice "Ooooh Sexy lady! Woopah Gangnam Style!" Leaving Housemate-Anna with a little wake up alarm of her own. Soon, I found that the moves that come along with the song weren't enough either so I developed my own beautiful and highly professional moves to go along with it. This included flourishes and kicks and wiggles and jumps and splits and backward somersaults and scissor kicks in the air whilst cartwheeling over my bed to the mirror so that I could check my hair and general 'just woken up' face, but mainly to observe my own moves first hand and marvel at my amazing choreographing skills.

I would like to say at this point that I was able to look in the mirror and say, wow, I quite obviously missed my calling as the lead in the Royal Ballet Company... however, it was more me realising that my splits were not actually as impressive as I thought, apparently leaving five feet worth of gap between myself and the floor does not a split make (this being pretty impressive in itself, given that I am actually only 5 foot 1). My backward somersaults turned out to be me just jumping backwards, closing my eyes and imagining that I just jumped 360 degrees into the air when I had actually just taken a step back and landed on my bed again. My scissor kicks were a little more impressive, although the mirror was next to the wall so I found I was just causing myself damage by re-enacting these as I was just smacking the right side of my body against the wall.

So, yes. I did just end up bruising myself massively but the words I didn't understand from the song were soaring through my body and interweaved into the most excited parts of my soul and so I didn't care that I had probably caused myself internal bleeding that would have needed hospitalisation if it wasn't for the fact that I was incredibly infectious with my Ebola virus... wait... I'm pretty sure that people with Ebola aren't able to dance with such flourish... does this mean that I may in fact be healed?

IT IS A MIRACLE!!! I'M CURED!!

Wow, that song really does fix everything...

All of this left me in such a good mood that I almost didn't mind I had made myself a beautiful coffee in my "Warning: Biohazard" flask and then left it in the kitchen instead of taking it out of the house with me. I didn't even realise until I was practically at the train station... this might have something to do with the fact that I was still singing "Gangnam style" in my head whilst doing a slightly more dumbed down version of my dance moves as I walked down the street... I think I just figured out why that group of builders were staring at me in a perplexed fashion as I passed them this morning.

I might have a word with my local radio station and ask them to play that song at the same time every morning... I am not a morning person so this was a pretty out-of-this-world, unique morning. If the song manages to cure ebola and my 26 year long inability to wake up in a good mood then I'm nominating it for a Nobel Prize... I can do that right? Do they have a people's choice category in that? If not, then they should have. I'll speak to them shortly after I've phoned my radio station...

And if I still have time after all that, I might give the Royal Ballet Company a call and ask them if they have any vacancies. If not as a dancer then I at least should get a choreographer spot.

Say it with me people:

"Ooooh sexy lady!! Ooh, ooh ooh ah, WOOPAH GANGNAM STYLE!!"

Peace out my lovelies.

Monday 29 October 2012

Take that Dr Gregory House

To all of you sceptics who assumed that I was hot yesterday due to the heat from house, duvet and computer... turns out you were wrong! I'm properly ill! Huzzah! I was correct! Downside is that this means I might be looking at imminent death but still, I win the deep satisfaction of knowing that I was correct.

The way I'm feeling at the moment, does make me feel, had I a little more testosterone in me, I might indeed be suffering from the dreaded man flu... however, as I am a woman as far as I know, I cannot say that this is what I have. As such, there is no other option but to come to the conclusion that I have the ebola virus (thanks to Dr Gregory AIRIGOAGAIN for diagnosing me with this one).

This is unfortunate but, rest assured, I am living my life to the full with the time I have left. I have spent the afternoon of today watching half an episode of House and sleeping. I plan on spending the rest of my evening updating my "Simpsons Tapped Out" game (I'm rebuilding Springfield single handedly, yes I am that awesome) having a shower and... I don't know... sleeping some more?

I'm going to go now however as my lap top is sitting on my duvet as I write and I can hear Heinakroon's disapproval at this from here... you really have a very loud condescending tone Heinakroon, I am impressed to such a degree that I have found myself shamed into removing my duvet from my lap... Also this now solves my sweating-to-the-point-of-smelling problem. Well done.

Peace out my lovelies.

Sunday 28 October 2012

Okay, so I may be one of those people who confuse TV and real life...

So it's freezing outside and I'm sweating. I've decided that the reason for this is one of two options.

1. The heating has been on too high in my flat, I'm tucked under my duvet on my sofa and my lap top in on my lap (I'm nothing if not a true believer of making sure all objects live up to their names) and is radiating heat up and down my legs.

2. I'm dying of some form of tropical disease.

I think we all know the right option... it's quite obviously option 2.

Now there may be some sceptics amongst you who would have gone down the more obvious track of option 1 but let me say this... after spending the past month or so rewatching five series of 'House' the answer is never the obvious one... I mean, I don't know about you but when I hear hoofs galloping on the ground and a four legged mammal riding towards me on the horizon, I almost always find it is a zebra and not a horse. My reasons? Well, if it's a horse in England, the land of all period dramas ever known to man, then that's just boring. But if it's a zebra in England? What an awesome story to tell! So awesome that it might even warrant not being true in order to get the laughs and general merriment needed to simply get through the day.

This is why I will always choose the way of the ridiculous over the way of the mundane, because let's face it, which one's more interesting?

Case and point, if I had chosen option 1 as the reason why I am suddenly sweating buckets (and by 'sweating buckets' I mean providing enough sweat to fill multiple buckets, not that I am single handedly giving birth to wooden buckets from my pores ... (or am I?)) then this blog would have simply been 'I'm hot... the end.' But by choosing option 2 I am quite clearly creating an interesting blog that can easily lead to a mysterious illness which would result in multiple amounts of tests, none of which I would have to pay for because I live in a country that doesn't charge me for being run over by a bus and then given the gift of actually living again... (sorry, I work for the NHS, I get a little protective of it sometimes), tests which will come up as clear so that they have to ship Dr House over here to find out how I managed to catch a tropical disease from some remote island off the pacific ocean when I haven't left the country in just over two years... my money's on some fruit that I ate this morning... those parasites get everywhere.

And for those of you who might think that Dr House wouldn't come over here, I have already looked into it and the man is actually secretly British and just puts on an American accent... and when I say 'secretly' I mean, not secretly at all because really the whole country have taken great pride in saying "that man's one of us and people in America love him! We succeed again! Huzzah! Let us all do a jig!" ... ah, I seem to have fallen into a stereo type... hold on a tick... will be back to you in a jiffy... oh bloody hell, what a tiz waz I have found myself in, and now I appear to be slightly stuck in a bore of a character... woopsy daisy... *coughs loudly and smacks her head against one of her zebras* and I'm back.

It would appear that this has turned into one of those blogs where I have gone off on a long line of stupid and pointless tangents to the point where I have lost interest in my initial point... as such, I probably won't bother with any of the testing bit and just cross my fingers that I don't die... also, I might open a window and put my duvet to one side... you know, on the off chance I was wrong in my diagnosis.

Oh and in other news, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this November... check out my profile for a sneak peak and if you are doing it to then please let me know and be my friend! It's my first year of doing it this year and I'm all excited but feel a little bit like a virgin at some form of professional orgy so as much help, love and general chattiness as possible would be grand.

I know it doesn't mean much as I have generally been the suckiest person in the history of all the world recently when it comes to updating this blog, but I might not be able to write much in November as I would imagine NaNoWriMo taking up most of my time... I do have one massive thing that I blame my lack of internetual chat on (iphone screen completely broken thanks to Lord Voldemort and a mishap with my phone being mistook for a wand
(One-And-Only-Daniela recently uploaded a picture of the crime scene recently seconds after the incident took place, I thought I'd show it to you, in case you didn't believe me...


))

I think that's enough for now... I have Dr House's smoldering blue eyes and fake American accent waiting patiently for me...

Love you all a lot and stuff.

Peace out my lovelies.