Diary of a Suburban Squeen

Adding to my woe (already considerable), my left bra strap has been twisted for most of the day, which was very uncomfortable. It's tipping it down and I have no umbrella or, indeed, any coat. I didn't have time to blow dry my hair this morning so it looks shit. I didn't put on any make up, so I look shit. I am completely unironed and look like I slept in a laundry basket. The phone has NOT STOPPED RINGING, like people somehow think I might be interested in talking to them. I am SURROUNDED BY STUPID, as usual. The Fellow who's supposed to deal with patients has fucked off for the weekend without (i) telling anyone or (ii) doing any of the work I gave him this morning, some of it specifically to do with patients who are coming in VERY SOON INDEED.

Back in happier days, Katie and I went to see Inglourious Basterds on Wednesday (oh, Orange Wednesday, never leave), which I was a bit sceptical about seeing but OMG I LOVED IT LIEK WOAH. Absolutely brilliant. I would recommend it whole-heartedly.

ETA: Oh, Charlie Brooker, he's a card...

Oh my God, I might as well prostitute myself and be done with it. I HATE BEING POOR! HATE IT!

In other news, have applied for a job in Hammersmith. Probably won't get it, probably won't get an interview, probably am going to have to live in a bedsit in Neasden, where the pixies will eat me. Trag. Everything is trag. O. O. O.

1. I did not sleep last night. I read some McShep and watched a lot of Lewis. I am now VERY TIRED INDEED. And also STUPID.

2. I did not make myself any lunch this morning, even though I had lots of time. I have thus had a yellow party ring for my lunch.

3. I wrote a story (SGA) of which I am UNFEASIBLY PROUD and which is probably THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER WRITTEN (excepting possibly my tiny, tiny mandroid crossover), and practically nobody has commented. I am DISPROPORTIONATELY SAD about this.

4. I put on beautiful red nail varnish on this morning, and it has already started to chip a bit. Boo. AND WOE.

...not that I'm a total drama queen or anything...

OMG! Tragedy! Emma is trying to BREAK UP ME AND KATIE!!! Have you ever heard anything so heinous? Mind you, this is the woman who keeps trying to run me over with her pathetic child’s blue-plastic-chair-on-wheels and otherwise make my life a living hell…

So, today has been the day of utter and unrelentingly crap and me being very, very stressed and wanting to throw things, and having to breathe very, very deeply and regret the fact that I cannot kill people over the telephone, as that could clearly come in quite handy, particularly when dealing with the many, many employees of Sainsbury's with whom I had dealings today. And my constant reactions to dealing with stress are (a) shopping and (b) eating. Due to Sainsbury's and their ridiculous inefficiency, I am going to get charged for being over my limit on my Mastercard. My Mastercard, however, has not realised this yet, and thinks I still have money on the balance, leading me to decide that I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Or, rather more to the point, if I'm going to be charged £12 for being over my limit by about £3, I might as well go all out, and really go over the limit. (Yes, this is stupid. Yes, I am financially irresponsible.) Today, on leaving the office, instead of wending my way southwards on the Jubilee line, I went north. Towards Ikea. Where there are pink sheets and pretty things and... well, yes. Anyhow. Yay me #1: I realised this was a resoundingly stupid idea, and decided to go home. Got off at Finchley Road and remembered the existence of the O2 centre. Went to the O2 centre. Made a purchase which I will take back and therefore doesn't count. Went to Sainsbury's (I know, it stuck in my craw) and kept putting ridiculously self-indulgent things in my basket and then (yay me #2) took them out again and merely bought milk, bread, soup, eggs, grapes and a bit of chocolate cake stuff (which was only 79p and quite necessary given my mood). I know this is all stupidly obvious and straightforward and duh, but I really struggle with being practical and financially sensible when I'm having a bit of emotional turmoil (well, always, really, but particularly in times of strife), and being even vaguely sensible this evening has made me feel all smirky and good.

♥ Katie reminded me last night that I have not updated you as to my fringe-cutting escapade. Now, you know my fringe-cutting escapades. You know them well. I have not spared you the smallest of gory details. Waiting until Katie was out for the evening to cut my fringe is probably the first indication of the madness that seems to envelop me every time I reach for a pair of scissors and pull my fringe over my eyes to see just how far down my nose it reaches (answer: almost to the end, this time; I’ve been having a very, very swoopy fringe). I started out with the green kitchen scissors but they’re useless. I meant to change to the blue kitchen scissors because they’re very efficient and can cut off an entire fringe with a single snip. Sadly (or perhaps not, in retrospect) I could not find them (don’t worry: I did subsequently – they were under my duvet. Obviously). Thus, I was left to cut my fringe with my nail scissors (only ever so slightly rusted). Now, this may sound like a recipe for disaster but actually, because my nail scissors can only cut about three strands of hair at a time, it went OK. I was very sensible (mainly because I was not, for once, under the influence of the demon alcohol), and now I have a sensibly short, fairly straight fringe. Which is, I feel I ought to point out, more than my mother ever managed.

♥ WTF? Where did the sunshine go? La la la nice weather, bit of sun, nice weather, sunny sunny, FUCKING DELUGE. I mean, quoi? Pah, say I.

♥ It is a truth universally acknowledged that finding out someone has been bitching away about you, even when logic has always dictated that this be the case, is a little distressing. Not least because there has probably been bitching away to complete strangers who now think I am indeed an utter queen of evil. Which, OK, I’m not exactly Little Miss Lovely, but still. Oh, let me flail my hands with woe, collapse onto a cushy surface, and proclaim my tragic victimhood to the world…

♥ I love Megan. She’s such a star. Yesterday, she was a snail and I was a ladybird. Good times. I shall remind her of this when she is fourteen, and she will die with shame. We also played hide and seek, but I’m so bad, because I just leave her hidden for ages and do other stuff. Yesterday, I was upstairs with Kathye and Hannah, and Megan sent Katie as an emissary to see when I was coming to find her. Shame, shame on me. Also, much cuddling with Hannah, which is always joyful, because she is, obviously, the most darling baby in the history of the world, ever.

♥ Hmm, my laundry has stopped smelling quite so much of the washing powder. This is a good thing. Also, on the domestic front, I have cleared away the crap from outside my bedroom door. I can now leave my bedroom without performing a series of daring acrobatic acts. It’s almost too much to cope with. Also changed bedlinen for the first time in about three years. Joy.

♥ TV. I love TV. Love it so much I am unable to articulate the depth of that love. Fortunately for the ongoing domestic bliss of the love nest, Katie loves TV too. Our fall schedule (if I may borrow the American phrase, as under the circs that seems more appropriate) is packed and we are joyous. It has started tentatively this week. Prison Break and Gossip Girl on download, with the ends of NCIS and Dexter on FX. Prison Break is obviously a familiar friend, but Gossip Girl was new, and a later addition to our televisual timetable. We weren’t blown away by the beginning, and were contemplating not even finishing the episode. This was something of a relief, as we have a lot of TV to get through every week, even bearing in mind that some shows are being left for hiatus. But no, we foolishly continued, our English passion for fairness working against us. It’s teen crap of the best and brightest kind, and we now eagerly await episode 2. Dammit. Also, we saw the end of NCIS. A lot of questions about Tony and Jeanne and La Grenouille and that CIA bloke and who knew what, but I think it’s clear now. And 0.o at the end of the series. Fortunately, of course, season 5 starts imminently, so resolution will be swift. Dexter. Ooh, Dexter. I can say nothing, because Katie has not yet seen the last episode (we taped it last night and I, queen of instant gratification, stayed up to watch it, while Katie sensibly went to bed). But we had not realised it was a mid-season replacement and thus only 12 episodes, and so the season is now over. So we may have to watch that one on download as well. Curses.

♥ Guides tomorrow. It feels about three years since the last meeting.

I had a letter today from my bank. Well, not today, obviously. It's Sunday. It came on Thursday, I think, but I didn't get around to opening it till today. I get quite a lot of unexpected post from my bank, which always worries me, because I think I've got into banking trouble (even when I know perfectly well that there's nothing wrong with my account).

But anyway, my post today was offering me a £12,500 loan. This loan is, apparently, "ready and waiting just for [me]", because I am "a loyal customer who handles their account particularly well". The bank has "arranged everything": "all it takes is one phone call". They have been at particular pains to point out how easy it would be for me to get this £12,500 loan. How straightforward it would be.

I think this is absolutely appalling. How cavalier are they, to offer this sort of thing to any passing customer? I am *dreadful* with money. I mean, I'm not too bad these days. I have a regular income, which helps, and I budget regularly, and I tend to know exactly how much money I have in my bank account. But I still sometimes make stupid financial decisions, and in the past I have been absolutely unreliable, and frankly it's a miracle I managed to escape my late teens/early twenties without a CCJ. Offers like this make me feel quite threatened, really, because (after the annoyance of more junk mail) my first reaction is, ooh, lovely money, before the voice of reason takes over, but that reaction scares me a lot, because I don't want to be as crap with money as I used to be. Wah. I hate money.

Dear, sweet Lord. The Frolick, it is almost upon us. Despite frantic and detailed planning back in February, am not remotely prepared. Will doubtless be a disaster. Everyone will hate me. Am going to put on fake beard and run away to Uzbekistan.

Anyone on my flist who is coming/was going to come and can’t, please can you bop off to the SF2007 thread on the board and confirm or unconfirm yourselves? Merci… (There seem to be far more people coming than I had thought, which is only adding to unbearable pressure, oh God, why did I ever think this was a good idea? I don’t organise things. I *never* organise things! I *can’t* organise things. I’m too crap. *collapses in small puddle of weeping*)

*in a small, completely non-bragging voice* I have been crack_impala’d again, this time for Dean and Sam being small boys in the back of the car. Am feeling very validated and glowy. Which is good, given the above woe. And, in an attempt to distract myself from said woe, am wasting time by writing Five Times Dean Winchester Was A Girl. Like I don’t have better things to do. Like write questions for Chalet School Challenge.

Oh, fuck, basically.

Ah, well. Hopefully people will enjoy themselves anyway. And I do know how to provide a good spread…

Come closer, my chickadees, and I shall relate a tale. A tale of glamour, intrigue and romance. Okay, actually, there’s no romance. And it is, objectively speaking, a little light on intrigue. And the glamour is unmistakably missing. But other than that, it is a tale exactly as advertised.

It is a tale that begins last Saturday afternoon, at about five o’clock. I had slept off my early morning Harry Potter read, and was in Richmond, shopping. I had bopped around M&S’s sale, as one does, and decided to buy the previously-mentioned yellow-striped polo shirt. And then, fair readers, my eye fell upon a skirt. A navy, knee-length skirt, with a bow thing at the front and a few pleats. It was sort of like a netball skirt, except longer and less routinely pleated, and without the… actually, no. It was not at all like a netball skirt. Expunge that comparison from your minds. Anyway, I quite liked it. And being a creature of impulse, I bought it along with the yellow-striped polo shirt.

And now I’m having a quandary. I tried it on with the yellow-striped polo shirt, and decided it didn’t suit me (it is a trifle boxy, and as I am myself a trifle boxy, not to mention deplorably short on the old leg front, it was not a happy union of clothing and figure), and I would return it. But this morning, for some reason, I tried it on again with a red v-neck top suitable for the purposes of working like a trojan (don’t say a word), and my red shoes, and I decided it didn’t look too bad. I consulted Katie on the matter, and she agreed that all in all I could have looked more hideous. I am now at work, wearing my navy knee-length sort-of-pleated skirt. And I’m still not convinced. Obviously it’s too late to take it back now, but – oh, fiddle! What to do? What, as the constant cry goes, did Baby Jee do in the fit of a clothing crisis? When he stood in front of his little cupboard, deciding whether to wear the brown robes or the slightly shorter brown robes with the little twiddly red bit? What then, fair readers?

Having put aside this trauma for a moment, I shall embark upon another, not dissimilar tale. I braved the Monsoon sale last week on having a spare ten minutes at Waterloo, and purchased with my dwindling pennies a skirt and an evening top. The skirt has met with unqualified approval in the sartorial centre of my brain. The top failed at the first hurdle and I decided I would perforce have to take it back. Monsoon sale items must be returned within a week. I made my purchasal a week ago. I have forgotten to bring the top with me today. Katie, was the plan to take the Silverlink up to Camden this evening? Because if Monsoon is still open later in the evenings, I thought I might just train it into Waterloo, take the wretched thing back, and tube it up to Camden instead. But I shall see how late Monsoon is open.

Moving away from my clothing-related woe, last night saw the Guide trip to see Wicked, which more or less went off without a hitch, from my point of view. The Guides were all on time. N and H had their forms (N rather mysteriously so, given that her mother had denied all knowledge, but there you go), and R had left hers behind, but filled in a new one and her grandmother signed it. H realised whilst we were waiting for the train that she had left her glasses at home, but she rang up and her father brought them to the station in time, so we caught the planned train. Got to Victoria at about quarter to seven, and I let them roam free in WH Smiths for a while whilst we waited for Xanthe. Pobbled over to the theatre, where they all wanted to go to the loo, though unfortunately the theatre three-minutes was called, and I eventually had to go and hustle them a bit so we didn’t get stranded (not that it was going to happen and usually, of course, one ignores the theatre three-minutes as it is a giant lie, but on this occasion I was playing it safe). Wicked is, of course, made of win, and the girls seemed to enjoy it lots, and were reasonably well-behaved (though N and O could have won prizes for rustling at one stage, and R kept having to explain the plot to H). We got home without any bother, and at the stated time – huzzah! They all piled out at the end, and I wish I had told them beforehand that they needed to come and tell me who they were going home with, because none of them actually bothered, and we were peering around trying to see who was with whom.

So, I hope all the grown-ups enjoyed themselves! Tis a fabulous show, n’est-ce pas? Merci to Pimly for coming to Mortlake with me, and holding all my bits and not minding my bad temper, and merci to Katie for being the Other Grown-Up on the way home. In an evaluatey kind of way, did it work smoothly for those who went? If there was anything you thought I should have done, or shouldn’t have done, please could you let me know so I can fix it next time!

Steve tonight!!! Very excited, very excited indeed...

I appear to have lost my watch. I am sad. That is, hopefully it's not lost, just in the flat somewhere, but I usually only take it off in the bathroom and the kitchen, and it's not there. Wah. I love my watch.

In brighter news, I'm just about to bop off to meet xanantha to wander around the Cabinet War Rooms; the cable man has fixed the cable (we needed to reboot the modem each time we switched between computers, Katie, though I tried that and it still didn't work with mine); and I have set up the wireless network for FT. It's called Marjorie (Katie, I connected your laptop to it too). Huzzah. Anyway, I had best leap off now. Time, it confuses me when I have no watch.