Diary of a Suburban Squeen

So, let's see where we stand a couple of days into this LJ revival. I'm almost afraid that I do not have sufficient events in my life to sustain any kind of daily blogging. I know. It's hard to believe. However, I just went out to the Tooting metropolis and bought a pasta salad and some caramel buttons for lunch, so let's sit here while I consume them and think of things to share.

First things first. Had a surprisingly relaxed morning (largely brought about by the fact that I woke up to wee half an hour before my alarm went off). Had an egg. Chatted to Katie. Sauntered onto the 337 and broke my journey at Southside to purchase an orange mocha as recommended by morganmuffle - tasty tasty. And then I went to work which meh whatevs.

Subsequently, my mother broke my brain by referring, without a trace of irony, to the upcoming "hip hop happenings" of her weekend. My mother is neither hip, hop, nor happening (and neither, by the sound of it, is her weekend). I love her. Going to Barlborough in a couple of weeks' time as the pater will be in the country, so that will be pleasant. Well. As pleasant as jaunts to Barlborough ever get. I still maintain it's improved since they got the garden centre down the road.

Katie and I are going to see Edward II at the National tonight, which I am excited about. 1. I love a history play. 2. I love the Olivier. 3. Edward II (the king) is a slightly hilarious character in the annals of this, our native land. I read Holinshed last night, which at various points accused him of "naughtie rule" so that will be fun. Saturday is put aside for this year's visit to Ham House and Katie making chicken katsu curry (the actual best). Also an Ocado delivery. Exciting times.

And finally, in other news, I need a haircut.

So, I've been a bit quiet recently, and will continue to be so: new job means no internet (or time) during the day, and I'm too tired/have too much stuff to do in the evenings. Or something. Anyway, meme! (Saving me from having to actually structure my thoughts or my head in any way.)

You know how sometimes people on your friends list post about stuff going on in their lives, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when were they working THERE? Since when were they dating HIM/HER? Since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you should already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.

Please copy the topics below, erase my answers and put yours in their place, and then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration. One-word answers seldom help anyone out.

1. First name: Laura/Liss/Squeen/Miss Laura/whatever.

2. Age: 29 (fuck me, when did that happen?)

3. Location: London. Woo. I love London liek woah. I've lived here for just over nine years. More specifically, I live sort of on the Barnes/East Sheen border (like such a thing exists...)

4. Occupation: I work in healthcare, and mostly faff on computers in a nonchalant auditing kind of way.

5. Partner: Meh. I am a lone wolf. A LONE WOLF, people. Also a functional mute*.

6. Kids: None. I sort of like the idea in the abstract, but I don't know how I'd feel about the reality.

7. Brothers/sisters: I have a younger brother. His name's Chris, he's 27, he recently got engaged to his girlfriend, which is quite exciting, because Bex is ace.

8. Pets: None. I'm not big on animals, although I have perhaps foolishly promised Katie she may have one real cat when we're old.

9. List the 3-5 biggest things going on in your life:

1. Work. I recently left my job in a private hospital to return to the NHS, which I'm quite excited about. It's quite a bizarre mix of uber-concentration at new things and boredom at not really having a proper thing to do myself. Also, I have no desk yet so my wheely chair is my kingdom. I have good feelings about this job, but I seem to be getting up very early to get there and I'm really tired! Early nights for me.

2. CHRISTMAS!!! I love Christmas so, so much. I love the lights and the music and the smells and the presents and being allowed to watch A Muppet Christmas Carol (this weekend! this weekend when we put up the tree!) and going home to see my family and parties and clementines with leaves and just the whole exciting awesomeness of it all.

3. Pop culture. I love pop culture. TV and films and (these days) comic books and all that. Currently obsessing totally over Merlin, which is so adorable. I am a full on Gwen/Arthur fan, because they are ♥. But I'm watching loads of stuff: Supernatural (one has to get through it, after all), One Tree Hill (Naley!!!), White Collar, The Mentalist, Castle (OH NATHAN FILLION YOUR STUPID FACE), The Big Bang Theory (Katie and I sing the theme tune; it's highly amusing. Also: Sheldon!! ♥ ♥ ♥), HIMYM (when Katie watches it when I'm there - NPH, how are you so awesome?), NCIS (although Ziva seems to have gone quite bland these days), NCIS LA for the lolz, and probably random other crap too. Oh, TV... ♥

4. Katie, Katie, Katie, my tiny darling. Katie (as I can't imagine people haven't guessed) is my flatmate and WAS PUT ON THIS EARTH PURELY TO STOP ME KILLING MYSELF FROM MY OWN STUPIDITY. That is all. And she totally gives me all the attention I need (A LOT), which makes me happy. And she is full of win and comic genius and is a SKY FAIRY!!!!!!

5. My hair. Of course. I think the roots need dying again and my fringe needs a trim, but my hair's generally so amazingly good at the moment I'm scared to do it myself. Hmm. Quandary.

10. Parents. My parents are brilliant and very funny, and also incredibly annoying and spesh. My mother went to Abbeydale Girls' Grammar, and my father went to Abbeydale Boys' Grammar, and they met in the sixth form, started going out, went to university together and got married. My father likes going out walking. My mother has this thing for ironing. When Katie's parents have dinner with us, it's very chilled and laid back and nice. When my parents have dinner with us, there's lots of talking loudly and being ridiculous and taking the piss out of everyone and everyone being drama queens (mostly my father).

11. Who are some of your closest friends? Well, if we take a list and organise it from 1 to 10, where 1 is my best friend and 10 is someone I secretly hate... Quelle ridiculous question. weird_bird is my BFF. katie__pillar is the tiny flickering light in the otherwise tragic gloom of my soulless existence. I have lots of other chums too, all of whom are ace, otherwise I would not be friends with them, as I am a bitch, and do not really make any effort to be friends with people who aren't ace.


* That is a hilarious NCIS joke.

1. I am currently unashamedly listening to Billy Ray Cyrus.

2. I have now dried my hair. It's interesting. I've never had dark hair. It's basically gone from ginger to strawberry blonde to dyed red to dyed blonde to dyed red again and back to a sort of dark strawberry blonde (otherwise known humorously albeit a little hyberbolically as a fiery sunrise of titian splendour). And then bright red. And now dark. Weird. I'll have to pencil in darker eyebrows so as not to appear freakish! Still, the colour's gone on nicely, and it looks OK.

3. I bought an iPod the other day. Yes, I am a sheep. No, I don't care. It's black and shiny and pretty and I like it very much.

4. I NEED TO GO TO BED.

5. Note to self: Rand. Write it.

I write this sitting on the sofa. Which is less interesting, I grant you, than some other literary openings. Anyway, so much has happened for me to tell you all about, that I'm bound to leave everything interesting out. However, I will try my best, sadly hampered by the fact that I'm about to explode from an excess of chicken korma (mmm, chicken korma).

1. I can't remember whom I have previously button-holed on the subject of chicken korma. If it was you, I apologise. As PG Wodehouse so perspicaciously pointed out once, it is so difficult to know how to pitch your tale, when there is the possibility that bod A may know more of the story than bod B. Anyway, I have never really cooked a curry or anything like it, so it was with some trepidation that I embarked upon a recipe for c.k. that Emma gave me, but it turned out OK and I have now cooked it approximately fourteen times in the last week. Next stop: thai chicken curry, which I love but which I have, again, never cooked.

2. Do any more northerly folk know what's going on at the Tesco-roundabout-end of the Chesterfield bypass? They demolished the glassworks there ages ago, but apparently they're now building a giant (new) Tesco there, and there are rumours that there's going to be a bit of football stadium action on the remaining land - that's going to bugger up the traffic nicely come match days.

3. In re release of Lockerbie bomber as what is dying fairly imminently, WTF FBI man? Scotland's case, Scotland's jurisdiction, Scotland's decision. Fuck off out of it.

4. I'll stop waffling now and get to the nub of LIFE and the only topic about which anyone will have any interest. I'm sure you will all be delighted to hear that my hair has faded quite a lot, and although it is still massively, stupidly red, I no longer look like Jane Goldman, so yay. Also, Helen cut me a bob, which is ACE and also AWESOME (even though Pim's bathroom was apparently covered in my hair for quite some time EVEN THOUGH I totally tidied up after myself).

5. So, ja, the other weekend, I went to Helen's, and we hung out being ineffectual together, and then we went to Pimly's, where she cooked us Mexican lasagna (always a treat, and who knew Nellie Dean could even cook?! I thought she lived on scraps...) and we watched St Trinian's and Mamma Mia - frankly, what could be more glorious? What indeed? I hear you say. And, as mentioned, Helen cut my hair, which was a TRIUMPH because she is unexpectedly skilled in that arena. &Helen;

6. Subsequently, Pim and I went out to dinner at that gourmet institution that is Pizza Express. I had - no, wait for it - chicken caesar salad! I know! *makes I-know face* Who saw that coming? Service was fairly rubbish, as per, but we had a nice meal and chatted and bitched, and then wandered down the South Bank (which may well be MY FAVOURITE PLACE IN THE WHOLE WORLD) to the National, where we sat on the giant grass furniture and met Katherine and brushed our hair like land-locked mermaids and had ice lollies and chatted. All vee nice. We were, however, saddened by the absence of Kathryn, who blew us off for COLLEAGUES SHE PRESUMABLY SEES ALL THE TIME. Pah.

7. The day after that was Thursday (an accurate timeline is crucial), which was my last day at work that week. Now, we have a thing at work where, when it's someone's birthday, we bring in food AS A SECRET and have a little lunch party. However, Emma and I are the only ones who have ever arranged this, and as Emma's last day had been the Wednesday, I was not expecting lunch. We continued our hilarious file purge in the morning, and then I was called into the office in a tiny emergency TO FIND THEY'D DONE ME LUNCH ANYWAY! Woo! It was so exciting! Also, Cath had bought me a bottle of No 6 Pimm's (a sort of Pimm's No 1/vodka hybrid which turns out to be DELISH). All in all, a good day.

8. On Friday, after getting up ridiculously early to pack and blow dry my hair and such like, I bopped to Victoria to meet Katherine and Pim and wend our way up to Chesterfield, where the CBB Summer Frolick was - well, actually not scheduled to take place. It was to take place in Barlborough, the village where my parents live. The mater (eventually) picked us up and we went to Sainsbury's where Katherine shopped for Frolick food and Pim and I wandered around and bought clothes and stuff. Went home and then OHNOES! TRAGEDY! Katie was cutting short her holiday to come up to the old borough of Barl, and had booked her ticket from Cornwall to Sheffield, but tragedy had struck! Fearful traffic along the byways of the west country! No train catching! No movement of any kind! EPIC SADFACES ACROSS THE LAND. In the end, she had to give up the Sheffield plan and buy a ticket back to London. I will not lie. There was a tiny crystalline single emo tear*. Anyway, as luck and the script would have it, I managed to find a relatively decent ticket for London-Doncaster on the Saturday morning, and, with a bit of (FRANKLY GENIUS) jiggery-pokery, I booked it for her. \o/

9. On Friday evening, we had savoury pancakes and my parents were ridic. I love them. They're awesome. Also, on a similar note, Pim and I suspect that our mothers may actually be THE SAME WOMAN. Have you ever seen them in a hospital together? Have you? I didn't think so. I mean, we always knew there was the daughters-of-NHS-managery-women bond between us, but even so...

10. Saturday! Frolick! Tiny plastic Jesus watched over us all, and the Frolick went according to plan (except for the bit where I kept leaving out bits of activity, but that happens with the most well-regulated frolicks). Katie arrived sans problem. The Little School even had a cake stand for all Katherine's cupcakes (lemon cakes = delicious beyond measure). I made quiches.

11. DONNA BOUGHT ME A TINY PLASTIC JIM KIRK! BEST PRESENT EVER! HE IS MY TINY PLASTIC LOVERRRRRRRR! I LOVE HIM!

12. Saturday PM: back to the homestead, and time to open presents! Woo! I was in receipt of a tea towel (a present classic), a giant Cornwall pencil, a thing to make Virgin Mary toast, two pairs of Holy Socks AND PIM KNITTED ME A SHATNER!FACE! YES! YOU HEARD ME RIGHT! AN ACTUAL, HONEST-TO-GOD SHATNER!FACE, LIKE SHE SWORE SHE WOULDN'T! (Yeah, she's weak. Exploit her, people.) IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE WORDS! I LOVE YOU, NELLIE!! Also, Katie made me a birthday card that had me and Jim sailing down an Amsterdam canal, while Spock watched us go, his left eyebrow a picture of emo woe. Fucking beautiful. I love my friends. Then Daddy made us his chicken curry thing, which is always yum, and Katie and I tidied the kitchen and went to bed. A smashing day.

13. Right. Sunday. Got up, had some orange juice and a tea cake. Had a shower. Faffed. Katie and I went to the station with Katherine and Pim and bid them adieu, then Mummy took us on to Grandma's, where I had more presents, and enjoyed Grandma being as ridiculous as ever. Then Chris turned up and there was a bit of chatting, and then we went down the road to see Grandpa, who was much as ever, though he'd managed to bash himself up a bit falling down the drive. Went in the garden to admire decking and fish - all vee nice, actually. We went home and had some lunch, then Mummy took us to Sheffield to catch the old coach back to London. We had a surprisingly smooth, un-awful journey. Had a bit of tea (God's honest pork pie, some tomatoes, some Babybel, some pickled onion Monster Munch, and an apple). Got home not too late, all in all. So, that was my weekend.

Anyway, that's about it. Not much else to report.

In Conclusion

Item: I am in possession of one (1) tiny plastic Jim Kirk and one (1) knitted Shatner!face.
Item: I have new short hair.
Item: I have, this very moment, been outbid on the chest of drawers I want. Damn you, eBay, damn you!
Item: Chicken korma rocks.

Addendum: My little brother, who works for Accenture, has just had a promotion and a 25% pay increase! I am very proud of him, and also very envious! Still, he's been working ridiculous hours, so I think I'd rather have my poorer paying much less working job!




* This is, in fact, a lie.

THIS IS THE MOST TRAGIC NIGHT OF MY LIFE, A NIGHT I MAY WELL NOT SURVIVE. A NIGHT OF WOE AND WAILING AND WEEPING (AND PROBABLY THE GNASHING OF TEETH ETC). I (A) CLEARLY NEED SOME SORT OF HAIR CHUM (THOUGH KATIE HAS BEEN DOING HER TINY BEST) AND ALSO (B) NEED TO FIND NEW FRIENDS WHO DO NOT LAUGH AT MY TRAUMATICALLY TRAGIC AND TRAGICALLY TRAUMATIC LIFE AND DEMAND PAINFUL PICTURES OF ME LOOKING A FOOL. I HATE YOU ALL.

I LOOK LIKE A PILLAR BOX. AND OUR SOFA. AND JANICE RAND'S UNIFORM.

I submit that one of the most valuable consequences of the film Psycho is that the famous shower scene renders completely unnecessary any attempt to describe the appearance of one's bathroom after the application and subsequent removal of red hair dye.

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Rapunzel. I can't begin to imagine why.

(It totally, totally was. Maybe that explains a lot.)

And on that note, allow me, please, to share Sara Bareilles' wonderful song, Fairytale, as introduced to my by katie__pillar (I understand it was on a J2 mixtape! *g*):

( Cut to make things tidy. )

Boo. It's me. And my hair. (Quite smooth today; I blow dried it.) Once again, I have come on to LJ and then felt completely disinclined to write anything, but here goes. So, um. Yes. New phone. It's shiny and ace and takes photos and everything. I love it quite a lot already.

Jade is going back to Australia after Christmas. I am vee sad about this. *sad face*

Went into Sheen this morning and bought milk and bread and mourned (again) the loss of Woolworths. Why did they close it? Why? (OK. Recent events make that question fairly redundant, but whatever.) Particularly vexing because (a) I broke our whisk and planned to replace it there and (b) our most excellent Woolworths-bought chopping knife has disappeared and I need to replace that too.

Weather was lovely today. Afternoon, I met Jess at Brentford and we tooled along to Staines for Kathye's Christmas gather, which was extremely and also very lovely. Leek and potato soup. Yum. Plan on making that tomorrow, what with plentitude of both leeks and potatoes in FT at the moment. Also maybe celeriac soup. There will be much soup in our future. We could do with a larger freezer. Tant pis.

At Kathye's, Hannah was unfeasibly adorable. I am well on the way to making her think I am AN ACTUAL STAR. Heh. Megan is still not convinced that I am not going to be a Russian queen. I am a little bit naughty. *cheery smile* In more distressing news, some bright sparks thought it would be HIGH-LAR-IOUS to stick about three million knitting needles IN MY HEAD and then see how many could be removed before my hair fell down. Katie filmed it for the mind of the posterity (or for the mind of the film project for my grandparents' Christmas present, whatevs).

Off to Xanthe's for her birthday party tomorrow. Or off to Xanthe's church hall, at any rate.

Sainsbury's last night. I saw a trashy magazine with the following cover:



"Daddy sent me from HEAVEN" What. The. Fuck?! If I may extrapolate from this headline, I assume this woman's partner died and then she had his baby. Vee sad. But I reiterate: what. The. Fuck? Could that be any more arse-cringingly sentimentally twaddlish? Daddy and Mummy loved each other in a special way had sex and then Daddy went to play with the angels died and you were brought home by the stork were born. Daddy did not, in fact, send you from heaven.

There were a couple of hilarious items worthy of note on my way in to work this morning, however I would just like to share the fact that last night on the train I read The Duke and I and didn’t care who saw it. Woo.

Having shared that, I shall move on. So, on the train. I was casually glancing over at a neighbour’s newspaper (I had finally got around to (i) charging the MP3-player-formerly-and-really-currently-known-as-Katie’s and (ii) putting new stuff on there and making new playlists so I now have, among others, The Black Adder, The Lovely Tim, and Winchester Cock Rock, and was listening to that rather than reading myself). It was the Telegraph, and in the special way of that newspaper, there was an article about how ENERGY-SAVING LIGHTBULBS WILL GIVE EVERYONE CANCER!!!! or sun burn or summat. Ha, I thought. No wonder Grandma is the way she is about beef burgers and 20-spotted ladybirds and the like. And then I looked over a minute or two later, in which time yonder neighbour had turned the page, so that the next thing was A GIANT FUCK-OFF ADVERT FOR ENERGY-SAVING LIGHTBULBS. Reader, I had to chuckle.

And then, deeper into the dark heart of my journey, swaying somnolently on the Jubilee line, I was pleased to see one of the more emo boys I have ever laid eyes on. Full on emo hair (that he kept rearranging – it’s not easy keeping emo hair properly in check). Emo clothes. Emo guitar. Extremely emo grafittied rucksack. Hilarious.

Heigh ho. Anyway, since yesterday was mostly writing pomes about Other People (I know, I don’t know what came over me), I have today reverted to two pomes about me:

Pathetic
Not Athletic
Is The Katie’s
Sad Lament

~

There is a tragic happenstance I’m really keen to share
Each time it pops into my brain I can’t help but despair
When all around is death and ruin, alone for this I care
I know it’s vain, I know it’s shallow, I know I seem unfair
But frankly all I yearn to know’s the colour of my hair

-- And on that note, I was looking in the mirror this morning and you know what? It definitely isn’t blonde.


ETA: Also, NO, Gordon Brown. You do not get to rant about punishing the bankers who "fuelled the economic meltdown through their greed" when YOU WERE THE ONE WHO FOSTERED THAT ECONOMIC CLIMATE OVER THE LAST DECADE!!!* FFS. Politicians are something else.

*Do not judge my media source. It's a very colourful paper and I love it for that alone.

♥ Eh bien, le weekend. Actually, I was fairly unproductive, although I did get through last week’s back catalogue of TV. Go me. Loved NCIS and Supernatural (and ficced! Actual fic!), and was glad to see Chuck back. Also watched Sanctuary (not sure about it). Ooh, and enjoyed SCC. The Terminator spin-off, that is, not my own personal squamous cell carcinoma. I like a Cameron ep. Bought some soup from Waitrose. Changed my bedlinen. Sunday I did some washing up and watched more TV and just wandered around the flat. I am going to die one day, and I will have done fuck all with my life. *thumbs up*

♥ So, apparently Gordon Brown got annoyed over the furore caused by his bringing Mandelson into the Cabinet. He is, apparently (and not altogether unsurprisingly), not a fan of the “great man” school of history, and expressed his opinion that in the years to come, Mandelson’s return would be unremembered and it would be all about the economic climate and all the, let’s face it, boring stuff like that. I hesitate to contradict our great and glorious leader, but I think he’s wrong. Children learning history don’t tend to care that much about the economic climate and movements of the masses. They like the characters. It’s all Henry VIII and Hitler; Queen Victoria and Boudicca. Not that I’m suggesting that the sadomasochistic love triangle of Blair, Brown and Mandelson, will have quite that level of fascination for our future offspring. Or maybe it will. Who can tell?

♥ Sarah Palin has accused Barack Obama of hanging out with terrorists. Uh-huh. On the one hand, this ploy is so transparent as to be laughable, and is impossible to take seriously. On the other hand, of course, this sort of disingenuous bollocks-spreading (and come on, who can seriously believe that she is sincere in what she’s saying?) is just plain wrong, feeding into the fears and prejudices of the uninformed. I really detest the kind of mud-slinging that seems to go on in any sort of political contest: it’s so sordid.

♥ Once again, I ficced! Woo! Am quite excited. Praise the darling baby Jee for bringing new TV and new inspiration to me.

♥ Am contemplating cutting my hair short. These strange feelings wash over me every so often. I will try and resist, but you never know…