Diary of a Suburban Squeen

Depressing times in Fangirl Towers. I have just been to the dentist and shall be spending my entire salary on getting my teeth fixed. Boo.

In other news, let's have a bit of census meme. I love the census!

2011: 30. Living in a flat in London, working for the NHS and about to give all my money to the Sheen Dental Surgery.

2001: 20. I was actually in Manchester on census day, staying with my aunt and uncle. I don't know if my parents actually put me on their census form, because I wasn't really living at home, though I had been staying there a couple of months. This was about 6 months after leaving Oxford, and I'd spent most of that time living in London. Odd times.

1991: 10, living in Tunbridge Wells with my parents and little brother. I was in the fourth form of Kent College's prep school, probably psyching myself up for things like entrance exams, 11+, being a bridesmaid at my (other) uncle's wedding, and doing some kind of hideous project on the Iraq War (a large part of which I imagine my mother directed, as I was always useless at projects, especially ones the subject of which held zero interest for me).

1981: 7 months old, living in a house in Leeds with my parents. I doubt I was really doing much of anything except being adorable (natch).

1971: My parents hadn't quite met at census time. They would both have been in the fifth form at school, my mother at Abbeydale Girls' Grammar and my father at Abbeydale Boys' Grammar. They would meet that autumn in the sixth form. They both lived in Sheffield - Mummy in Greenhill with her parents and younger sister in the house where Grandma lives now, and Daddy up at Hallam Grange with his parents and two younger brothers.

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.

Gacked from megaleena:

Five names you go by:
Laura
Liss
Squeenie
Flossie
Puffin

Three things you are wearing right now:
Red shoes
Green cardigan
Black underwear

Two things you want very badly at the moment:
The weekend
HR to sort themselves the fuck out

Two people you last talked to on the phone:
Random patient called Allan
Random orthopaedic surgeon called Harry

Two things you did last night:
Turned out my desk
Read epic amounts of Gwen/Arthur fic

Two things you ate today:
Oat cakes
Taramasalata

Two things you are going to do tomorrow:
Go to Clapham to watch Katie buy a hilarious vampire cape
Take the rubbish from my desk out to the bins Katie already did it. ♥

Two longest car rides:
Sheffield to Florence
London to the Charente

Two of your favorite beverages:
Yellow smoothie
Pink milk

The people you’d like to respond:
Why would I be interested in other people?

Voice post meme! Which tragically sounds crap, either due to me or the phone, I am not sure...

1) What's your name?
2) How old are you?
3) Where are you from? Are you living there right now?
4) Is it cold where you are?
5) What's the time?
6) What are you wearing?
7) What was the last thing you listened to?
8) What was the last thing you ate?
9) What was the last thing you watched on tv?
10) What's your favorite tv show? Why?
11) Quick! Find a book, or something with text on it! Flip to a random page and read some of it! GO!
12) What was the last movie you saw? How was it?
13) Do YOU think you have an accent? Talk about that.



2
3
4

Gacked from ankaret: Give me the title of a story I've never written, and feedback telling me what you liked best about it, and I will tell you any of: the first sentence, the last sentence, the thing that made me want to write it, the biggest problem I had while writing it, why it almost never got posted, the scene that hit the cutting room floor but that I wish I'd been able to salvage, or something else that I want readers to know.

So, in light of this meme, let's hear it for me talking about things I don't usually talk about.

It was a short list.

1. Lightbulbs (kathrynw)

I do, in fact, have an opinion on lightbulbs. I am all for energy-saving lightbulbs. Energy saving is a good thing. It helps save the planet (I know, I know: what, at this juncture, does that expression even mean any more? Well, actually, in this instance, they use far less electricity to run, which means less energy has to be produced which means burning fewer fossil fuels (a) which are not a renewable source and therefore likely to run out at some stage and (b) the burning of which produces by-products that have a detrimental effect on the environment - I assume everyone knows that; I don't even know why I even bothered to type it out) and also save us money on our electricity bill. Woo. Everyone wins. However, sadly, energy lightbulbs also suck. They take forever to turn on properly and they aren't as bright even then. Also, the design is ugly. I love the old standard lightbulbs - there's something so iconic about them. I have a standard lightbulb in the lamp on my bedside table, mostly because I'm not sure energy ones would fit with the lampshade without making it look like the lampshade was giving birth to plastic intestines.

2. The Future (megaleena)

The future. Oh, the future. That's a pretty wide remit to ask someone to LJ about, Mog. In terms of the general future, mostly I think it's going to pobble along much as it has already. Maybe in a few years there'll be another massive leap forward in technology and we'll have flying cars, but to be completely frank with you, I don't think Britain's transport structure is up to the challenge (Britain: the country that didn't bother rebuilding and expanding on its Roman roads until the eighteenth century), so I don't really see that happening. Ditto also living on Mars; living in underwater towns; shuttle services to the moon for £37.99 (+ booking fees) with easyShuttle; Vulcans deciding we're technologically advanced enough to contact; Vogons deciding to destroy the planet to build a new hyperspace bypass; world peace. I do worry that this country is becoming increasingly authoritarian (though welcome the news that ID cards are off the agenda for the time being), but mostly I trust that the political pendulum will swing back the other way.

Alternatively, of course, we will have an actual apocalypse (likely causes: massive climate change [cf The Day After Tomorrow]; alien invasion (OK, that's less likely); massive collapse of financial systems; meteorite hitting the earth and Bruce Willis not being available to DRILL INTO ITS CORE to save us; zombies), in which I will soon die due to frequently mentioned inability to fight to the death for scattered remnants of Waitrose inventory.

For my own personal future: who knows? As Anne said, the future is a bend in the road up ahead. Maybe Captain Kirk will come through a time vortex, fall in love with me, and give me an alien STD. Maybe not. Maybe Chris will win the lottery and Katie and I will have a bookshop-cum-tearoom. Maybe I will die tragically young and everyone will weep at my funeral. Maybe I will stumble across the path of a stockbroker or doctor or Waterstones employee or IT advisor or something and get married and have generally neglected children. Maybe I will just chug along as I do now and have my little jobs and Katie and I will indeed end up as old women with scanty pensions and ceramic cats. Who knows? Or dares to dream? /Percy voice.

3. The Great Cooking Challenge 2009 (katherinea)

Shut up, Katherine! Actually, I've done a recipe or two that I haven't LJed about, but I can't remember them now! Maybe I will try again through the Autumn...

4. Are there really things I don't LJ about? (ungratefulwench)

Actually, I don't think this counts as a topic under the meaning of the act but I DON'T CARE; I will treat it as such. No, there aren't really things I don't LJ about. Basically, as everyone has doubtless noticed by now, I like the sound of my own voice (or the look of my own words - whatevs). I have lots of thoughts and they are, naturally, all AWESOME, and I like to share them, whether they're on religion or politics or books or TV or my hair or Jim Kirk and his tiny broken psyche or Spock and his emo life now that I've left him. Actually, you know what I don't LJ about? Other people. I should probably stop being so self-centred, but what is the diary concept about if not being self-centred? Answers on a postcard...

iTunes meme stolen from pim2005

Quick disclaimer: iTunes doesn't have all my music on, and I don't usually use it to listen much, so I'm not quite sure how representative this will be.

Length of Songs: 8.2 days

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Woo! Giant TV meme. Guess the show...

1. You’ve gotta have style! Far better to go out in a flash at the wheel of your space capsule here than spend another couple of years timidly put-putting up and down the promenade, at the wheel of your 1959 Hillman Minx while your brain-dead partner fiddles with cardigan buttons.

2. Oh, all right, pull yourself together you cretinous fuckwit! What sort of a man hides in other people’s coats, rocking and whinging to themselves? I’ll tell you what sort of a man – a self-centred, egotistical wankpot!

3. By day, they churn butter and worship according to their own beliefs, and by night they solve crimes. The West Wing

4. After all these years among humans, you still haven't learned to smile. Star Trek (TOS)

5. Yes, and while she may live up to the not-a-murderer requirement for enrollment, she is a troublemaker, destructive to school property and the occasional student. And her grade point average is enough to... I'm sorry. Another tingle moment. Buffy

6. I want to be remembered when I'm dead. I want books written about me. I want songs sung about me. And then, hundreds of years from now, I want episodes of my life to be played out weekly at half past nine by some great heroic actor of the age. Blackadder

7. I shot him. In the leg. Stargate Atlantis

8. No rest for the wicked fighters. Through storm and rain. Heat. Famine. Deep, painful, gnawing hunger... I go. Angel

9. No seriously! Very sweet. You love me! No, you love me. You can't take it back. There is no take backs. Battlestar Galactica

10. I just figured after Ava, there'd be more angst, more droopy music, and staring out the rainy windows. Supernatural

11. And they have much to be concerned about. There's always the threat of an attack by, say, a giant space dragon—the kind that eats the sun every 30 days? It's a nuisance, but what can you expect from reptiles? Did I mention that my nose is on fire, and that I have 15 wild badgers living in my trousers? Babylon 5

12. There is a perception in the press, never clearer than in this article, that I'm not cool. Now, where do you think this perception comes from? Sports Night

13. Hey, I'm a rational empiricist all the way, unless you talk to my mother. Then I'm Lutheran. Bones

14. One small hobbit? So thought Frodo Baggins, my friend; so thought Frodo Baggins!

15. What is with you and naked nannies in the pool? One Tree Hill

16. Did you end up over-educated and unemployable like you said in the yearbook? Wonderfalls

17. Strictly speaking, it's the fifteenth New York since the original, so that makes it New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New New York. Doctor Who

18. Oh, you mean my pilot's license? That's out back in the Cessna. Or perhaps you're refering to my license to kill. Revoked. Trouble at the Kazakhstan border. I could give you the details but then I'd have to kill you, which I can't do because my license to kill has been revoked. Psych

19. Eggs! The living legend needs eggs! Firefly

20. You are an adolescent, oversexed, whore-monger with the sensitivity of a head of cabbage! Studio 60

♥ WTF Yorkshire? Seriously, WTF? Land of me, land of my forebears, what were you thinking? Oh, BNP & all those who voted for you, you tiny cocks.

♥ In other trag news, remember that time when I was outraged that darling Jade had never heard of the Shat? This is much worse. I was sharing with my office (natch) the wonders of the story wherein I dump Spock, and the new temp HAD NEVER EVEN HEARD OF SPOCK!!! 0.o I don't even know how this is possible! How is this possible, flist? How does someone get to be so insulated from the icons of popular culture? I am agog, I am aghast...

♥ My computer at work has the RAM of a SQUIRREL. I tried to UNDERLINE a cell in Excel, and in attempting to undertake that arduous task, THE ENTIRE MACHINE CRASHED. My life has been very difficult today, as you may have noticed. However, I have done the stats Richard wanted, and finally, finally managed to install a trial of MapPoint on Joy's computer, so I could do the dinky map to go with them. Yay me.

♥ I watched Kingdom last night. I had forgotten how amusing it was. Oh, Sir Stephen, how do I love thee?

♥ And to end, a bit of a meme off katie__pillar:

Rules:
01. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper at their LiveJournal.
02. Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
03. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

Why I chose this: I'm not a huge Ruby fan or anything, but I just adore the colour and textures of this - it's so beautiful! (Made by nargynargy.)

Reply to this post by yelling "Words". I'll pick five words that I associate with you. Post to your journal about those words and get your friends to do the same. These were the five words that kathrynw picked for me...



1. Hair (yours obviously. Like anyone else has hair worthy of talking about)
2. Fic
3. The bread machine
4. Television
5. Uniform (or unicorn which I typed first by mistake)



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