Watching The Birds

I have been feeling decidedly meh the last 7 days. I'm not in the mood for much, I've still got a cold/hayfever, I made the mistake to check my weight & that really wasn't a good idea.

Hence, most of the week was spent feeling slightly sorry for myself, coughing a lot & otherwise not doing very much. I did manage to drag myself out on Thursday to watch Soap at the Hammersmith Riverside Studios with Lynn & it was brilliant! It was only a very small production, tiny stage filled with a group of bathtubs & about 6 or 7 performers. But the ideas were good & the circus skills shown were pleasantly different from your usual London displays. Highlights included a girl juggling rings with her feet (never seen such bendy, flexible feet in my life!) and an opera singer going through versions of "Splish Splash" with classical music in the background. Highly enjoyable.

Friday evening saw me back in procrastination mode & getting nothing done. Yesterday was a bit more active, I joined flatmate for a trip to Borough Market where I bought garlic leaves & purple carrots & then travelled onwards to the Barbican to check out the curve exhibition. This meant queueing for about 30 minutes, but it was well worth it. The exhibit looks really simple when you come in (& it is, but fabulous as well), just at few electric guitars & drum highhats with wooden planks to walk on between them. Then there's lots of zebra finches, tiny, tiny birds, extremely cute. Everytime they land on one of the instruments, the motion in translated into sound, so a mini bird landing on a guitar string makes quite an impressive noise. It's so fun to watch!

Afterwards I grabbed a coke & a cookie & sat down outside the Barbican at the "lake", then went back home with a stopover at the shops.

We spent the evening watching TV & one of my slightly illegally acquired dvds, Dorian Gray. It wasn't all that great, really, I've never seen the original movie so can't compare, but the remake definitely lacked some oomph.

I haven't done anything today so far, except from another treck to the shops after realising I was missing a vital ingredient (potatos) for the sauerkraut casserole I'm planning to cook tonight & playing Echo Bazaar which is incredibly good but also very addictive.

Things I should've got done this weekend include
- getting the PAC code from t-mobile to finally get new phone sorted (I wants the HTC Desire/Legend)
- hit the shops to find pretty new summer dresses for work & leisure (this was put on hold after finding out that I put on loads of weight)
- getting trenchcoat altered, the arms are way too long
- exercise (put on hold due to persisent cough)
- do something other than play computer games & watch TV

Oh, I did the laundry. Big achievement.

I've still not managed to get going with the whole internet dating thing. I occasionally log on, then immediately loose interest after reading one or two emails (& seeing the pictures). Why can't I just employ a matchmaker to find me the perfect guy? (yes, I know, you should be prepared to at least make a bit of effort... give me some time...).

I really hope I get out of this shitty mood soon, I'm starting to annoy myself.

We Do Have Spring

The landlord finally fixed our plumbing issues on Friday. I'm not sure if it's normal, but I find having to deal with stuff like that terribly exhausting & it didn't help that she/the plumber had left a "bit of a mess" in the flat. I subsequently spent most of Friday evening mopping the floor & cleaning the bathroom. Not my idea of a relaxing evening & by the time I had finished it was too late & I was too tired for a party, especially as it would've involved a 1 hour trip to E17. Shame, really.

It didn't help at all that we later discovered that they'd unplugged the washing machine when fixing the drains... I left it to flatmate to deal with that mess as she wanted to do some laundry. I really hope that there are no further problems for a while, I'm so fed up with it.

Yesterday early afternoon I made my way all the way out to Eastcote for Jay's afternoon/evening of movies & fun. It was a lovely day, warm & sunshiney, so we (most of the Monkeys, which was really cool) played in the park before heading back to the flat (awesome flat, massive & very pretty) to make pizza, play Wii & watch a movie. I'm not sure why, but I felt slightly detached from it all, not bad but not quite in the moment. I occasionally managed to snap out of it & it didn't stop me from enjoying the evening, but I felt I was not there with all my thoughts.

This feeling has carried over to today & as much as I'd like, I can't blame it on a night of partying & no sleep as I actually got a ride back into town & was home around 3am. I didn't sleep all that well, mainly because I had a million thoughts running through my head, but enough to wake up on my own feeling rested. I can't put a finger on it what's wrong, I suspect it's a mixture of being single while most of my friends are coupled up (& even getting married, wow!) & work/landlord related stress. It's just all too much at the moment. I tried to make the best of the sunshine by sitting on the roof terrace until the sun got blocked by the house & feel a bit guilty for not taking advantage of the great weather more by heading out to the park, but all I want to do at the moment it mope & feel a tiny bit sorry for myself for undisclosed reasons. If you could order weather matching your mood today would've been cold & rainy as to give me an excuse to watch TV all day.

I really hope that next week is going to be more relaxed, although I already know that tomorrow will be very busy at work with one big report & some smaller ones. I want to get back into exercising at least 3 times a week or more & I probably should start watching what I eat again as the pounds just seem to be piling on & that in turn does not improve my mood at all.

There are things to look forward to, like going to see "Soap" with Lynn on Thursday, Beardyman on 1st May and the Monkey Party on 7th May. I need to find something cool/nice/sociable to do for next weekend...

The Nuts & The Bolts

The usual excuses for not updating more often. Various reasons.

The Easter Weekend was a really mixed bag. Planet Angel had it's ups & definite downs, one of them being me really misjudging someone's interest. Good music, though, and some lovely people. The afterparty was only me & the members of the Zoo, which was fine - I enjoy having them in my life.

Easter Sunday was spent sleeping & relaxing, I didn't feel particularly sociable but not down either, I was quite happy being on my own, surfing the web & watching TV later.

John popped round on Easter Monday & we watched "The Rules of Attraction" together, well, half of it until out internet went a bit poo and the film kept buffering. Watched the rest of the movie, with interruptions, after John left.

Tuesday was a really busy day at work, but I got through it. Unfortunately my nose imploded on me in the late afternoon (well, not literally, of course) - I couldn't stop sneezing! It might've been the payback for my earlier smugness of not having caught a cold for a while... Felt quite rough the next few days & didn't do much except leave a trail of tissues whereever I went & going to bed early to get lots of sleep.

Flatmate & I had booked ourselves a ticket for the underground restaurant in Kilburn for Friday. I would post the link, but honestly, it's not worth it. We loved the idea, we enjoyed the evening in the company of talkative, nice people, but the food was not very good & with £30 a head seriously overpriced. I could've cooked a better meal! The host also claimed to have never gotten my email informing them that I don't eat dairy (she also didn't get someone else's notification that he's allergic to fish) & there was quite a bit of cheese on the menu, which was

pizza bread with olives or tomatos

green asparagus topped with mimosa (an egg-flour mix)

squid ink risotto with green salad

cheese board

lemon & bergamotte cream-something

The pizza bread things were fluffy & very tasty, the green asparagus was well seasoned & made me realise that I actually like green asparagus (I despise the white variety), not too convinced about the egg stuff on top. The squid ink risotto was dry as f**k, more like dry black rice with some parmesan stirred in & the salad was just a few leafes with a way too vinegary dressing. The cheese board was ok, a nice selection but not enough crackers/bread & chutney, the cream-whatever-it-was was very rich & I really don't know where the bergamotte was supposed to be. As said before, I could've cooked more inspired & nicer tasting stuff, the portions were way too small. We didn't bring our own wine, otherwise we'd had to pay £5 corkage (she was also selling bottles of wine for £12). It felt like a massive rip-off, especially because or hostess kept telling us how great she is, trying to sell massively overpriced photographs she took (£250, apparently that's what she's studied) & that she's making a living with this. She probably made a grand that night (cramming 32 people into her front room), but she won't be seeing us again.

We are keen to try other restaurants in someone's living room, though. Apparently there is an Indian family hosting dinner nights for smaller groups & you only pay as much as you think it was worth. Very intruiging.

Saturday turned out to be a lovely, warm & sunny day. I woke up early & just couldn't go back to bed as it just felt wront to spend a day like this sleeping. Therefore I got on the Overground to Kew Gardens to meet up with a few others & check out the cherry walk. Which was there, but unfortunately the cherry trees weren't quite ready to bloom yet. Same issue with the bluebells. There were some flowers, however, & the greenhouses were awesome. It was a great day out in the spring sun & got back home happy & tired (all that fresh air & walking around, you know).

Had a lie-in on Sunday & then went off to find a birthday present for flatmate. Not sure if I was entirely successful, but I've got something now & I'm sticking with it. Later that day I bussed to Camden to meet up with a guy I met a Planet Angel a week earlier. It was cool, but he's a complete nutter! Really, I haven't had the "pleasure" to spend time with someone that crazy for quite a while. He hasn't worked a day in his life & is relying on benefits & the odd job, which he claims is totally cool & he actually seemed proud to pass his time taking drugs & hanging out. Apparently he's just waiting for a sign telling him it's time to run away & live as a nomad, afterwards he plans to train as a shaman. It was quite amusing listening to him, but I'm not particularly keen to repeat the experience.

The last 2 days have been not as restful as I'd liked them to be. Work was busy as usual, but not overly so. I started excercising again, cleaned the flat, did laundry, called my parents & prepared food for lunch. I also called our landlord to get her to fix the almost blocked shower drain. All she's done so far is come in, pour drain unblocker into the drain & completely block it. It also seems to have done something to the pipe, as there now is water running out of the shower pedestal. This means that I couldn't use the shower, kitchen sink or washing machine since last night, which is really annoying. Apparently she's coming round tomorrow to fix everything. Thank goodness I'm alone in the flat at the moment, but having to be inventive to do the dishes was not my idea of evening entertainment.

Let's hope all is fine when I come home tomorrow evening. The coming weekend is fully booked if I want it to, with a party in E17 on Friday & a movie weekend at Jay's Saturday/Sunday. I'm looking forward to the latter & will decided spontaneously if I'll attend the Friday party. And maybe, maybe I'll log in to OKCupid sometime. Not very likely, though...

Where Is My Life?

I really only seem to get around to updating once a week at the moment. Wah.

I did stay in last Saturday, making some lame excuses etc. It was a severe case of the meh's, very annoying to have that happen on a weekend. Anyway, I watched TV & got an early night, but also felt like an old lady & a bit sorry that I was letting down friends who most likely were having an amazing night that I could've been part of if I just wasn't that pathetic.

On Sunday I made the mistake to go to the hairdressers. Well, I thought it was a good idea, not having had my hair cut for about 3 months & it was getting a bit bulky & out of any hairstyle whatsoever. Still without personal hairstylist, I decided to try the Cutting Crew in Queen's Park, lured in by the closeness of the salon & their quite handy online booking system. I realised I'd made a mistake when I walked into the salon. I was greeted by a middle aged lady with way too much make up in all the wrong colours, the atmosphere was just plain weird & the people who were working there didn't look particularly happy. I was early, but instead of being able to wait in the salon while reading some inspiring hair magazines I was sent away & told to come back in 15 minutes. At that point I contemplated just running away & just not coming back, but I really wanted to get my hair back in some kind of hairstyle, so I wandered off to browse the shops (found a rather good bakery!) & came back in time for my appointment. My hairstylist was a German girl, so far, so good, made explaining what I wanted a bit easier. Not that I had a very precise idea, I just wanted the current cut to get cleaned up, my hair de-bulked & in general have the feeling that the stuff happening on my head looks a bit better. She didn't make any interesting suggestions, but I thought she got the gist what I expected her to do. The girl who washed my hair almost ripped off my head but gave me a nice head massage to make up for it. The actual cut didn't take particularly long, I issued the usual warnings of my hair being a bit obnoxious & that the straightness is decieving & yes, I've got loads of hair (even with the undercut it's A LOT). She thinned it out a bit, but not enough & as it later turned out more on one side than on the other. All in all not a very good experience, but not too bad, either. I paid & walked back home.

The next morning kinda confirmed what I had thought, i.e. that she didn't do a very good job at thinning out my hair. It's happened before, I know it's hard to deal with my hair, but it can be done. Work was too busy to go back Monday evening (I'm working more than I ever worked before, but actually enjoy it) & flatmate & I had a date for sushi & the movies anyway, so I went back Tuesday evening after escaping from work at a decent time only to be told by the lady at the front desk that, no, they can't check my hair that night, I should've made another appointment. All with a big grin, not very understanding at all. I told her that I actually have a job & no time & why can't they just have a quick look over it as it really doesn't take long & I'm prepared to wait. Again, that annoying grin, "no, honey, really, everybody is busy, why don't you come back next week?". At that point I was close to murdering her, but didn't, & just walked out, never to come back. I've never been treated like that at any salon I ever went to, needles to say I'll never go back there & am probably going to tell everybody else not to go there, either. I'm now contemplating getting thinning scissors & take care of my hair myself for a while.

Enough ranting about rubbish hairdressers now, should anyone know a decent one please get in touch.

As mentioned before, on Monday evenning me & flatmate met up for sushi (Yo!Sushi blue Mondays, awesome) & went to see "I love you, Phillip Morris" afterwards. It's a feel good, happy movie. Nothing to shout about, but I think Jim Carrey & Ewan McGregor as gay men in love deserve a honorable mention.

Tuesday that hairdresser catastrophe happened, but it resulted in me having a good 45 minute workout on my trampoline, which was great. I also cooked some amazingly tasty food, rice & lentils with baked onions, pure vegan comfort food! To round things off, I re-dyed my hair cyber purple & watched a new episode of Fringe.

There had been plans for me & Lynn to meet up after work on Wednesday, but she was still in the throes of the lurgy, so that had to be cancelled. Instead I got home only slightly late, had a 40 minute bouncing session with a bit of yoga afterwards & snuggled up in front of the TV. I'm so rock'n roll lately.

Yesterday was the first day in weeks where I wasn't frantically busy at work, a really nice change. I've got loads of stuff on my to do list & next week Tuesday will be horribly hectic as I have to send out 3 channel reviews (one before noon, 2 after), but I can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm very surprised that I still enjoy what I do, I have been motivated at work for months now (with a few dips, but motivated in genera) & I really hope that all the hard work & making good impressions will pay off in form of praise, more money & maybe a promotion sometime in future. It won't happen right away, I know, I'm only officially starting the job week after next (!), but it seems to be easy to do good & I should make the most of it.

Today started with a very long lie-in (woke up at 1pm!), a lazy stroll to the shops & extensive hangings out on the interwebs. I've started playing a very good online game, to be found here, which is hard to put down. I'm going to Planet Angel's Easter shinding later tonight, already got my outfit worked out & only have optional tweaks to do. I might paint my nails, I might cook dinner but most likely will just have a salad, I might see Andy at some point this weekend, most likely at the afterparty but I'm not particularly worried, really, I'm pretty my relaxed & zen. Who knows, I might finally be off to better days & happier places. Or all just stays the same, which is not perfect, but not bad.

Oh, and I've signed up to OKCupid but already lost interest. I keep getting messages from guys but I'm too lazy to check them out & I definitely can't be arsed to go on dates. I really don't think internet dating is going to work for me, but maybe I'll get around to have a closer look sometime this long weekend...