Not Much Mud & Shiny Things In The Forest

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the GLADE write-up. It's almost a week late because I've done things that fucked with my brain chemistry and I've been a mopey little bitch for the majority of this week.I might've almost cried over pictures of cute kittens. Also, my head was full of cotton wool. Not good for thinking at all.  Really, just fuck this shit.

Anyway, it was a glorious Glade. Despite all my concerns, or maybe because I really didn't have any expectations for it to be epic at all. Which usually means there's a real potential for it to be epic, because epic just happens like that. Oh, and the weather was actually quite alright. No rain, although there was a bit of mud around due to previous rain, and it was a bit windy at times and not really that warm. But there was sun and it was dry and everything else could be taken care of with warm clothes and Docs.

Day 1, which wasn't day 1 of the festie, just the pre-festie day I had off work. I would've gone up to Norfolk on Thursday (<- day 1), but then the weather forecast was all rain and shit and I didn't want to. Also, the friend I was giving a ride was being unorganized and flaky and had totally forgotten that Glade was happening and subsequently not booked holidays. So all I did on Thursday was go to Enterprise in Wimbledon Park to pick up the rental car. I had booked the cheapest, i.e. smallest car, they had because initially I thought it was just me driving up (as friend was being undecided) and usually they upgrade you anyway because they never actually have the smallest car in stock. Only, this time they had. There were attempts to give me the next level up (a Corsa), but that would've cost £5 per day extra and I wasn't ready to do that. So I ended up with a Chevy Spark, aka tiniest car evar. Refused to pay any extra insurance and stuff and after what felt like an hour I finally drove the car off the premises. Surprised myself by actually keeping to the left side of the road straight away and then proceeded to get lost and stall the car like a million times because the 1st gear was slightly more to the left than I felt it should be and I'm not really used to shifting with my left hand. Made it home without any major embarrassments, parked the car behind our house (always thought that the parking space that comes with our flat would come in handy sometime), wrestled with the back seats in a quest to create more trunk space and started to pack.

Day 2, which was officially the start of the festival adventure, began with me waking up at 8.30am, having a nice long shower (because there wouldn't be any for the next 2 days), hauling all my shit into the car and getting on the road at 10am. Ish. Discovered that the time calculations on Google Maps really don't take London traffic into account, which didn't matter so much because my friend wasn't ready when I got to his place anyway. There was a large amount of faffing and me making approving noises to things he suggested packing. There also was a quite impressive downpour when we finally set off towards the M25 with detour via the post office to pick up his ticket. It took absolutely forever to get out of London but once we'd left the force field all went smoothly. I still think the sat nav was slightly taking the piss in regards to what it tried to pass off as roads once we got closer to the venue and the sign-posting to the festival was the worst I've ever witnessed, but we made it. All the way to the path up to the box office. And then we waited. And waited. The festival in plain sight, but the queue not moving. For about an hour. Turned out they'd had a power cut and couldn't issue tickets for those who only had codes, which wouldn't have affected us because we had actual tickets, but because there was only one lane we all had to suffer. Thank you so much, code-only people. Parked the car around 5pm, discovered that mobile reception was patchy, cursed a lot, then send a text to my friends in the hope they'd get it, shouldered the first load of stuff (tent, a few bags) and wandered towards the gate. Got through the gate without getting searched because I simply ambled past the people getting searched and then waited for my friends to show up. And they actually did!!! Cue massive sigh of relief, quite a bit of hugging and a not so long walk to our campsite. Set up my tent with the help of a rather drunk Rach (who giggled a lot and helped a little), carefully pegged and guyed it down because it was windy and I'm a bit OCD when it comes to setting up tents, then trekked to the car again to get the rest of my gear, which I lovingly distributed evenly around the inside of my tent because if I can't find shit, thieves can't find shit. So far, this approach has worked extremely well.

This, by the way, is where the fun starts.

Once set up I declared myself in need of a cider, to calm down and get into the spirit of things, y'know, so I wandered over to my friend who I knew was in possession of a 4pack of apple alcohol and blagged a can. Proceeded to get really rather tipsy, remembered to eat something (there has been an incident involving honey wine where I forgot to do that - I don't recall much of the night but have been told I had fun) before moving on to another can of cider. The following occurrences are probably not quite in the order in which they happened. Things are slightly fuzzy around the edges. I made friends with people at the Origin stage (this may or may not have been facilitated by the fact that I was really pretty drunk). I then made more friends with poi. PSYTRANCE happened. Someone gave me something starting with the letter M. It combined really well with the cider. At some point I might've dissolved into a puddle of giggles. Met Kevin and went on expeditions, featuring a fox maze and yellow balloons, a sisha, a very shiny thing in the woods (I think there's a video of me going "yay, shiny" running through it on someones phone), more Psytrance and tequila (yay, tequila!). At no point did I faceplant into the mud, which I count as a success. More expeditions ensued, we went to the Rabbit Hole and through the rabbit hole, saw the toilets in the fog and danced below the alien spaceship. I loved life, just for a moment, and giggled about being a filthy hippie. The sun started to rise, I ended up in Kevin's tent (but nothing happened), then decided it was time to find my own tent and attempt sleep.


Day 3, which started with me waking up around 10am and thinking that's way too early. Poking sleep some more, then giving up, getting dressed and venture out to find food. And tea. The world instantly looked nicer after I had a cup of Chai. Watched a few awesome Dance Offs, involving dangerously good moves and nudity. I totally approved. There was more Psy Trance, poi and drum'n bass. Made a tasty, but messy food choice before proceeding to get wasted again. Entirely unplanned. For some reason people just wanted to give me, y'know, that stuff. I find that happens quite a lot. No, I'm not complaining. Also tried something a tad more experimental. Things get really blurry from there onwards. There was a lot of dancing and following Daryll and Nige around. A lot of dancing. More of that stuff. Also, a ride on a ferris wheel. More rabbit holing. Walks through the woods. Probably more dancing. Losing track of time, space and where the fuck I am. And not caring the slightest bit, although being slightly worried that I also lose people, which would've been unfortunate and didn't happen. And then I had to admit to myself that I couldn't dance anymore and wanted my tent, I think that was around sunrise.


Day 4, where I woke up around 1pm after a really nice sleep. Sourced breakfast (veggie bacon sandwich) but made a mistake with the tea, which, while being passed off as Chai, was just a bit disappointing. Packed up my stuff and hauled the first load back to the car, stored the rest in Chris'n Rach's shed mini tent and hung out with them at the Dance Off until it was time to head home. Which was somewhat later than expected but before the Pyramid burn. Got home around midnight, had a shower and fell into bed.


It was a truly great Glade. I have the most amazing friends who have the most amazing friends. 


Yes. I am a hippie. Sometimes.

The Top Of The World, Sitting Here Wishing

Sometimes I actually surprise myself. I really like when that happens.

The Jubilee weekend had some excellent moments, quite a few thanks to a very lovely man that I very definitely need to see more of. In a non-committal, we're just hanging out and having a lot of dirty fun kinda way. It reminded me of how much I need certain things, can't and don't want to be without them, and it's something he can do extremely well. Or maybe we just match.

I also went to Planet Angel, which was a bit meh. The music is always too fluffy for me, I'm a as-close-as-you-can-get-to-EBM PsyTrance girl. All that love you all, hands in the air, come on and hug already, while certainly nice for chilling, just doesn't do shit for me on the dancefloor. If anything, it makes me angry. So we left as soon as the trains started running again and eventually made it to the afterparty. Which was pretty amazing as far as afterparties go. Met new people who stroked my mind, we went to the park to catch some sun and did I mention that my mind got stroked? 'twas lovely.

Sunday and Monday were a bit of a write-off, because people scare me the day after and there were way too many around. Monday was just plain lazyness. Actually made it out of the house on Tuesday and went to  Camden, where I got all excited about some hippie clothes. It happens like that.

Work between the bank holiday and the weekend was like being in the office between Xmas and New Year, loads of people had taken the week off and it was nice and quiet apart from a bit of a panic on Thursday when everybody around me seemed to realize that, shit, we have to do some work.

Last weekend was on the side of unexpected and interesting. Went to a party that I had pencilled in as a civilized affair, i.e. go there, talk to people about the p*rn I'm writing (because I like talking about it, and I'm excited about it, and I'm actually quite proud I'm doing it, and it's not that I have a reputation to lose), have a few laughs, maybe have one or two drinks, then slouch home around 3 on a nightbus or two. Yeah, that didn't quite happen. I started off being civilized (except for the talking about pretty boys fucking bit), but then someone suggested I have a drink, then suggested having other stuff, and maybe there was the odd balloon or 20. Suddenly it was morning and I was sort of clinging to a friend that so far has stubbornly resisted my charm. He didn't this time, so maybe I'm a tad more convincing when I'm fucked. I didn't get much sleep. And it was ok, I wish it had been better, because I kinda like him. I'm a bit afraid that I'm getting jaded, because I have had such amazingly mind blowing sex in my life that just having normal, yeah-that's-kinda-ok, stick it in and wiggle a bit, sex just doesn't cut it anymore. I want it all and I want more of it. Now.

Please.

Talking about pretty boys fucking, I've written a few more fics. They're currently part of a anony-meme writing thing, so not yet posted anywhere else. I've got two interesting WIPs, a sequel and a second point of view, also working on two more prompts but the boys have gone all shy on me and just don't want to get it on. Hate when that happens.

In terms of 'Wait, what is she doing this weekend', my bags are packed and the car is rented for the journey to Glade tomorrow. The weather forecast looks shitty to say the least, which means I won't do much happy hippie bouncing around and probably more of the warm coat and wellies emo thing, but who knows, it might actually be fun. Festivals in my head are always sunny and feature me looking cute being a hippie. Yes, I know I live in the UK and stuff like that just doesn't happen unless I go somewhere else (Burning Man, y'know), but tell that to my head.

Hope, apparently, dies last. It might just float away in a downpour of rain.

The Only Other Option Is To Forget

Work's been slow today, which was partly me (post-party recovery is going well, thankyouverymuch) and partly due to data that I needed not being available. Which means I had time to just stare into space and listen to my Spotify playlist. Which meant The Used and 30 Seconds To Mars. 

I still can't believe how these two bands managed to suddenly rock my world so hard it almost hurts. What really bugs me is that both of them have been around for so long, I had 10 years to find them and they only hit me now. It would have been totally awesome if I would have been there from the start, like I've been with New Model Army or Die Ärzte (oh, those were the days), when they played tiny clubs. But yeah, I really wasn't. I'm pretty sure I heard about The Used before and I definitely remember seeing 30 Seconds on MTV and thinking 'yeah, nice, but no'.

Back in 2002/2003, when I probably came across The Used, I still was a die-hard New Model Army fan and I guess their music just didn't sound right to me back then. I was in a completely different place from now, not only geographically (Cologne, Germany) but also in my head (numb doesn't even come close). Things were strange, but not quite strange enough. 

I've long ago fallen out of love with New Model Army, haven't been to any of their gigs or listened to their songs for years. Last time I tried, for good ol' times sake, it just felt weird. I remember what their music meant to me, so many songs connected to memories, most of them pretty good memories at that, but the part inside me that jumped with glee when I listened to their songs is now mildly bored. 

In the past 10 years I've been on a pretty wild journey, not only in regards to music but let's just concentrate on that for now. I went from New Model Army to Social Distortion, then crossed over to Pendulum, hit sleaze for a bit (Bullets & Octane and Buckcherry), detoured via the Dresden Dolls and got a bit intellectual with Dan Le Sac & Scroobius Pip. All the while crashing head-first into Psy Trance, because I can multi-task. 

But until 6 months ago I just wasn't ready for 30 Seconds To Mars and all their awesomeness just yet and now I'm apparently somewhere where The Used applies. They make that little part inside me jump up and down excitedly and bang it's little head and go all emo on me. Same goes for 30 Seconds To Mars, who kicked that part into gear again and kicked the shit out of it, too.

All the time I'm thinking it shouldn't be like that anymore, I'm over 40 for god's sake, I should be at a place in my life where I'm settled and not have random emo attacks and be just too grown-up to get all jumpy and obsessed with bands like this (and the pretty boys in those bands, too). Don't get me wrong, I'm so happy I'm not and that I can still feel it and know it makes sense the way it is because that's my life. I'm still searching, I'm still not quite there yet (wherever that is, I really wish I knew), still wanna go somewhere and find out what else is around the corner.

So yeah, turns out I'm now in exactly the right head-space to appreciate The fucking Used.