It's Oh So Quiet...

I've got a really bad case of writer's block. Which happened just as I've signed up for a fic bingo and found a new community to write for. Obviously. My head has gone quiet (well, relatively speaking, it's only one or two voices talking now and they're not telling me stories), after being noisy as fuck since beginning of this year.

This. Is. Not. Fair.

I'm getting good feedback for the stuff I've written so far which is still making me insanely happy. It also makes me want to write more, but yeah, the head is not cooperating at the moment. I'm trying to distract myself by going out and doing things and reading a lot. Well, reading even more than usual.

I've taken my new hoop out for a spin this weekend, first to a spin/hoop jam in Richmond Park which was more of a walk around the countryside for an hour (Richmond Park is fucking huge and not all that pretty, really), then finally finding hoopy people, realizing it's just a bit too windy to spin poi or hoop properly, meeting more hoopy people and making arrangements to organize a hoop jam somewhere that doesn't involve trekking through the vegetation for hours and getting insanely lost on the way back to civilization again. I did get some exercise, though. On Sunday I decided to give in to the lazies and stayed close to home, thereby providing an hour of entertainment for my block of flats. Children love me, apparently. Especially if I have spinny things, which is no surprise, because they're pretty. Still suck at hooping, but not as much as before.

In terms of male entertainment there hasn't been any so far. The inappropriate funs mentioned previously chickened out (and hopefully gives up chasing me now) and I had my period last weekend which kinda ruled out finding other man sized fun. It also would have involved making myself look pretty and going out which I wasn't up to. I'm hoping to hook up with a very lovely person next weekend and I somehow have managed to get myself a date (shock, horror, I know) for tomorrow. He looks ok and seems nice, I'm totally not sure if I'm interested at all, but he lives/works on my way home which greatly appeals to my laziness. So I thought why not? and there were go.

On related news, the young one is coming back on Monday, I somewhat miss him and very much look forward to dragging him into my bed again soon...

Now if I could just kick my head out of it's stupor and back into talking to me, all would be fine.

Hold On Tight & Don't Look Back

Is it really August already? The weather doesn't look like it at all...


The Olympics started last week Friday with a massive opening ceremony, all British pride'n stuff. I only watched parts of it, because there were distractions provided along the way and I got distracted. The young one came over, we cooked, thereby missing the start of the spectacle, then there was a mission to find jellysnakes (which apparently are beyond awesome dipped in chocolate) a bit later, another mission for other stuff a lot more later, random fireworks outside that were more interesting than the athletes marching in and sex, which was even more interesting. After that we decided we couldn't be bothered to go back to the lounge and watched Lord Of War. The man ran off again in the morning (he seems to have some kind of problem with staying for breakfast) because he was going on holiday the day after and he had stuff to do. Which is understandable. Judging by his FB updates he's having quite a bit of fun at the moment without me, featuring "gorgeous girls and a cool guy" and I'm trying not to be jealous which is going reasonably well. We've never discussed the whole exclusivity thing and I honestly don't know if I'd want it, but reading about him having fun and not having as much funs myself is annoying. Not that I'm not planning on having fun, there might be some potentially pretty inappropriate fun this weekend and I've got more interesting things lined up.


I'm just greedy, really. I want ALL the funs.


So, update on the things on my "what would make life more awesome list": There's been a stand-off between the landlord and us in our living room which we won (hooray!) and he's now agreed to meet us halfway in terms of rent increase (+£50 a month) and I think I've already mentioned the salary increase. No sign of the young one stepping up his chasing of me if he's hanging out with girls & guys on holiday, but I sort of got an invitation to come along to a wedding with him. Need to follow up on that one when he gets back because I need to know the terms (i.e. I want public cuddles and kisses) before I commit to camping in the countryside for a weekend.


On other notes regarding why my life really doesn't suck right now: I got paid for a focus group that I didn't even have to show up to, I'm now the proud owner of a travel hoop that I probably should learn how to spin, I still very much enjoy writing and continue to get hits/kudos/comments on it.


I'm not quite as manically happy as I was last week, but that could be hormones (PMS, I'm looking at you) and I'm still on a reasonably high level of happiness even now. I'm slowly feeling the urge to go on holiday again, not at all helped by Burning Man drawing closer and me missing the playa like mad. I should be saving monies for next year, but I want to go away and see stuff and do exciting things NOW.


In summary, all is well but I'm impatient. Some things just don't change.

And I'll Savor Every Moment Of It

This winning at life thing we were talking about recently? I'm still doing it. Quite a lot.

I'm also still very much not over The Used. Every time I go on the internet to do things, I somehow seem to end up either looking for fic or picspam and getting distracted. I've pretty much found all the good fic that's out there by now (I think, please wait a moment while I have another look...) and seen most of the pictures. Still can't stop. I'm just a teeny bit obsessed. The Used are doing a tour with Evanescence this autumn, playing Wembley Arena. I'm so tempted to get a ticket, because I need to see them again, but I don't want to fork out big money to only see them play a support set and I don't like big venues. Really don't like big venues. So I'm currently crossing all appendages and checking twitter/googling like mad because I'm hoping they'll play Warped which is happening only a day after the Wembley gig. It is a match made in heaven and I'd much rather go to Warped and see loads of punk bands and watch skaters than see Evanescence...

Writer's block is happening and not going away. I've faffed around with my works in progress (aka the WIPs), but they're not pretty enough to publish yet. I'm getting a bit annoyed with myself. The communities I write for have gone into summer holiday mode, which means no prompts and goddamn it, I NEED MORE PROMPTS to distract me from the stuff that just doesn't want to get written. On a related note, I've published my stuff on AO3 now, which isn't locked and I'm getting hits and even had a few kudos and I'm thrilled. People actually read and like my stories, although I'm far from getting the attention that some of the established writers get (and to be honest, some of them are way better than me).

Ok, enough with this, here's my latest week:

Not much happened from Monday to Thursday, apart from a phone call from a research agency and an invitation to take part in a focus group next week. I'm only doing this for the money, really, and it's quite good money. There also was a leaving do from our student placement and while I don't enjoy hanging out with my colleagues after work (I see them for long enough at work, don't have any desire to spend free time with them), it was rather pleasant.

The young & pretty one came over on Friday and passed out on my bed 2 hours later (after we fucked, and no, I didn't break him, he was just tired, honest!). There were some sexytimes when he woke up in the morning, but no hanging out in bed all day because he had to go and organize a stag do. Spent the day pottering about and the evening doing mostly nothing. It was great. The plan for today was to head over to Camden and buy a hoop, but then the sun came out and the neighbours were getting the bbq ready and I thought I'd just go for a quick spin in the garden. Ended up hanging out with half the house, getting everyone to spin poi, ate tasty foods and got a teeny bit stoned. My poi hooping is improving very slowly, it's really different from spinning poi (because, well, it's hoops and they obviously don't spin like balls on strings) but a lot of fun and it looks pretty. Quite a win of a day. Again.

Things that could improve my winning even further: The landlord agreeing to our suggestion to only raise the rent by £50 (or not at all) and us continuing to be nice tentants, the young & pretty one chasing me a bit more, my manager realising how awesome I am and giving me more money (edit on Monday: salary went up by inflation, at least). Not sure how realistic all of that is, but one can hope.

*hopes*

So Here I Am, It's In My Hands

instagram/virtualjepha

Looking back at some of my blog posts from last year or so, I can't believe I'd ever say this, but I'm actually having a really good time at the moment. There's still a lot of things that suck, like not getting a bonus at work and the prospects of ever getting promoted pretty minuscule, and our landlord having delusions of grandeur and wanting more rent, or the fact the summer seems to not be happening this year on this fucking island.

But I can deal with that. If I really wanted to, I could actually change most of the stuff that's slightly annoying at the moment (except for the weather, that unfortunately is completely out of my control). I could change jobs (I'm looking at options, but I don't actually want to leave), I could look for a new place to live (although likelihood of another mental landlord is quite high, so we might just stick with the known evil), it's in my hands if I really want it.

And it seems to be that the whole love business is somewhat under control as well. As expected it all started happening when I stopped trying to make it happen and just went with it, and I'm still pretty much going with it because I'm not entirely sure what I want but I'm rather sure that if I start pushing it'll all turn against me in a second. And it's not going too bad right now.

Monday to Thursday were uneventful, need to work on my weekday excitement a bit more. Friday was the day of my annual work party, or The Fest, which I mainly attended because the pretty colleague's band (the colleague that I'm still fantasizing about shagging me in a storage closet at work) was opening on the main stage and because we get free food. The band turned out to be kinda crap, I don't particularly believe in bands with keyboarders and the singer had no stage presence whatsoever, and the food was just as naff as expected and then it started to rain and I went home. Saturday started with a nice long lie in, then a lot of faffing about and then the pretty boy came over and we watched movies and had sex. Not amazing amounts of sex because I was minutes away from starting my period and that's about the only time in the month when I'm not insanely horny, but there were loads of cuddles and skin and it was all good. He stayed over and there was more cuddling in the morning (because, um, sex at that point would have been too messy). I thought that I'd probably spent the day being lazy but then got a text from a friend (that I might've shagged earlier this year) wanting to go for lunch and hang out and who am I to say no. So we met up and spent a lovely day eating pizza and walking around the Wimbledon Common and drinking wine and chatting.

I really like when weekends go like that.

The pretty boy is going away to Africa for 3 weeks to teach and is busy next weekend, which means I most likely won't see him for a good while (woe!), so I'll have to distract myself otherwise. Sure I'll find a way.

I'm still writing and reading slash, struggling a bit with the writing because the stories I'm working on are being bitchy and big and at least one involves kink and I don't want to mess it up. I've stumbled upon a collection of really good kinky slash a day or so ago, I'm still in awe how good the writer puts it into words and how much it helps me define what I want and need and look for. I've probably discovered a new kink or two in the process and actually had to come up with the definition of theoretical kinks (things that I like to read, to write, but am not keen on actually putting into practice) in relation to practical kinks (things that I like to read, to write AND love to experience).

The upcoming weeks look rather empty at the moment, I should schedule a bit of culture methinks. And more writing.

Post title taken from "The Taste Of Ink" by The Used, which is awesome and everyone should listen to. Now.

3-2-1, We Came To Fuck

What do you mean, subtle? This is me being subtle...

After getting over that whole what-the-fuck-have-I-done-to-myself after Glade, I obviously had to go and be silly again. In slightly different ways this time, because we don't want my life to get boring, do we?

I started off the weekend with Bab's leaving drinks, socializing with the adults which was nice but boring.

Saturday (last week Saturday, I'm about 7 days behind in my reporting here) the flatmate and I got ourselves ready for Imaginarium. It was the third time they put it on and while the first time had been slightly oversold on expectations (but still good enough for me to go back) and the seconds time had been pretty awesome, it wasn't third time lucky for them. The people were a tad more creepy than they'd been last time and the music was simply shite.

But

I pulled. To be more precise, I pulled even before getting to the club. As in, on the way there. Which is, even for me, pretty fucking amazing and hasn't been done before. My awesomeness knows no boundaries (well, it probably does, but not that night). We flirted for most of the night and then we taxied to an afterparty hosted by his friends, who were lovely and I can't believe I haven't met them before because we go to the same clubs and know the same people. Our hosts started to flake in the later hours of the morning, so it seemed sensible to go to mine and continue the party, maybe even add in some sex. Which we did, and it was really good.

He came over to mine again on Monday, because I had the day off and he works in Wimbledon. I might've gone to meet up with Babs for dinner unwashed and smelling of sex. Don't think anyone noticed. He came over to mine again on Friday. It's actually quite nice hanging out with him.

Unfortunately, there is a downside. Well, not a downside as such, more of a thing that's hard to ignore.

He's 17 years younger than me. Yeah, really. I managed to pull someone that much younger than me, and he didn't freak out and I didn't freak out. My friends high-fived me for my achievement at last night's party, so clearly no-one's freaking out over there, either. I don't know were it'll go, I assume at some point there will be issues because I am aware that it's a huge age gap and if I'd been really stupid and had lost my virginity a lot earlier than I have, he could be my son (talking about freaky here). But he's cute, and actually rather good in bed, especially for someone his age and even compared to some guys quite a bit older than he is. And he sure is enthusiastic and springy as fuck.

So I'm playing this by ear.

Talking about last night's party, where there wasn't any hooking-up although there might've been a bit of groping from a certain older gentleman that I'm insanely fond of, it was pretty cool. It was a friend's birthday party and he's mastered the art of making instant icecream using dry ice and interesting flavour combinations. My favourite was popcorn, followed by soy coconut (a bit like blowing a bounty bar) and in terms of weird combo's, roquefort and honey totally hit the mark. Wasn't particularly thrilled about the egg & bacon or the gin & tonic one, but other people approved. Had a really good time, talked to loads of people I didn't know and went home at a sensible time when the trains were still running.

I'm currently ignoring that I should cook lunch for tomorrow, I've bought all the stuffs for it but just can't be arsed, which means I'm going to the canteen tomorrow and got no one to blame for it but me. I've practised some poi today, in between torrential downpours of rain, and also started working on my poi hooping skills, which are still rather rudimentary.

I'm actually curious to know what I'll get up to next.

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.