April? Did anyone see April?

... It must have run off with the end of March. Bloody hell it's been a while and if the year keeps up at this rate, never mind 30, I'll be 45 before I've even had time to get a haircut.

I had visions of myself, finally, having now the time and the headspace (and the internet connection), sitting down on my new sofa in my new house to catch up on the last six weeks. Only, well.... my sofa, delivered this morning.... currently looks like this:

Jeggings and visas and other such adventures

It's been an exhausting week. Also, a distracting week, a sad week, an anxious week and a quasi-productive week. And there is still the weekend to come.

To show for my week: an art review on my new website (yet to be revealed until all the bows and ribbons are c'est fini), a blood blister on my thumb (staple gun mishap at work, overzealous on the moss decoration. Long story), a new visa in my passport (no more waiting on that front and no need for a shotgun wedding [though thank you LB for the generous and tempting offer]), a plan to fly home to see my Nan next month and, of all the things I never thought this week would throw at me... an encounter with a pair of jeggings in the fitting room at work.

Now, anybody that knows me knows that apart from ugg boots worn as outside shoes the greatest fashion crime being committed today is jeggings. Jeans and leggings: ne'er the two should meet. They are wrong, they are ugly, they are just plain stupid. Seriously. Aaaaanyway, today at work we had a try-on session, working under the not silly assumption that if you know how the clothes fit you're all the better equipped to sell them. So far, so good until I walked into my allotted changing room to see my enemy hanging there, elasticised waist and all. On one level I rationed, maybe it was like smoking, you know, you smoke one cigarette once in your life, for curiosity's sake if nothing else just so you know what you're not missing out on.

But here's the thing, I've never once been tempted to smoke a cigarette and frankly I would argue that jeggings are just as bad for you, if not worse. I don't care how skinny they made me look... It certainly wasn't how I envisioned the week ending but it's marginally better than in tears I suppose. Just. Maybe.

LB and I are off to the V&A tomorrow afternoon to see the much hyped decode exhibition, which should be great fun, and then to a friend's birthday party tomorrow night. I look and feel totally bedraggled right now though - dark circles under my eyes and a strange and not-going-anywhere-fast collection of dyes and paints under my finger nails thanks to a fun few days at work helping the visual team set up the store (see previous tale re: moss and staple gun). I just want to sleep for a weekend.

This time next week Mum AND Sophie will be here and it can't come fast enough. I am in serious need of some mother-sister love and can't wait to see them. xx

Pet peeve #174

I fucking hate it when interfering nobodies volunteer advice to "Cheer up" from across the street.

a) Who the hell asked you?

And

b) My grandmother has just been diagnosed with advanced cancer of the liver and pancreas and in all likelihood I might not get the chance to see her again.

So YOU fucking cheer up. Jerk.

Sunshine on a rainy day

It's been a red letter week. I am earnestly exhausted after two full days of honest toil at my new retail job on the Kings Rd and now, after a fretful week of waiting, am delighted, ecstatic, overjoyed, optimistic and RELIEVED to have been offered the role at the National Portrait Gallery.

Ex.hale.

It is miserably cold and I am bone weary after a long week and a longer weekend but buoyed by the blue skies and a whisper of, well, promise.

A week ago you could have had me committed. And the straw that finally broke the camel's already laden back? Not having the right pair of shoes to wear. I think it was particularly confusing for LB to witness my meltdown and the apparent lack of a genuine reason for it but I was done. All toys were chucked from the perennial pram of my life and nothing, save three double vodkas, could fix it - my life or my lack of shoe.

Optimism

Not something I generally deal in but if the blooms can push on through, despite the rain and the sleet and the ear-biting cold, well, maybe I should give it a crack?

It's been a bumpy couple of weeks but I feel like things are slowly on the up. LB and I celebrated our one year anniversary nearly two weeks ago and went for a mouth-watering Spanish meal on Great Portland Street to mark the occasion. LB broke the no presents rule but it's hard to feign fury when presented with sparkling baubles so I somewhat promptly forgave him. And fell just a little bit more in love with him when I read his card. Thanks to a dash of creativity with his gin and tonic, LB penned me a poem, inspired by our very first dinner date. It was lovely and thoughtful and hilarious and at points, it even rhymed. Spoilt I am.

And the Oscar goes to...

I often wonder about the almost rans, particularly at an ego-fest like the Oscars. There are no Oscar de la Renta gowns (and thankfully no Ryan Seacrest) when it comes to post-graduate study results but the psychology is all there... The gracious pre-defeat talk - it's all about the experience, I've learned so much, such and such deserves the accolade more. All of which is total bullshit because underneath all that pre-emptive protective self-deprecating bollocks lies naked fear. Fear of failure, humiliation, disappointment - and beneath all of that, perilously protected from the winds of defeat, lies a small, pathetic, naked flame of hope.

Or maybe that's just me.

I discovered some time ago that being a perfectionist means regularly smacking your forehead on the bar you raised too high. So I wanted to be brilliant, so I'm not exactly and cruelly the world continues spinning unperturbed on its axis. The problem is, I didn't exactly fail - I just failed myself. A final grade of 70 for my MA - a distinction no less - but 68 for my dissertation (and blood and sweat and tears and the last wrung vestiges of my intellect). Not a bad mark I suppose and I should focus on the final grade - but because I'm two marks short of a distinction for my dissertation I don't get my MA with Distinction. It's like being nominated for the Best Actresss Award and then not being invited to the Vanity Fair after party.

Or maybe that's just me.

Disappointment is a bitter pill to swallow and right now I'm kind of choking on it. But at least I'm accessorising my gloomy mood with the weather. It's 4 degrees here and has just started to hail. It's too cold even for snow, which let me tell you, is cold.

When I'm not sitting on the radiator heating my bones I've been finishing off my visa application, which is now out of my hands, and looking for casual work. I'm starting to nanny again this afternoon for my favourite Australian family in Barnes and have an interview tomorrow for a casual job as a retail whore. Fingers loosely crossed I suppose.

I need to go and turn the heating up. My chattering teeth are starting to make my fillings hurt.

Hot water bottle days

This:


Feels like FOREVER ago.

It was three weeks. Getting snuggly with my hot water bottle (and yes I mean literally my hot water bottle, it's not some new pet name for LB) the last week has flown by, for a week of stagnating days of not much, very little and occasionally something. It is MISERABLY cold here at the moment and I am so beyond bored of the interpretative dance that is getting into and out of jeans over thermal tights and socks each day. I miss dresses and havianas and sunglasses. I even miss the round-the-clock application of sunscreen. It is cold and it is grey and lately, it is wet. A winning trifecta of meteorological crapness if ever there was one.

Not much has been happening of late. My MA results come out next week (cue viciously vivid dreams where I wander square down the middle of the road towards would-be academic glory. In the one dream where I did emerge scholastically triumphant I also won an Oscar so I'm not sure how likely that outcome is....) But yes, results next week and I can only hope the exacting ratio of tears : caffeine consumption : all night brain frying sessions that I worked so hard on pays off in the way I hope. Which is Oscars glory all the way baby.

The job hunting continues with all the zest of a hunter turned vegetarian. A little well-timed research has revealed that while still on my student visa I'm technically not allowed to work full-time nor freelance in any capacity. So here's to seven weeks of bar work and temping and plenty of time to find The Job I'm Meant To Have. It's a rather well-established fact that I don't cope well with rejection so it's been quite demoralising to send applications off out into the universe only to hear, well, zero in reply. Fatalism 101. Which is better than Pessimism 101 I suppose but the whole merry-go-round still rather sucks.

It's been an emotionally draining few days with family dramas on the home front and frozen ears on the head front and a shocking dose of insomnia to bring the whole thing together. Poor LB - between the whiny demoralising self-pity about the lack of job and now the ceaseless flow of tears over old emotional wounds freshly picked it's a wonder he's still sane. Never mind sticking with me. The magnitude of my thank you will know no bounds once I am happily through my Beige Period (with thanks to Picasso). Until then, my hot water bottle needs refilling.

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

It's rather difficult to find interesting and/or charming things to write about when one's day is defined by some combination of the following:

- Over-sleeping for lack of anywhere to be/anything to do

- Applying for unpaid internships

- Applying for may-as-well-be unpaid jobs in the arts

- Struggling into and out of thermal tights, jeans, two pairs of socks, boots, three jumpers, a scarf, a pair of mittens, a woolly hat and a coat. Just to walk to the shops for Diet Coke.

- Midday TV re-runs of that under-rated 90s classic Models Inc.

- Eating

- Pondering the pay off... spiritually rich versus literally poor?

- Wondering how on earth to spend the other four days of the working week


The jetlag has now passed. My fondness for late night snuggles with the hot water bottle continues unabated and the days slowly tick by as I trawl for jobs, inspiration and anything that might stay my increasingly tenuous hold on the old self-esteem.

There are a few leads yet to be exhausted and some slow burn projects to keep me reasonably occupied but mostly I just fret. And try to stay to stay out of the cold.