currently pt. iv

feeling hungry, eyes slightly bleary.
hearing crickets in my e-mail inbox.
waiting for replies to letters.
curious about spying & gossip.
wondering about the weekend.
listening to Angie Stone, Mahogany Soul.
avoiding dealing with my bloody model.
wishing i could go to bed and not feel guilty about it.
wishing i could play another hour of GTA and not feel guilty about it.
wishing i could have an ice-cream sandwich and not feel guilty about it.
wishing i could not feel guilty at all.

tra la la

the radio on my alarm clock came on this morning at 6... and for the first time in ever before, i didn't slap it off and sleep in for the next four hours. i didn't jump out of bed immediately either... instead, i leisured in the warm, cushy softness of the covers for the next one hour, while Ricky Whatever-his-name-is and the rest of the radio morning crew went about with the news, latest celebrity gossip, Will Young's new single (which, by the way, sucks donkey balls), and a few more songs i've forgotten. by 7, my second alarm clock rang (i have three in total). i turned it off, and finally got out of bed. out of bed, wide awake (well, kind of) and it was still hours away from noon!

after sending off an e-mail to Ben boasting about my accomplishment (i'd make sure it was in today's papers, if i could) off i went to the gym. yes, the gym. remember that? i haven't been in close to five weeks; when i walked through the door, i expected balloons and confetti to drop from the ceiling - the prodigal gym member was back! nothing, of course, dropped from the ceiling. in fact it was really quiet today, probably because it was almost 9 and everyone else was at work.

you know what i enjoy the most about going to the gym? the shower after. the shower-head sprays down water in jets that pound on my neck, it's like getting poked by little elves... in a soothing way. and that salty taste of sweat mixed with water that i get for the first 3 seconds... it says "Yeah, that was a good workout." bliss in a 3x3 cubicle.

after the gym i headed over to Toni's to drop something off for some friends she's visiting in Belfast this weekend, and decided that, instead of taking the bus home like my lazy ass usually does, i'd take advantage of today's good weather and walk back instead. so off i went, walking down Smithdown Road on a pleasant day, feeling very proud of the fact that i got up early today, and had already had, in half a day, what would normally be an entire day. productivity, baby.

you know that feeling when you're on top of the world, and although everything else is going shitty, for just that short moment, or even, god forbid, the entire day, you feel certain that nothing, short of hell's fire raining down on you, could spoil it? well, that's been me since 7 this morning. i don't know why, but for some reason, i feel like today's a good day. walking back home just now, i was enjoying the bright sun and the pleasant wind, watching little tornadoes of autumn leaves twisting away on the sidewalk, when, true to English weather, where it can be shiny the whole day then all of a sudden you're standing in the middle of the sidewalk, drenched with rain because you didn't think you'd need an umbrella, shouting "What the fuck?!" at the sky, it started pouring. and the wind got stronger. and the rain got harder. good thing i had an umbrella. it was a tiny umbrella though, so for the next ten minutes the wind and i were having a good struggle for my umbrella. finally, when i reached my street, i let the wind win, and closed the umbrella, braving the rain for the final 50 metres. now my jeans are drying in front of the heater, my hair is still damp from the rain (there goes this morning's shower... there's simply no point blow-drying hair in this country), i'm about to have my lunch, and not feel guilty about it... this day can only get better.

i hope to God.

this may be the very last you'll see of me

this is what i bought for myself as a birthday present : a Sony Playstation 2. i may just be the last person on the face of this earth to own a games console, but having grown up deprived of TV games of any sort, i have to say that my inner child is well pleased. so between my mofo model - cutting mofo thick boards to make my mofo slopes - drawing section after section after bloody section of this slopey city, doing research on shopping (entirely work-related, i promise), cultural activities, history and demographics, as well as running gangsta missions on the streets of Los Santos, i've been a busy little girl scout lately.

in other words, expect less updating.

on the other hand, though, it has been tradition for this journal that, after issusing a "less updates" notice, more entries are posted instead.

so i guess, stay tuned, and we'll see how the wind blows. aye?

tick-tock

i hate kids.

it's a rule i've been sticking to for the past several years or so - a reaction by my non-conformist supposedly-feminist self - a rule that i followed because i refused to be likened to the population of stereotypical girly-girls who fawn over babies. i say supposed-feminist because isn't feminism about the freedom of a woman's ability to choose, i.e. if i want to fawn over babies then i most certainly can, and if i want to have 15 kids fathered by ten different guys and raise them on welfare in my one-bedroom flat with communal kitchen and wash facilities then it's my choice, aighity!!

that last word, by the way, was ay-aigh-tee.

and that last sentence, by the way, was a digression.

back to my point (and i do have one) - i hate kids.

well, let's say i used to hate kids.

or even, i never hated kids at all; i just pretended to.

or maybe, i've changed my mind about hating kids.

or maybe, some kids, i like.

not in a Michael Jackson way, mind you.

ever since Lauren had her baby, she's been bringing Faith to cell every week. Faith is three months old now (i think...) and it's been really exciting seeing her every week, because, i don't know if you've realised, but babies change a whole lot! (some babyologists call this growth and development) i've seen her evolve from a tiny little wrinkled pink rat, to one of the cutest creatures ever. plus, she makes this huffy, coughy sound when she breathes - which makes her sound not unlike my 96-year-old great-grandmother, but way cuter.

and i've also recently come to know a little two-something-year-old named Eden, who is the most pleasant toddler i've ever come across. either that, or all the other kids i've known must have been spawns of satan.

plus, i find myself checking some blogs frequently for cuteness such as this, and also this, which bring about a substantial amount of ooh-ing and aww-ing.

so. has my recent one-step advancement towards being a quarter-of-a-century-old also caused me to become aware of another biological countdown?

i think, though, that it's more likely that this recent affinity circles around the fact that i admire from a safe, non-owner distance.

i see Faith for two hours once a week, and the one time that i heard her scream (yes, scream) it made me leap out of my seat. i am not kidding you. it sounded like the wrath of hell had come upon us.

i've read and grimaced at Jack's teething stage, which caused his mother to force herself to get by her day with only five hours of sleep.

i've read about and actually, can hardly believe, the ferocity of Leta's tantrums. but if they are as bad as they sound, i'm glad that i'm at a safe reading distance.

Eden is still, in my mind, the world's most likeable toddler, but then again, she's probably the angelic exception to the rule.

i think my granduncle said it best - "The best thing about being a grandfather is that at the end of the day, you can give them back." he's very happy playing Silver to Daniel's Lone Ranger, but when Daniel or baby brother James kick up a fuss, it's back to mum and dad they go.

so.

what's my point?

it appears i don't have one after all.

the story so far

when i was five, i wanted to be a doctor. i'd use my dad's old stethoscope, his white work shirt (my lab coat) and a clipboard, where i'd write down diagnoses for my willing patient (usually Gene, then neighbour and only playmate) with his make-believe illnesses. my meds of choice were berries - freshly picked from the garden - and, for not-so-serious diseases like, say, disjointed bowels, i'd prescribe cut-up leaves.

when i was seven, i wanted to be a footballer - inspired by the football greats i'd seen on TV, although i could never remember their names. in fact, i hadn't the slightest idea what the rules of the game were, besides the obvious "kick ball around field and try to get it into the net-thing". truth be told, i just wanted to wear the outfit. i begged my parents for a jersey (or, as i called it, "the shirt with the number behind") and footballer socks - those over-the-knee ones. i never got the jersey, but i did get the socks. they were white, with "Nike" in red on the side. they were my favourite pair, although for years i pronounced "Nike" as "nike" instead of "ni-kee".

when i was twelve, i remodelled my room. came up with a design, and set off sourcing "pieces" to fill it up with. the result was my teenage nirvana, and i decided then that i was born to be an interior designer.

a year later, i wrote and directed the school play. it was a modern interpretation of Snow White, which got such rave reviews that i was sure that what i really wanted to be was a director.

along the years, this resumé of ambitions would include psychologist, hotelier, neurosurgeon, investment banker, stock-broker and chef, among others.

so it may be surprising to my five-year-old self (or then again, maybe not) that i sit here, barely seven hours away from turning twenty-four, surrounded by site analysis boards stuck on the walls, and the beginnings of the most challenging model i have ever had to build on a make-shift table behind me.

it's funny how things turn out, isn't it?

slave to consumerism

i have, in my flat, every excuse not to ever leave it again. my broadband is fixed - i've been surfing happily for two weeks now - and i have a new TV. complete and total impulse buy that i feel really guilty about. but you know, every minute of mindless pulp i watch on every inch of that widescreen sees the guilt ebbing away, bit by bit by tiny bit. of course, because my bank balance has been dwindling, and my visa extension application ate away quite a chunk of that already miserable balance, i was left with close to nothing to live on over the week. all i had in my fridge, from Tuesday on, was cheese, onions, a tray of strawberry-vodka shots, mayo and ketchup. so i paid, dearly, for that TV.

i am proud of my ability to restrain from going out shopping, although i was tempted to many times. but then again i didn't really have much choice anyway, cos my card would've been declined at the shops.

this week saw me discovering the joys of eBay. all the time i doubted it, insisted that it wasn't all that, convinced that every single item on sale on eBay was phony; this week i swallowed all of that and browsed through item after item on the hallowed website. of course, since i was broke, i did no bidding. well, actually, i entered bids for two Sony Playstation 2's, but then prayed and prayed that someone would outbid me and sure enough, 5 mintues before the auction was over, i was outbid on both.

tomorrow i'll be getting some much-needed cash into my account. it feels like i've been good all this week, not spending any money (well, except for that tiny TV), and tomorrow, to reward myself a teensy bit, i might do some shopping. just a little bit.

last night was Bonfire Night. it rained all evening, but thankfully stopped just in time for the fireworks display. i headed down to the Albert Dock for the show, which was pretty cool. read what the celebration's all about here, and take a look at some pictures from the night here.

the weekend was... educational

it was Saturday evening, i'd just gotten off work, rushed back home to get ready for the night out. i was tired to the bone - it had been a looooong day and to be honest all i'd wanted to do was flop in bed and sleep 'til kingdom come. but the date had been set, so what was i to do? half an hour in the tub and an hour of outfit-picking later i received a text : "What time do you want me to pick you up?"

we'd agreed on 8 o'clock, but i was starving, so i texted back "Come get me in half an hour?"

it was my job to pick the restaurant, and i'd already decided that we'd go to this place on Falkner Street - his favourite is Italian, and i was in the mood for a salmon fettucini. when we got there though, the place was packed - to the brim. no parking spots either, not even after we'd done 4 turns around the block.

so we headed to the docks - wouldn't have any parking problems there - and sure enough, we found a spot almost right away. got to the Pan American, where we were told that there wouldn't be any tables available until 10:15. you see, i was clever enough to not have anticipated the Saturday night crowd, and we were, therefore, without reservations. brilliant.

not to worry, though, there are loads of restaurants at the docks. tried the next one : Est Est Est, where there were also no tables, but we were "welcome to have drinks at the bar."

by that time i was so hungry my toes were growling so when he suggested a Spanish place in Queens Square, i agreed. i'd already eaten through half my cheek, i was that hungry. when we got there, though, La Tasca was (you guessed it) full. there was an hour and a half wait for a table.

as we walked the three blocks back to the car, he joked "At this rate, we'll end up having dinner at McDonald's." i laughed, but secretly thought "Please, god, no." we were dressed to the nine's - well, at least, i was dressed to the nine's; him, more to the eight's - and showing up at McDonald's looking like that, everyone would've known our scouting-for-restaurants-in-vain plight.

anyway, restaurant #5 - a Greek place on the other side of town - was also full.

so i suggested Lark Lane - a road full of pubs and restaurants, there was bound to be one table somewhere. the first place we went to - Keith's - smoky, pub-like atmosphere (by this time i was desperate) was also full.

we finally ended up at no. 52 - where the baby Jesus finally decided that he had teased my hunger enough and bestowed upon us a table - the last one in the restaurant, in fact. so an hour and a half of driving around and getting turned away from restaurant after restaurant later, i had the most deeeelicious scallops with fried calamari, and then the tenderest most luscious lamb, followed by the most horrible cup of coffee ever. two out of three, not too shabby methinks.

anyway, the lesson: never, never, never leave the house on Saturday night without first making a reservation. never.