a little less sixteen candles, a little more... act your age?

After a brief sojourn to Nottingham to visit my sister - a trip marred by her sickliness, resulting in all plans being cancelled and instead sitting in her living room while she coughs and splutters her way through How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days and her roommates make us dinner [and me a v. belated birthday cake], it's back to the Smoke and joblessness. Unable to handle being stuck at home for yet *another* evening, I escape to Sam's.

A confession last week:
Sam: "I told you we got freeview recently? Well, I've been watching the music channels. And - and I don't know if I'm really behind the times or it's really lame or anything, but - there's this one band I really like."
Me: "Oh who is it?"
Sam: "Umm, they're called... Fall Out Boy."

When I get there, her fiance Joe and a friend of ours, Arthur, are watching the football [England v Hungary], so we decamp to the bedroom where we sit around the computer, watching Fall Out Boy videos and the lamest movie trailers online, listening to the emo bro-down mp3 CD I made her [FOB, P!ATD, MCR], talking about comic books and why some comic book/superhero movies work and others don't, and the Panic! video for 'I Write Sins', and the FOB - sorry, Patrick Stump live lounge acoustic session last weekend [is it just me or does he call Jo Whiley "ma'am" at the end, and if so isn't that one of the most endearing things ever?] and her sister's recent wedding - and then Joe comes in and asks what we're up to and Sam says "acting like teenagers over my new favourite band" and we giggle, he raises an eyebrow and returns to the football and we wonder if even when we're 45 we'll still hop skip and jump up the stairs or into bed when the house is dark and we're the last ones awake so the boogity-boos that live under the bed and creep out from corners in the dark won't get us...

Panic! at the launch party.

The Lula issue 2 launch party in the West End, that I've been helping with all week. Another last minute DJ gig: a phone call last night, asking me to cover James's slot.

Suddenly the what-to-wear dilemma is replaced with the what-to-play dilemma. I've never played a London party and with the disappearance of my social life, I haven't been to any London parties to see what they play. Playlists are rapidly thrown together, some are uploaded online for me from Brooklyn [I heart D.E.], CDs and headphones are dropped off in the afternoon from James.

Then the what-to-play dilemma is replaced by the oh-shit-I-should-have-left-half-an-hour-ago-daddy-please-will-you-drive-me-into-town dilemma, and I eventually get to Portland Place about ten minutes before the party starts. The sound guy and I spend about five minutes trying to figure out the mixer and settings [it was a little odd] then we're up and running and I'm playing to an empty room although apparently people are arriving downstairs.

A couple songs in, I run to the open bar in the next room and grab a peach bellini. A few minutes later someone clears away the empty glass and brings me a fresh drink. I like this service. However, I end up spinning for just under two hours and by the end I'm getting the point where not only do I want another drink [alas, no new one appears after the second bellini], but I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever get someone to cover me so I can run to the bathroom. Just as I'm about to text someone, the next DJ shows up and I turn the decks over with some relief, push my way through the fashion crowd to the bar, down another drink then run downstairs to the bathrooms.

A while later, back upstairs in the room where the DJ is, talking to my friend, someone taps me on the shoulder to get my attention. It's a girl, short blond hair. "Are you going to be DJing again at all tonight?" I don't think so, I tell her. "Oh. I preferred your stuff - you were better than her." I stammer my thanks and turn back to my friend,unsure whether my suddenly-pink cheeks are from too much free champagne or from unexpected compliments from strangers.

Later, and we're downstairs watching The Like play, I get an immediate girl crush on the drummer [why is it always the drummers??] It's so hot and the Queens of Noize breeze in and there's a guy wearing a cowboy hat and someone else with their bangs [fringe] artfully scuplted across their forehead to accentuate their cheekbones and I've had too many drinks in quick succession with barely any food all day and my friend comes in and says it's all too Glamorama let's get out of here and as we're heading out Keira Knightley brushes past looking beautiful and we get outside and it finally finally feels like London might be approaching summer as the sky is a light-polluted shade of indigo and it's still warm and breezy and we walk up to Piccadilly Circus to get the tube home talking as if it hadn't been over a year since we've hung out like this.

burning questions

1) Is the new Futureheads song, Skip to the End, a Spaced reference?

2) Is Primark said Pry-mark or Pree-mark?

3) Why, when you're stressed out and in a super hurry, does everything break down? Three - THREE - internet connections went down on me [umm, that reads a little wrongly] today when I had a shitload to email out. And the fourth connection kept stop-starting.

4) Where has my social life gone?

5) What on earth am I going to wear to the big partay tomorrow night??

jobless layabout

As I'm still jobless it means I have time for lunch dates in Covent Garden, and afternoon tea in Soho, for popping in to Magma and standing gawping at everything like a kid in a candy store [a moment of self-promotion: check out the new Flux mag, issue 54 - got my Sonic Youth interview in], picking up the new Amelia's that has Swarovski crystals on the front and the new Super Super [j'adore].

It means I have time to go sit in the Apple Store on Regent St to hear my friend give a presentation, and later spend too long hunting for good ice cream in the supermarket [and failing]. It means I've had time to be bummed the Nets are out of the playoffs. To read two Harry Potter books [the sixth and then re-reading the first. Geek Alert: I'd just like to say OMG about the ending of the sixth. Okay, geeky moment over]. To watch a whole series of Buffy on DVD over a long weekend [okay, maybe that geek moment wasn't over...] To realise that my bank balance needs topping up verrrrry soon. And more than enough time to notice the Evening Standard comment that unemployment is at its highest since 2002...

boo

Imagine the night of an insomniac. How it takes forever to fall asleep. How sometimes you'll reach that stage when you can feel yourself on the precipice of dozing off, but you try not to notice because the minute you become aware, it wakes you up more. So you turn over, try to let your mind drift back into the nothingness it had almost reached. Then through your shut eyes you become aware of a glow. A glow that shouldn't be there. You crack open an eyelid and before you feel alert enough to react, you've thrown yourself backwards away from the bedside table, a shrill "ohmigodohmigodOHMIGOD" stuttering from your lips as your brain registers a visage glowly horribly a mere foot or so away from where you're sleeping.


Yeah, it would've been nice if someone had warned me one of the paperback editions of Chuck Palahniuk's latest, Haunted, had a glow in the fucking dark cover before it jolted me from almost-sleep at 3:45 am this morning.

hmm.

Is there anyone else that always reads Okkervil River as Overkill River?

Anyone?

I miss New York like whoa

So my internet action has been supremely limited since I returned to my house, as I discovered my dad has a dinosaur of a computer that's still on dial-up - dial up! I didn't even think it still existed! - and, my temper already shortened, the frustration of waiting for pages to load up has been incredibly short. However, it's Sunday evening, I've just managed to find a hot spot in my house [perched on the arm of the sofa, my back to the TV. My bum is actually getting kind of numb, these arms aren't very comfy] where I can latch on to a neighbour's wireless, so I'm taking advantage to run around the blogs and photo sites and check my emails.

Then, of course, I return to blogger to write something hilarious and entertaining about being back, but to be honest, right now all I can think about is the fucking huge lump in my throat that I've given myself from catching up on everything that's been going on back in NY. I miss it and the people and my life there so much more than I thought. Being back was nice for about two minutes, then the frustration and otherhomesickness kicked in.

I'm sorry London peeps, it's been lovely to see you all and I do miss you when I'm in NY, but right now NY is so much better for me than London ever feels. I need to get to grips with London more but at the moment, all I want is 24-hr running subways and the insane doorman at Annex and the teenagers at Misshapes and the DJs and the kids in bands and the American Apparel kids and the bloggers-in-person, and wine in the garden/on the bedroom floor or coffee at Sugar Sweet or sushi at St Marks or vodka-sodas anywhere and and and...

Okay, I'll do a better London entry when I'm feeling it more, but I'll leave you with a few London pictures, just so the Smoke knows I'm not completely ignoring it.

New Yorkers - send out a rescue mission, asap...



Well Toto, we're not in New York anymore...


You know you're back in England when supermarkets have aisles marked as such.


Pimms O'Clock.


Two characters that do make London better.

The Goodbye Day

So today is going to be the day I run around saying goodbye to everyone. Gosh, doesn't that sound like fun? I mean, I know that with the people that really matter to me, it's not a forever goodbye or anything. I know that one of them is out in London in about three weeks, another is possibly coming in June, three or four others in September. And I'm sure - no, certain - that I'll be back here.

But it's not just the people, it's the place, it's the lifestyle, it's the - without sounding too schizophrenic - it's the person I am when I'm here. I just don't want to let go. As much as I love London [born and raised, where my family are, etc etc], there really is no place like... New York.

So for all of you who I don't get to say goodbye to in person, thanks for everything, good luck in the future - and all that jazz. Come say hi if you're in the Big Smoke. And, like Ellen said, hopefully I'll be back here before you can say "visa". Or perhaps "five hour waiting line at the American Embassy"...

So anyway, in my recent procrastination [that, I think, reached a new low when I found myself standing among piles of clothes, an empty suitcase yawning at me, trying to figure out how to play 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' on the ukele - true story], I threw together random video clips and a ton of photos that have been taken on my camera in the past year since I moved here [well, apart from the plane taking off that I clearly nicked from a stock footage website], on imovie.

Hey, it fucking beat packing.

[or watch directly at youtube here if this is slow to load]

packing sucks ass. so does being parted from my bike. yes, i'm a loser.

I took a break from the headache involved in shoving things in suitcases, and went down to the Lower East Side for a cawffee and ended up donating a bike to the cause. i was going to put it in a brooklyn basement for a few months until I came back to pick it up, but at least this way it'll get used until whenever.


It was a beautiful evening and we walked up to Thompkins Sq Park in the dusk. Everyone was out, it was still so warm. It felt like the beginning of summer. On one side of the park some teenage girls were practicing cheerleader moves. Elsewhere there were some guys playing drums while some girl in a blue sequinned dress [who we were sure was totally cracked out] danced for them. And we turned to each other and agreed, "only in New York."

So remind me again why I'm leaving??

i love these motherfuckers

I've spent the day running around with Mz Lula, carrying bags overloaded with things from Teen Vogue with horrible handles that cut into my hands, run into Crapercrombie on Fifth Ave for my sister but been unable to handle that shop for more than three minutes, gone back to my 'hood, gone to Target to try and find some luggage, gone back into the city for the show... so I'm tired and still feeling a little sad from the night before [Djing - awesome fun, everything just clicked and the shaky hands only lasted two or songs, but then I got bummed out with everyone there thinking that soon I'd be so far away from them].

The Ivy League show this evening, Lower East Side. A small acoustic affair. I'm sat at the bar with my two homegirls, mojito in hand.

The boys start their set. There's the usual awesome banter, the fabulous tunes.

Then they dedicate one of my favourite of their songs to me. And end the song with a couple of bars from 'Greensleeves'. And, of course, I can't stop crying.


Sigh.

Alex & Ry, love you both and you better bring the Ivy League show to the UK soon.

i've blown that popsicle stand

last day at work.

so i'm now officially unemployed.

can i get a FUCK YEAH.

god it's nice to get out that place.

so I finally started packing

So the whole party-every-night-in-my-last-week-here plan already hit a bump when we decided not to hit up Sway tonight. Instead, while the overworked American Apparel employees crashed [what's that thing about no sweatshop labour again, Dov?], I thought I should actually start sorting stuff out.

Be impressed: I actually packed a whole suitcase.

Be less impressed: I barely made a dent in my room.

How the fuck did I accumulate so much crap over the course of a year?? Some of it I'll throw, but most of it does actually need to go back with me. Dang. This packing malarkey ent gonna be fun. So after one suitcase, dispirited at how little headway I seemed to have made [although I have emptied two drawers and half - well, a third maybe, of my closet] I gave up on the packing idea and sorted music for:



Clearly not worthy of a flyer shout-out, but they're letting me behind the decks again [brave guys]. I'm doing the early [warm up] slot.

After an AIM conversation this eveing with someone who will remain nameless, it's been decided I have to play either 'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go' by Wham, or 'I Saw The Sign' by Ace of Bass. I was debating whether to or not but decided that my imminent departure for an indefinite amount of time should be enough of an escape if the Gentlemen decide to chase me out of Black and White, cracking their riding whips and shaking their moustaches in my direction. And as my nameless companion pointed out, "I bet they like Ace of Bass really. I mean, just look how tight their pants are."