NYFF

well now. i was just asked to cover the NY Film Festival this autumn. full press accreditation 'n everything. that's nice.

class last night

So in class last night I sat in the middle of the back row where the cliquey kids sit, as I’d been talking to them in the elevator on the way up. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Obviously there was a lot of talk around and over me, and there were moments when I felt like a bit of a lemon sat there. I consoled myself with the thought I was doing it on purpose to disrupt their little giggling gang. I felt almost smug at times, the looks when one of them walked in and saw me sat in the middle of the row in between people who wanted to sit next to each other.

Then the lecture started and they started passing notes. Dear god, PASSING NOTES. How the hell old are we? This isn’t high school! For the love of…

where is my mind?

oh god. i just had to turn down pixies tickets because i have no money and i have class tonight.

it hurt.

it physically hurt to have to say thanks-but-no-thanks.

LCD Soundsystem
Interpol
The Pixies
Jones Beach, Long Island

tonight.

waaaaaahhh.

scott free & sake

The most heard phrase this evening: “So did you hear about Michael Jackson??”

for some reason, after some drinks, the plum stone ("pit", apparently) in L's plum wine sake was highly amusing

(photo thanks to mr chew)

up and down the east side

up to meet L. at the carlyle in the upper east side with my stuff - marvel at the splendour - ignore everything in the overpriced minibar and make drinks with vodka bought from duty free and soda from duane reade - order out pizza - a few drinks and slices later, leave and get the 6 downtown - head to the dark room - meet L's high school friend straight off, then Jason, the bar's owner and L's friend from london - free drinks all night, it would seem - CC turns up with roommate - drinks, talk, cigarettes outside (menthols) - everyone hanging in the street again - the LES on a summer night, yo - back inside, more free drinks (L. decides shots would be good, Jason gives us Jaegermeister), talking to strange employees - CC has to take off - L and I go hang upstairs in Jason's apt - a strange blond australian girl turns up at the apartment "i'm getting a plane tomorrowwww jayyyson and i just wanted to say byyyyeee" - odd chick - back downstairs, more drinks, more talk, more jukebox - back upstairs - get invaded by more of Jason's friends, a cool girl called Dagney and some others i don't remember - a really really stoned guy called harry who was sat opposite me trying to feel me up - even *more* people turned up once the bar shut, all the bartenders 'n shit - eventually wandering out of the apt when it was broad daylight - stumbling to the bowery and hailing a cab back up to 76th & madison that was surprisingly cheap although no traffic at that time of morning on a saturday - somehow getting into PJs and collapsing into the most beautiful comfortable bed - sleeping till about 2pm, the tv on all night, occasionally waking up to hear spongebob squarepants on in the background - falling asleep again about 3 for another hour or so - bubble bath, get dressed - head to barneys, air incredibly humid and oppressive - big thunderstorm while we're in barneys - walk past seal and heidi klum - have dinner in the restaurant on the top floor of barneys - stopped raining when we come out - walk back, find 'ever after' on tv, watch it in bed - make an executive decision to leave once movie is over as would be so easy to just stay in bed for the rest of the weekend - trek back to JC, am unimaginably depressed at returning to this apartment after the luxury of the carlyle...

so little to do, so much time...

holy mother of *crap* i'm bored

i mean, talk about understimulated and underchallenged

i know i shouldn't complain...

at least it gives me time to do my MB work/email peeps/promote my services as theoretical drummer (i just joined three new bands today)

maybe i've just had too much caffeine. ho hum.

excerpt from an email from m.

'I think you are already WAY too american...check out this sentence:

the cops busted them for selling liquor to a minor.

What you meant to say was: "the police officers arrested them for selling alcohol/intoxicating substances to an underage youth".'

so, can i get your number?

oh good lord, one of the doormen to my apartment building just asked me out.

i was coming back from duane reade with ratty wet hair in an ancient skirt because i need to do some laundry, and he asked for my number and if he could call me sometime.

it really freaked me out, i had no idea what to say. i looked around for his friends to see what the joke was about but there was only me and him there.

sheesh.

what's going on?

raining on orchard

1) it's june. it shouldn't still be raining.
2) feeling like an outsider, whatever the situation, sucks...
3) ...so that when someone makes an effort to talk to you, you practically hug them with gratitude
4) it's nice when people remember you from a quick five minute conversation the weekend before
5) being told you look like rod stewart (rod stewart?! wtf?!), even if they say they mean it as a compliment, is rarely taken as one. even if that 'and you think i'm sexy' song is playing. seriously.
6) hanging out with people in the "music industry" means you don't often get to talk with who you want as everyone else wants to talk with them too

so initially i was at some dive on essex with roommate and other MB peeps. then they all spent ages deciding where to go next so i "split that joint" (just for you, sbj) and went to meet some of the kids from last weekend up the road.

we were at orchard bar again last night, and the cops busted them for selling liquor to a minor. i saw them writing out the citation or whatever when i went to the bar, then when i was hanging outside i heard the bouncers talking. they had an underage undercover detective. although i don't quite understand how it happened as they were IDing everyone when we came in. unless that was after they'd been busted, and it just took a really long time for cops to come by and write up a ticket.

so it was, like, *all* music people there last night that we ran into. i was talking one guy, a manager, and asking if he managed anyone i know. "lindsay lohan?" umm, yes, know her. he also did junior senior, and we then had a huge argument about which year it was that they were first around, so to speak. i said '02, he said '03. i was trying to explain the difference between Europe and the US (a European band would most likely come out first in Europe), and how me and sam crashed the Dazed & Confused party and accidentally wandered on stage when Jr-Sr were playing, back in Dec. '02.

and there was also the girl who was ipod-DJing there last night and does the PR for the futureheads (i was talking with a music writer who told me this, i did of course tell him he had a spare free ticket going, call me...), and a guy in a band, who told me he was going to milton keynes in two weeks.

me: oh christ, poor you.
him: what? no, i love milton keynes!
me: huh? milton keynes is a shithole!
him: 60,000 people man! opening for green day in front of sixty thousand people..
me: oh. right. well.
him: although, yeah, from your point of view i guess it's a shithole....

i always feel kind of bad when they tell me the name/s of their band/s and i've never heard of them before. i guess it just depends which musical circles you move in. listen to. whatever.


the question i've been pondering most: is it extremely unfair to let a guy buy you shots when you know that he doesn't have a chance in hell, and you're leaving in five minutes anyway to go meet drummer boy and co. a few blocks away?

2am

so i took two lemsip capsules before i went to bed because i was still feeling crummy and wanted to feel better by the morning.

of course, it's only when i'm still wide awake and tossing and turning an hour and a half later i remember there's caffeine in the bloody things.

so now it's 2am, i'm completely awake, really need to sleep, cursing my stupidity and just getting sick in general. it'd be sooo nice to be able to pull a sickie tomorrow (later today), it really would... gah.

how d'ya like *them* apples

i know NY is called the big apple, but the apples here really are big. i mean, huge. i can never eat a whole one. and they're really sweet as well.

makes me pine for sainsburys' bags of little braeburns. they were cute, and the perfect size.

is this a slightly nonsensical posting about apples, or is it just me?

i feel so fluey today. going home to make soup and kneidl after work. there's some kind of MB party, but i have a valid excuse for not going, at least. blech.

coney island daze

man, coney island really kicked my ass yesterday. we were there for like seven hours. sun, sea, sand, skeeball, batting cages, bumper boats, beers, wonder wheel, cyclone, nathans, loads of people. could barely keep my eyes open on the way back to manhattan, but for some reason we decided to go out anyway, to this bar opening on la guardia... but of course i didn't have my ID (why would you need ID at coney? i should have thought ahead...) so the bouncer let me use the restroom (i practically had my legs crossed as he was telling me i couldn't come in) - the place looked like a total biker bar, lots of beards and bandanas - so we split that joint and headed to another bar in the village, where i had a sprite (hardcore), watched the red sox thrash the yankees *again* (yay) then me and annie left and stumbled, half asleep both of us, to 6th ave to get the PATH (me) and the subway (her). a good way to spend a sunday though.

the next night

drinking at home... PATH to christopher... go to Don Hill's, $10 cover, bar is empty and shit so leave... head up to Misshapes @ Luke & Leroy's again (where we went last saturday)... within about five minutes i spot alex a.k.a. austin powers from night before... about two minutes later i bump into the boy at the bar... weird b/c he was meant to be going to an after party somewhere else... brief chats... disappear to buy a coke and top it up from my hip-flask (yes, again)... bump into Dennis the DJ i met on friday before the boy, he recognises and remembers me which is impressive... talk to randoms outside that i'm introduced to by the boy... decide to split as feeling a little strange and very over-tired... a sweet girl that i've been talking to who knows the boy walks with me to the PATH, we swap numbers and she invites me to a bar opening the next night... another strange night in nyc...

about last night

so after the encouragement of an open bar, i told my roommate about our ally sheedy theory and she said she was honoured to be sharing a room with ally (*sob*)

and then i spent the rest of the night with this guy i met, making out at various locations over the east village and the lower east side. he was cute and he kept holding my hand and he was in a band he wouldn't tell me the name of, and we kept going back and forth from the dark room (ludlow and houston) to various other bars, and hanging with his friends (i got a few high fives and "i love your accent!"s). and at one point, when we were standing outside pianos on ludlow, there was a brown out, and everyone started whooping. and the homeboys on ludlow were calling this boy steve nash and his friend alex, austin powers (it kind of suited him at the time) and invited them to go hang out. and i was making him guess my surname and the only clue i could ever think of was the king in that scottish play, and he kept calling me othello. and he seemed to know everyone everywhere. and we kept seeing some turkish guys around who thought i was swedish. it was the perfect random evening, and it was so much fun.

it was one of those nights i wish i could remember always, regardless of the making out, just for the sense of adventure and being young and fancy-free in new york and that imminent sense of summer and all the new people and ... i know i seem to keep saying this, but i really do *love* this town.

hanalita-solo

so a year ago i'd never been to a gig

and last night i went to a gig by myself. i did miss my gig-going buddy when i got tired and had no one to lean on. but it's not like you can talk much when someone's playing anyway.

when the DJ at the beginning, trying to warm up the crowd, shouted 'what's up noo yorrrk!" i got a real jolt. it sounded so weird and out of place. and you could get to the bar really easily... as long as you were wearing a green wristband. similar prices to london gigs, just no queue.

so classy

i never thought i'd stoop this low...

buying three dollar cokes at the bar we're at last night, then sneaking in to the ladies' room and topping it with JD from the hipflask in my handbag because i'm that cheap (and broke)

i hear thunder

from my living room window across the hudson to the glowing buildings of manhattan.

there was the most amazing thunderstorm just now. i'd forgotten what NY thunderstorms were like.

extract from an email i sent:

"So, my impressions so far, 2 ½ weeks in:

I’ve found that the class seems to have already split into three: the slightly geeky, the outgoing and the ones who fall into neither group. Cliques have formed very quickly and there is a good degree of pretentiousness and arrogance; people looking down their noses or just being downright unfriendly (yes, I’m talking about the self-styled “cool” group).

Although I fall into that no-man’s land of associating with either group, I tend to know and associate with the Loud group better, and I find it strange that there has been such a split in the sexes. From my point of view – perhaps it is different within the groups – there’s the Loud girls group, and the Loud boys group, and although they socialize together, they also stick with their own sex a good deal of the time (thinking of the oh-so-girly-let’s-call-five-different-people-before-I-decide-what-to-wear-pyjama-party-having-ditzy-squealy-giggly exclusive girls group, and the boys with the obvious ringleaders who make juvenile jokes in lectures and do things just for the effect, as if we were still in high school. Yes, I really am this intolerant.)

To be honest, I find many of them to be fairly immature, regardless of age. I don’t know if this is due to having an older group of friends back home, or having grown up in a city of equal size to NY (London) I find myself being a little blasé about the whole city experience (especially having been here before), but I find their fear of escalators and inability to use the subway and lack of adventure somewhat tiresome.

I feel a lot of them don’t – and perhaps won’t – experience the proper New York which is surely part of the reason they are here. They seem to hang out in groups of Brits, always going to the same old places (Dorrians, Fat Blacks) – and if it’s not the same place then it’s the same location (“Let’s go to The Village!”) (you can hear them capitalize the T and the V when they say it).

Since I’ve been here I’ve been up and down Manhattan and Brooklyn. I’ve been to Soho, the East Village, the LES, Chinatown, Williamsburg, Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Brooklyn Heights… I’ve talked to strangers, joined art collectives on their hippy march celebrating the “First Warm Night” and followed a brass band onto a subway car. I’ve bought a bike off a stranger from craigslist. I’ve scrawled chalk tags over parts of Red Hook, sat on a stoop drinking from a hipflask whilst a police helicopter circled overhead, I’ve backed quietly away from a game of spin the bottle involving 100+ people. I’ve gone to Printed Matter and seen Aaron Rose and Terry Richardson. I’ve made plans to go shoot at Rucker this summer (photos, not balls). I talked to a girl I never met who works freelance for Paper magazine. I went down to the LES on my lunch break, walking through a film crew on Houston St, to get a ticket for a gig that I’ll go to by myself because I don’t know anyone else here to likes the music but I wanted to go. I’ve sat on a Chinatown fire escape after midnight, drinking and people watching. I’ve navigated my way from the middle of Jersey City to Battery Park up to 9th St on my bike with only one minor mistake (almost getting on to the West Side Highway… a quick swerve to the curb, almost knocking over a doorman, and heading down the nearest side road soon got me away from that). I’ve chatted to a taxi driver – a genuine born-and-bred New Yorker – and knew exactly where I was going. I’ve been taken for a meal at Balthazar and been to the Life Café; I’ve tried to economise at the A&P and some evenings been too tired to cook so had cereal or matzo for dinner. I’ve dawdled in a second-hand bookstore I discovered in the back streets of Soho, eavesdropping on the conversation of two gentlemen who were clearly heavily involved in the theatre world (playwrights or directors, at a guess). I’ve ridden along the Hudson pathway as it was nearing dusk, transfixed by Manhattan on the other side of the river and constantly thinking Oh my god, I get to live here for a year. What is it about New York that brings this out in me? I feel – just different here. A different kind of confidence that I lack in London, that I love having here.

And I resent the MB people for taking that away from me when I’m with them. I can walk down a street here and feel ten feet tall; I walk into that classroom and feel like the smallest person there is. You try and start a conversation and they don’t even try to continue it. One of the girls [...] she’s in the girly group I described above, and she’s always seemed fairly sweet. After class on Monday, I tried to make an effort and asked how their Saturday night had been. Her reply “Good”, with a smirk. Couldn’t have been more conversation-stopping or crushing if she’d tried."


i know we made all those ally-sheedy-in-the-breakfast-club jokes before i went, but they're verging on becoming a reality with the MB lot. yikes.

after the first week:

Things I have learnt this week:
- Chelsea has a large canine population, all of which seem to fall into two categories: as small as a hamster, or large
enough to swallow aforementioned hamster in one gulp
- In the flesh Terry Richardson and Brillo look less alike than we have been led to believe
- That US TV has far to many adverts
- That Seth Cohen actually is quite an irritating whiny character. Being six weeks behind in the UK this wasn’t quite as
evident.
- Free wi-fi is great
- Some of the other people on this course are completely retarded
- I should have brought an umbrella with me

thought processes

Last night when we went out – the boys headed straight over to Hoboken but the louder girls decided it would be nice to go to “The Village” for dinner – my thoughts could be classified as such:

From the subway to restaurant: oh my god, I forgot how irritating girls are en masse

At the restaurant: ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod shutup!

From PATH to bar: fucking idiots.

rate this

Reality Testing – How would you rate yourself in the following areas?
(From the MB Career Development booklet)

Attitude: badass
Awareness: huh? wha?
Competitive Differences: football has eleven men, a round ball and a goal with a net at the back, not big men, lots of padding, a retarded rugby ball and a gridiron
Discipline: whips and chains, preferably
Education: is key
Family: irritating but couldn’t live without ‘em
Goals: with a net at the back, as mentioned above
Interpersonal relations: I don’t understand the question
Opportunity: is on every corner

california

what the hell has happened to the OC? i leave the UK and Summer's just ditched Zack for Spiderman Seth, Lindsay is leaving town, Marissa is gay and going out with Alex, and Kirsten and Sandy seem to be getting back on track. The meeting at the bus station? yes, i shed a tear.

now i catch an episode here on tv, four days since i last watched it, in the US - and kirsten's a lush, sandy's turning bully, ryan and marissa are back together, ryan now has a brother, and seth has become one of the most irritating whiny characters currently on television. he needs a good slap.

seriously, what happened in those missing weeks? and why, leaving the ep on a doozy of a cliff-hanger, do they then spoil it with the "next week on the OC" segment? fools.

Dos and Don'ts of the American Workplace

In orientation today, in a “team building” kind of exercise, we had to get into groups and list Dos and Donts in the American Workplace, in order to get us into US working mindset.

The first three Don’ts to be shouted out:
• Don’t use irony
• Don’t photocopy your arse
• Don’t sleep with the boss


It’s nice to see the kind of wavelength these peeps are on.

other side of the pond

finally here stop so tired can't see straight stop others on course seem alright stop but haven't really talked to them much stop as as soon as i'd checked in and changed i met up with hf and ajay and spent the day with them stop this included chilling in soho, barneys, fao schwarz and rainstorms before dozing off on their bed then going to see 'hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy' at the ziegfield stop now aiming to head to bed but feel i should wait and meet my roommates stop

things i will most most #1

the one who gets hydrogen peroxide in her eye as a way to get out of going to suffolk. the one who can't look at white snow on TVs. the one who made me start watching The OC. the one who comandeers the remote controls and makes the rest of us watch multiple episodes of will & grace/friends/some crappy reality show probably set on an island, often involving people making out. the one who decided to paint her bedroom hot pink two hours before her swanky 21st birthday party was meant to be starting. the one who comes home from uni making non-stop peter kay and little britain references, and stupid in-jokes that no one else gets. the one who calls me at three in the morning because she's in a club and there's a song playing (busted, mcfly or queen/don't stop me now) that she wants me to hear. the one who, when she was 9 and obnoxious, introduced herself to my new secondary school friends as "chickenpox". the one who wishes she was a cheerleader. the one who got the bigger bedroom. the one who has more clothes than she knows what to do with. the one who ignores my elder-sisterly advice and attempts to influence in books (does she even know what a book is??) and music. the one and only younger sister, my fi.

love you, bub.

things i will miss most # 43 & 44

# 43: taking the post down to 105 and wasting time chatting to sam (the receptionist).

# 44: jaffa cakes.

things that have made me cry (or almost cry) this past week:

* the visa debacle with MB/the embassy
* getting home too late on thursday to do anything that i needed to. chalk this one up to complete overtiredness, lack of food (i sound like a toddler) and currently emotional instability
* the last ever episode of Buffy (man, that show rocks)
* more visa debacle with the courier company. and MB.
* Everything Is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
* thinking about having to leave my house forever
* Finding Neverland (again)
* Chocolat (which for some reason, i'm annoyed about)

Something of an emotional knapsack, as HF keeps calling me.

things i will miss most # 5

(l to r: alice, laura, me, al's little sister, amy. at the forefront, my fi)

childhood best friends who, now you're supposedly grown up, meet for a "quick drink" and three hours later still find yourselves in the pub

fuck them up their stupid asses

so i spent most of my day at the embassy today. i read a whole book and still had time over (incidentally, i should have re-thought my choice of book, as it kept making me choke up, and i was thinking how terrible it would be to start crying in the middle of the embassy, in that huge waiting room, because of a sodding book.) i had to buy overpriced food because, in a case of astounding wishful thinking, i thought it would take maybe an hr and a half, two hours at most and hadn't had lunch or anything.

and then i finally get called up there for my interview (one of the last up, natch), only to find out that i'm not on the correct database, that the "organisation" that's sorting out this internship hasn't entered me.

i got outside, called the company, managed to remain calm, then went round the corner and burst into tears on the phone to my mum. not my finest moment. there were three armed police guards staring at me. excellent. one of them even strolled really unsubtly right around me, brandishing his machine gun, checking i wasn't carrying a bomb or something i expect. no, no, just your run-of-the-mill public breakdown.

i'm so fucking fed up with the company; they seem so bloody disorganised. as if moving to another country for year wasn't stressful enough without all this other shit.

so today's f-u goes to them. fuck MB, fuck them up their stupid asses.

spoofalicious, baby

'american we stand as one'

i don't know whether to laugh or cry

what film are we talking about

"so you really thought it was a good film?"
"yes! how could you not?!"
"but - the story was so messy and weak! and-"
"it was brilliant! there was such great camaraderie and that bit when-"
"yeah, okay, there was a good sense-like, nice chemistry between them all, but otherwise it was rubbish-"
"no-"
"-the storyline was just messy and sooo predictable-"
"-yeah, whatever..."
"it was!"
"it was a good film-"
"rubbish"
"nope"
"yes"
"nope"
"your mum."

nice to see we can still have eloquent discussions about films.

cheap thrills

somehow there was still room in us after that huge meal at the restaurant so we made a late night trip to the supermarket for a £2 bottle of bucks fizz and sticky toffee pudding. one of our finer plans, i feel.

fun for all the family...

another family/religious holiday, another trip to A&E with my sister.

we`ve realised what her "thing" is. with some people it`s writing, some it`s music, some it`s kicking a ball around a pitch. my sister? her gift is putting the `special` in special occasion by throwing the big holidays (first christmas, now easter) into disarray with a variety of tricks. after the mystery seizure on christmas eve, her lastest trick is getting hydrogen peroxide in her eye just as we`re about to leave to go to suffolk for sunday lunch, necessitating a quick trip to casualty and then over to moorfields eye hospital in the east end (which was quite strange as it was all shut up and dead apart from the A&E part of the hospital.)

it`s a real gift, i think you`ll agree.

(she`s fine. i don`t have that inappropriate a sense of humour that i`d be laughing if she`d gone blind. they just irrigated it for what felt like ages, did a litmus test - on her eye, *shudder* - and gave her some ointment.)

i`m starting to wonder whether someplace with padded walls might be safer for her - and us...

tower bridge is falling down

best overheard conversation last night in london eye pod between two American ladies who were looking at one of those skyline guide things, trying to identify everything.

Woman #1: Where's Tower Bridge?
Woman #2: Ah don't know
Woman #1: Well Ah thought it would be really obvious. It's like bright blue isn't it?
Woman #2: Ah think so.
Woman #1: So where'd it go? That's Bucking-ham palace, that's Waterloo... Ah don't see Tower Bridge nowhere.
Woman #2: Well maybe they tore it down. They done tore London Bridge down, y'know.

I was snickering in the corner throughout this exchange then kindly informed them it was actually round the bend in the river; we were now too low down to see it as it was blocked by buildings along the south bank.

fried my little brains

okay, we went to see the kills last night. me and dig were both complete miseryguts, both completely preoccupied with psychotic housemates (him) and burglaries (me).

but cat claw and fried my little brains made me feel fractionally better.

fuckers

around the 20th of december last year, someone asked me what i`d like for christmas

i foolishly said "better luck for my family", `cause that`s pretty much all i *do* want

i jinxed it. ever since then, it`s all just going further and further downhill. it`s laughable.

we got back this evening to find out we`d been burgled. my dad`s antique clock (apparently worth about £1500. should`ve sold it ages ago, in my mind), mine and my ma`s jewellery boxes (including 4 birth certificates and 1 marriage certificate), the lovely pentax camera that was my fotolog staple before i got my digi, a gameboy, a minidisc player, and, most crushing of all, my fricking laptop. my fucking career.

so laugh with me, and cross your fingers that the duncan luck goes uphill from now on.

(the forensics dude took my fingerprints so they could compare and contrast etc. apparently scotland yard destroys them once they`re over, they don`t get put on a record or anything. apparently.)
**

on the plus side, i did return home to exciting packages from various ebayers, including a johnny cash lp that is now of course playing loudly. i need me some whiskey. strange they didn`t think to take them.

snow! real live snow!

so by the time it turned new year here in steamboat (colorado), it was the equivalent of like 7 or 8 in the morning back home. yesterday was a looooonnng day.

but now i'm here and there's no rest for the wicked so i had a ski lesson today which was wicked. and there's just so much snow everywhere! and it's sunny! hurrah!

merry motherfucking christmas

how we spent christmas eve and the wee hours of christmas day

my sister had to be rushed to hospital. she had a seizure of some kind. i`ve never been so panicked and scared in my whole life but somehow still managed to call 999 and coherently give them our address and phone number

she`s back home and relatively okay now, thank god. not quite the start to christmas we had hoped for


merry motherfucking christmas indeed

like an ostrich

you try and bury your head in the sand so you don`t go crazy from all the shit that`s happening, then something happens to bring it all home.

alison's uncle is being held hostage in iraq.

hardly something you can ignore.

leaving on a jet plane

Fri 31-Dec LHR - DEN

Thurs 6-Jan DEN - JFK

Mon 10-Jan JFK - LHR


strange that previous post laments the state of america, yet the same day i book my trip over to the states to go in little under two months. can't wait though. skiing and partying can safely be separated from politics. i hope.

the death of democracy

*thanks to dogseat for image

It’s the day after the US Presidential Elections. Bush got back in. Something like 51% to 49% is what I heard.

The day is grey. There’s no sun and the low clouds are blocking out any blue sky. Everything seems faded of colour in this light. The trees are shedding their leaves. All in all, the weather pretty much matches my mood. It’s reflective of how a lot of people feel.

The New Yorkers were all so optimistic that I thought maybe Kerry had a chance. They were all gathering at one house to watch the results come in, bottles of champagne chilling for the celebratory drinks, flasks of whiskey tucked in back pockets to calm the nerves as Jon Stewart chatted his way through Election Night. But the champagne and whiskey turned to commiserating drinks, something to steady the nerves ahead of four more years of Bush.

That’s what I’ve seen a lot of. “Four More Years.” “Four Year Hangover.” “How can 59, 054, 087 people be wrong?” as on the Daily Mirror, above. Strange, they always seemed a fairly right wing newspaper. Jumping on the Kerry bandwagon.

I saw Kerry’s concession speech where he got a standing ovation. “We’ve still got your back man!” someone yelled from the crowd as the applause subsided. I almost cried.

I think we might be hearing the death rattle of democracy.

more bikes, less cars

halloween critical mass last night was sooo much fun

after swapping the huge mountain bike for the chonch bike (aka deathbike for cutie, recently renamed 'elizabeth' by sam) we congregated on the south bank by the national. i just about managed to hook up my devil horns to the front of my bike.

to be honest, the mass was a little disorganised and there seemed to be some power issues to be worked out; no one ever seemed to really know where we were going. we went over waterloo bridge, up kingsway, round bloomsbury square, then headed up to the couriers pub (can't for life of me remember name), up clerkenwell rd, past farringdon station, through smithfield, then down over london bridge, along the south bank to tower bridge, back over that (where small confrontation occurred between posh twat and overzealous slightly scary bike courier guy wearing a death hood) past the tower of london, along that route back to the west end, along the embankment, trafalgar sq, charing cross road up to tottenham court road, up oxford street where we shut down oxford circus by riding in circles for a while. which was amusing. then they headed up portland place to who knows where while me, diggle and sam hopped off our bikes, locked 'em up and went to The Heights bar, a bar about fifteen stories up on top of the st george's hotel. very nice.

me and sam then for some reason decided to cycle home too, which almost did me in.

one week later...

well. quite a year for the red sox. first world series win in 86 years. took its damn time coming. screw the curse, screw the yankees, screw st louis, we won. hah.

or something a little more sporting.

and now, after all those nights of staying up to watch the bloody games, i need some serious sleep... zzzzzz...

curse schmurse

Bos: 10
NY: 3

have it!

unconscious comfort

had a really restless sleepless night last night, brain churning, couldn't get things off my mind

at one point i woke up to find myself curled up foetally, thumb in mouth, cheeks wet with tears

jesus

felt emotionally exhausted which only added to the insomnia

what's going on?

puellae est in bar

so i was out with friends the other night. we were in a packed vodka bar in central london. one-in one-out style. we're young, we're in a bar surrounded by lots of other young people and freely flowing alcohol.

and it suddenly occurred to me we were talking about latin. yes, latin. caecilius est in horto. cerberus. matella.

are we like the biggest geeks in the world?

i can't believe it's october already.

shit.

9/11... belatedly

it was three years ago last saturday. wow, it seems both so much longer and much more recent than that.

following various links i ended up on laura holder's site (aka lauratitian) and saw her post about 9/11 when it happened and it got me thinking.

actually it got me feeling. i see things like this, these personal glimpses at the disaster that happened and i can't read them properly. i feel choked. i feel like i'm almost about to cry.

so where was i? it's something everyone remembers, isn't it.

i was working my last day at starbucks in uxbridge. it was the end of summer vacation between my first and second years at university. i'd spent the summer working back at starbucks after Thomas (manager) had invited me back, and had been whored out to various stores: richmond, kingston, gloucester road, uxbridge. kingston was the best, it was where mikee and scotty worked. uxbridge i didn't like very much. apart from the fact that it's miles away, the people there weren't so easy to get on with and they seemed to resent the fact that i'd come straight in as supervisor when i was the youngest person to work there (hah. sorry. that was a belated hah, as well).

so i get in to work for a 1pm shift and i've just punched in when my sister calls me on my mobile to say a plane had crashed into one of the world trade center towers. we were both kind of "wow" but it seemed like a crazy joke at the time.

in the next hour more people came in and reports trickled in. both the towers had since been hit. a plane had flown into the pentagon. i had to explain to Roberto (spanish? south american? can't remember), one of the guys working with me, what the pentagon was. when he understood it was a US governmental building he cracked a huge grin. "good. down wiz ahmairicayn goverrement." what a prick. i hated him even more right then. maybe if he'd realised what a big deal it all was he wouldn't have said it. but he still did.

my sister called again, more panicked this time. she was home alone and i think she just wanted some reassurance, to hear a family voice. there wasn't much i could say, especially as i was meant to be working. she stuck a VHS in and pressed record; every channel had been taken over by the news.

when i finally got a break, i went over to the electronics store in the shopping mall where we were based. i think it was a Dixons. the mall was pretty empty. there were other people gathered in there, standing hushed in front of the bank of televisions that always line the back walls. all televisions were either showing footage of the event, or were tuned to a Sky Movies channel that just showed movie trailers in a continuous loop. one of them for that schwarzenegger flick, The 6th Day and there were a few seconds when you couldn't tell which screen was showing reality and which was showing the future apocalyptic style film. i suddenly couldn't stop shivering and got out the store.

i don't remember much of the rest of the shift; i don't think anything much happened. everywhere was much quieter than usual, i know that much.

those are my main memories of the day. then a couple days later, driving up to nottingham and back in a day with claire to drop stuff off at the new house. driving with her is usually pretty fun, we put on loud music, she pisses around, we talk and joke. we listened to bbc radio the whole time, constantly talking about the tragedy and we barely spoke a word between us. it was strange.

and now. it's the personal accounts, like i mentioned, that affect me. it's almost as if it's been overdone or something in the mainstream media. although saying that, the images of it in Bowling for Columbine made me cry and not be able to stop.

a while ago, whilst at work, i was browsing through people's archives (it's so much easier with a good broadband connection) and came across frank's dedication to the event here and, even though i was at work, it made me cry. that sneezy feeling you get in your nose, the choking feeling in your throat, the prickling feeling in your eyes when you're trying your hardest not to - started as i read his caption then eventually got the better of me as i scrolled down and read the comments.

and that's just one of them that immediately springs to mind. like i said, it's these personal takes on the tragedy, the personal element that get me. i think it's been - i don't know, overdone or something in the mainstream media. the pictures and words are still horrifying but when it's just something like this - and from people i've met in person, no less - then it just brings it home to you.

Fear of Failure (yes, I'm capitalising it).

Some people use it as fuel, the hot hard core of their ambition.

Others are so crippled by it that they don't even try - which of course is a type of failure. It's a vicious circle. So scared of failing that you don't even try and in the process fail anyway.

It's ridiculous.

I've had enough of bitching about how sick I am of this city, how I feel stuck in a rut or something.

I can't even bitch about being scared to call The Producer 'cause Fate's wheels turned and clicked and we bumped into each other. And it was good news that I heard - but obviously I've barely done a thing about it. Written a couple of paragraphs. Why? Because I'm scared they won't like what I come up with when I know this thing inside-out, back-to-front and in Latin if it really came to it? Probably. It's taken on tones of apathy, this fear of failing thing. It's become more of a "nah I can't really be bothered" more than I "oh god what if they don't like it." It's just a masquerade.

But enough. If I'm tired of London (then I'm tired of life?) then I can do something about it. And I am.

And this writing thing. I'm going to do it. I need some self-discipline. I need to find somewhere to work; there are way too many distractions here. But people are leaving and going back to school and so on so the place will empty out a little. That might help.

And a job. I need to get a job. I don't have time this week (no, honestly, I'm already working on Thursday and Friday) but Monday morning, bright and early, I'll go do the rounds of the agencies, peruse the Guardian Media. Get something to keep me going.

And soon I'll blow the hell out of this popsicle stand.

The Producer speaks

so i bumped into The Producer the other day; he was walking out a dry cleaner's as i walked past - when i should have actually been in richmond. and he'd tried to call me an hour previous but my phone had been off. it's so easy to see these "signs" everywhere...

after a little chitchat:

"...what it comes back to is that I think you're a fantastic writer-"

oh god, that sounds like there's going to be a 'but', he's going to say 'but- something', oh shit, but what?

" - and what's coming back from these people is that they think you should write a book."

oh.

yes, that was unexpected. now what??

hey, at least it saves me calling him. i hate calling people.