bleurgh

Am not going to post too much this week as the Mule and I are moving at the moment and I tend to come home from the gym and get confronted by stuff. Boxing and packing stuff and bills and change of address stuff. Although the Mule has done a large amount of it himself, it is still not what you want to come home to at the end of a tiring day. However, people have been very helpful, particularly family members, and we have had many boxes donated and offers of help with the actual move so thank you to everyone, including The Emsworth Two who very kindly offered us boxes and then who we had a breakdown in communications with when we didn't need them any more. I hope your Wednesday evening was not ruined.

So expect minimal posting for the next couple of weeks as we attempt to put together our new and bigger place. Expect Christmas Tree like tantrums as I get frustrated at not being able to help as much as I'd like (the busiest time of the year at work is underway) and MuleBoy gets to do all the fun decorating stuff. There will be tears, there will be sighs but eventually it will all be over and we'll be able to go to Italy and sun ourselves and relax as work and moving related angst is swept aside.

In a byword to Herself, aw shucks!

Dear Diary Room

Now, I have omitted to tell you all about the Mule and me and our current need to watch Big Brother. As I have claimed several times recently, I haven't been this hooked since series 1, although I remember watching the big fight of a couple of years ago with fascinated horror (still the Mule's favourite BB moment). I don't know why it is more watchable this year but my main justification is that I can actually identify with some of the people. I don't think I am like anyone in there but I have definitely met them before in certain incarnations. Grace, the nationally hated girl, is the one that I went to school with that I loved and hated in equal measure. Capable of cruelty but also the embodiment of what I wanted to be aged 13-16, she was the most popular and, if not exactly the prettiest, she was definitely attractive and comfortable with herself (which was definitely something that the rest of us lacked). Part of why I think the BB audience hates her is because they all knew that girl too. Obviously Grace was bitchy and two-faced, but I think the fact that she owned up to it and didn't try to make excuses was quite impressive. However, she is still reviled because she didn't seem too bothered about the fact that people hated her but what is she supposed to do; break down in tears, break into the house and apologise to everyone? Every time I have spent any time with a group of girls in a claustrophobic setting; school, college, halls of residence I have bitched, been bitched to and been bitched about. It's what we do.

Regardless, although I didn't mind Grace and feel the need to defend her because, let's face it, a 20 year old girl who could be a bit mean doesn't really deserve this level of hatred, my favourite housemate is Nikki. I know, I know, I'm a bit surprised too. I would have cheerfully throttled her in the first couple of weeks and especially after she entered the house in a bunny outfit. However, at some point this changed. I am sure that if I met her in person the need to throttle would return but, in a way that I can't really justify, I absolutely love her on BB. It's partly the way that she is ridiculously melodramatic, with her posturing and hairtossing and incredibly loud and idiosyncratic way of complaining but also the way that I really can't tell whether it's real or not. Earlier this week she was dancing and singing in the garden and got upset that the other housemates were complaining about it so she stormed off to the diary room. When she got in there, she started complaining than realised how stupid it was and started laughing at herself and her crap singing. MuleBoy was convinced she was an actress when she first went in and I really wouldn't be surprised if it was the case. She also reminds me of a very funny girl I know, who often does caricatures of people she knows or has met and Nikki could easily be one of these. I'm hoping I see Funny Girl on Sunday actually in order to request a "Nikki" although I can't imagine her and Mr Whistler watching BB so would probably just get a funny look.

My fascination with BB would probably end at the point when Nikki leaves, thoughink. Although the rest of the housemates are okay and I enjoy Glyn's songs and Pete's apologising when he's cross with someone (I can definitely relate to that), Nikki is the reason that I keep watching. So if she is evicted tonight then that will probably be the end of my current BB obsession. Next year, the Mule has stated he wants to apply so that would be a reason for obsession. Fear, horror and tension but definitely obsession.

Attention to Detail

We've reached the time of year at work where all I do is check things and fret that I haven't checked enough even though I am now checking one particular thing for the third time and am now taking an enforced break so that my head doesn't explode. The thing that keeps me checking is the knowledge that any mistakes I make will be magnified tomorrow afternoon when everyone else gets to checking stuff. So far, I have missed something every time, which is excruciating, but its always been relatively minor so no-one else has been too bothered. But it would be nice if, this year, I managed to catch everything.

Had a lovely time at the weekend. Caught some rays at Himself's birthday party, although Archimedes was surprisingly reticent given his recent overtures of friendship. Managed not to fail at Giant Jenga despite clutching a plate of delicious barbecued goodness while removing Jenga bricks.

Then the Mule and I caught a film that we'd wanted to see for a while. Brick has been criticised (by Trash Addict, see link, right) for taking the whole teenage adaptation thing too far in the way that it sets a Raymond Chandler-esque tale in a high school. I understand the criticism as cinematic power does seem to be placed fully in the hands of teenagers and films therefore become aimed at that market. However, as MuleBoy mentioned on the way home, it is difficult to consider Brick attracting the texting, giggling audience that seem to frequent the same cinemas as us. With a labyrinthine plot, no sex or nudity and witty dialogue that never panders to the lowest common denominator, it isn't your typical teen film. The reason why high schools work as a setting and have been used in updatings of literature and styles is because the constraints and social structures that govern them relate more closely to past social structures than anywhere else in modern-day Western society. Clueless worked as an updating of Emma because of the hierarchical class divisions perceived in both. Brick works because it takes a similar class structure and uses the central point of the school to create the film noirish claustrophobia, although we never see our antihero Brendan actually in class (he does, however, acknowledge a debt to Accelerated English when complimented on his nifty turn of phrase). My favourite aspect of the film was the language, which used the rhythms of film noir language and some of the phrasings in order to recreate that hard-boiled style of the 1940s. I really enjoyed Brendan's dry wit and delivery and am impressed by the actor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's, graduation from sitcoms to difficult drama. I liked the following exchange in particular, as Brendan provokes the anger of a school jock:

Brad Bramish: Oh yeah?
Brendan: Yeah.
Brad Bramish: Oh yeah?
Brendan: Yeah.
Brad Bramish: Yeah?
Brendan: There's a thesaurus in the library. Yeah is under "Y".

Love it.

Ping!

Okay, so I talk about my hair a lot. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that in my head I tend to think of my hair as a separate entity that contributes to, but is still apart from, my person as a whole. Not like a wig though, I mean like a consciousness thing. I often bemoan the fact that I can't just brush the damn stuff and envy women with straight hair who get mussed up and can correct mussing very easily with a single, portable implement. If I get mussed up, I have to use fingers, water, a mirror, an afro comb in desperation and generally just pull the whole thing back with a hairband that I keep on my wrist. Unfortunately the only thing that generally improves my hair when it looks shit is washing it and showers aren't as portable as hairbrushes. However, if I had lovely, shiny, straight hair, I am sure I would get bored of it pretty speedily. It would also look odd with my crazy big face and head (it's enormous. Really). I actually love my hair, however much I complain, and especially the curls that are endlessly entertaining. I was pinging a particularly stubborn corkscrew this morning while reading my emails and thinking that if I had straight hair, I wouldn't be able to spend my time pinging it when I'm bored. It certainly wouldn't be as elastic or as useful as a weapon. I'm kind of re-in love with my hair again after getting it cut back to my original style, which really does suit me the best. I was briefly loving the bob-like cut but it got long and triangular so quickly that it wasn't worth it. Shaggy layers are the best because they're more flexible and, for someone who has always resisted tattoos for the main reason that I throw out clothes within a year of buying them and generally out of boredom, this is a good thing.

I have been getting a bit hysterical at work this week. A particular situation has been created by one of my artistically inclined colleagues that generally makes me start giggling in a slightly panicky way when I think about it. Basically, I have to sort something out in a week that would typically take a month and the first step involves contacting someone who may be the person that I need or may be just someone who has the same name and I am beginning to suspect that neither of them exist. It's all deeply silly and my only consolation is that it is not my fault.

Useless

Oh my God, I haven't posted for 12 days! I am not as useless as Beanie or Dad who haven't posted for years and years but am still pretty flipping crap. I promised myself I'd post at least once a week and have let myself down. I am hanging my head in shame. However, being crap appears to be my forte as this weekend I managed to muck up several plans and many things went askew and skewiff and skewed all because of me. Mainly MuleBoy's plans and it was all my fault. Also, I missed rehearsal on Sunday because I didn't think I was needed and instead spent my time gallivanting in the sun with Big Sis. Can't really pretend to be sorry, especially as I spent the previous day inside making puppets out of copper wire and solder for the same production. It wasn't too bad but it did mean that on Sunday I had the urge to be outside for extended periods. And I had to buy that cheese and those garden statues; these are life necessities, people!

However, all this does mean that I now have to apologise to several people and surrender my weekend to the Mule to make it up to him.

Something Missing

I caught up with my friends last night, one who lives most of the time in Scotland and two others who live locally and who I very rarely see. We get on incredibly well and last night we spent hours talking about minutaie, baring our souls and making each other laugh and we can go months without seeing each other and still feel very comfortable doing that. It's not surprising that I haven't seen Scotland Girl since last August as she does spend most of her time in Aberdeen and she's had a lot of significant life changes recently. But Her Loveliness and AltGirl live around the corner and I still only catch up with them when the more farflung Londoners, Scotland Girl or Spy Girl are around. I spend a lot of time worrying about the fact that I am in a rut in terms of friendship, in that I don't have anyone that I really confide in or reveal everything to and have a group of people that I get on with but don't really know very well. But that rut is of my making as I just start convincing myself that I'm too busy or that person is too busy and don't get on and make contact as I should.

We did talk last night about how much trickier it is to make friends as adults. Your lives are so much more complex and situations are different to college or University where friendships are initiated because everyone is making friends and you have that shared connection and situation. At work, you're entering at a different point to everyone else, you're all different ages and it is so unlikely that you will have much in common that you're very lucky to be able to socialise with people at work. The main people I work with are all a lot older than me, except for Neanderthal Boy who I don't think I could bear spending any more time with than I already do, and I'm so useless and shy outside of my comfort zone that I find it really difficult to talk to other people who work in different parts of the place even though I may have a lot more in common with them.

So I miss my friends and yet feel unable to make the effort to see them more. Partly due to fears of rejection, partly due to fears of impinging on their time, partly due to own busyness and laziness but the end result is still the same. Yet another thing to put on my list of stuff I need to do to improve the overall quality of my life. This is going to sound so stupid but how do normal people fit all this stuff in? I feel like I have to fit all the important life things that I need to incorporate into my day-to-day existence by never sleeping ever again. I used to play The Sims but had to stop when I got frustrated that I could never get enough time to fit in all the stuff you need to create a fully-rounded little person. It started to reflect my own life in a way that made me uncomfortable. I hate being a grown-up.