How am I supposed to know if this is a Leap year?

You guys, tomorrow is February!

February is the shortest month. It is the month in which I become twenty-one, which is older than I have ever been before.

Turning twenty-one is significant because it marks my eleventh year as a vegematarian which statistically suggests I have been a non-meat-eater for longer than I have been a meat-eater.

In order to celebrate this momentous occasion, I am making plans to hunt and kill a wild wildebeest with my bare hands and then roast its carcass over an open fire while playing a banjo and gazing across the plains at sunset.

I mean.

Uh.

I mean, I am dabbling with veganism. In a furtive, non-committal, not-in-front-of-the-vicar sort of way. I am aiming to be the first under-the-radar vegan. I have been put off in the past because vegans are a group of self-obsessed obnoxious dogmatic lunatics but it is ok now because I am accepting that I am probably three out of these four things already.

I have no desire to be that mad lady who cannot eat a nice meal in a restaurant however, so I reserve the right to discreetly abandon the sisterhood if it is interfering with my life.

(Wine is not made out of animals, right?)

MORE important news

is that:

I am back and also I have a car.

Things are going to be OK.

Important news!

See that lovely (vicious) old lady on the right? See what she has in her hands?

Knitting.

What did I have in my grubby little paws last night? What ability is no lady complete without? What did my mother despair of ever teaching her dextrously-challenged daughter?

KNITTING.

And what have I mastered in just three days?

KNITTINGS.


(Also there is minimum internet available whilst I am 'on the run' from 'the fuzz', email is broken indefinitely and I am rubbish at answering phones. Stay in touch folks!)

Public Service Announcement

I am going mobile (phone) and mobile (car) for a few days in order to get out of the way of people who are still working like the busiest beavers.


There will be a lot of reading and a lot of swimming.

Also DRINKS.

A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS

There are not enough fireworks in the world to demonstrate my extreme level of excitement!

This semester is over for me.

If any of you losers want to go for so many drinks you know where I am.

Coming out of my cage (I've been doing just fine)

Update:

Guacamole on my desk.

Cream cheese on my cheek.

Tomato salsa on my duvet cover.

Ben and Jerry's on my pillowcase.

Essay still not finished.

RETRY | Y / N

[x] Snackfood (Minstrels, guacamole dip, celery)
[x] Books about detection, detectives, detecting.
[x] Foolishly tight schedule
[x] Surprise encounter with ex-husband
[x] IRON RESOLVE

Haiku'd.

Email is broken.
I do not know why this is,
Or how to fix it.

HIGH DAYS AND HOLIDAYS!

God damn it god damn it

MY PARENTS WIN AT LIFE

I told them I did not want a party for my 21st because I do not like fuss or planning (and sometimes I do not like birthdays).

I told them I was probably going to have a quiet couple of days in London with some special types, if we could afford it.

I told them I would like to have a ring made for my present, this is the only thing I want.

My mum just rang me. She asked me to dogsit. She told me off for never answering my phone.


She offered to pay for London.


This is what my dreams look like.

This never happens to me.

Do you ever come to and find yourself find yourself singing.

Do you ever wonder how long you have been singing for.

Do you ever wonder if your housemates can hear you.


(Do you ever wonder if you should just stop listening to Sigur Ros.)

And a semi-accurate wordcount!

[x] English Place-Names: Super Mega Coursework of Fun!

I.D.S.T.

I was extremely reluctant to wake up this morning due to dreaming.

This (dreaming that is) does not happen to me very often.

I was having quite the good dream about Harry Potter. Snape had built (magicked) him a giant Eden Project-style dome and filled it with enormous beautiful trees and plants and a flying bed-platform thing, and they were in love and it was so romantic.

I think hope I am chanelling J. K. Rowling.

This is the only logical conclusion for the series, I think.

There's no time for me to act mature

Procrastination levels: RED ALERT.

Procrastion activities (so far):

1) Sleep in (whoops)
2) Emo LJ update (whoops!)
3) Mince around, pretending to tidy room
4) Wax legs (geez)
5) Watch TV with Dawn
6) Go to Sainsburys
7) Update profiles with lies and/or humourous comments

It really isn't their best album.

It is official. I am old.

I have to confess, I do not now and never have understood why girls get dressed up to visit the library. Don't get me wrong, I am quite the fan of dressing up when the occasion calls for it (as long as it is calling for Harry Potter). Is it perhaps easier to concentrate in a miniskirt? Do UGG boots help you find that one journal you need? If you let everyone know that you are a hipster and like to listen to such as the 'Death Cab For Cutie' or a 'Broken Social Scene', will the secrets of semiotics reveal themselves?

Other girls in the library queue this morning: skinny jeans, those flat shoe things, big lame belts, two-tone hair, vanity glasses.

Me in the library this morning: hair made of 90% gay, yesterday's makeup (mostly), jeans I have owned for five years and which are only held together by force of will (theirs), odd socks (clean), glasses (90% useless), a tshirt which has never belonged to me (not so clean), bag which is only held together by force of will (god's).

The library is for many things, including: working; sleeping; giving you epilepsy-inducing fines (and related shouting-ats). It is not for: posing; discussing your workload in a whiny voice; adjusting your jeans (which you have inexplicably tucked into your boots).

What I am saying is that the Hallward library is not MySpace.

SUCCESS OF EPIC PROPORTIONALITY

UPDATE

I can now see daylight through the hole in my ear (in the mirror of course).

I have wanted this since I was seventeen.

I have fulfilled my potential.

LOCK / DELETE

Eight hundred on Barthes.

I wish I had a camera to take pictures of this mess.

I am glorious like a firework exploding.

Is it all in my head (is it alright)

Is this essay going to be a spectacular success or a fantastic failure.

Am I linking a lot of things which do not really belong together.

Is it possible that no one has ever tried this particular combination. EVER.

Am I a visionary genius or is there a damn good reason this has not been tried.

Is there a critical mass for unrelated opinions in an essay.

Answers in February!

Runtime Error: 3:20

3:20am: finally fall asleep on keyboard
3:40am: crawl into bed, fully clothed
4:45am: wake up when invisible presence fills my tummy with burning hot coals, turns my limbs into tempered steel and puts pigs in my head
5:00am: resolutely ignore this
5:10am: give up 'ignoring' and lie on bathroom floor wishing I was dead
5:11am - 7:29am: continue lying on bathroom floor thinking that maybe I am
7:30am: think I have been sick enough for one night, thankyou, and crawl back into bed
8:00am: alarm goes off
11:10am: pigs are gone so I reason it is finally safe to get up
11:50am: mysteriously fine!

ALL TIMES ARE APPROXIMATE


Also, you guys, comments are back. Please don't hesitate to let me know just how much I suck!

How to WIN

1) Dress up like the prettiest princesses
2) Take me to dinner at Scruffy's
3) Tell me my hair is 'fancy'
4) Regale me with hilarious Christmas / New Year's updates
5) Laugh at my appalling jokes
5a) Laugh at my appalling stories
6) Force me to eat three delicious courses
7) Let me pay
8) Walk me home (because you live with me)
9) Companionable silence for the rest of the night (because of wordcounts)

edited because of 10) Break said silence and take me to Sainsburys at quarter to 11.

Documentary evidence!

Seriously Lucy, you're my sister but if you don't cough up I'm going to have your legs broken. One for each day payment is late. There are people outside your house now watching you and making sure you don't leave the country. Go on, have a look...not there? No - you just can't see them.... Do you know how easy it is to have someone just go missing in Nottingham...?


All the best,

Tom.

Loading : Ready : Run

[x] Coffee (Peruvian stylee)
[x] Books about deixis
[x] Ridiculously tight schedule
[x] Poem to analyse
[x] Vague idea about content
[x] Characteristic overconfidence

Full house! (BINGO)

Rachel wins at 'Housemates'

GOD Film2006

I am so Barry Norman

Barry Norman totally hides behind his hands like a little tiny girl during the scary parts (85% of the film)

Peter Jackson is apparently a master of his trade (CGI budgeting). Why have one terrifyingly vicious T-Rex when you can have three?! Why have one character in a perilous situation involving oversized insects when they could all get involved?! Why have one stampeding brontosaurus when you can have a whole herd?! Why have one shot of Beauty and the Beast doing twitchy face-acting when you can have them doing it every twenty seconds?!

OKAY

It was actually pretty good, actually, I had not expected natives, or dinosaurs, or really any anthropomorphic drama. These were all enjoyable.

Well done all round.

Portrait of the artist, aged 5 (?)

God.

Some woman paints a smiling clown face on me and this is my first impulse.

(My hair still looks like that.)

Danger Will Robinson

GOD

Third degree burns

Guess who is not sufficiently co-ordinated for hot chocolate

Old rule out.

New rule!

I am replacing the 'emo' component of any and all future posts with cute fluffy animals.

(I hope there are enough cute fluffy animals!)

VIZ:

I feel this is better for all concerned.

GOD BORED

This is not working out, Nottingham.

Your draughty charm is not winning me over.

That surprise extra essay-week is too little, too late.

God, I hate English.


(You guys, I am failing at one or more resolutions already.)

HERE IS A BUNNY

Critical work-avoidance strategy

Not having a camera these last few weeks makes me so aware of the inanely stupid things I like to take pictures of. I have missed some good shots, of course, as my life is super-interesting, and it has meant that I have become more acquainted with my camera phone (which, it turns out, does not have 7.2 million pixels and a Carl Zeiss lens). I have also missed about a gig's worth of daft shots of food I am about to eat; things I have broken; things I find on the floor; my new boots; and my hair when it does that one thing. These inanely stupid things fill me with a warm and diffuse joy which I yearn to record for all time and for all comers.

In any case, the camera situation means that I am unable to illustrate the sliver (it is not actually a sliver, it is a giant whacking great thing whose name escapes me because I am not as hardcore as I once was) of blue glass which is currently residing in my left earlobe. This is a shame, as it would undoubtedly make a lovely arty picture and while it is not filling me with warm and diffuse joy (just a dull ache), I am still proud enough to want to share it.

Also, I just want it noted how much fun it is to have the house to myself this week. No offence housemates, you are a pretty OK alternative, but there is something deliciously decadent about bathing with the door open and Sleater-Kinney at full blast in the next room.

On an unrelated note (because Sleater-Kinney will never disappoint me!), it struck me today that some people will always disappoint you, no matter what. No matter how low your expectations (opinion) of them, they will always go that little bit further to ensure that they come in well under the bar. Now of course I am worried that I, too, am a horrendous disappointment to people without realising it, and that people are too nice or too disillusioned to tell me off! Panic. I think it more likely that I am too inept to ever inspire expectations and therefore am in no danger of disappointing them, but one never knows, does one?

I think I will know that I am a grown-up when I can watch documentaries about teenage girls with Tourette's catfighting as though their lives depended on it, and not laugh so hard I irreperably damage a lung.

(I am not quite there yet.)

It's not a party if it happens every night

It is 2006 guys!

There is a whole new year lying out there, all pristine and expectant.

What are you going to do in it?

At some point this year I want Fancy Dress 1920s Swing Dance Extravaganza. I want cocktails and masks and feathers, and skinny girls with bobs and armpit hair. I want a murder halfway through the night and a rotund Belgian detective to solve it. I want RAF airmen wearing those leather helmet things and goggles and flying jackets. I want artistic bohemian fops from the continent. I want eccentric aunts and aspidistras and a dress made entirely from beads and a huge house in the country and a swimming pool and champagne and decadence and strappy shoes which I will hurl from a balcony, and I want so much noisy live jive swing jazz music that it can be heard three counties over.

What do you want?