laur

hello to you

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post-holiday problems

i'm not talking post holiday blues...i'm talking genuinely believing you may not be happy ever again. i just got back from the hamptons yesterday, the best birthday gift of all time from ben. well, the second best on account of the fact that him and peewee got me an entire bin bag filled with snack a jacks. 

the only other time i can recall being quite so devastated at going home was when i left port douglas, but at the time 'home' was sydney. now...home is this sauna of a flat in north london. the only reason i'm not spending all day weeping is because if i tried to cry, my tears would evaporate. i don't know why the flat is so hot, but trying to get anybody to do something about it is proving tricky. i can't really even communicate to the letting agent how hot it is in here because my brain has melted.

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people who drink enough water...

do you spend your entire life peeing? i know i don't drink enough...but on the occasions that i make a conscious effort to, after spending a couple of days peeing like a racehorse, i accept dehydration.

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HELP.

seriously now. this spider...no, this TARANTULA that just cruised into my lounge. it had EARS. it had ACTUAL DISTINGUISHING FEATURES. i would be able to assist with the creation of an E-FIT and it would be accurate enough that if anybody were to ever see it again, they would know it was the same one. no seriously. it was wearing a hat. i'm a little traumatised to recall details but i'm PRETTY CERTAIN that i heard it before i saw it. i thought it was a mouse. i probably thought it was a cat for just one initial second. do you have a cat? well if you do, let me tell you it's probably smaller than this spider was. 

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'...is that really your mother's maiden name?'

i was on the phone to o2 and they asked me what the answer to my secret question is. so i was like well, that depends...what's my secret question? turns out it is 'what is your mother's maiden name?' let me just tell you something....if i can avoid having to speak to an actual real life person, then i will. nothing makes me happier than a company that has solid online customer support.

right. i set up this secret question business online. so when i decided that the answer to 'what is your mother's maiden name?' would be something along the lines of, i don't know...penelopeflowerbutt, well i didn't really consider the consequence of ever having to verbally answer this question. 

the woman on the other end of the phone quite literally paused for about 5 seconds and then just said '...is that really your mother's maiden name?' 

firstly...CAN YOU NOT? please. 

secondly....of course that is not my mother's maiden name. are you actually hearing what i just said?

anyway, do people actually answer those questions correctly? i assumed nobody did. maybe i just took it too far. for a change. 

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is this real life?

£1000 for an economy ticket to the west coast in august? i maintained that i wouldn't swear on this blog, so...um WHAT. how's that for capitalising on people who are not mentally stable enough to stay in london. the main problem here is that i have to leave. i can't stay here. i can't handle the tourists. i can't. i would be arrested at least once. 

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invisible sleeping people

it's really annoying how people get in a lift and just stop talking or start whispering. then when i talk at a normal volume, because everybody else is really quiet, it's as if whatever i'm saying is like some kind of tannoy announcement so everybody pays attention to it. please can we all talk like normal or just take the stairs.

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people who stand in weird places

i said to ben that i feel like writing a blog but i don't really have anything groundbreaking to write about. he gave me this look as if to say 'do you ever?'

i'm in orlando. tourist convention. tourists who stand in weird places like it's an olympic sport. 

here's some examples....in a doorway, in front of a bin, in the middle of a pavement, at the front of a bus stop when you have no intention of getting on the next bus, in front of a door that is in use, in or around a line that you don't want to be in.

basically if you are standing, surrounded by acres of reasonable places to stand, somewhere where it is more than likely somebody is going to have to ask you to move, then you need to reevaluate your life or at least your street smarts. 

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i need a filling

slow news day, but i need a filling. i know this isn't essentially newsworthy at all. but it actually is. because i don't want one. because i already have 14. i actually always wondered how people knew when they needed fillings seeing as all of mine have been unceremoniously sprung on me. i did begin to go to the dentist thinking i was going to need one, but only because that just became par for the course.

so anyway i figured out that this filling was needed in january when i was on the plane to la and my tooth felt like it was going to explode...the altitude causes air to get trapped inside cavities and obviously teeth cannot expand to accommodate this. gross i know. so anyway instead of going to the dentist when i got back, i just didn't. every flight i've been on since i kinda have to sit there pressing on my cheek, not that doing that even makes my tooth feel like it's going to explode any less. anyway this pain is now no longer refined to high altitude. i can't even eat apple.

so bummer. another filling. but the thing is, i'm actually scared to go to the dentist. i really don't know why. my dentist is really cool.  

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standby.

i'm watching tv like a normal person (like a normal person, but...more than a normal person) and i get this message:

'tv will soon turn off by idle standby, press a key to keep it on'

um...what? i watch television with my eyes, not my hands. why am i being punished for not channel hopping? why are you making assumptions based on the fact that i haven't pressed any buttons in the last hour? this is a tv, not a playstation. this doesn't make any sense. incidentally i love energy saving initiatives until they make me need a remote which i invariably CANNOT FIND. 

granted, i'm at my parents house. this is probably a setting that they easily could have turned off a year ago, and that i could easily turn off right now.

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ronnie.

        ronnie is my best friend. not just my best friend, the best friend. in the world. ever. i can never think about our friendship for too long without getting overwhelmed by everything we have been through together, and everything that she has been through on her own.

so ronnie promised me the other day that she would be the best version of herself that she could be...i kinda wanted to slap her round the face a little, because if ronnie was anybody other than the version of herself that she already is, then she wouldn't be here. i only realised the potential of the power of the mind when my friendship with ronnie became what it is. not just the power of the mind, but also the power that comes with having the kind of friendship and support from somebody like her. somebody who will do anything for you...not somebody who says that they will do anything for you, but somebody who will without fail give you everything that they possibly can. 

ronnie trusts me more than anybody with any sense should. 

so rons, i know you have no choice but to believe me when i say that you can do anything. you really can. you never hear me say that to anybody else because i don't see it in anybody but you.

you remember the one time you told me we couldn't do something. before we went to scandinavia. you were in my garden upset and chain smoking an entire packet of cigarettes. everybody asked me why i didn't go out there and i said it was because you needed some space. it wasn't. it was because i thought you were right. i knew we couldn't do it either. well...then we did it. since then i've realised that you could give up, and i could give up...but as long as one of us is bold enough to at least pretend that it isn't impossible, then it won't be. 

so i don't want you to make any promises to me. instead...i'm going to promise you that you can do it. i don't care how many things might be stopping you. i don't care what any doctor or nurse has to say about your capabilities. i don't care if you yourself think that you can't do it. i will never believe that you can't. 

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public service announcement

the nhs spend something like 80 million a year on stop smoking services right. 80 million. do you know how many million they spend a year on start-wearing-deodorant services? zero. i'm abandoning london during the olympics not because of the crowds, not because a 10 minute journey is gonna take me 10 hours, but because 4 million extra people are expected in the city and from my experience i would say about 1 million of those people don't know about deodorant. 

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return key

anybody who has ever met me and even a lot of people who have not, know that i'm not a morning person. generally i sleep with my phone off, but it will auto turn-on in the morning at around 9 on a weekday and 11 on a weekend. so anyway, my phone may be swtiched on but i can tell you that i sure as hell am not ready to wake up. i just like to be reachable when the day starts, basically in case of emergency. because i'm paranoid.

here's the thing, i don't mind people messaging me in the morning...i actually like waking up to something to read. but please, can you GIVE THE RETURN KEY A BREAK? i can sleep through my whatsapp notification sound once. twice i'll stir a bit. three times and i'll open one eye. four times and i will actually consider turning my phone into a weapon in order to kill myself. just merge what you want to say. merging is great. 

starting a new line for 'lol' or '?' should not be allowed. phones should be smarter than that. if you type 'lol' and hit return, you should get this...

DID YOU MEAN? "[insert something funny] lol."

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hanging.

so i had a brutal hangover today. it was up there with some of my best/worst depending on whether you think i should take pride in that kind of thing. anyway i was working from 3-9 and i didn't take a break until 8, by which point i couldn't really stand up let alone be of any assistance to people. so i'm trying to be relatively healthy, and when i say relatively healthy, i mean in relation to how healthy i usually am, so not really very healthy. anyway, there is little room for mcdonald's on this agenda so i went and got some frozen yoghurt instead. i realise frozen yoghurt is long way from a mcchicken sandwich, but the heart wants what it wants. anyway basically all i wanted to say is that frozen yoghurt is the best hangover cure in the world. after i had it my life basically turned into a musical. 

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"sorry...did i wake you up?"

ummmm...i wish people would stop asking me this. i had to accept a delivery for ben this morning. sidenote: it was a desk. last night i asked ben what the desk was like and he said it was ‘just a desk’ i was like, ERRONEOUS. ben cannot own ‘just a desk’…he wants a desk that also can perform time travel or make his breakfast or something. so anyway, he convinces me it’s just a really basic desk and it doesn’t even have any drawers since i’d been telling him there was no need to get anything more than a table on four legs or maybe even two. so after this spritely desk-assembling man is done, i walk in the study to find THE MOST ELABORATE TABLE I HAVE EVER SEEN. honestly, between how funny i find myself and how much ben makes me laugh i fear i may actually live forever. 

anyway so this guy is supposed to be coming between 8 and 11. even 11 would have been too early, but no, 8.09. anyway so i let him in and he flashes me a grin and said ‘sorry did i get you up?’ of course you got me up. it’s 8.09. the only people up at this time are people who present the morning weather. and is that really what you want to know? if you got me up? or is what you’re really trying to tell me that i look like bill cosby? 

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dog periods

somebody just asked me the most interesting fact i know. i googled interesting facts as part of my daily struggle to seem more intelligent than i actually am. can of worms. here is a sample of the things i just learned:

the amount of hours a man spends shaving in his lifetime.

the number of eggs on board the titanic when it departed.

that is not interesting.

i want my mind to be blown. like the time i found out that dogs have periods. i would say this is the most interesting fact i know (because it is) but firstly, i don't really want that to be the most interesting fact i know...it paints a weird picture of me. also, turns out a lot of people already know, and if you already know then it's not really interesting. just a fact. a gross one. 

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walking on the left

on the underground escalators it is tube law that you have to walk on the left, stand on the right. walk on the left. WALK ON THE LEFT. you know why they call it walking on the left? because you're supposed to walk. on the left. it's not a lane where you can just walk until your thighs start to burn and then remain stationary when you get to the last few steps. no. that is standing on the left. you have to commit. if you want to experiment with walking, you should carry out your experiments on the right. can you imagine, you have to take a driving test but people can just navigate the underground with no license. 

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morning social etiquette

i just need to talk about when people talk to me in the morning, and general morning social etiquette. i live on the third floor and my mailbox is on the ground floor. here’s the thing, if i need to collect the post i’m not gonna get dressed. i’m not even gonna look in the mirror. i go down there in my pyjamas with drool on my face, because i don’t care. kind of. well…i don’t care because i assume that anybody i encounter will understand that this is an unacceptable time to converse with or even acknowledge me. WRONG. basically, it is ok and important to ignore people when they are in their pyjamas and have drool on their face. 

my personal space, before lunch time, is closed to the general public. ben’s cleaner arrives, cleans, and leaves before the milkman has even been. we don’t have a milkman, but if we did, she’d be done before him. anyway, i basically let her in/ensure she doesn’t rob us blind/listen to her problems. i don’t ask too many questions because she doesn’t really speak english and i can’t understand her, but she’s grown quite fond of me (yes, i have managed to charm somebody who has only seen me in the hours before 11am) so she likes to give me a hug and a kiss when she leaves…REALLY?