Decisions, Decisions

I've made a rather major life decision.

I've decided that I am going to move back to Australia in a year's time.

It has been bubbling away in my mind for a while but finally I've decided it is what I want (and need) to do.




Which means I have a year left here in London, and I need to do lots of things before I leave.

So on my jam-packed weekend, my good friend (and fellow Book Club member) DJ Slippers and I went to Claridge's for afternoon tea. It was lovely sitting in the Art Deco foyer and drinking tea out of the Claridge's bone china.

DJ Slippers looked like a modern day Bettie Page (albeit fully dressed), with her Louise Brooks black bob, a leopard print chiffon blouse, pencil skirt and tailored black jacket.

I was wearing a fitted white shirt, pin stripe trousers, some *very* pointy black shoes and a thin grey tie...


...we looked like something out of a fifties fashion shoot.

On walking through the revolving doors, the numerous groups of grannies and the ultra wealthy sipping tea seemed to all stare at us in unison - I don't think we were the type of clientele the place was used to.

Who cares... we felt fabulous and the smoked salmon finger sandwiches were delicious.

Book Club Session 2

Saturday night we had our second book club meeting - this time the book was DJ Slippers' choice: Wise Children by Angela Carter.

The night was hosted by DJ Slippers and Mrs Vanderbilt and was a complete success - the wine never stopped flowing and the food was delicious.

Wise Children seemed to inspire some rather passionate debate which was great - I, myself, didn't feel that I accessed the novel as well as I could have done; and posed the question as to whether this may have been because I am male. This notion was not supported by Kevin Aucoin, however, who absolutely adored the novel (as did DJ Slippers; Mrs Vanderbilt was more in my camp) and by the end of the book felt a tingle of appreciation from head to toe.

The carnivalesque themes of the book appealed to most of us to varying degrees, and the Shakespearean references irritated some more than others (me the most, it has to be said...!).

The book club ended with a random choice of our next novel (from a choice of four books) by Coco Chanel (DJ Slippers and Mrs Vanderbilt's kitty) who was so definite in her decision that no-one could possibly argue. Her choice? The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (as suggested by Kevin Aucoin).

Hoorah!

Boyfriend of the Week

Normally my boyfriends are not *quite* this beautiful, but I simply couldn't help myself.









Gael García Bernal - congratulations. Even though you are so beautiful, you can be my boyfriend.

Of the week.

In other news, I'm literally ecstatic that people are starting to realise how truly disgusting Mel Gibson is. He truly revolts me.

Beer, Anyone?

I was out of London for the weekend; it was great to have a break from the city and the pressures here. My fug lifted slightly which was great.

However, the weekend was also about catching up with some friends of mine who live out of London - friends I've had for a long time and who are incredibly dear to me.

Although the weekend was nice (good to see friends, get out of London, etc), there was a couple of moments that really confused me. One of my dear friends there (we'll call her Dear Friend - DF for the purpose of this post) seemed to be acting out of character quite a lot; she was quite aggressive (normally she is the most easy going, gentle woman around) and then withdrawn and quiet at other times.

Monday I was back at work (with a vengeance - we are working on a huge tender which is quite overwhelming) and I received a call from my friend (MofBAY) whose place we were all staying at for the weekend. It transpires that DF had broken down just after I left and told MofBAY (in between the sobs that lasted for over 3 hours) that she felt a 'useless mother' and that her children hated her; that she was on the verge of leaving it all and that she simply couldn't cope.

The call upset me greatly - mostly because this has obviously been going on for DF for some time but because of the 'taboo' surrounding mental health, DF simply didn't feel able to talk about it. Why is that?

It is fine for us to discuss with friends how we feel physically - but to talk about our psychological/emotional state is not as simple. Society feels nowhere near as comfortable with mental health as it does with physical health - and I believe we all suffer because of it.

In other news, I recently watched a film which was possibly the most bizarre (and beautiful) film I've ever seen - Guy Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World. Guy Maddin is a genius; I wonder how his mental health is?

Heavy Fog

My head is in a complete fug at the moment. I don’t really understand what that’s about; I just feel dazed and confused. And not necessarily in a good way.

I puked a few times (not alcohol induced) yesterday and the day before also so decided to have the day off work yesterday. In amongst all of this: Wednesday night I had gone on my fourth (and final) date with HL (Handsome Lawyer).

The soundtrack to the fog surrounding me has been a mix of:

1. Joan of Police Women*:

I don't want to live for tomorrow
save me
I don't want to live for tomorrow
save me
I don't want to live for tomorrow
I don't want to live for the dying chance
if you're already good as gone
if you're already good as gone

2. CSS:

Come and erase me, take me with you.
Kiss me I’m drunk, don’t worry it’s true
I want you to show me how mad is your love
Come and attack me, it’s not gonna hurt

Fight me, deny me if I fear when you’re close
Let’s make love and listen to death from above…

3. The Grates**:

Some mother fuckers think they're born to dance,
Some mother fuckers think they're born to, dance,
Shakin' like you don't know what you're waiting for,
Shake like bacon ice cold it's floored,
But you're stuck,

Inside inside inside inside inside, outside,
Outside outside outside outside outside, inside,
Now, twirl for me,
Twirl like a little girl…

And I wonder my head is in a fog…

* thanks to F/BF (Flatmate/Best Friend) for discovering the beauty of Joan…

** and thanks to B.I.L (Brother In Law) for alerting me to the energy of The Grates...

Exhaust-Head.

That's it, kids. I have officially had too much to do. My liver has begun to bark again. Organic had a serious word about this with me recently and I know it's not good.

My weekend was too full to talk about in detail, but my Saturday sort of sums it up:

I caught the train down to Brighton to see Marito and his soon-to-be-wife, Mad Girl at their wedding venue for lunch - I've been asked to be Best Man so we needed to talk through how it was all going to happen. He is my straight husband and she is a bitch for stealing him from me. Sigh.

I arrived at the venue at 1.30pm and as I had somehow arrived before them (even though my journey was an hour and a half and they live literally around the corner from the place) I decided to start with a glass of champagne (well it was the middle of the day, it's only right). Marito flew in to the place in a highly strung flap and Mad Girl followed shortly after - and the drinking commenced. My goodness, do those two know how to drink. A long, leisurely and frankly lovely lunch ensued, followed by literally hours of drinking (champagne, I decided that if I stuck to champagne my hangover wouldn't be as bad as if I mixed.... the logic seemed right at the time.)

I ended up falling out of the place at 10pm and somehow getting a taxi to take me back to Brighton station in an attempt to catch the last train back to London. Which I somehow managed. Problem being the last train was a 'stop' train, which takes nearly twice as long as the express. Great.

A very drunken Ziggy on board the last train with a bunch of other drunken random strangers singing along with my music (compliments of my ipod turned up very loud so we could all hear it through the earphones - the music was actually not that important anyway, our voices were doing the job fine).

I got home at around 1am and was pleasantly surprised to find F/BF drinking (you guessed it...) champagne.

So of course I carried on drinking with the lovely lady (such a gentleman) and we ended the night with our furniture pushed out of the way in our living room and some crazy laydee dancing.

Fabulous.

You Muppet!

Things seem to have turned a corner a bit for me, I'm feeling a bit better. A couple of good things that have happened include:

1. Had date # 3 with Handsome Lawyer (HL). He took me to Rules which, although supposedly a bit of a tourist trap, is amazing. Really good, comforting English food cooked very well. I'm not saying anything more about the evening yet...

2. Spoke to my beautiful friend The Doctor and resolved our issues - we spoke on the phone last night for one and a half hours and I, for one, feel much better for having had the conversation.

But what I'm much more interested in talking about today is the DVD I watched last night - Muppet's Wizard of Oz.

I love the Muppets, but recent films like this one just don't cut it in my opinion. Dorothy was played by a lacklustre Ashanti, Aunt Em by Queen Latifah (puh-lease. she can't act for shit) and some of the muppets just didn't seem to sparkle like they used to.

There were still a couple of choice moments, I particularly liked Toto being played by Pepe the Prawn, Okay?

But now for my question of the day (and what an important question it is...):

Who is your favourite Muppets character and why?

I'll get the ball rolling - mine is Beaker for the following 5 star performance:

Crying Cats and Happy Endings

BAY (Beautiful and Young) and her family whom I love (one and all) bought me a ticket to see The Cat Empire for my birthday back in May; the actual gig was Friday night. It was the first time BAY and her younger sister had been to a gig and to be honest, this very fact excited me even more than the gig itself. I think The Cat Empire are OK musically, not enough to buy their CD though.

The gig itself was fantastic. The band were really energetic and everyone was dancing which was great - the girls and I even did some moshing (I haven't moshed in years so this was rather amusing...); I actually got quite drunk with MofBAY (Mum of BAY), my very dear friend (it was the first time we had been 'out' in ages - she's recently been given the all clear after extensive breast cancer treatment) and ended up telling some of their friends from their posh village who were also at the gig that they were homophobic and should go back to the 'nowhere village they come from'. Oops.

MofBAY loved it of course. She and DofBAY (Dad of BAY) are Londoners who moved out so that their children could grow up away from the pressures of city life - sensible in theory, but finding like-minded people to mix with is the hard bit. Anyway, all in all it was fantastic and great to see the girls loving their first gig.

I retreated to my bedroom for most of Saturday - I've had a bit of a tough week emotionally to be honest and felt I needed some time away from people in general. (as an aside: I spoke to my sister who has felt her baby move for the first time - so exciting!)

Sunday I had plans to see other friends but cancelled those as well and watched a fantastic DVD called Happy Endings.

It probably wasn't that fantastic a film, but given my mood it was perfect. F/BF (Flatmate/Best Friend) had been crying Sunday morning in an uncontrollable stylee at hearing some news that a good friend of F/BF's mother has three months left to live, due to cancer in just about every internal organ imaginable. Bizarrely it made me think of my Nan who died at just 57 (I was 7 years old) and how I used to lie in bed with her in the last few weeks of her life (she died at home, my mother nursed her) and she still would tell jokes and try and make me laugh. Right up to the very end.

Anyway, Happy Endings made me cry again and then I sobbed uncontrollably for about 3 hours. Which was great. I feel so much better today for it. And my eyes look amazing.

**managed to somehow upload the photos! yay me! oh, and maggie gyllenhaal is beautiful... **

have a nice weekend...

You've never been to Niagara Falls?
I have seen water, its water, that's all...
The Eiffel Tower, the Empire State?
My pulse was as high on my very first date!
Your grandson's hand as he plays with your hair?
To be honest, I really don't care...

I've seen it all, I've seen the dark
I've seen the brightness in one little spark.
I've seen what I chose and I've seen what I need,
And that is enough, to want more would be greed.
I've seen what I was and I know what I'll be
I've seen it all - there is no more to see!

.... I've been listening to bjork again

Tag-Head by my beeiiiaatch Dabich

I haven't been tagged for ages so was a bit excited to see this one via my favourite beeiiiaatch:








Rapper Name - Homo (Z)apian. (well this is a ridiculous answer to a ridiculous question... sorry, Scribe...)

Alternative Rock Band Name - Stardusters.

Name your pain - The pain of existence.

1 True Word That Symbolizes God - Reality.

1 True Love or 1 Million Dollars? - True love every time.

Live Free or Die Stupid? - I'm already stupid so I'll choose the Live Free.

Purist, happiest moment ever (8 words or less) - My first ever orgasm.

Most Influential Life Lesson - Trust is something that has to be earned.

Most Succesful Person You Least Admire - George Bush.

Where we go when we die (1 word) - Somewhere.

Worst TV Show of the Past Decade - Big Brother (especially in its current incarnation).

Best TV Show of the Past Decade - Doctor Who.... NO, Kath & Kim, NO... Catherine Tate... OH I CAN'T CHOOSE!!!

Still with me, yes or no? - Struggling through it somehow....

Burning Building - baby or dog? - I'm with Dabich on this one, one under each arm.

Who runs the world? (2 words or less) - Bigoted losers.

Worst Idea You Ever Had - To stay in the relationship with my ex-partner (the Wanker).

Shittiest Job You Ever Had - Hotel receptionist - although the stories I could tell are good ;-)

Best Job You've Ever Had - The one still to come (or at least that's what I'm telling myself).

I believe I have to now tag 3 others to keep in the spirit of the game... so I tag Ryan, Constant (seeing as Scribe chose not to) and the Twinkling Monkey...

Boyfriend of the Week

My weekend was way too full of things for me to talk about, the thought of writing it down is slightly overwhelming (and as I'm feeling a little emotionally fragile I just can't do it);

so instead, here is my Boyfriend of the Week.

Mike Patton, formerly of Faith No More and Epic fame.

I want him to look like he did then though. Yeah.