August Rush

No light no light

2012-11-08T01:41:00.000Z

You are the hole in my head

You are the space in my bed

You are the silence inbetween

What I thought and what I said

---

(Gorgeous artwork by AquaSixio)

I'm not sure that I have much to say but I feel like I need to write something down anyway. I spend so much time working on things that only last a couple of hours or weeks and I get the feeling that none of these last few months will be particularly memorable unless I leave a marker somewhere saying "Hello! My name is NICOLE, I'm RIGHT HERE."

In five years time...

2012-08-14T02:35:00.003+01:00

Five years ago I started this blog because I wrote a post on MySpace that I enjoyed writing so much I thought I could do it all the time. For a while I actually did. Blogged everyday, but I deleted most of them as they were literally just sordid accounts of what I did at school everyday as a entertainment-starved fourteen year old schoolgirl.

What's changed? Practically everything. Except my face.

I suppose the big thing in my life at the moment is deciding which university to go to. There are only two that I've given real consideration to. The first one, a posh performing arts university down in South London where I can study technical theatre in some dark corner somewhere on a campus full of twirling idiots or one closer to home where I get to work, and work with big artists and on live events and things I actually enjoy and feel at home with.

And there's that. Feeling at home. I can't imagine leaving home. If I went to the closer place I could stay at home and drive out there every day, or get a flat closer to where it is and flit between there and home whenever. And I could keep my three jobs. And carry on doing night classes at university like I do now.

It sounds easier than it is.

Ahhh, why isn't it simple?! This is the third time this year I've run into some HUGE-looking life event that I feel completely unprepared for. And on top of that I have to write a personal statement to either or both universities telling them why I'm marvelous, well, frankly, I am not. I am bog-standard. Average as they come. Doesn't mean I'll do badly, necessarily, does it?

I really need someone else to write my statement for me. I'm terrible and making myself sound good. I've watched myself (??) do stupid things. Really stupid things. I set fire to my tights not so long back. Not even that, I allowed myself to be set fire to, because I didn't clock straight away that "oh, look, a lighter. That means fire!" Praise be for 200 denier in the great British summertime.

Alas, happy birthday to my blog baby and many happy returns, you've done me proud from humble beginnings on a now defunct MySpace page to being safely tucked away on the internet for whenever I feel nostalgic. Let's see what another five years brings us.

My mind UNCUT

2012-08-10T02:11:00.002+01:00

I'm having issues that are somehow way beyond my maturity level. Or more likely I'm just socially inept, but in any case I'm having ISSUES. I've spent days thinking and coming to the wrong conclusions and re-thinking and going round in circles in my head until it's become exhausting try and come up with a sensible solution to a fairly simple problem.

Dun dun duuuun... Boy trouble. I'm mortified.

So I figured I'd better just sit down with my laptop and tap out the thoughts as they come.

So.

You are fantastic. Seriously. I am SO in like with you. The more time I spend around you, the more of YOU I see, and it’s really great. Men are weird! You’ve handled a shitty thing that knocked me on my ass for a year with barely any effort. How do you do that? How did I not do that? You’re a total sweetie, a bit of an ass, cute as a button and you make me look normal which always helps. I can’t imagine us together as a couple because we’re such good friends, and I’m a total goofball, doomed to the Havisham life if I’m lucky, but I still think I want it. Just a little. A lot. But it’s not an option, so what to do, sir? Not a whole lot to be done, is there? I’m going back to Norway in two weeks to stay with an ex-boyfriend I barely speak to anymore, a seriously ill-advised move, you’ve said as much. But DAMNIT MAN will you not tell me not to go for a reason I want to hear like “I like you sooooo much never go away, kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss” instead of “muhnyuuh”. That’s something *I* would say.

I really, really hope I haven’t already blown it. You’re golden, dude.

Also, your butt is pretty too.
I needed to vent that. My usual ventees are various states of missing in action. Ungh.

After forever.

2012-04-17T01:42:00.000+01:00

I won't give up we'll fight to win
To move along from where we've been
I'll sing this song for you again

I'm looking up around the bend
We're so much stronger than before
Our fraying edges on the mend.

I have these words written in permanent marker around the edge of my screen from the last time things were bad and they got better. I wish I could replace them but unfortunately, at the time, I was kinda hoping it would be one of those 'forever' things.

Another thing I had of us was a padlock attached to a bridge in Slovenia where thousands of couples have attached locks with their names on it. I did the same last summer when I was there. I was really, really happy to have someone that I could do that with, it was even his idea. I took a picture of one side of the locket, the side with our names and sent it to him, and it was sweet. I tripped up when I was writing his name on the locket so the n is all wobbly. I teased him for months about having written something on the other side of the locket that I was never ever ever going to tell him, but of course I told him anyway.

A long, long time.

That's all over and gone now and it feels like I'm on the other side of the 'forever' in my head.

I wish I could change the words around my screen, write them big and bright and remind myself never to build a house on sand, ever, ever again, and remember that for a long, long time.

Don't follow empty skies.

Once more with a smile

2012-04-17T01:31:00.001+01:00

I feel like I've been writing blogs all night because I'm presenting all my college work via another blog and I've just updated about a month's worth of work in one go. Drained isn't even the word.

But hello, welcome to the sleepy mind of Nicole, extraordinaire and spinster.

I'm back at college and university now after a very uneventful (bar one breakage of toes which I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing about) two weeks off and I can say, I have missed both college and university more than anything. College, with my weird awesome friends, the amazing food and random talk that can only come from 6 16-year-old boys and 3 18-year-olds girls. Ladder goat, that's all I'm allowed to say.

Also, I got the news that a guy who was on my course until he was arrested a few months ago (we assumed for stealing computers) was actually arrested for stealing children's used clothes and possession of child pornography which really shocking. One of those I-don't-know-what-I'm-feeling moments where I shake my head a lot. I have him on Google Plus for Christ's sake.

But yes.. Bedtime for me. I'll be glad for the last three very productive hours in the near future but right now, I want to be with my bed for a good 15 hours, though college will only let us be together for five and a half. Interfering prat.

A vodka-drenched thought.

2012-04-08T01:14:00.001+01:00

(At least, I assume it's vodka..)

Usually look in the mirror and think, 'God, that's disgusting.' But it has just occurred to me that actually, I had fun getting this fat. Many a college canteen burger (oh-my-god-yes) went into this masterpiece.

I'm very glad my parents are more like insane awesome friends to me, because I have my dad to entertain me with alcohol and my mum to nurse the hangover that I Am So Not Looking Forward To.

I had some very crappy news today that made me feel really shitty (thank you, ex-boyfriend, my dear, for making me feel so small and making it pretty clear that I wasn't worth the effort, please stop saying you love me) (...I'll regret that tomorrow and/or the day he reads it..) but thanks to my dad and my mum and my big brother and my little sister and all my excellent friends and Mr Smirnoff I feel like I'll pull through it.

Bring it, hangover, this is the best I've felt in such a long time.

I think..

2012-04-03T01:10:00.001+01:00

I think lying in bed, feeling a bit lost and alone with Fields Of Coral by Vangelis stuck in my head isn't too bad a place to be. Only I wish it wasn't this song. It reminds me of lying in bed with the arms of someone I loved around me, sleepy and calm and warm. And I miss that the most.

I miss the times we talked until it dawn broke, at first in Norway and then here. I miss cooking together, I miss random kissing and walking through the woods and seafood parties.

Now I have memories I can't stand to think about and fourteen games of Draw Something running simultaneously.

A tally of heartbreak.

2012-03-18T00:14:00.000Z

Days since break up: 32

Times spent in the bath listening to Adele: 2

Times spent listening to The Winner Takes It All: 1. NEVER AGAIN.

Times I've caught myself saying "My boyfr- My ex-boyfriend": Up in the 40s.

Times I've browsed the self-help section in the bookshop: 4

Cigarettes smoked: 30

Chocolate bars consumed: God. Thousands.

New cravings discovered: 3 (Butterkist toffee popcorn, sparkling water and cheeseburger-and-chips combos from college)

Number of messages saved as drafts: 12

Hours spent crying: 5. Go me!!

Rebound sex: Nil. Nix. Nada.

Weight change: -12lbs. And yet I can feel a double chin forming.

Nights spent talking to him since break up: 30.

Hell's testicles.

2011-06-26T20:52:00.000+01:00

That's how warm it is.

Do you know Chas & Dave? They did that Rabbit song.

I lit them (well... minus Dave these days...) last week. Twenty songs that all sounded like the rabbit song - it was just about kinda sorta awesome. Buuuut of course it's music festival season here so I haven't been doing a hell of a lot workwise.

Well, except from ze day job, where my hours have been so massively cut that I spent most of last week in bed. But, I got a bonus, which is nice but it's the direct result of having premium wages cut. Balls.

But, what to spend with this money? I could be a massive big girl and not buy the blue Nintendo 3DS that I have been covetting since the dawn of time, or I could splurge and buy everything on my Amazon wishlist.

Decisions, decisions.

In the meantime, I have therapy advice and it is thus..

Angry tweeting is SO theraputic.

There's a drumming noise inside my head, it starts when you're around...

2011-06-19T02:24:00.000+01:00

Sorry, had to quote a bit o' Florence there. That song's been following me around for weeks like the plague's nicer, more bookish cousin. You know the one.

Alas, I hath returned. And I have an alibi.

Remember my shitty laptop? It caught a virus which caught another virus which then caught a virus that downloaded viruses which made it download a virus that left my internet security swinging wiiiiiide (Nice lock. Pity the door's open.) open and so on and so on so that I got all frustrated and eventually associated everything to do with the laptop as evil, upsetting and expensive. And so the blog got put to the side whilst I used my shitty 14-year-old computer for three months. And then I bought a new laptop after Matt totalled mine by 'fixing' it and here we are.

Thrilling. I know.

So what's new? I totally missed this instragram thing. And LiLu has a name (The pwettiest name I ever heard) and Ask The Bloggess disappeared and CRAP. So much missed.

Me? I hit eighteen and got some tattoos. I'm a frickin' adult now. Rawk.

Tattoos: Boobage (Ow-fuckety-ow) and shoulder blade (Mmmm...)

Click to enlarge, I guess.

Oh. And I got into college. Woopah! And debt, but that's another story. But not a long one so here: I got a storecard from work out of the goodness of my heart and now I owe too much money (I hate owing money) and the deadline is like 4 days before payday with 30% interest on the total amount. Oooshit.

But that is a basic summary of events, anyway. I'll blog again soon when I'm not caught between two-to-four jobs. Ciao!

18th June.

2011-06-18T01:51:00.000+01:00

I'm baa-aaack...

Flash Bang.

2011-04-08T23:48:00.000+01:00

Seething, dear people! Seething!!

I was about to light an aged rocker the other night at work (the one where I'm a lighting technician with full creative license, not the one where I'm a slave to the customers' every want and need) and was told by one of their crew that I wasn't allowed to do this, or that, or even this, and not even a tiny bit of that. God no.

I love lighting, I love the set up, the co-ordination, the complete, unwavering, exhausting concentration and the technical stuff right down to the tiny details, but I cannot stand not being able to go wild with the lights (within reason, I wouldn't use lasers and strobe lights during a ballad or anything). My middle name is practically Flash-Bang, for God's sake.

[From LightingDesignOnline.com]

I had to stand there for four hours, flushing out the back of the stage with three colours in a cycle. No flashing drum-rise, no flooding out the venue with pink, purple and blue light, no filling the stage with a different colour from each side, pulsing to the music, just fading red, green and blue in the background whilst the front of the stage stayed white and boring. Hell, I didn't even get to use the smoke machine! The horror!

Muchos Grr.

Just wait until I get my pyrotechnics license and THEN they'll be sorry.

BOOM.

Bloooooood. Say it with me. Bloooooooooooooooooooooooood.

2011-03-26T23:44:00.000Z

Saturday is the new Thursday apparently. I've spent the last three days trying to get my files off the bobbing turd that is my laptop. And so, Saturday. Hi.

I went to the blood place and they weren't even there!!

It was in a church-esque place, which is enough to turn me to stone anyway, but I asked a woman the the desk if there was a blood donar thing going on today and her reaction looked eerily like this.

"Maybe at the Merchant Hall but certainly not here, young lady."

To which I thought, "Jehovah's Witness? Oops."

And so I took my blood home and fed it lots of chocolate.

My college interview is booked! Mum was sneaking around my house and found the letter. And opened it. And then told me all about it after work before I'd even had chance to close the car door. Muchos excitement. I'd be pissy about my mum opening my mail but I opened hers, annotated it, and told Facebook all about it.

Get with the times, Mum.

The Charity Post.

2011-03-22T02:48:00.000Z

*cough*

A few weeks ago I got this scary letter from my beloved National Health Service:

Truly. It's love.

So I signed up. It's not like I'm using my blood right now or anything. And I'm giving blood for the first time this Thursday. But a friend told me that she had tried and they told her her blood wasn't heavy enough, whatever that means. So I'm full of questions:

What if I don't have enough blood? (I'm very pale and last time the doctors took blood from me, my arm started slurping.)

What if my blood is too heavy?

Shitballs, what if I have fat blood?

Fatty-fat fat blood. This is the best weightloss scheme I've had in a loooong time.

What if my blood turns out to be like.. black or something. How do I explain that I'm inherently evil?

Will I get a lollypop for being a big brave girl?

And so on. More on Thursday when I've braved syringe-wielding nurses and an hour of intense questioning about my medical history. Joy unbound.

Another thing I'm doing: Race For Life 2011 for Cancer Research UK. It's not the running around the racecourse all day or the vast amount of fundraising I mean to do before it that is the real chore for me. It's the pink. I have to wear pink! Blar.

I'll survive. I've seen a fantastic "Fuck Cancer" t-shirt on Amazon that I'm gonna wear like the less-than-discreet idiot I am.

And finally! Comic Relief: Red Nose Day. Something that creeps up on the Beeb (apparently that's Street for "the BBC") every year and it's usually awesome. I donated the last of my dwindling funds to them after David Tennant made me cry. Because he cried. Meanie. It's awesome. Peter Kay's done a comedy single with Susan Boyle for it. Definitely worth a peek for shits and giggles. And all for a good cause. *wink*

Wargh.

2011-03-13T01:36:00.000Z

All my little programs at the bottom of the screen are in the wrong order. I AM SO CONFUSED.

Wargh! Ten days?! How did that happen?

.. I have been thinking of you. Little blog baby's readers. Whilst I sit here in my freezing little (council) house somewhere in Northern England, freezing my lady-balls off, I've been trying to come up with something vaguely interesting to blog about.

The result? Nil. Nix. Nada.

I just finished a three-day stint at one of the local venues. In the last three days I've lit twelve bands and have the scars to prove it. One hand has seized up because of an unfortunate incident with a can of baked beans and a faulty can opener and the other is cramping because of the lighting controls.

The first night? My hands were so cold I couldn't keep the buttons pressed down at the right times.

The second night? I found the solution:

Multicoloured woolly wrist warmers. Bliss.

The third night? The music was awesome, the coke was less watered down than usual, and my hands were toasty warm.

Cheers.

College.

2011-03-03T22:12:00.000Z

..I know. I rock the titles.

In the last two months I’ve gone from holding two jobs to barely having one. Sod’s law, my hours were cut at Job #1 just after I quit Job #2. So I’ve gone from having two days off in as many months to working six hours a week.

..Leaves a helluva lot of time to do a lot of nothing. I’ve spent the last month in and around my bed, waking up at 3pm, eating shit, watching crap TV, forgetting to get my hair cut, bored but not motivated to do anything to change that. Basically, about three levels away from the circle of hell I was in this time last year. But there’s no point flogging a dead horse.

So, what do we propose, reader(s)?

Let’s go... To College!

I’ve been toying with the idea of going to college and doing a production arts course (think lighting/sound technician meets stage design) at some point and here whilst I have the time, I went to an open evening at college to check it out.

Looks. Frickin’. Awesome!

There’s a tiny problem involving applications, references, interviews, deadlines, only-three-remaining-places and, aw hell, a big wad of problems, but I’m being optimistic.

I’ve been stepping in as a lighting technician at some local venues for extra money and it’s all good experience. It’s something I enjoy doing, and getting paid definitely helps.

I've been staying awake until 4 or 5am every night/morning so when Mum woke me up at 9am I wasn't all that happy about it. First thing I said this morning? "I can't see."

..I function so well on four-and-a-half hours of sleep.

But this morning I phoned up my old school and asked for a reference, coke in hand, expecting to have to talk my way into it. Aaaand I didn't. The conversation was over in less than three minutes. That's the least time I have ever spent arguing with a teacher. (Much appreciated)

So it's all out of my hands now. Just have to sit around and wait to hear back from the college.

*Gulp*

I know. I'm shocked too.

2011-03-02T22:09:00.001Z

Horrified that I left a post about pool lanes fester at the top of my blog for a full month. What a crappy subject, I mean, really, Nicole? Nothing better to write about? Nothing? Nothing at all?

[Courtesy of the niiiice kitties at icanhazcheezburger.com]

Well. Bugger me.

We're in March now. J. H. Christ, how did that happen? I've been in bed for the last week. Not enough trade to justify my presence at work. Nice to see I have a life outside of work.

There's just one tiny thing I need to get off my chest:

First of all, aren't we all just SO excited about the royal wedding? I mean, OMG, it's SO EXCITING. So happy I could just bleed to death, right here at my desk. Grr. It's all I hear about. MSN actually has a page dedicated to every. little. sordid. detail. And if I see one more TV advert for a Royal Wedding Decorative Plate, I may just die. Twice.

...Though the condoms they made were pretty damn funny.

On the plus side, the prince is going bald. I swear he's not even thirty yet.

/End Transmission/

Seattle is back on the agenda! Looks set to be some time in 2013 (And I'll be twenty years old. Shit.). Norway-Sweden-Finland next summer - The Great Roadtrip me and Hubs have been planning for ages.

Slovenia (woot woot!) this summer. I can't remember if I've talked about Slovenia, but I do miss it. I miss the warmth and the torrential downpours and thunderstorms and huge vegetables and delicious fruit in my great-aunt's garden. I miss the dogs, Sena and Ika, I miss speaking Slovene. I miss my auntie Katra and her excellent cooking and her casual swearing.

And also I've applied to college. Though that gives me fuel for tomorrow, so I'll go into that then.

Ta-ta for now.

Pool Politics

2011-02-05T22:02:00.000Z

I spend a helluva lot of time at the pool these days. It's free with the gym membership so I've got no excuse not to really. Forty lengths yesterday (the pool closed early, but I got time in before the toddlers came and yellowed up the water) and 160 today to make up for it, leaving me aching in strange places; the back of my neck, the sole of my left foot, my wrists.

Also absolutely starving. Not in a normal way, but in a way where I can feel some part of my digestive system tugging on my poor stomach shouting (in a Scottish accent) "We need more power!" but as usual, I've only had time to throw down a bowl of cereal or possibly something once resembling sushi (I loooove my sushi).

So I was swimming away today, counting down the lengths until I was finished for the day (not all that reassuring when you're stuck in the nineties, let me tell you) when three assholes drop into my lane.

You know the type, you've seen them in the street. The type of family that has a nice-looking, indulgent mum, and ignorant husband and a teenage son who's going the same way as his dad. The fast-and-furious lane is free to the highest bidder and yet they choose my lane (who I'm sharing with a nice lady in her forties) to start splashing about and zooming from one end to the other, blinding and dismembering all who dare to get in their way.

Assholes.

Mum is letting Dad and Son do whatever the hell they want, including crashing into Nice Lady. I stop swimming and give them The Evils, which isn't so effective when the receiving party is wearing goggles - you gotta have that eye contact or it's just one-sided and sad.

In any case, me and Nice Lady shuffle along to the fast-and-furious lane (what a larf) and eventually it's just me and the dad of the family battling it out.

I cannot swim in the lanes without starting a little fight with someone. It's totally possible that I'm the real asshole. Probable, even. Yesterday it was a superfit granny who hadn't taken her tights off before getting into the pool. Today it was Father Hole. 130 lengths in and I was still faster than the guy. He left the pool for the flumes a few minutes later, disgraced by an overweight 17-year-old with orange hair.

I came to one conclusion in the next seventy lengths.

Nicole Smith, Fat, Fast and Furious.

The belated London post.

2011-01-23T00:18:00.000Z

Two weeks ago I mooched down to London to meet one of my friends and it was faaaab.

Yes. Faaaab is a word you all should recognise.

I was very, very tired because evil Work #2 wouldn't let me swap my hours so I was at work at 6am til noon before I could pack my bags and get on the train.

Leaving out details, I got some good pictures.

Big Ben

Cleopatra's Needle

Inexplicable Sphinx

Trafalgar Square

Bonus Shot: York shares my madness

My scarily streetwise dad took me around more or less all of the main places in London on the Sunday, leaving me exhausted and craving a bed that didn't shake when the people in the room next door started boinking. Where is the justice?

So that was all two weeks ago. Since then, True Blood Season 3 aired on FXUK and my life has once again been complete (which pisses my boyfriend off no end because Eric Northman is 'serious competition' and uh.. Swedish. Silly boy.) Also, the first of the 18th's has arrived. Denny on the 17th, then Mo-Balls, then MEEEE, then Hooker, then Lemon. And then we can all go drinking in town without having to steal Hooker's brother's ID. Hell yeah.

Finally, gym update: I've been, oh... twice..? in six weeks. So I need to work on that. At this point, any way is up. Here goes.

'Sup?

2011-01-01T00:00:00.000Z

Work work work work money money money money spend spend spend spend angry mother angry mother angry mother angry mother.

It's half an hour until midnight and I am *this* close to dying on my arse.

Well, my dears, I tried working two jobs. The term is "Fuck that shit".
This last month has been nice and (barely) rewarding, I'm going to London next week to spend my hard-earned cash and such'n'such. I love my first job more than ever these days, but Job #2? Not so much. It's stuck up, it's bitchy and the customers are all vulgar.

For the record I'm not overly bothered about been Dooced.

Last week I was told I was wrong for calling out a customer for hitting her four-year-old. I'd say people talk about me behind me back but usually I'm next to them, in front of them, or being the one they're talking to. About me. And my orange hair (long story). And about how apparently I cannot do anything right. And any damn thing they can pick on to distract from their own sad, sordid little lives.

GAHHHH.

On a lighter note, I bought a curling iron (a good one) for £9.99 in the sales. I KNOW RIGHT! That's an abstract way of saying I. Cannot. Stop. Spending. You'd think I'd spend enough time in shops at work but noooo.. It's an affliction.

I said I joined the gym.. I've been once since. £40 a month is enough incentive to start going there so I need a better New Year's Resolution. Perhaps "Stop eating fuckloads of crap". Apt enough because I'm currently torn between making a pasta salad and running to the takeaway whilst the streets are dead (T minus ten minutes until midnight).

So, I guess I should some goodbyes to 2010:

*ahem*

2010,

Interesting year you threw at me, what with the crippling depression, the dropping-out-of-school-ness, the crappy job, the stupid parents, the most recent Charlaine Harris book (that's a good thing by the way), the change of staff at Work #1 that makes me giggle, the many gallons of coke I have consumed, GREGGS FESTIVE PASTIES! (=D), my awesome not-boyfriend. I want to say that you fucking sucked. That you made swine flu look good, AND THAT'S ANOTHER THING, swine flu. What the hell? Buuuut, it wasn't so bad. It was.. interesting.

Thanks for an interesting year, dummy.

Midnight!

Cardigan Bonanza.*

2010-12-12T23:50:00.000Z

*At 6am, this was the funniest thing I'd ever heard.**

**And by 'heard', I mean 'thought'.***

***And by 'thought', I mean 'excess words farted out of my brain'

Welcome to December, belatedly. Life goes on. There have been Mostly Autumn gigs, snow TO THE MAX, bad days at work, better days, worse days, pay days, days off (naw, that's a lie), shocks to the system, bleached and dyed hair AND I joined the gym.

*car brake sound*

WHAT?!

Yes. Yes. Yes yes yes. This blob of lard hauled her arse down to the gym after work and got a membership. Free for the rest of the month and then £40 each month afterwards. Incentive or what..?

I'm not going to go on and on about it like I did with my piercings (which recently caused my ear to explode a little.. ouch.. nevermind) but the gym membership is ace. There are loads of classes, free access to Waterworld (next door), a sauna, steam room, jacuzzi, loads of equipment, a really zen atmosphere, AND!! there's an offer on at the moment where you get the rest of the month's membership free if you sign up. So, Yorkie people, Nuffield Health on Monks Cross (Used to be Courtneys Gym, between the rugby stadium and Waterworld), go go go.

I'm determined to get into a shape that doesn't remind me of something from Monsters, Inc. ("...and work off that flab that's HANGING OVER THE BED!")

Also. I've done all the Christmas shopping. Just randomly. And wrapped it. And put up the tree, and decorated it and put all the presents under it and blahhhhh.

And finally, I hit new heights of awesome by announcing to the store manager and assistant manager at Work #1 that "I love you crazy bitches".

Now, I'm going to bed, because tomorrow I'm hitting the gym hard. Oof.

The 22-Hour Day by Nicole Smith.

2010-11-21T22:43:00.000Z

Yesterday was tough tits.

It started like this. I woke up at 4am (ON A SATURDAY!! ON A SATURDAY!!!!) I was at Work #2 at 5.30am, doing deliveries in the freezing dark and setting up the store for the day with an army of other people I tiredly question the sanity of. Who has the energy to smile at that time of day?

I finished my shift at 11am and rushed to Work #1 to start work at 11.30am.. until 6pm.. At which time Matt drove us back to his house where we unpacked aaaaaalllll his DJ-ing gear and went to Denny's house and then to Lemon's house and then to Leeds, where we got lost looking for the German Christmas market, which turned out to be 'just behind us'.

The Christmas Market. It was more or less closed by the time we got there but I still got to eat a cockdog (see picture below) and a pretzel the size of my face before going home.

Midnight. But determined to enjoy not having to get up early the next day so I'm on the internet until 2am at which point I feel old and am sent off to bed.

Never has a reasonable 22 hours sounded so boring.

It's eating my face.

2010-11-18T22:28:00.000Z

I'm going to tell you about me aged seventeen.

At seventeen, I:

- Have more piercings than ribs.
- Have epic red hair.
- Have two jobs, one as awesome as the other isn't. (But I didn't say that)
- Still have braces.
- Swear like a trucker.
- Have given up caring about my weight.
- Have totally eschewed following trends. I have flair, yo.
- Have an unnatural love for webcams.
- Still watch The Simpsons at least twice a day.
- Don't go to school.
- Still haven't seen Avatar.

And. Totally crappy at blogging.

But, I have a million photos on my phone that I took with the intention of showing you all. So.. I'll do that tomorrow when I'm nearer my phone.

Yeah. At seventeen years old I'm still a lazy shit once I get home from work.

Where have you beeeen?

2010-11-06T20:25:00.000Z

Alas, I hath returneth.

I neglected to mention the epic November challenge I set myself.

Introducing.. Nicole's fantasticalmagicalbakingpalooza. It started with Baking For Dummies arriving in the post (I so recommend it..) and ended with my doing my first batch of cookies on the same day.

Fig. 1 - Stage: I will not be defeated.

Fig 2. - Stage: Holy crap I love that liquidiser.

Fig. 3 - Stage: I have a system worked out at this point.

Fig. 4 - Stage: Voila!

Epic delicious choc chunk cookies For Dummies.

My next creation? Nut-free carrot cake with vanilla/coffee icing (frosting). But more on that as and when it happens.

---

Also, excellent news!! I think I mentioned last week that I was applying for a second job and today? I gets it! I gets it!!

I dreamed a dream and it was dreadfully awesome.

2010-10-30T20:13:00.000+01:00

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS!

I thought I'd blogged, I honestly thought I had. I had one of those very convincing dreams in which I blogged and it was epic and you were there, and you were there, and you were there, too.

I've been a-working my feet off. On my one single, lonely day off, I went into work to buy stuff I didn't need (dish rack, though the washing up might never happen) and then spent the rest of the day with crappy Argos Radio songs in my head (#suckfest).

Also, I quite literally nearly worked my feet off because the motherplebbing cleaner who is actually scarily unstable threw my shoes away, put them in a delivery cage and then sent them trucking across the country. My only pair of shoes that don't have gaping holes in the bottom. I was so pissed off I was almost pissed on. But that's what I get for slipping into anger comas in urinals. *cough*

Today was my awesome manager's last day at work so it mostly contained choosing Halloween costumes (try imagining a bloke in a suit dressed as a full-blown pumpkin with an orange shower cap on trying to squeeze through the door at work.. Try it..) and dancing to Wham in the manager's office.

I work hard.