Carrie (a close friend from high school) came to visit me this week. We hadn’t seen each other in ages and it could have been completely awkward, but it wasn’t. It was easy. It was like we hadn’t skipped a beat, as if our 12th grade English class had wrapped up weeks ago instead of years. We just slid right back into a sense of… familiarity, of acceptance. It was good to catch up. It was good to see that although we’ve both changed, both ‘grown up’ a bit, we still fundamentally know one another in all the ways that matter.

Which was damned fortunate, actually, because it turned out to be a fairly intense visit: we both took turns falling victim to this monster flu that’s going around here (and possibly the entirety of western europe, since Carrie was already ill when she flew in from Berlin). So the majority of our time was split between running around buying throat lozenges for each other and lying in bed producing phlegm while watching marathon sessions of Project Runway. You know. Good clean fun.

We only really left the apartment once: a mutual friend of ours (who is now in a ludicrously successful band) happened to be playing a show in London, so we went to see it, and him. (Josh Hartnett was there. And let me just say, that man has great skin. I mean, really amazing.)

He was nice and friendly and normal, our now-rockstar friend, especially considering the fact that he and I, at least, really only grazed past each other in high school. A friendly graze, but a graze nonetheless — we weren’t super close. Anyway, he was lovely, and after the show I got to see the inside of a real live dressing room inhabited by real live musicians. Within thirty seconds, I began to very quietly freak out. There was just too much legitimate indie cool in the air. Everyone I met was perfectly, disinterestedly pleasant, but legitimate cool never fails to kick my already hyperactive neuroses into overdrive. All the weird, gross things about myself that I usually manage to find funny somehow lose that edge of humor and become, simply, weird and kinda gross. (Which, in turn, makes my inner monologue all the more ironically, uncomfortably cringe-worthy, a la The Office. Which makes me do extra weird, gross things, like giggle for no outwardly visible reason. Out loud.)

I found myself desperately trying to act natural in a room full of people who… I don’t know. Who had created this remarkable music. Whose album I own. Whose show had sold out in minutes. And all I could think was: “What am I doing here?”

So I did the only thing I could do. I politely said goodbye and ran away.

Luckily, Carrie, my original friend, the one who was visiting me, the one I went to the concert with and abandoned when I ran away, was a really good sport about it. The whole experience forced me to admit to myself how limited my comfort zone actually is. Apparently, I just have a much easier time interacting with weird, I-sit-at-home-alone-and-obsessively-look-things-up-on-wikipedia ‘creative types’ than cool, I-get-up-on-stage-and-make-audiences-physically-swoon-in-the-face-of-my-undeniable-talent ‘creative types.’ Lesson learned.

I’ve spent several days now huddled in bed, hacking up grossness, groaning a lot and feeling sorry for myself, calling people up to demand sympathy and letting the flu take its course. (I never used to get sick this often before I moved to this goddamn country. I blame you, England. You and your imperialist germs.)

I’m finally beginning to feel better. My esophagus no longer feels like an excitable porcupine wandered through it. I also feel kind of drained. I don’t quite know how to explain it, but it’s a good kind of emptiness; things feel simpler. Somewhere along the line, between reminiscing about high school and coughing incessantly and sexing up Josh Hartnett (oh, if only), something in my head seems to have clicked into place.

I really am leaving London soon. I’m happy about it, but also deeply, truly sad. And this moment, this one right now, typing this — this is my life. I need to start living it.

…

*ADDENDUM: I have this really uneasy feeling that the “this moment is your life” thing might be a quote I internalized after seeing it used to great effect in 2002’s Unfaithful. It was the scene where Kylie Minogue’s real life eurotrash (ex?)boyfriend first seduces Diane Lane into having crazy monkey sex with him even though she’s married to Richard Gere.

So, yes. It seems nothing is sacred. Not even my personal epiphanies.

I just watched the new(ish) Pride and Prejudice again. Whenever Kiera Knightley wants to convey emotion, any kind of emotion, she does this thing with her nose — or rather, the strips of flesh along either side of her nose — where she like, flattens it. Kind of like what happens if you’re sucking in really hard and you manually push your nostrils in, and they stay that way for a second. Only all over, and without disrupting her breathing. Like a synchronized swimmer.

Every time she does it, I die a little inside.

I’ve been trying to snap out of it, to get back into the swing of things, to wake up in the morning, go to bed in the evening, etc. I went to the bank and the pub yesterday. It was, in the words of everyone’s favorite hotel heiress, “Hot.”

And now, I offer you a wholly unsolicited recap of the last several days in the life of Me, as seen through a collection of situations/quotes that have taken place in my room.

Rory shows his true imperial colors in a room full of Americans and Australians:

  “Criminals and puritans. That’s all you are to me.”

Claire makes a leap of logic that completely justifies my lifelong obsession with her:

“It’s starting to look like I might have to move to Oregon instead of Texas.”
“Sweet. Ramona Quimby lived in Oregon.”

Marina reacts to a wildly inappropriate joke about how Jesus was ‘hung’:

“Even so, I would never fuck Jesus.”
*startled, hysterical laughter* “What!? Why?”
“Because, you know, he is not actually as hot as he looks in the pictures.”

I am finally forced to admit I may have a marijuana dependancy problem:

“I just got this incredibly strong urge to put my mobile phone in my mouth.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Mostly because it’s exactly the size of a biscuit.”
“Do it.”
“Don’t you think it might be dirty? It’s been in my pocket with coins and stuff.”
“Put it in a plastic bag.”

The End.

…to the new year, to my latest new beginning; to everyone’s latest new beginning, I suppose.

Very little has changed. So far.

I was lying on my couch late last night, staring up at the ceiling, buried in a mountain of cushions, my mind wandering. Gradually, I realized I was making a repetitive, high-pitched noise that might be best transcribed as: BWOoo. BWOoo. BWOoo.

Completely unfazed, the people I had invited into my home just carried on with their conversation, one of them sitting at my computer, the other in an armchair he long ago claimed as his own. And as I carried on ‘BWOoo’ing, stone cold sober, it occurred to me that this, quite possibly, is true friendship.

Christmas has somehow come and gone already — a flurry of last-minute gravy cooking, wine drinking, ribbon untying, and Twin Peaks marathoning.

We’ve only got four days until The New Year is upon us.

Remember how, when you were little, the three short months of summer vacation would just go on forever? Friendships could be made, solidified, and dissipated. Romances (such as they were, at age could be carried out in full, from that thrilling initial whack on the arm to the gradual, mutual loss of interest. You could laugh, fight, cry, make up, and ride your bike across town and back all in the course of an afternoon — and mean every bit of it.

The months go by so ridiculously fast these days; I know I’m not saying anything new here, but sweet CHRIST, I canNOT beLIEVE the year is over.

…

Alright. Even for me, that is slightly too maudlin a note to close on. So, in an off-topic attempt to inject some levity into this circus, I have copied and pasted my ’06 Holiday Epiphany below:

manicmaya: You know what I think?
manicmaya: I think
manicmaya: Orlando Bloom looks like a rat
manicmaya: and everyone just needs to accept it.
manicmaya: The man is not attractive, NOR can he act.
todytheshroom: He definitely peaked when he jumped on that horse
all Crazy Elf Style in the second Lord of the Rings.
todytheshroom: It’s all been downhill from there.

Sometimes, my ‘peeps’ and I like to try and pretend we are grown-ups. We’ll sit around the kitchen table, the soothing tones of BBC4 filling the background as we leaf through newspapers, pretending to be cultured and discussing current events. True to form, though, it never really seems to take very long for things to fall apart. Below, a slice from just such an evening.

* * * SCENE 14.2 * * *

The kitchen is cozy, decorated with tinsel and Christmas lights.
David and Rory sit on one side of the table, each with his own newspaper,
idly flipping through. Maya sits on the other side, surreptitiously scouring
the weekend supplement for news about celebrities, the only thing
she’s actually interested in. Rory and David are making small talk.

RORY: I heard there’s a Japanese production of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus on at the Barbican soon. It’s gotten brilliant reviews — we should go see it.

DAVID: Is that the one where they use like, seven different languages simultaneously?

RORY: Surely you must be thinking of Midsummer Night’s Dream.

DAVID: Ah, yes. Yes, you’re right. So was that production just a one-off then?

RORY: Yes, I’m fairly sure it was. I don’t know that it was even on in the city – it might just have been Stratford.

David makes a small grunt of acknowledgment and
turns a page of his paper.Rory looks down at his own
paper for a moment, then looks up suddenly.

RORY: OH! Did you HEAR about Lembit Opik?

DAVID: YES. My GOD.

MAYA: Who the hell is Lembit Opik?

RORY: Oh God, he’s this very well-respected British politician, a member of Parliament — I think he’s a Liberal Democrat –

DAVID: — and he’s had this really public, long-term relationship with this famous, respected weather forecaster woman — the only famous weather forecaster in England –

RORY: — she’s like, Oxbridge educated, and very kind of, dignified, and they were engaged to be married — and it’s just come out that he’s dumped her, and run off with a CHEEKY GIRL.

Expectant pause.

MAYA: What the HELL is a “cheeky girl”?

Stunned, slightly horrified silence.

RORY/DAVID: YOU DON’T KNOW THE CHEEKY GIRLS??

RORY: (voice full of pity) Oh, Maya.

DAVID: They sang “The Cheeky Song.” Do you not know “The Cheeky Song?”

MAYA: I think I might have missed The Cheeky Song.

RORY: They’re these twins, from like, Transylvania, and they have this little tiny Romanian mother who picks out all their outfits and dances and songs — she came up with the whole concept, really — and you can just tell from the interviews, this little old woman is like, a force of nature.

David: They were on X-Factor, I think. It’s like the British American Idol. They got kicked off really early because they were SO bad, but their song went to number one on the UK charts because of like, kitsch value.

RORY: You really don’t know the Cheeky Song?

MAYA: I really don’t know it. Is that the title?

DAVID: Yes. It’s actually called The Cheeky Song. Touch my bum.

Startled, Maya looks strangely at David. It is a look that clearly says,
No, Absolutely Not, I don’t care how amazing this particular fact may be,
I am SO not touching your bum that it is distinctly unfunny.
David clocks Maya’s look, and makes a pair of parantheses with his hands.

DAVID: “(Touch My Bum.)” In BRACKETS.

* * * END SCENE * * *

Please. Click the clips below and enjoy. The choreography is mind-blowing, and really, the accents alone are totally worth the five minutes of your life you will never get back:

THE CHEEKY SONG (TOUCH MY BUM)
Pay special attention to the lyrics. They will change the way you look at life.

HAVE A CHEEKY CHRISTMAS

HIGHLIGHT #1: The reindeer actually looks embarrassed to be involved. There’s a direct shot of it at the 01:08 mark, and it is clearly thinking GodDAMN, I need a new agent.

HIGHLIGHT #2: Approximately 01:20 into the video, the one on the left delivers the magical line “I will be your special DISH!” And it sounds distinctly like a threat. You will get chills.

HIGHLIGHT #3: In the very very last shot, one of them whispers a special Christmas message at the camera. The first time I saw it, I literally screamed and ran out of the room. It’s that good.

Today was Rory’s birthday.

Somehow, all of us managed to pull ourselves together and coordinate our movements enough to converge at the same location at roughly the same time — quite a feat considering that between us, we had to overcome both agoraphobia and chronic lateness. The next six hours saw us getting shitfaced at the Lyceum on the Strand, drunkenly barreling through Covent Garden (“Look at all the fancy people and their bow ties!” “Bastards! Let’s storm the Opera House!!”) and Leicester Square (“That is the WORST possible place you could pee!!” “What, the Burger King? Why??”), all the way to SoHo, where we were refused entry to G-A-Y due to the lateness of the hour and directed to another, slightly harder to find club, also mysteriously called G-A-Y. (Although everyone else in our party happens to be straight, the birthday boy plays for the other team so the rest of us were up for whatever he wanted to do: tonight was his night.)

Although I am saddened to report that I may not be the lesbian-magnet I always secretly hoped I would be (apparently my inherent mannishness does not induce swooning in either sex), I think I can still say that a good time was had by all. A fair amount of energetic “dancing” and soulful lip syncing to Fergie and Paris Hilton went on. Jono attracted a respectable number of Looks, and I will never forget the sight of McFeely in his old man “house cardigan,” breaking it down to some serious ‘Let’s Get the Party Started’ Pink action.

It’s early in the morning now, and I have three stragglers passed out in various corners of my room. Because they are (mostly)normal human beings who go to SLEEP after being ridiculous all night. I, on the other hand, choose to sit, creepily lit only by the light of my computer, Madonna classics still ringing in my ears, wide awake and typing away.

I really like these people. Even though some of them (just be glad I don’t name names) snore.

Having read my one-paragraph summaries of Marina, Leslie, and Andrew a couple posts ago, the light of my life/bane of my existence known to the rest of humanity as Claire Kim has demanded a write-up of her own.

Claire is insidious. She is one of the most hilarious people I have ever known, but she hides it exceedingly well when she so chooses. At times, Claire seems to have very little control over her facial expressions. Case in point: if she finds someone’s company even mildly distasteful, they will likely be subjected to her patented I-appear-to-have-stepped-in-something-unpleasantly-squishy-but-I-will-put-on-a-brave-
face-until-I-can-be-alone-and-find-a-curb-on-which-to-scrape-the-hell-out-of-my-designer-
boot-soles Look. When you get to know her, you realize that most of the time, she’s not letting her guard slip; she means for you to see this look.

Claire is small. She doesn’t like it, but she is. Despite this cold, hard fact, Claire refuses to embrace her potential for tiny cuteness, opting to put in the extra work and shoot for hotness/badass-ocity instead. She succeeds.

Claire makes you work for her approval. She is an evil mastermind, and has been known to reduce people to such a state that when she demands a piggyback ride right smack in the middle of Seoul’s most crowded clubbing district, the mule in question secretly feels slightly honored. Someday, Claire may quite possibly employ these powers to affect great change on a global scale; whether she uses them for good or evil remains to be seen.

Claire has amazing taste. She can pull off items of clothing and jewelry that I would not even dare to approach in a store. (Poncho, anyone?) I covet the ring she got in Bali. She knows this. She has promised to leave it to me in her will. This gesture fails to impress me, because at the rate I am going the odds of me outliving her are very very slim.

Claire is one of the most satisfying IM conversationalists I have ever, EVER communicated with. That may not seem like much to those of you who don’t IM a lot, but believe me, it is. She words things juuuuuuuust right, and her timing is impeccable. No one, and I mean No One, is more fun to be bitchy with. And no matter how irrational or random the topic at hand (we’re talking a truly vast spectrum here, ranging from how Wentworth Miller on Prison Break has sensitive, rash-prone skin to theories on why, exactly, a small toddler stared at me intently for a solid twenty minutes on the bus to Traflgar), she jumps right on the crazy train and takes it to places where no man, woman, or child has ever gone before.

Claire needs to move to America in tandem with myself, so I can stop missing her. It’s tiring.

… Dwetnya i-nyeon-a?

**NOTE: The Claire-Maya Lovefest photo collage I posted above makes me
feel like kind of a charlatan, because all those pictures were taken more
than a year ago, before my dispiriting slide back into obesity. I look
nothing like that anymore. (Not that ‘that’ was anything spectacular, but still.)
While I may have been tempted, in the spirit of honesty, to post more
current pictures as well, I was spared that moral dilemma because I
basically stopped letting people take pictures of me when I started
getting fat again last winter. The idea is, at some point, the powers that
be will finally invent a magical pill to make all my weight woes disappear,
and I will systematically alter the memories of everyone I have
interacted with since February, and it will be as if, aesthetically speaking,
this whole unfortunate interlude NEVER HAPPENED. Yesssss.

It has been a strange month. That’s my excuse for the delinquency in updating.

Strangeness, in and of itself, is not that unusual in my world. This particular November, however, has been fraught with even more than the usual amount of ridiculous over-thinking and planning and outright panicking. Big Life Questions have been asked, questions like what to do, where to go, when to do it, and how many cigarettes I can possibly smoke in one sitting without actually kick-starting a cardiac episode. Some conclusions have been reached, but this post is about thanks, not about my so-called future. That will come soon.

So. YESTERDAY was Thanksgiving. I’d actually completely forgotten, all thoughts of turkeys and pilgrims being mired in the goop of my half-baked existential angst. Thanks to my glorious flatmates, however, I got to have one of the most delicious Thanksgivings ever.

For those of you who don’t know, I share a two-story council flat right off Camden High Street with three other people:

1. A politically-minded, pint-sized Greek goddess named Marina. Marina is sexy. It’s a powerful brand of sexy: that overtly European, tousle-haired, accented, Godard/Truffaut-referencing, cigarette-rolling kind of sexy. She wears black leggings and oversized sweaters that slide off her shoulder, and she has been known to exclaim “I LOVE this song, it is so WONderful, this is my FAvorite song” at least half a dozen times in the course of an evening. She’s also smart and fun and extremely loyal. When she leaves a room, you feel her absence.

2. A raven-haired indie music princess from L.A. named Leslie. Leslie is crazy cool. Her love for all things music-related knows no bounds. She gets what you’re trying to say, even when you are being completely incoherent. She rocks the Hot Secretary look. Once, after splitting a bottle of wine over lunch at Pizza Express, Leslie and I gingerly hopped and skipped our way across half of Bloomsbury, laboriously avoiding every crack in the sidewalk. Just Because. Often, she addresses me as “Lady” instead of using my name. As in: “Hey Laaaaydee. Whatchyadoin?”

3. Leslie’s boyfriend (now fiance!!!!), a quirky, scruffy Aussie named Andrew who is studying for his PhD in technical but important sounding things I don’t understand. Andrew wears good T-shirts. Not in-your-face, look-at-me-I’m-so-clever T-shirts, but ones you don’t really notice at first, until one day, you’re like, hey, that’s a Great Scene From The Exorcist/Band I Really Like/Very Insightful Saying you’ve got there on that shirt! Andrew also rolls with the punches. For example, if one were to, say, launch into a small dance mid-sentence, Andrew would immediately bust a complementary move without skipping a beat, all while continuing the conversation. (That scenario may have happened in real life. Possibly yesterday.)

We have our ups and downs, the four of us, but generally we all agree that we have a pretty solid thing going w/this whole cohabitation situation. And while I suspected it all along, after yesterday, I can wholeheartedly say that I have the best fucking flatmates EVER.

While I huddled in my room all day, cradling a tub of chocolate snacks, being overwhelmed, and intermittently hurling abuse at David as we watched Citizen X (I’d coerced the poor guy into bringing me the day’s newspaper because I couldn’t face the 200-foot trek down to our landlord’s corner shop), The Fabulous Threesome somehow whipped up an amazing meal: exquisitely cooked turkey, stuffing, veggies, potatoes, cranberry sauce — the works. When I emerged from my darkened lair, blinking and stunned like a geriatric mole, I was ushered into a warm, brightly lit, aromatic kitchen and handed a glass of wine. They even fed my belligerent Irishman.

The food was amazing. We all got rip-roaring drunk, sang loudly along to the Rolling Stones, and discussed everything from literature to the joys and woes of inadvertent lesbian encounters (not mine, don’t worry). Although it’s taken me all day to recover from the festivities, I would like to take a moment now and note that this Thanksgiving, I am grateful for my friends. I’m really gonna miss you crazy kids when we all finally have to move on.

This conversation definitely just happened in my room:

J: Yeah…just basking in the glow.

K: I wish I had a glow. A strong one.

J: Like the sun?

K: No, just one strong enough for a lizard.

J: What? What do you mean ‘a lizard’?

K: You know, how lizards bask in the sun. I want my
glow to be strong enough to keep a lizard alive.

J: That’s a strong glow.

K: A cute little lizard…

J: Jesus could probably have baked a gecko.

I love my friends.
These are a few excerpts from some recent conversations.

2: What happened to Thumbelina, anyway?
1: I think she had to sleep with a frog for a while. Or possibly a toad.
2: Oh yeah. That was rough.
1: And wasn’t there like, a conveniently tiny prince at the end?
2: Yeah.
I think he had wings.
I saw the gayest man on the subway the other day.
Is that like, a politically incorrect transition?


1: What do you think like, the worst tattoo EVER might be.
2: I think tattoo of a crouton would definitely be up there.
Just like, a single crouton.
1: Marry me.
2: Then we could get matching crouton tattoos.

1: Hey, if I died suddenly do you think you’d cry?
2: Probably.
1: Hm. I bet you wouldn’t like, sob. Bitch.
2: I never sob.
1: NEVER?
2: I only weep with dignity.



1: Well, we are odd. Accept it. Embrace it.
2: I am aware of that… but that was odd in an Old English lady drinking a
thermos of tea in the cinema kind of odd.
1: You are a pooplebumple.
2: As are you.
As are you.