Phew

Ok, I am feeling a little better. Spent yesterday bumming around on the internet and doing nothing to improve the job situation or the friends situation or the talk-to-parents situation. Or the health insurance situation. I just watched silly reality TV programs about lesbians making tits of themselves and drank lots of water.
And today I will leave the house.
Ros and me are going to spend the weekend dog, cat and house sitting in Islington. Which is about 30 minutes from here. But it's a house looking out onto the canal, apparently and rather posh. So that will be a nice little holiday!
On Saturday I want a fun night out. I want to go to a pub and mingle with people I know and people I've never met before and feel like an actual human being.
And just knowing that next week can only be better than this one, that my low point is over, already cheers me up.

Breakfast now.

Walls moving closer

Bummer. I was meant to meet my friend Vanessa today and it didn't work out, because she ended up being too busy with uni stuff. See how I used the word "friend" here? In the English way. I met Vanessa once and we had a really good chat for a coupe of hours at an exhibition opening. Quite a few facebook chats since, but that's about it. We clicked immediately, tho, which is always a nice feeling, isn't it. When it's all nice and effortless. So yeah, was really looking forward to seeing her again today, even if I was just allowed to drink tea or coke. It's still nice to get out of the house and I don't do often at the moment. Spend my days writing online applications and doing housework and my evenings watching films or How I Met Your Mother, cause it's the only bloody thing I have on my hard drive. Meh. It's only day 4 of my No Booze Month and it is raining, but the urge to sit in a beer garden has hardly ever been so complete. Just cause there's people there, you know. And fresh air. Maybe I will go for another walk in a minute. Walks are good and healthy and productive, but also they make me cry. And last time a homeless guy threw himself off a bench in a park in a very dramatic fashion and then lay there like dead and I was just about to call for help when he started laughing madly and told me he was just kidding. So now I am scared. Walks in London are not quite the same as walks around the lake or the Irish countryside.
So anyway, maybe I will meet Vanessa next week instead. I hope so. She wants me to be part of one of her very interesting photography projects. And that would be good, cause it would be something fun and different and new and naughty.

Dicks

I went a long walk last night after leaving the internet cafe. That's something I hadn't done in a long time. It's been wayt too long, actually.
It made me remember that no matter how shit I feel right now, there is one thing I am good at: Getting back up from the floor. At least when I am down there on the bottom I know where to go: up. When I am somewhere in the middle I get confused and distracted and quite frequently take wrong turns. And I haven't been on top of everything in a long time, so...
Anyway. After my walk I met Marcel. We talked a lot about penises and I drank lots of tap water with lemon and lime, which was somewhat comforting. Cause, oh, I am not drinking for a month, which is weird, because I do tend to soak my sorrows in lager and turn them into a driniking game. Not this time. Have to say, sometimes all it takes to cheer me up actually is a detailed conversation about dicks. Thank God for gay men.

Somewhere in a dark corner

So yes, Lisa and also my friend Friederike have left, which is sad. But the good thing about London is that every week another one of your friends is here on holidays. Last week it was my friend Rebecca, next week my friend Tony is coming over from Ireland. Also on the upside: My friend Ulrike has just moved over here from Doha and Gabby will stay here FOR GOOD, once she's back from her holidays in Italy next week.

And of course the usual: London is still ace bla bla bla. Who am I kidding, sometimes the most acest best city in the world is not enough. My optimism re job search has been hit on the head with a hammer a few times now. And in a way I was still running around a little confused, cause everything is so different here, so that now it feels like I was fouled out of the game before anyone even explained the rules to me. All my fault, though, I know.
Nonetheless I could do with an ego boost. Or some lemon ice cream. Of course the next proper ice cream parlour is about an hour away and hopelessly overpriced.
Also today I signed on the dole, which is something that makes me cry (like literally, actually, in an internet cafe, cause I still don't have fucking internet at home) cause it's something we just don't do in my family, but I have no choice, innit. I'm broke. Don't tell my parents, please please.

My mum hasn't called me in almost two months, anyway, tho. Plus I am bleeding out of all the wrong places and am not health insured. I am definitely on the way down. And yes, I am quite aware that I sound pathetic and am drowning in self pity right now. But sometimes you have to say things as they are and I am. I am not mostly happy anymore.

BUT - and that is good news - I am not just going to run away this time. Watch me. I'll stick this one out.

HARRRARRRR Hello!

OK, enough. New start. I won't even try to sum up the last month-or-so and will just restart this blog where I am right now: Sweating like a pig in Ros' room in Hackney where I am using her internet to look for jobs and... well, revive my little Ponderland.

Summer has eventually arrived in the UK. It crawled up and jumped at us from behind an ice cream van and burnt all those lovely pale freckled faces.

Umm... and now...

Let me try to sum up what happened since my last blog entry.

- I went to my cousins wedding, which was lovely, mainly because she seemed very happy and I saw most of my relatives having a good time. And I danced with my mum to some pop song I can't ven remember now. It doesn't happen often, but it's nice, cause it always makes me feel very close to her.

- I went to Rough Beats in lovely Yorkshire with about every single person I know in England. It was fun for a while, but then I downed a few litres of Jägermeister and spent the rest of the weekend with my head sticking out of our tent's entrance so the vomit would be washed away by the inevitable rain and not ruin Ros' expensive designer clothes and quality camping gear.

- I went to visit Lisa in Laurel Close for the last time E V E R. You know my old flat and first little home here in London in Tooting. Bit weird, but not very sad. Not about the flat. Lisa has left me, though. She's travelled on to India, where she's probably having a blast right now and won't have to complain about not being able to sleep because of it being soooo coooold anymore. I miss her.

- I went to the seaside with Ros and her housemates Jo and Rob and Florian and we built a sandcastle and swam in the ocean and I killed a little boy with my frisbee skills.

- I went on a bike ride with Mathilde and I realised I am very much out of shape since I stopped pushing wheelchairs.

- I made a video for UKuncut with Ros and a few other friends, which is a bit outdated now, but you can watch it here, if you want to see my face: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucQ48ScFH1E

- Got pissed lots.

And now: On to newer things and better things and bigger things, like finding work and stuff.

Oh yeah, have moved into a new flat, too, and fallen in love with a BOY!!! But more about that tomorrow.

Stalled

Turns out, my friend Markus, who I thought was in Canada, lives in Cologne at the moment! He studies film and he's brilliant at it. Was very happy to see him so unexpectedly and watch his newest creation "Stalled", which was also ace. Other news: lost at pool, ate amazing burger, watched lots of films. Dad 3 loads of laundry. (My grandmother forced lots of Camembert on me, so I took it to Cologne. When I unpacked my backpack the whole thing stank like hell. So did my clothes.)

Dirt Crowds Noise

THE FAMILY

Cologne!
Is where I am.
I am using my current homelessness and unemployment for a tour through the home country. It started on Friday at the edge of the black forest, where I met my dad, who took me to a wine tasting in a pretty little town close to the French border. The place made me sick, that's how pretty it was. And so quiet that it made me nervous. It's weird. Countryside is stunning, people come from all over the world to see it, the wines are excellent, the food is the kind I grew up with and the people are supposed to be... well... my people. And they were lovely and welcoming and gave me a VIP ticket which let me eat and drink for free all day. But walking around the vineyards, sucking at my bottle of white wine I just realised how wrong I feel there at the moment. It's where I grew up, where all my best childhood memories are, where I am supposed to feel at home, but I just don't. 2 days and I miss London like mad. Dirt and crowds and noise, how are you over there?

It was a good trip in some ways, tho. I had a proper 1 on 1 catch up with my dad, which is something that never happens. And it felt good to realise how much I actually miss my folks. Cause it's the good kind of missing. The kind where you just know that they are there somewhere and will be when you need them.
Plus my dad is one of the funniest people I know and he knows how to make me laugh when I am all melancholy from too much white wine and too much nature.

Then we travelled on to my grandmother. There was no time for lonely walks then. They all hadn't seen me in 2 years and were all over me. My granny's sister put lots of expensive jewelery all over my wrists and fingers while my grandmother was already busy mending the holes in my jeans and shoving lots of food into my mouth at the same time.
They say I am too thin, not dressed properly, my hair looks like a boy's and scruffy on top of that, I should wear more pearls, but be careful not to lose them, cause they were very expensive and maybe it's best to wait until they have died and I stop behaving like a teenager, plus they won't let me take them to England anyway, cause they'll get stolen there and they'll give them to my dad to look after them for me until I am a proper lady.
My favourite thing was when my grandmother suggested for me to move back in with my parents cause then I wouldn't have to pay rent and I'd surely find a cleaning job in Konstanz, too. Danke, Oma!
She also gave me a necklace she got given for her 90th birthday 6 weeks ago. I think she is convinced she won't see me ever again anyway, but if you ask me she'll live to be 100, at least. She's as fit as a fiddle.

Well, and now I am in Cologne. Hurray! They have dirt and crowds and noise here!
I am sleeping on my friend Julie's sofa and I can't wait to meet her later, when she's finished work. She's a lovely squeaky always there if you need her gives good advise kind of friend who lived with me in Ireland and always made me lovely smoothies and I miss her lots!

Then in a couple of days I will travel on to Bochum to meet more amazing people, play some pool with my friend Mel, hang out with Gabby (for the first time in Germany!!) and restock my currywurst sauce supplies.

And then my cousin's wedding, which I am looking forward to very much. I love weddings now. I LOVE WEDDINGS.

The First Wedding

That was the royal wedding, as you know. I watched it (well at least the service and the kiss) with Loreena MacKennit on her living room sofa. In the middle of it all I had to cook a soup, so I missed lots, but nevermind.
I thought the dress was pretty and some of the hats ridiculous. I thought the tree's in the church instead of flowers were a lovely idea. That was mainly my thoughts. And then I finished work and went to an amazing street party in Hackney. Ros and our friend Aidan welcomed me by throwing me into the air and bringing me other surprises and then I drank lots of cider and peed against a house wall. A girl I didn't know held a scarf in front of me. There were people in wedding dresses and Sam waved a little flag. That is all I remember of it.

I was mostly celebrating The End of Shad. For me. It was the end for me, not for Shad, obviously. Bye bye, thanks for my 60 quid!
Oh and bye bye Tooting! I'll come visit, promise, one day...

The Second Wedding

The second wedding was that of P and T, friends of Ros', who I had met at various occasions. The two of them are in an amazing band together, Royal Treatment Plant, who y'all should totally check out and like a lot.
And theirs was the first proper wedding I've been to since I was 6. The ceremony took place in the Royal Festival Hall, which is a great venue for that sort of thing. With a view over London and all.
The reception then took place in West London, so we all got put on two old routemasters and carried through London, being given our own little sightseeing tour.
Now I don't have any weddings to compare this one to, but I thought it was an excellent party. Great food (paella!), great music (whicdh I told the DJane over and over...) and a free bar all night!
The speeches weren't boring and also Ros crashed into a table, which is always fun.*
Unfortunately that perfect evening ended a bit annoying at 5am somewhere in Essex, cause Ros and I both fell asleep on the night bus. Ah well...

So yes, I am totally in the mood for love and trumpets and soppy stories and more wedding cake. 4 days till wedding No 3! Can't wait! Nervous, yet, Ju?






* Her version of the story goes that she was just about to lean on the table when it collapsed spontaneously a second before she even touched it. Also possible, of course.