On a Bandwagon Made for Two...

So, it's New Years Eve and in millions of bedrooms across the world a multitude of hands are busily tapping away at keyboards in a desperate attempt to make sense of what has been a rather perturbing year.

Unfortunately, ever one to latch parasitically onto a fad, that's exactly what this blog will be concerned with alongside a few small exclamations of annoyance regarding 'end of year procedure'.

Let me begin with a note on my often ally (yet occasional foe) food, more precisely the manner in which we are encouraged to engage with it at this pivotal time of the month:

It has been but five days since the diligent advertising campaigns of British television and radio came to fruition and we all gorged ourselves upon whatever organic, locally sourced, holier-than-thou pish they encouraged us to this time - yet, like all great institutions, they've spun on a ha'penny and we're already being told off for being so foolish.

"Horrid little gluttons" cry the emaciated Go-Go dancers from our screens, "eating yourself into a stupor, we wished you only to observe our delicious turkey (hand reared by Lithuanian orphans, fed on gold dust and creme caramel) - now atone for your sins, drop and give me twenty pelvic thrusts clad in a lycra one-piece so you can observe the manner in which that [perfectly natural] excess weight of yours jiggles in the spotlight!"

Have they not noticed; it's still winter? In all tiers of the animal kingdom, preserving that padding is paramount to survival.

I, for one, shall be telling said exercise and diet fascists to go fuck themselves with their own, disgustingly visible shoulder blade...most likely with a mouth full of leftover mince pie.

I suggest anybody with half a brain do the same.

Moving swiftly on.

It is a necessary evil that one must have something to do on New Years Eve and there is, amongst my friends, a certain degree of youthful one-upmanship as to what this engagement should be.

By proxy (and the weight of Scottish tradition) one must also have somebody of significance to undertake this venture with.

With the majority of my boys out and about in city centres, tearing it up at house parties with their girlfriends or getting mashed out of their otherwise sturdy minds in a field in Derbyshire - my choice to go to The Bakers Vaults with my Mother seems rather frumpy and has earned me a great deal of mockery.

[Gentlemen, it is not that I hadn't been given offers that would far outshine yours; from guestlists and free drinks at Edinburgh's best 60's night to a DJ slot at a two house rave in Wales but I would quite like to start my coming year as I mean it to progress...memorably.]

Which brings me to a final point, having looked back at my previous entries it struck me that a great deal of them revolve around the calamitous upshot of my predisposition for drinking far too much.

Never having been one, particularly, to make New Year's resolutions - I have decided to try a reform my 'Withnail & I' ways by giving up (or at least significantly cutting down on) the booze as of tomorrow.

The smoking, however, will remain - much to the chagrin of my family.

I wish everybody a lovely evening, wherever/with whomever that may be, and a Happy New Year.

Annie.

<3

2 Month Long 'Lady Troubles'...?

If we're being pedantic it's actually been a little under two months since my last post and some of you may have noticed I was quite literally entirely 'absent' during that time, having shut down all affiliations with the online world, and not just merely 'neglectful'.

But where have I been and what in god's name could I have been up to that warranted this much time away from the emotional sustenance that is the Internet?

Readers, I was off doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

You see, I woke up shortly after my self-righteously charged blog of November 3rd and realised I couldn't remember a time when I didn't devote 60% or so of my day to wondering if somebody, somewhere were talking about me.

In essence I fell prey to my own objections to social networking as a whole.

When one begins to worry how many people have viewed that status update on your particularly delicious sandwich it's time to stand up and admit: "My name is Annie Phetamine and I have a hypocrisy problem".

So I logged off.

[The first few weeks are the worst but it's something I would endorse to all of you.]

I sat my exams, finished all those essays (postponed in favour of seeing how many times I could click 'Refresh' and have bugger all happen), didn't get that hedgehog, hosted two house parties, attended the odd exhibition, made brief trips down to London, entirely re-did my wardrobe, doffed piercings, dark hair and my eyebrows, gained a new group of friends, went back to Manchester, declined to meet my old classmates, survived Christmas and engaged in one ill fated 'Brief Encounter'-esque love affair with a musician.

In short, I reclaimed my life...silently.

Yet, like all truly fatal addictions, I've crawled back into the public sphere before the turning of the year and reclaimed my place as that well loved local blog whore; loitering upon your virtual doorstep, asking for sympathy and spare change.

But, all moral high-ground may not be lost.

I will most ardently NOT be returning to Facebook, Twitter or any of those other exploitative dens of vice that (during my time in rehab) have updated themselves beyond my comprehension.

In compromise, this solitary outpost only shall remain to allow me to vent creative spleen and avoid becoming a doddering recluse.

There are many stories to tell, rants to be had and personalities to be slandered yet.

Annie.

<3

Love Thy Enemy...

I purposefully left my blog a little short yesterday because I seem to be developing something that borders on inter-personal relationships in the real world, but just to clarify: that would be adoptive 'Mommy' to Hoodoo Chupacabra the soon-to-be-born Algerian Pygmy Hedgehog and not an allusion to sinister selective breeding plans.

It's been an odd few days post-Halloween, I've learnt more about myself than I though possible whilst nursing a three day long hangover and communicating with the outside world solely via text message:

I can be flirtatious without being a slapper.

Confident but not arrogant.

Intelligent and engaging sans the need to lie.

A risk taker.

Rule breaker.

An awfully nice girl.

It's amazing what you can get when you just learn to ask in a pushy and mildly condescending tone.

Until this point in my emotional development the fear of rejection was enough to silence me for an indeterminate amount of time; recently I've stepped out of that particular comfort zone (alcohol fuelled) more than once and, no, it wasn't all sunshine and kittens.

I asked. They said no.

I asked somebody else. They also refused.

I asked a third and received a 'Possibly'.

[What followed was two cigarettes, a can of Rockstar 'Punched' and twenty minutes worth of 'What the fuck does 'possibly' mean?']

I challenged their response with something in equal measure both witty and indignant. I got a date.

Nobody likes the sudden drop in their stomach, something akin to having your heart wrenched out and forcibly replaced somewhere next to your spleen, than indicates your personal inadequacy but to be afraid of psychological pain (but take that of the physical variety entirely stoically) would make me one hell of a hypocrite.

The crux of the matter is: I got my way without having to resort to the sad kitten eyes, crying on the floor/steps of a block of flats/toilets of a sleazy bar or sucking anybodies cock.

I class this as a twisted sort of triumph.

No more is my forehead stamped with 'Welcome' in a suitably cursive font, I have re-empowered myself and intend to use my new found confidence to give absolutely nobody a piece of my mind...

...You're not worth it.

Annie.

<3

House, Calls...

My favourite boy comes home tonight and by Friday I'll be a Mommy.

Go figure.

Annie.

<3

What's My Age Again..?

Two for one deal today, although this is blatantly an avoidance blog - I'm too hungover to devote the necessary concentration it takes to write essays or prep for Thursday's classes but if I don't do something else with my hands I'm going to smoke myself to death.

When I eventually stopped dancing in next to nothing, which really lost it's charm after the commuter traffic dwindled away, I've spent the best part of my day doing chores and watching the rain from my window.

It was disappointing to find we're now into the season of early sunsets without the autumnal purple tint that makes them bearable up until the end of October - the transition out of my favourite time of year had been made which reinforces my plans of hibernation until February and my 21st birthday.

I seem to be obsessing over ages at the moment, both the fact mine is slowly raising and also the (entirely new to me) unwritten etiquette of who's 'too old' or 'too young' to associate with.

I was always under the impression that, much akin to sexuality where you just like 'people' indeterminate of gender, you we're able to speak to or be intimate with anybody (within the legal boundaries).

Yet at every turn I find people two years younger giggling behind Bacardi Breezers because they're drinking with a girl "Who's like totally twice [their] age" and men of 'X' amount of years older attempting to intellectually or developmentally pull rank purely based on their parents fucking before mine did.

There's a fundamental level of misguided humour in the former yet something altogether more sinister and smelling vaguely of hypocrisy and fascism within the latter.

For a start, to disbelieve the fact you can be both old and highly unwise is fairly obviously flawed; to base all your interpersonal relations on it is just fucking retarded.

Equally so, to equate being young with an inability to entirely out perform (intellectually) people any number of years older is to deny the existence of scientific fact...I'm talking creepily clued in teenagers and childhood genius here. Unfortunately this is a belief held by said young folks and put in place by the older.

Worse is when the 'higher age = superior level of intelligence' rule is applied to ability to subjectively feel emotion or in an external sense empathise with others.

I can vouch, I have met some severely under-developed men who were desperately holding on to the idea that a) I'm young, by proxy negative emotion will go over my head so they can treat me like shit and I'll keep on smiling or b) I'm young, by proxy I will be incapable of emotionally sustaining the needs of the average twenty-something male (with screamingly obvious Mummy issues) so it's A-OK to cheat on me/disregard me entirely.

I marvel, with all these assumptions and loopholes in place, at how anybody manages to have a functional relationship which gets past the question 'So whens your birthday again?'

Never one to conform, I refuse to take a difference in birth years as grounds to deny people a chance at a meaningful connection with another human being - in a world where forced isolation is becoming increasingly common I propose a social call to arms.

Judge people for their content not their expiry date.

Annie.

<3

If My Liver Fails, Wash My Face Before You Bury Me...

A blog entry in two parts, to make up for the lack of one over the past 48 hours.

SATURDAY:

Having a little taste of home here over the weekend, one with which I could go out and get absolutely gazebo'd, could not have come at a better time...essay season has dawned and all I want to do is hide under my bed and wait for it to go away again.

Lauren has been my best friend since we were four years old and, periods of non-communicado included, this will never alter - she's one of the few utterly bolshy, balls out genuine people I know and they are worth their weight in gold these days.

I don't remember an instance she hasn't told people, in a variety of colourful language, exactly what she thinks of them and I have seen her prove the courage of her convictions with some of the most hilarious kebab spilling street brawling.

She's my hero.

Spending a little time with her made me remember there's a huge chunk of myself I keep locked away on the naughty step, never to be let out in the vicinity of my academia and it's called 'ruthless immaturity'.

Two days as Harley Quinn gave it chance to stretch it's legs.

On Saturday night, after spending a few hours having vaguely dignified drinkies, we headed out to hit up the Studio 24 Trailer Park Halloween Party...Harley and Ivy, Tank Girl and Sub Girl reunited and ready to get so drunk we couldn't walk, see or chat straight.

For the record, we succeeded.

Post Friday (and the absolute emotional shitstorm in ended up as) I made another set of promises to myself - something along the lines of 'If you have your heart handed back to you, dust it off and try different wrapping paper next time'.

I was more social in the space of three hours than I can usually manage in a week, numbers were exchanged, faces were raped, Facebooks were stalked and all in all I was feeling significantly more hopeful than I have in a while.

That's the point things started to spiral.

I'll never get over the fact your entire life can change, full on arse-in-the-air nose dive, in such a tiny space of time up here.

I acquired a number of Jokers that night. I was, admittedly, fairly pleased with myself but I think the blond wig and lack of clothing on my upper half was doing the heavy work for me.

Yet, for all the posturing, posing and talking a good game, they turned out to be nothing more than little boys playing dress up.

There's a reason I chose Harley - she reflects (in a heavily magnified way) aspects of myself, the ones that people love for five minutes then have them clawing at the walls screaming in terror, Samhain has never been about going and hunting the demons down, it's all in aid of letting them out to play in a constructive and controlled way:

'Go mental for three nights a year and maybe you won't be pushing somebody under a moving vehicle next time they fuck you around...'

If you can't fill the shoes of your persona, don't wear them.

As a final note: One man who may not have filled his shoes (except with his own vomit some time Sunday morning) but claimed he could fill his trousers was the sadly unnamed Mexican Bandit, the first person the speak to me on Saturday, and as far as opening lines go his will be carved straight into legend; "Have some booze and by the way, my cock is massive".

SUNDAY:

The latter part of my Saturday ranting actually didn't fully develop until Sunday afternoon.

I have an inherent dislike for men who fall prey to their own conscience when they were given ample warning, positively beaten around the head with the goddamn safety manual, to avoid the incident on which they hang their guilt.

It did however give me cause to go wandering my local area wearing nothing but underwear and a fur coat, so not a completely wasted episode.

One down.

Over the course of the day, spent on the beach or in bed watching House, I was being gradually coerced into making it a long weekend and heading to The Hive that night.

Three 'Resolve'-type atrocities and far too little sleep later - my stomach seemed just about ready for round three.

I adapted my outfit, threw on some greasepaint and hit the town alone.

Two things of interest happened:

1) I met a man on my flatmate's course who (aside from the obvious dark and handsome) seemed quite sweet, we had a drink and a rather amiable chat abut our respective geekdom and agreed to meet up this week. One teensy issue, he's old enough to be my father.

2) Under the cunning guise of being significantly more pissed than I actually was, I candidly went out of my way to annoy the living shit out of everybody.

After having almost a blow by blow paraphrase of Friday's lovely speech delivered by a different person on the steps of the Bank Hotel around one in the morning and receiving many hugs from strangers because nobody wants to see the girl in the face paint crying, I thought it a humorous little endeavor

I am, apparently, a master of my art.

You see, Halloween is my free pass to scream, shout, swear and tantrum out a years worth of cocking it up - in the end, behind a mask you can say whatever the fuck you want because 'that' person, the one you become, isn't going to have to see the Little Red Riding Hoods, the Paramedic Zombies, or the Jokers ever again.

Two down.

Now where did Number Three go?

Annie.

<3

A Belated Friday Post...

It feels like somebody finally shot that goddamn elephant and hauled its sorry arse off my shoulders.

This is awesome.

Annie.

<3