Pillow fight, pillow fight

For each book I produce I have notes, which I sensibly use to remind myself about aspects of said book. TodayI went to check something as was about to email the author and came across this: 'Author is insane'. Useful.

Last weekend was slightly more energetic/booze-filled/tiring than I had anticipated. The perils of last minute drinks on Friday with Dan, Alex and Nic - this swiftly turned into a Tequila Hunt. For the record, it is hard to find the good tequila on the Strand.
Not enough sleep and then time for luncheon on Saturday at chez Kruse. Only we had to drag Mike away from the telly, which had the Tri Nations on - he is a firm believer that if you yell at the telly, things will get better onscreen.
Kruse lives at Oval - when we left Stratford it was a murkyish day - 30 minutes later when we climbed out of the tube station, Oval was sunny. There was a farmer's market - with cheese, truffles, etc., and we indulged. Got into an accidental conversation about how downloaders are responsible for EFTPOS machines taking so long at the booze shop. To be fair, it wasn't really a conversation, it was a man ranting. The owner, who still had my card, so I had to listen.
And then an afternoon of drinking Lindauer, which Kruse had found somewhere, eating roast lamb and generally talking quite a lot of nonsense - before we toddled to the pub for one last drink because Skye insisted. I was already late for my next appointment, but she's quite convincing when she wants to be. So jagermeister all round. And then again. And then I made a break for it, sensing that if I didn't, I'd never leave. So only made it to Lauren's place two hours late. Just in time for a sleepover. Only, as we were both extremely tired, we managed two drinks, excellent soup, 15 minutes of Labyrinth (David Bowie in tight pants - who wants to miss that?) before we both fell asleep at midnight. There were no pillow fights in beribboned, lacy negligees and definitely no sniffing of each other's hair - as was suggested might happen.

Sunday - I cleaned the bathroom. Lolled some.

And today I handed in my resignation. Eight more weeks and then unemployment looms. But so does New Zealand. And my workmates are envious that going to New Zealand for four months is even an option.

So home in ten weeks - just in time for summer. And a hair cut. Which is the real reason I am coming home. There's no stylist like Bran.

What does worry me is how much it's going to cost to post my shoes home.

Mental note to self

I embarrassed myself quite thoroughly yesterday by not plugging my headphones in properly to the little mp3 gadgety thingy, and consequently most of my tube got to enjoy the Beegees along with me. Until, after about 20 minutes, someone tapped my shoulder and mentioned it. Obviously not a fan of Islands in the Stream.

I also discovered that if, at 3am, you get up to use the bathroom and then remember there is Whittaker's Dark Caramel and you are peckish and you eat some but leave the rest on your dresser then caramel will be everywhere in the morning.

Eternally flaming for you

Another childhood ambition realised: I saw the Bangles live. Am still swooning. Sadly, I also got to watch Peter Andre live. Am not swooning over that at all, but apparently he's still got a scarily large fanbase. And he had three number one hits? I can only recall one, but he kept telling us these other two songs were also number one - although he carefully failed to tell us in what country this occurred in.

Last week I launched an expedition to Edinburgh, safari suited and pith helmeted to the max, to find an Amanda and to see if I could drink more tea than ever before. Successful on all counts. And I also got to attend Retrofest, dressed in a hot pink ra-ra skirt, with matching leather belt and lipstick and a variety of other attractive 80s paraphernalia. I was so hot. As were the many, many people who were wearing 'Frankie says Relax' or 'Save Ferris' t-shirts. Full points to the woman in her late forties who was wearing a black ra-ra skirt that barely covered her bottom, fishnet tights and a white g-string. We saw it all. I watched bits of The Breakfast Club, Top Gun (why do people find Tom Cruise attractive?) and the last hour of Ghost. And stood in mud for several hours watching the likes of Nik Kershaw and Bjorn Again, the Abba tribute band that got the most cheers and dancing drunkards on the day. I queued for toilets, which was not fun. Drank very sweet cider and sat in a sandpit. A mildly intoxicated man dressed in a pink tutu told me my hair (imagine a palm tree sprouting from my head) was the most authentic 80s hair he'd ever seen. Got home at 1.30am completely sober and very tired but pleased to find that my boots were mud-proof. Sadly, the next day I discovered that they are not waterproof. I cannot work out how this can be.

Caught up with Hannah, of working in China at the same school as me fame. We had two hours of snorting with laughter at the bizarre lifestyle we lived there, whilst enduring the worst customer service ever, sadly commited by a New Zealander, eating an absolutely pathetic attempt at pancakes with fruit compote and three sauces. When translated this meant three pikelets, one strawberry and five blackcurrants and, when requested, manky maple syrup. We did not tip.

Last week saw the passing through of many people, en route to a wedding, so there was much catching up and kissing on the cheeks and squealing for joy, and pie and pints. I miss people.

Skye turned 32, so she, Mike and I got gussied up and then ordered in Chinese takeaways and watched the documentary Designer Vaginas. Fascinating topic ruined by the worst presenter ever. And if, at the age of ten, someone had told me that in twenty years, I and Mike, son of my Sunday School teacher, would be watching a programme about ladies' bits, I'd have ... well, probably not done much at all, really, but I might have been suprised.

Out of the mouths of babes

'Shoes are precious, aren't they?'

Overheard being uttered by a small child whilst I was out destroying my credit limit on Saturday. It made me feel all warm inside.

njordskjy

The joys of checking proofs where almost everyone has a Scandavian name and the author has made his revisions in a hurry so I have to translate his handwriting and there are difficult letters such as j next to letters I'm not used to, like, say, d. I cannot guarantee this book will be error-free. In fact, it won't be. But I won't be able to see them because they're in a different language. Won't be as bad as the cover we had to redo (not my error, so hilarious, really) that had Terroism written on it.

But my cold has mostly gone - leaving me with a dodgy nose that generously keeps producing nasal waste at a decent pace and a semi-phlegmy-ish voice if I don't talk for ages, which often means that I answer my work phone with a splutter. It's not husky good - it's husky bad.

Whine of the day. Adult acne. Not fair. When will it go away? Ranty rant rant. Might be time to kick up a fuss and have a tantrum, complete with arms a'flailing and legs a'kicking.

Heavy breathing

As punishment for being so beautiful when everyone else is only average, and also possibly because I gave scathing and disgusted glares to the man sitting next to me on the Tube who kept sniffing in a revolting and vomit-inducing way, I have a cold. In an effort to stop it in its nasty phlegmy tracks I drank a great deal of 1 million per cent vitamin C-ridden juice whilst at work yesterday, but to no avail. I could tell things were not progressing well when I didn't want chocolate at lunch. So at 6pm, after destroying some trees with the help of the printer, I sailed off for home, determined to eat at least ten lemons. Unlike icky Tube man, I had a tissue so I did not upset the delicate sensibilities of my travelling companions. However, I think I may have started singing along to the ipod, and not everyone appreciates my voice, so perhaps I did irk a few people. But who doesn't like Bananarama?

I did indeed ingest some lemons, as well as some red wine, and then a lemon, ginger, honey and vodka drink, which I figured would make me sleep, at the very least. I have fond memories of my dad giving me something similar as a child - probably to stop me whining that I couldn't sleep because I felt ill - 'This'll sort you out, small child'. And I always did fall asleep - probably because I was drunk. He's a good man.

So today, instead of being at work, I have spent the day in bed, wishing we had a telly so I could watch utter nonsense - although, given that we have the internet, I've managed to fit quite a lot of bollocks-watching in. I have also done heaps of work, as in nerd-like fashion, I brought work home with me. It has to be done and it is so horrible that I've been putting it off for ages, despite the fact that I am way behind schedule on it. I have been blaming the author instead. But, I can see the end! Only 100 heavily marked-up pages about the Ottoman Empire to go.

The best part about today was brushing my teeth this morning. Nothing feels/tastes better after a night of heavy breathing when one's nose is blocked and one's throat is being troublesome. Well, lemonade would have been good, but we didn't have any and I'm too poorly to leave the house.

Dark Ghana Chocolate Saturday vs my Jeans.

Forgot to mention that Prague does a great line in public loos. Not quite as good as La Paz, but quite a bit cleaner.

The weekend has been the kind that involves wearing no bra, only pyjamas, and eating leftovers, watching extremely bad vampire films and being a bit of a nerd doing proofreading that I have hired myself to do at work. Freelancing for the company is all good, even if we don't pay that well.

Drank too much on Thursday night with James, Dan and so on, and decided when I got to work on Friday morning that, actually, I'd be better off at home so I grabbed a pile of proofs that I'd been avoiding because they were difficult and had a day on the couch in my PJs, getting a remarkable amount done, despite the hangover, probably because I didn't have commissioning editors wandering past asking ridiculous questions about their books. Got the horrible proofs out of the way, which means I can now spend this week concentrating on the other pile of awful proofs that make me want to cry they are so complicated and covered in red pen. Woe is Pen.

One of the extremely young commissioning editors, who stopped asking me if I wanted to get a pint once he discovered that I was, gasp, 30, sent me the spiel he wrote for some educational thingy, on how to become an editor. It has spelling mistakes in it. I am waiting for the opportune moment to point this out.

Friday night was James L's leaving and as my hangover had cleared up I trotted off to quaff shandies with quite a large group of people, loitering in a little cobblestone street, letting Mike and Kruse tell Katie she likes perverts, discussing youporn and the remarkable things you can do with a vibrator and a go cart if you only have the gumption to try. And then it was 8.30pm, which was declared the leaving hour for those I live with and, after a round of shots to farewell James, who had already left (Mike's spectacularly bad timing), we started off for the tube, Kruse taking a champagne bucket, glass and bottle, which is probably stealing, although he had paid for the bottle, so ... We got as far as around the corner before Skye and my bladders had a chorus of 'Full, full', so we ducked into another pub and Skye insisted that we have another round of shots because we used the toilets. Made it to Stratford, having watched Kruse commit a crime by drinking on the tube, and decided it was dumplings for all. Skye and I sort of lost Kruse and Mike at this point - they claim they were being hassled by youths wanting Mike's tie, but, like, whatever. I ordered the Chinese (basically a million dumplings) and then she and I decided we may as well have a pint in the mean time at the pub where we got chatted up this one time and possibly we were hoping the same would happen again. No such luck. We failed to do very well at drinking the pints, as we were too busy talking, so by the time 15 minutes dumpling cooking time had passed we decided to do a Kruse and just walk out with our drinks. Our stolen pint/wine glass collection is coming along nicely. Sadly, having just implied that this is what Kruse does all the time, most of them were taken by me.

And then we went home and ate so many dumplings and then I had to lie on the floor and just loll for a bit, listening to the sweet sound of James Woods and the fat Baldwin kill some vampires.

Saturday involved some Bloody Mary drinking for breakfast and then some nerding out by me and some making of garlic soup and roast lamb and then some eating far too much and wondering why my jeans don't fit so well sometimes as I made chocolate sauce for dessert.

This week's points of doom go out to Angela for sending Kruse a tuckbox from home, which I have eaten a great deal of (caring is sharing), and Ruthie, who sent quite a lot of the same to Skye, Mike and I. Even if she didn't sent Dark Caramel, like I requested, but Dark Ghana instead. And accompanied the stash with a note that reads: 'Share them out in whatever way you think is fair, or share them out in a completely unfair way and then harbour secret grudges against each other - whatever works'.