thatcanadiangirl’s Neighborhood

When one of the selling points is 'lights'.

Another thing on The List has been tenuously knocked off. I believe it's my right to decide the exact interpretation of my list, which is lucky really, otherwise I'd have no chance of completing it.
So, number 36: Be a muse.

A dedication in an actual live book totally, totally counts. It couldn't count more, in fact. Admittedly, Katie might have something to say if I claimed to be Al's one and only muse, but I like to think that in dressing up as a mouse and embarrassing myself totally I went some way to helping him become a published author (again).

This is probably the best book I own now. You will all be receiving one for birthdays and Christmases.

If you can't wait til then, you should go and buy it for yourself here. In fact, fuck it - I probably won't get round to posting your present. I'd go and get it now just to be on the safe side.

I've walked down a particular road three times this week and had cars in my general vicinity honk their horns in a really aggressive manner. I always look round, because it sounds like the kind of horn-use you'd get right before someone gets run over. And there never seems to be any reason for the horn.

So, it happened for the third time today, and I swear to god, this was my thought process.

"Huh, that's weird".
"Why does it keep happening on this road?"
"Why does it keep happening when I'm around?"
"Wouldn't it be weird if there was some underground movement to really freak me out"
"Like if a radio station is starting this campaign to get cars to blast their horn around 5'4'' women with dark hair. Or more specifically, me."
"Actually, it's quite localised. It's more likely to be an online campaign"

I need to go and do some charity work of something.

 - My DJ Yoda hoody. It's enormous, fleecy and warm, and I couldn't name a single DJ Yoda track (it was a means to warmth last year at Glastonbury).
- My fleecy slippers. Only idiots think they're too cool for fleecy slippers.
- Being inside when there is currently a month's worth of rain falling in a 24 hour period outside. This was the same thing that was making the day shitty when I was inside in the office, but things change. Mainly locations.
- The prospect of working from home tomorrow, so I can review some Wii games. Yes, that's a day on the sofa to play video games.
- Ordering Moo business cards. This time, I haven't included photos of random family members, as I've found these are difficult to give out without a very long explanation.
- Finding out that I've got 3 weeks of holiday to take in the next 6 months. The world is my theoretical oyster. Non-theoretically, England is my oyster. C'est la vie.
- Buying metallic face paints.
- Which leads me nicely to Latitude, which was so wonderful last year. The line-up this year isn't as hot, but that just means more time mooching around the woodland and lying around drinking pear cider without the need to rush from stage to stage.

At this point, it all gets a little Pollyanna-esque. There are only so many silver linings you can focus on amongst those clouds. Not that the clouds are huge, but today, with the weather, there are definitely some medium-sized cumulus nimbi.

Between you and me, I may not bother having a shower tomorrow. And I definitely won't bother with make-up. Hot, no?

I was supposed to go vip to Wimbledon tomorrow. I don't like tennis, but I do like champagne and I do like free shit. My stupid foot has meant that I have to had to give the ticket away.

From tomorrow I'll have worked from home for 3 days in a row. That's not the fun kind of working from home, where you take your laptop and go somewhere with WiFi and a plug. No, that would be the kind of working from home where you're on the sofa and you haven't breathed any fresh air in 48 hours and counting. Because of my stupid foot.

I might not even be able to go to Shunt tomorrow night, which is officially the most fun bar in the whole of London, and would probably be the best night of my life.

God, I'm boring myself. There is no reason to be this dull.

I'm going to go out tomorrow and tear it up regardless. Even if I have to do it in *shudder* flats.

Hilariously. I can't walk and the best girl in the whole wide world (Leonie) has had to strap up my foot. It's fucking agony and I can't wait for the ibruprofen to kick in.

I will be spending the rest of the evening trying to convince myself it was the yoga wot done it, and not The Shoes.

These are waaaaay better than a one-bedroom flat in Muswell Hill.

Officially for The Wedding of the Century at the end of July, it may well take me that long to work out how to walk in them.

 

All the way back in March, I made a list of 50 things I wanted to do in the next 50 years. It turns out it was a marvellous way to focus the mind, and there are at least two things I've done. Go me! June has an even number of letters in it, begins with J (which is quite a nice letter) and rhymes with moon (one of my favourite night time sights) so seems as good a reason to review as any.

Also, it's like a blogging pat on the back.

1. Have someone put on a firework display in my honour
2. Throw a party with caterers
3. Buy a piece of art for over 1000 pounds
4. Buy a house in London I'm still saving, so a little bit closer than I was when I originally wrote this
5. Buy a house out of the UK
6. Make jam
7. Go on a spontaneous trip abroad I woke up one morning and I'd booked a flight to San Francisco. I was taking off in less than 4 weeks which (for me) counts as the utmost in spontaneity
8. Learn all the words to 'We Didn't Start the Fire'
9. Have a arty and naked (or is it nude if it's arty?) photo taken
10. Own a feature wall
11. Have one more tattoo I totally did this. I still absolutely love it, and I still haven't worked out a short and socially acceptable explanation
12. Paint each nail a different colour and keep them like that for a week I don't know why I wrote this. I don't want all my nails a different colour. Idiot.
13. Own at least a couple beautiful and charming children  I've totally done this!! ... Just kidding
14. Successfully complete a fully functional and fabulous relationship
15. Get a round of applause on a stage
16. Open a rock band set by hitting the drum sticks with a 1-2-3-4.
17. Spend a weekend pretending to be someone completely different from me
18. Go to the gym consistently for six months
19. Get a dog
20. Learn to spend an entire evening in towering heels
21. Give someone my number on public transport I had the perfect opportunity to do this and I didn't. It's going to be one of those death bed regrets unless I sort it out soon.
22. Learn a language
23. Spend the evening drinking champagne on a yacht
24. Go to Australia and New Zealand
25. Go out all night clubbing and then go on to a Sunday session
26. 26. Read Anne of Green Gables sitting in a window seat
27. 27. Visit Prince Edward Island
28. 28. Own part of a company
29. 29. Have a long running personal video blog
30. 30. Work in a newsroom
31. 31. Have a dress made that I designed
32. 32. Have an empty wash basket more often than not
33. 33. Do the London to Brighton cycle ride Again, I'm not sure why I put this. I really don't fancy it.
34. 34. Go to Punk
35. 35. Watch a sellout gig from the side of the stage
36. 36. Be a muse
37. 37. Buy a bra from Rigby and Peller
38. 38. Go to the Wellcome Gallery I did this. I saw all the Victorian memento mori stuff, which was fascinating, as well as the Life Before Death exhibition. That's a bit heavy for the flippant nature of pretty much everything I write (it was pictures of people just before and just after they died) and I left before the end.
39. 39. Delete all the dupes from my iTunes It becomes irrelevant when your IPOD DIES and you lose EVERYTHING THAT MEANS ANYTHING TO YOU, Just sayin.
40. 40. Discover Paris
41. 41. Scuba dive
42. 42. Sky dive
43. 43. Put a note in someone's packed lunch
44. 44. Spend a weekend alone by the sea Done, done, done. It was lovely, but low in life revelations
45. 45. Go to the Burning Man festival
46. 44. Get a psychic reading I did this as well, but the further away it gets, the less I feel it meant anything
47. 47. Send in a postcard to Post Secret
48. 48. Apologise to the ex-boyfriend who deserves an apology I think about this everytime I'm half cut, and have drafted it into my head a million times. Needless to say, I still haven't done it.
49. 49. Go about dancing, stay til the end and be completely sober
50. 50. Own a pair of Christian Louboutins

Apologies for the numbers. They're ridiculous.

I completed my second baby shower this weekend, and even managed to contribute. My brownies were the talk of the town, which must have been galling for Paul, who had spent heaps of money and effort hosting, and Leonie, who laid on a spread of sandwiches the likes of which Cranleigh has never seen before. Me? I grabbed a recipe off BBC Food and doubled the mixture. 80 brownies, and eternal respect from everyone (to be fair, they were amazing. I added a tiny pinch of crack).

Baby showers are an odd event now - there are now lots of pregnant people, engaged people and home owners. They sat at the back during the present opening. The cynical and single amongst us sat at the front making stupid remarks and freaking out about the fact that Emma was going to have an actual child. I'm pretty sure we were pissing off the Grown Ups - there's only do many times you can joke about the hell of childbirth, apparently.

In other news, my drunk photography is getting worse. I'm not sure what happens to me, but half cut on my way home it's very rare I get back without thinking I've found something beautiful which can be perfectly captured on my shitty Blackberry camera. Empty public transport seems to be a particular draw. Despite the time I take to frame, and to a lesser extent, focus, it's never quite how I imagine it in my head. And it increases my odds of being mugged exponentially. I'm like a really drunk, really shit David Bailey.

 

So, it was amazing. It's such a  fantastic city, and I had such a fantastic time.

There was red wine
There was steak
There was ice cream

There was rolling about on a hill
There was priming of wine glasses
There was shopping in Anthropologie
There was shopping in thrift stores with no names
There was coffee and bagels in the sun
There was a death cab for me (yeah I suck, but I was dressed nice)
There was 5 meals in one day
There was an opium den
There was a Shaun of the Dead scene
There was pizza the size of a pie
There was hillage
There was loads of other fun stuff nsfw. Soz.