Oh Peter Andre

I salute thee.

I'm pretty sure I've been busy for the past while.

And that's why I haven't been blogging much of note / use. But I can't for the life of me think what it is I've actually been doing. Drinking, most likely. Drinking myself insensible and then dealing with the inevitable physical, emotional and financial fall-out. Why the hell do I do it to myself? Ugh, hangover depression just take the fucking hint, will you? Noone likes you and certainly noone wants to spend another Sunday afternoon in your shitty goddamn company.

On a (much) more positive note, Lena and I got our haircut by the gorgeous Becky yesterday. The woman is a marvel. She came (bearing the most delicious brownies- and I am fucking fussy when it comes to brownies), she cut (my hair looks normal and healthy again- yay!) and then she came dancing with us last night. She is awesome, her cakes are amazing and the aforelinked blog is great too.

On Friday night my good friend John got me on the list for a huge party at the University of Art near Zoo (there are very few things I enjoy more than being On The List) which was an amazingly OTT masquerade / costume ball thing. I wore Gold Lame (possibly my favourite dress ever) but even she was outshined. Not least by the man who chose to have his outfit better interpret the ball rather than costume element of costume ball, wearing a lot of necklaces, a mask but precious little (in fact nothing) else. Much fun was had by all. Fun and a Burger King on the way home. Yummy. My date for both the ball and BKs (though I fear the latter was probably at my insistence) was the lovely Stephanie, who has a ver ver amusing blog of her own.

Today I am, I AM I AM, going to drag my sorry ass to Kreuzberg to check out some Karneval de Kulturen action. Nothing, as I have previously said, I enjoy more than a street party. And all that's standing between between me and this one is showering, dressing, possibly putting some slap on, maybe doing the dishes, locating some clean clothes (this will not be easy) and finding some peeps that'll put down their hangovers long enough to come play with me. Easy peasy.

Things I found under our sofa today:

Empty bottles.

Two pairs of shoes.

Countless odd socks.

A hair roller.

A hair clip (like, a big one).

An Irish rugby shirt.

A watering can.

Oh dear....

Things I am pondering today...

If the person hanging up this laundry realised how beautifully it complemented the building and the blossom. I hope so.

The awesomeness of Obama. And women.

The awesomeness of Timm, the gay TV channel. I literally don't know what the hell I've been doing without it. A gay TV channel! They have Queer Eye, they have MILE HIGH ffs. They have a weird lesbian programme I'm now watching my second episode of. Terricle, obvs, but awful compelling.

Making the bridge..

...between Bank Holiday Thursday and the Rest of the Weekend is a lot of fun I have discovered today. Pottering about, drinking coffee and eating the most delicious salad I might ever have tasted (the salate provence at Atlantic Cafe on Bergmann Strasse, in case you're wondering)- it's a hard life but someone's got to live it.

And then I went shopping. Which is a fairly fucking momentous occaison in my life at the moment. I long for the days when I would gleefully spend my student loan on shoes and frippery, when Topshop sales assistants would ask tentatively if I might not have a "bit of" a spending problem. Not any more, my friends, not any more. I more or less have to force myself, shaking and sweaty palmed, to buy even the barest of essentials. Which brings me to my next point:

WAS EVERYTHING ALWAYS SO FUCKING EXPENSIVE?!

Holy mother of God, I spent over THIRTEEN QUID on just one (small) bottle of shampoo and one of conditioner. I mean, admittedly, this was in Lush which is widely acknowledged to be stupidly, gallingly over-priced (I have to shop there though, as I think my hair might actually fall out if I subject it to any more chemicals. And the stuff does smell of SUNSHINE), but still. And don't get me started on goddamn American Apparel. A more ridiculous shop I have never encountered. Everything I picked up today was apparently "unisex" which is just fancy talk for "if you're not a ridiculously underweight hipster boy or so gripped by anorexia that puberty has passed you by PUT THIS DOWN AND GET OUT OF OUR SHOP YOU FAT OAF". I declined to purchase any of their stock.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go try and find a way to sneak into Scala tonight as a) apparently it's sold out and b) I have spent all my monies on fucking shampoo.

I am procrastinating...

...as I really don't want to clean our flat. It is pretty disgusting. Dirty dishes and unreturned Pfand as far as the eye can see. What I actually want to do is lie on the sofa and watch Arrested Development*.

In addition to cleaning/watching AD, I shall also be pondering the source of all the white fluffy stuff that's floating around Berlin of late. What the deuce is it? It was dancing around all through my carriage the S41 this evening which gave the auld Ring Bahn even more magic than usual (seriously, it's all kinds of awesome, oder? All that city grot and allotments and general brilliant Berlin-scape). And it was all over the park like a fluffy rash the other day (as shown, poorly, above). It's a mystery.

OH MY GOD, I HAVE TO GO, JUST REMEMBERED I BOUGHT THE GUARDIAN ON THE WAY HOME. A sluttish and unkempt apartment and appearance I may keep, but I shall be damned well informed.

*It is highly likely that this what I will actually do.

I blame Jessie...

...but I am spending a lot of time listening to female singer songwriters these days. Usually I avoid the auld SS like the plague but how can you fail to fall in love with someone who sings lines like "If you're sleeping with someone who doesn't get you / you're going to hate yourself in the morning". And look how pretty:



Similarly, the more I listen to Laura Marling the more I think "Sweet Jesus, this girl is amazing", and she's only like seven or something.



The album is staggeringly good, if you ask me. Which I feel more people should, if only so my tendency to bang on and on about my musical opinions seems a little less rude.

Me and the girls are heading out on the town tonight...

for dancing and high jinks. Most likely at Villa as they are giving out free fried chicken. Which is amazing by itself, but when you consider that the only thing about 57% (at least) of Villa's clientele ever ingest is cocaine we stand to make a fucking killing.

I hope there are some boys there I can look at. Looking only, I'm afraid, for two reasons. Firstly I am, for the millionth time, OSO (Offically Sworn Off) as I CBA (Can't Be Arsed) and secondly, boys don't talk to me in this town anyway. I'm almost beginning to hanker after the total lunatics that used to approach me in Whelan's. Almost. Luckily I am not alone in my OSO-ness. Jessica has embraced celebacy wholeheartedly in the past wee while (Me: So you're becoming a spinster at the age of 25? Her: Well, it's got a bad name but I'll tell you what, marriage sounds hellish). Anyway, who needs boys when there's dancing to be had, and you're planning on crimping your hair and listening to this a lot before you head out:



It's awesome. Makes me feels like I'm going to a teenage disco again. In a good way. When the night still held glitter (usually in my hair and on my Tammy Girl top) and promise, before the crushing disappointment of watching the boy you loved from a far kiss another girl (to be fair she probably actually had breasts) and failing to "go with" anyone oneself. Ah, youth...

I think it might just be gin o'clock...

So I am going to have one. And a shower. Drinking a G and T in the shower before a night out* is one of life's simplest and best pleasures.

* Careful now, drinking gin in the bath after a night out/in/wherever can be altogether more complicated. Not to mention probably ineffective.

This was the only photo I saw fit to take last night:

I mean, that is an impressive amount of loo roll for a club loo at two in the morning but there were possibly other things that might have made a better picture.

Last night we went to a party out near Sonnenallee. It was on the top floor of some huge building and it was really cool. I think it was called Skid Mark, charmingly. I met some cool people. One large man from Finland, one medium sized Glaswegian and a small French fashion designer. Can't remember what we talked about but I'm sure they were all entralling.

Got a kebab on the way home as well, awesome. And, as it was PISSING RAIN, Lena fell over. Sad for Lena, pretty funny for us...

I have been on the piss...

...for approximately four and a half decades now, by my reckoning. I look deranged and my skin is unspeakably horrible. My hair is averaging a 6.7 on the Robert Smith scale like, all of the time. Ugh.

We (there are four of us staying in our flat at the moment) were doing that awful drunk girl cackling on the way to the bar. Howling about men and sex and feminism. I think Lena was the soberest at this point and was trying to get us to shut up but to no avail. On we went, knackerdrinking from shared bottles and throwing derisive comments at the sheep queueing at Watergate (honestly, what is all the fuss about?).

We went to Madame Claude's, which I really like. It's got that picture of Laura Palmer framed on the wall as you walk in. It does seem to be having some Polizei issues at the moment though, the music is ver ver quiet after 12. But still, a good time was had by all. We were fairly mangled by the time we even got there. Jessica claims to have been "incapable of holding a normal conversation with anyone" and I think I may have made an appointment to have my hair cut by a French Canadian who spent most of the evening demonstrating how his flannel shirt could be used to conceal the fact that he'd pulled his trousers and pants down until whenever he felt it necessary to reveal his bare arse to relative strangers.

Brilliant night.

My wonderful friend Jessica...

has just moved to Berlin and we are currently discussing Things That We Will Always Enjoy Doing Forever.

1) Getting pissed with our friends.

2) Dancing to records (whilst pissed).

3) Listening to Otis Redding.

4) Listening to Leonard. I love washing dishes to Leonard, personally.

5) Discussing who would be the better boyfriend: Bob or Bruce. Bruce usually wins, I just think Bob would leave you behind at parties and things. I mean, not intentionally, but still. You know, he'd be all like "God, I'm so sorry about last night. I just, you know, met this guy and he had like this kazoo and like we just had to go and see this other guy who had a banjo".

6) Eating eggs in for breakfast.

7) Listening to Van. One of my first gifts to Jessie was, like many of my first gifts to many people, a burnt copy of Astral Weeks. I have not the words at this juncture.

I wanted to finish this post with a video of that song but alas I can't find one. The live one sounds weird (he's too old dammit, why was I born TOO FUCKING LATE FOR EVERYTHING?) and I'll be damned if I'm going to accept some lunatic with a guitar, a youtube account and a digital camera as a reptuable substitute. So this post will have no multimedia aspect to it at all. So there.

I made a man cry today.

It wasn't terribly gratifying though, seeing as he was eight and it was accidental and over his (decidely dodgy) drawing of dogs and cats, but still. Nice to know one's still Got It.

Not wanting anyone to get the wrong idea...

and think (due to the below and similar posts) that my life is just one constant merry-go-round of me putting a brave face on things here are some things that are worrying me today:

1) I might never marry someone like Jarvis Cocker.

2) I might never marry anyone at all.

3) The "look" I am sporting today could best be described as "rampant 1970s feminist-cum-lesbian". Not that there is anything wrong with this look, per se, but my possibly too-literal interpretation of it is leaving me cold. I'm not even wearing a bra, ffs, and my armpits are stubbly (though this is less commitment-to-the-look and more lack-of-commitment-to-showering). It's not good.

4) Just burnt my bastarding tongue on my bastarding tea.

5) I have five lessons to plan for tomorrow and I just cannot be arsed. If anyone has any ideas how to get three year olds to stop drawing on tables / eachother for long enough to learn about "house and garden" in English please let me know.

6) Have hardly any money. Again. Want festival tickets. Have hardly any money for festival tickets. Again. Etc etc repeat as fucking necessary.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Every cloud has a silver lining...

Sometimes bad things happen. Things that make you say ridiculous things like "I can't believe I'm hearing this" or "Jesus, I did not see this coming" and then make hollow little laughing sounds. It is during times like these (or possibly a little after, once the sobbing and the "I FUCKING HATE THEM AAAAAAALLLLL"-ing have subsided), however, that one must remember the Important Things In Life:

1) Friends. Where the holy hell would we be without people who will (repeatedly) drop everything and run to your bedside bearing chocolate, waffel mischung, Bulgarian wine (affairs of the heart may get messy, but they need never be expensive) and fucktons of sympathetic expletives / offers of violent retribution? Up shit creek, alone, with no paddle to speak of, howling in pain / vain and gagging for Eastern European alcohol, that's where.

2) Mothers. As above but with added wisdom. And an oft creepy, but ultimately useful, insight into one's own head. And probably better taste in wine.

3) Other people's blogs what which you have just discoved and love so much you spend most of the weekend reading their archives.

See, life's not all bad.

Carol Ann Duffy is the new poet laureate!

Yesso! A woman and a lesbian! This is a good thing indeed for poetry and me. And Carol Ann Duffy, I dare say. Read all about it here, her thoughts on it here, and some brilliant women's poetry here.

God I miss the Guardian so much...

Photograph taken from the aforementioned publication of wonderment, taken by Eamonn McCabe I'm told.

I wish we could have a street party everyday.

As my good friend Elisa said to me at one particularly euphoric moment yesterday "why can't life me like this every single day?". And why the hell not indeed?

I had SUCH a good day yesterday. Good weather, good food, awesome company and some questionable music, what more could a girl want? Particular thanks is owed to Hubert and Miriam who, after their gin and tonic / rum and coke stand was lamentably shut down by the powers that be, simply upped sticks to Oranienplatz and summoned all their friends (and friends of friends) to come help drink their stock. They had crushed ice! Fucking A.

I predict a riot!

Kudos to Lena (flatmate extraordinaire) for choosing that as the "rebel song" (Me: We need ONLY rebel songs today Lena!) that we started today, MAY DAY no less, with.

Our May Day activities have been exciting so far to say the least. We are currently on "police escort watch" which involves running out onto the balcony to shout "MAYDAYMAYDAYMAYDAY" when anything that has a police escort drive past. So far we have just had one, a rake of motorcyclists protesting/demanding/celebrating I know not what, but the day is yet young. We are going to Kreuzberg later to see what is going down, though obvs will be fleeing before nightfall.

These gals wouldn't though. Hells no. They'd stick it out to the bitter end, stillettos and all. Fucking brilliant:

Shiny, shiny disco balls.

I love disco balls. Love, love, love 'em. Particularly the one in Villa as it's frickin' massive. They make everything seem magical. So magical, in fact, that when you and Lucy leave Villa at six a.m. you decide not to go home to sleep but to change your shoes in order to go on an "adventure".

Note to self: wandering round Friedrichshain in search of a kebab and eventually settling on a (disgusting) borek whilst drinking beer and tonic water (that was Lucy, I hasten to add, for reasons best known to herself) and alarming passers-by is NOT much of an adventure.