Flat-hunting, flat-hunting. II.

Jesus, I'm just about to giveup. The Dream Flat is leider not available and God knows everything else is shit. Berlin, I love you but I draw the line at at living in a space that looks like it's been cobbled together out of spare bits of appartment block. Half a room here (seriously, HALF A ROOM IS GOOD FOR WHAT EXACTLY?), hardly any kitchen there (Mr Estate Agent Man you are very nice, and your gold trainers very snappy but I refuse to agree that my dining table would go nicely IN THE HALL). Please, Immobilien Gods, take pity on me. There's only so much more I can take.

And, while we're on the subject, this provision nonsense has me about ready to kill a puppy. The system seems to go something like this- someone wants to rent their flat out, they go to an estate agent, they receive a service, then the new renters, who have found the flat THEMSELVES, ONLINE, pay for this service. And not just a nominal amount, oh no, about 800 euros on average. It is alarmingly similar to the logic that allows out-going renters to say things like "oh and there's an extra 500 euro we'd ask you for, should you want the flat, because 18 months ago we made some decorating decisions that you should pay for, natuerlich und logisch". If anyone can point out what the fuck is logisch about that I'll be mighty bloody ueberrascht.

Flat-hunting, flat-hunting...

...is boring and crap and I'm sick of it. You have to spend ALL YOUR WAKING HOURS on the FUCKING INTERNET looking at ad after ad and PHONING PEOPLE and getting up at stupid o'clock on a Saturday when you're really TOO HUNGOVER and going to look at damned flats and having to pay 30c for the damned priviledge of vomiting in the loo at Neukoelln Arcaden. Ugh, ugh ugh and UGH.

But yesterday, and then again to today, I visited the loveliest flat I've seen in a long while. Hopefully, hopefully we will get it but, not being German, we haven't got all our Unterlagen sorted out. Damn them and their obsession with paperwork. But fingers crossed...

God, I may well have drank my own weight in vodka last night. I blame the Polish*. We went to Fire Club on Zionkirchestrasse which was fun but not amazing. Odd music. But fun was had, to my hazy recollection. Shapes were thrown, etc etc. Ugh, too drunk. Must grow up, three drinks maximum, like Gweneth Paltrow would do. Paltrow, I am willing to bet, has never been forced to pay to get sick in a public toilet.

* I mean the Polish people I was drinking with, not just the population in general. That would be rude, and they've enough on their plate at the moment without me sticking my oar in.

So my lovely ex-flatmate...

...and her new flatmate have started an awesome blog all about make-up and stuff. It's great, and lovely and pretty in a way mine will probably never be as I don't understand computers. Aaaaanyway, it's got me thinking on the many ways in which I fail to live up to modern grooming standards. I mean, you shouldn't think that I am running the streets of Berlin looking like some total hog with a mustache but my eyebrows are definitely more Brooke Shields than well, anyone with really shapely, dainty brows, and my methods of "shaping" my nails often involve the highly glamourous and not at all gross "biting and chewing" approach. And when it comes to make-up my relationship with that is best described in the immortal words of my mother, "Good lord, Megan, you look like a child with finger paints". So yeah, read lovely, elegant Clare and Jade's opinions on such matters and leave me to my vague, incoherent ramblings.

Speaking of vague and incoherent,I'm going out tonight. First my lovely friends are cooking me dinner and then we're going to Kleine Reise which has reopened in its usual and amazing location. I intend to be merry but composed as have a flight to get tomorrow and if I arrive hungover (again) my mother may actually kill me. On the off chance that any of you see me tonight, heading out of the realm of the merry but composed, please, please send me home.

No News Is Good News.

I have been trying to read the news this morning, which has culimated in me reading no actual news but many interesting articles and interviews (many, I am not going to lie, concerning themselves with fashion). The reason I can't read the real news is that it's all so horribly depressing and awful that I can't even bring myself to click on the headline links on the Guardian website. Who wants to read something entitled "Bengal viallagers pay with blood for steel plant" or "'Day of Wrath' brings Russians on to the streets"? Not me, that's for sure. Even the relatively safe ground of "Life and Style" is today peppered with potential horrors; close friends dying of cancer, parents with MS, and acting classes for those post-botox.

Have resorted to reading the Food section. Yummy, comforting, apoltical layer cake, I salute you.

BIRTHDAY!!

I haven't blogged in a while, ostensibly because I have been busy, mainly because I have been lazy. But two weekends ago I had one of the best birthdays ever, ever, ever. The fact that I managed to drag it out from Thursday to Monday evening was in itself amazing, and allowed for drinks, dinner and drinks, dancing, brunch, more dancing and a post-Berghain afterparty that lasted for about twenty hours (no, really). High points, in vaguely chronological order:

Getting AMAZING gifts such as a ticket to the National in May, a My Little Pony and my own personalised, rewritten version of the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Dinner at the new, bigger Maria Bonita (it's not called that, it's called Maria Something but I can't for the life of me remember what. Skalitzer Strasse 81, at any rate). Loads of amazing people showed up and were lovely to me and I got to get all drunked up on margaritas and tequila.

Dancing at Kleine Reise with, I'm pretty sure, more or less everyone I know in Berlin. I particularly enjoyed dancing to this, watching my good friend draw another good friend's portrait on the toilet wall (with me explaining to all "she's a really talented artisshht"), and witnessing an impromtu harmonica solo in the bathroom. Good freakin' times.

Berghain on Sunday is probably best explained in a series of soundbites:

"I KNEW she was going to do this! I knew she was going to make this a technofest. I'm too old for techno. I don't understand it any more. Doesn't anyone still listen to Dylan?"

"What the FUCK is that?!" (looking at a very pretty floral tissue I had give her but a few hours before)

"Jesus, you know you're wasted when you look at the back of someone's head and think 'That's weird, why haven't they got any lips?'"

Our Flat on Sunday night/Monday is probably best explained with a brief summary of the main conversations that took place:

Approx. two hours on the relative merits of the Kings of Leon albums 1 through 4. Ditto Snow Patrol.

Roughly the same amount of time comparing the feminist messages of Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman.

Some time past the point of reason on the motives, morals and techniques of Las Vegas strippers.

Recurring Theme of the Day- if your dad is a knight, but a knight on merit, how posh are you?

So yes, an awesome birthday was had. Thanks to all involved, you are amazing.

SICK.

I've been sick all week. It's been exciting and also gross. I've just been festering away in a pit of my own snotty tissues and those sticky wee caps from medicine bottles that you can never be bothered to rinse. I am have the sexiest cough this side of emphesyma and today I had to force myself to take a shower for the first time in days. I have been consuming Vitamin C by the truckload, ditto paracetemol, Haribo and Ritter Sport. Ugh, ugh and damn. On the plus side it does seem I am over the hump and hopefully normal working service will be restored tomorrow. Not least as I really need the money. Us freelancers can't just malinger endlessly, you know. no work, no pay and so on and so forth.

On the plus side, when one is sick one can indulge in certain behaviour that would otherwise be deemed "slackerish", "sluttish" or just plain "unseemly". This is fun, as any slacker, slut or general layabout will tell you. If only I had the balls to just all out join their ranks. But no, it's stupid social conformity for me. At least for the time being...But yes, stuff one can do when one is sick that one otherwise cannot:

1) Not get dressed all day. One can wear amazing outfits at will. Like the all-black-leggings-and-thermal-vest-ninja-suit I am currently rocking. I can also heartily recommend the cashmere jumper'n'tights look. But the KEY thing here, ladies and gentlemen, is that as an invalid, when you should need to leave the house (for provisions like Ritter Sport and DVDs), you can simply put on your coat and cardigan and NOTHING ELSE to go to the shops. You're sick, it's totally acceptable. What kind of society judges the ill? Exactly.

2) Watch amazingly soppy films like "My Sister's Keeper" and bawl your face off the whole way through (seriously, it will BREAK YOUR HEART) and blame the resulting swollen face and depressed demeanour on your illness rather than your succumbing to Hollywood tug tug tugging on your heartstrings in the most predictable of manners.

3) Listen endlessly to terrible, amazing mid-nineties American "alt" rock. Oh the joys. And, again, illness = NO JUDGEMENT.

So yes. Being sick does, to an extent, suck. But all clouds have their silver linings and what have you, and I've got Night Nurse for later. Hurrah!

You know what sucks?

Winter. I am so sick of the fucking weather. It's so bloody cold. It takes you about a million years to get dressed because leaving the house without at least seven layers is unthinkable. Today it felt like I was wearing, give or take, everything I own. I could barely bend my elbows or knees. I was wearing longjohns, for the love of God, which means, of course, that I will probably never get any attention from the opposite sex again. Though, to be fair, it takes so much energy just to get undressed these days I'd probably have lost any desire to do anything but lie there and go "gee, it was cold today" by the time I got down to the nitty gritty/longjohns anyway. Le sigh.