Eeeeeee pet, I've dropped ma keys down the side of the train!!

Today I have an overwhelming urge to eat crepes. It’s so quiet and boring in the office, I’m just thinking about eating a crepe (maybe with just sugar and lemon, or maybe nutella, I haven’t decided) at a pavement café. God knows what’s brought this on. On the way to work I saw lots of people cycling and I thought that I’d quite like to get another bike and cycle to work. Obviously not from my house, what with the hills and all, but perfectly feasibly from Peckham, and I could probably cycle to Battersea. Just as I was thinking this, I saw someone on a motorbike and I thought, yes, THAT’s the thing for me. Motorbikes are so phallic. I hasten to add that I would not get one because I would be shit scared. My mum always told me that they’re the most dangerous things and even though she really wanted one, she didn’t get one cos she wanted to stay alive, as the Bee Gees might sing. Also, helmet hair is so not attractive. But yeah, a bicycle might be a good idea, as I might stop being so fat. I’m so nostalgic for my old bike, the one that I had in Cambridge. The brakes didn’t work and it was the biggest piece of rubbish ever, but I loved it. Plus it had a massive basket that could fit a crate of beer, so it was the vehicle of choice for going to the shops when we were at the millpond. Having said that, it WAS a piece of shit and once I got my trousers caught in the chain of the bike and was stuck for like twenty minutes, and had to ask passers-by and yes, children, to help me untangle myself.

Part of my bike nostalgia I think was kicked off by my friend coming into my office yesterday to tell me about the bike ride he’s going on in summer, round the Scottish coast. I have a large map of the UK on my wall (weirdly enough, it’s an NHS map, so it’s all split into NHS regions and has all the “major acute hospitals” on it, god only knows why it’s in my office, or why Bath has been underlined with a thick red marker), and half way through he looked up at the map and said: “Fuck me! Scotland is massive! I can’t cycle round that!” So it looks like I have been instrumental in ruining someone’s summer plans, even if completely inadvertently. Still, solidarity in crap summer plans, that’s what I like. All of you people with your holidays and your plans... I'm spending yet another summer in London, I'll have you know, and I'm not envious of people who aren't, oh no. [NB. That is sarcasm. If anyone would like to take me away from the city, please, please, please feel free.]

Yesterday I went back to my flat, with the intention of at least starting to pack my stuff. Instead I hung out with #1, who was meant to be revising for her law exam. She took the exam a few months back but thought you had to choose between part 1 and part 2 when in fact you had to do both. She got 49%, even by only doing half the paper, so I reckon she’ll be fine, though of course, she’s like me, and so she worries. It was fun though, we stood on the balcony and told each other secrets and did silly voices and other really mature things, before she went off to read her law books (ie. make lots of phone calls and go on msn) and I went to pack (ie. drink tea and smoke out of the window and listen to soulwax really loudly).

I finally figured out that #2 hates me (quite probably a little late, but then I never said I was the sharpest tool in the box, did I? Not realising things is what I do!). I thought she was just being mardy (she was in the kitchen at the same time as me and #1 but wasn’t really speaking to us) but then #1 said that she’d been fine until I got home, and that when #1 had greeted me with a noisy “eeeeee, pet!” and a hug, #2 had stopped talking to us. The funny thing is that I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. I can’t think of anything that I’ve done that #1 hasn’t, and in any case the only thing I can think of is when we got really pissed with this other Geordie girl and we were talking really loudly in the next room about how lame it was to go to bed really early, which I think is about the moment I fell off #1’s bed. I’m always civil to her. I guess I do talk about her to other people, but not when she’s actually there, and you can’t NOT mention the fact that she thought Milan was in Spain and that the popular television programme Coronation Street was called Carnation Street. Anyway, I don’t really care. She says she’s going to move out but I think she has neither the courage nor the strength of character to actually do so. Miaow, I hear you say. Well yes. But she does get on my nerves.

We got a note through our door from the lady who looks after the whole building (possibly the most boring woman in the world) telling us not to throw lit cigarettes out of our windows as it is apparently killing the grass. Now, I’m no horticulturalist. But that’s pretty shit grass if it can’t take a cigarette butt landing on it. There’s no fire risk as the grass there is pretty wet- in fact, the sodden state may be more of a factor in the limited life of the grass than any cigarettes. I am half tempted to go down and ask her if I can still throw rollies out the window, but I don’t know whether her sorely lacking sense of humour would take the strain. Anyway, what will we throw at the junkies now? #1 saw someone doing crack down there the other night. I used to keep a supply of small rocks to throw at the junkies (they go through our bins, they deserve it – I’m a philanthropist, me).

There’s still no word from SOAS. I just called them again and they said that although my application has been looked at by the faculty, there’s still “other stuff” that needs to be done before the decision can be sent out to me. I told them to get a move on and that I had been waiting for two months now, and it was preventing me from making any plans for my future. To which they said, “okay, we’ll do it as quickly as we can”, but in reality I think they meant, “piss off”. Shame really, as I’m getting quite into studying, or at least the idea of it. I’m reading a very interesting book about sociolinguistics at the moment, and it’s riveting stuff. I wish I’d given more consideration to my UCAS form. I really would have like to have done sociological linguistics or something linguistics/etymology based. Instead I did history. Why? Simple answer: because it was one of my A Levels and I therefore didn’t have to put any thought into choosing a new subject. I don’t know why on earth I want to go back to uni. I had such a shit time the first time round. The other day I went to the library to meet S, and just walking to the library made my palms sweat. Standing outside it, I thought I would be sick. In those kinds of situations it’s either run away very quickly or confront whatever it is that I’m scared of. As I couldn’t run away, I thought “what the hell” and I went inside the library. I have a very strong masochistic streak that makes me do things that I know I’ll be scared of. It does stop me being quite so scared. The only thing that this tactic hasn’t worked on is anything to do with Günter Van Hagens, as I just have to see him on tv and I puke. Anyway, educational exploits are subject to further delays as I continue to wait for SOAS, so until then I will just dream of being an academic in my paltry lunch break in the park behind our office. Which, incidentally, to get to, you have to walk down the alleyway next to the library, and my god, I have never smelt piss like you smell there.

Yesterday morning I was making a cup of hot water (I have to have a hot drink in the morning, there was no more milk and I’ll be damned if I’m having black tea, so hot water it was) and standing on a towel in the kitchen. I was thinking about how nice it was to have a nice soft towel under my toes, instead of walking on wood or on tiles, and that it would be great if you could walk around feeling like that all the time. Approximately ten seconds later I realised that two things already existed that would fulfil these requirements: carpets and socks. I am a rubbish inventor.