Perks, the film

So I just watched the trailer for the Perks of Being a Wallflower film. I love the book, sometimes I relate to Charlie, the protagonist. He's the weirdo within all of us, the loner who doesn't know how to fit in, and learns that he really doesn't need to.
The film looks good, but then that's what trailers do, they make even truly awful films look like something worth seeing.
Judge for yourselves here on the MTV UK site (or follow links to the appropriate site for your country).
I'll probably still go and see it, if only to see how well Emma Watson's American accent holds out.

Kitten adventures

The other day, while walking to the bus stop at the top of my road, a little black and white cat came over to say hello. I always say hello to cats, partly in memory of my cat who always waited to say good morning to me, and partly because it's become a habit. This particular kitty was very friendly, even rolling over to show me its tummy, letting me know we were friends now.
I had to say goodbye as I needed to go to work, so the kitty walked down the road with me. Then it turned off to go a different way, pausing to look back at me as if to say "aren't you coming?"
I really wish I hadn't decided to be sensible and go to work, I could have done with a day spent having adventures with a little kitty cat. Sadly, I haven't seen the cat again, I wish I did so I could say I was sorry, and check we were still friends. Next time I'm asked I'm going on a kitten adventure, so much more enjoyable than being a 'grown up' and going to my rubbish job.

Trying to live a life

I've slowly started to drift away from blogging, it kept me sane while I was unemployed and lost. I'm still lost, drifting through my life without any answers, but less so than I was. I don't know where to go from here with this blog, it's been a bit of everything, a sort of diary, home to some of my original writing, reviews, rants, my documenting moments in my relationship with The Boy and ramblings. I've taken to tweeting more than blogging, it's a lot faster, a lot easier when you're not in front of a computer all the time (I spend the whole day at work staring at a screen, I don't really want to spend all my free time doing the same).
So, while I think I'll still post stuff from time to time, I need to concentrate on working out what I want from my life and try to make it happen.

Shopping while hormonal is now banned

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS A LOT OF OVER-SHARING

This weekend I was hormonal, cramping, cranky and trying to do a million things at once. My poor boyfriend, The Boy, puts up with me at my irritable, stressed-out worse and I have no idea why. He's clearly a masochist. He also spends all the time trying to calm me down, reason with me and reassure me. He knows better, but that doesn't stop him. We walked around Camden, me getting more wound up by the tourists and their annoying habit of stopping dead in the middle of the street with no warning, and the fact I couldn't find anything I liked in my size, and when I did find a few little gorgeous things I might have bought, there was no one around to pay the money to. He patiently looked at dozens of dresses, pairs of earrings, dinky little necklaces, bags, shoes, random trinkets, without complaint. When I became even more irrational, and crazy, due to my period being particularly heavy this month and not really being in the right frame of mind to be out and about; the lovely man I fell in love with, just kept telling me I was beautiful, that he loved me the way I am, and the way I want to be, and attempted to talk me down off my ledge.
Then he took me home. Let me sit on the couch and read my magazine, while he put up a shelf and tinkered around before we went out to eat and meet some friends for drinks (on a school night, shocking!).
I still, even after all this time, don't fully understand what he sees in me. I'm clearly mentally deranged (at least for a few days every month) and irrational, bad-tempered, selfish, spoilt and just plain impossible to live with (my parents would agree). Yet for some reason, this kind, handsome, funny, lovely man keeps spending his time with me, trying to get me to smile, laugh, not worry so much.
Sometimes he reads this blog, I'm still not sure I want him too, but baby, if you're reading it now, I love you. Thank you for putting up with my moods and craziness.

Making my sister snort water out of her nose

My sister has the worst memory ever, she doesn't remember anything. So I tell her about stuff we did when she was a kid, things like the fact she was the clumsiest kid ever. She somehow managed to fall over her own feet while stationery and split open the top of her forehead, which my mum sorted out (one of the many benefits of having a nurse for a mother) with some butterfly strips. I know it doesn't sound funny typed out like this, but stories like it have my sister in stitches. I also tell her about other stupid things that happened, the time she ate a whole clementine, peel and all, or an entire apple and when my mum asked for the core, my sister didn't know what that was. She was a weird kid, prone to doing and saying things no one else would, often in her own little world. It was OK, they knew her there.
The funniest thing about telling her stories of herself is that, she laughs so much that water will come out of her nose if she's just had a drink. She gets the giggles so much that on occasion she's started to choke a little. My mum isn't too impressed when that happens, although she often joins in the story telling. I've never met anyone that finds stories of their own mishaps so funny, but then I suppose if you can't remember them happening and they're told in a humorous manner then it would be hysterical.

Sometimes a rant does you good

I get the London Underground every day to and from work, I use it at weekends and in the evening to see friends, go to the theatre or out to dinner, or just to head somewhere different in the city of a million faces. Yet it frustrates me that The Boy can't do this with me. For him navigating the city requires knowing which stations are accessible and where all the buses go. I'm so used to jumping on and off the Tube, wandering down side streets, knowing I'll find a station in a minute or so and then I can navigate my way home. Things are, incredibly slowly, improving. Lifts are being put in at more stations, though not enough, ramped platforms are being created so the train is now level enough to negotiate a wheelchair onto without risking falling out and cracking your head open. But it feels like it's too little too late. The Paralympics are coming in a matter of months and vast amounts of London's transport network does not cater for disabled passengers. There's a Mayoral election in May, yet none of them have mentioned this fact. We're always being told that the eyes of the world will be on London this summer, some of those eyes will belong to people for whom London is not spread wide open, but denies them access to all sorts of interesting places and ease of travel. Whoever ends up Mayor really needs to stop worrying about the unions demands for more money for working during the Olympics (the rest of us will be expected to do our jobs without this increase, including doctors, nurses, ambulance crews, firefighters, and police) and make London a truly welcoming city, for everyone.

Also...

I graduated this week from uni, for the second time but the first ceremony I could attend. So I now have my Masters officially and the alphabet after my name has grown, but I think I'll give academia a rest for the time being.