Cereal and Windowsills

We moved into the new flat on Sunday, I'm really rather chuffed!

First off, the weekend, on Saturday, after work, I met my stepmum, Beth, for a coffee. It was very nice to catch up with her and have a proper chat and then we went and looked around the shops. She treated me to the most gorgeous outfit to wear on my 18th; a silver clutch bag, a knee-length, dark blue, swishy dress with matching heels. I tried it on in the changing rooms (it was a bloody battle getting the thing on, I wish dresses would just stick to having zips at the back rather than on the sides!) and I looked good...really good. Almost like someone from a 1940's film. I have promised Beth I will take lots of photos on my birthday so she can see how lovely I look (note to self: take pictures before gin and general debauchery).

After that, it was staying up late, watching films with Dad, before sloping off to bed, as I had work early the next morning. It was a nightmare! I came, ooh...THIS close to slapping Manager Dawn's patronising, old witch face silly. Sadly, I would probably get sacked and therefore not get paid and we all know I need the money. I'm working overtime this coming Sunday now, from nine till six. This wouldn't be too bad, but I'm going to see The Cribs with Ally the night before, so work will be bruises and achey muscles. Should be a new experience if anything!

Late Sunday afternoon, I went to the cinema with some of the girls to see 'Atonement'. It's a truly brilliant film and absolutely gorgeously shot. Anyone who hasn't seen it yet really should get their hands on some tickets, even if it's just for James McAvoy (I can't quite put my finger on why I fancy him so much...I just do). Hilariously, Hannah only understood that the whole thing was based on a lie half an hour towards the end, despite the fact that they tell you this in all the interviews and trailers! We ripped the piss out of her incessantly for it. She may have got all A's in her AS levels and be a mathematical genius, but she can be a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to non-empirical matters, bless her.

I went home to the flat, rather than to my old house. It was very exciting waiting for secuirty to say I could go upstairs and even though there is furniture all over the place at the moment, I feel I could be very happy here. I woke up yesterday morning and, after getting ready for school, ate my breakfast on the windowsill. It's big enough for me to stretch my legs out and watch the city wake up. I did the same this morning too, so I think it may become a routine.

Things are getting bizarre on the dashing young musican front again. On Friday night, I had the house (old house) to myself. Nick had gone to Dad's and Mum had gone to Brighton Beach (a club night that plays Britpop, Northern Soul, psychedelia etc.) with Lynds. As most people who are bored out of their wits end do, I spent most of the night on MySpace. I put a bulletin up about my 18th birthday party and musician sent a message back saying "sounds very nice xx"...with NO mention of the message I had sent him at the start of last week! In my magnificent display of being a coward, I did not give him what for, but simply replied, "It does promise to be. If I remember any of it..." and left it at that.

Later that night, I was still bored, painfully so. I posted another bulletin saying that I was bored of my Friday night indoors and did anyone fancy a chat. However, I soon realised I should probably get to bed, due to my early shift the next day.

Getting up for work the next morning, I saw I had a new message....from musican...saying he would like a chat! What was he playing at? Perhaps he was going to respond to my more important message gradually through these ones. I asked him how he was and have got no reply since.

I really have no idea what he could be up to. I'm wondering if he was drunk on Friday night and is now feeling embarrassed about messaging me, either that or he's just tempremental and possibly slightly bizarre...neither would surprise me.

He could have message me back since Sunday, I wouldn't know, as the internet hasn't been set up in the flat yet and you can't access MySpace on the school computers, where I am writing this. I'm planning on going to an internet cafe tomorrow, where they're less trigger-happy with the firewalls. I know I sohludn't be so bothered about him, but these mad out-of-the-blue displays of affection and non-affection only make me want him more. He has this intriguing, mysterious quality that I've always wanted to see in a man and have certainly never seen in previous boyfriends. I do know, though, that if things carry on like this, I will have to get over myself. It's unhealthy to get so het up over one person.

Au revoir
Mo
xxxx

SNORT!

Yes, that's right, friends, you heard it here first...

I have started snorting when I laugh!

I'm not quite sure how it happened...all I know is that today, when I met up with Lou, I couldn't stop laughing...and snorting! Lou thought it hilarious, saying it made me sound like a nerd. She's probably right.

It was nice though, we ate Subway sandwiches and drank hot chocolate and I was wearing a beret, which always makes me feel very good about myself. However, I'm reading 'Nausea' by Jean-Paul Sartre and was sat on a bench reading it, before Lou came along. There I was, reading my French book, wearing my French hat and huddled in a blue military-style jacket to warn off the cold. 'Pretentious arsehole!' I hear you cry, but you wouldn't say that if you'd heard me snort...

I'm in a very chipper mood today actually. Sara was taking pictures of me for her photography project and kept making me laugh, so there were lots of pictures of me pulling hideous faces. Sadly, Sara's camera had a major freakout, deleted all her photos and then broke completely. She was most agitated.

We have new furniture in our new flat (moving in this weekend I think, woohoo!), so our sofas have been given away to those less fortunate (family friend Dean, who is currently sat on garden furniture). The living room is so bare!

As for the boy front (read my last blog for more info), I told him I still liked him and asked if he would let me know, even if he wasn't interested....and he hasn't! What a hypocritical arse, eh? Why get in touch with me, to apologise for ignoring me, only to do it again?

Oh well, I don't care. He's a wanker. A big wanking wanker. And I mean that too.

Maybe I'll become a nun...or a lesbian. They don't need men to have a good time.

On that note, until next time, my friends!

Of course I'm being productive, darling

Yes, alright, I have a free period this morning, so what do I do? I write a blog...God forbid I read 'Frankenstein' for English Literature or work on my UCAS application.
Well for your information, I actually tried all of this, but UCAS can make typing your own name a fete of Olympic standards! My head is buzzing with so many things this week and I just have to get them out or I'll go barmy.
It's a fact acknowledged by all that private renting can be a bitch, particularly if you have our landlord. Yes, he may have seemed like an angel, but when he refused to fix our oven and often dodgy heating system, we saw cracks in the Happy Home plaster. THEN, my friends, then he decides we may have to move out as he is considering renting the house to a relative. Thanks very much, landlord!
Luckily, it's all come up rosy in the end, as Mum, somehow, I suspect by being the Sheffield equivalent of an Amazon tribeswoman, others suspect drugs smuggling, has got us a new flat! And not just any new flat...a gorgeous apartment complex just off of the town centre! It has a sun terrace and security and everything! And only £70 a week for rent! There's a two year waiting list, but WE managed to bag one. Perhaps someone finally took pity on us...
In other news, it's all 'lost in translation' on the boy front. Sometime in early August, I was asked out by a gorgeous, talented musician. We went for a couple of drinks and then back to his, where I showed him...ah-hem, some of my etchings. So imagine how upset I was when he did not text or message me back!
"That's what you get, you loser." I scolded myself, "You gave too much up front and now you'll be a lonely spinster wearing jumpers covered in cat hair and drinking warm milk." What could be so unappealing about me that I didn't get asked out again? I spent the rest of the summer holidays questioning myself, my usually stable self-esteem thrown into disrepute.
Imagine my shock, then, when, over a month later, I get up for work on Sunday morning, open my MySpace account and have a new message...from the very same musician! "Bugger me!" I thought, my heart about to explode from my chest (anything to improve my uniform).
He apologised for being so rude and not replying to my messages. Apparently, he had had things to deal with, after our meeting up, completely unrelated to me, but he took it out on me, by being, in his words, "a dick".
I suppose I could have given him 'what for', but I didn't. Suppose these things to deal with were really very serious, I wouldn't want someone having a go at me at a time like that. So, I very politely told him I would have understood had he told me sooner, but that I was glad of his apology and hoped we could be alright. I got a reply: "Your kindness is more than I deserve. I'm really very sorry."
In the words of Nina, Queen of Understatement in purple skinny jeans, "Wow, that's a bit heavy."
The awful thing is, I now can't dismiss the apology from my mind. It really does seem too genuine to be read as a last-ditch attempt to get his leg over, particularly since he hasn't messaged me since. The only thing I've ever wanted from the two boys who ever really hurt me (I realise how emo that sounds) was an apology. I truly believe it would have helped me move on from them quicker. However, I never got it. So the fact that I got it from this guy, who was never anywhere near as bad as the two heartbreakers, has made me pretty, well...smitten with him! I mean, I fancied him lots to begin with (talented, incredible dark eyes...Jesus, have you got a week?), but now I can't get him off my mind.
And the awful thing is, I think he's too plunged in the depths of melancholy from whatever's happened recently to be interested in me. Either that, or he thinks he's blown it. I could never raise the question of seeing him again, as I'd be too frightened of rejection.
So, now I'm back to my natural state, permanently confused. Thank God the colourful leaves of autumn lie in the streets for me to kick through. That'll cheer me up.

Until next time,
Mo
xxxx

Mud With Your Carling, Madame?

It was Saturday morning, approximately 5:30am, when my alarm started beeping and vibrating indignantly.

'Grrrrr!' I thought, 'It's my day off today! Why are you beeping?'

Then I sat up quickly. It was Saturday, 25th August. Today was the day I would be driving down to Leeds for the one and only Carling Festival! Hurrah! Gosh! And so on...

I bumbled into my mum's bedroom to wake her up, as she was going with her best friend, Lyndsey, and we were all driving down together. Groggily she sat up and I ran off to get changed into my festival wear: One rather special Blondie t-shirt, very short denim shorts and black flats. Had I been going for the whole weekend, wellies would have replaced the flats, but as I was only going for one day (and a very sunny one at that), I didn't feel quite so guilty.

Skip to finally getting to the arena. I had arranged to meet my friends there, by the main stage, where the polka dotted darlings, The Pipettes, were pulling some shapes. Little did I realise finding my friends was going to be harder than previously assumed. Several phone conversations later, most of which involved cries of 'WHAT? I CAN'T HEEEEEAR YOU!', Charlotte came to find me standing like a space cadet in big sunglasses by some signs. She ushered me over to where Fran, Nina and three new accquaintances, Helen, Matt and Fish were standing. After many hugs, introductions (Nina: 'I'm not drunk at eleven thirty in the morninnnng!') and exclamations over my comparitively clean hair, we got down to some badass moves.

With brilliant bands and bars selling Carling Extra Cold everywhere you looked, it was always going to be a good day. The Long Blondes ripped out some incredible tunes, with frontwoman Kate Jackson delivering style and attitude unrivalled by any woman for a long time. Gogol Bordello gave a jaw-dropping performance, but what would you expect from a band of Ukranian gypsy punks?

I abandoned my friends to briefly regroup with Mum and Lyndz for Frank Turner's set on the Carling Stage. His Billy Bragg inspited acoustic delights moved the audience to shouting every word with him whilst punching the air in a way that would rival Mike Tyson. The highlight, without a doubt, was 'Thatcher Fucked The Kids', where the crowd shouted the aforementioned line with such force as to beat the kids at the Reading festival at their own game ('Yawwwksher! Yawwwksher!').

While The Enemy played on the NME stage (a phrase which never fails to make me giggle), I met up with another friend of mine; the delightfully pink-haired Louise White who showed me some mighty impressive pictures she'd taken during Gogol Bordello's set. She had managed to end up front and centre and there were many pictures were Eugene Hutz, the crazy, moustachio'd frontman, had posed just for her.

The highlights of the evening's entertainment were, without a shadow of a doubt, Maximo Park. Paul Smith proved himself an electric frontman, the emotion of every song etched onto his face. Kings Of Leon delivered some good old American rock. Then it was time for the headline act...ladies and gentleman, I give you...Razorlight!

Yawwwwwwn!

Okay, if you like that sort of thing, I'm sure it is very good, but Johnny Borell's infamous arrogance was obvious throughout and all the effort put in by other bands to get the crowd going was lost here, Johnny obviously thinking his questionable songwriting skills alone would suffice.

Then it was time for us day ticketers to part ways with those greasy campers (one of which I will definitely be next year) and drive home to our duvets. Misplaced headliners aside, Saturday of the Carling Weekend was one not be missed and defnitely not forgotten.