treefroggirl

posted by Thomas on Nov 14

I am LONG overdue for this Meme…

RULES:

* Post at least five current addictions (with some details, please).
* Mention the person who started this meme (Being Brazen) and also the person who just tagged you – The Noble Savage.
* Type your post with the heading “Current addictions”.
* Tag at least two people and pass on the above rules.

1. Coffee

It’s a problem. Although today I am doing green tea but that is because we are out of milk and I am too lazy to go buy some. Started doing coffee at Uni. At first it was a necessary evil in order to stay awake when I was cramming- I had tried caffeine pills but had managed to give myself caffeine poisoning a couple of times. Not pleasant. Then I started to like the taste of coffee. If I let myself, I can have a pot or more a day.

2. Red Wine

When I was young, my parents would sometimes give us little glasses of wine on Christmas or Thanksgiving. I always gave mine to my sisters who happily gulped it down. (Portends of things to come.) It was vile. I used to think I didn’t like alcohol. Now I know that my parents just had really terrible taste. Luckily in the intervening years I have worked on my madre’s palate.

My problem with red wine is it is so easy to polish a bottle off in a night.

It’s a problem.

3. Ale

God bless the Sumerians.

Those of you that read this or my twitter feed or have been on the piss with me know that I can drink quite a few pints.

It’s a problem.

4. Sushi

I could eat sushi everyday. There is a restaurant in Old Town Pasadena (A’Float Sushi- is fantastic. Cheap yet still amazing) I would go to at least once a week when I worked there. When I walked in the door, one of the waiters always said “Hello, Miss Nicole.” The act of writing this is making me want to go get some sushi.

It’s a problem.

5. Torturing myself by looking at 1950’s inspired clothing I want to buy.

What Katie Did I could easily spend £500 right now there. I’ve wanted to go shopping for ages, but I have held myself back because I don’t want to drop the cash on a corset when I am the size I am at now. They also have a shop here in London, but I have controlled myself from visiting.

Candy Anthony Eveningwear and Bridal It’s probably a good thing I did not know about them when I was planning my wedding. What annoys me is this is exactly what I was looking for in the US and I couldn’t find anything. I have told myself when I turn 40 (years from now. well. two years. well year and eight months) that I am throwing myself a big stupid party and buying a bright scarlet dress from her and painting the town red.

ReVamp VintageBased in LA, they make designs for men and women based on styles from 1910-1950. I’ve never ordered from them, but they are on my clothing porn list.

Red Dress Shoppe When she had her brick and mortar shop in Pasadena and I was 30 pounds thinner, I spent a LOT of money here. Now she is only online.

Daddy-O’s See above about the money and weight. I have 20 dresses from there in my closet that I can’t fit in at the moment. Most of their stuff is from Stop Staring.

So. It’s clear I need to lay off the coffee, wine, beer and sushi so I can fit in the dresses I own and buy some new ones…

If you would like to do this meme, consider yourself tagged!

posted by Thomas on Aug 16

Stuart takes a bottle of bud light out of the mini fridge in the TV room.

It’s 10:30 AM. I just woke up but he has been up since 7AM and slept 13 hours.

“Wanna know what I had for breakfast?” He popped the top off of the beer.

“Hum?”

“Two bud lights–”

“Stuart. For breakfast?”

“I had other things. Besides it was noon at home. I’m legal.”

“It’s always 5 PM somewhere.”

“Two bowls of cornflakes–”

“With the beer?”

“Not WITH the beer. Two cans of diet coke, some cookies, that nice processed cheese–”

“That’s a two word stupid. Nice processed–”

“It is nice cheese! And a bowl of cookie dough ice cream.”

I raised my eyebrow. It isn’t often that Stuart does bulemia without the vomiting eating. That is usually my MO.

“Then I watched a documentary on Elvis. About his excesses before he died. . . ”

I snorted.

Stuart swigged his beer, “Why are you laughing?”

posted by Thomas on Aug 13

Soon I will be floating in my parent’s pool or in the ocean.

Stuart and I leave tomorrow to visit my folks in Charleston, where I will be doing very little other than cause myself serious skin damage.

I’m all packed. I am now a master packer. When I go on business trips I even just take a carry on. I still take a ton of stuff, but instead of five pairs of shoes I take two.

The last two years at this time we have gone on a road trip. Last year was Spain and the year before was France. Both years we had an amazing time but it was go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go and this year I really just needed to have some sun to help get me through the approaching darkness.

When I lived in California, I had no idea. I mean I knew the weather was good. I lived in Seattle for two years before LA, but after a year you forget. You think it’s normal to wear a short sleeve dress in April and to crank up the AC.

Not to say the weather is that bad here. It really isn’t. It’s not Russia or Chicago. It just isn’t Maui, but then again few places are.

So we’re off. Off for some sun and cervaza and food and hanging out with the parentals.

Then we have to come back and get cracking. Lots of things to get done. Work is going to heat up plus finishing the play plus exercising.

Winter is coming grasshopper. . .

posted by Thomas on Aug 2

Yesterday was a re-reading day. I finished off Moon For The Misbegotten, which I must admit I had never read. O’Neill is interesting. At first he pisses me off, his novelistic character descriptions and stage directions. The way his people talk to each other, then he sucks me in and breaks my heart. I’ve actually never seen his plays performed which is a sin.

Over lunch I read re-read Betrayal which is my favourite Pinter play. I love it actually and it is the only Pinter play I can say that about. I realise that this is also a sin.

Around 5 or 6 PM I decided to re-read the last Harry Potter. I haven’t looked at it for a year and I was in the mood. Finished it around 3 AM. I do that sometimes. Read things straight through. I’ve never been good about holding off the pleasure of reading, making it last. I rush through to the end.

Some work people were going out last night in Soho, but I made the choice to not go. I want to be on the wagon for a few months. My loophole is that I can drink when I am out of the country visiting my mom in a couple of weeks and my next biz trip in September.

Stuart was going to the pub and wanted me to go with him, but in addition to my not drinking in the UK thing I have a ‘I do not want to be around him if at all possible when he is drinking’ thing.

It’s for the best.

He called me at 11:30 and he was lucid. He didn’t have that click in his voice when I know he’s been on the lash. I was impressed. He said he would be home in twenty minutes.

He left his phone at home so when I closed HP at 3 AM and he still wasn’t home, I couldn’t call him.

I started to turn out the lights and get ready for bed when the phone rang.

I heard Richard saying something.

Then Matt said, “Rapp! Rapp!”

And Stuart sang, “Three times a lady.”

I stared at the phone. “Hello?”

They hung up.

I waited a few moments debating if I should call Richard’s number or not to say something that ended in an exclamation point.

I called and Stuart answered.

“Did you like that?”

“What was it?”

“She didn’t get it! You didn’t get it. And we PRACTISED. Come on—“

I heard Richard saying something.

Then Matt said, “Rapp! Rapp!”

And Stuart sang, “Three times a lady.”

Pause.

“Did you get it?”

“Your singing?”

“Once, twice, three times a lady. “

“Why did you hang up?

“We thought you would be sleeping—“

“You thought I would be sleeping?”

“And you would pick up the phone and hear once, twice, three times a lady and then we’d hang up and that would make you happy.”

“I was awake.”

“You were awake?”

“You should be happy I was awake.”

“You don’t get it. She doesn’t get it.”

I tried to explain that I did get it, but that I didn’t think the execution was perhaps the best and I didn’t understand why they thought calling and hanging up on me at three in the morning was going to make me HAPPY but he ignored my speaking and they ran through the song again.

I decided to cut bait. “Ok, baby. Sounds like you’re having fun. I’ll let you go.”

”I was sad you weren’t here Thomas Cole. People kept asking and I had to make excuses.

”I’m sorry baby.”

“Know what we’re doing right now?”

“Something that will likely result in your being killed and or arrested?”

“We’re standing in front of a church yelling at people through a traffic cone.”

I could hear Matt and Richard background.

“That sounds great baby. Have fun.”

“I’ll be home soon.”

Pause.

“Okay.”

posted by Thomas on Jul 21

I want to volunteer for a once a week gig at Amnesty International. I’ve long respected Amnesty and even considered doing some volunteer work for them when I first arrived here, but they were asking for more hours than I could give. This position however would be perfect as it would be blogging events and would be on average one evening a week. They are asking for a writing sample in a blog style describing an event.

I’ve been looking at old entries to see if I have a jumping off place that I can use. I have tons of blogs where I get up on my high horse. All you know I have that. I don’t have so many that are talking about an event and the ones I do have are usually about how drunk I was.

Flipping through my archives has been an interesting experience.

1. Some of what I wrote doesn’t suck.
2. Some of what I wrote really sucks
3. My weight has shot up big time since I moved here and I’ve lost and gained the same ten pounds over the last couple of years.
4. I fall down, get stepped on, cut myself and cause general injury to myself a lot.
5. I whinge about not writing or that I am writing or wanting to write. A lot.
6. It seems that I lost a few readers that I had in the early days. Either that or they are lurking. I’m guessing they got a bit tired of the entries that really sucked or me talking about trying to lose weight or how I hurt myself or getting pissed or writing about all of the writing I’m not doing.
7. The moments where I could kill Stuart are very funny on paper.
8. I need to work on my 100 things about Nicole category and my blog roll.
9. I need to clean up the entries that came over from blogger because there are all these strange characters in them that make it difficult to read.
10. I blog a lot about things I need to do that I never get around to.

posted by Thomas on Jul 7

wine
lastnight
keyboard
spilled
on
imy

iamaklutz

thisisntme 
tryingtobe
clever
likeeecummings
except
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keystrokes

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what

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andtherewouldbe

space

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space

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Thisis
no*space*bariamanidiot

becauseof
wine
notdrank
spilled
wine
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Friedwinekeyboard

sosad

youdiscover
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need
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quicklywhentryingtowrite

Sonowineedtogooutandbuyanewmackeyboardbecauseihaveamacathomewhichiknowsomewillthinkisbadbutidontcareihadamacsincetwothousandthree

itriedpoppingthespacebarupandproddingtheguts
thepartthatmade

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butstusaidthaticouldelectrocutemyselfifikeptdoingthat

soi
stopped

posted by Thomas on Jun 24

I was supposed to be in Seattle by now, but there were problems with the plane that was supposed to take me there. Something about a fuel leak. They wanted to fix it before we left, and that seemed like a good idea to me. So it would be a bit later before I had my jet lag killer of Mexican food and a few margaritas.

After 45 minutes of there trying to fix the fuel leak they turned on the in entertainment system which was a bad sign. I had been upgraded to business class so at least I was comfortable.

I watched My Boys, a sitcom that one of my friends is in. The only time I get to watch it is when I am on a plane. I need to buy the DVDs. Then I watched The Other Boleyn Girl, which is so trashily terrible, I found it engaging. I must admit that I enjoyed the book in one of those “I must read this at home as fast as possible so no one sees me with it in public” kind of ways but the movie doesn’t even have that to commend it. If you didn’t understand what a big deal it was for Henry to break with Rome, you certainly wouldn’t gain any insight here. It’s pure soap opera costume bodice ripping drivel.

At least it was free.

We kept getting updates that they didn’t have any updates.

Four hours in, the Captain came back to talk to us. Never a good sign. They were going to take us off the plane as the folks in cattle class were really uncomfortable.

I could see my planned dinner at Mama’s Mexican Kitchen slipping away.

While we were waiting to de-plane, they told us the flight was cancelled and would now be leaving at 11am the next day.

Sigh.

A long day of travel without going anywhere. I found it amusing that I had to go through passport control without actually leaving the country.

I must say however, that British Airways was fantastic in how they handled everything. They let us know what was going on, kept us as comfortable as they could and were very professional.

So here I am waiting to board again. I’m on my third coffee trying to estimate when it would be not too unseemly to have a cheeky airport cocktail.

It must be 5PM somewhere. . .

posted by Thomas on May 31

Thursday night I wasn’t in the mood to go straight home, so I roped Al into going for just one. We left the pub at nine. All very civilized. I remember having three glasses of red. Al however said that there were four. Given what transpired next, I am inclined to believe him.

Three or four- That’s a lot of vino, but I can usually handle that. Not saying it’s a good idea- just that I can handle it. I usually however pace myself – especially when drinking wine. I will drink water between the glasses. Spread it out over six-eight hours. I also usually have food in my stomach.

But not Thursday. I drank four (large) glasses of red- basically a bottle if not more on maybe 350-500 calories. In three hours.

I woke up at 6 in the morning in bed. Naked. Luckily it was my bed and Stuart was lying next to me. I flipped the events of the evening Rolodex in my head.

Left the pub. Okay. Laying here in bed. Okay.

Left the pub. Bed.

Pub. Bed.

I was missing everything in between. This has never happened to me before.

Stuart had put a large glass of water and ibuprophen on the dresser for me so I took a couple even though I felt okay and drank half the water.

Stuart stirred and peeked his head over the duvet.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

“You were lashed.”

“Yeah. I don’t remember anything after leaving the pub.”

“You came home at 9:30 singing the French national anthem.”

“I was singing The Marseillaise?”

“See. I didn’t even know it was called that.”

“But I don’t know the words to The Marseillaise.”

“Well, they’re in your head somewhere.”

“I think I’ve watched Casablanca a few too many times.”

“I tried to make you go to bed but you refused. I tricked you by saying you would be more comfortable in your dressing gown.”

Something was coming back. “You undressed me?”

“Yes. And you weren’t very accommodating. You kept rolling around. Then you screamed, ‘Stop hitting me!’ Then you giggled.

“That’s funny.”

“I’m sure our neighbours thought so. Do you remember talking to your mum?”

“I talked to my mom?”

“Yeah, something happened with you sister. She had to have a second surgery. I can’t believe you don’t remember.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yes. She’d called and left a message and you called back.”

“I called back?”

“At 12:30. You were sitting up talking really loudly and woke me up and I had to send you out of the room. I can’t believe you don’t remember.”

I can’t believe I can’t remember either. It’s rather scary. I did some quick research on the topic this morning and I found a really great article by Aaron White, PhD. Basically alcohol messes with your brain hitting the record button.

Alcohol primarily disrupts the ability to form new long-term memories; it causes less disruption of recall of previously established long-term memories or of the ability to keep new information active in short-term memory for a few seconds or more. At low doses, the impairments produced by alcohol are often subtle, though they are detectable in controlled conditions. As the amount of alcohol consumed increases, so does the magnitude of the memory impairments. Large quantities of alcohol, particularly if consumed rapidly, can produce a blackout, an interval of time for which the intoxicated person cannot recall key details of events, or even entire events. En bloc blackouts are stretches of time for which the person has no memory whatsoever. Fragmentary blackouts are episodes for which the drinker’s memory is spotty, with “islands” of memory providing some insight into what transpired, and for which more recall is usually possible if the drinker is cued by others. Blackouts are much more common among social drinkers than previously assumed and should be viewed as a potential consequence of acute intoxication regardless of age or whether one is clinically dependent upon alcohol.

There is one benefit of me not eating enough and going to bed without dinner. I was a pound and half lighter Thursday morning than I was on Wednesday. Maybe there is something with the whole starvation thing. (of course I am kidding. And anyone that knows me knows that would not be possible for me to ever do)

I told Al that I had a black-out.

He was surprised. “You must have been drunk!”

That made me feel mildly better that while my record button had been taped over, at least I was functional. . . to someone who had had four pints.

“How are you feeling?”

“I feel fine. Great. I’m hungry because I haven’ had breakfast, but other than that fine. Isn’t that terrible?”

“Are you kidding? That’s great. They should take your blood and study it. Do tests on you to find the secret to no more hangovers.”

While I don’t generally get hangovers, I really don’t fancy another memory gap.

Although, it would be rather fabulous, if deep inside me, are the words to The Marseillaise.

posted by Thomas on May 28

Stuart came home from being on the lash with Richard.

“We almost got in a fight with. . . I don’t want to say this, but. . . with lesbian skateboarders.”

“What? How?”

“And then they started making fun of me for being straight.”

“That doesn’t make sense. How did you almost get in a fight with some skateboarders?”

“LESBIAN skateboarders.”

“Lesbian skateboarders.”

“Richard was taking photographs of them. And they were all aaggghhhh. And then I was trying to keep the peace.”

“But why did they say anything about your being straight? Did you say anything about their being lesbians?”

“There might have said something said. Yes.”

“Oh God.”

“I just said, look, my friend really likes the way that you’re skating and he doesn’t have any pictures of Lesbian skateboarders.”

“Oh God.”

“I was trying to be nice!”

* Reference to the classic Seinfield episode “The Outing.”

posted by Thomas on May 3

5:30 PM
Pub with Al. I had been good not drinking all week other than the Monday marathon. Wasn’t in the mood to hang out with the work masses, as at the moment there are a few I could happily roast on a spit. Al felt the same way.

Round one. Guinness.

6:19 PM
Round two. Switch to Deuchars (which is a lovely ale)

7:30 PM
This is where we said we were going to stop. Cut to:
Round three and four (and I can’t remember but there may have been a five.)

10:30 PM
Hungry, we call to try and get a table at Bodean’s in Soho. No go so we call the one in Clapham but they’re closed for renovation. We decide on a curry. We also have a pint of cobra with our meal.

11:47 PM
Time to go home. I get on a train to Balham.

12:45 AM
I wake up in East Croydon. Fucken’ hell.

12:50 AM
Get on a train going to Clapham Junction.

1:08 AM

Arrive in Clapham Junction but there are no more trains to Balham. Consider getting a bus but not sure which bus to take.

Decide to walk home.

While annoyed at myself am slightly amused at watching the packs of drunken girls wearing the exact same outfit stumble down the street. There is an interesting energy on Northcote Road and I feel safe which in retrospect is incredibly dangerous.

1:47 AM
I’m home.