20somethingteen

I’m lying in bed, so comfortable, after a pretty hectic day of barbecue planning, preparation, execution and post-visitor clearing up. A few friends turned up which was really, really nice as I haven’t seen them in a while. The girl mentioned in a previous post, my ex-idol, was among them. Had a bit of a mental relapse now and again but on the whole I’m confident I didn’t turn into my old self which is good :)

Purposefully skipped lunch so I could pig out a little.. just had a bowl of cereal up until about half six when I had.. urm.. chicken thigh, one veggie burger, one steak and another chicken thigh.. along with salad, cous cous, rice and some salmon. Oh and a kebab of chicken and prawns. So not too bad.. and then the dessert came and I have no idea why but I pretty much gave myself a FULL bowl which I couldn’t finish, but made a pretty good attempt at nonetheless. Including tiramasu made with Creme Caramel Bailey’s, mmmm. So yeah I kind of overdid it with the desserts but I’m hoping the total lack of food during the day will kind of cancel that out? I hope. My sister said I looked like I’d lost a lot of weight too which was cool! And my mom’s crazy friend said I ‘looked very good actually’, as if she ate boys like me for breakfast.

We ended up pretty much playing with the children for most of the evening, hide and seek, and various other games. There was one kind of surreal moment involving our front lawn full of my friends playing various games with my various children relatives: badminton, skipping, tennis, hungry hungry hippos.. etc. Except a cheap version with what appeared to be frogs. Famished famished frogs, perhaps.

Oh and I think I had about 4 ciders. Not the best for the ol’ second mother but never mind, it was a day off. As you can probably tell, they were only small ciders, or else my spelling wouldn’t be nearly as efficient right now.

Okay maybe it was 5 ciders, whatever.

Had to quickly go round asking my mom what was in some of the food earlier on, if it was organic, low fat, etc, for one of my friends who suffered from OCD regarding her food earlier in the year. I don’t know how she is now since I haven’t talked to her in a while but I thought I’d check beforehand and text her just letting her know, just in case. Must pretty much suck to be like that. She basically just got obsessive with calory counting, not eating out, generally having to know exactly what’s in her food. So she had to cook her own meals in case her mum put something in accidentally that she didn’t know about, even things like herbs etc. It got ridiculous, which she admitted, but she physically couldn’t stop, and had to see a psychiatrist for a while. It must have been horrible.. and I don’t know if it’s bad that I could actually imagine being like that. I mean, I don’t think I am or ever will be, but most people would say ‘that’s awful I can’t imagine being like that,’ whereas I kind of can, dunno why, good imagination I guess. And in my imagination it sucks, so I can’t imagine what it’d be like in real life.

Stop looking at me like that. Oh alright, it was 6 ciders, meh, that’s not so bad.

My cousins came to the barbecue too, a boy and a girl. I forget their ages. The boy is around 8/9 I think. He’s a member of the Lawn Tennis Association, which he thinks means he is as good to play at Wimbledon. I’m sorry but.. I just have a thing for kids like that. For example, take this kid, let’s call him Child A, and my nephew that I told you about the other day, Child B. Child B is younger - maybe 4 or 5, and Child A is about 9 like I said. We were all playing tennis together. Whenever Child A scored a point he’d be like YES, GET IN. and would basically leap in front of people to play a shot, call out ‘mine!’ or ‘yours!’ like you do in the park playing five-a-side, basically ordering people around, and would criticise others when they missed shots, and would repeatedly tell us about how he plays at wimbledon. Which he doesn’t by the way. Then there’s Child B, my adorable nephew who will always let others take the shot unless it’s genuinely in his area, in which case you can see the expression on his face: a mixture of confidence, determination and responsibility for the team. It’s a real joy to watch him, just be so kind and a real team player. For example at the beginning we all kind of split off into sides and I was on my own and I said ‘Oh, is Uncle Tom going to play on his own then?’ in a sort of mock-dejected kind of way, and Child A laughed at me, and Child B came bounding over and said ‘I play with you Uncle Tom!’ which I thought was adorable. (He lives in Spain and is being raised bilingually, which is why his English isn’t always perfect - which just adds to his adorableness). But yeah. None of the adults are really bothered by Child A because he has a nice smile and has ‘manners’ in a kind of robotic do-what-you’re-told-because-it’s-polite kind of way, which is apparently appealing to parents and grandparents. I honestly don’t know why. However, I kind of dislike him. Obviously I don’t have anything against him; he’s just a kid. I just mean as he grows older I can imagine what he’d be like and if I knew him then, I don’t think I’d like him. It got me thinking about the qualities desirable in a child, and in my children in the future. Child A’s parents seemed so proud of him (apparently he plays for many different sports teams and is generally very good, good for him, no sarcasm) and big him up to people whenever they get the chance. Not in a selfish kind of way, just a normal proud parent kind of thing. Child B’s parents don’t really do this in the same way. They don’t really neglect him but they’re not the kind of parents to praise him for being so kind-hearted, they just kind of, think it’s cute. Now, here’s my point: should parents me praising good behaviour and scolding bad behaviour based upon things like this? Goodness, kindness etc? As opposed to aways praising them on schoolwork, sports, etc. Child B does some pretty kind-hearted things. He’ll give you his last sweet. When he comes and finds me and asks me to play and I tell him ‘in five minutes’ he says ‘okay, in five minutes I come and find you’ and wanders off, instead of poking me saying ‘no now!’. And so on. I think these things are much more praise-worthy than winning some cup at a school competition. Don’t you? I think these qualities are going to get you much further in life than being good at hitting a ball. I value kindness and selflessness much higher than physical skill. Which I think kind of leans on philosophy a bit: I think what we do and who we become in our soul is much more important in the long run than in our body. Maybe that’s just me, but I hope Child B goes far, and think he will.

Wow, I’ve rambled quite a bit there haven’t I. Congrats if you’re still with me.

Anyways I’ll stop rambling about the barbecue and related things now.

A friend mentioned Katherine Heigl’s new film coming out soon, which I want to see, just because it’s her, and I love her. Someone at uni said that apparently she’s a bitch in real life and wants to leave Grey’s to start a film career. I REFUSE to belief this. Yes she may want to begin a film career but fair enough, you can’t blame her for not wanting to move up in her career. You wouldn’t be expected to remain seated behind a desk if you were offered a promotion would you, despite having friends in your current job. She can’t be a bitch, she’s too pretty and smiley. Can I just mention how utterly psyched I am for the next series of Grey’s though. Such a good ending! One of the best series finales so far I reckon, although series 1 and 3 had pretty good ones.

OH MY GOD. Totally just caught and got rid of the spider I saw earlier. That’s twice now in this box room that i’ve seen a spider at the foot of the bed and failed to catch it, then got into bed and it’s been right there next to me on my duvet. Absolutely disgusting things. Sometimes I hate living in an old house.

Hmm. I’ve decided to start jotting down random things that happen to me during the day so I can write about them later. I’m using a post-it note widget on my Mac dashboard to do it, and when I went to write it down I found some random numbers and things. I’m sure they’re important so I don’t want to remove them but I can’t think what they are :( I might try googling them.

“Your search - XA43902/2009 - did not match any documents.”

Hm. That one looks kind of like a date at the end? Maybe it’s a receipt from a print that I did of a giant letter X, A4 size, 39 times, in February 2009? Seems likely.

“Your search - 689643065570 - did not match any documents.”

I’m not even going to guess.

Should I delete them? They may be needed for the future.. but I don’t remember what for. I should? You sure? Okay then.. you’re bearing witness to it. There we go, they’re gone!

Does anyone else ever get the feeling, when walking through a house in the middle of the night, that there is someone behind you? And instead of looking round, you just walk a bit faster, in case they catch you. And you know, you know nobody could possibly be there, especially anybody that would be dangerous, and yet I always find myself running for the sanctuary of higher ground, my glass of squash and midnight snack balancing precariously in my grasp, and once I find myself on the safety of the stairs, twirl around to face my attacker, only to find nobody is there. Only then am I comfortable enough to leisurely walk up the stairs, wiping off any squash or food that has landed on my person in the process. Occasionally I look round again to double check.

You know when your muscles ache so much that just lying in bed is bliss, feeling the fabric on your skin and letting the darkness envelope you. Ahhhh.

Right well I think that’s enough for now really. I hope I haven’t bored anyone? Had a bit of a rambly post tonight, hm. I guess that’s what all blog posts turn into really? I hope I’m “doing it right”! Got to get up to get to the train station for 10am (YAY! I love early morning/late night train journeys. Early morning ones possibly more. Can  you have more than one sentence inside brackets? Oh, looks like I just did!). Yes I remembered the last fullstop.

Hm.

Goodnight all.

t.

Fine! It was 8 big fat bottles of cider, happy now?

Beirut - The Penalty