Sally's Journal

Right. In the faint hopes that maybe Dreamwidth may come into use, with a threatened exodus from FB, I'm going to try cross posting here, instead of just using dreamwidth as a space to post tat fic that I want to link people to.

We'll see how this goes. First post cross posted from FB.

Since people seem to be making announcements re: FB and meta, and I have never turned down an opportunity to make announcements on the internet yet.

I shan't be leaving FB as it's where the events are kept for me to manage my calendar. If more people were on Dreamwidth I'd post there more as it's by far my favourite site. It's just a bit sad posting to empty air. Tumblr is fun but everything there is public (I think) so I tend to keep it fairly shallow/surface level.
I think Bluesky is probably ultimately doomed to evil as 'short and snappy' inevitably seems to go that way and I also can't post in short form without either being stupid ("light is a gas") or really banal ("I like toast"). Discord is insanely bad for me because it's an endlessly scrolling wall of text that I either get lost in or can't ever look away from.

I have a vague fondness for forums, in a very old skool way too, but am erratic and forget they exist at times.

God, maybe at this rate I'll have to start talking to people in person like it's 1992.

I was told ages ago that by thinking positive thoughts you can retrain your brain. It's like a reset. I'm often not good at this, and today the world feels particularly grim. But I think it's good to focus.

So, I'm listing three things I like about me (because I'm feeling particularly useless), three things I like about my life (because it feels very out of control and overwhelming), three things I like about today (which will get me off the sofa), and three things that make me feel optimistic about the world in general (because god knows, there's enough to feel bad about).

You should all do that too.

( Read more... )

Right. Today I have...

...dropped Tina Greig off in Lewisham after a lovely visit from her*
...been for tasty Vietnamese food with Jeremiah Poppenbeck
...got my sister her birthday present
...ordered a new interview dress from the Pepperberry sale (recommended to all curvy ladies of my acquaintance. Although annoyingly they only go up to a size 18 which doesn't affect me but is vexing in general)...moved the drying around on the drying rack as it wasn't drying properly
...tidied the bedroom
...read some more Eva Ibbotson
...done the washing up.

I feel almost productive. Of course, what I really need to be doing is working on my lesson plan for Friday, but I'm building up to that.


What is everyone else doing today?


*It featured pub, cinema, the British Museum and a lounge picnic with wine. But not all today. That would be silly.

I am reconsidering my 'I don't want to live in Oxford' thoughts.

It turns out that working for Oxford University, with lunches either in the centre of town, or walking through the Parks, working surrounded by clever and interesting people for a really remarkably fuzzy institution is really nice.

(Although I need to keep away from the High Street on Friday "just got paid" lunchtimes for ever. Otherwise I will end up defaulting on every bill I owe and living as a very well dressed tramp)

On one hand, my plan to spend March virtuously sitting at home at my Dad's place, saving money, looking for jobs, tidying my room, reading deep books and thinking pure thoughts isn't really working out as I'd planned.

On the other hand, I am having a lovely weekend this weekend.

( Wiffling about my weekend )

On a slightly random note, I also wanted to say 'thank you' to all the people in my life who are repeatedly nice to me, even when I don't necessarily deserve it. Special thanks lately go to unifex, becky_spence, bringeroflight, ozisim, faerierhona and hardwired for regularly letting me descend on their houses, eat their porridge and sleep in their beds and for never eating me up in revenge even once, and also eniel, lanfykins, quisalan, chrisvenus and Sue Paris (who may or may not have LJ) for being the lovely local people who have gone out of their way to offer me lovely local social interactions.

There are lots of other people as well, I know, but I wanted to thank those people in particular, because I think sometimes all I do is whinge on here, without being clear that I am being supported, and cared for (or sometimes just endured) and people who do that are cool and awesome.

The world is not a bad place really.

Good things about today: White Horse Hill, apple crumble, my mushroom risotto in the pub arriving with unexpected extra halloumi, thus meaning I won lunch.

Bad things about today: lanfykins introducing me to pocket frogs for the iPad, thus meaning that any hope I ever had of living a normal, functional and productive life vanished, in an instant. If anyone else is playing, I'm down as Annwfyn, as per usual.

Thank you, ksirafai & lanfykins for visiting.

I also note, it was awesome to see kathminchin, becky_spence & windzswept yesterday as well. Lounge picnic was definitely For The Win.

And finally, have some pics of White Horse Hill today.

( Pics and some rambling )

I don't think my New Year has finished yet.

I spent the bells down at the river with a bottle of sparkly rosé, watching dozens of chinese lanterns slowly floating up into the sky. It was awesome.

And now it's New Year's Day and I have a house full of lovely people. andyrebranded and I have made many bacon sandwiches, pierot has been finding songs, and blane_firewing, seph_hazard and I have been singing along cheerfully.

I have got rid of the empty bottles and at some point soon need to sort through the half empty bottles although that prospect is scaring me.

For now, I'll stick to Anthony Stewart Head and maybe some ice cream.

My weekend, away from the pretend people…

This is more a collection of snippets than anything else.

( Read more... )

So, once again this is a mixture of buzz posts, with this time added pictures as well as commentary.

Friday was bringeroflight and ozisim's wedding. And it was awesome.

It started for me at 7 am on Friday morning, when I staggered out of bed, with the goal of leaving at 7.30 am. This, unsurprisingly, didn't happen. However, by 7.30 am I had acquired a Tim Allen, Andy and jez had crawled out of bed, and just by 8 am we hit the road.

My buzz post reads:

Tim Allen, Andy Greig , Jez Poppenbeck and I are on the road, and en route to the wedding of the year.

Tim Allen surprised us all by being absolutely on time. I surprised no one by having a crisis and not being able to find my shoes.

In other news, Attack the Block is absolutely awesome.

(as a note, 'Attack the Block' is amazingly good, both as a horror film in the classic John Carpenter tradition and as an amazingly grounded and real character portrayal of kids on a South London estate and the conditions that make them that way. I recommend you read this for it says everything I want to say and better.)

The wedding was near Durham, which meant five and a half hours on the A1(M). I don't recommend that as a fun way of spending one's time, but my driving companions proved to be very amiable people and we got there fairly smoothly. The venue, as a note, was lovely.



We found people, we got to say hello to Tim and Sim and then there was the wedding. The wedding was, again, lovely. It was very personal, very friendly, and cheerfully informal. Also, it is the only wedding I've ever been to with heckling. And that definitely worked. Tim and Sim looked wonderful, and it just felt like a lovely lovely ceremony.

Then afterwards we had the reception. There were dice for favours, strawberries dipped in chocolate and rock band to play on the XboX instead of dancing. And it was a lot of fun. I bimbled around and failed to take any decent pictures at all, but instead got a picture of my hotel room:



It was a really cute room and came with added teddy bear. Which I did spend an extra £15, even if jez did warn me darkly that it would just be mercilessly sacrificed at the paws of El Oso Diablo.

I also got a pic of the venue from the little courtyard where a bunch of us were hanging out:



I got a really quite nice pic of andyrebranded taking photographs:



And the one more important pic! The lavatory!



And then I bimbled, and chatted to people and eventually pottered back to the hotel room to watch 'Sense and Sensibility' which is actually quite a good film it seems, and has really quite accurate 18th century interior decoration. And the fact that I know this sort of makes me want to cry. I shouldn't know as much as I do about 18th century house painting and furnishings.

The next morning there was breakfast, and then the long journey home, during the course of which I updated with:

Awesome awesome wedding. There were dice for wedding favours!

...and...

Heading home now. Sitting in the OK diner, having milkshakes and talking about Mary Sues.

It was a wonderful wedding; lovely venue, everyone scrubbed up nicely, Tim and Sim were adorable and the chocolate dipped strawberries at the reception will be in my dreams. I also have a new teddy bear.

I hope Tim and Sim have a fab honeymoon and a very happy married life.

...and finally (and this is maybe my wisest comment on the whole subject)...

I apparently went to a wedding on Friday and failed to get a single picture of the bride or groom. I did, however, get pics of a posh toilet, the teddy bear in the hotel room, and a nice shot of Andy Greig taking pictures.

I can't help but feel that something was wrong with my priorities.

Um. Yeah. I'm still concerned as to why I took four photographs and one of them was of a public toilet. Help me?