A sincere apology and a serious rant

Okay, I've not been the best. Certainly for someone who promised, PROMISED to keep up with this blog. A gap this big is unforgivable and I will understand if you choose not to forgive me.

The thing is, it's a lot harder to keep this going than I originally thought. A few entries a week? All about my own selfish thoughts? Pah! Easy! Or so I thought...

The thing is, although I'm thinking, thinking, thinking all the time, I often don't have enough time to put my thoughts down on paper... or indeed in a word document (that's how we seem to roll these days...)

Either that or I'm too exhausted with the struggle of trying to make it that I neglect the one thing that is essential to me making it: this blog.

But you see it's so very, very hard to keep your ambitions alive. Every morning on my way to my next placement - where I know I will be working harder than anyone else there yet earning nothing, sometimes not even a byline for my troubles - I pass someone opening up their shop in the morning or simply sweeping the streets and I think: wouldn't it be so much easier if I had no desire to write at all? I could get a job in a shop, open it up in the morning, chat to customers, before coming home to a nice glass of white wine and a warm bed. When I worked in a department store I met so many women who were happy with this life. People automatically think that if you work in a shop or you're 'just' a waitress that means you have no ambition. But ambition doesn't necessarily have to be work related.

I aspire to be loved. I aspire to love. I aspire to make more friends. I aspire to keep the friends I've got. I aspire to having the most perfect Cath Kidston guest bedroom. Essentially, I aspire to be happy.

Which is what the ladies I met in the department store were.

Unfortunately for me, I know that even if I get the Cath Kidston bedding, I keep the friends I have, I continue to love and be loved that I still won't be happy unless I am doing this. Writing.

Yet, when trying to be a writer writing is something you rarely get to do. Captions, nibs, headings, 40 word reviews... these are the bones I am given in between filing, answering the phone, making tea, fetching things from the shop...

And then I return home, exhausted. And I know the next writing task I have is to write cover letter after cover letter and by the time that's done this little blog remains sad and untouched. And I feel guilty. And unfulfilled.

It sounds like a moan. And I guess it is. But at the same time this whole process of finding your dreams is exhilirating. I enjoy making the tea! I enjoy putting the files in their special folder! I enjoy carting post up and down stairs! Because I look around and see the buzzing magazine office and I know that this is where I belong.

A little thing I try and remember each time I feel down about myself is how I felt when I first received the email from wahanda. How excited I was! How I knew that this was the beginning of something phenomenal.

And it is... it still is...

My Dad has started to write in his blog everyday, just something small, something he has thought about. He doesn't try to make it perfect, he just tries to make it represent who he is. I might try that. And if I don't, I expect an allmighty telling off from my followers.

All five of you.

Weaving my web

I have a confession to make: despite working for an amazing website and writing this some-might-call amazing blog, I actually don’t know too much about the internet apart from how to expertly stalk people on facebook.

However, 2009 has been my personal internet revolution. Being a magazineaholic I must spend about a tenner a week consuming all the magazines I can get my hands on, but ultimately they’re not enough to satisfy my addiction in fact sometimes (I’m ashamed to admit) I have to buy TV guides to stop my cravings.

But the net! Oh the wonderful internet allows me to get my fix anytime I want. Why didn’t I begin exploring it earlier? I should never have let my stubborn hatred of World of Warcraft get in my way.

There is a site for all aspects of my personality, from my shameless love of pop music to my interest in modern day feminism. And best of all, my favourite sites feel so personal –it’s like having an intelligent discussion over red wine with your best friend or bitching about celebrities with your GBF, all from the comfort of your living room.

Take a look at my top 7 sites (I'd love to get this number up to 10 so if you have any suggestions let me know...)

1, DorkAdore: an excellent site reviewing all things dorky that women love, from True Blood to the latest technology. It’s also a site I’m lucky enough to write for occasionally and want to continue in the future.

2, What Katie Wore: I’d love to be friends with Katie from WKW, she’s so fun and brightly dressed and she and Joe seem to be the perfect couple. When this project ends at the end of the year I’m really going to miss seeing Katie in her bright clothes, so much so I may actually have to track her down and make her be my friend…

3, PopJustice: I love pop music and I’m not afraid to admit it, this site celebrate today’s pop music in the same way the much missed Smash Hits used to.

4, I Don’t Like You In That Way: A very, very guilty pleasure – the writers of this site are so bitchy but so hilarious you can’t help but love them.

5, Running In Heels: I feel like intelligent, stylish and fabulous whenever I read this site. What more could you ask for?

6, Domestic Sluttery: I want to have a nice Cath Kidston esque home but I don’t want to live my life like a desperate house wife. This site encourages me that when it comes to my home I can have my cake and eat it too (even if it’s not home made…)

7, Wahanda: The key to happiness is indulging yourself every once in a while, with wahanda you can do that- in the best places for the absolute best prices.

Confessions of a Comper

Since moving to London I have had to (painfully) spend all my money on boring things like rent and food, only allowing myself the occasional extravagance of a discounted bottle of white wine. This, as you can imagine, is a very dull life for someone who takes a great deal of pleasure in spending a lot of money on a lot of crap. So I’ve had to seek my thrills elsewhere. Mainly entering as many competitions as I can find. This allows me to indulge my need for things I don’t actually need without spending any money, I can ogle the prizes in the picture then daydream about what it would be like to win them. It is incredibly satisfying.

However, there is a down side…

Like most things in life which are thrilling my new found pastime is also terrifyingly addictive and damaging to my emotional wellbeing.
I am a naturally optimistic person, sometimes so much so that I’m borderline arrogant. This means that every time I enter a competition I assume I’ve won it, resulting in a stream of stressful thoughts such as: “if I won this holiday for two who would I take?” and “what the hell am I going to do with £1000 worth of beds?”

It also means every morning on the bus I’m thinking about checking my inbox and finding I’ve won one of the many competitions entered only to arrive in work, see the small bracketed (1) beside my google mail, let out a squeal of delight shocking my colleagues only to discover the email is another depressing one from milkround informing me that there are no good jobs for graduates. Going through this exact same routine daily means my bright, glass half full personality is slowly being eaten away at and I’m becoming a negative person who believes she has no luck (after all surely it is impossible for me to enter ten competitions daily and not win at least one of them) and who is not going to get a paid job ever (the depressing lack of jobs becomes even more real when you’re expecting the news of it to be a 5 star holiday to the Caribbean)

The catch 22 of the competition entering is that you only really win when you least expect it. Like the proverbial watched pot my constantly checked inbox is never going to deliver me an amazing prize unless I stop expecting it to. Yet I’m constantly expecting it to because I spend so much time entering competitions. It may not seem that hard thing to do but being a ‘comper’ (the official word for a competition addict) is a full time job. There’s the constant searching for new competitions you haven’t already entered, the trying to explain how much you want to meet Zac Efron/Jim Carrey/Jodie Marsh in under 15 words when actually you have no desire whatsoever to do so and the never ending debate with yourself about what would actually happen if you won.

Whilst writing this I’ve not checked my inbox in the last ten minutes and maybe, just maybe taking my experience and doing the proactive writer thing of actually writing about it will have upped my karma slightly and there’ll be an invite to a worldwide premiere waiting for me. I’ll let you know…

The Top 5 Crap Competitions I have entered:

1, Win! the new Joss Stone CD (when I win this I’m burning it and not in the good: I want all my friends to have a copy way)

2, Win! £1000 worth of beds (as aforementioned the thought of winning this prize stresses me out more than anything, and when I think of it all I can see is my house full of beds and no room for any of the other prizes I WILL win)

3, Win! the DVD of Robssesed (I have entered a total of 6 competitions to win this DVD and unlike the rest of the female population I don’t fancy Robert Pattinson)

4, Win! a vibrator covered in semi precious jewels (why would anyone ever need such a thing? It is worth a whopping £1,500 so when I win it I’m going to ebay it)

5, Win! a lifesize cardboard cut out of Edward Cullen. (again no desire for Mr Pattinson and his cheekbones whatsoever)

My New Boots (My Newest Lie)*

For the past two days I’ve been wearing a pair of nondescript brown lace up boots.

They’re not much, quite boring and not really on trend (they’re not covered in buckles for one thing) but it is safe to say that I am head over heels in love with them.

It’s the way they make me feel that elevates them from a comfortable, day-to-day boot to an object of my up most affection.

When I’m clomping about in them I feel like I’m a character in a movie: a poor, Bohemian writer struggling for success. And I know technically I am poor, Bohemian (my upbringing saw to that) and a writer: it is just very rare to have found footwear which makes me feel so amazingly confident in my ability to just be myself.

Ironically, when I am truly being myself I tend to be daydreaming about being someone else. The best form of fantasy is not when I imagine I’m Kate Moss for a day (I’m bound to wake up and feel shit about myself for not being her) but just fun, life affirming day dreams.

In them I transport myself to another time and create stories about myself in my head. Essentially I’m a character in my own novel for a day.

And that’s what is so great about the boots: they’ve become my latest prop. When I lace them up in the morning I can transform myself into a hard working chimney sweep who whistles on his way to work and when I undo them at night I’m a tired, homeless girl who’s just found a place to rest for the night: her boots her only true possession.

Being lost in a different made-up world may not sound like the most practical way to live your life, but then practical is never something I’ve aspired to be. I want to walk around with my head in the clouds saying ‘hiya’ to dogs as they pass. It makes me happy. And you know what? When I wake up from my dream world and take a look at myself I’m not sad that I don’t see that tuggy haired homeless girl or cheeky chimney sweeper because I see myself, and I’m still a heroine in reality. A heroine who happens to own some very good boots.
*The boots actually belong to my housemate Corinne.