The Bespectacled Dog

"Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children." -George Bernard Shaw

Hoarding

This Is My Home from Mark on Vimeo.

Side what?

I'm in a girly mood which is pretty rare for me so I decided to try and do something nice with my hair which has finally grown long enough to do cool things with after almost three whole years since 'The Big Chop.' I decided a pretty side bun thing would be cool so I followed a video tutorial on youtube step by step in time with the kindly woman on the video. She looked super duper sophisticated and elegant at the end. This is what happened to me:

I look like Pippi Longstockings but without her awesome gravity defying pig-tails. Sucks to be me. This is even worse than that time I tried to curl my hair:

I'm the shittest girl ever.

I was aiming for this: 

I FOLLOWED ALL THE STEPS I DON'T GET WHY I DON'T LOOK LIKE HER NOW.

So Mrs. Squirrel, what do you think about love?

"Love is horses and hopping; hopeless dreams of being some kind of hawk. Goats and monkeys. Black rams and white youths."

Revisionnnn

You have to say that like Topol says "TRADITION" in that very remarkable way in Fiddler on the Roof.

Because revision is a grand and important process, not unlike the marriage of one Jew to another.

Typography

My friend Leon is a super-wizz genius at photoshop and did this to one of my poems:

Self Control...

...is something that I lack somewhat. Put a box of chocolate in front of me and regardless of how hungry I am I WILL eat every single one. Just the other day I ate a whole family-sized packet of Peanut M&Ms because my boyfriend left me alone with them for ten minutes.

Usually I'm pretty good when it comes to work though. Especially when I have loads to do and am on a tight schedule. The problem comes when I have lots of time in which to do something. I can never help but think that if I wanted to, then heck, I could just write it in the few days before the deadline. It would be much more stressful and all, but feasibly I definitely could. Even though I may have been given three whole weeks.

This is what has happened with my dissertation. I just can't bring myself to work on it for more than fifteen minutes without locking myself in a library or a nice cafe. There are just always so many other useful things I could be doing instead. Like revising for finals... or eating peanut m&m's... or playing Bubble Shootix (the best free Mac game ever)... or re-reading Twelfth Night or something.

So I've downloaded this app called 'SelfControl' which basically forces self-control upon the user by blocking all interesting websites for whatever period of time you decide you need. So far it hasn't really worked because I forgot to block my blog and I'm now blogging well into the half an hour time slot I set aside for writing about laughing madwomen in Victorian literature. But it's ok I'll do a proper timed session once I've got this out of my system.

The application seems to have slightly slowed my computer down but other than that I think its an excellent idea and I will be making use of 'SelfControl' from now until May 15th, when OMG my finals will be over and I will be free to face the real world again and frolic with facebook and twitter and all my friends and I'll be the happiest person in the whole world.

The logo is pretty intimidating though so I should probably get back to work for the next 7 minutes.

Download here: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/31289/selfcontrol

Stress-pot

Hey team,

I haven't managed to blog in a while because I've been a bit of a stresspot of late. For those of you who haven't heard, I'm in my final year of uni now. My exams are in a couple of months and I need to sort my life out asap. Today, I went to my careers centre and a kindly woman made me feel better by telling me that I can just find a job after I graduate and stop worrying about it for a while. Here is a list of other things that make me feel better:

1) CHOCOLATE. Yeah, yeah I'm a fucking cliche of a female. But chocolate has endorphins or whatever and they make me happy.

2) Bubbles. Bubbles are awesome and I love it when they pop. I would have said bubble-baths rather than just bubbles but we don't get baths at uni, just delightful walk in showers with nasty tiles that make your feet hurt if you stay in for too long. But bubbles away from bathtubs are still delightful and make me feel joyous and free.

3) Doing outrageous things, like wearing your boots into the shower. I totally actually did that. I wore my big biker boots and took in my bed-sheet and spun around a bit, stomping like a child in a rainy puddle. It was great until the sheet got really heavy and waterlogged. Then I realised I'd probably not have a dry sheet that evening. But I felt better nonetheless.

CRAZY

It is much more fun feeling crazy with an encouraging soundtrack.

THE JOYOUS DONKEY (or is it a horse?)

I have finished my essay! Every time I finish an essay it just reminds me of how mentally unstable I am. BECAUSE IT MAKES ME SO FUCKING HAPPY. Like really bloody disproportionately so. I feel like I've just been accepted to read a degree in Fun at the University of Rainbowland. The fact that I have another one due in on Monday is just SO IRRELEVANT RIGHT NOW. Right now there are unicorns prancing through mid-air. Sliding down waterfally slides of bliss and singing happy songs of wonder! I feel like screaming FREEDOM from the rooftops Braveheart style. (I won't though, don't worry) But I might compose an opera, I could go to the shops, get some sweets, go on a swing, eat some food, watch tv. For now my essay is done and I can do anything in the world! Until Monday. But we are not thinking about that so shush.

Serpentine Dance (1896) -Loie Fuller

How pretty? The dress is made of white silk and this was of course made before the days of colour tv (or tv at all probably) but the Lumiere Brothers actually painted onto the film to make it change colour in that awesome chameleonic way.

I remembered this video because I'm thinking about writing my thesis on the relationship between dance and insanity- but Fuller looks anything but insane here, just free and beautiful.

Cheesy I know. But honestly, I just wish I was a Victorian dancer. So its a melancholic kind of a cheese and that is allowed. A dissatisfaction with the camembert of present and a longing for the cheddar of past... if you will. Mmmm.

Philippe Halsman

Philippe Halsman is totally boss. He makes me want to jump.

How I Feel Right Now:

Yumchaa

Yumchaa is an incredible cafe in Camden Town about 5 minutes walk from the station. They have a collection of about a bajillion different herbal, green, white and black teas. This is perfect for my poor friend Flora who is allergic to caffeine. Since our friendship has always been centred around trips for coffee, we were concerned that this sudden allergy might throw a spanner in the works. But thank goodness for Yumchaa, where instead of nasty coffee we can have tea and bagels and cake. With loads of differently sized and coloured snuggly looking armchairs and tables of varying shapes and sizes (there is even an incredibly old looking velvet sofa) you can stay there pretty much all day. AND it even has wi-fi.

I got a carrot cake. That was crumbly and delicious as a carrot cake should be. But not at all dry. The worst sin a carrot cake can commit is to be dry, but this one was moist as well as crumblesome, and the icing was superb. The teas are scattered into lots of tiny tea-cups so that you can smell them all and pick the one you fancy. Slightly overwhelmed with choice I decided to abuse the poor girl behind the till. "WHAT IS THE BEST TEA!!" I exclaimed, fearing that I was holding up the one man queueing behind me with my indecision. After a slight conversation I decided to go for a tea called "Adventure"- because I'm a really adventurous person and all. It was divine. 

She had told me it would taste like harvest time and frolicking AND IT DID. I couldn't quite figure out what was in it. But it had a delicious apple-tang without being overly sweet.

Basically I seriously recommend.  Yum. (Chaa).

www.yumchaa.co.uk

BOOK PORN

http://bookshelfporn.com/
This website is beyond sexy.

         Yum.