When it's a jar

Some of you might be aware of the ongoing problems we've been having with our landlord / letting agencies (yes, plural). I've been keeping quiet about it on here because, honestly, the thought of writing down everything that's gone wrong is so bone-deep tiring that I'd sooner walk into traffic than lay it all out for you.

But, as a microcosm, as a focal point for all that negativity, how about we talk about the living room door?

• When we moved in, there was a cream-painted door with a blurry window in it. The handle was slightly shonky, but it was otherwise fine.
• When we got the lady from the council round to make a bullet-point list of things that needed to be fixed, the door made it onto that list. It's not a fire door, you see, and because our living room is open onto our kitchen, it needs to be a fire door.
• So they replaced the cream door with a plank of featureless wood.
• It's gradually becoming a fire door, so we're assured, but right now it presents more of a fire hazard. It's not sealed around the edges, so it's not fulfilling that function anyway.
• They eventually added a handle - the same cream-painted shonky handle from the old door. Looks out of place on the unpainted wood, but whatever, a handle is a handle.
• Then they added a closer, so the door closes itself, and requires a bit more muscle to open. Also fine.
• Well, today the handle fell off.

I have blocked the door open with a beanbag because if it closes now, we won't be able to open it.
Because it has a closer.
And no handle.
And still isn't a fire door.

My housemates are all pretty fed up of this place, so in an attempt to soften the blow, when I texted them warning not to move the beanbag, I ended it with *sad trombone*... but I don't think it helped.

Ukuleles and graffiti

My mum took me to see the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain! It was a lot of fun, they're probably the least serious orchestra out there (possibly tied with the Kazoo Funk Orchestra, I suppose). Here's an example of the sort of thing they do:



I also saw my first ever Banksy in the wild! It was this one; I couldn't get a photo as I was passing it on a bus, and it took me long enough to believe what I was seeing that there was no chance to get the camera out.

Luckily, I had a slightly more leisurely stroll down a road with some of the most exciting graffiti art I've ever seen. There were full pieces, reverse graffiti, even some yarnbombing!



More on my flickr, or on my facebook if you've got me there. But seriously HOW AMAZING are these... That last may become my motto.

Scrapes and japes

Last night, I was dragged out by my very loving friends. Knowing that I've recently made a decision that, while necessary, also completely sucks, they insisted on my company. Tiff made me pinky-swear, guys; it was that serious. We ventured into town for drinking and dancing, and I proceeded to have the most accident-prone night of my life.

Anna's list of minor wounds

1. Index finger: paper cuts, two. No idea how they happened, although I suspect my recent nail-biting is the culprit. Stung like crazy.
2. Knees: scraped. I fell over on the way into town (still completely sober!), and despite my leggings, took a layer of skin off. Standing up / sitting down hurts.
3. Hands: saved from my clumsiness by my unusual decision to wear fingerless gloves into town.
4. Face: elbowed by a 6'6" madman skanking at full speed. He apologised. Nose not broken.
5. Arm: bruised by being hugged into a wall by aforementioned madman. Hurts a lot but isn't visible, which is the worst kind of bruise as you don't even get kudos.

Tiff used her nursing experience to field-dress my knees with tissue paper from the ladies'. That's not so unusual for me; a few months ago I treated a pretty deep wound at a house party with makeup pads and sellotape because nobody there owned plasters. I still have an interesting purple mark on my knee from that one.

That was the first time I've been out dancing in quite a long time, and I went for it wholeheartedly, inhibitions significantly lowered by a couple of rum and cokes and the smoke machine that obscured my flailing completely. The people I went with were absolutely lovely; I got talking to someone about graffiti; he's hopefully going to email me some of his art for me to have uninformed opinions about.

Various people pulled / passed out / puked, ultimately returning to our house and crashing. It's quite nice, at times, to come downstairs to a living room full of people who are still drunk / barely conscious / insistent on us all returning to their house for "mystery hot chocolate."

It was very mysterious.

   I kind of ache all over.

      Still, at least it took my mind off -
       - oh man... this sucks.

About me

I've been reading The Hunger Games lately, along with half the book geeks in my life, it seems; and there's a part where the protagonist grounds herself in reality by reciting things she knows to be true about herself.

Well, thinking about it, I don't exactly have an About Me any more - not since changing my blog profile to this G+ thing - and since every other bio on the internet wants me to say everything in three lines, that means I can't really take my time over it.

So, I'll do it here. My blog, my rules! Haha!

About Me

• My name is Anna Fruen.
• I'm 24.
• I live in Cardiff, but grew up on the Isle of Wight, just off the south coast of England.
• I play the ukulele. Not because I'm good at it, but because it makes me happy.
• I write and perform poetry. Not because I'm good at it, but because I want to be understood.
• I just got a poem published for the first time! It's in this here kindle ebook, which costs only 299 British pennies.
• I'm terrified of the thought of going into space.
• I adore graffiti, and exploring to find it.
• I've recently gotten into urban exploration (wandering around abandoned sites and taking photos until a man with a flashlight asks you nicely to leave).
• I have a degree in English and Creative Writing.
• I don't have a job. I do want a job. Please give me a job.
• Those last two may be more related than I'd like.
• The first time I considered dying my hair purple, my best friends in the world tried to talk me out of it. They tried to steer me towards blonde.
• I still dye my hair purple sometimes.

I don't really know what else to say, other than thank you. The people who read my blog do it, so I'm assured, because they care about me. Even if that's only a little bit true, you care enough to read my words and that means the world. So thank you.

Here is a song I like.

please excuse me while I kiss this guy

Pissed the hell off. Not everybody likes reading rants, especially not ones that could be construed as gossiping / bitching (though I really really try to stay away from those), so if you're playing it safe just skip ahead to the kitty buffer. ↓↓↓

I've been with my boyfriend for three months now. He (let's call him M) lives with his ex*, and my friends and I used to go over to their house for gaming weekends, before he and I got together. I haven't been welcome there recently, at his ex's request.** That doesn't bother me too much.

But what happened tonight? Really does. I'll try to explain...

M works all week and sees me on the weekends, so when he turned up unexpectedly an hour or so ago, I was surprised but pleased to see him! My housemate / friend D had just ordered us pizza, so it looked like it was going to be a fun evening in. Which would be lovely, since my other housemates were going out, and I didn't want to be alone tonight.

Boy did I misread the situation.

What was actually planned was for M, his ex, and D to go bowling together. That happens sometimes. I used to go with them, but these days it's just 'understood' that I won't because that would be too awkward, apparently.***

And if M had told me before showing up "Look, this is what's going to happen, I won't be able to stay longer than five minutes," that would have been fine. I could have prepared for that. If D had said in advance "I'm ordering pizza but I'm going out with M, so please save me some," that would have been fine too. It would have been okay. Not great, still, but okay. But to have what felt like a nice surprise U-turn into another 'you're not invited' event, well, fuck that.

I normally try to squish whatever feelings I have about this, because it sucks for everyone involved, not just me, but if I don't tell them how it feels to be sat at home alone again after that fucking directorial mislead, then it'll just keep happening. And please bear in mind that I'm aware how childish it sounds to wail about unfairness, but if she doesn't want to hang out with me, maybe she just shouldn't come. And maybe my boyfriend and friend shouldn't aid her baseless social exclusion.

* Which is fine. Unconventional, but fine.
** Also fine. I completely understand. It's her house, she should only have to endure the company of people she likes.
*** Not for me, I should clarify: for her. I'll hang out with whoever.

Okay! Kitty buffer!

I cannot stress enough how amazing this video is. It's like Daft Bodies crossed with Tron.

Flipping

Gah, I keep trying to think of fun subjects to blog about. It's not like my past week or so has been uneventful, by any stretch of the imagination!

First of all, my dad had a heart attack last week. He's ok, I think - the clever doctor people have put a stent in his heart, which is a cool wire mesh thing to keep an artery open. Hopefully that's sorted him out, so although he's tired he's hopefully be okay.

In other news, Fat Tony came to stay! It was so awesome. He was only here for one night unfortunately, but we crammed in some youtube, Mario Kart, Community, Archer, Wall-E, pancakes and socialising. I call that a success.

No silly pictures this time around, tragically, but I'll leave you with this.



I genuinely don't know what to make of it. It's so unabashedly cheesy that I find myself quite warming to it, and I think it's by far Alex Day's boldest and best endeavour yet.

Recent events and Muppet Me

I have been up to things! Exciting things. Things that I shall now summarise because they were too long ago for me to remember any details.

Last week sometime, I forget when exactly, I went to a business meeting at which, despite having a cold that was frying my brain, I managed to actually contribute some stuff. This is very good news. Maybe I have a head for business after all!

Last friday was fairly eventful! I was treated to Avenue Q, the puppetty explanation of life and its trials and disappointments; with such unforgettable songs as "What do you do with a BA in English" and "the internet is for porn." I would recommend it to anyone; it's irreverent and clever and my expression throughout was one of unadulterated delight.

After that, I went to Gwdihw and saw Hobbit and MC Zani perform! I cheered, I yelled, I lost my voice. It was my first beatboxing gig in over a year, so I was delighted that I got to show a bunch of my friends what beatboxing is supposed to sound like. Hint: that thing I do when I'm drunk and you're bugging me to beatbox is basically babytown frolics; these guys are where it's at. The highlight of that was when  I introduced myself to Zani, who said "Oh, yeah, you're Hobbit's friend right?" I was the epitome of cool about that, but internally my response was a little more jubilant.

Last weekend was Cardiff Comic Expo, which was a lot of fun for the admittedly brief time that I was there. The coughing and sneezing and blowing my nose was starting to upset people. However I did get hit on by a dalek and stop a baby from crying, so overall I'm counting it as a win.

I am continuing to draw silly pictures of the only thing I can actually draw, i.e. ladies with big boobs. This is because of reasons.

Also I recommend that you check out this blog. It is all kinds of excellent. What else? I think that's everything; I still have a cold, and my sister and our friend Katie are both in town, so I'm spending as much as I can with them before they leave tomorrow.

Peace out, homies, or whatever.

Body

The other night, looking in the mirror, I had a revelation:
Yes, I may be heavier than the societally accepted ideal, but I'm lucky to be an hourglass shape with awesome curves. I'm happy with my body.
Then the following morning, faced with a closer inspection of dry skin etc., I decided I needed renovating from the ground up.

My body image, as I'm sure a lot of you will relate to, is like using a trampoline that is also a functional set of scales: I'm up and down way too often to get an accurate reading. Some days I feel like this:

Did somebody order a Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

And others, I feel like this:

Did somebody say fudge cake?

And that, as near as I can tell, is totally normal.

 The thing is, beauty comes from healthiness and happiness. If you've got both of those, the rest is just taking care of yourself... I've been realising more and more lately that the 'healthiness' side of my life needs a lot of work. All pizza and no exercise makes Jack a fat boy. And Anna a lazy girl.

I don't want to be the slovenly kind of person who never does anything because it's too difficult.

Anyway, I've finally liberated my poor bike, which hasn't been ridden in a year and a half. It's been to Punk Bikes for some TLC, so I just need to get on that, in every sense! At least if I'm actually doing something, whatever shape and size I am, I won't have shame about it. Being ashamed of your body is ten times worse than having a few extra pounds.

Affirmations

The theory behind affirmations, or "Cosmic Ordering" as the Mighty Wizard Edmonds calls it, is that if you repeatedly state your desire for something, you'll be more likely to get it.

My personal theory is that if you repeatedly state your desire for something, you're more likely to work towards it, because otherwise you look like a putz.

I already go on about things I want a fair bit. I want a motorbike, I want to shave my hair, and so forth. Like Chekhov's Three Sisters, I go on about it while never working towards it, because I am pretty lame.

NONETHELESS. I'm going to publicly say something that has been creeping up on me for months:
I want to go to America. I want to stay there. I want to see different states, compare different kinds of American life, get a feel for the geography and the people.

I'm still trying to work out ways this can happen that don't basically boil down to "get a job and spend no unnecessary money for three years." I'm sort of waiting for an opportunity to present itself. I dunno.

Anyway, yes, I am stating this here and now so that one day, I can look back and go "oh yeah that's when I decided to come here."

Also, please please watch this. It kicks all kinds of ass. The song has been wheeling through my head for a week or so now, and the video is utterly captivating!

Niceness

My romantic entanglements have, for the most part, ended before the other party became aware of their existence. It always goes the same way: inevitably, at some point, whatever poor guy I've been... not pursuing, as such, more... ogling with wilful intent, will have the following conversation with me.

Him: Let me tell you about this amazing new girl I met!

Me: Shoot (me).

Him: She's so nice, she's such a free spirit, she has awesome hair and she hovers three inches above the ground wherever she walks! All that is best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes, blah blah fuckitty blah (I'm paraphrasing here.)

This usually results in the following dichotomy.

Externally:

Internally:

This was my life in high school, and this has been my life for the year and a half since breaking up with my ex. For the past few months, I've again been staring at some oblivious dude, attempting to work out whether he was even single. Over Christmas, the matter was brought to a satisfactory conclusion when it was revealed that not only was he unattached, but that the lucky girl he'd had his eyes on was, in fact, me.

In the words of President Obama, "I got the sucker."

That was nice.
It's still nice.