I actually ran Bay to Breakers once.

I'm in the process of clearing my old blog and moving anything of mild interest into this one space.

Who Knew Breasts Made For Such Perfect Storage? May 23rd, 2006.

Current mood:excited

What most girls need a handbag for - wallet, phone, inhaler and keys - was stored snuggly around and between the confides of my boobs. Why? Well on Sunday morning feeling groggy and nauseated from only a few hours sleep after working at the bar i realized i couldn't find my little pink reflective running bag thing and shit, today i was running Bay to Breakers.

I was feeling a little worried, i hadn't ran in nearly 2 weeks and the furthest i'd managed was 6 miles and this race was 7.5. Running (actually walking and taking my sweet time) about 20 minutes late i made my way down to the Start line at the San Francisco bay.

Being pretty much still new to this town and never experiencing a Bay to Breakers before i wasn't quite prepared for what i came into contact with.

It was about 8.20am and the streets were jammed with drunkards, fancy dress costumes, food being thrown, portable kegs and bars, bad bands in every bus shelter, an abundance of naked white dimply bottoms and flaccid penises.

As i approached the start line i remembered what my running pack said - walkers to the right, runners to the left - so i start making my way to the left, and to the left, and to the left, and the left and after a whole 3 lane road was full of walking, some stumbling and some shuffling (due to silly physically inhibiting costumes) i get to the side walk which has about 6 runners on it. Hmm is this really what i was worried about being the shittiest runner EVER in for the past 3 months!? Damn, these people are even gonna make me look good.

So off i went, following Howard Street past my alley where my roommate was stood with her trusty camera...

... then up steep ass i'm gonna kill you Hayes Street hill, then along the once stinky hippy saturated Panhandle to the Golden Gate Park. That is one big park. And here i am personifying sex with some naked dude in the background about a mile from the finish line...



If i didn't look like such a sweaty fur-less shar-pai i might have considered ordering this, but alas, the free version with PROOF rather obnoxiously emblazoned across it will do.

So yes one mile to go and me, along with the nudes, are still going strong. I see the pacific peeking through the last - hurrah - trees of the Golden Gate Park and finally i am one the home stretch. Finishing line growing ever closer and the OFFICIAL end to "Healthy May". YAY me. So what next? I am seriously considering the half marathon in the fall. Though i'm even more seriously considering the Taqueria for dinner every day for the next month first.

It's So BIG It's Fluorescent

I'm in the process of clearing my old blog and moving anything of mild interest into this one space.

May 29th, 2006.

Current mood:bouncy

No, M.O.T.O weren't singing about my big zit of 2006 but they may as well have been. One of my first "blogs" ever was about 2004s once a year zit. No, I'm not blessed with the skin of a peach, but assholes as big as the fucking bitch that has been in the middle of my right cheek for nearly a week only really show their face once a year, and now my friends, is that special time.

Now this isn't a normal spot - no enjoyable white head to grapple with that upon it's momentous and satisfying pop marks the death of the facial imposer. This is something living off me under the skin. How i have spent, err, too much time actually, trying to pop this thing and picking at it trying to find the source of this fucker. What do i get?! Some blood, some swelling just to accentuate it further (if that is possible), a big really cute scab the next day but any nasty ass goo/spot puss (you get the picture)? NO!

I'm beginning to doubt the identity of this thing. Could i have acquired some form of parasite? Could this be my long lost unformed twin kicking up a stink?! (i watched a documentary about a kid who got his deformed twin brother caught up in his embryo in his mom's womb and it stayed in his belly as a huge lump until he was 6 and then they cut it out, i watched this nearly 2 years ago, it's kind of haunted me...) And this last one is my favourite form of denial - "it's a bite". Whatever it is, i hope it fucks off SOON. I have a wedding to go to on Sunday and the zit is not invited.

Why i'll never eat another chicken nugget (for a few years)

I'm in the process of clearing my old blog and moving anything of mild interest into this one space.

July 26th, 2006.

Current mood:drunk

(I'm taking a creative writing class, we had to write about being ill. Not that this is really all that creative, well in parts it is... but all the same i kinda like it. Viva la Gemma)

Mid May 2001, the UK was having a heatwave that is typical of that time of year. After a 16 mile bus ride home from my college in Stratford Upon Avon I was wilted from the heat and my stomach rumbled due to a missed lunch. When the weather was that lovely, a trip down to sit next to the river Avon and buy an ice lolly was way more enjoyable than refectory food.

I swung open the door of our small fridge-freezer, way smaller than anything even allowed onto US soil. I bent down to look in it, taking in it's refreshing chill for a couple of moments and giving zero regard to the energy bill. The open fridge really was quite the pitiful sight. Apart from some pickles, soggy lettuce and moldy cheese, it was empty.

Shoes, handbags, dresses and records i have no problem with but food shopping I find a total chore.

I flip the snap shut door on the ice box at the top of my tiny little fridge. "Ooh!" Thankfully here i have a little more luck. I pull out a bag of frozen mixed vegetables and a bag of chicken nuggets. No, not exactly fine gourmet dining, or actually anything i remotely fancied, but it was food.

I got to cooking my vegetables and the throughly delicious, processed chicken bits. When it was ready it looked so unappetizing i didn't even want it. My head said "urggh" but my stomach didn't say anything but instead churned and moaned. My belly won this debate so i set about eating.

I remember the first bite of one of them nuggets, i recall it tasting somewhat different but not being half as bad as i had anticipated so off they all went to my stomach.

It got to around 8pm and my boyfriend called me like he did every night we weren't together. We talked about how each others days had been, nothing exciting or different to what we had said to each other the day before, or the day before that but what i do remember is how akin to a gas leak my breath smelt during that conversation.

I am a being that thrives on habit and my nightly ritual back then always consisted of a glass of orange juice before bed. Why? I don't really know. However that night, i just couldn't drink it. 11pm came and I turned out my lamp. The juice sat beside my bed growing warm and thick in the stickiness of a British summer time night.

Not so much an annoying beeping of an alarm, but more a feeling similar to a hard, angry kick in the stomach by a 300 pound man in steel toe capped boots woke me a few short hours later. In the fetal position i lay in my bed. Mouth open in shock, eyes screwed up shut, my face totally contorted. It was hard to believe how much pain i was in. I blinked hard, trying to actually decide if this was even happening. I shuffled to my bathroom, completely hunched over reduced to half my size, griping my stomach.

I had never felt pain so crippling. I still couldn't believe this was happening. I get to the toilet, which I didn't actually need but i knew something inside me was most definitely wrong and there were 2 ways of getting it out out of me. I wanted to and had to try one of them. At least.

It may have been the middle of the night but those next few minutes, let me tell you, they were no dream.

I get back into my bed, feeling the weakest i have ever done, still sore around my stomach though slightly eased from my bathroom escapades. I drift off into a light uncomfortable clammy sleep only for round two of "bacteria gone wild" inside my usually pretty robust gut to kick off again.

I feel that shaky, odd numbness and the tingle of the face that I know only means one thing. I fumble in the dark, knocking over a pile of photos and the orange juice trying to get a hold of my waste paper bin. I undergo 3 vigorous painful vomit hurling sessions into my, luckily pretty empty bin. My stomach feels exhausted, very sore - almost stretched out - but now thankfully empty.

I go down to the utility room to clean out the trash can with some hot water and bleach. I let my dog into the garden, he wags his tail and looks up at me. He is super pleased that as I scrape my vomit into a heavy duty trash bag, he gets to frolic on the dewy grass. I get to the bottom of the bin and i see a picture of me and my friends with a film of vomit over it smiling at me. I didn't smile back.

I spent the next day napping, burping a rancid stinking rotten egg like smell and getting phone calls every hour from the boyfriend who wanted to check i was fine but who was actually really annoying me as to get up and answer the phone was the last thing i wanted to do. Besides every time i moved, for want of a better expression, i almost shit myself.

It got to around 10pm and after a day of being completely off i really needed a shower. I get in the tepid water and i hurl up what can only be described as the lining of my stomach, yellow and hot. The rotten egg smell that has been making me nauseated all day long now swirling down the plug hole.

As soon as i'm out of the shower I resume sweating. I sweated more that day than i ever have done in my life, my hair for the first and only time ever was thick with grease, lank and stuck to my head. I crawled into bed, desperate to put the day to an end. I drifted off to a calm sleep, weak and pathetic from every orifice on my body working over time trying it's hardest to rid me of the evil that was ravaging me from the inside - off chicken nuggets.

An awkward situation.

I'm in the process of clearing my old blog and moving anything of mild interest into this one space.

October 7th, 2006.

Current mood:contemplative

This afternoon, i got into a lift at my university to travel down the 8 flights of stairs i'm too lazy to bother even considering walking down. Behind me, my teacher for the lesson i have just got out of, gets onto the lift.

The doors slide shut and my teacher who must be in her late 50's says, "I like the opacity of your nail varnish". I say, a little embarrassed as it is chipped to fuck and looks bad, "Thanks". My teacher then said, "I've always thought there is something very sexy about chipped toe nail varnish". I reply, "I'm not sure about toes being sexy at all". She then says "Well there is definitely something sexy about chipped finger nail varnish. It's very little girlish. Have you ever worn a little brownie guide dress for Halloween? Then men go crazy for it. Do they go crazy for your chipped nails?". I have only one word for this "No." She then tells me, again, "Chipped nail polish is very sexy, it's almost paedophilic." She laughs. I laugh, i'm not really amused. We get to the ground floor and exit the lift without a goodbye.

Dying on December 23rd would really ruin Christmas

I'm in the process of clearing my old blog and moving anything of mild interest into this one space.

December 30th, 2006.

Current mood:hungry

So i'm on my way back to the UK for Christmas last week, all is as it usually is on the transatlantic journey. I get to SFO in what i think is good time but end up with a crappy seat, you get on the plane and some uncle fucker with 20 bits of hand-luggage has taken up the over head storage space and the one next to it, and the one next to that. I'm a little bit tired and irrationally irked at stuff like that.

The plane takes off in good time, there is a small delay due to the plane arriving late into SFO but nothing bad so i get to reading, a.k.a looking at the pictures, in the shitty magazine i always buy myself when i am traveling on my own and before i knew it i was fast asleep. I'm sleeping for about an hour before being woken up by the food trolley.

That's when the first jolt of turbulence occurred. It was quite sharp and unpleasant but it was just one isolated lunge so i thought nothing of it apart from how turbulence always seems to happen when they give out the food. The rows behind me we being given their food and the plane began to shudder pretty violently.

I usually quite like turbulence, that feeling it gives you in your tummy is like the feeling you get on a roller coaster and i always think that is quite fun, until i remember how high up in the air i am. Then i get a little nervous. Usually at this point the pilot, in reassuring tones, will explain of how we are flying through a storm or high winds. There will be some form of explanation for the temporary discomfort and everyone will continue to go about stuffing their faces, albeit a little shakily due to the bobbing plane, but generally feeling ok about the bumps. Well i do anyway. But this time the pilot sharply asked all passengers to be seated and to be wearing their seat belts. No it will be fine in 10 minutes, just sit the fuck down. !!!!

I look at the air hostess, she is gripping 2 seats, her arse in someones face as she is trying to not fall over. She looks worried and uncomfortable. If she who spends most of her life up in the sky is uncomfortable, i am uncomfortable. She says in a sweet, professional sounding voice which i'm sure is fake across the middle isle of 5 seats to another air host "i don't think we can go on!". Can't go on with the flight?! With the handing out of the food?! Um, totally not reassuring whatever she meant! The pilot then sharply requests all the hosts and hostesses were to be seated and buckled up. She ditched a crappy salad on the shuddering plastic table in front of me, not even the pasta i asked for (United do very nice vegetarian pasta dishes FYI) and gets sat down and seat belted without hesitation. Mind you, i can't say i was hungry at that point.

The plane shook, swooped and shuddered violently. Everyone swayed about, bumped up and down and shook. I held my own hands and felt sick. I was actually really scared. It dawned on me, fuck, i'm in a metal tube hundreds of feet in the air that is being severely beaten around. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. I scanned the map on the little TV imbedded in the seat in front of me. We were over mountains, i don't know the name of the particular troublesome range but we were crossing over from Idaho to Montana and cutting over a corner of some other state too (yes bad geography i know).

Trying to comfort myself i thought back to my flight out to Vegas in January. It sucked, it really did. It was very bumpy and the plane seemed to be under extreme pressure, my body felt really tight (if you're thinking of buttholes or other orifices here you are gross) and i felt like i might blow up or at least puke for most of the way there. The pilot explained that the discomfort was due to slightly more windy than average conditions, the altitude we were flying at, and unusual peaks and troughs in the air pressure we were traveling through due to the Sierra Nevada mountains. So i told myself that as soon as we got over the mountains we would be fine.

It took about 45 minutes from the hostesses being made to sit for the turbulence to end. That is a long fucking time to sit and wonder if this plane will actually make it. I wished i was with someone, but then i was glad i was alone as i could calm myself down. I wouldn't be able to be calm if i could see my mom or dad worrying. I worked out what time it was in SF, i imagined getting nachos, or a burrito. I was trying to think about normal stuff. Then i realised shit, what if i died and hadn't eaten a burrito, or nachos in months?!

I've recently been on a bit of a diet and have really cut back on the things i love so much but make me a total fat bastard, like mexican food, beer, pizza etc. I was bummed. What if i were to die and i spent the last 2/3 months depriving myself of some of the things i like the most?

Then a whole new worry. So we get through the storm, or whatever the fuck is going on, as we hadn't actually been informed, and the plane has had a crucial bolt loosened, or something like one of those tiny bits that flap up during landing on the wing (i imagine they're important) has broken off, or fuck, can this plane make the 7 more hours it has to go before reaching London?!!? Arrgh. I'm just scarring myself more now. That fucking NOFX song about dying on a plane comes into my head. How annoying and thoroughly inappropriate.

Then i think about dying. It was that bad. Especially when the plane sort of nose dived a little before evening back out. I was thinking how it would just totally ruin Greenhill family Christmases, for a couple of generations at least, if i were to snuff it 48 hours before Christmas day. Nice timing. I thought how i'd write a fucking "blog" about it when i got home, i will get home, i will!!

And then as suddenly as it started, it stopped. No easing off, it just stopped. About 45 minutes of holding my own hands, heart in mouth, nauseating shaking, bumping and shuddering, just over. The lady sat next to me said "that was not enjoyable". She was not wrong.

A couple of minutes later the pasta i wanted about an hour ago was put in front of me. I scoffed it down, then i fell asleep pretty much straight away and stayed asleep until about an hour before landing . Fearing death is apparently quite exhausting.

No, booze, 'til TX

I'm in the process of clearing my old blog and moving anything of mild interest into this one space.

January 30th, 2007.

Current mood:groggy

Approximately 3 weeks ago i went to "90s Nite" at the Barfly in Birmingham. As if that wasn't embarrassing enough, the state i got myself into really took the piss (see fig.1).


Fig.1

I have no recollection of the night, at all, (though unfortunately my friend helped piece it together with some pretty disgusting photo's) apart from when i got home. I was stood holding my laptop, and as i was unable to actually stand the floor began to get closer to my face and because of the laptop i couldn't put my arms down to brace the fall so i eat some major shit and fell on the left side of my chin. (accidently erased my pics of the chin, but it wasn't cute). The bruising lasted a good 10 days but then disappeared quickly after i began constantly rubbing witch hazel on it but the lump still remains.

My mom (yes to make things even worse i was my parents house) came into my bedroom around 8am the next morning and asked me if i was ok as apparently the sofa in the lounge had moved and i had knocked the lampshade so it was crooked and had shouted to my dad the night before when i got home that i couldn't find the dog. (who was sleeping in the room i was in - he is a big old golden retriever) Thank fuck i made it to the bedroom as i was only wearing knickers (?).

I swore then that i was going to seriously lay off the booze this year. That was 3 weeks ago and i have a pretty awful confession. Apart from this last week when i have been post Vegas sick i only spent 4 days without a drink since that time. What with visiting friends back home, birthdays, shows and Las Vegas, it's been a hard time for the liver.

I was all pleased with myself for laying low though until last night when i went to my friends birthday party. There was a pretty endless supply of booze, and well, i over indulged. All was fine, i danced with people i had only just met to Prince sat by a nice log fire and was pretty dandy until i left and got in the taxi to go home to pass out in my bed. Then i realised my stupid drunk ass had left my phone in the taxi.

I've tried to get it back today, and will keep calling the lost property sections of a few city cab firms (yes, so drunk - again - that i didn't even know which firm the cab that got me home was part of) but when i called Cingular to suspend my account they informed me if i want to replace my old phone it will be a delightful $249.

Fuck you booze, see you tomorrow!

Leslie Hall

I'm in the process of moving all my old blogs over into one space...

March 28th, 2007.

Current mood:full

The other day i saw Leslie and the LY's. I thought they would be annoying but they played my work so i wouldn't have to pay to see them, the drinks would be $1 and i heard of her sweater collection thing so me, being a knit-nerd and lover of kitsch i guessed it would be worth checking out for that alone.

The show was totally sold out, with about 70 people even being turned away. I was anxious to see what all the fuss was about. The crowd did have some annoying people in it but there were also just a lot of normal everyday sorts so i stuck around.

Her music is funny but it's not the best, however i don't think it is trying to be, it was her attitude and confidence that was really fucking cool. Me being the cynical young asshole I am I just assumed she was gonna be some band wagon riding asshole from LA or New York, but she is from Ames, Iowa which, correct me if i have this wrong, i don't think is the epicenter of cool. She generally seemed like she was the freaky girl who perhaps got picked on at school and was totally unpretentious and just danced and wobbled about in her gold lame leotard rapping which was genuinely funny and entertaining.

She is also a very pretty girl, which you wouldn't guess from her pics. I think in an age where people, especially women, are going to all dumb lengths to be "attractive" it is really refreshing that there is someone almost uglying themselves up and embracing their eccentricities instead of trying to stifle them, which i think makes her only more attractive and more rad anyway.

If you ever get the chance to see her live show, you probably wont want to buy the album but you will have fun and witness an awesome individual whose comfort with herself i wish could be embraced by more people. I'm really glad i went to this show, Leslie Hall is pretty cool. It's nice to be pleasantly surprised by something, it doesn't happen a whole lot.