Olfactory Nemesis

One of the eternal joys of living where I do are the myriad smells that waft through my window... I have spent all of today sitting on my bed working and being alternately assaulted with either pot or fried chicken. If anyone were to come in to say hello to me today they'd probably want to sit me down and give me a stern talking to about not abusing my body with such gay abandon. The constancy of the smells means I'm pretty immune to both - or that I'm already so stoned that there isn't even a chicken smell at all, it's just that I've now got perma-munchies. One would assume that owning your own fast food outlet and being a bit of a pot head would be a vicious cycle leading to very little profit and an ever expanding waist line.

God bless the Old Kent Road for letting a straight laced obsessive from Somerset experience both weed and food addiction without ever needing to leave her bed. Huzzah.

The last day of August eh? Who saw that coming - obviously except for calendar makers and people who haven't just spent the last month with their head rammed firmly up their netherchute - eh? Tomorrow will be September which is traditionally my favourite month of the year. I love September for a lot of reasons:

1) I like autumn weather - it is always what it's meant to be. British summer is never right, British winter is rarely snowy picture book style. But Autumn... Autumn we get bloody right. We ship in just the right number of leaves, we know how to have windy chill without being too pissy rainy... it's just bliss.

2) My birthday falls in September and I've got big plans for being 25 this year. This year is going to blow people's minds. Oh yeah.

3) September is stationary month. September is the month where you can go to WHSmith and happily pile all kinds of books, files, rulers, calculators and erasers into your basket and not feel bad about it one bit. Obviously, if you're no longer in some form of education then you're going to need a pretty good reason and this year I have one;

My latest comedy notebook is full. I need a new one. I am very fussy about which book I have for my comedy. The last one I've had has not been as productive as I would have liked so I'm going to have to think long and hard about which one I go with this time... and tomorrow I get to go and scour the shelves and find my perfect match. I might even treat myself to a new pen to match it. Obviously, gone are the days when I can justify a 101 Dalmations pencil case and sit worrying about whether tins or zip ups are going to be in fashion this year, but I can still have some fun...

I love stationary. I can think of no better way to start the month than by buying some excellently ruled paper and maybe a new slot in for my filofax. Think big people. We're on our way.

In All Your Wisdom

Today has been a day for sleeping and not really a lot else... sleep all morning, wake briefly to have an ill advised pint, sleep some more... watch a bizarre TV show about a sad dwarf who is honing his drag act, and now back to bed to probably sleep again. This is surely not the life an intelligent being is supposed to lead. Tomorrow will be for accomplishing things... tomorrow will see much achievement. The sort of achievements that people write about in books using gold pens.

Before I go to sleep I am going to rearrange some of my bedroom furniture however... I always do my rearranging at night (not a euphemism), I don't think I've ever hefted furniture in daylight. I'm not sure why I do it... this time it's a boredom thing - I like change, I need things to be different every once in a while or I start getting itchy feet. Moving a book case might just keep me from leaving the country on a whim. Perhaps.

Having slept all day, this feels like the perfect night for an adventure to begin in... if some sort of demon climbed in through my window right now and told me I was the key to a big mystery that held the fate of a kingdom of people in it's grasp, I would be downright thrilled. I'm wearing skinny jeans though which is an issue, as I don't really feel they're appropriate for an adventure - leggings, yes... some kind of innapropriate night dress that will tear on things and make me look wild, yes... but skinny jeans, stripey slippers and a jumper? Not so much. David Bowie would take one look and wander off for a better heroine.

What with it being only 117 sleeps until Christmas (yes, that's right - in the absence of Edinburgh to think about I'm planning Christmas instead), now would be about the right time to travel to a distant land and do something epic only to return on Christmas Eve and find my stocking has still been laid out as per usual. Then I will have the sort of magical shower that heroines have in films - you know, the kind that not only washes you but also applies eyeliner and lip gloss and buys you a great outift - and come down for Christmas dinner in time for the first snow fall of the day. Perhaps a baby will be born too. Maybe my baby? My baby as I'm obviously pregnant by some Prince I met on my travel. Only the baby will be a little bit cursed and so we're leaving the door open for a sequel.

I must say I'm excited. I'm probably (genuinely/embarassingly) going to change my clothes now before I start moving furniture just in case I need to be ready for my silhouette shot against some New Zealand mountain as I turn and mourn the home I left behind. It'll be about the same point that I start learning a poignant lesson. If any of you want to come along, I strongly advise you get down to the Old Kent Road now because I won't be asking the owl to wait when it turns up with my message.

Have a Drumstick

I'm sitting with real internet access for the first time in a month, listening to The Byrds, working out how soon I can realistically move out of London and hoping this second cup of tea doesn't mean we have to make a pit stop in the first 5 minutes of the impending journey back down home.

The Edinburgh Fringe is over (for me at least) and to be honest I'm pretty pleased. I am utterly exhausted - I really don't think I could have dealt with much more in this 4 weeks without just tearing off all my clothes and screaming at the rain "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!" - if you've never been to the Fringe before, this doesn't mean I've had a horrendously eventful Fringe, this is just how everyone feels at the end. It's the amalgamation of highly strung people, caustic reviewers and expensive food in a very wet but beautiful city.

Ok, after a brief pause (which you didn't even notice because of my subtle use of the return key) I have now spilt most of my tea down my front which means I am confident I won't need to stop excruciatingly frequently (unless I want to wring out my jumper). The Byrds have also finished so I do need to find myself some different music to listen to. Hold on. Ok, Crosby Stills and Nash have stepped up to the plate for a wee while.

I think the rest of this week will be largely made up of my duvet and a West Wing box set until I feel like I have a firm enough hold on myself to leave the house and work out what I'm going to do with the next few months... it feels like everything has been building up to the festival and now that it's been and gone I have to sort of start a new plan. This new plan is probably going to begin with finding a new way to get money into the bank. That's probably essential if I want to live anywhere and eat some stuff.

Of course, I might abandon that plan almost instantly. A much nicer plan would be to just start singing to people in the street and making statues out of clay. Or discovering something very important so that people are pleased with me and tell me I've done enough for this life time and can have a break now. That'd be pretty cool too. However, of all the things I definitely know about myself, I certainly know I am not someone who will discover something important. I'll trip over something important and swear at it for a while before kicking it and walking away, then a week later my friend will turn up in lovely clothes and I'll say "Where did you get those clothes from?" and they'll say, "Oh, see that thing over there? With the dent in it from being kicked? It's really important. I got loads of money for it." and then I'll feel like an idiot.

So. That's what's happening? Feel informed? No, me neither.

When There's Silence

So... I didn't blog for the last two days - I know this doesn't matter to anyone else but it kind of matters to me because this was supposed to be a little challenge I set myself and when I don't get it done I feel annoyed. The last two days I've just been too fuzzy headed and distracted with Fringe issues to get it done. Today I've got a two and a half hour rehearsal to reshape the play and fix some of the problems that have crept in to Ink over last two weeks. I'm hoping after today I'll be a lot more my old self. Whiny Laura is not something people should have to deal with for 24 hours a day. This morning I managed to be rude to two people before I was even conscious (I feel this is an achievement - they may not) - this probably needs to change.

It's the last week of the Fringe and I'm ready to let my hair down. Bring the noise. Bring it loudly.

I've actually been thinking about my birthday today - I went to see Craig Campbell at The Stand (definitely heavily recommended) the other day and whilst watching him I suddenly noticed that I knew exactly what I wanted for my birthday next month. He was wearing a pair of shoes that were like little rubber gloves for your feet, made from wet suit material with flexibility and awesome toe pockets. I want a pair so badly you can't even imagine it.

I hate shoes - I loathe wearing shoes - I severely detest wearing any form of shoe. I tend to wear flip flops so I feel less like I'm wearing shoes... sadly, these are cream crackering my knees and hips because they make you walk weirdly. So! I think Mr Campbell's foot apparallel might just be the answer to my problems. I might even thank him when I get them - unless that would just be confusing and he'll then think that I think he's bought me a birthday present and then I'll look a bit mental.

However, if he was pleased about me liking his shoes and having got a pair of my own then we might be able to hang out together after that. I will admit he's a tad more outdoorsy than I am so I might have to get into slightly better shape to be able to keep up. A little. (Note: this is a lot funnier if you know who he is).

This evening I'm going out to party a little bit (read, a lot) and the rest of the week will flow by in a happy haze of "nearly over-ness" in which I will have no worries. Huzzah!

Sometimes You've Got To Please

Sitting there with her pony tail high,
Wonder how she'd look with my fork in her eye.
Glossy brown mane, laid over her shoulder
Wonder how she'd look lying under a boulder.

Sexy kitten heels and legs that go for miles,
She's giving them the look and the cute little smiles,
I'm trying to play along, but all the while,
I'm thinking of a rumour that begins with piles....

It's not that I'm jealous, I just I want to kill her,
Trying to decide between flambee or grill her,
Or bathe her in acid, or drop her on her head,
I'm really not choosy, so long as she's dead.

Sitting there with her bright baby blues,
I'm sidling up to add a sweet purple bruise,
Even when she laughs, her stomach stays flat,
There's a strong chance my left foot is aiming for her...

It's not that I'm jealous, I just want to kill her,
Choking someone on their own breasts is really quite a skill, a
Quick death or slow; I'm really not fussy
Just help me get rid of this faux fur skank hussy.

Weird Things That Have Happened Today

Weird things that have happened/ I have done today:

1. Got a bad review and laughed instead of cried (it's difficult to explain this without sounding like a bitter shrew why I was so amused but one day I promise I went. Let's just say being described as an "adept bimbo" has probably been the highlight of my Fringe thus far.)

2. Been praised by a strange man on the mile for being brave enough to move out of my parents house. He held my hand whilst stroking my wrist and told me I was very small 6 times and then started stopping passers by to show them how small I was. Then he asked where I was from and when I said Somerset he said I was very brave for being in Edinburgh and away from my home. I'd forgotten quite how severely I can attract a crazy person during the Fringe. Sigh.

3. I've licked half an orange that fell on the floor. My friend (the Welsh one) is having a bad day and then he dropped his orange on the floor so I very quickly licked all the dirt off it and then he could still eat it. I'm not sure whether I got more germs from #2 or #3 but it's safe to say I should get some jabs.

4. An old man offered me a ticket to see the Tattoo with him because his girlfriend has had to go into hospital for an emergency hip operation. I find this idea funny enough that I don't need to embellish it.

So, there you go. That is one day. One day of this shit. I just wanted to give a quick idea of how sometimes I just wonder what it would be like to have a normal life.

Laura Lexx on Men

At this point I feel it's only fair to point out I'm not sure if I really will be talking about men in this blog but I was in the kitchen trying to work out what to write about and I thought of this title and then thought I would like to turn it into a picture book. I find the idea of just touring the world and finding different men to stand on and then taking a picture very funny. Some could find inventive ways of letting me stand on them, some could not know until the second we took the picture and some people could be blissfully unaware I was even standing on them. Obviously, if there's a famous landmark in the vicinity I'm happy to get that in the picture too so that there's some context but actually it's not very important.

So men, eh? Don't they taste like shit and never fill you up? Eh?

Oh, wait no I think that's aeroplane food actually. Men must be something else. Who cares.

I don't have a problem with men which might turn out to be a massive flaw in this post somewhere along the line. I mean, I have a problem with some men; they're dickheads. But then, equally, I also find a lot of women really twatty. If it makes either gender feel better I dislike children a whole heap more than either of them. With the exception of my nephew Bobber. I feel like children remain quite genderless until teenage years... before that crappy pants can have a peepee stick or a half chewed drumstick in them and they're still awful and not something I want to deal with.

Grown up men I quite like. Especially ones with beards; I'm a grand fan of a good beard. It's my dream to get engaged to a man with a beard so thick he can hide my ring in it and I'll have to forage around in there first before he can propose. He'll turn to me across the dinner table and say;

"Have I got some corn beef in my beard?"

And then I'll have a look and all of a sudden I'll pull out this amazing ring and we'll get married and live happily ever after. Instead of wearing his ring on his finger he might use it to put his beard in a pony tail. That would amuse me greatly and our children would always ask if they could hang off the pony tail. They'd get a beating for that and taught to respect other people's follicles.

I'm in a good place with men at the moment; it's just me and a collective of men all hanging out at Disney land together having an absolute blast. I wish the collective term for a group of men was a beard of men. I think it just sounds right... it sounds like they would all be log cutters and hang out with beer glasses with handles on them smoking cigars. Incidentally, I also love cigar smoke... I think perhaps what I need to do is go and look for a husband in 18th Century Russia. I don't speak Russian so it would be even more likely they'd marry me because I wouldn't have something "smart" to say every time they spoke.

I don't see that there's anything particularly wrong with enjoying being single. It's not like I have the sort of lifestyle that sees me bringing a different man home every night - one of the best outcomes of body dysmorphia is that it can seriously inhibit your slaggishness. I don't like being single because I like sleeping around; I like being single because I like having great relationships with guys that don't get all messed up with emotions.

It has been a severely long time since I met a bloke that made me want all the crap that comes with a relationship; all the bits that I want, I can get without needing to be nice to them on a regular basis. Relationships are like eating pic n mix without a bag; they're hard to hold on to, you don't enjoy the sweets as much and you get half way through and wish you hadn't bothered. Just use a bag! Then, you can close the bag when you've had enough for one day and stop before you're sick. Also, there's a good chance you'll put the bag down somewhere and find it again a few weeks later and be really pleased with yourself because you'd totally forgotten you bought them.

Obviously, if you get the chance to eat pic n mix out of a beard you should never turn it down. That is very important.