Two Oh One Three

365 days. That's a long time to be consistently cheery, which explains the constant influx of miserable status', Tweets and bitter reminiscent exchanges over lunch - "2012 has been a crap year".  It can be a kick in the teeth, but the truth is you're never going to have that year when everything went your way with no speedbumps to knock you down a few pegs.

Eyebrows are usually raised when a voice across a room chirps of an ambitious new outlook and perspective for the next year, tell me about it. I know the clichés, where to start?..an appreciative clink of champagne glasses - Moet et Chandon, because it's a celebration, after all - with "cheers to a new year and a new us!". Somewhere is a girl gazing forlornly into the mirror, clutching at skin that isn't there, looking to the television, and quietly vowing that it has to go. Packets of biscuits sit, unopened, in the gutter. A new diary is opened, biro marks starts to scrawl and blot the pages - "I want to start writing things down" "Don't lose your new ear phones" "Don't lose track of time". Don't lose track of time.

2012. Naturally, there have been tremendous highs and terrible lows. I have felt lonely enough to question whether it was still too late to leave college; anxious enough to consider a remedy more immediate. Contrarily I have been blissfully happy, suddenly infused with confidence and strength  - I could see the beauty all around me. Books helped with that; so did good music, and the right films with the messages I could understand. Nervous, half-formed decisions at the hairdressers meant the Flo'fro would make me wince at my reflection, my friends choosing their words tentatively after the big reveal. Wearing my heart on my sleeve turned out to be a huge weakness, rather than an endearing quality. Exam results kept me counting sheep at night, quietly acknowledging their key role to play in determining my future - shit, the future. It was coming around so quickly and I just wished I was still in high school. Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInnery were my literary revelations. I have tried to suss out 'love', but I couldn't understand and honestly? I still don't. Every day an inkling stood; "am I still wanted?" I started writing a blog. Benefit make up became the solution. Muse released an album I liked. Tears, laughter, weaknesses, new found strengths, moments of contentedness, frustration, realisation that it's what you make of it that matters.


2013. This is the year when I'm going to wake up on the first day and say "I'm 19 this year, 20 the next". Another comfort blanket will be torn to shreds when I leave college - the place I will have also had to call 'my other home' for nearly 2 years - and embark on another adventure known as "university". I don't want to lose weight; if anything, I would welcome the opposite, possibly in the region of my bum, in an era of sassy bootylicious ladeez and all. Let's face it, I'll never be a gym bunny, and the ability to bust out a swear word is an intrinsic quality no amount of therapy could stop. I like to think I could - if my health depended on it (ha) - start eating more fruit and vegetables, but my heart isn't really in that one. Weetos will still feature prominently and in dangerous quantities in my diet. I will continue to spend recklessly, then weep 2 weeks before my wages/allowance are due because I can't afford a packet of ginger biscuits. These are all pointless to even consider - Weetos, for crying out loud guys, WEETOS!

But I do have a few changes I need to make - sooner rather than later.

"You need to put yourself and your own feelings first, sometimes" I've heard that a lot recently and in retrospect, for excellent reasons too. It's fair to say that I am a self-confessed people pleaser, brushing my own feelings aside for others feels unnervingly natural for me. That's a terrible thing. I waste my energy on people who would not waste energy on me, and that is not a virtue - that is a massive personal issue that I must resolve, fast. Everyone has an agenda, and I should strive to stay out of them.

I need to put myself and my own feelings first. If that involves dropping certain people from my life like dead flies from a swatter...it's all for the right reasons. Conscience untarnished.

That's a tough statement to make, even tougher to see through. But I'll try, wholeheartedly - and that's the only* resolution I'm making this year.



The corniest picture EVER. Well...happy new year!

* Okay, about the vegetables, maybe I should look into that..

The Only Way Is Guilty Pleasures

People don't seem to put me down as an Only Way Is Essex fan. When asked if I watch the ITV3 show and I give a cheerful nod of confirmation, they tend to let out a sigh so mournful I fully expect to blink and find them dead on the floor. Most of the time I don't let this perplex me; other times, it does start to feel as though I'm letting the side down. Though I'm not convinced I have a firm idea of who "the side" are - my non-TOWIE loving friends, my perpetually disappointed mother and boyfriend, general middle class society? - I can still practically hear the tuts and mutterings of disbelief.

Following the lives of a group of perma-tanned, inexplicably wealthy twentysomethings, TOWIE claims itself as a "constructed reality" show set against a backdrop of wine bars, nail bars and flash cars. Already it's sounding pretty shallow, right? Throw in some false eyelashes (and boobs, and nails, and teeth..) with more gossip, backstabbing and bitching than an episode of Gossip Girl  - and you've just about got TOWIE summed up. It literally does not get much deeper than that. Perhaps it is easy to see why others might think someone with, um, ahem, a fairly adequate brain, shall we say, takes such a shining to this show.

Plus, I do love a bit of glitter. 

If you managed to catch last week's live episode, you'll be startlingly aware of just how scripted the show is; from the arguments - could anybody even HEAR Arg & Lydia? - hairy moments - was Joey meant to propose and he bottled it, or..? - and the so-called "talent" of the cast members - Chloe Sims, hot pink corset, "Barbie Girl", it wasn't pretty - it's clear these guys aren't actors. And yet I was...hypnotised. I truly could not look away. I needed to know what happened next with these characters. I was hooked, as is always the case; though it isn't exactly equal to an intelligent, hard-hitting investigative documentary, it is simply a maddeningly addictive watch with some amusing scenarios and characters.

"Escapism" - that's the key word here. I would much rather capture a glimpse of 'reality' from this strange,
glittering other-world where the importance of a good manicure is equal to paying off the mortgage than
watch greyscale, plausible real life with all its sensibilities and practicalities. That, and it's JUST BLOODY ENTERTAINING. Sure - it's silly, it's scripted and the cast members won't be scooping any Nobel Prizes, but it's entertainment - and don't we all need a little light-hearted break from the rather downbeat, depressing news that's occupying our screens more and more these days?

Plus - some time ago - I caught my dad in bed, on holiday, getting emotionally invested into series one. And he is a PROPER hard nut.