Treating myself

Tomorrow I will tell you a story that will have you shrieking in dumbfoundery and phoning your Senators and/or other elected representatives. But that's tomorrow. Today you are just going to get a list of random things that I've been doing to indulge myself.

I bought a shirt yesterday. That wasn't really an indulgence because I was having an interview with a recruitment agency rep who was visiting the department and needed to look nice. Because it was in the 40s and raining (grrr to you, England!) I took the bus and went to Primark, the cheapest store, to find the cheapest button-up dress shirt I could find. I turned my other one grey back in November with the black-sock-in-the-white-laundry bidness. I tried on a blue one with the fabric all crinkly and twisty like the cool kids are wearing their fabric nowadays, only it sort of made me look like a deranged male lampshade. Then I was lucky to find a normal 3/4 sleeve light pink one for 4 quid. It's more polyester than cotton, and is practically see-through, but I didn't care. And hey, you know what my mom says about pink . . .

The indulgence part came at the end when I treated myself to a pair of hair bobbles that I've been eyeing for months. (Fact: they call them hair bobbles here.) They're just hair elastics with a gauzy fabric flower on. One is blue, the other is a creamy color. And I kind of love them with a deep and unreasonable love. They were one pound. (And now Amyjane is rolling her eyes at me for not buying the things in the first place if it's just one stinking pound. I can see you doing it, and don't you "for the love" me, missy!)

It's a good thing I got me some hair bobbles though, because the shirt ended up being a waste of money. The interviewer lady took one look at my CV, heard the part where my visa runs out in January, and nicely said the words which translated to "Yeah, you're screwed, buh-bye."

Other indulgences:

Bought new kind of cheese at Sainsbury's. It's called Cheshire and is apparently a tangy crumbly cheese. We'll see how it goes.

Bought brie and a baguette.

Read Emily of New Moon by L.M. Motgomery because my university library didn't have Anne of Green Gables (sacrilege!). Actually, the library's fiction offerings are quite sporadic and strange. You come across piles of Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood but no Helen Fielding or Peter Mayle or other people I want to read at the moment. The children/young adult section is even worse. It's just a few piddly shelves with all these UK children's books from the 1950s with titles like The Littlest Whippet. And some Harry Potter, of course.

Took long walk into town in the sunshine today (thanks, England! Love you the most!) and saw that the roses are starting to bloom, which is a beautiful life-affirming thing.

Saw a station wagon with Corgi stickers all over the windows, including one that said "Pembroke Corgis being transported." So, you know, somebody loves her Corgis. Maybe she and Queen Elizabeth get together to talk shop.

Didn't even feel bitter when I saw couples holding hands but instead thought, "Awww . . . they're in loooove." Only then I saw this teenaged goth couple making out on a bench in the marketplace and I thought some other things, like "Get a haircut, punk" and "You might want to rethink sharing the same hair dye" and "Sweetie, try getting a pair of jeans that fit, so that your pasty flabby back doesn't hang out of them while you're hunched over your skeezy dropout boyfriend sucking his face off in front of the entire high street." So yeah, that was a step back, possibly. Or it just means that I still hate overboard PDA as much as I always have.

And now I'm done rambling for the day. I promise tomorrow's will be a doozy, though.

Posted in: England