Homme Improvement

There is a reason why it is called "do it yourself"... because, alas, you have to do it yourself. Many moons ago I purchased a bed. This came in 2 parts:

1.) A crappy mattress

2.) A crappy frame

The frame, which goes by the alias "Bed in a Box", requires some assembly. So, I asked my darling, dear, sweet N to please help me do this as it is a two (wo)man job. He unflinchingly agreed. How could I be so blessed? Fast forward 7 weeks:

<-- The bed frame... in all its unassembled glory.

Last weekend we decided - "Oh, who cares about the stupid bed?! Life is too short to care about sleeping on just a mattress... Asian people do it all the time! Let's have a nice relaxing weekend and put it in the calendar* to put that sucker together on Wednesday night!" [Carefree laughter. We are so laid back you can just see simple material needs and worries, such as bed frame assembly, roll insouciantly off our backs.]***

***Some poetic license has been taken and obviously the conversation was a little less histrionic... But you get the idea.

Why I find this picture...annoying...:

1.) It was taken today (slightly over 24 hours since Wednesday)

2.) It apparently reflects some "progress"

I came home Wednesday night hoping to find my bed frame almost complete. Promises kept. Projects coming to fruition. Instead, I found..."progress".

Last week, the bed went from "in a box" to "on my floor next the mattress". Last night the bed went from "on the floor next to my bed in plastic wrap" to "4 parts unwrapped and placed on the bed". That was the progress.

My response? Obviously, a pat on the back, unfathomable gratitude aaaand this shaming post.

*Fun fact: They call it "diary". When you pencil someone in...you pen it in your "diary". Which can be a little confusing... At first I thought everyone journaled here - that they liked to keep copious notes on their life activities in their personal diaries or something. That's sweet. And reflective...

New Year's Procrastinations

Welp... this day did not get off to the productive, rousing start that I anticipated when I wrote my “To Do” list yesterday. Instead of leaping out of bed at 8am sharp and seizing the day as planned, I lay in bed for 2 hours, tumbled out at about 11 and stuffed my face with a pain au chocolat. So much for that salubrious breakfast to start the day off right. I then mulled around in pajamas* for an hour or so - checked facebook, judged 2-5 people, read the news and eventually... slowly... acquiesced to the demands of my “To Do” list.

1.) Get up;

2.) Get dressed.

But it’s totally fine to have a slow and ineffectual start to the day as it keeps to one of my New Year’s resolutions: to not let slow, delayed starts inhibit me from starting at all. Which is also why it is totally ok that I didn’t start my New Year’s resolution to post on my blog at least once a week until today – 3 weeks after the New Year commenced. Perfection is very 2010. For 2011, I’m seeking slow, steady progression - breaking up the monotony of gradual success with plateaus and the odd bender (to keep me grounded and humble). Perfection is so incredibly tiring, arrogant, judgemental, envious, impossible and will either drive you mad, drive everyone else mad or become so discouraging that you will be unable to do anything good with your life at all. Gone are the days [for me] of trying to have (i.e. project) it all. Something that I think is especially pertinent for women: I feel like we have to have jobs (good ones, preferably of entrepreneurial sort...so we can have families and gardens and stuff...), the perfectly decorated house, a fantastic body... and wardrobe to match (but God forbid you be vain), be able to cook, clean, socialise AND have the stamina to drink like a man and keep up with politics too (but don’t drink and know too much...that’s intimidating... and [not to mention] bloody unattractive...). You must be simultaneously brilliant, humble, deep...but only depth of the digestible nature so as to not be patronising and irritating. And this must all be accomplished while producing the most minimal carbon footprint possible. To be honest, I just came up with these New Year’s resolutions this morning on the walk home from N’s house. I was merely trying to compensate for past sins (re: pain au chocolat) by walking home when I was suddenly inspired to synchronously start a resolution and keep one (i.e. not be inhibited by slow starts). Man, I’m good. Maybe I should rethink that perfection one... it might just be impossible not to do.

I’m currently at a higgledy piggledy wine bar in my old haunts (the hood of my pre-studio, Swiss Cottage frat house) sipping the house white (the cheapest thing on the list) listening to old British men talk about the Kings Speech and their wives, whilst my crural inspiration (Tina Turner) belts in the background, thinking that the monochromatic London sky is actually the perfect backdrop to the city – it really makes all the beautiful, imposing buildings, vibrant clash of old and new and [of course] the filth “pop”... It all seems very romantic, but I’m really only here because it’s next to the Laundromat where I’m doing a mass wash of the clothes that have been fermenting at my flat since before Christmas. Never again will I let this happen. It was a hot mess trying to find enough washers to accommodate my soiled raiment.

So this post was basically pointless other than it was the stepping stone to me completing my new New Year’s resolution. If I continue my slow, steady climb to becoming an average or acceptable human being, then there should be much more to come.

Potential monographic topics:

v Epic journey across to Atlantic to Mexico to spend a week with N and the family in my actual second homeland

v A myriad of gastronomic delights enjoyed in London - which has been named [for the umpteenth time] the food capital of the world (N, please post a link to that article or something...I’m too lazy to look it up)

v Weekend trips in Oxfordshire

v My theatre 2011 experiences (I am a “Friend” of the Old Vic so I anticipate some regular theatre-going this year)

v Whatever self-deprecation I feel like oversharing with y’all

*Fun fact: They spell it “pyjamas” here...Weird. Makes me think of little indigenous people, no?