papervolcano

I'm about to move to Reading. This has been in the works for about 2 months, but got kicked into gear a month ago when I got my new job. I'll point out that in the last 8 years, I've moved 12 times. I am good at moving house.

However, this move is turning into an epic arsemonkey. Mainly because I allowed someone else to plan The Carting Of The Crap.

This is the first time since uni that I'm moving into a new house with housemates I picked, rather than moving into a pre-established houseshare. As we're both converging on the new house from the same direction, it was decided that we'd move together - get one van to pick up him, then pick up me. This seemed like a reasonably, if complicated idea, with just some minor details to sort out.

Ha.

I offered my little brother as a mover/driver. Sibling is an Army Engineer, and so is very good at carrying heavy stuff from one place to another (and then blowing it up). Nooo, said housemate. I am Man, I will Sort It Out. I offered to go halves on a man-with-a-van - 'Nooo,' sayeth he, my mate said he might be able to do it, I will Sort It Out'. Unwisely, I did not strongly voice my opinions of said mate, who is known far and wide for his inability to throw a piss-up in a brewery, and suggested that we each move our own crap 'Noooo', he doth spake, 'my stepdad will be back from holiday at the weekend, surely he will assist'. 'Alas, I need to... get my hair cut?' said the alopecic stepfather. At this point, I did point out that it was 4 days until the intended day of moving and that fingers should really be removed from orifices. Also, that Sibling had dedicated this week to a scientific experiment involving vast quantities of alcohol and the point of liver failure, and so would be unlikely to be capable of lifting anything heavier than a pint glass, so that was one option down. 'I am Man', flatmate did say 'I will Sort It Out'. And Lo! On Monday, He did arrange a Man With A Van for a suspiciously low price. Alas!, said Man With A Van did call at 5pm on Tuesday to offer apologies for the mysteriously not-working van.

Which brings us to 6pm. Sibling has been roused from his drunken stupor, I now owe him half my organs and a million billion squillion quid, but he will be moving me to the new house tomorrow. Flatmate will be arranging his own transport. Possibly, even before he has to move out.

I am mildly tense. Cider is helping, as is expensive cake (fuck the diet). Still. Tense.

Have recently been writing and deleting very short LJ entries. Rather than spam away with those, I'm going to try resurrecting my twitter account as an actual repository for such nonsense, rather than my stalking of people.

I am Here. Anyone else I should be following?

Went to Bristol Comic Expo. Was fun. Finished my collection of Judge Dredd phonebooks, picked up the Mega-City Underground trade (pure awesome) and a stack of an indie comic - Fetishman, which is possibly best described as suicide bunnies do Batman in a fetish shop on Earth-something. Which probably isn't a good sales pitch, but it is silly nifty fun.

Didn't get any sketches or look at other indie books - negotiating the hall with my cane was wiping me out. I may end up going to Birmingham comic-thing purely to get some. I can't afford a page of Doug Braithwaite's comic art, but I can afford a convention sketch.

Panels were kind of crap, as they'd buggered up the overhead projector. Somewhere, I have a list of Vertigo stuff I need to buy (and why do I only hear of awesome Vertigo stuff to buy at these panels? Advertise, you fools!)

I really need to do some cooking so I have food for next week. So very not going to happen.

I've not commented on any of the recent fuckwittery for a lot of reasons. I'm not ignoring it, I just can't formulate a response that doesn't consist of one long string of expletives.

This is a recipe I've been meaning to post for a while. I nicked it out of my mum's collection of recipe cuttings (I have a stash of recipes almost an inch thick I've begged, borrowed and flat out stolen from her collection. It rivals my weekly comics haul), and I think she got it from Good Food magazine - the formatting looks like them (should I be able to identify cookery magazines by their layout? It seems a strange skill). I'm not sure why she hashad it, as she's not especially fond of this kind of stuff, and I've never seen her cook it. Never mind - this is one of my favourite things to have in the freezer, particularly for when I'm feeling fatigued/lazy/peckish/hungry

( Hot Sour Corn Soup )

Also! Adorable Boba Fett Amigurumi Also, Indiana Jones and Darth Vader crochet cuteness! Sometimes, I wish I were better at crochet and/or sculpy, because I keep seeing adorably cute things like this, and I'd love to make a Titans set (tell me you can't see Kory in that style). Alas, I'm a better knitter than crocheter. One day!

Oh Cock.

(I mean, I kind of knew this was coming and have been steeling myself for it, but Boris Johnson. The man is a pillock, a bumbling fool. I dread the day his handlers forget to gag him.)

(also. The fucking BNP have a seat in the London Assembly. London, I don't like you any more)

I had intended to post another recipe before now, but I am a slacker and also forgot.

Tonight, I am mainly attending this talk. Women and science and research and communication and debate and THIS IS RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS. Also, my degree, should I get round to restarting it.

It's the first time I've been to the Dana Center, and all I can say is that I am Fond. There is a very nice bar/cafe which serves nice food and very nice wine. They give me free wifi, and there is no shortage of power sockets. It's modern and grownup and there are tasty French waiters with dreadlocks.

People keep complementing my laptop. As I said, Fond.

Hopefully, I'll get round to writing up my thoughts on the actual lecture at some point. I've my first appointment with my ME specialist tomorrow, and that's making me a little nervous, mainly because I don't know what to expect.Meh, I'll find out soon enough.

There's a guy outside my window wearing a toga. I think it's liable to be in a non-ironic fashion (what with the rain and the Sunday afternoon and the conspicuous lack of parties nearby)

London? ♥

I do a hell of a lot of bitching and whining in this space, and it's annoying me. So I want to make a conscious change, and start posting about stuff I like. I'm not good at the kind of book/comic/tv reviewing I like to read, but I figure I can probably manage to talk about food and cooking.

I love food, you can tell from the size of my hips. Most of my earliest memories revolve around being in one kitchen or another. As soon as I was able to see over a kitchen counter and reliably hold a knife without killing myself, I was helping out. My mum trained as a chef, and prior to their divorce, my parents ran a pub together. It was in one of the most impoverished parts of the UK in the middle of a recession, so we're not talking about fancy gastropub food, but without her skills, the pub would never have done as well as it did. I can't hope to match her, but I can try.

I love cooking, but I've not really had the space before. I feel guilty when I use a shared kitchen to do big cookery, and the last time I lived alone, it was in a really quite dodgy bedsit. In my new flat, not only do I have the space, but I also appear to have inherited an entire kitchen full of stuff - most of which I kind of want to throw away. Balti pans and ice cream makers are fun, but what they're mainly doing is taking up space.

I want to do more cooking for a couple of reasons beyond the fun. First - in general, it's cheaper, and second - it's probably more healthy. I don't need to add umpteen preservatives, colourings, stabilisers or whatever, because I don't need to sell it to anyone else or have it stand on a supermarket shelf for however long. It's so much easier for me to monitor how much oil/butter/salt/sugar I use, and to substitute ingredients to be healthier or whatever. Also, I'm awkward to feed - have you ever tried to avoid tomatoes, olives and mushrooms when you're a vegetarian? Not fun.

Today, I have mainly been making bread. I don't know if there's a single thing I like making more than bread. It's easy, it's quick enough, and it's just full of sensation - the feel of kneading bread, the smell of it baking, the *taste* of just-baked bread. It also sounds sounds impressive, which feeds my ego. It doesn't take any particular skill or knack, but there's this perception of bread baking being difficult - so very not. I'd post photos, but my camera has decided not to talk to non-windows machines, git that it is.

( A really easy white loaf )

I haz a referral to the ME clinic at the Royal Free. Yay!

I has flat! It is *awesome*. I've also done most of my unpacking (well, the important bits, like my books. Clothes are still liberally strewn about the place, but they don't count - clothes aren't important like books). Virgin have been disturbingly competent and delivered my internet stuff early, so I've also got shinyfast broadband too.

Not only do I have a shinynewflat things, I also have ice cream and mead and daffodils and a lack-of-cane. My life is so made of win.

:D

Random Thoughts

1. You weren't actually intending to do any work today were you? Good, because you need to spend some considerable time looking at these images recently beamed back from Mars. At the very least, you should go gaze at this Martian avalanche.
   
1. I wish I were a good enough scientist to have been able to do it professionally. HOW AWESOME would a career in astrogeology be?
   
2. Snickering as my landlord realises he's left his car lights on all day and the battery is flat - mean, or delightful schadenfreude? He has been several kinds of arsehole while I've lived here, fwiw.
1. Has anyone ever met a sane, non-arsehole landlord/estate agent? I don't think I've ever met one that didn't exude a field of low-grade evil and high-grade fail.
3. Is there some sort of universal law that determines that everyone with my number tries to call me on the one day I manage to actually cook dinner? One plate of food, 5 phone calls. Universe, that was uncool.
   
4. Guy who is taking my room in the current house finally called to arrange the transfer of deposit. Sounds dozy, but yay for not being entirely, agonisingly skint!
   
5. 2 days to pack all my crap. May have left this a little late.
   
6. Teen Titans Year One: MADE OF AWESOME AND WIN AND AWESOME AND YAY AND CUTE. Seriously, buy this book. Even if it's the only book you buy. Even if you've cancelled all of your comics subscriptions and swore never to give DC another penny. Buy this book.
( Torchwood spoilers, ETA more reaction. )
7. ETA: The paper I'm currently dealing with couldn't be more full of race and gender issues if it *tried*. WTF AUTHOR, YOU ARE MEANT TO KNOW BETTER THAN THIS.
8. ETAgain: There are few greater pleasures on this earth than wandering round Borough Market with an empty stomach. I has *good* food.
1. Also, scrumpy. I am *totally* going to get packed on time.

In preparation for moving, I am currently undergoing a debooking. This is a painful process, as it involves deciding which of my babies I want to give up for adoption in the nearest charity shop.

(currently: most of my Sharpe novels, because if you've read one, you've read all of them, Robin Hobb's oeuvre - 'let's see if we can fuck with Fitz even more!, and assorted others, but not such works of classic literature as Red Dwarf novelisations. Also, not my Pratchett hardbacks, because if anyone tries to take those off me, I will break their hands, even when I have well-meaning duplicates. Then again, I am giving away the last two Science of Discworlds, as they annoyed me greatly...)

It is a process I have liberally lubricated with a rather nice bottle of Pinot Grigo. Hence the even less sense-making than usual.

Among the books up for adoption is an uncorrected proof of Clare Clark's The Great Stink. I'm not sure why I was given it, but it's an interesting book, and you don't come across many bound uncorrected proofs (at least, I don't). I have no great affinity for the 1800s, the Crimean war or the Victorian period in general (hence the giving away), but it's a good story, good (highly descriptive) prose and an interesting concept.

Anyone want it? Just say the word.

ETA: Do Want!. And I could totally make it myself too. If I were allowed near power tools, at least.

I has a *houuuuuuuuuuuse* Or, at least, I has a deposit on a flat. It's awesome and lovely, and I don't have to share it with *anyone*, which is rather nice, as with one or two exceptions, I do not have good flatmate-fu. One day, when I'm already drunk and morose (not now - I'm just drunk now), I will inflict upon you the story of my second year at uni.

Flat! Mine! All Mine! I'll have an entire four rooms to myself. I won't have to sleep in the same room as *all* my crap (as I currently have to), or be able to cook dinner without leaving bed (Camden). There's a sofa! I'll have somewhere to sit that isn't my bed! A table! Do you know when I last ate off a table at home? It's been a while.

I have a garden. Well, 2x3m of overgrown weeds, but compared to my living situation for the last few years, it's Hyde Park.

It's in East London. Leyton, to be slightly more specific. I've never really spent time in East London before. I have a mildly Neverwhereish view of lots of London. North London, I know reasonably well. I've lived everywhere from Muswell Hill to Camden Town, from Islington to Upper Holloway. I know the Northern Line like the back of my hand. Central, also not a problem. I spent an not inconsiderable amount of time in South Kensington, sharing a 4 bed cellar with 5 other people. It wasn't fun. South of the river, I am convinced is populated by monsters and aliens, and probably dinosaurs and a lost Roman legion or two. I would probably spontaneously combust if I went south of the river (South Bank doesn't count). But East London was just a sort of nebulous *there* in my head, until I started looking for somewhere to live. A 1-bed in my current area would set me back in the region of >£1000 PCM as a minimum, kiiiind of out of my budget. But I'd been hearing nebulous good things about East London, and so checked it out. Rather glad I did so.

It's kinda weird. This time last year, I was functionally homeless, sleeping on my ex's floor (I'm sure you can imagine how well that went over with his fiancee). Despite all the crud of the last year, I'm now in a position where I can afford a good flat in one of the most expensive cities on the planet. Yay me!

I move on the 8th, which gives me 3 weeks to find someone to take over my current place and bribe my brother to come do heavy lifting. Certainly doable. I'll be leaving behind a not inconsiderable amount of good things, not least the best delivery place in the entire city, but eh. I'll manage.

Flat! Mine! (soon!)

Notes on fandoms: This week's comics, Torchwood S1&S2, including ep6, and a question about a song.

( Squee, spoilers and vids below the cut.  )

This week has been Interesting Times. ( Below: Complaints, creativity, craving )

In 2001, I was lucky enough to be able to go to Peru. In between interminable house moves, I thought I'd lost all of my photos. However! I recently discovered one of the CDs I burned - specifically, some of the stuff from Machu Picchu and the Amazon. I also found my old travel journal, which I've not yet reread.

Photos are here, should you be interested.