Rubbish.

I was forwarded and email today from my landlord, he wants another £600 from us, which I really don't think he's entitled to. So looks like it's going to end up in court or something equally horrific. I'm going to have to go to Citizen's Advice on Monday, which I'm really not looking forward too. Last time they were extremely unhelpful. I imagine I will be leaving there in tears not knowing where esle to turn. If it ends up that I have to pay all of this (on top of the bills and cancellation charges we got for moving out early) I will have spent all of my savings which was meant to be for a deposit. So I'll be back to square one and have to start saving another £1000, I'm only earning £270 a week so that's going to take a while.

And in other happy news, the awesome couple Dan lives with (and I am staying with at the moment) have decided to split up after around 20 years together, so it looks like Dan will have to move as well. It's just so sad, for the longest time I have help them up as my ideal relationship, but even that couldn't last.

Vivian Girls

image from last.fm 

 I went to see Vivian Girls last night, and it was sooo good! It was at the Hoxton Bar and Grill (where it was £5.20 for a rum and coke!) The support band was Veronica Falls and they were ace! It was a 2 girl and 2 boy combo with lots of harmonies and jangly guitars. Perfect!

Vivian Girls were amazing, it's a shame they only come to England about once a year. They are my absolute favourite band, everything about them is perfect, and they were so good last night. They played lots of b-sides and a new song, and they even played my favourite song which I think they've only played once before! It was so inspiring seeing a group of slightly awkward girls with tattoos playing cheap guitars that they taught themselves how to play as they went along. I really want to be in a band!

Birthday!

illustration by circlesquaretriangle

This week is my birthday week! For the longest time I have always insited that the whole week that my birthday happens to be on has to be full of  fun things. So I have an exciting week planned, today, well won't be so exciting, but will be lovely as I'm going to the library for a few hours then curling up in bed with some strawberry shortbread.

Tuesday I am going to see Vivian Girls. I can't explain how excited I am about this!! Then on Wednesday, my actual birthday I am going to see The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus at the Prince Charles cinema. I really wanted to see it when it first came out but for some reason I missed it, so it was a nicr coincidence that it's on again on my birthday! Then on Thursday I am going to see the free-jazz saxophonist Peter Brotzmann and then on Friday I am going home to see my family and eat a big chocolate cake my mum has baked for me.

I wish every week was this good!

Moving

image by katie shelton

As I was just settling into the new year and new routines my whole world gets thrown upside down. I got evicted. Long story, but basically it was leave now or go through months of court orders and losing money. We both had somewhere we could stay for the short term so we left. Right now I am writing this sitting on my boyfriend's bed. Being the super lovely person he is he's let me stay with him until  find somewhere else. So, some good's come out of it already, I'm really looking forward to living with him again, I just hope we don't annoy each other after getting used to our own space and company.

So now I have to find somewhere else to live. A huge part of me just wants to curl up in a ball underneath Dan's bed, I don't want to move again. I was just getting comfortable in my old flat and starting to make it feel like a home but now yet again I am moving. In the last ten years I have lived in 11 houses. I just don't know any more what it is like to have a home, everywhere I've lived has just been somewhere I'll have to move out of in a few months.

Also, I'm going to have to move into a flatshare cos I can't afford to get somewhere by myself. I don't want to live with strangers. I did it before and it was shit. I hate the fact that I had a lovely flat in a great part of London and now I have nothing and I'm going to have to crawl around London selling myself to strangers whose house I'm going to move into. I'm scared. What if I move in and they turn out to be horrible and ignore me like the last flatshare I lived in?

Girl Germs

I did some drawing today for the next Girl Germs clubnight. I really need to get a new cable for the scanner, so I don't have to keeping posting these terrible photos.

We're making a website for the night, which will hopefully also turn into a distro as well. When this picture is coloured (I appear to have lost my coloured pencils) and if Lydia and Mel like it, it will be the front page of the website:

need to sort the girl germs bit out.

And this is going to be the flyer for the next Girl Germs (I'll make a proper post about the night soon):

 

Poor

image by flamenconut

Another week of having no bloody money. Cos I work for a temp agency I have to build my holiday up week by week, so for every week I work I earn a half a day of holiday. They sure are generous. But because their holiday year starts in October there hadn't been enough weeks for me to build up enough holiday to even cover the days the office was shut over Christmas. So this week I got paid less than half what I usually do. Sigh.

It's just so frustrating, there are so many things I want to do, but they all involve money! Even things that would eventually be free and a good way to spend my time not spending money are going to cost a lost to get started with. I really want to start regularly drawing, but I don't have any decent paper or pencils. I want to start crafting but I can't afford any materials. I can't even photocopy my zine. I feel so stuck, I just can't see any way out of it.

Hopefully my chest infection will be better by next week and I can start cycling to work, that will save me a whopping £16 a week. I guess it's a good thing I've got a lot of reading to catch up on.

Tattoo!

I've been waiting for this appointment for 7 months now. Back in May the day I finished my exams (and my degree I guess) I went into Frith Street to book an appointment with Valerie for my next tattoo. For the other two I had done with her I only had to wait a week for the first and then a month for the second. But when I went in this time they said you'll have to go on to the waiting list and they said it would be at least 5 months! I guess I could have gone somewhere else but Valerie is really one of the only tattoo artists that I really love their work, and she is awesomely nice.

So I finally got to go in on Tuesday, I really love being tattooed. I love being in the shop, all the art on the wall, the sound of the needle buzzing and the other people who work there are really nice (and funny) too they're just so passionate about what they do and they seem really happy to be putting something on you forever.

So, the tattoo. I got a magpie, no particular reason other than I think they look cool and the crow family are awesome birds. And I have a bit of a magpie's eye, I'm always spotting money and other shiny things. It was originally going to be holding a watch, but I thought instead I'd get it holding a timeturner cos I've always wanted a way to sneak a Harry Potter tattoo on to me.

It turns out taking a picture of your own back is really hard, so here are some (crappy) pictures until I can get someone to take a better one.

 A bit of a washed out picture of front part which goes on to my arm, near my armpit:

and one of the back part which is just above my shoulder blade.

It's not completely done yet, in a few weeks I'm going to get the colours, lots of golds and yellows for the leaves and the time turner and then some blues and greens for the magpie. I absolutely love it, I really love how well it fits my body. I just know I'm going to end up covered in them :)