Darling, you fucked up.

A short story told through the media of we heart it finds that have made me jolt across the months. In the case of the first image - years. 

It's always the same person they make me think of. Always bitter sweet. I've never behaved so callously, never been so angry, never played such cruel games, never kept going back to anyone else. 

My reasoning to never be with them is the thought 'if we were actually together, we'd destroy one another.' But it seems that breaking contact with them does that too.

 And it's something that should be long dead (fittingly for Dead Thing Thursday). But it just keeps coming back to life. It's like he's a bad habit I cannot break. It worries me that it'll keep happening. We'll keep haunting each other until it's too late and we're far too old to do anything about it, and we'll look at each other through rheumy eyes across a nursing home and say 'it should have been you. All these years. It should have been you.'

Rainbow Tuesday

Thank you Scar for this photo!

Oh, how I wish my hair looked like this.
I spend a long time plaiting the manes on my bosses children's my little ponies, but never does it look quite this cool...

Do something good today.

I did. Thank you for asking.
 And I really didn't want to.
It was horrible.

I gave blood.

It hurts. It makes me nervous. And twitchy.
It makes me want to smack a nurse when they take a sample, never mind a fucking pint.


Hear that, nursey?
I mean, seriously bitch, I need that stuff to live. What if I leave the building after donating and cut myself? You've just drained an 8th of what I've got. And I have really heavy periods. I have a limited supply of the stuff. I should taking a donation, not giving mine away. You've bagged it up nicely.. maybe I could just.. take it with? Just in case?

Still.

I've been meaning to donate blood for ages, thinking about it for years, but somehow nice friendly needles containing ink or metal bars keep getting me before the medical team can get to my veins, and piercings and tattoos (which I'm not scared of in the slightest) mean you can't give your blood for 6 months or a year or something. It seems to be my brain's natural response to the slightest subconscious urge to donate my vital fluids.

*Sees ad campaign for blood donation, gets all emotional, triggers subconscious urge 'I should give blood.'*
'heeeeyy.... Ali....brain here. I know what would be a swell idea... lets go get you a new shiny piercing!'
'but, brain.. we can't really afford to get a new piercing right now, they're kinda pricey, and there's a blood drive next we....'
'LETS GO GET PIERCED!!!! NO ONE IS ALLOWED OUR BLOOD! IT'S OURS! OOOUUURRRSS!!'
*Brain overules wallet (who's screaming in protest), feet take us into a nice friendly piercing shop. The end of that.*

The actual giving of the blood was terrifying.
First off, the computer kept wanting to log my details in as a man.
'No, I'm definitely female, I promise!'

Then, once I'd been through the 12 interviews and forms and the 'did you read all of the leaflet' lecture,
'Yes...?' (no, I scan read the back, saw the word bruise and got dizzy...)

I'm told to get comfy on the most uncomfortable bed thing ever and my arm gets pulled in an unatural and painful direction.
Then the nurse who's hovering over me like an obese angel of death asks someone else to attend to her previous patient because 'her vein is on the side and I always bruise those ones badly'

*startled look at nurse* 'That... doesn't fill me with confidence...'
'Oh, no don't worry, you have a great vein there. Really big one. Easy target.'
'I feel sick.'
'You'll be fine'. *hangs on to my rapidly retreating arm for grim death* 'You'll beee fiiiine' *STAB*
*FUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKKK fucking ow fucking ow, get this thing out of me. It stings. It aches. Something isn't right.*
I was surprised I wasn't gushing out over the whole room having burst the bag, my heart was beating so fast. It hurt. I tried to be all brave and normal like the nice man reading his book next to me. But it hurt.
And I could feel this line of heat going down my forearm where the tube was running across my skin. I could feel how hot my blood was on the outside of my body. Through plastic tubing.


'You doing ok there, love?'
'No... I don't like this. It hurts'
'You're not bleeding very fast...hmm... nothing's really happening.'
'Huh?! You're tapped into a vein! It does hurt though. It's...dragging.. it stings, it's really fucking sore... is that right?'
'Oh, right. Yeah. *fiddles with my stinging puncture wound* the needle has slipped a bit.'
'Ya reckon? It was scraping bone back there lady..'
'Ooh, there we go. It's working now. Oooh, you're a right little bleeder, aren't you?'
'I feel sick.'

I then, (already in panic mode) started squeezing my hand so much that I had filled my bag way before the guy who'd started 5 minutes before me had filled his. Even after they'd taken out the needle and told me to relax, I realised I was still there, pumping away with my fist on a squeezy toy. Oops.
Stressed much? Me? Never.

I wanted to leg it out the building immediately, but they wouldn't let me.

'First time, love, we like to make sure you're doing ok, you're not going to faint or anything. Wait for 10.'
'Me? Fine. I'm fine. Gotta get back to work. Gotta fly. Can I leave? Now? Now? Can I leave?'
'Do you feel ok?'
*dizzy, sick, panicky*  'yup, fine. Really fine. Can I go?'
'Eat something? Have a biscuit.'
'No, I'm ok.' *bitch, I'm on a starvation diet. Fuck off.*
'Well, if you're sure you're ok.. just don't do anything energetic straight off. Take it slow.'
'Fat chance. I work as a nanny. For a toddler. I need to go chase her now.'
'......er, I think you should stay here for a minu.....'
'BYE!' *legs it*


And power walked up the hill. And then promptly stopped after 20 steps to prevent myself falling over.


Ooops.




That precious pint of glorious red nectar better go to someone who really really deserves it.

On being alone; The room where I used to live.

One room, the over seer of relationships that come and go, the love that flows and ebbs between them all.

The girl watches the artist paint. Paint on the walls, on the floor, mixed with the melted wax on her cushion covers. Her favourite room. Taken. His studio. Setting up for painting sessions. Door shut fast, heater on high. Dressing, stripping, corsets cinching her waist, ribbons around her neck, then, his fingers in her hair. Pressed back against the cold glass of the high reaching window as the winter night looks in. His hand, unwelcome yet delicious between her legs.The hands around her throat, the play acting, the sexual tension. The rape.

Silent tears on her unmoving face, body stiff with revulsion. When she leaves, the rhythmic slap of his leather belt arching over his shoulder to cut deep into his own back.

She brings a boy home. Lies entwined on mattresses upstairs, they listen to the artist storm around his studio. The sounds of anger. The rhythmic slap. The artist stands in the doorway to that room. Threatens the boy with violence if he stays. The artist marks his territory with his stance, his attitude. The room is his. In extension, the house is his. The boy is not welcome.

Months later, the artist is gone. Gone is the easel, the boxes of supplies, the leather belt. The paint remains on the wall. Furniture added, removed, rearranged.

A man sits with his back to tattered white curtains that sway in the early summer breeze through the open window. He plays the guitar softly, accepts her apologetic kiss as she looks out, down to where the boy approaches to say goodbye. A single wrapped flower to say what words can’t. She shies away from his attempt to engage her, to kiss her. To remind her of what is leaving. She indicates the window where soft music plays; he might be watching. The man doesn’t look up from his guitar. Only the room looks on, its high reaching window silently watching them.

Two years later, furniture added, removed, rearranged. The paint remains on the wall. A bed pushed up beneath it. Photos of the man pinned to the headboard.  Of the man, and her.

She has brought the boy home. Almost as if he’d never been away. They lie entwined on the bed, underneath the photos of the man. Underneath the paint left splattered on the wall. He promises her he will always kiss her like this. He will always touch her like this.  She welcomes his embraces greedily, selfishly. The embraces she turned down two years ago, on the other side of the high reaching window that now lets in the first light of dawn, the birdsong at the break of an early summer’s day.

Weeks later, she lies awake. Startled out of a dream by the light. A fat sleeping tabby lies stretched out beside her on the bed purring deeply. She lies awake. Alone, but for the cat.

She lies on the pillow that she fancies still carries the boy’s clean scent. She lies under the headboard where photos of the man remain. She lies on the bed pushed up to the wall where paint is still splattered. And the high reaching window is thrown open, letting in the sounds of a new day beginning, the traffic and the birds of a midsummer’s day.

A year later. Another room, another city. Another early summer's day outside a different high reaching window.

No artist, no boy, no man. No cat.

Just a girl.

In a room of one's own.

Waiting for the summer to begin.

'nuff said.

Dead thing Thursday and the Zombie Princesses...

Obviously, with my job as a nanny for two very young girls, my exposure to Disney princesses has increased tenfold in the last 3 months. I used to ignore pictures of princesses. Now they catch my eye.

Particularly when they're looking fairly deranged.

Now obviously, Alice in Wonderland has been well represented in creepier form over the years. We've all seen (or dressed up as) 'Bad Alice'.
This one found at We Heart It appealed muchly.

However, Zombi-fied versions of the more traditional princesses are harder to come across. Porn versions, easy. Porn versions of Disney men, also apparently exist, as found here. (And some, surprisingly hot for a gay porn cartoon...) But zombie? I like. I like loonngg time. For the whole series, go here. Unfortunately, this is only the weheartit link, as beyond that it comes from tumblr land.

Now I just have to persuade the one who's turning 5 this weekend she wants a princess party with a twist.

Apple-bobbing, anyone?

Rainbow Tuesday

Today G and her lovely boyfriend left the country. Potentially forever. I helped them take their massive bags across London and just about held it together at the airport waving them off.

G had tied a length of rainbow ribbon I'd wrapped her last present* in around the handle of her suitcase.


 I had a gay pride moment, despite not being gay. Although, the number of people who assume I'm a lesbian these days is seriously making me consider my options. And I do like pretty girls quite a lot. Preferably tattooed. And raunchy. But somehow I've never imagined myself in a proper grown-up romantic gay relationship. I think I might try it out. But as for now, I think I'm off to bed. My very last reserve energy tank has been drained and I may keel over at any minute.
I feel ill. but as it's Tuesday......

I has an rainbow ills.

(*There will be an update on the present I made G when my camera stops being broken, as the present was rather rainbow-hued in itself.)

Dead (creepy) thing Thursday

.......wtf?

Imagine peeling your breakfast to discover that inside. I knew there was a deep reason behind my distrust of bananas. The devil's fruit. Clearly.

Rainbow Tuesday.

Today, I thought I heard strange voices in the early morning. I ignored it, and went back to sleep - through my planned jogging excursion around the common. (Funny how I slept through that...)
Then I got up. Went downstairs for work, and discovered a Korean TV crew filming in the kitchen. Somewhere,  on a Korean TV set near you (or not so near) my pissed off, make-up free morning face will be on display. Mouthing 'what the fuck?!' at my boss. Somehow, the fact we're featuring in a foreign TV documentry slipped her mind, and I never got the memo.

I have finally had a bit of time recently to be creative again, and will soon be posting some rather vibrant creations of my own. Until then, happy rainbows.