Sistaz fo' Lyfe

Our poor baby sister Jayne.
Our poor, tall, blonde, beautiful, swedish-exchange-student, milkman's-daughter, adopted baby sister Jayne has always been looked ay twice as she is almost the exact opposite of Charlotte & I.
Fate & genetics aligned and she received the dormant blonde & blue-eyed genes carried by mes parents (they both have blonde siblings. There is no milkman in this equation. But it is fine to drive Inga/Jayne crazy).

So. Last christmas I bought pretty silver bracelets for all three of us. Then Charlotte upped the ante* OF COURSE and suggested we get matching Cupcake Tattoos** for Jayne's 18th birthday.

Then! Craig adn I went and fell in love with London, and Charlotte decided to come and see what all the fuss is about and the timing of all that means that, more than likely (fingerscrossed fingerscrossed), we will both be overseas when Jayne turns 18 in 2009.

Somehow, witchcraft perhaps, or by virtue of being the youngest & most golden child, & a very convenient case of glandular fever, she managed to convince the parents (heads shaking, tongues tutting all the while) that we should be able to get them for her 17th birthday instead. And in fact because I'm off to Hawaii, it would ha ve to be before her birthday so technically she was SIXTEEN.
Incredible. I wasn't even sure that they'd let me and I'm 24.

So. Last Thursday rolls around & I am so nervous I can barely speak. Twice tattooed Charlotte laughs at me.



A Lot.



But I suck it up and we get ready to go. I took before photos. Hoping I would be brave enough to there be an after photo.





Juuuuuust as we gathered our bags mother-darling pulled into the driveway. I KNEW IT. Trying to stop us. But no, Just home early, please please don't but off you go was all she said.
Craig drove us around to Tattoo Freaky & we tried to explain what exactly it was that we were after. I could hear my stupid baby voice get even higher. We were booked at the same time but my little drawing was completed first and on watery legs I sat down with Dave, my tattooist. Any semblance of cool I had was G.O.N.E.
He asked if I was ready & I snatched my arm away & made inane small talk. I AM SO COOL.
As he dipped his (needle? pen? wand!?!) into the ink he asked me what the significance of the cupcakes was*** and all I could manage as a reply was Uuh. I'm sorry. I can't really think about that right now. All I could think about was Imminent Pain. I clutched Craig's hand & buried my face in arm, breathing as slowly as I could. Then he started. And it burned. A little. But nowhere near what I was expecting (woo). Adrenaline kicked in & while it still hurt, and I couldn't really watch it, and I definitely needed Craig's hand, I could talk to Jayne as she started her hip tattoo. Charlotte held her hand until I was done then we switched and she went to get her head tattooed. HER HEAD.











We rewarded ourselves with Peachee and Bepanthan. And in general feeling pretty Bad Atth. We looked like we'd been in dog fights (well, not Jayne. She just winced as she sat down. She looked 70 as opposed to dog-fight-y).







And a couple of days later ...









It's been a few days now & I still grin when I catch a glimpse of it.
It's like when you get an amazing, dramatic, new haircut. Only it's FOREVER.




*which is great. I keep forgetting to wear the damn (pretty!) thing and opting instead for my tiger head bracelet.

** CAN'T forget to wear that one!

*** Because we are adorable (cupcakes) and bad ass (tattoos). And pretty damn random (having cupcake tattoos). And totally awesome (having cupcake tattoos).

My Sister agrees with my crazy theories. This worries me.

Dear The Internet,

I think New Zealand may secretly be a black hole.
I have been back for more than a month and yet? the fact that I'm leaving again in ... 13 Days (Thirteen! Under Two Weeks!) seems impossible. Improbable. Didn't I actually just arrive yesterday? possibly the day before?
Although, I really can't deny that the world is turning, time is passing, and all that, as within the last two weeks it has gone from darkness to dawn to ever-so-slightly daylight when I leave for work in the mornings (So Early. Hate).

I almost don't want to go to London again. It is a trip to say goodbye. To pack up our little room & leave a few bits and pieces in storage with friends so that hopefully, by osmosis, the home office works out that we belong in London and grants our visas super-quick.
We are kidding ourselves that it's just a little vacation by planning a few days in Hawaii on the way over. To make up for the fact that we don't really get a summer this year. This is mainly Craig's idea. I am not so much a sun & sand person. Definitely not an anticipatory sun & sand person. Once I am there, with a book, Spf 500 sunscreen, and salt-dreadlocked hair, I love it. Until then ... it seems like too too much trouble.
Craig is adorable in his excitement. He wants to learn to surf. We want to go snorkelling. I am thinking of getting a waterproof digital camera.

I think that really, what I want, is to get on with the 8-10 months of working constantly. To know that each hour working is an hour closer to the goal amount that will allow us to apply for the top Tier of the cake of London visas. At this stage there are so many months stretching ahead of me that they are a pinprick in the distance. Around a huge corner. And in general hard to keep in sight.
I'm hoping that New Zealand really is a black hole and these coming months will pass in an instant.

Now all we have to do is try and work out if we're able to arrange a 10 month sub-letting situation for our Darling Flat in SE1. Do you know of anyone interested Internet?

xoxo
Sarah-Rose

It's not always paranoia ...

Now I'm being watched by hidden stuffed animals!
Little stuffed spies.
I find it most disconcerting.

A confession. Stupidity. Glee.

I need to preface this entry. A lot.
1. I am not a big computer person (really! I promise!)
2. I am not pregnant or getting divorced.

I have an iPhone (did you know? I don't like mentioning it. Because people obsessed with their iPhones terrify me). I also have a Macbook. And an iPod.
Despite these things, I am not a "Mac" person. I do not think Steve Jobs is god (Blasphemy!?! But then who am I to know). I just think that it can't hurt to have a computer that is speedy as well as beautiful. Oh so pretty.
When the iPhone was announced I thought what's the point? I have an iPod. And a phone with a camera. Why oh why would I ever need them combined? And then I went into the Apple store on Regent Street.
It might have been all the space and the white and the shiny, but I picked up an iPhone, played with it for ooo all of five minutes, turned to Craig and said It must Be Mine. MUST and he shook his head in that wise, pc-loving, Nokia-phone0using, ever-so-patient way that he has (argh) and told me that of course I could get one. If I saved up for it. Damn him and his sensible ways.
So I saved. And saved. I got bored with saving and then I saved some more.
Finally I bought one. And it was beautiful and it was mine. And I loved it (obsessed? with my phone. Not the iPhone in general). Craig even played with it for a while and now secretly (or not so secretly) kind-of-almost-sort-of wants one of his own. Victory.

I told you that story, to tell you this story.

Two nights ago I was in my bedroom collecting clothes to wash. I grabbed my phone on my way out of my room and thoughtlessly (actually. I lie. I thought about putting it in my pocket but ...) chucked it on top of my pile of clothes. Do you see where this is going?
In the little black case I lovingly bought for it, I chucked it on top of my black and dark grey clothes that I was about to put into the washing machine. Do you see now? Oh, the agony of hindsight.

Fast forward two hours. My laundry had beeped to completion and I thought to check my messages before I put my clothes in the dryer. But where was my phone? (Agony!) I swear, I almost passed out when I looked at the ominously quiet laundry, opened the lid of the washing machine and, stomach dropping, saw my poor baby phone, the darling phone I had named Dracula (yes. really.) sitting alone at the bottom of the washing machine, isolated from the skulking clump of wet laundry. Agony.

My mind shut off and I raced upstairs, stared in the mirror and cursed myself. How could I tell Craig that I had been so monumentally stupid? I would never hear the end of it.
And with that, I raced back downstairs, secretly collected me phone from the laundry and tried to act nonchalant as I collected a tea towel, a bowl of dry rice, & my mother's hairdryer. No one noticed. I don't think that says much for my usual behaviour.

My phone wouldn't turn on. Agony. After a couple of hours in a bowl of dry rice, on top of a heater, covered with a tea towel, & dried with the hair dryer it was not only turning on but receiving text messages!
There was an almost beautiful mottling on the screen but it was fading and after a further hour with the hairdryer, and being left in the rice overnight, even that was gone!
I did dream that I would wake up to find it was over-dried & disintegrating, falling apart in my hands. HATE you subconscious.

Now my darling Dracula phone looks just as it ever did. Perhaps even better! it fought the washing machine (killer of expensive sweaters, eater of socks) and won.
It is older, & wiser but bears no actual scars.



Perhaps the touch screen is marginally less sensitive in areas and I don't know yet if the battery life has been diminished but if that's all my punishment for such stupidity? I'll take it.

I won't hear anything said against the iPhone ever ever again. It is made of envy & pieces of rainbow.

I feel like I'm being watched ...

There is an angry (snooty? worried? inscrutable?) Meerkat on the desk
behind me at work today.
I quite like him. I've named him Monty.

Baby, what you going to do?

Do you know what I hate? Not being in London. I really hate it.
That's not to say that I hate being in New Zealand. Because I don't.
A lot of my favourite people are here.
I'm just not living in a city that gives me butterflies.

Craig and I finally finally made a decision for our future.
Instead of going to Dublin or Canada or Vienna (all of which were seriously considered at one point or another (maybe not so much Vienna. I don't speak any German (but it does look beautiful!))) we are going to spend some months (8? 9? who knows at this point? Not me!) in New Zealand before applying for brand sparkling new visas which will (fingers crossed!) allow us to spend longer than a year or two back in London.
If we had chosen one of the other countries on our list we would have ended up in the exactly same situation we're in now, only twelve months down the line!
I don't think I could do this again!
And I'm so so willing to spend a few months slightly irritated for a longer stretch of our lovely itinerant lifestyle.

I actually feel really positive about this decision (I know! me! positive! crrrrraazy).
So. August in New Zealand, September in London (love!), and from October? Nouvelle Zélande again.
Sigh.

.

On a completely different note!
I've been working as a temporary super-receptionist at a company in Wellington this week. And three out of the four days that I've been working there?
I have (accidentally!!) color co-ordinated with the other receptionist.
Yet again my life proves itself completely ridiculous!

The first day? it was cute. The second day? it was funny as other people in the office started to notice. The third day? RIDICULOUS.

Don't panic! we discussed it today and chose completely different colours to wear tomorrow. Let's see if it works!

Dearest, Oh Darling, The Internet

Hi! How've you been? It's been forever and a week. Or something.
Ages. Really Ages. And ever ever so much has happened!

Like right now? I'm in New Zealand.
Unless you follow my twitterings religiously (ha!) you might not have noticed as it was all a tremendous secret.
I left London on a Tuesday, arrived in Wellington on a Thursday (Hi? Wednesday? Where were you? GONE! NOWHERE! DEATH! I only saw you for an hour in Hong Kong)) and proceeded to actually Hide Out as my secret squirrel sister couldn't quite convince my Dad that there was an actual honest to G reason that we should celebrate Mum's birthday a day early.
And despite the ludicrous incident where my family walked within inches of the parked car I was sitting in (I had to duck!) the surprise worked amazingly. I have never seen my mother's face look so terrifyingly mask like. She was speechless and best of all she didn't bleed on me (there is precedent).

Despite all the gaiety I have mainly been disappeared because my photo didn't even place in the Shortlist competition (you might have guessed that). Thankfully I actually liked 3 out of the 4 winning entries. By the end of it all I was completely sick of that photo and I couldn't go near Oh freaking Darling dot net dot nz. Ack.

And because, oh most of all because our grip on our London Idyll is ever so tenuous and I can't talk too much about it without screeching and blood pouring from my ears.
There's nothing that can be done. The Home Office mist have its' way with us and we ... (really regretting this metaphor) have to bend over and take it.

Craig and I have been attempting to make Life Decisions (Hi! we're hugely indecisive. HATE) but thankfully we have plans and contingencies and while they don't include being in Rome for my 25th Birthday, I'm pretty happy with them.
I've decided that I simply won't turn 25 until I can be in Rome.

This is all compounded (Yes. MORE DRAMA. How am I holding it together? Ha. You make me laugh.) by the fact that CRAIG IS STILL IN LONDON!
We have been apart for 17 days and there are 22 (ack) more before we are reunited.
And on top of THAT, next Monday, the 14th July 2008 marks EIGHT YEARS of Craig & I being Craig & I.

Keep calm & carry on. Keep calm & carry on. Keep calm & carry on. Keep calm & carry on. Keep calm & carry on. Keep calm & carry on. Keep calm & carry on. Keep calm & carry on.

Don't Panic

Oh. I took photos of my photo in the Shortlist Magazine. Last week? two weeks ago? Three?
Hardcopy proof of my photo as photo of the week.

I sound conceited. I'm just excited*.







And then I notice that they misspelled my name again. And that just makes me smile in an absurd little way.

I guess the universe thinks my head is big enough as it is.


* (And nervous, a little (okay, a lot). My photo may not end up in the June 19th issue of Shortlist Magazine along with the winners of the competition. This may be as close as I get.)

On a day of mainly downs? This was definitely an up.

After a morning of doom and gloom I decided to check the website for the Canon Shortlist Competition (top 4 win a canon eos 450D!) which I entered a few weeks ago and my photo? is Photo of the Week!!!



It cheered me up immensely. I may have done a little dance in my office. But if anyone asks? I did NOT.

So please please PLEASE go to http://www.shortlist.com/canon/gallery.php and vote for my photo! 5 stars!
I mean, if you think it deserves it of course. Love you!

(It seems to be down twice. As Sarah Rose-Burke from Southwalk and as Sarah Rose from Southwark. The Sarah Rose-Burke one has more votes. Let's go with that one then!