Her socks

I want them. They did a photoshoot with Kate Beckinsale to emulate this video (which is how I found the video and the socks, oh my god the socks) and it made me realise how unattractive I find that girl. Especially when they played they cut the two together. I'll take crazy Frenchie who can't dance over Kate sticking her bra out at me any day. Have you checked out the socks yet, I really think you should.

Also Topshop stole my pants. I buy three because oh look it's a buy three deal. They run out of the best one so they don't tell me and just send me two. No option to pick another pair to replace them. Gee thanks. Two is one less than three in the oh yay I bought something excitement scale. Ok so they didn't charge me and it is money saved and I don't need more underwear but still. They stole my pants. But the rest of my order is just awesome enough to make up for it. Top of the list of the counter argument to "Why Catherine is a guy" was "she has good underwear". It was a list to be proud of but alas, it fell down the back of my locker. Some day they'll gut that place and future peoples will know that I have never seen Pretty Woman and my pants were deemed acceptable.

Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Topshop is terrible. I will say it. Whereas before I spent most of my time stocking up on tshirts and the occasional skirt, maybe even a pair of jeans come the sales, now if I can be bothered going in I buy pants, rings and maybe a pair of tights if they are particularly great and there isn't an equivalent in Primark for a fraction of the price. That is how I shop. This is mostly because a lot of their stuff is now hideous, over-the-top rot and if I wanted to look like a crackwhore I'd spread my legs and sniff my own brand of blow thank you. I don't need Miss Moss to tell me what to wear. However, their website informed me of this

Every self-respecting fashion addict knows pins should be dressed in lace tights and thigh-high socks for the new season.

Holy crap! says I. Thigh-high socks, yes please. I was confused then when there were no socks for sale. I didn't let that bother me though and gamely entered the fray with pennies in my pocket and fought my way through the scenesters and isthatamanorawomanican'ttellohgodhenoticedmestaringmaybeishouldjustaskohnoiseeabulgeinthosegirljeans.

They have no thigh-high socks. They have hats and scarves and lots of stuff that would imply they have new season stock in but not what I want. Not the one thing I convinced myself would be the perfect thing to cheer me up today. The bastards.

So I did what any self-respecting half-miserable exhausted girl who will soon realise she has not only put on a tshirt that belongs to her sister but that it is inside out would do. I bought a pair of impractical knickers with money I was saving to buy a dvd. And then when I tried to sort my top out on the train this huge fat guy gave me an odd look and I paused for a moment. Then an old couple sat beside me and I gave up, doomed to be the wrong way round for another twenty minutes.

That was my day apart from lots of mopping and hoovering and sighing and general contemplation over how I manage to wind myself up over silly little things. My new plan for the remainder of the year is to hide from everyone. I will drown myself in blankets if I must leave the house or if I feel obliged to pass the time in the company of the people I do not hate like some sort of vampire. It is the safest option.

Summer don't know me no more

Guys, guys see this skirt?

I paid a fiver for this skirt. It feels amazing. Seriously, I could touch this skirt forever which is gonna be a problem when I wear it out. Be like the time I had these amazing feeling tights and I couldn't keep my hands off myself. Not appropriate but my god, it feels amazing.

Walking down to work I found a letter on the ground. I didn't read much of it, was something medical about a consultation about cosmetic surgery on the eye area. It was kinda weird. I don't like invading people. It's like I'd like to read Sylvia Plath's diaries but she never intended them to be published so I don't buy them. I feel weird even reading certain blogs and hell if I find a mention of myself I stop reading. Saying that I listen into conversations all the time and I watch arguments so maybe I'm talking shit. Wouldn't be anything new. I was gonna do a post about how much I adore Cibo Matto but I can't really be bothered. They are great though. If you want cute Asian girls (one of which was Noodle for a little while) singing nonsense about food and Obi Wan well they're your band.

There are

thirteen Smiths on the fiction shelves in Borders.

Thirteen.

I need me a new name.

We were talking about names the other day, my family and I. I think it was Julie who was considering the tradition of passing on names and asked why Dad wasn't named after his mum's dad. I can't really remember how she came to that slightly contorted conclusion. Anyway point is if he had been named for his maternal grandfather, my father would be John Smith.

I mean I have nothing against my surname, it's easy to spell and pronounce and balances out my long first name so I can usually just about fit it on a line but damn it isn't very exciting.

More exciting I got the cutest top, and I mean the cutest top, and a skirt from my local designer charity shop. Got them both for a tenner I did which is fantastic considering the top was more than that originally on its own. I do love secondhand shopping. There are so many ugly things that I want to own and make pretty but I'm not that talented and often they are too expensive. I still long for them though. Terrible dresses haunt my sewing machine. One of my biggest regrets clothing wise was this huge tshirt with the Doors on it. It was too expensive so I had to leave it on a hanger but dammit I had a plan. There was this perfect design in my tshirt book and oh sometimes it's painful to think about.

Believe in neither but fear 'em as well

Cherry jelly may be the best thing ever. I mean, seriously, AWESOME.

Went shopping today with the vague lesbian. I haven't 'been shopping' for goddamn ages. Such a girly thing to go do. I mean I shop in that I buy things or try things on when I get bored between classes. We didn't buy anything today just wandered round laughing at extremely shiny bras and bondage kits talking drunken exploits and dwindling relationships. Until she got a craving for doughnuts and we walked down Buchanan street with the box in one hand and jam and sugar everywhere. By the time we were on Argyle Street we'd eaten 2 apiece and felt a little sick. She desperately wanted to meet someone we knew so we could pass on the unwanted baked treat but we met not a soul and her boyfriend merely suggested we hold on to it until he turned up for work at 5. Pfft to that says I and start looking through my list of people who would gladly take the food off our hands (considered just handing it to someone but doubted anyone would trust us) and was fairly successful much to her amusement.

"I love coming out with you. You're as insane as I am but you don't hide it."

The best compliments are the ones that are kinda insulting.

Possibly the only time I will talk about shoes

Crazy crazy dreams last night. I was chatting up a girl from Texas and Audrey Hepburn was in the corner giggling. Mum woke me up and I was still confused by the time I made it to Tesco and all of the fridges were broken so I had to kind of make do with a breakfast/lunch of a cheesecake thing that I ate with my fingers because I'll be damned if I'm doing dishes at work and a packet of crisps. Small wonder I'm losing weight el rapidomente.

Bummed around in Topshop because it was something to do. Man you should see what I look like today. You're not gonna but if you did you'd laugh. First off I couldn't find any clothes in the dark this morning so I'm wearing a red polo shirt. It's quite nice actually, dead comfy with Kronk on my left breast which I'm assuming is the make but makes me think of the Emperor's New Groove and the incredibly less funny Kronk's new groove that Julie puts on sometimes when Happy Feet ain't on. All my jeans that fit my slowly shrinking ass are in the wash so all I have are my man jeans. Hella comfy, amazing pockets but sadly don't do much for the figure. In that I kind of look like I have a cock. I have pulled in these jeans though? Good thing, bad thing, ain't sure. To top this off my hair was awful, and I don't mean comic or interesting or yeah I kinda slept in a hedge, I just mean really shoulda washed it last night. So I put on my oshit hair! hat. We all have one. Mine is a trucker hat, khaki with bunnies on it to make it less manly. Although most people don't notice the bunnies at first. Ironic part is I bought it like a couple of months after my boyfriend left me and trucker hats were the one item of clothing that he loved that I did not buy to wear for him. Never found one I liked enough. Point is I look like a lesbian or a guy who happened to have breasts and Topshop was full of girly shoppers and their incredibly bored boyfriends. After striking up a conversation with one of them, dancing about in a pair of shoes that were really cute but unnecessary and knocking over several pairs of ugly tights I found myself in Primark instead. Me and Primark get on ok. On the one hand children probably had to fight monkeys in the tacky nylon mines to bring us half of its stock on the other I once bought a Catholic school girl skirt for £3. Three. That's like cheap. And the skirt? Pretty damn awesome and not overtly catholic school girly that I can't wear it out which I do. Today child labour brought me shoes for 4 quid. Shoes which I attacked rather messily with markers. I'm quite proud of them. Gotta waterproof em and test em out though. Have an arty shoe pic with bonus hat.

Drops of Jupiter

Guess what! It's Monday and I'm poor again.

The problem with Sunday being payday is that I'm forced into a quiet weekend and then I splurge on my day off and by the time it's time to socialise I'm skint again. This week it's worse as, after much batting of my eyes, my father had paid me in advance so I could jaunt off to the cinema with a behatted Joe.

Mum and I went to Ikea. We love Ikea. We can spend hours in there looking at potential rooms, seeing how far I can propel myself in the swivel chairs and stuffing every pocket with those tiny pencils that are no good to anyone. I was doing well before we even got on the bus because Fopp was open and still proclaiming that all French dvds were £6. Guess which one was not. The only freakin one I wanted to buy. I won't whine since it was there, albeit hidden in the complete wrong place and 3 times the price it should be, but it was there and now it is here, safe on my shelves soon to be viewed. And then I bought Casablanca and Breakfast at Tiffany's because they were a fiver each. And The Little Prince because it was a pound and I only have a giant fancy hardback version. Not always practical.

Onto Ikea. We caved in and started with coffee and the best strawberry tarts ever. The bonding was slightly marred by Joe insisting I go see a film about vagina dentata but the strawberries made everything pretty again. They obviously influenced me greatly as I've come home with rather a lot of red.

To start with I'm wrapped in a new gorgeously warm bright red blanket which you won't get to see because I couldn't be arsed trying to take a picture of myself and otherwise it just looked like a pile of fleece. Which it is. Then I bought a red nightlight. Not because I'm afraid of the dark. In fact I can't sleep unless it's really dark. But because we'd already bought the other ones and we had to complete the set! Like pokemon only less numerous and exciting. Lookit them glow!


Lastly on my way out I found daisies. I dare you to be unhappy in the face of these cuties. They're my absolute favourites and I grinned like a fool all the way home.



Also my mum bought these to hang up socks on the line. She didn't even realise they were designed to look like octopuses (octopi?) until I pointed out the eyes. And the disembodied legs in the background are the Blues Brothers in case you were wondering. No we don't know why we have them either but everytime my mum tries to move them my dad huffs.

Aw craps

Feeling bored, I took out the last of my birthday money and went shopping. Intending to have a quick perusal while Julie purchased more Final Fantasy figures I came home with a dress that might be too school girly, Percy Shelley, and 2 pairs of socks. I mean they're pretty damn great socks but now I'm home with the remnants of my bank account and BAM here's comes the crippling financial blues.

S
I
G
H

I should really start looking for a job again.

I could write a book about the way you walk and whisper and look

For reasons unknown my hair decided to look good when nobody could appreciate it. It decided to look good for a day freezing my ass off at the football but I can you lose interest already so I won't talk about it. Even though it was a hilarious game with blood, own goals and the old man who sits behind me calling the referee a 'paedophile cunt' with such malice that we could not stop laughing. I can't even remember why he was so angry, it was probably something like the referee missed a foul or something. That man is gonna collapse one day and I, for one will not help him.

My hair was still good this morning for the exciting task of mopping. Awesome. I did things like find stains under paperwork and wonder if maybe the skank had to keep taking those pregnancy tests because she left her contraceptive pills on her desk. I kept my spirits up with loud music paired with atrocious dancing and the knowledge that there was a tenner burning a hole in a pocket and if I was lucky I might find something pretty.

Four hours later and my hair was bad, I stank of rubber and bleach and I've accumulated several more cuts and bruises. Every week I do this is another week I never want to be a housewife. My lovely friend was talking about how she wants a wedding on a beach somewhere warm and I don't doubt that she will one day. She's gonna marry a nice doctor, have a big house, coupla kids and a dog; it's something I've always known. I don't think I've ever entertained thoughts of marriage, apart from the time I tried on my mother's wedding dress and freaked my dad out (it was her idea). Reasons why Catherine is not a girl number two: Has no wedding plans whatsoever. It's my worst nightmare, being someone's wife. That and being attacked by giant spiders.

So four hours later I dragged my weary ass through the last remaining sales racks and picked up anything that caught my eye. I found the most hilariously hideous dress I've ever worn. I mean, I always wondered why Topshop hired Kate Moss. I don't hate that crazy girl but damn was she ever coked out of her mind when she created that dress. I could not stop laughing in the changing room and it was that bad laugh that nobody else should ever hear. Oh it was good times. Topshop made up for themselves by having Moomin pants. Pants with the Moomins on them. I did not buy them because I'd already spent all my money by the time I saw them on the way out but by god, one day they will be mine.


Oh, also: totally do have a 3 day weekend! It's the rubbish one sure and I'll probably try and get my tutorials on Mondays but for a week or so at least I get a day off. First time that's ever happened. I might get my big bag o' charity shop tees and tops stolen from ex boyfriends and see what I can sew. Either that or write some more, but I think I'm lacking cohesion. And my main character just topped herself and I don't think she was meant to. One minute she was annoyed at the neighbours, the next she swallowed every pill she could find. I was left there pen in my mouth like "Oh, ok then." I might have a go at arranging everything I've got so far into English and ooh I can listen to Ella Fitzgerald since I finally got round to actually buying some of her stuff instead of relying on the Starbucks on Byres Road that plays Jazz. Brilliant I got a day plan, I can go play Tomb Raider now.

Green Tartan Dippy Skirt

That is what Next called the skirt I bought today in the sales.

I don't know what to make of that.

Also, also, also! I bought so many books. I was skipping around Waterstones picking up anything I fancied because I had vouchers. Vouchers! If you don't hear from me in a while it is because I will have overdosed on literature. It's the best kind of overdose.

Later for you drugs.

But sadly while they had so many Joyce books (at least 4 different publications of Ulysses-not needed!) they had no Finnegans Wake and I've been wanting to read that ever since I found out that the first line really is that crazy and wasn't just Sylvia Plath being mad. Fret not as I still have vouchers remaining. Vouchers!

Shopping reduces me to my most basic state. This is Catherine, girlified. It is not pretty.

Unlike my skirt!

Big atonement for big sins. Small atonement for small sins

I do not like shopping at Christmas time. Dear god I dragged my sorry ass up and down the length of town. You know that stereotypical woman thing of finding exactly what they want in the first shop they go to but they trail around shops all day only to return to the first one? Well I did that today. The highlight of the day was muttering Bill Bailey quotes in Argos and the pushy old woman next to me hearing it. Oh the pushy old women. They are everywhere! On the plus side I got practically everything I wanted and the guy in topshop couldn't work out that 10% of £6 is 60p and not a fiver. I did not complain!

I found the soundtrack of Sympathy for Lady Vengeance online, free and legal. Oh it is awesome. Such a gorgeous film although I was so wary when I watched it the first time considering it's about a girl accused with murdering a 6 year old boy. It's all fine until she finds videos of kidnapped children which was so heartbreaking and horrible. It's fantastic though go watch it if you haven't seen it.




I'm off to catch up on stuff I haven't finished reading. I've got Shirley, Paradise Lost and Dr Zhivago and not enough time to read them all.