Homegirl

I'm home.

Where's the ticker tape parade? Why would people celebrate anything with multi coloured bits of paper (unless maybe there are more stationary aficionados like myself than I had ever allowed for)? Will I be drawn back into the addictive and soul-crushing world of social networking sites having shed them like I shed my East 17 posters when I decided I wanted to be cooler once I realised I'd started using facebook as a verb? Why did no-one tell me Lindsey Lohan was a lesbian (in future, please remember that this is the type of thing I NEED to know IMMEDIATELY after the news breaks. If there are reasons for me to start lovin' the Lilo again after she went all skinny and skanky(-er) then INFORM ME. I can't believe I had to find out from my brother just because he idly flicked through a copy of Heat in a Krakow hostel. This is not how world shattering news of this magnitude should be broken to me). (Yes, I'm still bitter).

What else? What other questions have I spent two months pondering? Hmm... Well, for one why have I managed to find myself with the most hilariously uneven tan ever encountered on Gods green earth? It looks a little something like this...

That may not in fact be the best pictorial representation of my good self ever portrayed but you get the general gist. See, in actuality I know the answer to the above question. What it boils down to is two factors:
1. I'm the whitest whitey that ever did white.
2. Every item in my summer wardrobe is disturbingly similar in both style and body coverage.

Which means, were I to, let's say, forget on the first day in Paris to put on sunscreen and get a little red on my chest (area 'B') and arms (area 'A') which are the only bits really available for the sun to capture and destroy then, from that point on, given that all I've pretty much is worn a vest and a shirt over the top, all I have done is add colour to that skin damage. Let us also imagine that I always wear my hair in a side parting like the emo kid I'm 10 years to old to be but still can't shake away then it might so happen that I'm left with a pretty decent (read: 'not alabaster white') glow upon my face EXCEPT for the bit of my forehead that was covered by my hair (area 'C'). When it gets to your last destination and an Australian in a pink tank top with crocodile shoes (curiously enough found in a gay bar of all places. Shocking I know) makes fun of the way YOU look then you may be forced to walk around in strapless dresses for the rest of your time abroad to try and even it all up (to little or no avail on the right side of your body because apparently you must walk in straight lines all day where half of you is in the shade and only the left side makes contact with the suns rays). But then, it does bond you even further with the gay boy who flew out to meet you on your last stop as he has the EXACT same arm tan lines as you do.

But enough of all this third-person tan chat high jinks. What did I do? What did I see? What lessons did I learn? Why did I fear my little toenail might fall off for about a month (if that had have happened then I can assure you this blog post would never have been written because I would still be busy throwing up in my mouth)?

Well, for a start, I done did do a shit load of stuff so I'm going to try and type up all the notes I made into some coherent order at some point with the intention of writing a blog post for each of the places I visited. This is surely a project doomed to fail sooner rather than later because, as with all my mad-capped schemes I tend to lose interest before completion (going as far back to Year 6 when I decided I was going to write to 'Jim'll Fix It' to meet Dean Cain with the obvious intention of seducing him and getting him involved in some kind of romantic liaison with me - an 11 year old (our love may have been forbidden but I was willing to overlook that), and obsessing over it right up till the point where it came to writing the aforementioned Saville plea and just, you know, not bothering because it's like effort and effort is my kryptonite). So yeah, we'll see how that pans out but for the meantime you get this rambling schizophrenic blog post where I write about shizz that occurs to me as and when and in no particular order.

So, firstly, yeah. It was alright innit. In fact, it was kind of incredible and sad and funny and eye-opening and eye-popping and I've never been so glad I've done something and simultaneously so glad when it ended in all my life.

I learnt that my brother and I have three methods of communication:
a) bitching about people
b) doing random Simpsons quotes
c) bickering
when none of these conversational topics/techniques are happening then we have literally n-o-t-h-i-n-g to say to one another. Towards the end, when we were continually blessed with considerate and pleasant roommates, we found it VERY difficult to fill the silences. Bitching is our life blood; it soothes us, it invigorates us, it gives us something to concentrate our negative energies on rather than each other. It was only in Krakow when this became apparent as my brother called me on my bitchy ways:

BROTHER
You hate people too much

ME
I don’t "hate" anyone!

BROTHER
You hated that girl behind us on the bus

ME
I never said that!

BROTHER
When she was talking you poked me, rolled your eyes, and then started tapping your fingers on your leg.

ME
But I didn't say I hated her.

BROTHER
*raises eyebrow*

ME
Well, ok but she's talking about her boyfriend not reading the Management books she'd bought him as if everyone finds this shit fascinating and actually said that skirts are "her favourite". HER FAVOURITE WHAT?! Thing in the world ever? Skirts are her favourite thing, in the world, ever? I mean, come on!

BROTHER
*disapproving silence*

ME
It doesn't help we were on our way to Auschwitz. I mean, don't get me wrong, in whatever context I would have rolled my eyes and tapped my fingers and sighed laboriously but, we were on our way to AUSCHWITZ.

BROTHER
I suppose

ME
It didn't really seem appropriate to be having the most inane conversation the world has ever been subjected to when there's a video of dead babies being dangled from their ankles and piles upon piles of emaciated bodies lying in the dirt playing in the background. I can't think of any conversations that WOULD be appropriate in that situation but really, work with me here, I need to know that I'm not the only one who can't cope with people who actually use the phrase "skirts are my favourite" on a bus to Auschwitz else they win. They've already won at life but they just win more if we let these sentences pass without some kind of dissent.

BROTHER
*more disapproving silence*

ME
Don't look at me like that. Anyway, my hating on people like that is pretty much what most folks love most about me. I get told that all the time.

BROTHER
You hate people too much.

And yet, less than five days later, this conversation took place:

BROTHER
So you know the posh girls in our room?

ME
Yeah.

BROTHER
They said they'd spent ten days in Amsterdam even though they were only meant to stay for three and were... get ready for this... going to go back.
[Please note: I know I am/was a middle-class stoner who went to Amsterdam but middle-class stoners are the WORST in Amsterdam. We stayed there for five days which was three days too long. I've loved the Dam every time I've been before but going in the most touristy month sucked all the joy out of it because the place is brimming with fucking tourist idiots who are purely there to get high and act as fucking touristy idiot-y as they can. Anyway, let's just say that people who can not only afford more than a couple days in Amsterdam but actually enjoy it enough that they want to go back almost immediately are confusing and strange and deserve my burning look of hatred]
[Also note: The last part is delivered with all the dripping contempt that you would expect]

ME
Ok, so did you notice I tried really hard? Did you notice I made small talk with them and I smiled inanely for like, three WHOLE minutes? That I didn't roll my eyes or sigh when you brought them up even though they have wealthy Home Counties accents and did that girly squealy thing when they were talking to each other?

BROTHER
I did.

ME
Can I hate them now?

BROTHER
Yes.

And from that point on we were pretty much set. He got it. As long as my hatred can fly free then I'm quite happy.

The other thing that makes me happy is posing for photos. Everyone who knows me knows I have a certain pose that I use in every single photograph ever taken. I smile broadly but not *too* much, lift my chin, twist my shoulders, open my eyes just that little bit extra and gaze up out of the frame. It took years of development but this is the one face wherein I kinda, sorta, look somewhat presentable for the camera thus I use it always. I've developed ninja-like instincts so that whenever someone points a camera vaguely in my direction I adopt the 'camera-face' and look like a vain retard to any observers in the area but pretty good in the finished photo (which is all that counts seeing as the photo will be saved for posterity and memories are inadmissible in 'uggo' court) but my brother took it upon himself to test this ability and would throw the camera in my face every now and again just to try and catch me out. What follows are the varying degrees of success he had in this endeavour...

*WARNING: MANY OF THESE PHOTOS CONTAIN EXTREME LEVELS OF UGGO-NESS AND MUST THEREFORE BE VIEWED WITH CAUTION. THEY ARE IN NO WAY SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN OR THOSE OF A NERVOUS DISPOSITION*

Click here

But enough of that, all this will (maybe, probably) be covered in more detail later on. What of being home?

Well I can tell you with confidence the things that I will miss:
- I will miss appreciating the simple things in life. When you have no money, no constant internet access, and no usual home comforts then it's amazing how much you come to love a cool breeze, a bottle of frozen tap water, a shady spot in a secluded park on a particularly soft patch of grass. These are what you worship. You watch pigeons instead of crap tv for entertainment (my pigeon fear has subsided as long as they don't flap near me) and genuinely enjoy it. I loved that.
- I will miss having time to think and I mean really think. Not just in a self-pitying way as is my default setting, but just sit and ponder and let thoughts wash over me while the clouds drift by overhead. As a result I've had a chance to burn off a whole load of stuff that just wasn't working. I don't think I've changed but just managed to lose some of the (metaphorical) baggage that was slowing me down (the literal baggage just increased). All this has made me feel really content and excited about the future in a way I've never felt before. I feel almost (*whisper it*)... normal. Like, this is how you're supposed to feel about yourself and life. It's confusing and strange and I love it.

For instance, I know what I want to do with my life now (work with disadvantaged youths since you ask. Apart from packing suitcases, flipping pancakes and procrastinating my other talent is communicating effectively with kids and with animals in a way that I can't seem to do with humans over the age of 18. As I am allergic to most animals and haven't figured out a profitable way of combining the pancake/packing/procrastinating thing into one marketable package I figure I should work to a strength that I could get paid for. I don't really care in what capacity this will be in so today I've just been applying for anything and everything (from outreach worker to children's librarian - where I'd get to go round making under 18's fall in love with books. Most perfectous job ever) that could get me on that path. I'm more sure of ever of what I need to do to keep me content and buzzing along merrily. I knew all this shit before of course but it's only having time and space to explore it that I've been able to digest all the 'life lessons' (read: 'shit that’s been thrown my way') and been able to start fitting together all the puzzle pieces of knowledge that I've slowly been amassing. It's like, having collected the puzzle pieces during uni I then spent a really long time looking at the picture on the front of the box and wondering how the hell all these little pieces get put together in a coherent way (which is what I feel I've been doing for the last year) and now, although the picture is far from being completed, its all starting to make sense. Even the fiddly blue sky bits. It's just a question of continuing to build.
- Seeing new things, meeting new people, having my expectations confounded ALL the freaking time. That was kind of awesome. Although, it did have it's downsides (see below).

I will NOT miss:
- People not understanding the concept of queuing. I don't care that it makes me even more British than my tea addiction, I don't get how NO ONE else but the Brits can function in a society where there is no innate queuing instinct. People just mill, they stand, milling about. THIS IS NEITHER EFFECTIVE NOR EFFICIENT. I am happy to be back in a queue conscious nation.
- Getting dressed behind locked doors in rooms where the floor is wet.
- Unpacking and repacking again and again and again. It may be one of my top five god-given talents but I hate doing it.
- Mother. Fucking. Tourists. I know I was a tourist, I know I probably inadvertently pissed some locals off here and there but ye god’s tourists are fucking CUNTS. I hate them. Get out of my way and stop looking at shit and taking photos all the god dammed time. Just FUCK RIGHT OFF. I hate you.
- Being under the threat of getting run over 85% of the time. Say what you like about British motorists but at least they adhere to some semblance of an ordered traffic system. Most of the rest of Europe (barring the German speaking nations) seem to work to one rule and one rule only - it's ok as long as no one dies. They will do anything, drive at any speed, park in any spot and just as long as no one dies then it appears that it's fine. Never mind that people may be under the threat of death, as long as they don't ACTUALLY die it's not a problem. This isn't good for nervy, jumpy, anxious types like me.

I did miss
- My friends. Really gut-wrenchingly missed them. I take everyone for granted so much of the time but Gay Boy and Farr in particular are my family now. They've been there for me in the last year whenever I needed them to be without me ever having to ask. That's love man. They've bonded in my absence which would have previously ignited this little fire of jealous rage in my belly (you're not allowed to like each other more than you like me!) but now just makes me happy. I think this might mean I'm growing up (only 7 years too late).
- Knowing what the fuck is going on and where I am and what people are saying. I'm someone that finds her heart start racing that little bit faster if I go to a new place and don't know where the toilets are and has mild panic attacks at the thought of using buses I've never been on in case I push the button a might too early or too late so, to go round and visit somewhere new, where I don't know the layout or the exact customs EVERY SINGLE DAY was actually a bit scary. I thrive on routine. I'm like a toddler or a dog.
- My family. Mostly.

However, when all is said and done this is what I missed the most:

(That'd be the dog I missed and not the dressing my dog up to look like Toulouse-Lautrec and pretending I'm Van Gogh and getting her to sit still while I act out scenes from their lives. Because I DEFINITELY don't do that and if anyone says I does then they are DEFINITELY lying).

Anyway, in summary, it's good to be back. I've found Sazz and her sense of humour and her sense of self-worth and brought them home with me. Well that and quite a number of snowglobes.

I still fucking love snowglobes.