It's Friday, and in celebration of my having finished assignments I have decided to make the most of this morning. I have had breakfast and a huge cup of green tea with apple and cinnamon, and I have taken time to get dressed 'on purpose' - make a bit of a look out of it.

Ever since Eva gave me a beautifully girly ring as a surprise present the day we left for Italy, I have sort of rediscovered green. More specifically, I have rediscovered exactly how good it can make me look. My outfit today consists of:
- My knee-length, bell-shaped black tweed skirt from H&M, which I've had for years now.
- A dark green tank top from Mexx, perfect in shape, size and colour.
- My dark purple Aubade lace set with the lilac straps, the one I got half-off a couple of years ago but is still one of the most beautiful sets I own.
- My much-loved black Sanne cardigan from Risøe.
- Fishnets.
- Black, high-heeled office shoes from Unisa, the cutest, most comfy work shoes in the world.

Sounds a bit dull, doesn't it? However, when I add my green cheapo necklace from Prague, my new ring, super-shiny straight hair and short plum-coloured nails, we're getting somewhere. Only thing that's lacking now is make-up to match:
- Perfect, matte skin with a tiny bit of the subtlest blusher around.
- Matte white eyeshadow, black liquid eyeliner, mascara and a bit of white eyeliner pencil inside the lower lashes.
- Very strong berry-coloured Rouge Dior lipstick with a dab of shimmering plum-coloured Diorific in the middle of the lower lip.

Et voilà! I feel pretty, oh so pretty!

I have to run now (in my very ladylike way, of course), but I wish you all a fabulous, worry-free Friday and a lovely weekend, containing at least one walk in the autumn sun.

I love makeup. I have always loved makeup, ever since I was a little girl. I know makeup. And I’m not ashamed to admit it.

I blame it on my aunt. One of my oldest memories of her must be from around 1990. She had long, red nails and was just back from Cuba. She is a trained beautician, and for most of my childhood she worked in a shoe shop - her handwriting is still on some of my mum’s shoe boxes: 'For Eli! Do not sell!' To me, she always seemed like the most glamourous creature alive; tall, skinny as a rail, blonde, tanned and beautiful, and always, always with some fun makeup in her purse. That’s how it started, you see: She would buy something she wasn’t completely happy with - an eyeshadow that was too shimmery, a lipstick that was too red - and so she would give it to me. It was our little secret, and it has continued to this day. We are talking about a picky woman searching for the perfect brown - I get a lot of freebies.

I instantly loved my new playthings. The colour and shape of my eyes seemed to change completely, just because of some forest green eyeshadow. There was particularly this one lipstick - an almost gloss-like red Shiseido - that would make me feel so pretty. I can still taste it. And I needed that. I didn’t have a very good time in school, in fact I felt like the fattest, ugliest little cow that ever lived (mostly because I was told that that was what I was), but the makeup sort of gave me a feeling of being ahead of them. It felt like I knew something they didn’t. In fact, I think I must have, because you know that pastel phase that all girls who grew up in the nineties went through at some point? Baby pinks and blues, cheap shimmery lipgloss and Maybelline Great Lash? Never had that. To this day, the thought makes me smile contently.

It’s been a very long, very exhausting week, and my head has been hogging all the work it was instructed to share. In other words: Too much thinking. Not much done. Again.

What I can do is cross a blog post off my to-do list. I’m very into lists these days; they help me convince myself that, if nothing else, then at least I’m organised. At any given time I will not only not be doing anything, but also be completely aware of exactly what it is I’m not doing that I should. I excel in hypocricy. Unfortunately, that talent is a sad, lonely orphan.

On behalf of my own useless self, then, I proudly present My Favourite Things In The Whole Wide World. Well, not in the whole world, but MFTitWWW of skincare ’n’ stuff. That world is big enough for me at the moment (says the girl who has officially had ’wash up’ on her to-do list for a whole week tomorrow - I need deadlines, I need assignments and school-related pressure, because then somehow, like magic, my house tends to become squeaky clean).

To give you a short introduction to my main burden: I have annoying skin. It’s dry and eczema-ridden, yet at the same time I get pimples, my pores are anything but delicate, my forehead is shiny, and to make things even better I have just learned that they don’t say ’freckles’ any more, oh no, they say ’pigment spots’. You name it, my face has had it.

That didn’t quite come out how I intended. Moving swiftly on…

I have hair! Or actually, I have a lot less hair, but now you notice that it's there, because it's pretty! And shorter! And cool-ish! I am a happy camper. All hail to Lene, my new favourite-hairdresser-in-the-world, for managing to make my hair bouffy, albeit for a rather short period of time. I should do this more often (like, more than once every six months, which is the normal frequency of my visits).

I am flat-hunting for dear life, and not worried about anything else at the moment, even though I know that I should be more worried about getting a job from mid-August on. RIght now, I need a place to live, and food. And perhaps a shower, because there are these little hairs all over my clothes and my face, and I think I've swallowed a few, which freaks me out and itches, too. Priorities, priorities....

Politics frighten me. Politicians, less so. Looking forward to lunch, and hopefully regaining a life worthy of LJ. I know, I repeat myself, but this is a bad case of 'nothing much happens, and my verbally artsy rambling abilities are diminishing as we speak'.

Today has been one of those really bad shopping days. I haven't been shopping for months now, due to general broke-ness, but today I was planning to get my hands on a pretty summer dress of some sort. No such luck, unfortunately. Now, this is exactly why I don't enjoy shopping at this time of year: The colours that are in fashion are those that don't suit me at all (light blue, beige, white and dusky pink - igh) and most dresses bear more than a passing resemblance to pillow cases with spaghetti straps ('When did HM start making bed linen? No wait, I'm sorry, those are actually meant to be worn by people!'). So after hours at my favourite place in the world, Sandvika Storsenter (insert laugh track of choice here), in various shops, trying in vain  to make the round bits inside the pillow cases look less like potatoes and more like breasts, I gave up, bought John Freida Brilliant Brunette shampoo and conditioner on sale, and went home, which bring us up to date.

So now I'm back at home on the balcony, in my bathing suit, listening to Pulp, which is my ultimate summer music. Next to the computer there is a small bowl of crisps and an emptied glass of Coca-Cola, because hey, it's Friday. Oh, and I'm officially mortal: I got my first B (in BritLit, the exam at which I got completely carried away, and then kicked myself for it). And I aced translation, which is good. Now all I have to do is wait for the DREADED BritCiv mark... Jeez, I haven't been this nervous for a very long time. Calm down, woman. Pass and be happy. And shut up.

My Lady Chatterley reading is progressing slowly but surely (I haven't been reading it all this time, I started it again a bit over a week ago), and I like it. More because of the subject matter and the characters, less because of the writing, because as a novel it really isn't all that good. A bit incoherent and slow, but I like Constance Chatterley, so I'm anxious to see how she ends up. Only about 200 pages left before I find out... But so far she's been having a lot of sex with Mellors, the keeper of the estate where the crippled Baronet and Lady Chatterley live, and I think she might be pregnant. They've even had simultaneous orgasms, which was an enjoyable episode:

'We came off together that time,' he said.
She did not answer.
'It's good when it's like that. Most folks live their lives through and they never know it,' he said, speaking rather dreamily.
She looked into his brooding face.
'Do they?' she said. 'Are you glad?'
He looked back into her eyes. 'Glad,' he said. 'Ay, but never mind.' He did not want her to talk. And he bent over her and kissed her, and she felt, so she must kiss him for ever.
At last she sat up.
'Don't people often come off together?' she asked with naïve curiosity.
'A good many of them never. You can see by the raw look of them.' He spoke unwittingly, regretting he had begun.
'Have you come off like that with any other woman?'
He looked at her amused.
'I don't know,' he said. 'I don't know.'

I have no idea what I'm doing tonight, really. Feel like doing something; Pulp has that effect on me, since it is one of the few bands to whose music I want to dance. Might check out Sandvika's bustling nightlife with Eva, the boy being away and all. I'll dress up a bit, put on make-up  and pretty shoes and look presentable-ish, seeing as I'm bound to meet someone I know but would prefer not to see. That's what I'll do: Take a shower, wash my hair with my new coconut-scented shampoo, put on nail varnish and a nice skirt and see what I can make of it. I hope the weather stays like this forever; getting dressed has never been so easy, and I save SO much money on bus tickets now that I bicycle everywhere. Also, in a few weeks' time I'll be positively fit, compared to my normal state of bodily decay. Hoorah! Makes up for the crisps and coke, too...

May everyone have a gorgeous Friday night!

My grandmother turns 83 today, so hip-hip-hooray for her.

Feeling slightly less moody now than yesterday evening, but then there hasn't been much time for anything to affect my state of being yet (still cold, sleepy, eating, need to shower, annoyed by dreary weather).

Today I want to try to look nice. Perhaps not for myself, but for Bel and 'Iggy' (sorry hun). The shabby, 'I've just got out of bed and don't care' look just isn't very me. I mean, can you picture it? People like me are born to be groomed, there's no doubt about it. So today I will, once again, exfoliate like a madwoman, and the world will return to its harmonious state.

Another piece of completely irrelevant information is that I've started reading a new book, Lady Chatterley's Lover. So far I think it's a sweet book, and I very much like the way it's written. I should, of course, be reading stuff on the syllabus, but I'll try to do both things at once.

'Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically.'

I have to stop calling the boy. We can't keep this much in touch, making each other miserable and wallowing in how good things probably could have been if if if.
Need a break from this.

I wish I even felt like going out and meeting new people. My brain has lost all contact with my body and my whole life is happening inside my head. Haven't shaved my legs or really made myself pretty in ages, because I don't have anyone to look nice for. The two times I've attempted to do either were both miserable failures.
So what do I do now?
That isn't a rhetorical question.

But if you're going to tell me I need time, more time, copious amounts of fucking time, you might as well keep quiet. My problem is the quantity of unfilled time that keeps me horridly depressed, and also causes me to update this thing every time my mood changes even the slightest little bit. So wasted.

This was not part of my plan. To be in my bathrobe at almost ten o'clock in the morning, listening to Suzanne Vega, making myself coffee, with a very sore throat again because I've refused to wear a scarf for the past two weeks, trying desparately to convince myself that it's not f***ing freezing outside even though it's APRIL. And it's not even sunny. Oh well, suppose I've deserved this. Not so sleepy, just a little 'sticky-eyed'. Looking forward to coffee and a shower, like the stereotype I am (or am trying to be).
Ooh, and my face isn't so blotchy and wierd any more since I decided to give skincare a rest for a week or two. Annoying because that means I've wasted lots of money on completely useless stuff, but happy happy all the same. My nose is almost all better and even though I have an itchy spot on my neck for some odd reason, I far prefer this state to the red-and-dry-and-blotchy-and-super-sensitive one. Happy happy happy.
God, my throat hurts.
Coffee coffee coffee. Coffee. Yay!
Slightly underdeveloped sense of language this time of day, it seems. Ooh, I love 'Blood makes noise'. Coffee.
Coffee!
Must stop this. So ok, what's going on in my mind right now (call it social science):
- MMmmm......coffee!
- "If you want me, you can find me left of centre wondering about you" *bob back and forth to the music*
- What to wear, what to wear...
- Feet cold. Hrmf.
- Note to self: Must learn that folding clothes magically makes a room more tidy. And I like magic.
- Wondering what the literature lecture today is on. Think it might be James Joyce - The Dead, but not sure. Only a short story, but haven't read it all the same.
- I completely lost my train of thought now. Oh well. Your loss.
Must start day. And I make really, really bad coffee. Let there be spring and Suzanne Vega for all the world.

My hair is impossibly shiny today. Enough to make me happy. Conditioner = my drug. My own little 'fuck the establishment, I have shiny hair'. Oh yeah, she's a teenage rebel.
And she needs to get to a board meeting.

Today is the ultimate fat day. NOTHING looks good - or it looks wonderful before it is actually on me, and its being on me is kind of crucial. If this were a skinny day I'd be happy to strut around in my underwear, carrying pretty clothes on hangers in front of me, but since strutting is one of the activities I'm less likely to be indulging in today, that doesn't really work either. Hm.
I love Loose Fur. Took me a couple of times to get used to, but it's doing my mind good right now.

But AH! Dammit! I've made myself espresso, mixed it with hot milk and made a sort og café au lait with honey (it's really good even though it's not common), so soon the caffeine will either make me feel loads worse or loads better. I cannot believe you're still reading this, by the way.