shozu test

sigh

well. just, sigh. people are leaving work too quickly. too many too soon. first it was Seyi, then Tai and Erik, then Jimmy announced he was bringing his own leaving date forward by two days, meaning three of my team left on Monday. my team aren’t just my team, we’re friends. we’re an odd little family. an odd little family that lost two members and its leader in one day. it hit me when I left work. I cried all the way from outside work to the bus stop, which is the length of Leeds city centre. all too much too soon. it’s like we’ve lost a limb. everything was off-kilter today. our old tl is back from maternity leave on Monday, while she’s been gone we had three different replacements. before her we were passed around like a hot potato. we’re a pretty self sufficient family. I went out tonight for a “one last drink before a lot of people go”, left early. sure it was fun being out with other people from different teams but it was tinged with sadness and knowing that it might be the last

no really.

sleepless

once again I’m having trouble sleeping. it’s now been a week since I had more than 4 hours a night. bored and exhausted.

Dye!

I’m sat with Nice N Easy 108 on my head. Development time sucks, I hate sitting with chemicals on me (see hair dye, also veet) but I still do it. Better than shaving/spending dosh at the hairdresser’s.

Stomach hurts. I’m blaming coffee.

Baby guinea pig settled in really well, the older guy (Plissky) is being all fatherly towards him, which is cute. His ears stick out ’cause he’s so little, and he fits in my hand. D’aww.

Dark contemplation

No, really, I’m sat in the dark.

The only light in the room is from the laptop screen, which I know is bad for my eyes but Matthew’s asleep. See, I’m up all night on guinea pig watch. We got a new baby boy to keep Plissken (that’s the white with brown bits pig on the banner) company after Dante (the ginger pig) died last week, however with two boys you need to keep an eye on them in case the scrapping and “establishing of dominance” turns into an all-out brawl.

Yeah, even all night.

I’m not really watching, though, just listening. Guinea pigs are good like that, when they scrap they squeak, and with us having newspaper under their sawdust bedding it rustles when they walk/run/scrap. Which, they just did, which is why I had to point the laptop at the hutch and tap the bars with my fingernails to break it up.

I’m sat on a sofa (-bed) next to the hutch, in front of the tv, with games consoles, with the window open and Matthew in the bed opposite the hutch. Can’t play on the consoles as it would be far too bright and moths/midges would come in, which they probably already are and I’ll be bitten to Hell in the morning.

I’m listening to Dave’s mixlist on Spotify, which is really good, as in, I’ve only skipped one song, and that’s only ’cause I’ve already listened to Freebird today. Very good, but listening to Muse in the dark is a bit trippy. Ahh, a nice bit of The Cure. Friday I’m in Love is one of those songs I used to sing walking to school back in the day when it was played on the radio. I knew most of the words, but had no idea who the artist was, and was convinced it was written just so I could sing it on Fridays when I was in a lesson with the lad I had a crush on. Ah youth.

Speaking of youth, my nephews got their GCSE results today. Once again I feel really old. I held them the day they were born, told them I loved them and looked into their huge blue eyes, fed them before school and got babyvom on my (junior) school jumper, was kept up most of the night by them crying but didn’t care one bit. All at the age of 8. They’re 16 on Sunday. Yeah.

Ohhh REO Speedwagon. I’m miming power-ballad style, feeling a bit like Bridget Jones in a bad way.

Ah, now here’s a song to reminisce to: Killing In The Name by Rage Against The Machine. Probably not your usual contemplation song, but this one is pretty special. See, when I was younger (we’re talking about 17-18 ish) I used to go to a LOT of gigs for my friends’ band, who would do a very good cover of this song as part of their set. The band isn’t around any more, they’ve split up/formed another band and spawned others, but I still listen to their EP a lot. The bands that were spawned have also long gone (these were made up of kids that went to their gigs and decided to give it a go) but were also fab, and I knew a lot of the little scene not just as friends or schoolmates but as workmates, which went a long way to making my work days fun.

Hang on.

KILLING IN THE NAME OF!

Ahem.

Anyway, it was these guys that got me into the music I love today, without the crush I had at school I’d never have listened to Green Day’s Dookie or gone to the Offspring concert with my friends (my first ever show). I’d never have listened to Limp Bizkit, which as lol-worthy as that sounds it got me going to the library to rent CDs (I couldn’t afford to buy Significant Other, ok?). That in itself got me listening to Insomniac and Nimrod, then onto System of a Down via Ixnay on the Hombre and Enema of the State… and really, that’s where my love of a good beat, a riff and the occasional scream- that makes your throat hurt just hearing it – comes from. Before that I only really listened to pop music or dance (I was a Steps superfan. No, really. Aqua, too) and never expanded my music tastes. Afterwards? Well, I was forcing my mum to play Toxicity in the car instead of the Star Wars “X-Wing Vs Tie-Fighter” soundtrack. Yeah, I’ve always been a nerd for Star Wars and classical music.

Oh… Alkaline Trio “Stupid Kid”. Man. Big love.

Wait… there we go. Private Eye remember the bands I mentioned earlier, the ones that were awesome but not famous? One of those did a killer cover of this. The other did a scream/punk version of Shakira’s “Whenever, Wherever” and it was so very awesome. Except that time I was at the front by the amp taking pictures and singing along and had the mic shoved in my face. I wasn’t out of tune or anything, I just don’t have a nice singing voice (as my workmates will testify).

Now we have Less Than Jake’s “All My Best Friends Are Metalheads” which makes my ankles hurt. Whilst skanking to this in Leicester’s Fan Club (I <3 the Fan Club) I badly sprained both of my ankles, and broke a bone in my right foot. Ahh, good times remembered fondly. The Fan Club is where I spent pretty much every Tuesday night after I discovered it, thanks to the noisy boys next door (who were lovely, good looking and had great taste in music) who suggested I go after finding I pretty much adored Blink 182. Very good memories of that place, the one that springs to mind is getting a back massage off the on-stage speakers (it’s a tiny upstairs dive-bar and sweat drips down the walls after a few hours of it getting full) when they played Distillers, and being on one of the podiums when the DJ finished the night with Tribute (Tenacious D) and didn’t even play half the song, but everyone was singing it at the tops of their lungs, and it was amazing to be there. Simply fantastic, and I miss it greatly, like I miss Leicester and university life.

Pigs are rumbling/scrapping again, two mins.

Back now… But I think I’ve run out of things to say unless the next song inspires any memories? …no it’s an advert. Won’t be a mo.

Ahh Hysteria by Muse. See above for Fan Club memories. Screaming “I want it nooowwwww I want it nowwwwww” with a few hundred other people all crammed together is fantastic. This song strikes me as a good stripper song, not ’cause of the lyrics per se, but the dirty dirty bass line. Dirty.

Speaking of bass (oh here she goes again) I really need to learn. I own a bass, a electric and a classic guitar and a ukelele, and can’t play three of them. I can play bass to a sub-Pete Wentz standard. Pete doesn’t do many fancy bass lines or frilly bits or solos, just sticks to what would nicely compliment the chord sequence, which I can do to a bad “um hang on a second, where’s that note again?” degree.

I can sight read music when it comes to a piano/keyboard for crying out loud, but tab and guitars apparently baffle me. Apart from classic closed guitar chords, but I’m limited there ’cause my hands are too short to reach a lot of chords! Thankfully I can pretty much pick up any instrument and fumblingly play “twinkle twinkle little star” within a couple of minutes. I like that non-talent.

Oh, Dave, you had to put the Royal Philharmonic playing Nimrod on here, didn’t you. I love this piece. Love it almost as much as the Moonlight Sonata, the Dying Swan from Swan Lake or Mozart’s Sonata Facile in C. I love classical music. I blame my mass exposure to it and show tunes whilst getting piano lessons for about 8 years. Mmm show tunes.

Random fact: I was in a production of Oliver when I was about 10. I played one of Fagin’s gang. Of boys. I wore a black wig and did dance routines and sung and everything (but what I won’t tell you is that I remember most of the dance routine to Consider Yourself as well as the harmonies to Food Glorious Food).

Random fact 2: For my birthday when I was about 7 ish I got to go in with the dolphins at Flamingo Land. You know the kid they pick from the audience to go in the little dinghy pulled by them, who gets to give them fish heads and stroke them? Yeah, it was awesome. On the video (which a dude filming it gave us afterwards) I look like I’m not enjoying it, but in reality my brain broke. You know when something happens and you’re not sure if it’s a dream? Yeah, pretty much for a dolphin mad kid like I was – and I had a song going through my head from a cartoon I watched at the time… Dream stone? Hang on, youtube has the answer.

OMG

IT HAS THE SONG!

Anyway, Matthew’s started snoring a bit and the pigs have settled down to sleep so I’m going to sign off and prod him in the ribcage so I can have a couple of hours’ kip.

Longest blog I ever wrote.

Love (no really, I love you all in your own special way)

Katy x

guinea pig baby

baby love, my baby love, been missin ya