Birthday Baby

Today, I have turned twenty-six. 

The day began with a special birthday breakfast. Avocado and egg on seed-studded toast. Sounds slightly strange, tastes amazing:

It is the first day I have ever worked on my birthday, but I don't mind; my work is less stressful than many. Work beats revision by a factor of approximately a thousand. Plus, I have already part celebrated this weekend: a comedy show and drinks with friends; a meal with family; a walk in the fields and a video chat with my fave dad-daughter pair. 

I am not one to go all out on my birthday, but I do always tend to post a blog about it. It's cool to have that marker in time to look back on, you can find all on the right hand side, from my second year and third year at university, through my masters disaster, onto job-searching, graduate employment, job disillusioment, bringing us up to now. Much has changed in my life in the past year, but there is also much that has remained the same. Birthdays are often a cause for reminiscence and reflection, I find. When we went to the comedy show, we were the only group of under-30s there, which was novel on a night out. It won't be that way for long. But I think that I'm okay with that.

I might make myself a carrot cake later to celebrate. I sure know how to party hard.

Flitterbox: Beyoncé ~ All The Single Ladies
Flitterbook: Avocado Baby ~ John Burningham 

Cram Bag

Today, I have bought a new bag. 

I am not a fashionable bag and shoes kind of a girl. I own one main handbag; it's purple with plaited shoulder straps and it is perfect for my general needs. I own a couple of smaller cross-body bags that are useful for going out or short outings when I want my hands-free and don't have much to carry. 

While I don't care much for new season clutches or holdalls, I am always interested to know what people have inside their bags, their rooms, their houses, their minds... I like the kind of entries that give an insight into personality that you may not otherwise see, although as remarked on  recent posts; I do not understand how some people's bags can be so tidy?

A few years back, I did the "what's in my bag" thing; and this is what it revealed:

And my bag, of now, three years later. I am a reformed, matured character and now, of course, I only carry the bare essentials:

Welcome to my life, via the medium of my bag. This is not necessarily what I cart around on a daily basis, but just a snapshot of today's load. To be honest, the contents surprised me somewhat, too, but there was no point in carrying out a clear-out before spilling it to the internet. To display this is to confess: I am mostly messy and not proud of it. I'm sure it tells personality beyond that, though. A responsible dog-owner; an obsessive nail-painter; someone who is serious about about oral hygiene and enjoys a decent cup of tea (or, I have travelled recently). Spot anything else that tells you more?

I am not a fashionable bag and shoes kind of girl. 

Flitterbox: Stereophonics ~ Handbags and Gladrags

Blog Hopping

Today, I have discovered a blog.

Do you ever find the idea of blogging a bit...weird? I recently stumbled upon the blog of a real-life friend and it's kind of strange because I'm not really sure whether to admit that I have seen it. It made me slightly sad, too, that I don't know much about her day-to-day life from actual contact, but on her blog it's there for all to see. And it's written in the way that you want people to read; rhetorical questions, addressing the webspace like a blog is a conversation, only it doesn't really matter to whom you're talking.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to meet friends on the internet and I've had some great experiences as a result of net interactions. But sometimes I read back on what I've posted and I think how awkward it would be if I knew someone I knew was reading it. Embarrassing, if they continued to read backwards

Like, this isn't really me? I don't talk like this, I don't know why I write like this, I don't know why I'm writing at all. I kind of jumped on the BEDM bandwagon without true commitment to the cause for the very reason that I was feeling super self-conscious about writing anything and I hoped that an outside force encouraging me to publish something every day would make me worry less about what was written as I had a daily deadline. I still use an awful lot of I's in my sentences.

It's not that surprising that a close friend writes a blog. To be honest, there's not even anything in it that is particularly surprising information to me; I know the major stuff that's going on, I just don't have the frequent updates on the food she ate that weekend. It's not that the blog deliberately obscures personal details, either. Maybe having a blog is just like letting another side of you to the world. We all have different friends for different activities, and it's easier with a blog to share a side of you that work or school or university friends may not appreciate, or just to let thoughts out in a place where someone will see them, but you don't necessarily want to *discuss* them.

It feels like blogging has suddenly become cool, and it earns you money, and you can make a living from it and get popular and well known and awesome. As I said, that doesn't bother me, it's great and I'm not really bemoaning the de-nerding of blogging, but it does kind of feel like I should write because I have a point, a new dress or a healthy recipe rather than just write because I can.

I haven't read any book pages in a few days. Whoops.

Flitterbox: The Staves ~ Wisely and Slow

Funny Times

Today, I am going to see a comedy show. 

It's not so much a sign of my age as a sign of myself that I would rather go to a comedy show than a club night out. I would have done the same when I was turning eighteen, the main difference is that it is now more socially acceptable to do so.

Flitterbox: Abba ~ Dancing Queen 

American Boy

Today, I have smiled like I mean it.

On this day, 5 years ago, I met my first internet friend in the flesh, 3 and a half years to the day that we first made acquaintance through blogs. I told no-one. 

Today, 5 years later, the friend is married with a daughter, and a son on the way. How things change.

I hope that, one day, I will meet this baby boy and his older sister. I hope that I have the courage to do so, because there's never going to be the 'right' time to fly across the ocean by yourself to stay with a couple you've only met once before and children that you've only ever seen on Skype.

We shall see.

Flitterbox: The Killers ~ Andy You're A Star - bloody love this album
Flitterbook: Andrew's Brain ~ E.L. Doctorow

Hey Girl

Today, I have been blue.

When I'm feeling glum, anxious or angsty, I tend to revert to girly activities to soothe and settle my stressness. It's too late to paint my nails and my hair is not in the state for straightening. It's ill-advised to write too much when feeling this way. Since this is the internet I should probably post a picture of cats instead:

Flitterbox: The Boy Least Likely To ~ Papercuts
Flitterbook: Andrew's Brain ~ E.L. Doctorow

Dialling in

Today, I have instant access to the internet.

That's amazing. The book I'm reading at the moment set in the nineties, where you had to dial-in and whilst on the internet, the land-line wouldn't work. I'm kind of on the cusp; I remember having to wait until 6pm to use the internet on a weekday, but broadband was widespread by the time I properly could make use of it. Of course, these people in the book are lucky, they have two phone lines, so you can be constantly on the internet on one, and use the other for calls. So modern! It would seem crazy but kids today don't even have the knowledge of a landline, which is almost crazier, so it almost wouldn't matter that the dial-up tied up your phone line, because, hey you have your mobile phone, what else do you need?

My power went out recently. My mobile was very low on battery, as was my laptop, 'cause I like to live life on the edge. But I could still call people on my old style non-cordless land-line. What kind of sorcery is that? Afterwards I googled my way to the reason as I kind of knew it to be true but was baffled by the idea. Basically, you do need electricity but only a very little and it's brought to your house by wires separate to the mains. It's still strange, though.

It's weird how easy it is to think about things without questioning the concept. Adults get way too accustomed things too readily without truly appreciating the wonder. 

I hold the internet in my pocket, on a buttonless device that is smaller than my hand.

That's amazing.

Flitterbox: Philip Oakey and Giorgio Moroder - Together in Electric Dreams
Flitterbook: Going Out ~ Scarlett Thomas