SO WHAT’S NEW?  Sweet fuck all, actually.

I have been on a serious down buzz regarding finding a job.  I mean, yeah, so I’m not someone who is guttered to not be working.  But a couple of months down the track and this city is seriously taking the piss.  I’ve been to interviews and interviews, signed up with a bunch of recruitment agencies, scouring job pages on the web, seriously, there is nothing.  I just don’t know what to do anymore.  I can’t even get Work and Income to call me back about getting on the dole.  Bunch of useless… I am so sick of myself at the moment.

Oh and I turn 26 this week.  Happy fucking birthday.

Almost a year since I left London now, still missing it every single day.  I just haven’t settled here yet.  Struggling to, as well.  Same old song.

I guess the best thing to do at this point is to set stupid goals that won’t help anything in the long run but keep me from going crazy.  Stopping smoking has been pretty much impossible but I’m still trying.  WRITE MOAR.  Gym more.  No carbs, etc.  No bitching via social media.  Blog stuff.  TAKE PHOTOS AGAIN.  Wait by the phone in case the last person I interviewed with calls :(

I am waiting, as I have been for a few years now, for my Xbox to red ring.  I know it’s going to happen soon.  I bought that thing the day it came out, I KNOW it’s going to break soon.  I gave it a bit of a clean the other day thinking I will sell it on Trademe and replace it with the new shiny black ones that have wifi.  Then Dad was all, “But you know it’s going to break!  What if you sell it to some poor kid who has saved all his money to buy it?” and guilt, ARGH, I really want a new black one :(

I save things as .txt files in Notepad like little stickies on my laptop.  All of a sudden Notepad files decide they cannot open on their own anymore, I must open Notepad FIRST then open the files.  WHY?  WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN.  Why do I have to spend so long FIXING SHIT.

My precious first love, the PC I built for my 21st birthday and I, were reunited today.  Just like last time I came home, it’s decided to be a whiny bitch just to sulk at me, I swear.  First it decided to slap on a login password that I know for a FACT didn’t exist when I left, then in an attempt to thwart my “safe mode” login, it threw registry errors, then in an attempt to thwart my fixing of said registry errors its now flatly refusing to acknowledge that my hard drives exist.  I’ve had to throw this one in the category of Fuck This, Too Hard, accepting defeat and am taking it into my dads work to get it fixed.

My curtain has also come off the rail.  I AM COMING OFF THE RAILS.  MLIA.

I wasn’t so great at Art either, for that matter.  We were all give a copy of a simple colouring picture, a man gathering hay, I think.  It might have been something Biblical.  Desperate to avoid the embarrassment of another ugly and Over The Lines piece of work that I’d be forced to write my name on, I carefully selected my crayons in the exact same palette as another girl, who always coloured in the best.  I copied her drawing exactly.  The result was a horribly poor imitation, so much so that no one even realised what I’d done.

Perhaps after lunch we would have Silent Reading and then we would write stories.  This was the part of the day where my childish pride would suddenly take a lift.  I was in the most advanced group for reading and was given special Big Kid Books that were too hard for the other kids to read.  I was smug about this.  Then, the creative writing, which I loved so much.  I would write about fairies and talking animals.  I would write about fantastical worlds that I could see so clearly in my head.  I would force my mother to read them once I’d got home.

Years later, in high school, English was still my best and most loved subject.  After that… I guess it all just dried up.  I kept diaries and mostly spent and free time writing dedicated to life writing.  I still have snippets of conversations between characters in my head, although, I’m never quite certain who these characters are.  I construct situations and small beginnings of story lines and convince myself that they are really rather good and I should probably get back into creative writing at some point.  As soon as my hand touches a keyboard or pen, however, my brain freezes.  I’ve forgotten all those well described scenarios and what comes out is an embarrassing sentence or two, that I agonise over, then delete and forget about.

I’ve decided to start again.  I’m reading up a storm and, shamefully, bought The Artists’ Way as recommended by quite a few friends now.  Who knows, perhaps one day I might actually finish something.

I know I keep saying this, but I really am working on changing the look of this site.  I hate the current template.  Hate hate hate.  “But, Lilley”, I hear you say, “How is it you have so much spare time?” Well, I’m hitting the job market again, there is only so much I can take from a sexist nasty manager.  Not to worry, I’ve done this before.

There’s the whole When It Rains It Pours theme here in London and aside from me being unemployed again, last week our sewer pipe exploded and we had human shit in our back AND front yard.  This week our boiler exploded and in London, without a boiler, well everything goes to hell.  They managed to get our heating going (which doesn’t make much of a difference, honestly, since this house is so badly insulated) but we’ve had no hot water for 5 days.  I finally broke yesterday and headed off to our mates place for a shower.  Other issues include, washing clothes, washing dishes, cooking with a lack of clean dishes and life in general.

But we are always looking up here at tigerlilley.com, because seriously, where else can you look to from the bottom.

I got HIVES.  ON MAH FACE.

Winter Christmas sucks.

Furthermore, F MY LIFE.

He said no.

He had amazing adventures in lands so completely alien to him.  He said that, if he were to go home, “it would be like none of this ever happened.”

When I made the rash decision to move to the other side of the world, I had no idea that this one thing would haunt me so much.

I have had re-occurring nightmares.  In which I wake up, back at my home in New Zealand, back to everything I know and love so dearly, and having absolutely no recollection of how I got there.  I am scared.  I look around frantically for my boyfriend and he is not there.  I suddenly realise that my time on the other side of the world is over and I am back home, the place where I know I belong, but the place where I realise I can never go back to the life I’ve had before.  I see my family and demand to know how I got there, I can’t remember anything, I wasn’t ready yet, how, why. I am terrifyingly regretful of everything I have not seen and everything and everyone, I will never see again.

This is the hardest thing I have ever lived with.  The knowledge, that one day, this amazing adventure will all be over.  And I’ll return to my home, at the end of the world, and it will be like none of it had ever happened.  A distant memory that deteriorates to photographs and repeated stories that are told on instinct

I have around 9 months left here.  I mentally prepare myself for going home, I think about things I own and how I’ll have to post them back, I think about creating a career for myself at home, I think about the school I want to go to and the things I want to learn.  But it doesn’t matter.  I will never be ready to give this part of life up.

And sometimes, I am just so scared.

When the shit are we going to get flatmates that are aware of how to use the sponge and dish washing liquid?  Ok, so maybe the latest ones aren’t so bad, I mean, they have jobs and aren’t coming home in drug induced rages then knocking their teeth out after slipping in a puddle of their own spew like the last ones.

But the freaking dishes, holy crap.  HOW HARD IS IT.  I have never felt karma come back to kick me in the arse so badly as it is now.  I used to be one of those unclean people.  I APOLOGISE TO YOU, FLATMATES OF CHRISTMAS PAST.

Also, I’m getting pretty sick of being the only one purchasing shampoo.  Just because it is there, doesn’t mean you can use it.  Just because you’re a boy, doesn’t mean you are somehow exempt from that rule.

Love, Tiger.

Here are my top points on how not to pick up a girl in a club:

• Do not try and force your way into a circle of girls dancing together. They were dancing with each other. Not with you.
• After you have failed this, do not try and single a girl in the group out, then when she rejects you, rinse and repeat for every other girl in the group.? Honestly, there is no other way to make it blindingly obvious that you are trying to get laid.
• Do not walk up to a girl with her back to you and begin to shimmy too close behind her. No one likes a penis in the back. Also, that is really creepy. WTF.
• Do not keep tapping a girl on the shoulder, putting your arms round her or any other form of TOUCHING. You are not welcome to do that during the day, you’re sure as hell not welcome to do that at night. Women are not patches of test carpet.
• Signs of Not Wanting To Dance With You include: Turning her back on you. Walking away. Hiding behind one of her mates. These signs are telling you one thing only and I promise you, that it is not “Keep Trying”.
• If a girl says hints at thanks, but no thanks, do NOT do the hurt puppy look. This includes, sulking, sticking lip out with chin down, trying to generally look cute and endearing. You do not look cute and endearing. You look pathetic. I want to punch you in the face and tell you to grown the fuck up.
• If you *do* get a girls number, do not call and text her within 15 minutes to let her know where abouts in the club you are. (To my friend this happened to: How the hell do you find these weirdos dude)

How to talk to a girl in a club:

• If you’re on the dance floor, dance next to her and SMILE.? Be friendly and approachable, not overbearing and sleazy.
• In my opinion, best place to talk to a girl is at the bar. Again, Just. Be. Friendly. Do not ask to buy her a drink. Yea, that’s how they did it 10 years ago but this day and age of drink spiking, you immediately rouse suspicion. If you have to, buy one later, AFTER you’re done proving you’re not a rapist.
• JUST BE FRIENDLY. STOP TRYING SO DAMN HARD.

That is all.

I’m writing this for Tiger right now because, well, in addition to her laptop being dead, apparently her internet just doesn’t agree with her choice to visit her own site. It firmly denies that it exists to her and refuses to go there, thereby preventing her from posting herself. In addition to this, she is having even further issues with her bank card, and it’s ability to produce cash from various machines around the city.

Read Below:

<Tiger-Provided Text Below>

Welcome to the worst week EVER. My hard drive died after no warning that anything was even wrong. I’ve spent the whole week on? the phone to Dell, running freaking diagnostics and arguing about when to send a tech out and no, 5 days is not long enough for me to recover my data off the broken drive. Despite saying “don’t send a tech out” a tech arrived at my work this morning. I told him to just give me the new hard drive and I’ll install it myself. He swore black and blue that I wouldn’t get an invoice from Dell if I didn’t return the faulty drive in the 5 day period given. I don’t believe him. Wait for Dell vs Lilley Part 376: The Big Argument Session.

But wait, there’s more. On my way to an appointment this afternoon, my bank card got declined at the ATM. I ran upstairs, not in the mood to be pissed around by a machine, oh but in England, we don’t let you withdraw over the counter. Even though it’s your money sorry LULZ. I missed my appointment, due to the fact I couldn’t PAY FOR IT.

After half an hour on the phone to the bank, they asked me if I tried to withdraw £100 in Canada last week. No? Ahh you have been gotten by card fraud, retailers can steal your details now. We’ve cancelled your card. You’re not getting a new one till next Friday.

Luckily, I have a whopping £5.84 to see me through till next week. But wait, there’s more. This blog isn’t even being posted by me, because LOL my workplace’s ISP is broken so I can’t access my own site! HILARIOUS.

I saw you snigger and nudge your big fat friend when you saw us walk past. It’s nice being bigger and stronger than other people isn’t it? I saw you slam my friend into the wall, just because you could.

I heard you tell him that you wanted to headbutt my girlfriend in the face.

I heard the cops ask her if she wanted to press charges. She said no. She shouldn’t have.

I saw you run like like pansy you are, running after us, begging for your hat. Someone stole my hat! You were saying. Someone stole my hat!

You ripped my friends shirt. You are a cowardly piece of shit.

Missing something?

Fuck you. Go to hell.