April 2021

Well, April feels like it's passed by in something of a whirlwind, mainly work related, but I guess on balance that's probably a good thing. (Though somehow my invoicing is not reflecting this 😑)

Over the last year this has happened much more frequently, and I always get scared that I'm losing my ability to visual diary, but the truth of it is I BARELY DO ANYTHING ANY MORE and it's a miracle there aren't more days that are just me saying 'I don't know what to draw'

As part of my MA research I am thinking a lot about trains (and train stations), and that's a real treat for Emma y'know

I went somewhere!! I did something!! I saw some people!!

Nearing the end of our Bond movie marathon now, I feel quite emotional! Quantum of Solace is the only one of the Daniel Craig Bond movies that's anything less than an 8/10. It's still fine but just feels a bit weak, plot-wise.

As a birthday present to myself I treated myself to one of my all time favourite boardgames, Dead of Winter. I can't wait to invite more people over to play boardgames with us!

I should say, normally Chase is a very clean dog, but sometimes, well, you know how it is. 

I feel like I should probably improve my diet or get some probiotics or something, but instead I'm just going to draw complainy drawings and buy more stretchy trousers.

I literally could not give a fuck about Prince Phillip dying. But I do find use of ad/digital media spaces in public spaces interesting...

So ever since we lived in this house there have been these two massive vases of, I guess, decorative twigs, in the living room. They're taller than a person, spiky, ugly and annoying. But they belonged to the landlord, so we just put up with them, perpetually shifting them around to try and put them in the least obtrusive/most out of the way place. However, I finally got so sick of them that I texted the landlord and was like 'look, can we get rid of these?' and he was like 'oh yeah sure I don't even know where they came from', and I was simultaneously delighted, and livid that I hadn't done it months ago. Anyway, me and Tabitha wrestled them into her very small car and she drove them to the tip, GOOD RIDDANCE HORRIBLE TWIGS

Skyfall is REALLY REALLY GOOD and if you have even a passing interest in action movies, it's probably one of my favourites of all time.

Me: Obviously I am going to be very cautious about re-entering the world when businesses re-open, you won't see me meeting my friends at a pub or restaurant until we've all been vaccinated

Also me: Obviously I will be getting a manicure on the first day salons re-open

Also me: SHOPPING!!!

First day back on site at uni since before Christmas. Even before that, our entire course cohort (48 people) had never all been in the same room together, so our knowledge of each other was mostly based on video lectures and fleeting hallway glimpses. Technically we still couldn't all be in the same room together, but we all came on site and mingled between two rooms and it was really really nice.

The perpetual struggle

My truths

Last one! Spectre is really good, though not as good as Skyfall IMO.

My worst COVID fear (aside from, obviously, dying or long COVID) is doing the tests. I have emetophobia, and a very strong gag reflex, and absolutely CANNOT tolerate someone rubbin' around my tonsils for 10-second a side with a long stick. I decided to try and do a test myself at home, but couldn't stand it for more than about a second a side, and had to take a long gap between sides. The nose bit is hell too. Massive respect to people who are just like, doing these all the time. It's the worst. (I was trying because I live in Wandsworth which was one of the boroughs telling everyone to test because of the South African variant)

wHO gEts YouR vOTe

Trying to make the most of uni facilities while still juggling work commitments. Booked a morning of riso room which I used to print some long procrastinated 'thank you' slips for my etsy orders. This is one of the background test sheets with multiple layers just slightly offset.

PERPETUAL BIG MOOD, two seperate bra fittings this month, both hell, nothing is tolerable, what's happened to me? I'm not exactly new to this rodeo, I know how bras are meant to fit but I'm increasingly finding I can't tolerate any fit or style of bra for more than a couple of hours at a time. But I can't just go without, because the muscles at the top of my breasts start to ache after just a few minutes walking outside without one, and I get chafing and rashes. It is LOSE LOSE and I have pretty much decided to say fuck saving for a house deposit, I want these things gone. Yeah, owning a house would be nice, but I have to live in this body every day, and breasts are a hell I can't escape without major and expensive top surgery, surgery which increasingly feels like something I desperately want to do. 

Having a very fun time with the Witcher 3 computer game, and now also watching the TV show for bonus context. It's pretty silly and I wouldn't be enjoying it at all if it weren't for the game, but as it is, it's a nice thing.

So now our Bond marathon is over, we're undertaking the slightly shorter marathon of watching all the Star Wars movies, several of which I've never seen, and those which I have seen, I haven't seen since childhood. I figured I'd draw them too, but taking a slightly different approach... because with most of the Bond movies I was super familiar with them, it was quite easy to draw along as I watched... With these, I'm gonna watch the whole film then do some slightly more shoddy scribbles based on everything I remember afterwards. Sorry if this is sacrilege to any hardcore star wars fans out there. Anyway, I am willing to concede that the first movie is a pretty fun time. I like Chewbacca and his angry friend, and the jazz band.

 

I'm still pretty convinced everyone was just being really annoying.

Chase doesn't like the groomers, but she needed a toenail clip, and some tending to her, as they call it 'hygiene area', which had been a little grubby/matted since her spay (there's some uh, oozing). It was all very undignified, but she's back to her sweet clean self now, and she smells amazing and has a cute new little bowtie to boot.

Due to aforementioned work 'aaagh' and ongoing uni 'aaagh', I've got really into google calendar's 'week to view' mode. SO EFFICIENT! 

Relatedly

Once I'm actually DOING the night shifts I'm always fine, but I find I have this massive sense of looming dread and anxiety and pre-emptive tiredness in the run up to them. (Nothing to do with the content of the shifts, literally just my ability to function and not feel gross).

And then HERE WE ARE, I forgot April only has 30 days, so May came as a bit of a shock this time...

March 2021

Happy March, happy month of my birth! I guess the birthday is an added bonus but March also always feels like the turning point out of winter. Perhaps the unseasonably warm weather (which will soon be gone again anyway), but I do feel my mood lifting slightly. Maybe also EASTER HOLIDAYS — it has been many years since that last felt like a meaningful break to me, but back in academia for this year, I am really appreciating it. Anyway, that's getting ahead of myself...

I think I say it often, but ugggghhhh I miss the OCEAN. At this point I'm so starved of being anywhere that's not my specific south-London neighbourhood that I even found myself fantasising about visiting the place where I grew up... Really brain?! We NEVER want to go back there? It did have good beaches though I guess, and on the rare occasions I do go back, I always try and make sure there's at least one beach outing a day.

Ever since I saw this very short video of Super Mario character Toad with inexplicably long, human legs, and a Phillip Glass voiceover about being a dancer, I never want to play any character apart from Toad in Mario Kart, and I like to imagine he has to squeeze his comically long legs into all the stupid carts, especially the creepy clown one. Hey it's nice to think about something other than global catastrophe and/or my dog died for a few minutes

Emma's further adventures in coding

I LOVE TAKEAWAY THURSDAYS! (We watched all 4 Toy Story movies over the last month, and I've gotta say, they're a) better than you remember, and b) INCREDIBLY EMOTIONALLY HARROWING.

I am really really enjoying playing the Witcher 3 on Switch. My partner finds it really funny that when I'm talking about the central character in the game, I don't say 'I' (meaning me, the player), or 'He' (meaning Geralt, the character), I say 'We', meaning me and Geralt, hanging out together like buddies. 

(I still really miss Breath of the Wild and DO NOT KNOW what I am going to do when I finish the Witcher. Luckily this game is hundreds of hours long, but I am genuinely distressed that there are no more massive open-world adventure games available for me to play on Switch once this is over. Here's hoping I can somehow draw this out until the next Zelda?! Or that something unexpected will get a Switch release?!)

I had an EXCURSION!! I am currently in the process of figuring out my final MA research question... Still not sure exactly what it is (but luckily I have another 6 weeks or so to figure it out), but it's definitely going to be something around transit infrastructure, placemaking, communities and post-pandeic localism. I wrote in depth about this particular outing over on my 'academia' blog, here.

Tomorrow Never Dies is the one with Michelle Yeoh and the Rupert Murdoch-like media mogul who dies a horrible death. It's one of the better Bond movies IMO!

[crying emoji]

(For real though, I couldn't have imagined how much I could love another dog so soon after Charlie, but... Here's Chase. She's just so... easy and sweet and kind and chill, there's nothing about her to dislike (except maybe her terrible old lady flatulence), and everything to fall in love with. She's a gentle sweet soft girl and I am so lucky we found her.)

Finally understand what those 'fine lines and wrinkles' face cream adverts like to talk about are. Still absolutely refuse to even engage with any kind of meaningful skincare regime though — my complete lack of skin self-care has served me well so far, what could possibly go wrong over the next 33 years?!

If you wanna see a video about my current MA research thinking, check this out! And know that it took some SCRUPULOUS editing and clipping out of every pause to get it down to that 6.59 time, lolsob.

 
After several months of no-dye time for my partner, it's blue hair time again!

My toe is now, touch-wood, completely better, but lemme tell you, it took a while.

Decided to do a painting, because I worry my visual diaries have got a bit lazy this year, what with... everything. Here's crowds of people waiting out a rain storm under the trees in Battersea Park. On some level I guess I should be glad the world is going back to normal, but UGH the park is SO BUSY and everyone is in my way and no one seems to care about any kind of social etiquette or space sharing. I feel like I'm still in some deep grief mode but somehow it's now big-bag-of-cans-with-the-lads time and I'm just not ready for big-bag-of-cans-with-the-lads time (and it's only going to get worse as summer comes)

The World is Not Enough is just fine. It's the Pierce Brosnan one I can never really quite remember. It's the one where he slides down the side of the Millenium Dome, back when the Millenium Dome was still the Millenium Dome and not the O2 arena.

Housemate Tabitha's birthday is TOO CLOSE to mine, but so it goes — there's nothing to do but batten down the hatches and ready ourselves for a double onslaught of baked goods and flowers.

This is quite possibly the worst social situation I have experienced since that old cliche of 'being picked for sports teams at school'. (FWIW, my final research hub have turned out to be super cute and fun and I don't even NEED to be in with the popular kids, so there)

A year since we went into lockdown for the first time, uggggghhhhhhhhh

I had to run a session with guest speakers for uni and that was really stressful... Plus Chase got spayed, which was also really stressful. We ummed and ahhed a lot about whether or not to get her done, as it's a big operation for a girl of her age, but the vet (and every other source I read) really strongly advise that it should get done, no matter how late it's left, as it protects her from cancer and pyometria (a particularly nasty, often fatal infection of the womb which is not uncommon in unspayed female dogs). Suffice to say, it was not a fun time for the good girl.

She had to wear a hilarious medical onesie with poppers at the butt. She's such a fluffy girl but she has the body shape of a greyhound, and somehow wearing this made her feel massively reduced in size. That, coupled with her incredibly mournful and quite confused/erratic behaviour made her quite a depressing presence around the house...

Cut my fringe back in, immediately felt approximately 3x less hideous. 

Die Another Day is the one with Madonna in. It's really stupid. There's a big laser and an invisible car. It's the last Pierce Brosnan movie and I think I'm glad about that because we weren't on a good trajectory with these ones.

Poor Chase just couldn't quite get comfortable for a few days :(

Treated myself to a new coat from Uniqlo (this one, in black), because none of my old coats were feeling very '2021 Emma in her mid (?!?!?!) 30s'. I looked at Uniqlo's official measurements and they said (based on my nightmare boob measurement) that I should be an XXL. I mean COME THE FUCK ON. Their slightly fancier size calculator put me at an M. Sounds more like it. I split the difference and got an L because I'm sick of clothes being too tight, but it turns out L is ENORMOUS and in this design of coat I could probably have fitted into an XS. Sizing what even is it?!?!!?! Ugh I hate online shopping. Still, with the belted waist it is kind of a look?! So I decided not to return it even though I'm still not sure if it looks kind of stupid. If you see me out and about please tell me I look cool, thanks. (Who am I kidding, I haven't seen anyone 'out and about' since before December)

For the first time in MONTHS, a) managed to clear the decks of freelance work, b) booked some time off my main job, and c) EASTER BREAK from uni!! Delighted, tbh. Watched Tabitha bake me some incredibly good birthday cookies.

And then, BIRTHDAY!!! 33, but maybe we should say 32 again, as I'm not sure the last year really counts. Anyway, I tried to make it the best day I possibly could for myself without seeing any friends. First I ate a cookie. Then I treated myself to a (technically non-essential, sorry) 10 min train ride to Waterloo, from where I had an enjoyable walk over the Borough Market. I bought some spices and a nice lunch, though you can't eat on site at the moment, so I ate my noodles huddled under a nearby bush sheltering from the rain. Hm. Then I got the train home, had a fun video chat with some of my favs (video chat is mostly BANNED because I normally find it tiring and socially exhausting, but these people make it easy somehow), and then we got takeaway burgers from my favourite place (Neat Burger) and watched Isle of Dogs (it's very good!) 

Couldn't really have done much better in the current circumstances I guess.

Casino Royale is actually a genuinely good movie, which (much to my disappointment, given my abiding affection for the franchise) can't be said about most of the Bond movies. Daniel Craig is great (and very different from the other Bonds), the plot is coherant, it is consistently fast paced, the script isn't super cringe like most of the others, and the action feels much more creative (though maybe this is just because it's more contemporary).

Some friends got me Rail Road Inc for my birthday, which is a super simple, super fun little boardgame that I really enjoyed! (Side note, I know it's not time YET, but I am so excited to start hosting boardgame nights one day before a million more months pass. Pls come play boardgames with me!)

Research flailing a little just now, but enjoying thinking about VOID SPACES for a bit. 

Ready for April now, I think?! Maybe see you there (in a group of 6 or less, outdoors)