Today is one of those days where I wish I could be an uber-hip art student. Wear lots of black eye-liner. I even learned how to roll my own cigarettes so I could get started on crafting my new chic persona. Not really. Learned how to roll ciggies for two reasons: it's cheaper, and I'm hoping the extra effort required to get a cigarette ready for consumption will help keep me from chain-smoking (a bad habit I got into whilst sitting on the beach for two weeks).
I am sad to report that I am no longer a bronze goddess, however I did finally get my burrito. Despite the Chipotle-esque setup, Tortilla just isn't as good. But it's still one of the top two Mexican joints I've been to in London. I'd probably go back. But first their staff needs to learn the menu, so when I ask for 'carne asada', they don't stare at me blankly.
Anyway, onto what I've been up to over the past couple of weeks.
I re-visited my semi-punk rock late teen years. It was fun. Went to a couple of gigs, saw some fun bands. The best of the bunch was Los Mendozas. If you ever get a chance to see them, DO IT. It's four guys from Brighton that get dressed up as luchadores (in little boy short speedos and masks), then proceed to recount a typical day in the ring for a Mexican wrestler through semi-hardcore songs. The costumes in and of themselves are worth seeing. You also get treated to the absolute worst fake Mexican accent I've ever heard...it wound up sounding like a cross between British, Mexican, and Austrian (and god knows how that last one snuck in there). There is so much hilarious banter between the guys in between songs, by the end of their set you feel like you've just watched a comedy act, not a band. I haven't laughed that hard in a very long time. Should you feel like checking them out, head to myspace: http://www.myspace.com/losmendozas
I will say though that at the second show I sort of felt like I'd intruded on a boys-only club. The few girls that were there looked waaaaaay fiercer than I do and sort of lurked around the fringes of the crowd with their boyfriends. That's not to say I wasn't entirely amused just watching all the fellas in the crowd do nothing more than nod their heads in time with the music (until the pit broke out towards the end of the Mendozas's set). To be honest, the people-watching was probably the best part of the whole affair. Although I will say that I'm completely out of touch with the new genres of kids. Either that or they're slightly different over here. The one kid who was dressed up like a scenester turned out to be part of the punk band that opened the show. The hardcore band looked like a bunch of bro guys out of Riverside (and kept annoyingly dedicating their unintelligible songs to random different causes, like hippies and single moms and people who survive cancer). The kids that were recognizably punk with mohawks and crap turned out to be there for the hardcore band. And it seemed like there were quite a few emo kids lurking about too. No hipsters though. Well. Might've been a couple at the bar in the front. Seems to me like you have to have a decent-paying job to pull off the hipster look since the clothes are so damn expensive.
All in all, it was good times. My ears hadn't been subjected to decibel levels like that since I stopped working for an airline. And while it wasn't really punk rock that night, I was reminded of the punk show I went to instead of going to my senior prom.
I almost accidentally killed myself last Wednesday. With poisonous gas.
How did I manage that?
Since a lot of my time spent doing chores is time spent ironing, I get a little fussy about how well the iron is functioning at any given point. I was about midway through the pile on Wednesday when I noticed there wasn't really any steam coming out of the iron. So I rummaged around for some iron descaler, and went about cleaning out the limescale deposits that build up because I put tap water in the iron's reservoir. Everything was going wonderfully when I noticed that the limescale, while leaving the inner tubing of the iron, was now adhering itself to the iron plate. "Can't have that all over the clothing," I thought, so I proceeded to put some additional descaler onto a bit of paper towel in order to clean off the iron plate. It was still hot. About three seconds after I started rubbing at the scorched buildup, I noticed thick white smoke, and then it hit my nose. Felt like a million needles jamming into my nostrils. Managed to get a lung-full of it too, before I realized I'd just introduced an formic acid-based cleaner to a heat source. Swearing profusely, I set down the iron, opened up all the windows, and ran out of the room. On their own, formic acid fumes can give you nasty respiratory tract chemical burns (the million needles). When heated, it also produces carbon monoxide (the poisonous gas I almost killed myself with). I'm pretty much an idiot. I laughed pretty hard though once I got out of the kitchen of death. My throat was pretty scratchy for a couple of days.
Other than that, I've been studying for finals. I'm a little stressed out about it, but deep down I'm sure I'll be fine. This is the first time I've had to study for a test in a really long time though. Took a couple of study sessions to get back into the groove of things.
The work front should be mellowing out soon. Julian flies out to Berlin tomorrow to start shooting a 10-week project (he'll be back most weekends). Sonja starts on some obscene 6-month shoot the week after. It'll just be me and Conrad, which should alleviate a lot of my stress in some regards (though I'm sure it'll add to my stress in other ways). I almost want to say he and I have turned a corner, but I'm pretty sure that'll jinx things and he'll go back to being a terror. So I'll just leave it at that.
Anyway, I'm starting to drift off (finally), so I'll stop here. Probably won't post anything up again for a while since it's looking like I won't be doing anything exciting until after finals are over.
The weather's been really sucky lately. It hailed. And poured. I miss sunshine.
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