Caution: Anti-Fragile

I stepped steadily towards the counter, arms shaking under the combined strain of the basket full of plates and fatigue from last night's fitness class. There was no-one in front of me and no-one behind: i was confident.

I tripped over my own feet, ramming the shopping basket full of plates into the counter.

The plates rattled ominously, and the shop assistants stared.

Too embarrassed to care, I looked them right in the eye and said:

"This is why I need new plates."





I'm back. Not that I went anywhere – I'm just back from a pause in writing in this blog. As you might have seen from Tashcakes!, I'm still busy cooking and writing recipes. What with work, Mandarin lessons, K-Pop dancing, baking-blogging, gym and socialising this blog has taken a bit of a back seat, alas. But I haven't forgotten about it; and I'll continue to write whenever I can.

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

Wounded at the Gym

I flicked the fluff of baby hairs away from my face irritably as I ran on the treadmill- my baby hairs always spring out at the slightest bit of movement, no matter how neatly I tie my hair back. I accidentally scratched my right temple as I did so, which stung a little but not much- I was too busy focusing on trying to outdo my personal best to mind.

During my two hours at the gym this evening I noticed that quite a few people were glancing in my direction, and some were openly staring. I'm used to people occasionally taking a peek at the monitor of whichever machine I'm on to compare against how they themselves are doing, but the sheer amount of people passing and peering at me today was quite annoying. Still, I kept focused, not letting anyone distract me out of my 'zone'.

When I got home, I passed a mirror and discovered why I was the apparent centre of attention: an impressive flow of blood had made its way all the way down my face from my scratched temple, paired with a comically dramatic smear of blood across my forehead from a routine sweat-wipe.


Edit:

One of my friends Tisa pointed out that it was typical British behaviour how no-one actually asked if I was okay: I didn't even think of that! Although I'm not surprised- I did fall down the stairs of a double-decker bus once when the driver braked (broke?) too violently, and no-one checked if I was okay. Huh.

Adventures in Iceland: Notes from the Nose

The organist hammered out the final chord and let go with a flourish. We visitors sat in spellbound silence as the notes ascended and then evaporated into the arches of Hallgrímskirkja. All was still.

The moment was shattered when my friend Siu Yen suddenly convulsed violently and let out an explosive sneeze. The sneeze bounced joyfully off of the church pillars and upwards, as if chasing the last notes of the organ. A second, heavier silence.

“Well... that was embarrassing.” My friend muttered.

In Which I Act Uncharacteristically Starry-Eyed

As my train pulled into Euston underground station, I stood up and made my way to the doors. The doors opened, and I found myself standing in the direct eye line of a rather good-looking guy. We stared each other for the longest two seconds ever, and quickly diverted our gazes, embarrassed. I dodged out of the way of the oncoming crowd of people who were waiting to board the train with this guy, whilst I hopped off. As I sidled past him, I stole one last glance, as if to make sure he really existed.

I caught him red-handed in his own second-glance at me, just before we were both buffeted apart by the tide of the crowd.

Utterly disorientated, I turned around, walked straight into a wall and then proceeded to walk in the wrong direction.

The train, of course, left (and a few minutes later I found myself on the wrong platform having come to from my daze).

The unusual thing about this story is that I never act like this. This has never happened to me before- even in my last long-term relationship (RIP) it took me almost a full year to fully realise that I had come to be in love my friend rather than just love him in the platonic sense. Sure I can admire good looks when I see them, but I never go ga-ga over it. I don't even this this guy was what you'd call classically handsome or beautiful, or even particularly striking. But something about this guy caught my attention a couple of nights ago, and apparently him too. I didn't even have anything on my face- I checked afterwards just to make sure.

Well, all else I can say this: even though I still don't really believe in true love at first sight, I think I'll be more lenient about the idea of attraction at first sight- and I'll carry on hoping that no-one saw me walk into that wall. Especially not that guy,

I Did It! The Nodojiman Karaoke Contest at Japan Matsuri London

On Saturday I got up there in front of thousands of people and danced and sung Tsukema Tsukeru ('putting on false eyelashes').

It was EPIC.

Even though nerves made my voice go horribly strained and wobbly from trying to escape my throat, I danced by butt off and felt pretty epic. I had an amazing bunch of friends cheering me on, my mum and dad looking on in pride and amusement, and the other amazing contestants lined up behind me cheering and clapping along too. Sadly my voice let me down too much to be in the running for a prize, but I didn't mind at all. The winners were incredible (the winner of the first prize had a truly jaw-dropping voice), and I felt like I had leveled up in life. I got a lot of attention outside the competitions regarding how I'd done my makeup too, which was funny (falsies- of course, rhinestones around my eyes and lots of pink and glitter).

When I posted the video on my Facebook, my friend Ruthie- who I've known since I was at school- commented:

'Wow. had strange moments of remembering how shy you were when we met...and watching this... amazing xxx'

I replied:

'This caterpillar sure turned into one crazy-ass butterfly, huh? xxx'

Honestly, if you'd have known me those thirteen years ago- hell, even as little as three years ago- I'd have never dreamed of getting up on stage in the middle of London and potentially making an utter arse of myself in front of thousands of strangers. Sure I performed all the time on the piano at school concerts all the time and one or two other things, but I always felt secure behind a piano- but even after years of singing, I never liked singing in front of people. But you know what? Saturday felt fantastic. I'm definitely going to practise so I can do a better job next year, if I'm lucky enough to be accepted a second time.

In the meantime, I feel like I'm ready to venture back into music again- I do have a dipABRSM in performance and two additional Grade 8's after all and it would be a shame to let them go to waste... if only I could find a way to squeeze it in between baking, writing and the Mandarin course and Google Analytics course I've recently taken up.

In any case, I turn 26 next weekend. Bring it on, bitches. I'm ready.

In Which I Conduct a Social Experiment

Or more to the point, in which I go speed dating.

You heard me.

A couple of weeks ago two colleagues and I were talking about the merits of being single, and somehow we got onto the topic of how to flirt. None of us could decide on how to define flirting exactly, so as a joke we Googled 'flirting workshop'. We actually found one! Only they cost over £200 for a day course.

Two hundred smackeroos of my hard-earned cash to learn how to flirt? Seriously?

Anyway, one thing led to another and we ended up agreeing it would be jolly good fun if we signed up for speed dating, which happened a couple of nights ago, on Saturday night. In the end neither of my colleagues made it, one having never actually gotten around to booking and the other having to go to a friend's wedding. Thankfully (really, really thankfully) I found a couple of other people to go with instead.

Off we trotted to the bar, making sure we were intentionally ten minutes late to avoid being the first ones there. Of course, we were the first ones there. I was rather amused and more than slightly worried that the doormen (or rather doorladies) began to ask for our IDs, but then told us not to worry and go straight in and downstairs to the event bar when they realised we were there for the speed dating event.

So if we're just here to down booze we need to be ID-ed, but if we're here to meet a bunch of random strangers whilst downing booze at the same time it's a-okay? Huh.

Even though we were the first to the scene, we were very quickly followed by more ladies ("What did I tell you? The girls always arrive first," I heard one say to her friend). Soon enough the place was full: twenty girls, eighteen guys (because two guys had chickened out failed to turn up). It was a relatively small room, and to my slight discomfort I realised that dates would be sitting side-by-side on sofas rather than face-to-face like an interview. Scratch that, I'm not sure which is worse. Anyway, the rules were that girls stayed where they were and guys rotated, often having to squeeze onto the sofas by sliding past the fixed tables (I was particularly glad I didn't have to move as I'm not known for my natural poise and grace).

The bell rang. Off we went: four minutes per person and *DINGDINGDING*, time to move on to the next.

Speed dating is surprisingly exhausting, even if you're a talkative person. As a writer, I'm quite contented to sit for hours on end and type or scrawl, and as for the quality of my writing- I've been told I could convince anyone to do anything, on paper. Talking... not so much. Some people are blessed with a silver tongue- mine's more like one of those roll-up party horns. As a result, when I talk- especially about the things I'm interested about- I think I sound rather manic.

Combine manic speed-talking with a whole load of wild hand gestures and an increasingly shrill voice as I struggled to compete with the growing din of a large crowd with booming club music in a small room, and you'll get a general feel for how I was coming off.

Combine this with my unbridled geekiness, then, well...

I joked with some other friends that I wasn't worried about meeting weirdos: I'D be the weirdo. I joked that there would be guys going home later that night, going back to their mates and saying "Yeah... there was this one really crazy girl there..." By the time I left, I really felt like I'd completed my own prophecy. The confident guys either humoured me or, in one case, acted physically repelled by me (although the latter wasn't much liked by my friends either because of his slightly arrogant air), and the shy guys were overwhelmed by me.

Without further ado, here were some of the most memorable moments of the evening on my end.

The Good:

One guy asked me what the most exciting thing I'd done in the last couple of years was (I replied I went to Go Ape). This was a nice change from the 'so what do you do?' or 'is this your first time speed dating?' questions I'd been asked. As the minutes went by the subject of me once doing a lot of battle reenactment came up, and I was impressed that he actually asked what century reenactment my group did and what kind of sword I had. I asked him what TV and books he liked, and just as he replied 'Game of Thrones' the bell went *DINGDINGDING* before I had a chance to enthuse. Ah well- such is the nature of speed dating. I scribbled 'Paddy- Game if Thrones' hurriedly as a prompt on my 'score sheet'.

As soon as this other guy sat down, I decided to ask him what the most geeky thing about him was. To my puzzlement and amusement, he stared at me, blinked and suddenly replied "You know what, screw this. I'm liking your blue dress and black cardi thingy combo." I laughed and said thanks, but I still expected him to answer the question. When I asked him what he did, he only replied "All in good time." As our conversation progressed it became very apparent that there were very few geeky bones in this guy's body, and he even asked me "So would you force any unsuspecting boyfriend into wearing a costume to Comicon with you?" (My answer was of course not- one man's cosplay is another man's form of cruel and unusual punishment). The bell went *DINGDINGDING*, and just as he got up he shot back in my direction, "And to answer your earlier question I work in finance." "Oh! I'm sorry" I said, and thankfully he laughed. I scribbled 'Daniel-Does-Not-Do-Comicon' down.

The Bad:

The arrogant guy- as he slid across the sofa, I joked at how they could have picked better seating arrangements for a bunch of strangers meeting each other for the first time, wanting to make the best impression. I wasn't expecting the single raised eyebrow I got, paired with a very chilly, "Actually, I thought I did that rather well." I laughed as if he were joking, but he just continued to stare ever so slightly down his nose at me and repeated, " Wouldn't you say I did that well?" I rolled my eyes and said something like 'fine then'. We ended up talking about food for the rest of the few minutes left (at least food is something I can talk about), with him mentioning one of these fancy places that has no menu and me struggling to remember the name of one of my favourite Malaysian restaurants as he boredly stared at me as I struggled. It was a rather long four minutes. At least my friends all had a similar experience. To be honest, he was acting like actually being there made him sick. You know what the craziest thing is? The friend he came with happened to be Game Of Thrones Paddy.

When one guy asked me if I'd been speed dating before and I said no, he countered with, "You have such a lovely, innocent face for someone who lies so well!" I covered my discomfort by a show of obvious mock-offence.

The Mad:

That'd be me, then. Aside from mentioning I owned my own chain mail, lost two years of my life to World of Warcraft and have been to London Comicon dressed in Stark Trek uniform, I also occasionally asked "What would you rather be: a pineapple or a papaya?" Curiously everyone I asked answered pineapple, and everyone said it was because of their hair. I also asked "Star Wars or Star Trek?" on one occasion.

The Interesting:

One guy's English wasn't particularly polished, and it turned out that he came from a small village in Italy and had moved to London to seek his fortune as an artist (or rather seek a career- few ever make a fortune in art). Not quite believing him I asked him questions like what was his favourite medium, period of style and favourite artists, and to my astonishment he was totally genuine. I didn't put him down as a 'Yes' or a 'Friend', but all the same when I wished him well in the city at the end of the four minutes, I meant it wholeheartedly.

So would I do it again? Maybe. Not in a long while- it was more a novelty and a fun night out for me, and I certainly didn't expect to meet any knights in shining armour. They say speed dating is a numbers game, but I never was that great at probability in maths.

Anyway, there are several major flaws to speed dating, the major one in my opinion being the time limit. Sure it's handy if you get someone you don't get on with, but what about people like Game of Thrones guy? There were a few more like him, like a slightly shy-er guy who I found out when we had just seconds to go that he played jazz piano (interesting to me, being a qualified pianist), and another even shy-er guy who was just beginning to come out of his shell before he had to move on.

The second biggest flaw is more of a personal one: I'm a geek girl. I'm pretty niche. Even worse, by a lot of 'geek guy' standards I'm not 'geeky enough' (sod them, is what I say). Speed dating events in my age range are often for city professionals who are more into sports than sci-fi. So I can't really win. All I can do is do what I do best, and be myself as hard as I possibly can.

One question I really wanted to ask people but never got around to was, "What do you enjoy most about being single?" I could give a whole list of reasons why I love being single- which is probably why I only ticked the 'Friend' box on my score sheet for some of the guys, and no 'Yes'es for dating. Dating and boyfriends can wait- I'm too busy geeking out.

So. After the event you go home, and in the next couple of days enter in your ticks online to see if anyone has matched up with you. Did I get any friend matches afterwards? Well, I've just gotten around to checking and yes, I have two: one is the shy-er guy, and the other, most amusingly, is 'Daniel-Does-Not-Do-Comicon'. 'Game If Thrones Paddy' has yet to input his scores.

I did find 'Daniel-Does-Not-Do-Comicon' quite fun though, and thought we'd probably actually get on rather well despite the culture difference (or else it would have been rather silly for me to tick 'Friend' if I didn't mean it, wouldn't it?). In fact, halfway through writing this I got a pop-up email alert telling me that he's sent me a message. I haven't read it yet- it's way past my bedtime and my brain has already made as much social interaction as it can take for a few days. I'll take a look and maybe reply tomorrow. This could be entertaining...

Making an Utter Arse of Myself/ Awesome Shopping Trip

Two consecutive posts in two days! Do I get a cookie?

I went on a mini-adventure to find a supermarket I'd been meaning to explore, today. I'm not a huge fan of driving to new places because I have a slight irrational fear of one way systems (yes, really). Thankfully I'm also a dab hand at reading maps, so I've never gotten myself lost. Yet.

Anyway I got there fine, and had a wander around. To my excitement, they were selling a brand of ice cream I love I haven't seen for years. I searched for my favourite flavour: there were just two left! And they were on the tallest shelf and right at the back of the freezer.

Now, this freezer was the kind that sits above and a little back from an open chest-style freezer: in short, you have to lean over the open freezer to fish out what you want from the cabinet freezer. Me being only 5'4" and with perfectly proportioned (but all the same short) arms, my fingertips couldn't even reach the magical cartons of my favourite ice-cream, even with me leaning right over on the tips of my toes.

Determined to break my ice cream drought, the scientific part of my brain kicked in. Maybe I could grab a tub of another flavour and use that to poke it out? I gave it a go, but all I managed to do was knock one of the tubs sideways. What if I created a chain of tubs leading up to the ones I wanted at the back, and pushed them out by pushing the tub at the front of the chain? More ice cream tubs knocked over.

I tried a few things, knocking over more tubs and conscientiously righting them again, getting colder and colder by the minute as I dangled over one freezer with my head and arms jammed in another. Finally, with a tub of an unwanted flavour in each hand, I found a way of wiggling the two illusive tubs forwards inch by inch- by poking at them from underneath the grill-like shelf with the other tubs. After what seemed like an eon, I managed to wiggle them to the front.

Victoriously, I plopped the two unwanted tubs down, seized my prize, and slammed the freezer door shut. As I turned around, a fellow shopper (who had been behind me for the whole time, I think), caught my eye and quickly turned away, possibly seeing my grimly determined grin.

Off I went to the tills to pay for my prize, feeling like I'd truly earned it and that the day couldn't get any better. In front of me was a couple with a rather large weekly shop- I just had the two tubs of ice-cream, but being in no hurry, I took my place behind them anyway. The lady in front put the shopping divider town on the conveyor belt, and I smiled and thanked her (because I've always thought it the polite thing to do).

As about half of her shopping passed through the scanner, the lady suddenly turned to me and said, "There's an offer going on here where if you spend over £40 and you have a club card, you get this big bar of Toblerone chocolate- it looks like we're going to get one. But I'm on a diet! Would you like it, if I gave it to you?"

I blinked. "Wow, yes please- if you're sure! That's very kind of you"

"Not at all, I simply can't have it in the house- I'll just eat it in one sitting," the lady chuckled.

"I think you can probably see I'd have no qualms," I said, beaming and gesturing to my two ice-cream tubs' worth of shopping.

So now I have two tubs of one of my favourite ice creams, and a huge 400g bar of Toblerone for free.

Win.

Thank you again, lady!

~Fin~

Making an Utter Arse of Myself: Finding Narnia

Show me a mysterious door slightly ajar, an unknown corridor discovered, a hidden and romantic-but-not-too-creepy alleyway, and I'll be in it faster than a cat in a cardboard box.

I've always loved the idea of secret tunnels and passageways, of portals to alternate realities and different dimensions. Once, as a child, my dad found me sitting on the stairs with my ear pressed to the wall, knocking on it and listening intently. When my dad asked me what I was doing, I replied that I was listening for hollow spaces, in case there was a secret door somewhere.

At work yesterday, on my way out of the toilets, I noticed that the wall opposite the entrance/ exit was at a funny angle. Not a wall: a door. I'd never noticed a door being there before, but there it was, slightly and tantalisingly cracked open. "Maybe this time it'll finally be Narnia!", a small, irrational part of my brain thought.

I crept up to the door, reached for the handle slowly, waited and... flung it open: 'Aha!'.

Alas, no Narnia, no Diagon Alley- not even a secret stash of toilet roll. Just a small space filled with pipes and cobwebs.

Not satisfied, and having a habitually scientific way of approaching things, I squeezed past the door and into the room, which was perhaps big enough to fit two people in with the door fully closed. I closed the door a little, experimentally. Nope, nothing: literally just a pipe room.

Trying to smother the faint sense of disappointment the irrational part of my brain was feeling, I poked my head out of the door to check that the coast was clear- just as someone walked into the toilets.

I froze, still with just my head sticking out. She stared at me, taking in the cobwebs in my hair, smiled nervously, and darted quickly into a cubicle. I hastily hopped out, dusted myself off, and walked very quickly back to the office.

(As a testament to how well my team member know me now, one of my colleagues noticed my flustered expression when I got back to my desk and asked "Oh Tash, what did you do?")

~Fin~

You Made my Day

Dear Tall Guy,

Thanks for catching me when I nearly wiped out on the tube, today. I did thank you at the time (albeit in a flustered, grinning 'ohmygoodnessthatwasembarrassing' kind of way), but I thought I'd say how much that little gesture meant to me, because it went against the usual big city 'People Don't Care' attitude. You probably saw me in front of you, reaching out but unable to grab at any of the holding bars because of this other guy who refused to budge up, and knew I was going to tumble backwards as soon as the train pulled off- and if you didn't see it coming, my imaginary hat goes off to you for your ninja-fast reaction.

You probably didn't think twice about such a small thing. I know I don't when I occasionally get to help out a random stranger. However, I've never myself experienced that sort of common decency from a member of the general public before.

Hell, the last time I fell over on a train, everyone around me in the carriage actually backed away from me in order to give me a clear shot at the floor. The worst incident was when I was at the top of the stairs on a double decker bus and the driver braked sharply, causing me to fall down the stairs in a heap: everyone made a point of looking away, and no-one asked if I was okay, let alone came to help me.

Over the years I've become quite disenfranchised with the general public, and I've been getting to the point where I've been considering giving up on being someone that looks out for others. But you reminded me today that not everybody is only out for themselves, and that there are still a few people left that give a damn, even if just a small damn. Even through it's not many, it's not nobody- and the world needs all the people who are willing to catch a falling stranger it can get.

I wouldn't say you've restored my faith in humanity- I still think we suck in general- but you've definitely restored my faith in the importance of looking out for your fellow man (or woman). So, thanks.

Yours sincerely,

Toppling Girl

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Afterword

Maybe I should be sad that something that should be seen as (and was, once up on a time) 'common decency' has been elevated to 'an act of kindless'- but it just made me happy that there is any common decency left in the first place. A sign of the times? Yes. A sign to give up? Not today.

~Fin~

Fail Breakfast

Save the biscuits first! 

Put too much milk in my coffee, balanced the tray perfectly to the table, set it down on a wobbly table, and heard the people next to me go 'ooooh...' as I spilled everything. Great start to the morning!

Short Stories: Wolf Whistle Interrupted

I had another one of those moments that could only ever happen to me.

Today, I made a conscious effort to improve my appearance- that is to say, I never don't put any effort into my appearance (unless I'm ill with a stinking cold, but then there's no hope for any of us, is there?), but lately I've been feeling a bit 'blah' and decided to go that extra mile to perk myself up in the morning: use a special eyeliner, don a spring coloured blush, force my flyaway babyhairs to submit with a pretty bobby pin, wear a dress... simple but effective tricks.

Later on today I was walking up the street towards the office, having gone out for a walk at lunch time. It was freezing cold and windy, and when it's freezing cold and windy, my nose streams like a tap. The bin men were doing their rounds, and they were burly blokey-blokes and rather a lot of them: but I didn't want to cross the road in case it looked like I was intimidated by them.

So I strode past in my heels, head held high, dress fluttering and waist-length hair flowing in streams in the wind. I heard the wolf-whistles begin.

Literally *just* as the first few whistling notes sounded, my nose gushed suddenly, and I broke all composure to scrabble for a tissue up my sleeve to blow my nose: and proceeded to make a wretched extended noise like an elephant trying to blow out a cork lodged in one of it's nostrils.

As I ended with a final violent snort, staggering at the effort, I glanced up to see the blokes staring at me, aghast that this small woman could have made such a noise. Then of course I made myself look like a complete loon by doing what I always do in an awkward situation: laugh like a drain.

I carried on laughing as I walked by- I didn't hear the clattering of bins for quite a few moments, so I assume they just carried on staring at me in disbelief.

~Fin~

Moments with Friends- Part 2

This is also actually a supplement story to the Romantically Challenged entry I wrote last year (the one where I tried to start a conversation with a nice-looking guy who worked in a chocolate shop by more or less asking him if he liked chocolate... yes, yes I know).

On that same day Lucia and I were perusing all the different flavours in that shop when another man who worked there came to educate us about chocolate.

"Chocolate is a journey", he said almost reverently at one point as he handed us a sample. Lucia and I stole a glance at each other, neither one of us sure if he was being serious or pulling our legs.

"Yes, you can really pick out different types of flavours," Lucia said bravely, subtly turning to me to give a half-shrug as I quirked an eyebrow back.

"It's interesting how chocolate from different origins works with different flavours: for example the truffles over there all work well with fillings, whereas this sort of chocolate is good enjoyed flat." He held out a bar of chocolate to indicate.

"What do you mean, 'flat?'" I asked, still in the world of flavours. Now both Lucia and the store assistant turned to look at me.

"...Flat?" The store assistant repeated slowly.

"Er- yes," I began, the feeling of realising I'd misunderstood something obvious- but still not knowing what it was- making my face slowly flush.

"It's a flat chocolate," he said, just as flatly.

"Yes. Um. Yes, but what does 'flat' mean?"

I saw Lucia grin out of the corner of my eye, realising that I wasn't actually asking about what the word itself meant, as the shop assistant looked at me like I was some kind of buffoon.

"It's flat. The chocolate is flat. See?" He held it out in the palm of his hand.

Flat. It had a flat shape.

The penny dropped.

"Ohhh I see! Haha, I thought you were talking about flavour or texture, like when a soft drink is fizzy or flat, and I was wondering if there was a chocolate equivalent of a flat drink, or..." I tailed off, embarrassed.

"No." He said, and simply walked off. I felt my face grow hotter and hoped that the other nice-looking guy hadn't overheard.

~Fin~

'What does flat mean?' Hah. In my defence, it's not that I'm stupid: it's just that I'm so clever that sometimes my tangled brain overcomplicates things unnecessarily- this has actually been said about me many times.

Funnily enough, this often ends up having exactly the same effect as being stupid.

Karma for the Adulterous

Today, I cheated on one of my favourite stores.

I'll give you a brief bit of background: it's no secret that I'm a Lush enthusiast, and I've even worked for them before. They have amazing-smelling stuff that works and great environmental ethics. The Body Shop used to be my go-to place for things like that, but I went off them ages ago when they stopped being colourful and funky and when they were bought by the more soulless L'Oreal. Yesterday I ran out of Lush's Dream Cream, which I've been using for years to keep my idiotically sensitive skin happy.

Yesterday also saw the country get a whole load of snow, making it a good idea to not drive out further than you have to: so no driving to Lush for me. 'No big deal', I hear you say, 'just wait until next week.' Well, I would- but when I say my skin is idiotically sensitive, I mean that if I don't take care of it, it turns my life into a living hell. So today I ventured into a nearby TBS, feeling weirdly like I was being unfaithful.

I've decided that what happened next was either pure karma for straying, or that I've actually been subconsciously programmed by Lush to sabotage any TBS store that I enter (sort of like how River from Firefly is programmed to go berserk when she hears a certain song).

The very first bottle I picked up, something like this happened:

Only instead of it being neat, it was noisy and chaotic and ended with me looking very sheepish, surrounded by a rainbow of bottles rolling around my feet. To add insult to injury, a sale placard landed squarely on my head as the two sales assistants doubled up with laughter.

I'm sorry Lush, I'll never stray again.

~Fin~

Friends with Sugar

My friend Vicky was visiting from Germany, and this evening we went to a dessert bar in Chinatown, where we ate a silly amount of cake. Vicky also gets a bit jittery on MSG, so having already been to another Chinese restaurant she was already getting a little bouncy. Me too- I'd just had a drink that was made out of 50% beans and 50% sugar. This didn't matter though- we were ready to tackle this magical place of cake.

By the end of it, we were giggling like idiots at nothing much in a cake and sugar-induced stupor. I was vaguely aware of Vicky beginning to stack the plates up neatly when I heard her declare proudly, "I shall be helpful! Ploop!"

The 'Ploop!' was accompanied by my sugar-crazed friend more or less slam-dunking the chunk of lemon from her half-finished lemon tea back into her mug- out of which tea shot out of in all directions.

I suppose she was helpful in the end, as she mopped all the spilled tea up- I was less so though, because I was too busy laughing like a hyena.

Crouching Tasha, Hidden Panda

This is my hat.

Marvel at its panda-ness.

Last week I got to don it when we had a sudden cold snap. Everything froze overnight, and since it had been a bit damp the day before all the trees and plants appeared to turn into beautiful crystalline structure. When I parked in my office car park and got out I noticed that the weeds on the grassy bank behind my car had developed some fun-looking ice prickles, so I decided to snap them. I crouched down with my little compact camera into the foliage to attempt to get a clean, car-less shot.

After a while my legs fell asleep, so I had to get up really slowly to stop myself from falling over. Little did I know there had been someone curiously (and slightly nervously) waiting the other side of my car, probably having heard me scuffling about in the grass and wanting to make sure everything was alright. She stared at me, partially curious, partially a little bit scared, and possibly with a hint of pity. When I thought back about it later, I realised this is what she must have seen:

A pair of black bear ears, slowly rising from behind a car, followed by a pair of panda eyes, a panda nose, my eyebrows, and gradually the rest of my face and body, looking guilty (because it's my default expression) and poised with a camera, standing in the middle of the grassy bank.

I can't read minds, but her thoughts might have had something to do with spies, sneaks and weirdos.

Oh, and here are the photos I took, by the way. I'm not sure they were worth it.

~Fin~

Short Stories: Dancing In Front of Strangers

'I don't dance.' A common phrase of mine, say, five odd years ago. Fast forward five years on and my friend Lucia shows me her wedding DVD, which at one point features me gleefully doing the robot on the dance floor.

I've posted about the zumba classes in this blog before, which should already say something about the class' blogworthyness. Tonight, after most of the years of my life spent telling people I don't dance, I volunteered to be a demonstrator for one of the dances. This involved a lot of solo-samba-ing, air-boxing and, more mortifyingly, wiggling my hips at the rest of the class.

Me, dancing around and shaking my tush in front of about twenty other people.

Haaaahahahahaha.

I feel like I have a great big '1' drawn on the invisible scoreboard of my life, somewhere.

A Really Cool Book 'Shop' and an Awkward Near-Encounter

Today, I met up with my friend Min-Hwee in the west end. We had lunch in Chinatown at Jen Café and then had tea at Camellia's Tea House on Carnaby Street. When we were walking around on Carnaby Street we came across a book exchange: the Carnaby Book Exchange.

Totally free, you can come in, choose a book and sit down for a good read, or you can bring in an old book of yours to leave and take another away.

You're also encouraged to leave a note for another reader to find. So Min-Hwee and I went in on a mini-quest to find a book with a note.

Min-Hwee found one on her first try- a really old book (can't remember what it was) with the message 'Take care of yourself'' pencilled in on the inside of the front cover. It took me a while to find a book with a message, but when I did it was a good one.

This was the book I picked up:

I actually have this book too: it's an amazing bit of non-fiction.

I was surprised someone had left this, because it really is a very powerful book- Min-Hwee was too (she also has the book at home). When I turned the front cover, I found out why.

Both Min-Hwee and I are Chinese (well, I'm half-Chinese, to be exact), so we found it pretty funny.

Now to the awkward near-encounter... at the time, ironically, my friend and I were talking about who we still kept in contact with from our old school, and who we'd bumped into recently. We were in a shop when she suddenly pointed and said,

"Look, that girl was from our school! Wasn't she in your year?"

I looked around, and noticed the girl- two of them together in fact- were indeed from my year, if not from my class.

"Should we go say hello to them?" Min-Hwee asked.

"No!!" I suddenly felt a bit panicked: I'd never really been on speaking terms with these two at school so I felt like it would be a bit fake to go over and be all friendly and 'hiiii I haven't seen you in aaaaages' etc. etc. And to my further horror, I realised that I'd also forgotten their names.

I'll tell you now: I'm really, really appalling with names. As soon as I meet someone I warn them of this. Lots of people claim they're bad with names, but really, they're not too bad and just putting a polite disclaimer in, just in case. No, my brain forcibly ejects names from my mind like a pilot from a failing aircraft, often within a matter of seconds of being told someone's name, and then I have to be told several times over and over again afterwards. I try really, really hard, I honestly do, and it's certainly nothing personal- but I've always been like this. I used to dread being made to give out everyone's workbooks at school after the teacher had marked them because I couldn't remember which named book belonged to which classmate (particularly when our classes were 'disbanded' and we started mixing with other people from our year).

I explained this in hushed tones to my friend after she asked me if I was sure, and we hung back a bit to allow my former school peers to get a head start once they left the shop. After a few minutes passed, we (cautiously) emerged.

"Did you see which way they went?" I asked nervously.

"Yes, I think they went in that direction." And Min-Hwee unwittingly pointed straight at my two former schoolmates, who were only a few yards away.

"Agh, they're right there!" We both spun around and started to walk in the other direction, to find it was a dead end. We faced another two directions: more dead ends! By now I was giggling almost hysterically at this ridiculous situation, and pretty sure they could now hear the nervous ruckus I was making.

Eventually my two former school peers headed off.

"Did you think they saw me?" I asked.

"Well... one of them actually looked straight at you at one point- I'm pretty sure they did."

This calmed me down a bit. Surely if they saw me, recognised me and actually wanted to come over and say hi, they would, right? But they didn't- just like me. Maybe because they were in the same predicament and didn't remember my name and knew we weren't really close at school. Or, more embarrassingly, they sensed my unease and felt put off by my perhaps-obvious awkwardness.

I actually remember one of their names now- but I won't write it down, just in case they ever read this blog. Yes, I'm that freaking awkward.

~Fin~

A Very Surreal Zumba Session

My status update from Facebook, 17th October 2012 (this evening):

I have never in my life, until tonight, been made to dance to the can-can whilst having 'get your arses shaking!' shouted at me. Much less in a Zumba class.

Short Stories: A Potentially Very Unattractive Death

Last night, I found out what happens when you take a laxative about twenty minutes before you realise you have food poisoning.

I'll let that set the scene without going into graphic detail, shall I?

I spent about an hour and a half in the bathroom, with a fierce fever and struggling to keep breathing, trying not to completely pass out, and being vaguely astounded that I still had a sense of humour (I was contemplating how typical it would be for me to go out like Elvis Presley, and how if it were up to me I'd have chosen a more dignified parting). Even after all that time in there and once I started to at very least not feel like I may be about to die, it took every last ounce of strength I had to sort myself out, force some water down to rehydrate myself and get into bed (of course even this couldn't happen normally- as my right leg had gone to sleep I had to stumble-hop the whole way- which is not a nice thing to have to do when you still feel sick to your stomach).

I can only put the whole incident down to very, very bad timing and quite bad luck. Thankfully I'm a lot better today, but my stomach is still making some very forbidding sounds.

My Special Day

I've had quite a mixed bag sort of day- it'll work far better if I just bullet point this one or it'll be an even bigger mess.

Part 1: The Morning

• Slip on unmopped patch of water when checking on baking muffins

• Drop half the muffins in the oven whilst slipping 

• Successfully return now slightly misshapen muffins to pan but burn myself in the process 

• Scald self trying to run cold water over burn because the last person to use the tap apparently ran it hot and there was still hot water in the faucet

•  Leave house an hour too early after mis-reading the clock (but not yet realising it)

Part 2: Late Morning/ Early Afternoon

• Text friend that I've arrived, only to receive a confused call asking if we were meant to be meeting an hour later- I realise my watch has probably stopped since midnight the night before to make it look like the right time, I've only just noticed this at this moment, AND I must have left an hour early on top of this 

• Go into Starbucks to wait for friend and don't realise that it's now become policy in the UK to call names out instead of order type

• Fail to recognise and respond to a repeated weird pronunciation of my name at the collection point ('Taaarsh' instead of 'Tash' like 'ash') whilst wondering what kind of coffee a tarsh was

• Only realise it's my name that's being called when the lady behind me pokes me politely and respond reflexively by flinging my arm up in the air and shouting "ooh, that's me!", causing Starbucks to go quiet for a few moments

• Choose a hot coffee and end up sitting by the window where the sun bakes me in my own skin whilst at first having no other table options, then feeling too awkward to poach someone else's table when they move, deciding I'd already made myself too conspicuous (and had a proper mug so I could go and take my coffee with me)

• Attempt to browse the new Primark without getting mauled by bargain hunters (I could just leave this bullet point as it is) and witness a woman with a load of clothes on hangers draped over her arms whilst wailing to her friend "this is what my life has become!!"

• Get out of Primark in one piece to meet aforementioned friend and have a beautiful lunch at Mildred's (a popular vegetarian restaurant in Soho), try not to eat all the cakes in the West End and think that the day is finally turning into a more genteel one

Late Afternoon/ Evening

• On the way to the Cake & Bake Show 2012, witness a lady walking the two biggest kitty cats I've ever seen down the street. Without a leash.

~Fin~