what do you do?

i so needed to read this (even though it made me cry a bit).

here’s to keeping going, for that three second summary one day soon.

i was locked out of my blog for nearly two weeks by cruel and mysterious forces, so what did i dooooo with all that free time?

not much, that’s what.

but specifically:

1. had a lot of emotional ups and downs (from anxious to depressed to worried to low to a brief spark of hope and then back again — and not all prompted by being locked out of my blog, haha.) my life’s been kinda bad weird since i got back from oz, and i haven’t always enjoyed it. this seems to be a year of transformation and personal difficulties challenges rather than a time to like, have loads of fun, or anything. the only upside is that none of us would ever make a change without pain and anguish, right? it has to be a force for good, at least eventually. (right?)

2. had a bit of a poorly cat, which made me sad. rufus wouldn’t eat, had no energy and because he wouldn’t eat wasn’t ingesting his heart pills (don’t say shove them down his throat then, because that way lies mouth-foaming and being scratched to death). anyway, so he went to the vet and was given antibiotics for an infection. a couple of days later, he grew an egg-shaped lump on his back. then a day after that, it burst, and he had these three weeping sores (are you enjoying this as much as i am?) so he went back to the vet, who said it was probably a cat bite. who knew a cat bite could do so much damage?! it’s clearing up now but still kind of pus-y. appropriately. (and yes, we know which cat did it… grr).

3. had a premonitory dream about my 30th (next) birthday. my birthday “surprise” was that my parents threw me a party at my grandad’s and all the guests sat around reading newspapers. there was no music or food, just a game of “guess whose baby picture is whose”. i got really stroppy about it and kept saying “why didn’t i make a better plan than this? you only turn 30 once! it’s a landmark!” and telling my dad i needed a DJ to come and liven things up but he just said it was too late for that now.

anyway, this sucky faux-birthday experience made me pledge to always, always do something fun/different on my big day, even if i do it alone. i will not spend another birthday going to the cinema or throwing a party where people read newspapers and i cry.

so please send me 30th birthday suggestions, because i wanted to go to the grand canyon but that might not come off (depends on how this heist i’m plotting turns out) and this has been a really crappy decade for me in many ways, so i’d like to ring in the next one in an optimistic way.

4. did lots of work. okay, lots of hustling for work, asking for work, begging for work, and a bit of little actual work when i got the time. i wrote about men who only eat junk food and women who do pregnancy tests in public toilets for the frisky, and about clashing book festivals and trashy american TV (that i love) for the guardian arts blog. and lots of stuff for popgadget and some q&as for woman’s weekly (that i’ll have a link to one day).

…and i think that’s it. not as glam as a fortnight in cannes, but much less risk of sunburn.

for a couple of weeks this spring, i dabbled in the world of fashion blogging for a site called styledash which now seems to be the stylelist blog - i like it! we even got 1 million page views on one crazy day, which i can take no credit for but which was certainly fun.
if you’re related to me interested in what i wrote, you can read all my posts here.

i thought i’d link ‘em up for what my dad calls “posperity” (you may know it as posterity).

never, ever write that you will be back somewhere ’shortly’, because inevitably you will be completely unable to log onto your blog for over a week if you do.

i transferred from my old desktop to my laptop full-time, but lost a lot of settings and the ability to log on in the process. it was dark, dark times. but i’m baaaaaaack!

i have nothing to talk about, mind you, but at least i made it.

see you all when i DO have something more to say, which i am definitely not saying will be shortly.

today i have mostly been yelling “unnngh!” in frustration, being put on hold with talktalk and messing around with PCs. so tomorrow i’ll actually have to do some of that… oh, what’s it called? oh yes: WORK.

but! after that i plan to see to emails and catch up with friends and maybe even live to blog again. no promises, though…

when i was in australia, i was a reading machine. i felt like reading, i did lots of reading, i had fun with reading. i was all about reading and it was all good (except for the eye-popping expense of books over there, that is).

but in the last month, i’ve read just two teeny books and tried to read a further nine — all of which now have sad little bookmarks hanging out of them somewhere between pages 10 and 93, like flattened, depressed dogs. i just don’t seem to have any reading mojo. i can’t concentrate, my mind is racing too much. tv is better, less demanding and easier to engage with, and my new addiction is buying box sets. maybe this is the start of my TV years… shame about that english degree i registered for, huh?

but regardless of my ability to read books, i still seem able to write about them (ha, you knew a plug was coming, didn’t you?) and so have done so. again.

i’m promoting the burning of books (ooh!) on the guardian blog today (big thanks to keris and helen for the background info on this — ha ha — hot topic) and i’m also recommending some thrillers and offbeat reads for handbag (which was such fun, i have to say), but the whole books special is well worth a look, even the bits i didn’t write!

take a look… and read one for me, would you? thanks.

i had great fun blogging for the guardian about book covers last week — it’s a topic that really seemed to engage people (including the telegraph and my good friend keris). [UPDATE: i got pwned by galleycat and — are you ready for this? — jezebel (jezebel!!) not only discussed my piece but called me “The Guardian’s Diane Shipley”. Ha. And…Salon’s wonderful blog for women, Broadsheet, also talked about me, i mean, about what i wrote. even though both places mentioned pink, i actually wasn’t getting at pink: just homogenisation, which is more often, in the UK at least, cream with swirly writing. anyhoo, as a serious journalist i’m not a bit excited by all this publicity. yeah right: i’ve never been so famous! (or so tired btw, man i need a nap).]

so! i’m blogging for the graun again today, this time about teens, sex and TV: no sex, please, they’re teenagers. does this make me a sex blogger? (ahahahahha)

what else? oh yes, my words blog bossy is no more, at least for now: there’s a lot of great language-related stuff to say, but i think i’m going to wait until nearer the start of my english degree to say it.

i’m not cutting down on blogs though: i’m currently working on a suuuper secret, suuuper special pet project that is going to be so.much.fun. (for me at least). and i bought a domain name and got an official email and everything.

it’s a good job i’m passionate about online content, as next year i’m going to be doing this. it’s okay if i start hyperventilating planning now, right?