I can't even know what to say

Ok, so earlier I got a Formspring question that basically resulted in me having to write a blog-length answer. So I’m going to cheat and post it here too. Just so it doesn’t get lost in the ‘flood’ of questions. (that I don’t particularly get anymore) It’s much less likely to lose the answer here, given that my updates are so infrequent.

So here’s the question and answer:

Could you please tell us more about your weight loss. It would be an inspiration to others. Thanks.

Oh…really? It’s not particularly interesting, but if someone thinks it’ll be an ‘inspiration’, I guess it’s hard to refuse to inspire someone.

It all really started in May 2009. I was like a comfortable 42” waist (and, shamefully, owned a pair of 44”) and doing nothing in terms of exercise or trying to eat healthily. I was just down “what’s the point in trying, I’m too fat” etc. But that was when I got my cleaning job. It was two hours a night on weekday evenings. It wasn’t really intended to be an effort to lose weight, but after a couple of months I began to feel my jeans getting baggier. I didn’t want to try on a smaller pair, in case it was my imagination. But it got to the stage where they were almost falling down. I tried on some new jeans and I was a 38”. I was pleased, but it was still quite big. I realised this job could do more for me and, with a bit of effort, I could lose more. So I decided to try and eat healthier too. I wanted to aim high and be down to a 30” by my next birthday.

I ditched bread, chocolate, crisps, pastry, cakes, y’know stuff that is OBVIOUSLY not good for you. I usually sleep through breakfast, so my diet became two Ryvitas/crispbreads with a light cream cheese for lunch and a Weight Watchers meal/something ‘healthy’ for dinner. Perhaps not the most healthy way to eat, but it kinda worked.

I can’t really remember where I was by Christmas, possibly down from XXL/42 to L/(34/36) but, by then, my cleaning hours had halved to five hours a week. So, after Christmas, I bought a cross trainer in the Argos sale and used that for about 45 minutes a day. With a good playlist, it’s not so bad, eventually does get boring though. I did that most weekdays I could be bothered (excluding half terms) until about May - when my brother had study leave.

So, yeah, for my birthday this year (May) I got a few pairs of 30” jeans. Just like I was aiming for. :] I’m now a Small and a 30” waist, so anything’s possible. I’m just trying to maintain it now. Lost the job completely and not eating as healthily (getting complacent) but I’ve kinda joined the gym. We’ll see how long that lasts, I’ve not exactly been a regular there. I just need to tone up SO BAD. My body is still flabby and has no muscle, from before, really unconditioned. I need to build muscle, I’m just a bit shy at it in the gym because I’m so WEAK that it’s embarrassing to try.

*sigh* AND I’M FINALLY DONE. If you can’t be bothered to read, the only advice to give is to do more and eat better. The only thing stopping you is yourself.

And that, guys, was that.

RIGHT. Before I start, I want to make it clear that I’m a huge fan of her (my Tumblr is a line from one of her songs!), but every (wo)man got a breaking point y’all. There’s a few things Beverley Knight has done lately that strike me as confusing and embarrassing. So, to prove I’m not a blind fan, I have to have a little moan.

Are there any words? No, REALLY, are there?! I know it’s all in support of breast cancer charities, for which I have the utmost respect for Beverley. But OH DEAR. She has a body to be proud of, I give her that. I just didn’t think that was the kind of thing she did. I WISH I could say it was her head superimposed onto a body by Photoshop, but this is a genuine George campaign. Perhaps I wouldn’t be complaining so much if the image wasn’t unbelievably tacky. The whole colour scheme and surrounding flowers makes it looks like it was designed by a year 7 taking early ICT lessons. The cause is good, but I can’t help but feel slightly ashamed. I can’t defend this look.

OK. POINT TWO.

Ok, this is a much classier affair, Beverley has done some modelling for Rise. You can see her wearing a selection of their dresses on their website. Fine, yes? Well…I don’t know. You see, from what I can see, the smallest dresses on this website come in a size 8. (going up to about a sized 16) Maybe she’s gone up in weight since last year, but I distinctly remember an article promoting her make up range where she says she was now a size 6. Like I say, the information could be out of date. But, if it’s not, I find it a tiny bit wrong to be modelling clothes that are too big for her. It doesn’t send out the best message of your model is wearing a size the dress isn’t available in. I hope I’m wrong.

SO THERE. Those are my problems. Don’t let it be said that I can’t criticise my fave when I disagree with a career move they make!

While I didn’t dance on tabletops, take too many shots (vodka and cokes, maybe.) or kiss anyone, last Friday night was probably the best night of my life. So I’m writing about it, delayed as it is, because it’d seem weird NOT to record it in some form.

It didn’t get off to the best start. I’d planned to meet Casey as 4pm, but I’d been a bit relaxed about getting ready and made it to the station just as the necessary train was pulling away from the station. Even worse because I’d ran through my town, in the rain, looking like a twat in an attempt to make it. But it was ok, I arrived at 4:30 instead. It was raining there too. Total drowned rats.

Casey’s uni is NICE, so are the flatmates I saw (for about 10 seconds). We listened to a bit of Kelis while I dropped my stuff off and we got ready to go to Kelis. Borrowed an umbrella (with holes) and left to wait for a bus. We waited about half an hour for a bus (!) and eventually decided to catch a different number. What a joke. We left the uni by about 5:20 but the delays meant we got to Kelis at about 7. It was alright, in the end, less time in the rain and we ended up second row anyway!

First up was Natalia Kills, who was a decent performer, if a little weak vocally. Her female dancers got quite naked and, at one point, had bloody scary masks on. I was quite impressed with some of the new songs, particularly “Love Is A Suicide”. I was mildly disappointed at the lack of “Activate My Heart”, but she did “Zombie” so all is good.

Then, after what seemed the longest wait ever (seriously, it was about an hour), Kelis was ready. She opened up with her current single, “Scream”. You can see it below, but I was impressed at how everyone seemed to know the lyrics. We were wild for her, she’s got a strong presence, the wait was worth it.

She was on stage for just over an hour I reckon. She was pretty much fabulous, strong posture, feisty attitude, sexy dancing, she’s got it all. The set included the whole of “Flesh Tone”, barring the intro track. “Song For The Baby” was saved for the encore, it’s a good thing it was followed by “Trick Me” as that would have been a pretty underwhelming end.

As before, a highlight of her set was “Brave”, there’s something about it live that gets me. I was also pleasantly surprised to hear her do “Spaceship” and “Young Fresh N New”. I think even she was surprised at the latter, showing surprise (“you guys remember this?!”) when the opening instrumental got a big reaction. Others were a dancy version of “Lil Star”, “Millionaire”, “Get Along With You” and the ‘Holiday’ mash-up version of “Milkshake”. I would have loved to hear a bit of “Caught Out There” and “Got Your Money”, but she was brilliant anyway.

Afterwards, the quest for drunkness began. Casey and I headed to the nearest off licence and got the cheapest vodka. (cos we’re classy like that) The guy even tried to sell us a better quality bottle. ha! We made ourselves some vodka and coke in the street and drank it on the way to the tube station. Being the lightweight I am, I was drunk already. Pointing at a woman’s shoes and saying they were for men, in jealousy, and everything. :( We got off. Drank some more. Got lost. CASEY SMOKED. (ruining my perfect image of him) Found Popstarz in the end, after a phone call to Daz.

Before I’d even gone through the doors to the actual club bit, a drunk girl slid down a stair bannister and landed on my FOOT. Amazing. I could probably go on for another few paragraphs about the rest, but five hours is a lot to cover.

In brief. Took ages to get served. Started with a tequila. Managed to spend lots on vodka and coke. (almost £40 down by the morning) Took lots of photos. Danced to lots of music. Lots of Beyonce. Some was shit. 3. Tik Tok. Some was amazing. Proud Mary. Someday. Commander. Telephone. Bad Romance. ETC. Got a few girls coming up to dance with me. (amazing) Got told my queue-dancing to ‘Jai Ho’ was good. (LOL) Managed to get a drink bought for me, without trying. (Aly didn’t) Aly poledanced. Kicked over someone’s drink. Later asked the same guy for a cigarette. (fail. but it worked?) Actually spent time in the smoking area out of choice. Lost Casey. Texted/tweeted him like a fool. Offended Daz in the process. Danced some more. Died on sofas. Kinda forced to leave. Ate McDonalds. Buses back. SLEPT ON FLOOR, WHILE THEY WERE IN BED, AT 7:30AM. The floor was hard, I hardly slept all night, but it was okay. Got up at about 1pm, left a bit after 2. End of my best day ever. :(

I LOVE THESE GUYS. (and Daz, who isn’t in this) I WISH TO GO OUT WITH ALL THREE OF THEM AGAIN SOON.

So, it was the day after I posted by gig wishlist I could already officially cross off one of my 25 acts. This feels good.

I wasn’t supposed to see Kelis until Friday but, thanks to a Twitter competition, I won a pair of tickets to see her record an AOL Session at The Hospital, in Covent Garden. I briefly wondered if it’d be worth seeing her twice this week, especially as it wasn’t a full show, but I thought it’d be worth the train fare to take someone who wasn’t seeing her on Friday to see it.

The e-mail said:

”- Doors open at 6:30pm
- Kelis will be onstage at 7:30pm sharp so don’t be late!”

and

“once the venue is full no more people will be admitted whether you are on the guestlist or not so best not to be late!”

HA. What a joke. We got there at about 6:20, got interviewed by some label/AOL guys and got chucked back onto the streets until 7:28. Kelis was running late, and they couldn’t let us wait in the venue! They originally told us 7:15, but it was ok, we met up with two other people and went to the pub til just after 7, but they turned us away again so we had to wait in the pouring rain for the rest. GOOD TIMES.

When we were eventually let in, I was excited by the set up. It was just a room, no stage and a barrier between us. There were a pair of DJ booths and some pretty, inflatable, flowers on the other side. I’d never been to a show where we were literally standing on the same level as the artist - and front row too! It was ideal. It was just a shame we were told we couldn’t take photos, this we the best view I’d ever had!

At around 7:50, Kelis was ready to come on stage. I was surprised at how casually she was dressed. She had her bleached blonde hair, some jeans and a hot pink top. She looked HOT though. She whizzed through her six song set in just over 20 minutes, as they flowed into each other.

She opened with “22nd Century” which was nice, if a little heavy on backing vocals. Then she switched it up with, the only pre-‘Flesh Tone’ track, “Trick Me”. I’m glad she picked this track, it’s probably my favourite that isn’t on this album. I’d like to say we had a brief moment where she smiled at me on this, but it was probably my imagination. Kelis isn’t really the sort who looks at the faces of the crowd. She’s into her performance and initiating dance, but I found she wasn’t looking to connect with us. Saying that, “Brave” was the next perfomance and was easily the song I felt her emotion the most on, it really connected with me. (which was good, as it was my least favourite on the album!) I just found the line about her baby and the ‘purple heart bit’ quite grabbing. To finish the set she did the three “Flesh Tone” singles in reverse order of release. All enjoyable performances as you’d expect. I liked the ending of “Acapella”, where she got us to sing back to her in acapella. I thought it was a nice end to the show.

Feeling slightly let down by the amount of songs, the four of us decided to wait around after the show. It soon became clear she wouldn’t be returning to where she performed, so we then waited in a corridor for a bit before that cleared up and we decided to hang around by her dressing room. After about 20 minutes we got caught by a woman on a power trip. She tried to tell us Kelis had already left, despite trying to stage a conversation with a silly woman who was too thick to play along. (and made it clear Kelis was still in her dressing room.) But she won, with threats to call security, we left. It’s a bit of a shame really, some people around artists don’t realise how important the fans are. The way she was like “these guys are fans, Kelis is gone, isn’t she…”, like we were scum, doesn’t exactly send us the best message. But they didn’t actually ask Kelis, so it’s not so bad.

All in all, despite a few downers, I’m pleased I went to this show. It made a nice warm up for tomorrow’s gig, it’s exciting to see artists live and it’s nice to spend time with people at gigs. In short, you could probably sum up the whole thing with these two Kelis song titles: “Good Stuff” and “Fuck Them Bitches”.

Ok, so I’ve been meaning to do something like this for a while. Basically it’s a wishlist of the 25 artists I most need to see live in my life time. It includes anyone I have not seen at this current moment in time and is in order of importance.

01. Spice Girls (or any of the Spice Girls)
02. Mariah Carey
03. Estelle
04. Brandy
05. Beyoncé
06. Christina Aguilera
07. Kelis
08. Alexandra Burke
09. Nicki Minaj
10. Kelly Rowland
11. Keri Hilson
12. Sara Bareilles
13. Solange
14. Amy Winehouse
15. Kylie Minogue
16. Corinne Bailey Rae
17. Rox
18. Kanye West
19. M.I.A.
20. Jennifer Hudson
21. Jazmine Sullivan
22. Katy Perry
23. Michelle Williams
24. Keisha Buchanan
25. Sugababes

Luckily, I already have tickets to see some of these. I’m seeing Kelis on Friday! I’ll try to write about them as and when I see them. It’s a shame M.I.A. is coming here this year and I can’t go, gutted I’m missing her. Some of them are just pretty unlikely as well. I’m not counting on Spice Girls, Mariah or Amy Winehouse doing shows any time soon, but I would have said the same about Whitney Houston not so long ago, so I won’t rule anyone out yet.

This isn’t really an exciting post, probably because it’s positive and about stuff most readers would just shrug at, but I’m feeling unusually strong today. Not physically, but mentally.

I think a large part of it is because I went swimming. As the title suggests, quite mundane. But, for me, it was a huge deal. I hadn’t been shirtless in front of…anyone for about eight years. At the beach, the T-shirt stayed on. If I had to go swimming, I did it in a T-shirt. I wore a vest in the P.E. changing rooms at school. Never been with anyone to be in a state of undress. ETC. So to go out there with it all on show was quite a weight from my shoulders. It wasn’t a pretty sight but, lifeguards aside, most of the people there were bigger and older so it wasn’t intimidating. It’s mostly hidden underwater anyway but, y’know, small steps.

I’ve not been as phased with things today. I didn’t mind that, after going to the gym, I couldn’t swim a full length. Maybe I’m unfit or out of practice, but I’ll try again. I also didn’t particularly mind when a chav noticed me walking by, told the rest of his group (who turned and sneered at me), and sarcastically wolf whistled. I don’t GET IT, but if they want to be pricks to a randomer passer then they’re the ones in the wrong. Not me. I know (if anyone’s still reading) most people say that’s common sense but, in the past, I’d have probably gone home and let a tear or two fall. Maybe having my iPod with me helped drown it out a bit.

If only I could channel this ‘confidence’ into things that are actually a big deal.

(SEE. told you it was mundane, my happy posts always are.)

Me: I need to watch Mean Girls again some time, only seen it about once.

Liam: You do, it’s like the most quotable movie ever.

Me: I know, I need to get to know the quotes better.

Liam: Why? Who are you gonna quote it to? :s

Me: :(

IT’S TRUE BUT IT DOESN’T MAKE THE CUT ANY LESS DEEP. ;_;

So Joe McElderry is ‘officially’ gay now. Well, I used my “GOOD. If it’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s obvious gays pretending to be straight lolol.” line last time, so I suppose I should try something more serious for this occasion.

I’m not going to be all “congratulations” or “life begins NOW”, like a certain toe-curling journalist, because I find those sort of comments really patronising. “Thanks for the congratulations on something I didn’t exactly choose” / “Thanks for suggesting being openly gay is the most significant thing to happen in my life so far” etc. But I am glad he’s now in a place where he’s comfortable with himself and isn’t afraid to let it be known.

I don’t really care what he is, but I have a lot of respect for him and what he’s done. I hadn’t given it much thought, but he possibly is the youngest example of someone coming out in the public eye? It does take guts to admit it at that age, and at such an early stage in his career. I don’t necessarily makes him more brave, or open, than those before him. It’s just a case of the country as a whole being much more accepting of it, making it less of a big deal. The story could certainly be of help to guys of Joe’s age out there who are just as uncertain as he was. This can only be a good thing. Hopefully we’ll get to a stage where it’s not something people feel the need to fuss over, but I don’t feel that’s a realistic situation and I’m contributing to the fuss.

Speaking of fuss, the only thing that doesn’t quite sit with me tonight is his Twitter ‘hacking’ where the hacker conveniently came out (in, iirc, quite a pleasant Tweet) for him. I was suspicious of it at the time because it was all a bit strange. If only because I can’t quite imagine a ‘hacker’ trying to get into Joe’s account, only to leave a nice message that sort of reads similar to what he’s saying now? Then there was the rapid deletion, followed by a “WHOOPS I’VE BEEN HACKED LOL” cover up.

The general message behind his current statement is “I’ve always been honest” and “the hacking made me realise”. NO. You weren’t hacked. I’m betting you thought that Tweet was a good way to come out (because you are an honest guy really) but then some PR person was like “UM, JOE. This is NOT how you’re going to do it. Delete it. We’ll cover it up and you can do it in a more controlled way in a few weeks time.” and you went with that.

This isn’t all meant as an attack on Joe, I just don’t buy his version of events. He’s preaching about honesty, when there’s probably been a dishonest cover up. Either, I don’t blame him. If anything, it makes him look better if he can say in the future that the hacking was fake, but was made to hold it back a few weeks. I think he actually did write that Tweet, it’s not like he’s displayed poor media training in the past.

I think that’s all he was dishonest about though, I’m not joining the cynical crowd who are like “well why did you keep it from us for so long?”. I think a lot of them need to stand back and remember Joe is only 19 (the 91 in his Twitter name should be a clue) which can be quite a confusing age for some. It’s not the same for everyone, everyone realises it in different ways. Some know about it from the age of 13 (or earlier), but others take a lot longer to realise and it can simply be a moment of realisation. I genuinely believe Joe said he was straight in the past because he believed he was, he just hadn’t had that moment of realisation yet.

Perhaps this story will cause others to have this moent of realisation, or perhaps it’ll keep his name in the papers after certain journalists *coughhidanwoottoncough* were wondering where he was, and saying he wasn’t good enough to have his album released a year after winning. (but I’m sure he’s your best friend now, eh Dan? ;) )

P.S. how on earth did I go on that much? it’s gone 3am now. fml.