10 things I love about... Roy.

The last few days have been extremely busy and exciting and weird. I am now officially a fat beauty queen, and I can't wait to blog about this strange and wonderful experience.
However, this blog is about something more important. It is about my friend Roy. He is amazing, and here is why:

10) Roy's got amazing moves. He can dance like noone else. He can move muscles I didn't even know people had. He is the coolest person on any dancefloor, no matter who else is there.

9) Roy is one of the most patient and least judgemental people I have ever met. He never judges people on how they look or on success, just on their actions. If Roy doesn't like you or is angry with you, it means that you are truly evil or did something extremely awful.

8) Roy is gorgeous. He's got the sparkliest eyes, the lushest lips, the sweetest smile and a hot body. When we go  out, he makes all the girls and boys swoon, without even realizing it. Which makes him even more gorgeous.

7) Roy makes me feel secure. There isn't a muddy hill or a steep ramp that Roy can't conquer. He's the person i feel safest with, no matter in what situation I am in. Without him, I would probably end up being a mushy gloop next to some stairs, because I was too drunk to see the ramp.

6) Roy puts up with me. I have no idea why. Sometimes I sing Justin Bieber songs (and I really can't sing), and he endures it. I can also be a massively  moody, selfish, self-centered bitch. It is something that probably comes from me trying to cover up my insecurities, but that is no excuse. Looking at Roy reminds me how much better I could be and that I really need to try.

5) Roy boy's got glamour. Noone wears Dr Martens, sequins and dapper hats like him. Hardcore eleganza extravaganza!! He even looks amazing with baby blue lipstick on. And not many people can work that look, let me tell you.

4) A lot of people are either cool OR nice. They somehow feel that being nice would interfere with their coolness, so they are being rude to people. Roy however manages to be the coolest AND the nicest simultaneously. He goes out of his way to be kind and help people, no matter if they are friends or people he barely knows. At the same time, he's always up for mischief and having a laugh and is full of exciting, creative ideas. 

3) Roy's my soulmate. Very often, we say exactly the same thing at the same time. Very often, this involves Lady Gaga quotes. We also have an imaginary gang and an imaginary band with a hit song about Betty White.

2) Roy's so funny. Noone can make you laugh like Roy. I had some serious downs this winter, and Roy always brought back a smile on my face. I remember a particular night when I felt really bad, and he did the most hilarious moves and faces, so that this night turned into one of the most fun ones in my life. He's got a massive talent for comedy and acting. Eat your heart out, Whoopi Goldberg.

1) Roy gets all my RuPaul/ Lady Gaga/ Patrick Wolf references. Condragulations Roy, you have won the challenge of being the most amazing person in the world. You put be in the magic position, baby. Cherry cherry boom boom.

The best thing that ever happened to me was to get him as my friend. Everything good that happens to me only happens because I have him as my friend.
Roy, I love you.

Lets make the headlines loud and clear
The best things suddenly happen when you are here
If I lost my way you'd carry me home
Take me all the way to heaven never leave me alone,
And its just like everything matters when you are near.

Wednesday, Wednesday, Gotta get down on Wednesday...

Partyin’, partyin’, yeah.
Partyin’, partyin’, yeah.
Fun, fun, fun, fun.

In the afternoon I went to Shoreditch, because the brilliant Cocknbullkid played a gig at Rough  Trade. Watch the video. She's amazing.

Because it was only 8pm after the gig, and I wanted to go to another party later, I decided to get drunk in a restaurant to pass the time. Naturally.

After several cocktails, I had a nice chat with the waiter. He told me I look like a Latvian Eurovision contestant.  This made me so happy, because that is one of my life goals. Which I have accomplished now. Go me!!
Actually, he meant a specific lady, called Triana Park. I looked her up, and I like heer style, even though the outfit she's wearing in that picture would make me look like a giant cotton ball. On wheels. Maybe that's a good look?
Anyway, the waiter even called up his friend to get me the name of Triana Park, and he was so lovely and chatty that in the end I got confused whether he just was a gay sweetheart or whether he was, um, hitting on me. Nevermind.

When I was reasonably drunk I made my way to Soho, because I wanted to go to a party at the W hotel. On my wayI walked past a karaoke bar and heard someone belting out 'Poker Face'. The wobbly vocals had a strange allure to me, so I went inside, had a glass of wine, got a lapdance, sang a Kylie song, and left again. Straight after I sang. Because I didn't had enough alcohol to face the reactions to my awful murder of 'I should be so lucky'.

The party at W hotel I went to after was a bit weird: lots of the usual London club kids in an extremely posh hotel bar. Apparently it's 'guestlist only', but none of the 20 bouncers I walked past checked actually who I was.
It was sort of fun though.. I met a gorgeous drag queen who told me all sorts of drag secrets, even some stuff I didn't want to know. About tucking and stuff. If you don't know what that is, google it.

dragtastic. by Daniel Lismore.

When i went to the bathroom, and a girl with long legs and blonde hair was there who looked vaguely familiar. Ok, not vaguely. I did watch the whole first season of The OC religilously. I even forced my friends to watch. Can we  please not talk about this? Anyway, the following conversation took place:
Me: 'Hey, you look like Mischa Barton'
Girl, with a tired smile: 'I am'
Me: 'Oh...' I want to ask her if she is upset that Rachel Bilson's boyfriend on the OC was much hotter than hers. Probably not a good idea. I want  to ask her where she got those glasses from. But she is not wearing them, and I don't want to admit I read Perez Hilton. I have no idea what to say to her, because I am completely clueless what she has been doing during the last few years, apart from, umm, wearing sometimes interesting clothes. I also got the OC theme tune stuck in my head. Californiaaa....
Mischa: 'I like your top!'
Me: (It is actually a dress..nevermind..) 'Oh, wow, thanks! I like your, umm..' her outfit is kinda understated, unfortunately, nothing I particularily like..help!!..oh.. 'I like your bracelet!'
Mischa: 'Oh, it's actually a CUFF'
Me: (Gee!) 'Ah, um... how do you like the party?'
Mischa: 'I like it!'
Me: 'I think it's a bit boring!'
Mischa: 'Oh yes it is, isn't it.. but I loooove the way they are dressed, like, really outrageous!
Me: 'Oh, you mean Daniel Lismore? He's fab!'
Mischa: 'Oh yes, that's probably the one I just met, he looks amazing.'
We smile at each other, and I am actually starting to think that she's a really nice girl.
Me: 'What are you doing in London?'
Mischa: 'You know, visiting my family over here and stuff' Her face closes up, and she uses the hand drying machine. Probably to get rid of me, which is fair enough. 

Later that night, Mischa's friends ask my friends, who have cameras, to take pictures of her. That seems a bit strange: The result is amazing, though. See below. Seth Cohen would approve.

Mischa and a friend, taken by my friend Joie.

And that, dear children, is a typical day in my super interesting life. Except that the rest of the time, I mostly hang out in cafes, reading True Blood novels or meet friends for cupcakes.

Spare me from the mold (I like burgers)

I've been living in London for over 8 months now. At this point I sometimes feel that things have become a little same old, same old. 
Because I watch too many reality casting shows (anyone else disappointed that Raja won RuPaul's drag race??), I decided I needed a new challenge, if only to have something new to blog about.So, naturally, I decided to enter a beauty contest.
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Ok, the sound of this seems as weird to me as it seems to you. Can I please explain? The contest is called "Burger Queen". It's tongue in cheek, it's fun, it's different. It isn't your plain old pageant where women or children aspire to look like a Barbie nightmare.

The idea of the contest, which is organised by London's notorious b.i.g. performance artist Scottee, is to celebrate different body types. The contestants need to have a 'fat mentality': People who feel they don't 'fit' into stereotypical beauty standards, but nontheless feel they are healthy and fashionable, foxy and happy.

I am very fond of a nice, juicy burger. I also struggled with my weight for years (I challenge you to find a wheelchair accessible gym. The nearest one to my place is a 45 minutes bus journey). Me and my body had lots of negotiations, and while I am physically probably the healthiest I have been in a long time and more or less work out regularily, I have also accepted that certain body parts of me are just fat, and most likely always will be.

Funnily enough, people rarely took issue with my weight. Not even when I was a lot heavier. In the eyes of fashion and medicine, my body is already 'wrong', 'unhealthy' and 'unable', no matter the size of my hips. For a very long time I let that mentality complicate the relationship between my body and me.

Until I realised that doctors know fuck all about my body. and neither does Vogue. I can be healthy. I can be strong. I sure as hell am a fashionista.

I feel that the Burger Queen Contest reflects that spirit.
Oh, and there's prizes for the winner, too.

http://www.burger-queen.info/

In the most Biblical sense, I am beyond repentance.

The notion of a universality of human experience is a confidence trick and the notion of a universality of female experience is a clever confidence trick. - Angela Carter

This weekend, this drag queen who is also a shaman wanted to go to a party with me. But he/she was extremely chaotic, so I actually never went. Also, him/her saying that he/she could heal me (of what??) by reconnecting my energies, or some weird shit, reminded me of the spiritual phase my mum went through when I was 6. She sent my bro and me to all sorts of workshops lead by people in ugly clothes and even uglier shoes. The only thing I liked about it were the crystals lying around. I tried to steal as many as possible.
The bottom line is that I like drag queens very much, shamans too (I met another one this weekend and he was perfectly lovely), but people who think I need to be healed.. not so much. Go heal yourself first.

Supercrip

Hello, lovely person who reads this.

I wanted to use this blog to write about happy, sparkly stuff. Like fabulous drag queens:

My life has a lot of glittery bits in it. Certainly a lot of makeup.
However, this is also my life:

- I have been stuck in lifts for 5 times in my life.
- Most of the time I have to plan an extra 30 minutes to get somewhere/get home, because the ramps of the buses don't work, or there are baby buggies blocking the disabled space, or people's luggage is blocking that space. illegal? you bet, but if I'd sue them all, I'd do nothing else.
- This weekend it took me 1 hour to get to a gig in a pub which said it as 'accessible' on the homepage, however, while the main pub was, the gig itself was on the 2nd floor and the spiral stairs horribly narrow. I had to go back home. Exception? No, this is not. This is my life.

Stuff like this happens to me every bloody week, several times. It's exhausting. I am generally a positive, happy person. But there are moments when I feel just scared and weak. Luckily, I have many fantastic friends and a great family who allows me to be weak and tired. However, I am scared to show this side to people who don't know me well.
If someone I don't know well asks me to come to a party/club/bar that I know will be horribly inaccessible, I often say I have something else to do than to say the real reason. Out of fear that they will be uncomfortable and embarrassed about it, and it IS an uncomfortable issue that I just don't have the strenght to discuss with people, all the time.
I guess this might make me look unapproachable. Like I'm not interested in other people. But I am just terrified that don't have my safety net here in London. And I don't want to come across as complicated, or as a buzzkill. Because I am not. People seem to like me best when I am laughing and spinning around in circles to Lady Gaga songs. Well, that is when I like myself best too. But I feel a lot of pressure to be like that all the fucking time (from myself, but also from other people. Disability and performance. please write a book about this, Judith Butler, or I will.) And I just can't.

I am shit scared that I don't find a flat or a job when I finish uni. How many of you guys live/work in wheelchair accessible places? Exactly.
Because of all of this, I became terribly whiny and paranoid lately. But I don't want to be like that. I feel that there are enough images of miserable, bitter disabled people with ugly clothes out there. And I am cheerful, strong and my clothes are fabulous. And my handbags. Don't forget the handbags.
I know that I am really blessed in lots of ways. I have the most fabulous, intelligent, fun friends who would go through fire and water for me. As I would for them. I have a wonderful family who were always proud of me and made me feel I can be whatever I want to be. My life is bloody crazy and unpredictable, and I don't think it would be like that if I wasn't exactly the way I am. Just look at some pictures:

So if I have been whiny, paranoid, or acted as if I don't like you: I didn't mean to. I do like you (well, most people). I didn't mean to let out my frustration on you. I am sorry. I just want to dance with you.
Cause when you step into the disco
leave your problems at the front door
you know, the world don't have to end
long as the DJ records spin.

A quick update in bright lipstick

It's London Fashion Week at the moment. And it's happening next to my uni. I love it so much. Lots of ladies in high heels with bright lipstick. And tall, leggy, androgynous creatures. People watching has reached a whole new level.
My friend Sarah came to visit this week. We had a lovely time, lots of cookies and cupcakes. The highlight was our afternoon tea at Bea's of Bloomsbury.

yum??

 

I had a really good night out on Friday. I went with my friend Ricardo who likes to straddle me. (Weird, my life?). After that, I stayed in the rest of the weekend, ate lots of spinach and watched all 7 episodes of Downton Abbey.. Which I keep misspelling "Downtown Abbey". Oh well, bear with me.

When I am fully grown up I want to be a mix between Dame Vivienne Westwood and Dame Maggie Smith.

I go ahead and smile..

I might know less about dating than 14 year-old fashion bloggers. I certainly know less about dating than mums. However, I have learned a lot during the last month.
If it makes you feel constantly anxious and insecure, something might be wrong. If you stop blogging about things that make you happy because you don't tend to be very happy anymore, something is fishy. If you break out in tears over your soy latte in Costa Coffee because your iPod plays "Total Eclipse Of The Heart", something definitely completely went awry, as much as you secretly love Bonnie Tyler. Wasn't that dating thing supposed to be fun?? Personally, I'd much rather be alone than someone else's vanity booster. If neither you nor the person you are dating bother to make each other smile, let it be.
Luckily I got amazing friends. When I have nervous breakdowns at Costa Coffee (once and never again) they send me virtual chocolate unicorns. They draw up with me flirty notes for hot waiters at Indian restaurants. They play hide and seek with me inside my drawers. And they might even offer to write drunken, silly emails to that guy. Which I totally accepted refused. End of story. I need to colour my hair now. See you next week, goodbye.

Roy playing hide and seek inside my drawers. If that doesn't make you laugh, what will?