A Perfect Teenhood 2.48

Things That Piss Me Off #2: My Cold Feet

The plan was to blog about important, deep, intellectual issues of human kind, obviously, but this is a very pressing issue of my current life that I need to share with the world. My fucked up blood circulation combined with tetany and whatnot, my feet (and to a lesser extend hands) are almost constantly freezing.

It’s not actually a problem 80% of my waking time, I wear woolen socks and sheepskin boots and walking also helps. But then there are moments, like when I’m in uni, in a lecture theatre, temperature is just slightly above 10 °C, and I’m sitting. My feet first get a little cold, then very cold, then freezing and so on until I’m forced to take off my shoes and massage my numb toes with my hands, because it’s actually painful. But hey, this is just education, I can’t focus on what’s being said in the front and I don’t take notes because I’m gripping my feet in a desperate attempt to thaw my toes. 

This does not compare to the worst icy feet-related scenario that is mostly a problem in the winter (and all the other seasons here in Scotland) - I can’t sleep. No matter how exhausted I am, if my feet are cold, I won’t fall asleep. Most of the time, I just go to bed at the same time as my boyfriend, cuddle up to him, stick my feet on his warm skin and fight off his loud protests. It helps, at least for as long as I need to fall asleep. But if I go to bed later than him (I daren’t wake him up with my icicles) or when I’m in bed on my own, and I’m very tired, and I realise my toes are turning blue… it just makes me furious. I’ll have to get up, put the kettle on, wait for it to boil, fill the hot water bottle, go back to bed and keep the next hour feeling the absolute bliss of warm feet… and burning myself constantly. You see, anything vaguely warm feels like hot lava on my frozen toes. Yes, I could only heat the water up to some sort of lukewarm temperature but that’d also mean the hot water bottle would be cold in no time. And you know what? Fuck that.

Basically, having my feet is shit. Call me a whine or whatever you wish, but it sucks and that’s it.

Things That Piss Me Off #1: Know-It-Alls

As I said, my only resolution for this year is to write here more. One thing I’ve been thinking about for a while is basically copy the idea of one of my favourite Czech blogs, ‘1000 Things That Piss Me Off’ (1000 věcí, co mě serou). So yeah, I’m gonna do something similar. Except I might also write about things I like. And things that make me think. Anything worth mentioning, really.

The first ever pissed off post if deservedly going to the all too common human species known as Homo Know It All. Not that long ago, I was reading through the above-mentioned blog, a post about people who hate and complain about Christmas. To be honest, I could easily dedicate one to those as well. If you hate Christmas, then bloody avoid it, don’t bother, eh? Everyone knows the shops are a pain and streets are crowded. Duh.

Anyway. One of the comments under the post was written by a very wise (or that’s what they thought they were being) human being. It said something along the lines of ‘Oh you mean the old Pagan celebration of *insert name*, that’s got nothing to do with Jesus and had been celebrated for ages before Christianity even existed blah blah etc etc’. Firstly, most people who take even the vaguest interest in this world might know that early Christians synchronised their holidays with the Pagans, secondly, I’m sure those who don’t know will survive just fine, and thirdly and most importantly, HOW IS THAT RELEVANT?? Do you go on the internet to brag about your knowledge of everything that ever existed? To me, that person just sounds like if they’d just read about this and desperately needed to put it somewhere. 

I’ve worked with your typical Homo Know It All, when I was a barista. She was my shift supervisor, not a particularly educated person, not necessarily stupid either, but her own idea of her intelligence and knowledge wasn’t the same as her actual knowledge of the world. I’m not that good myself, mind you, but then I’m not going to get into a discussion about the Mayan calendar for three hours, if I know squat about it, right? 

Maybe I should just learn how to tolerate people. Or, maybe, just not. 

2012 in My Words

I loved last year. Not every minute of it, not event every of its freaky 366 days, but it was a very good year. I wanted to put it into some sort of ‘best of’ categories, but that would have never worked. It would have never been about the year I had. I wasn’t going to go Charlie Brooker’s style and go month by month either. Let me just say something about 2012.

2012 was the year Edinburgh became my home. Not the year I moved, but it was last year I got used to living here, it feel natural now. It’s the place I want to stay for the time being. That doesn’t mean my need to travel has gone, I’m just content calling Edinburgh the place I belong. On the other hand, it was another year that didn’t show me what to do with my life. I’m 23 and have a few plans and ideas, yet I see no satisfactory future for myself. Yet. I will keep looking and I will find it, be it in 2013 or later. 

There was loads of music in 2012. There was the return of Amusement Parks on Fire in June, three Jack White shows, all on different levels of quality, five Twilight Sad shows (including one acoustic and an instore), three nights in a row seeing Blood Red Shoes. If I was to give awards to bands, Spleen United would get one for the Most Mind-Blowing Performance, Refused could pride themselves with the Biggest Pile of Bullshit Said on stage (but daaaamn, their shows were fantastic!), the xx would go with the Biggest Improvement Since I Last/First Saw Them. And the best show would should be the Raveonettes. Should you ever fancy seeing a room of incredibly happy people, go see the Raves. I’m still grinning. 

I feel lucky tho have been to Primavera, the most awesome festival in Europe, if not the world, and Off, the friendliest one. Shame Roskilde just went and became bad, the first time I got to go. That’s a big dream of mine destroyed. Shame.

The biggest, best and most important part of my year were people. Old and new. They made my 2012 what it was. The bad times when you realise you are not as close to someone as you used to and it doesn’t look like anything can change that. When you fight, because one of you said something stupid. When you fight over nothing. When you hurt each other, and then can’t take your words back. When the most important ones go away for way too long and you don’t enjoy anything, because you miss them too much.

But the majority are the good times. My friends make me happy, or at least better. They say sorry. They accept your apologies. They distract you with shiny things. They are the shiny things. They give hugs when needed. They listen. They talk. They make up with you. They come back home.

Thanks to Kaki, Lukas F., Kat, Grant, Rita, Grace, Lotte and acidofil for everything. For being there, for making my life better.

Special thanks goes to Ally, for everything. For the year I had. For taking me places and sharing the moments. For making me happy.

I have no resolutions, except to write here more. I used to be a proper blogger, then I lost my love for writing. Maybe it’s time to start again. Who knows what happens. For now, have some pictures I like of 2012.