This Is Not A Democracy

Boy, is it good to see this place creeping back to life!

How are you all doing?

I just found out my very dear friend, Chris, passed away over Christmas. I don’t have a lot of details yet, but I know it wasn’t intentional and I know that there are a lot of people in this little city who are absolutely devastated by his loss.

I first met Chris when I went for an interview at the games company where I went on to work; he was in HR. And yes, he did come to work with a mohawk and a large spider tattoo on his head. It was that sort of place, and he was that kind of person. He was also the kindest, most loving and most generous person I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. No matter who you were, Chris would welcome you with open arms and then probably tell you something completely shocking and inappropriate, or get his knob out to show you his piercing. He was so good-hearted that you couldn’t help but love him, even if you expected him to be some mad anarchist who’d spit in your face. He was an anarchist and a little bit of a lovable maniac, but he was more likely to embrace you with a huge, “ELLO, MAAAATE!”

He loved animals, and every day, his little woof, Leonard, would come to work with him and demand to play ‘tuggy’ with anyone who passed through the HR Department. They were both so playful and energetic - absolute kindred spirits. I’m sure Len will go to live with one of Chris’s dear friends, now, but no matter how much he is loved at his new home, no one will ever love him as much as Chris did.

I know it’s a cliche, and everyone feels it when someone close to them passes away, but it’s like a light has gone out in Brighton. He’ll be so pissed off if he’s gone to Heaven, as well - he’d be much more excited about seeing what Hell was like. xoxo

Yesterday, I heard from a dear friend of many years - someone I have known since we were in our mid-teens and used to speak to on the phone for hours a night, and were so close we would fall asleep holding hands. In January, her mother, someone I knew well, was killed in an accident. She was only 63, and Vicky was an only child. She's moved home to live with her stepdad for a while, so he's not by himself.

They're both absolutely devastated.

This article from a local newspaper explains what happened. I hope the man responsible is stabbed in the throat with a sharpened toothbrush, in prison.

A HORSE rider was killed after being hit by a van while she was out on a morning ride.

Jane Mitchinson, 63, of The Close, Brentwood, was on her horse with a friend in Ashwells Road, Pilgrim Hatch, when a white Toyota van collided with them at 9.50am on Sunday.

Ms Mitchinson, who was secretary of the Brentwood and District Talking Newspaper, was thrown from her horse into a nearby ditch by the collision.

Roads had to closed in the area while rescue services attended the scene but despite their best efforts, paramedics and a doctor from Essex Air Ambulance pronounced Ms Mitchinson dead at the scene.

Along with the inuries sustained by the fall, Ms Mitchinson also suffered a cardiac arrest which was believed to have been caused from chest injuries from the incident.

The other rider, a Brentwood man, was thrown off his saddle and treated by paramedics at the scene and taken to Queens Hospital, in Romford, with minor injuries.

Both horses were also flung into the ditch with one dying at the scene while the other had to be put down later on because of it’s injuries.

The 51-year-old driver of the van was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and has been released on bail until March 19 while enquiries continue.

Ms Mitchinson, who also volunteered with the Brentwood University of the Third Age, leaves a partner and a daughter – tributes have poured in to her from members of the Brentwood community.

This is how we spent our day, yesterday - marching in Brighton's biggest ever Pride parade.


Mooshy and I, as captured by shiny_starlight virtually outside our house - Julie couldn't march because she ruined herself at practice a couple of weeks ago.

( They see us rollin', they quakin'... )

God. I am back. It's been a nightmare only being able to get online on my phone. I never check LJ from there because the screen is so tiny and if you try to post you have to do it in a box an inch square.


We are now in the new house! Hurrah! It is much bigger than the old place, although I do feel a bit lost with all the space. We now own a big, squishy green sofa and a blue armchair, too. Since we've been here, it has snowed more than I've ever seen in the space of a year. Getting to work tomorrow is going to be more than a little bit ridiculous. No matter which way I walk, it'll be uphill.

Work is exactly the same as it was a few weeks ago. They keep telling me I'm amazing but I have still seen no payrise or official promotion. :\ I did get a bonus for "going above and beyond" when I arranged the company Christmas party, which was nice.

Christmas sucked because I had a reaction to the smoke cloak issued by the intruder alarm at work - and then I got a cold on top of it. New Year was weak because my plans went tits up. Not a great start to the year, but I did make up for it with lunch with Matthew and Wild Things Weekend with the girls.



Wild Things Weekend involved myself, shiny_starlight, supercasio and fadefromblack, food, zombie escape plans being taken very seriously, confusing Matthew with unsolicited texts about not wearing red shirts in the event of a crisis, awesome food at the best buffet restaurant you will ever go to (honestly, it's like a palace of nom), lots of goofing around and feeling sick from over eating on the beach and then... Where the Wild Things Are.

Now, I'm not going to spoil this, but I do have to ask, "Who the fuck thought this was suitable for children?" It's fucked up! At one point I thought the kids in front of me would start screaming, it was so dark and creepy. It was also insanely depressing and had an air of a film that had significant scenes missing - like bits had been edited out for rating approval. So fucking weird. I would like to see a Director's Cut of this one, because I feel like so much is unclear.

But anyway - that's the update. How have you all been?

So @GHowell on Twitter wanted me to make him a mixtape which was based on the theme of high school, so I made him one featuring some of the bands and songs I was into from the age of around 16-18. The latest track on this was first released in 2000.

Download.

I even made a cover, look (it's in the zip folder)!



( Fullsize cover + playlist )

Making this really made me quite nostalgic for when returntosender and I were about 17 and she made me a couple of mixtapes. Hefner would have made it onto this if I had a CD copy...

It feels like a lifetime ago, seriously.

Dear scoobygang63 and sassygirl,

Please add each other.

Thanks You'll thank me,
Rosie.

I wore a dress today. A real, honest to God floral dress. And I didn't feel awkward.

For those who know me in RL, this is the dress I wore for my birthday when I turned 24, so it's quite an old dress but I've probably only ever worn it four times since I've owned it.

Basically, I met up with Vicky today. Vicky was my best friend (along side ashe_frost for years. We met just a couple of weeks after I turned sixteen and she turned fifteen. We share the same birthday and at the time were obsessed with the Manic Street Preachers. We met after I made a post on a forum and she emailed me. We were genuinely soulmates back then. We used walk around holding hands (and this is before all kids started doing it). Fuck, I can remember nights when we slept holding hands.

It's probably testimony to how close we were, that within seconds of seeing each other for the first time in four or five years, we were walking ahead of her other friends, nattering away, and when the others decided they wanted to go to another pub instead of staying at the poetry reading we were at, we were totally cool with hanging out by ourselves. It was as though we'd only seen each other a week ago.

She's going to come down nearer Christmas and come shopping and stuff.

The poetry reading itself was really nice. It was a teeny, tiny pub called the Grosvenor on the street Julie and I were originally going to live on. It was full of quirky, eccentric people telling rude or ridiculous poems and it felt like stepping back in time, to the days before TV or something. When people had to amuse themselves. The lights were soft and warm and it felt like winter.

I loved it.

But the fact that I was wearing a dress with leggings (or, more accurately the same pair of cut-off opaque tights that I wore in Chicago when I went with Lib, last year!) and pumps was really... liberating. I felt good about the way I looked, without feeling like I was trying. The dress itself is so flattering and made of such stretchy, comfortable material... I'm going to have to wear it more often. I recently bought a plan black one in a similar style, as well, which I'm glad I did. I've been trying to grow my hair out for a couple of months, and it's at a kind of ridiculous in-between stage at the moment, but I even managed to pull that off, today.

Generally, it was a wonderful day.

And topped off with the new Domino's Bacon Double Cheeseburger pizza it was pretty much perfect.

I'm so excited for autumn.

CONGRATULATIONS, MATTE!

Knew you could do it, kid.

So, I went through and added a bunch of people on Facebook - I've rarely used it because I have LJ, but I lost track of a lot of the friends I had on there when I switched journals.

It's so weird to be talking to Stevie again! He used to be a really good mate.

So - if you know people I knew from the Camden scene back in the day, get them to add me on Facebook. I'm not sure that the content of my LJ these days would excite many of them, but my Facebook is less FOB-oriented and it would be a good to catch up with people.