Not Feeling 22 [I don't know about you...]

I don’t know about you, I’m really not feeling 22. I don’t want to be 22. Not like this, anyway. I’m not saying Taylor Swift was wrong (because she never is, like ever) all I’m saying is maybe her 22 is a different 22 to mine. 

My 22 is definitely not about nights forgetting about deadlines because believe me; they’re around every bloody corner. However, she did hit the nail on the head with breakfast at midnight. I appear to have regressed back to the phase of eating four consecutive meals solely consisting of cereal, followed by a bacon sandwich at 1am. 

Places are always too crowded and there are always too many cool kids but I haven’t yet grown up enough to ditch the whole scene and end up dreaming instead of sleeping. All of the cool kids look at me, exactly the same way they used to at college and at schools before that. My hair isn’t ‘quite’ right and I can try to fit in as much as I want, but it’s a square peg round hole kind of situation I think.

If this is 22, then please may I have 21 back? I don't want to be 22. 

The weather is terrible for May/June which isn't helping, I have apparently developed some sort of killer acid reflux which makes me feel like the inside of my body is on fire and my MA is vanishing before my eyes which means I have to join the real world soon which, God knows, I'm not ready for (I'm also not sure the real world is ready either...) 

Things that suck about turning 22;

1. In eight years, I'll be thirty. 

2. In three years, people will start rounding my age to thirty rather than twenty.

3. 22 sounds a lot more responsible and grown up than 21. 21 sounds like fun. 

4. I was watching an old episode of Grey's Anatomy yesterday; it was the episode when Christina Ricci's cameo character has her hand on a bomb in a body cavity. She screams "I can't do this, I'm only 22." - Christina Ricci's character is a freaking paramedic at 22, I still cut myself shaving and bleed all over the bathroom floor convincing myself I'm going to haemorrhage out and die.  So, in short I’m lacking in sensible adult knowledge, but I can spell haemorrhage. 

5. People expect you to know what you're doing with the rest of your life all of a sudden, and they didn't when you're 21. When you're 21 you get away with being footloose and fancy free, now it's all "What're you doing in September?" "What do you plan on doing after your MA?" "How's your rent/council tax/utility bills working out?" "How much do you have saved?"

6. Suddenly you have to start eating properly. My friends now judge me when I say all I've eaten for three days is Frosties. Suddenly, having a can of Monster for lunch isn't acceptable. 

7. It gets to 11pm and I'm like... "Ooh. If I shower now, I can be in bed and asleep by midnight." 

8. Now, my body apparently considers 9am, a lie in. 

9. I actually tell people off in the streets now. I told a man off on the tube the other day and I told a kid off on the train yesterday. I'm becoming that grumpy old person who doesn't enjoy merriment. 

10. My life now revolves around washing machine cycles and train times, food expiration dates and when the last time I washed my sheets was. 

I'm sure there are more, but also - I hope there are upsides to 22. If there are, I'd like them to make themselves known pretty damn speedy. 

“I think 22 is a metaphor for embracing the fact that you don’t know anything in life, everything is uncertain and embracing the excitement of that uncertainty is what youth is supposed to be about.” – Taylor Swift.

I would like things to be a little more certain, please. 

Being Honest - Boys & Girls Can Be Friends.

In this installment on WhatLexySaid, I’ll be taking the age-old and long-pondered question of whether the lads and the ladies can be, oh-so-simply, just friends.

Before I elaborate entirely, I should give a small disclaimer that yes, I do believe we can all be friends without wanting to jump each other’s bones. If you disagree, this is your stop on the train of this discussion. Time to hop off; you’re the reason that eleven year olds don’t think they can be friends with the girls in their class because of the ridicule and teasing that their mere friendship can bring.

Anyway, now that we’re left with all the open-minded folk, let’s get down to it. 

Since I started secondary school, earlier than that... since primary school, I’ve had a predominance of male friends. I remember far more of the boys names from primary school than I do the girls. Does that make seven year old me a little sauce-pot? No, it doesn’t. 

Obviously, in Secondary School there came a time when I realised maybe I wanted to spend a little more time with certain guys, but that didn’t mean that I had to feel like that about all of my male friends. I understood that, it’s the people who don’t who seem to be the problem.

My first year at University, I ended up living with a boy as well as four girls. Nothing romantic has ever happened between us, and we’re still good friends to this day. Gasp-shock-horror? What? How is that even possible? This is just the way it is.  As with most of my male friends, we never made the conscious decision to inform the other person that we weren’t attracted to each other, it was unspoken yet known. For the predominance of my third year at University, there were usually more men in my house than there were ladies and my one female housemate and I would often find ourselves coughing and spluttering in a cloud of testosterone and Lynx Africa, among other things.
We weren’t attracted to them and they weren’t either. It was that easy.

My friend Grace reminds me however “if there is a hint of something more on the table it can get messy...” and of course, in true Gracie-fashion, she’s right. But that’s okay too. As long as you’re honest with each other, there doesn’t have to be any drama. As soon as you bring sex and all those feelings into the equation, a million more questions pop up and sometimes, like Rachel says - it’s never off the table but it’s always best to keep communication lines open and talk about it.

Once I’ve been with someone romantically, can we go back to being purely-platonic friends again?
I’m going to go with yes, on this one. Yes you can go back to being friends. Whether you’ve moved on to dating someone new or not, if you want that other person in your life but not in a romantic sense then tell them. Make it happen as best you can, but don’t push it.
Obviously, I understand that if you’re coming out of serious relationship, flipping back into being good friends may be difficult; no one is saying you have to be friends immediately, if at all. Sometimes it’s too hard to get over that person and what they mean/meant to you.

What if I want something more/less than he/she does?
Respect is of utmost importance – to quote another song, you can’t make someone love you if they don’t. But you also can’t make someone not love you. Be respectful of the other person’s feelings if they differ from your own; you might be ready to be friends again, but they might need more time.
Or, if you’ve never been together romantically and one person wants to progress into that and the other doesn’t, then just be honest. Let them hide away for a week and lick their wounds, if that’s what they need, but remind them at the end of the day you’re still friends.

Does being jealous of my friend spending time with their other half mean that I’m attracted to them?
Not at all. You can miss someone’s company and their attention and not be attracted to them. If you used to get Pizza every two-for-Tuesday night, and now Tuesday night has been reallocated to their other half as date night, you’re allowed to miss that time together.

*

With 2015 just around the corner and hurtling towards us like a freight train, I encourage more people to take on the honesty philosophy...

If you want to see someone, tell them.
If you like someone, tell them.
What’s the worst that could happen?
 They don’t feel that way? At least you know.
If you miss someone, tell them.
If you want to call, call.
If you want to chat, then chat.
In the same sense...
If you don’t want to see someone, tell them.
If you don’t miss someone, don’t say it.

If I’ve learned anything recently, it’s to not say something if you don’t mean it.
Don’t say things for the sake of it, people will only get hurt and read into things that don’t mean what they want them to.

After graduating in October, it’s been hard enough entering the big bad world without picking and choosing who you’re going to be friends with based on their sex/sexual preferences. My friends all went back to their parent’s towns after University, I stayed in Winchester, so when it comes to new friends I’ve taken what I can and I’m ever-grateful for them all. I wouldn’t be without them.

Maybe I’m not the best person to be giving out relationship advice, but there’s so much chatter about how there is absolutely no possible way that people of the opposite sex could every be purely friends and it bugs me.

Rant over J the floor is now open to discussion...

Another Baking Blog - Macarons with Jols!

When you’re life is stressing you out, I have found that baking helps. Creating something that you have complete control over makes a nice change to living constantly in the whirlwind of landlords, banks, bosses and other pains in the ass. 

So it’s Friday, the last day before the heaving weekend shifts in the bar and I decided to rope in a friend, trained pastry chef don’t you  know, and have a go at Macarons. Having been introduced to Macarons at Lauduree in Harrods by my boyfriend (also trained Chef) my heart was sold. Give me Salted Caramel, Orange Blossom, Rose or Violet macarons and my day is made – hell, my week is made. 

However because I’d practically forced Jols to make macarons with me, I  pretty much let her choose flavours. Eventually we went with dark chocolate and raspberry and then dark chocolate and coconut. The left over dark chocolate from someone’s birthday seemed to be a recurrent theme in our recipes.

With my head spinning in the differences between italian and french meringue, plus likes of The Meringue GirlsCookbook and all the fabulous flavours and colourings, I had done my research and I was raring to go.  

Unfortunately, we fell at the first hurdle. We’d run out of sugar. 

A (semi) quick trip to Sainsburies and a Starbucks coffee later – we’re back in the kitchen. First up were the macarons that were meant to be black. Black and red we thought, how decadent and daring. Our black turned out to be more grey-ish, but it still looked pretty good with the red sprinkles on top. 

Those grey-ish macarons became our fresh raspberry and dark chocolate macarons. 

Next up, we let little Max (Jols’ son) sprinkle on some decimated Coconut and we created our next masterpiece – toasted coconut and dark chocolate. 

Only then did we get to big for our boots and attempt lemon macarons. Sadly, after a small oven malfunction, our pretty pale lemon mixture turned into grilled cheese when someone (naming no names) put the grill on, rather than the oven.

So, no lemon macarons but plenty of raspberry, coconut and dark chocolate ones.

And some homemade marshmallow to boot - keeping the little one happy.

Overall, I think we did good and we had nothing but good reviews. 

Hopefully you guys think they look as good as they tasted.  

"Chubby"

It makes me absolutely crazy that people on the internet have the nerve to call a Demi Lovato fat. Chubby is such an ugly word, why do people think that they can throw it around and not affect anyone?

Tell me you don't like her music, fine - that's your opinion. 

Tell me you think she's fat, and that's none of your business. 

If Demi Lovato is fat, then dear God please let me wake up fat tomorrow. 

Lovato has graced the covers of an insane number of magazines, including; Teen Vogue, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, Latina, Cosmo On Campus, Nylon, Dolly, Sugar, Cosmo Girl, Atrevida, Self, Elle Girl and many more. More than once often enough. 

If anyone, male or female, can look at these photos and tell me they do not think she looks happy and healthy then they are lying. 

Struggling through rehab for an eating disorder and coming out shining, Demi has earned the respect of thousands. She definitely has not earned the online fat shaming that is being thrown her way. People who use the words "chubby" or "fat" don't know what it can do to a person, especially a person with known insecurities on the subject.  I can only be assumed that the bullies, because that's what they are, using this cheap way to insult someone because they are overcompensating - attempting to hide something about themselves. 

Having won 64 awards across the board, including an MTV Music Video award, two Do Something awards, three ALMA awards, five People's Choice awards and eleven Teen Choice Awards, there is no way anyone can contest Lovato's professional prowess and accomplishment. 

Why try and bring someone down when they clearly are doing so well, post-recovery? 

If I could count the number of ways I'm jealous of not only Lovato's success but her looks, and talent I would run out of fingers a thousand times over. 

Maybe she's not everyone's ideal singer/actress/philanthropist but that's no reason to call them something, that you don't how they'll react to. It's never a joke, and it doesn't matter if you "didn't really mean it" - don't say it. Don't put it online. 

I for one, know that Lovato is stronger that I could ever be. She has more will power than I could ever possess and is better looking than I feel I will ever be. She gives so many people hope, so what gives you the right to take hers away?