A Reintroduction: Hello!

I studied English Lit at university then went straight into a marketing role with a local company, before veering off to do some freelance work whilst writing for my own website. I rent a house from an unresponsive landlord with my boyfriend Keiran; we’ve been together for about three years now, and we’re getting deliciously close to being recognised my name in our local pub (Keiran’s number one dream). Although we have no pets as of yet, I’ve been carefully putting in the groundwork to hopefully change that within the near future. And since you asked, I’d love to rescue a Bull Terrier.

I grew up in a single parent family with my Ma and my brother, although my grandparents played a massive part in my upbringing so I suppose you could consider us a quirky five-piece. Whilst my peers were jetting off on family holidays to Portugal and sending out BBM messages from their O2 family plan contracts, I spent my summers drinking £4.50 Tesco vodka over the park that neighboured our back garden. I was bitter about this at the time - about not having the nucleur-family set up and the very normal, very nice family activities - but now I feel indebted to my working class background and my glamorous first job working on a burger van at 13. After all, it allowed me to discover that you can dunk a brownie into a Styrofoam cup of milk and achieve the perfect level of moist-cakeness.

It would be a mistake to believe that those boozy summers were punctuated with boys, however; whilst I did fancy many and persistently tried to generate some mutual interest, most would kiss me once or put their hands down my pants, and then move on to the next 14 year old with low self-esteem. I, meanwhile, optimistically passed off their one-word text replies as them being busy, which, of course, many 14 year old boys with no commitments and no responsibilities often are. I was short and chunky and inherited my nose from my Dad, so to the Lotharios of Ipswich, I wasn’t deemed wifey material.

Well screw you dickheads!!!! Now at least 5 actual real life men have willingly had sex with me. Who’s the winner now? This also meant that 18 was a very good year for me, because I went from ‘of no interest’ to ‘of some - albeit inebriated - interest’, and as a result enjoyed many nights in town accepting free drinks from any man that blinked at me. This stint of being young, dumb and full of FUN was short-lived however, as I soon got a boyfriend who I was in a relationship with for three years. And then guess what? I very quickly picked up another boyfriend, who I am happy to report is still in my good graces and who makes me belly-laugh often. He is tall and floppy-haired and radiates kindness. The best way to describe him is as a human Golden Retriever.

The mission statement for why I write matures with each year that passes. I’m in my sixth year of ‘blogging’ now, and when I started, I desperately needed a creative outlet to cushion my plummeting self-worth after quitting my dream university. I then viewed it as good work experience - an animated actualisation of the skills I was describing on my CV in the hopes of building a career in marketing. Then it became a potential source of income, followed by a confirmed source of income, followed by a part-time job, followed by a full-time job. At times I’ve been convinced that I could change the world, and at others I’ve simply wanted to entertain for five minutes whilst readers hide from their boss in the work toilets. I’ve covered everything from class to careers to sex to skincare, and I’ve been forever guilty of oversharing (funnily enough, I’ve written about that too). Revisiting the concept of ‘why’, now, however, I’m taking a much more relaxed approach. I could say that I want to create a meaningful space in which the frivolity of fashion and the more serious aspects of our personal lives can co-exist; in some sense that is true, but really, at the very core of it, I just want to write things that other people like my find entertaining.

If at this point you’re thinking ‘hmm, okay, sounds good on a surface level, but what’s her real deal?’, then I at once respect your inquisitive nature and oblige your request to divulge more. A little more on me:

I want to mature into the preference of red over white or rosé wine, but I fear I’ll forever be a trash corner-shop queen necking the £5.99 bottles with the foot on the front; I’m terrified of getting older and getting wrinkles and having bits of my body suddenly change in a way that is uninvited, and I also recognise that this is a shallow and ignorant fear to have, but hey, what can I say, I’m a victim of my environment; I can’t drive and have no plans to learn in the near future, an admission which instantly infantilises me when I’m in the presence of other adults who ~ looove ~ to drive; I kind of don’t enjoy travelling that much, which seems like the most heinous of cardinal sins to admit in your mid-twenties but I find the to-ing and fro-ing quite meh; I like to party and then regret my decisions when still awake and staring out of my bedroom window at 7am the next day; I love cake; I’m sentimental and empathetic and emotional in tumble-loads; I’m very snobby when it comes to music, which I hope makes up for my basic-bitch level of interest in the other departments of my life, such as coffee (skinny latte) and TV (lol Eastenders); I am continuously ambivalent about my sexuality and have resigned myself to fancying everybody at all times; I would describe my constant state of being as slightly dehydrated, quite tired, trying to think of something interesting to write and 25% in need of a wee; and I’m unnaturally sweaty - my eyelids, my palms, my pits, the backs of my knees - always damp.

I’ve written recently about who my reader is, but in short, I want to appeal to the high-end trash bags of the world. The people who feel fancy when spending an extra bit of dough on a ‘nice’ bottle of wine, only to drink too much of it and throw up on their £80 Zara shoes later that evening. The people who care about their friends, their careers, and the amount of high orgasms they’re achieving each month, but who also prescribe religiously to the ’15 second rule’ and would definitely eat almost any food off of the floor (not butter down bread, though). To the people who worked part-time in Sainsbury’s whilst studying at sixth form, and stole other people’s Nectar points to spend on more shitty alcohol at the end of their shift (*cough*). To the people who can be both serious and silly, and still feel slightly uncomfortable watching sex scenes on TV in front of their parents. To the people who believe they ~ are ~ talented in some ways, but still can’t shift the Imposter Syndrome which tickles them from the back of their brain.

So that’s me. Hey! I hope to see more of you round here, and I can’t wait to share the new website design in a few weeks. Thanks for visiting, high-end trash bag. x