“It Was the Best of Times, it Was the Worst of Times”

Posted by laramasters Mon, 28th January 2013

The year 2012 finally enabled me to understand that Charles Dickens’ quote. Before then I thought it was an oxymoronic exercise in superlatives; how the Dickens can "times" be simultaneously "best" and "worst"? Well, 2012 showed me exactly how - I was ecstatic, I was suicidal; I was literally, ecsta-cidal. Here is the blog of the year (sadly, that's a factual statement, not a prelude to a blog-sensation.)

Exactly a year ago I wrote my last blog which was positively euphoric; all about my post-surgery prognosis and glaringly bright, super-mobile future. I could have had a baby since then except I’m not a complete fool. Plus, I have a strong feeling that when it comes to bambinos the journey is far more enjoyable than the destination, if you get my veiled metaphor. (This metaphor was too veiled for my partner who told me he didn't think pregnancy would be much more enjoyable than having a baby; so to clarify, by "journey" I mean sex.)

Let’s rewind 12 months so we can all see how laughable my idea of taking any sort of control over my life really is… I had just had spinal-cord surgery and, motivated by my surgeon’s assertion that I would be gaining movement, my plan for 2012 was to get married, honeymoon in South Africa (my beloved’s birth-place) and then get on with life with choices not limited to; which drinking receptacle am I least likely to immediately drop?  

I thought if we had a September wedding, 9 months post-op, I would be standing, maybe taking a few steps and by the time we went on Safari in November, I’d be able to hold my own if confronted by a pride of lions - or my new husband and a moonlighting taxi driver insisted on taking me on a tour of "the real South Africa" in a local township.

However, I omitted from the equation (Surgery+Morphine+Positive Neurosurgeon (possibly also on morphine?)) = Profound Hope & Joy, what my neurosurgeon later described as the "unpredictable behaviour of nerves 12 to 18 months post spinal cord surgery".

I don't have a Twitter account because I am literate, but just for fun I’ll Twitterise my year; I LOST more movement, panicked, had a mini nervous breakdown @#justwhenyouthinkitcannotgetanyworse

By Summer I had lost my grip, literally and metaphorically. This sudden, dramatic deterioration in my right (and only functional) hand, coincided spectacularly with a week-long visit from my prospective mother-in-law. There was absolutely no hope of me putting on my “disability? I hardly even notice it” face because I was wracked with hysterical sobbing fits for the duration. I did apologise to my M-I-L for the temporary lapse in my usual triumphing-over-tragedy persona but frankly horse and bolted.

However, look at my Facebook (or Self-Aggrandising Propaganda Book as I refer to it) and you’ll see iridescent photos of me on my wedding day, truly the best day of my life, marrying my love, and nothing to suggest the last few months have been the worst of my life and I’ve deteriorated to the point where my dis-ability fills everyday existence with frustration, pain and despair. It doesn't read well as a status update and I would be mortified if it got "like"s.

Fortunately for me, in these ecsta-cidal, worst-best times, my husband is on-hand with reassuring words such as; "I like it that you can't walk, that way you can't run away." This is the difference between me falling from the Titanic into the gnashing jaws of the inky sea and landing in a lifeboat.

Lara Has a Big, Risky Operation! Yikes!

Posted by laramasters Sat, 28th January 2012

2011; did you love it? Did you have a blast? What did you do? (If you insist on actually answering that question even though it’s quite obviously rhetorical, there’s a comments box at the bottom which I will edit to show myself in the most flattering light.)

Whilst we're on the subject, if you are one of those people who really only reads someone’s blog/listens to someone's story for the chance to bring it back to yourself however tangentially, then I suggest you get your own blog because honestly, you sound just the type. Blogging's the perfect occupation for the completely self-absorbed, take it from me, I get loads of that ilk cluttering up my comments box with their life stories when I only added that feature to invite readers to compliment me.

And newbie bloggers need not be intimidated by my superior grasp of the vernacular; there’s a bounty of banal blogs out there. The internet does not discriminate and any old detritus can and does moor itself in cyberspace ready to confront unsuspecting Googlers, as we’ve all discovered when innocently searching terms like “doggy”, “swing” and “spank”, only to land on some frightful middle-class mother’s blog about her toddler’s foray in the playground with a naughty puppy.

I have nothing against mothers - I have one myself – but I don’t think they should blog about their kids for the simple fact that no one else cares. Of course we’re all forced by social mores to pretend we do but I know I'm not the only one who thinks their friend’s child is Damien, and the only thing stopping them from asking whether there was a satanic ritual involved in the child's conception is fear of causing friction. If I ever have a child, you can rest assured I would not be cluttering up my blog with the yawnsome minutiae of a toddler’s day-to-day. Anyhow, they would be a literary prodigy in their own right and have their own globally renowned blog so there would be absolutely no need.

Back to 2011 and what I did which is the whole point of this blog. I became further exasperated by my body as it has increasingly paid less attention to simple commands, i.e. “Pick up cup”, and just made up its own “artistic" interpretations such as "Push cup over", "Pick up cup briefly, drop cup into lap", and the now clichéd; “Pick up cup? Go f**k yourself.”

I'm a firm believer in freedom of expression but frankly, my body’s rebelliousness and creativity has become unnecessary and pretentious, much like Tracey Emin’s unmade bed covered in dirty knickers and unmentionable bodily excretions, however, you won't find me in the Saatchi gallery exhibiting my lap full of tea as an exploration of my nervous breakdown. Which is a shame because I think a disabled girl covered in Earl Grey is a lot more poignant than a messy bed plus I could do with a few hundred thou.

Instead, I explored my nervous breakdown by having MRI scans of my cervical spine in which is housed a cyst (aka syrinx/syringomyelia) and sent them to eminent neurosurgeons around the world including New York, Los Angeles, Germany, South Africa, London and Bristol and said; “I'm getting progressively paralysed at breakneck speed (excuse the pun) - any suggestions?”

And it transpired that these medical professionals were full of suggestions, or one particular suggestion which was that nothing could be done to help and I should f*$k off. Well, at least there was a consensus.

Via several letters, e-mails, phone calls and face-to-face consultations I was advised, in a nutshell, to crawl into a dark little corner and "accept (my) continued deterioration". Quote.

But there are two problems with this; 1) I cannot crawl, and 2) I simply can't, and never have been able to do what I'm told, particularly when there is no mention of a blindfold, gag or fluffy handcuffs.

I did cry a lot because the doctors were basically saying; “You think your life's limited now? Wait for another couple of years! You'll be looking back on this time as those halcyon days of hope and opportunity when you could almost hold a fork and could still use one digit to operate a PC!”

Having already kissed goodbye to many of my hopes and dreams with bitterly puckered lips because of my disability, the thought of losing the fraction of mobility I had left was intolerable.
I was deeply demoralised by the prognosis and as I scarcely had a moral to begin with, the effect on me was devastating.

2011 was a tearful and dehydrating year. Fortunately, it was also the year I discovered coconut water with its potent rehydrating properties, so despite my tanties I was mercifully able to maintain my “glass half full” (of coconut water) attitude, and continued searching out people at the top of their spinal game. 

Plus I prayed, in the way that someone with fickle faith who has felt somewhat abandoned by any higher power at a young age prays – angrily, desperately, chaotically - an internal scream of; “Fu$k*ng help me!” I didn't bother with pleases and thank you's and didn’t care who or what heard me. I would happily have sold my soul to the devil to be physically able again and was even considering taking my friend’s child aside for a quiet word.

Fortunately a satanic pact wasn't necessary but instead I attended a "Complex Spine Clinic" offered by our marvellous NHS for people who have complicated conditions requiring a multidisciplinary approach. Here, a gaggle of orthopaedic surgeons, neurosurgeons and similar gathered in a lecture amphitheatre to poke and prod me and have a powwow. Rather than too many cooks spoiling the broth it was a case of can’t cook, won’t cook, get another cook in who can and will.

Betwixt them they bubbled up a recipe to blast the cyst, halt the deterioration and hopefully recover some function with a "laminectomy and spinal cord fenestration". For those of us not fluent in Latin, this means cutting out a piece of vertebral bone, opening up the spinal cord and draining some fluid to relieve the pressure on the nerves. Wowzas.

So in December that's what I did, I had spinal surgery. Absolutely terrifying. Especially as surgeons these days seem to only vaguely mention any possible positive outcome of a procedure in the lead up to an operation but really lay it on about the risks. The 10% chance that you will be made totally and irreversibly paralysed, the other 10% chance that you will be made a lot more paralysed permanently, the chance that you will lose more mobility but only for say, six months, and that's all if you survive the surgery in the first place. OK, I get it, shut up already.

However, if I didn't have the operation I would continue losing more function over time which might even affect my brain so although I was literally catatonic with fear for several weeks before the op I was like; "Bring it! Where's that scalpel?! Show me the morphine! Do it to me!" Because I was more terrified of what would happen if I didn't go through with it.

And here I am to tell the tale. The operation was a success; Oh joy! Or as I like to say; "Oh Choi!" (my very excellent surgeon's name is Mr Choi.)
This is my scar 5 days after! I hope you're not freaked out, it looks a lot better now. And I am recovering nicely…

Lara Has a Big, Risky Operation! Yikes!

Posted by laramasters Sat, 28th January 2012

2011; did you love it? Did you have a blast? What did you do? (If you insist on actually answering that question even though it’s quite obviously rhetorical, there’s a comments box at the bottom which I will edit to show myself in the most flattering light.)

Whilst we're on the subject, if you are one of those people who really only reads someone’s blog/listens to someone's story for the chance to bring it back to yourself however tangentially, then I suggest you get your own blog because honestly, you sound just the type. Blogging's the perfect occupation for the completely self-absorbed, take it from me, I get loads of that ilk cluttering up my comments box with their life stories when I only added that feature to invite readers to compliment me.

And newbie bloggers need not be intimidated by my superior grasp of the vernacular; there’s a bounty of banal blogs out there. The internet does not discriminate and any old detritus can and does moor itself in cyberspace ready to confront unsuspecting Googlers, as we’ve all discovered when innocently searching terms like “doggy”, “swing” and “spank”, only to land on some frightful middle-class mother’s blog about her toddler’s foray in the playground with a naughty puppy.

I have nothing against mothers - I have one myself – but I don’t think they should blog about their kids for the simple fact that no one else cares. Of course we’re all forced by social mores to pretend we do but I know I'm not the only one who thinks their friend’s child is Damien, and the only thing stopping them from asking whether there was a satanic ritual involved in the child's conception is fear of causing friction. If I ever have a child, you can rest assured I would not be cluttering up my blog with the yawnsome minutiae of a toddler’s day-to-day. Anyhow, they would be a literary prodigy in their own right and have their own globally renowned blog so there would be absolutely no need.

Back to 2011 and what I did which is the whole point of this blog. I became further exasperated by my body as it has increasingly paid less attention to simple commands, i.e. “Pick up cup”, and just made up its own “artistic" interpretations such as "Push cup over", "Pick up cup briefly, drop cup into lap", and the now clichéd; “Pick up cup? Go f**k yourself.”

I'm a firm believer in freedom of expression but frankly, my body’s rebelliousness and creativity has become unnecessary and pretentious, much like Tracey Emin’s unmade bed covered in dirty knickers and unmentionable bodily excretions, however, you won't find me in the Saatchi gallery exhibiting my lap full of tea as an exploration of my nervous breakdown. Which is a shame because I think a disabled girl covered in Earl Grey is a lot more poignant than a messy bed plus I could do with a few hundred thou.

Instead, I explored my nervous breakdown by having MRI scans of my cervical spine in which is housed a cyst (aka syrinx/syringomyelia) and sent them to eminent neurosurgeons around the world including New York, Los Angeles, Germany, South Africa, London and Bristol and said; “I'm getting progressively paralysed at breakneck speed (excuse the pun) - any suggestions?”

And it transpired that these medical professionals were full of suggestions, or one particular suggestion which was that nothing could be done to help and I should f*$k off. Well, at least there was a consensus.

Via several letters, e-mails, phone calls and face-to-face consultations I was advised, in a nutshell, to crawl into a dark little corner and "accept (my) continued deterioration". Quote.

But there are two problems with this; 1) I cannot crawl, and 2) I simply can't, and never have been able to do what I'm told, particularly when there is no mention of a blindfold, gag or fluffy handcuffs.

I did cry a lot because the doctors were basically saying; “You think your life's limited now? Wait for another couple of years! You'll be looking back on this time as those halcyon days of hope and opportunity when you could almost hold a fork and could still use one digit to operate a PC!”

Having already kissed goodbye to many of my hopes and dreams with bitterly puckered lips because of my disability, the thought of losing the fraction of mobility I had left was intolerable.
I was deeply demoralised by the prognosis and as I scarcely had a moral to begin with, the effect on me was devastating. 2011 was a tearful and dehydrating year. Fortunately, it was also the year I discovered coconut water with its potent rehydrating properties, so despite my tanties I was mercifully able to maintain my “glass half full” (of coconut water) attitude, and continued searching out people at the top of their spinal game. 

Plus I prayed, in the way that someone with fickle faith who has felt somewhat abandoned by any higher power at a young age prays – angrily, desperately, chaotically - an internal scream of; “Fu$k*ng help me!” I didn't bother with pleases and thank you's and didn’t care who or what heard me. I would happily have sold my soul to the devil to be physically able again and was even considering taking my friend’s child aside for a quiet word.

Fortunately a satanic pact wasn't necessary but instead I attended a "Complex Spine Clinic" offered by our marvellous NHS for people who have complicated conditions requiring a multidisciplinary approach. Here, a gaggle of orthopaedic surgeons, neurosurgeons and similar gathered in a lecture amphitheatre to poke and prod me and have a powwow. Rather than too many cooks spoiling the broth it was a case of can’t cook, won’t cook, get another cook in who can and will.

Betwixt them they bubbled up a recipe to blast the cyst, halt the deterioration and hopefully recover some function with a "laminectomy and spinal cord fenestration". For those of us not fluent in Latin, this means cutting out a piece of vertebral bone, opening up the spinal cord and draining some fluid to relieve the pressure on the nerves. Wowzas.

So in December that's what I did, I had spinal surgery. Absolutely terrifying. Especially as surgeons these days seem to only vaguely mention any possible positive outcome of a procedure in the lead up to an operation but really lay it on about the risks. The 10% chance that you will be made totally and irreversibly paralysed, the other 10% chance that you will be made a lot more paralysed permanently, the chance that you will lose more mobility but only for say, six months, and that's all if you survive the surgery in the first place.

However, if I didn't have the operation I would continue losing more function over time which might even affect my brain so although I was literally catatonic with fear for several weeks before the op I was like; "Bring it! Where's that scalpel?! Show me the morphine! Do it to me! "Because I was more terrified of what would happen if I didn't go through with it.

And here I am to tell the tale. The operation was a success; Oh joy! Or as I like to say; "Oh Choi!" (my very excellent surgeon's name is Mr Choi.)
This is my scar 5 days after! I hope you're not freaked out, it looks a lot better now. And I am recovering nicely…

Laughter is the best medicine! (If you can’t get hold of any valium/vicodin)

Posted by laramasters Mon, 24th October 2011

I’m veeeery hard to please when it comes to tickling my funny-bone. I’m no lily-livered buffoon who will guffaw at just anything, oh no. I might look amused at a comedy club with a perma-grin pasted on, but that’s simply a tactic to avoid being heckled by the comedians - inside I’ve got a face like a proper slapped-ar$e.

Sadly, this ruse is not practised by my partner. When I took him to see stand-up comic Simon Amstell warming up for Edinburgh, he didn’t even crack a smile throughout the gig. It might have been OK but it was a tiny room and we were smack in the centre of the front row, nose-to-nose with Simon.

Needless to say the grumpy ginger German South-African sitting next to the girl in the wheelchair wearing a corset, fabulous Kiss My Cherry fascinator (this one from the Summer collection)  and insane smile did not go unnoticed. Mr Amstell tried heckling my partner into submission but the ginger would not snap - even with all his best gay Jewish one-liners Simon could not crack the ginger nut. Excruciating. But lovely that I got two ginger biscuit jokes out of that.

Sadly they’ll be lost on my non-UK audience which last month’s Google Analytics informs me are abundant; yes, I’m quite the global phenomenon. No surprises that I’m racking them up all over the UK, US & Canada but interesting that I’m doing healthy figures in Sweden (12), Russia (3) and Turkey (2) as well as being thoroughly enjoyed in the Asian continent; India (1), Malaysia (1) and Thailand (1); Sawadika!

Anyhoo, back to Britain; my partner hasn’t picked up that in this country, when someone’s trying to be funny, even if you think they’re a blithering idiot, you feign merriment - it is just good manners to be completely insincere. Similarly, if you don’t like someone, you simply pretend you do to their face and talk badly about them behind their back, thus, no one ever knows how you really feel and you end up being a people-pleaser. It is not a difficult practise to pick up but apparently in Africa, they are not familiar with such behavioural subtleties, so if my partner doesn’t find someone funny, he won’t laugh and it is just embarrassing for all involved. Except for my partner, who doesn’t find it at all uncomfortable. My bad for taking him to see stand-up comedy; it was an accident waiting to happen.

Talking of accidents, now there’s something that’s sure to invoke a vesuvian belly-laugh from me. Yip, someone stumbling/tripping/falling over will always have me in stitches - not if they are, obviously - I won’t be roaring my head off at someone who clearly requires suturing, but a bit of grazing or a few bruises and there’s my slam-dunk giggle-fit.

Other than people embarrassing/hurting themselves a bit, a chortle from me is hard-won. That’s not to say I’m a miserable sadist; I’ve just explained that I laugh at other people’s misfortune, I’m hardly miserable! But I did not find Bridesmaids that funny second time round.

However, there is one type of funny that transcends all cultures and faiths and can tickle even the most jaded of fancies, and this universal source of hilarity is known as Skype-A-Mum. It doesn’t even have to be your own mum, just any mum will do. My partner and I Skyped both our mums in one night and it was back-to-back side-splitting laughs for us.

We started by Skyping my pseudo mum-in-law in South Africa which is always a challenge because they’re still on dial-up; can you even remember life before broadband? It makes me shudder, but in S.A they’re much quainter and not so up-to-speed with technology because they are understandably occupied with their daily survival such as running away from lions and leopards. Also, the rhinos and hippos dig up the phone lines so they can’t put the really good ones down. They have to make theirs from string and giraffe droppings which are less efficient than fibre optic cables.

We managed to get through to S.A Mum who had spruced herself up for the occasion by changing out of her “camo”s and strategically placing some traditional African masks and wooden giraffes in shot. It wasn’t until she’d complimented us 3 or 4 times on our “set dressing” of pulling the duvet up to cover our naked-ness, that we realised she was awaiting a return compliment and didn’t know that her web-cam was off so we couldn’t see her. We suggested she do whatever she did last time we Skyped, as then we could vividly see the full glory of her African headdress (or she might have just washed her hair). However, her other son had supervised proceedings last Skype and now he was out, probably hunting kudu or searching for stones to make into arrow-heads.

A slew of; “Scheiß menschen!” (translation; “$h!t people!”) and other German profanities ensued plus much clattering of African crafts, but still the web-cam “on” switch remained elusive. We’ve long since learnt the futility of talking a mum through the simple procedure of opening the “Tools” bar and clicking on “Video Settings” so we sat back whilst S.A Mum turned everything on her P.C on and off, to an accompaniment of Germanic expletives and the distant thunder of charging elephants. Mums Skyping hey? Hil-frickin-arious.

No sooner had we said auf weiderzen to S.A Mum, we noticed my Mum was on-line in the South of France, so we hit the Skype again, but Mum in La France (or MILF) didn’t answer until about our the tenth attempt because she thought it was the dishwasher beeping. When she finally picked up her iPhone she’d somehow managed to mute the speakers and the microphone but that was no impediment to her jabbering away, iPhone akimbo.

We couldn’t even attempt to lip-read as all we could see were blurry shots of pot-plants, furniture and ceiling beams in the style of Madonna’s “Ray of Light” video, mixed in with several cleavage close-ups in the style of something you’d rather not find your mother starring in. My frantic yelps of; “Muuuuum! Step away from the iPhone! We can see your boobs!” made no impression; we just had to wait 'til she’d worn herself out. Then, as finding the iPhone volume button proved too much of a challenge, we repeated the whole exercise from her iPad but she couldn’t find the stand for it so it was an up-the-nose shot throughout our chat.

So to re-cap; if you’re feeling a bit glum, Skype yo’ Mum. Guaranteed non-stop giggles!

P.S Wanna look hot for Hallowe'en? Check out my Kiss My Cherry skulls and spiders collection!

All By Myself, Don’t Wanna Be….

Posted by laramasters Sat, 1st October 2011

I’m in shock. You know when all you can hear is your own voice in your head going; “OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG…” ? Except you’re repeating the actual words, not just the acronym like some FB/BBM text-speak addled moron LOL who no longer knows the English language WTF, and my mum, who takes all the vowels out of her texts so you need a few spare hours and a seasoned code-breaker to decipher them FFS. (The last letter of that stands for “sake” if you’re of the old-skool literate ilk and familiar with whole words.)

Well, this repetitious refrain is all I have going on in my noodle right now - no thoughts, just a loud, lurching loop. Why? Because I’ve been rendered verbally impotent by a quite unbelievable event and am unable to process how deeply selfish seemingly nice people that you invite into your home and get naked in front of can be.

This sounds like I got done-over whilst hosting a swingers’ evening. I did not. And “done-over” is not the appropriate expression to be used there anyway as presumably a doing-over would be a successful result, whereas I am enjoying no such thing. (The successful result that is, not the swingers’ party. Although I’m not enjoying that either, and if I were I think it would be very rude and show no sense of community to be writing a blog during proceedings.)

Let me be specific. My carer walked out. Just like that. No awkward preamble, no; “it’s not you, it’s me”, no “I’m handing in my month’s notice” as is the custom amongst civilised people in the adult world of work. No, instead, my carer got moody and recalcitrant, and when I asked politely (or not so politely but WTF she was well out of order) if she could lose the attitude, she had a melt-down, packed her bags and left without waiting for my partner to come home. So, to recap, she left me with no warning - or time to organise cover - completely on my Jack Jones, on my tod, solitaire, toute seule, solo, pro bono. OK, not that one, I don’t know what it is in Latin, but you get the idea.

I’m not pushing this point to get sympathy - although I will be going for the sympathy vote in part 2 of this blog so hold that thought. Here, I’m simply looking at the situation as an observer - I’m in shock and emotionally disenfranchised from the event but as a semi-reasonable human being I know it’s not cool to leave someone in my “situation”, unattended. (I’m being vague because using adjectives such as “dependent”, “vulnerable”, or “helpless” makes me want to kill myself.  And as my mum helpfully pointed out when I was feeling sorry for myself recently; “You can’t kill yourself!” Not as in “because the world would stop without you” but matter-of-factly as in “you’re not capable”, to which I retorted; “Yes I can!” Clearly unconvinced, Mum asked; “How?!” I answered; “I could put my head in a plastic bag!” She said; “Well, we’ll have to make sure we don’t leave any plastic bags lying around then won’t we?!” Which despite being a very annoying answer and hardly in the spirit of “equal opportunities” I have to agree is a good rule of thumb vis a vis the environmental impact.)

Getting back to my point of someone with my “delicate constitution” being abandoned by a carer; I would go as far as saying that it’s wrong. Morally.

“Judge not lest ye yourself be judged” Matthew says (7:1) but then he quickly back-peddles with; “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Hysterical, biblical metaphors, hey? Not a “chip” of wood, or a “splinter”, but a whole plank! And the carpentry theme? Surely even JC would be embarrassed by that blatant attempt at point-scoring!) I say, in answer to Matt’s woodwork query; because in order to pay attention to any plank-in- my-eye type situations, I need my carer’s help, and she’s vamoosed. 

I mean, seriously, it would be considered highly irresponsible if we were talking about walking out on a puppy or a child under 12, but at least they could spend a gay afternoon working their way through the liquor cabinet and shredding a few loo rolls. When I’m left unsupervised I have absolutely no chance of upending the Bailey’s or chomping the Andrex as I can’t reach them. 

Hmph. The bottom-line is there are naturally certain expectations one has of a “carer” and the clue’s in the title, in the same way you’d expect an accountant to be able to count and a butcher to be butch, non?

I went to sleep that night with a heavy heart (not to mention the eye), feeling thoroughly disappointed in my species.

The next morning I woke up in my sleepy cul-de-sac to find not just my carer missing but also my car.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Here I am. Alone. Recovering from retinal plank damage.

Yes! Over my wheat grass and pineapple juice, I discover my leafy North London suburb is twinned with South Central L.A, and my Ford Galaxy people-carrier with ramps in the back for the wheelchair, has replaced the Escalade in terms of desirability. Must’ve been one of the Crips, haha. (Do Wiki “Crip” or listen to a Snoop CD if you aren’t familiar with gangster-slang and think I’m making a disablist joke when I’m cleverly tying in my L.A gangs’ metaphor.) 

When I spoke to the PC who took the crime particulars, i.e “the car was outside my door last night, now it’s not”, he informed me that rather than a West Coast gangsta, it may have been a local racket who are stealing cars, manholes and stripping broadband and train cables, for scrap metal, as metal prices have soared because of all the construction in the far-east.

Apparently, drug-addicts in particular are known to steal stuff for scrap-metal. So, someone’s getting high, another Chinese sweat-shop is being built and I’m stuck indoors fighting with the insurance company about “book price” & “actual price” of a second hand Galaxy. It’s win-win-lose. Or win-Wing-lose. That’s not a racist comment right? I love crispy duck.

Silver-lining is that after all this drama, I get to find a new carer. This week’s batch of CVs brings me a Romanian who assures me she is well-qualified for a carer role as she’s “taken care of a dog and 2 cats” not to mention her proficiency in ironing, and a Filipino nurse who lists under Special Skills: “Has the ability to drive defensively”, and “Used assertiveness to find work” which surely translates as she has road rage and she beat someone up to get a job. The fun begins.

Nailing It

Posted by laramasters Sun, 4th September 2011

Lara explains how to get killer claws and why it’s so important to do so

Someone very wise once said; “It’s more important to look good than to feel good.”  (Confucius?) Let me explain. I think we’re all agreed that there are many tenets to live by but with this one it feels like never a truer word was spake ( lending credence to my theory that this phrase is Confucius as no texts actually written by him survived. Fact.  Other scholars wrote the great philosopher’s  “ Best of…” compilations posthumously - so it’s safe to assume his works were initially spread via word-of-mouth;  just imagine what use he could have made of platforms like Youporn? I mean Youtube. And maybe Youporn?)

In this dog-eat-dog world (Confucius?) where everyone’s out for themselves, it’s hard to keep on top of all the available personal grooming tricks so that you look far better than anyone else whilst still having enough time and energy to parade around showing off your fabulous self and ensuring you make no friends but instead stoke up a load of jealousy reassuring you you’re getting it exactly right.

In this blog, I’ll be sharing some of my tips to looking nauseatingly gorgeous even when you’re dead inside and the only thing stopping you from throwing yourself under a tube is not being able to get an electric wheelchair down the escalator (plus don’t they have plastic screens on the platforms now?) Do not expect to be popular when you’re looking hotter than Krakatoa on crack. Do expect dagger stares and no comments on your latest FB photos or status updates. Ironically, it ain’t pretty being pretty.

 In this photo you can't really see my nails but my point is, when the tips are tended to and overall perfection achieved, you attract all sorts of hanger-ons

I’m only sharing my tricks on how to leave the Joneses quivering in your wondrous wake because I’m quite sure I’m always a trick or too ahead of the pack. Don’t assume because I’m in a wheelchair, I do charity work. I’ll pulverise your Manolos with my Pirellis in a heartbeat in the incredibly unlikely scenario that they look better than my Louboutin knock-offs.

Today, I’m blogging about the importance of attention to detail and how if you don’t follow through on looking great, there’s no point in getting out of your PJs. And by PJs I obviously mean La Senza babydoll and thong. And by follow-through, I don’t mean having sex; although it’s fair to say in many instances, I do believe sex is the answer. However, in my Style-athon, following-through must be read as leaving no part of oneself, however seemingly insignificant or easy to hide under something billowing, untended to.

The first nugget of glamour gold I’m going to impart with you is to do with those furthest extensions of one’s physical self…one’s nails. Yes, for our tips, I have tips – two small words which will revolutionise those raggedy claws…nail wraps!

Now, hold your horses girls and gays, these are NOT the things you go to the local mani for like we did when acrylic nails were big in the 90s and we all had square-tipped talons with French mani varnish. No, these babies are what you buy online and get your carer to put on for you. Or you can put them on yourself if you have two fully functioning hands and are the type that can use a knife and a fork at the same time and are basically a bit of a show-off. These wraps are like a magic stickers that take mere minutes to size, stick on and trim and then, then, these babies will keep those claws looking like you’re fresh from the salon for two weeks non-stop! I $h!t you not! These bambinos are going nowhere! No chipping no-matter how downright dirty you get!

I know that for every girl, gay and guy that doesn’t mind putting on his girlfriend’s knickers now and again, this is a moment of liberation. Banished forever is that pit-in-your-stomach moment when on the second day of wearing Rimmel’s latest chip-free polish, you cast an admiring glance at your hand holding your latte aloft with pride only to see a colourful chunk’s escaped from your thumbnail. You vow that’s the last time you ever give those cosmetic racketeers £3.99, but then, a new varnish, a new promise… and the sorry cycle starts anew.

Fortunately for you, I’ve run the gamut of nail wraps and can tell you that however sparkly and shiny the mirror nail wraps appear on prezziebox.com and the like, they are little more than pieces of silver Sellotape and about as glamorous as wrapping your hands in tin foil. The only nail-wraps that will encase your fingertips in a fortnight’s worth of mesmerising lustre are by Incoco. Find ‘em online, buy ‘em and take gorgeousness to your extremes for 14 chip-free days.

Again, you can't see my nails, but this was taken on a recent shoot for "OK" magazine and you just don't get to be part of the OK glitteratti gang unless you look bangin' from tip to toe

Wow. I wish I had a friend like me. But alas, then we could never be friends!    

Do you have a particular style problem? Tell me, I may be able to help. And if you’re beyond help, I’ll be sure to let you know too.