"Girl bands can dominate music but only ever one at a time. That is the rule. Don't try to change it."

today is going to be a good day for one of the following reasons:

1. I just found, whilst looking for my phone, the other half to my yin-yang ring which i lost so many years go
2. I just found my phone, again
3. I'm going for a Chinese buffet later
4. then i'm going out and i'm going to get drunkier than drunk

yesterday was a good day for all of the following reasons:

1. it was valentines day which automatically puts (almost) everybody in a happy-ish mood
2. i got a free packet of doritos
3. i got sniffed by a sniffer dog and it didn't catch the drugs that weren't hiding in the front of my left shoe
4. my mum got me a cute valentines cushion

and definitely NOT because my boyfriend bought me flowers and IT by Alexa Chung of which i have wanted to buy for ages and ages and ages and i am very thankful  that made the day *Wayne's World style voice* excellent.

I'm a few months behind on the Alexa Chung, IT band wagon but i guess it's the same with everything else. I hadn't completely ignored it i mean i was brooding over it for months in Urban Outfitters, they just don't sell it where i live and i think getting my cameras developed and various other unnecessary things were at the top of my so very short to-do list. I received it last night and considering my boyfriend is here and all I haven't had a chance to read it but i flicked through it and i snapped a few (a lot) of my favourite pages. I hope there's a lot related to being a guide to getting her life i think that would be really helpful.

What I really need right now, instead, is someone to tell me how to survive the rain in an acceptable way without looking so ridiculous that 14 year olds stop sarcastically shouting "swagger" down the road at you when you're trying to get home in a hail-storm. I was wearing a chiffon tartan maxi skirt and never again. I may as well have been wearing chiffon tartan trousers and my legs were red raw.
So I hope her book tells me how to survive that.

I feel like if there was a time to be more un-hip than i already am then it is now.

I don't think there is any way to be any cooler than Alexa Chung other than to maybe befriend Alexa Chung but even then you still won't be up to par, i'm sorry.

I think i'm just really into the fact that it's like some teen girl sat in her room assembling all of her favourite photographs and things and just started writing about them and then turned that into a book and now it's a book that people just like to read. I mean, obviously. But I can't decide if it's a biography or just an amalgamation of all the things she likes all into one place. The pastel pink and the (dare i say) "vintage" effect in every photo makes it so cool and enjoyable (for me), it's like a scrapbook she's just scanned through and annotated. 

Her description of cult-classic movies really gets me. Films like 'Heathers' and 'Lolita' and characters such as Margot Tenenbaum. I love how she sums them up in tiny wee sentences, something which I have never been able to do. if i love something, I love it too much to the point where i ruin it by trying to describe it. I just hate it when you love something and you try to explain it to someone else because you're so desperate for them to understand you but you're afraid they'll never understand the extent of your love so you just carry on and on about it til you ruin it. And I was cursed with such a thing, so thank-you, Alexa.

One of my favourite pieces is her page on Keith Richards, or her page on George Harrrison. Both boys are huge loves of mine (for no particular reason other than they are both extreme badasses). Her description of turning to men for style-ideas is one i wish i could highlight (if it weren't for ruining the actual book...) and her quote "this is for the girls who dress like awkward boys" from winning her British Style Award acceptance speech, is one i like to live by. There has always been some sort of jealousy, for me, around boys who are exceptionally tall and can get away with skinny jeans and pointy boots in an all-black get up. I was always jealous of this image and always wished i was born a boy so i could portray this image of something i'm not quite sure what. So instead I dated one of them. 

I think in terms of the female-form, Alexa gets this spot on with her incredible legs, pointy shoes and long rain coats. She embodies the female requirements of everything i was jealous of in those kinds of boys. 

Me and my friend Dominika often talked about next year in terms of reinventing outselves. Not entirely but I think Alexa is definitely a source of inspiration for that. I always get this image of me showing up to my uni on the first day, arriving at my flat in a pair of mom jeans, an old shirt and a pair of American Apparel Cortland Eyeglasses and some suede loafers. I don't want to reinvent myself but I want to appear cool enough so that people think that's how i've always been.

In this last picture that quote is something i find especially relevant and it made me think of no other girl band than Haim. I don't want to say anything on it too much, mostly because I've ran out of things to say.
There's this one quote by Tavi Gevinson which says "always be Stevie Nicks" and as much as i agree with Tavi i think it's pretty much applicable to every badass female idol out there.

"Always be Alexa Chung" - she taught me to wear sparkly eye shadow and it be okay even though it's not the year 2000 any more.

rachel
xoxo

MATT HITT, THE KING OF NYC

I don't know how to "seize the day" because I do want to but also all I ever want to do is lie around and talk about things on the internet which I don't think is very "seize the day" of me. But then I think that"seize the day" also means do whatever the fuck you want to do so then I don't feel as bad. BUT then I do feel bad because I want to do lots of things other than write on the internet and I feel I could be doing those things instead. I have several books I need to read and I feel I should stop spending money on so much clothing and spend it on cheap records, plants and more books and tickets to go see more places (although however I've already fulfilled the last one considering I spend 90% of my money travelling to see my boyfriend).

And right now while I was sat flicking through each of my tabs this photo of Matt Hitt came up on tumblr and I was overcome with jealousy. I think if I belonged or was even just present in such a huge city, sitting around doing nothing on my laptop wouldn't feel like doing nothing because while I was doing nothing I was also sitting in one of the greatest cities on earth. I think to me just being in New York would be doing something pretty great considering I haven't the money to do so and I'm halfway around the world. Although to be fair I barely have any money for lunch most days.

As an A-level student I think "seize the day" just right now means doing a lot of school work, reading books and making new friends and stuff. I like to "seize the day" by wearing a cute outfit. Today I'm going out in gusty windy weather to go to the pet shop to pick up the fishies i've been meaning to buy since October and yesterday I bought a cacti and I am quite happy with myself and on Friday I completed alf of an essay that wasn't due til a week later. 

rachel xoxo

I am going to write a letter to george consisting of nothing but a list of everything i admire about him

"put your flowers down; it's too cold"

It's raining out hecka hard and my Mum told me my Gma wants to go out to town but I don't know she's only a little old lady she will probably get blown away in the wind. She gave me ten pounds yesterday because she thinks i need to cheer up and as much as i want to spend it developing my cameras i need to save it for future events so sigh and today is looking like a glum day. I mean  I got dressed and I like my outit but i got nowhere to go.

I'm writing from my bedroom floor by my record player and I'm listening to Swim Deep and wondering what the chances are of their gig not sucking next week. A year ago was the last time I saw them live and I mean it was brutal. Girls were willing to take lives in order to talk to this band man I almost died and so did my friends. 

I feel on a mega roll this week; I was in school for three consecutive days without going home and I actually felt fiNE.

OK UPDATEUPDATEUPDATE it is now 5pm about 6 hours later from when i wrote that drivel you just read and i went up town with my grandma and we had a fab time and she bought me a cactus and some soil and it was all hecka cute. Then after i saw her off on her train i went to this record shop not expecting to find anything good and I was browsing and then i found the Madonna LIke A Virgin album so i picked it up intending to buy it. Then I looked to my right and saw Bella Donna by Stevia NIcks just in a pile on the floor so i ran (slowly) to it picked it up and asked the price and the guy said £2, i only had a £1 on me because of cactus and food issues so i just stood there but the babe said he'd only take a £1 cause it's "scratched a little". So then I ran all the way home and ran to my room and put it on my record player and listened to Edge of Seventeen and now my day feels whole and I am happy and that was my story.
Have a nice day.

rachel xoxo

"EFF AND BLIND AND DO AS MUCH OF IT AS YOU WANT"

I attended my first therapy session today and it was very good and I think it should continue that way. I recognise almost everybody there and 80% of them are business women in suit trousers and a shirt who sit with their legs crossed and their hands in their lap which is not surprising. This one woman wore a hoodie and jeans and converse and had her hair scraped back in a low-pony and spoke a little and had obviously gone to one of those things before. My mums ex-boyfriend's brother was there too and he seems sweet. There was a very old woman there too who seems sweet also. My mum knows her daughter and apparently this old lady has a very hard time and hasn't been able to leave her house or do much for years and it makes me very sad. Her ex-boyfriend's brother isn't able to do much either and he can't work because of it and its all very sad. I'm the youngest there too.
In some sort of fucked up weird way it feels way cool and I feel a part of something. We got given these diary sheets where we record times of feeling anxious, our levels of anxiety before and after the situation and how we dealt with it. The lady said we can't swear in class but we can record anything we want and swear as much as we like about anything and it's totally confidential so I am looking forward to recording stuff the most.

Right now my life feels 99% consumed with anxiety and it's awful but today was a productive day!!! #1 I wore a hecka cute outfit (apart from the fact that my skirt showed my butt a little but whatever everyone got a butt).

That is me dancing around and around to Stevie Nicks, or Vampire Weekend I can't remember which.
Last night I dyed my hair black too and I think it makes me look like I'm wearing a prosthetic wig but it washes me out a lot and I like that. It also contrasts with my lipstick so that's a big bonus.
What isn't a big bonus though is the trail of hair dye up my stairs, on my carpet and all over my mum's linoleum.

Another reason why today was a good day is because I sat through a lesson and I didn't have to ask to leave. Now I've attended 6 hours of school in the past two weeks and three days and I feel good about today!! I also just finished up on English notes and my English teacher seemed okay with everything so I feel pretty positive.
I swear my life isn't all just about anxiety I do have other stuff going on (I HAVE A LOT OF GIGS COMING UP EXPECT GD THINGS) just stuff is pretty shitty right now (ish, it's getting better, ish)

rachel xoxo