we need more wine!

wow wow wow. that's all i can say. killer weekend. too much fun! let's start at the very beginning. actually, first, a bit of bad news. a death in the family, perhaps my most prized possesion in london.... my ipod. at some point during the starsailor gig it developed an incurable disease. well, that's a lie, the disease is quite curable if i want to sell my soul to the devil, aka the apple fix-it people. but for the ££s they want, it's just not worth it. i'm exploring my options for the next three months but who knows. I’m really surprised that I’m not more upset about it… perhaps my mind’s just too occupied on other faces and other places….anyway, everyone keeps asking what i'm going to do with my job's offer to keep me on. the answer is.... i don't know. ha, hate to sound like lelaina in 'reality bites' but sadly that is the truth. i've had so much drama over the past week i haven't even begun to think about it... and there's so much to consider i'm kind of just putting it off. oh well. ahhhh so the weekend. friday was the hottest day yet this year in london... and it was great!!! everyone at work complained all day but i thought it was marvelous. i was pouting after work about my ipod when the love of my life, mr brian kelly, phoned and said to get my deada$$ to his place so we could head down to nicola's BBQ. perfect day for it!!! met nicola's extended south african crew and had some great food and discovered my new favorite wine thanks to mr. kelly. ;) then we met up with michael, lousie and ron for some g-a-y excitement. and sweating... is the astoria just allergic to the idea of AC? danced to a little shania twain before exploring late night soho.
saturday i headed up to portobello for nearly twelve hours of chatting with rebecca! (Rebecca – incidently is about to visit roanoke, va… the very same roanoke, va where I was born and breed…. Smalllll world.) we were both so jealous of her husband, jack, as he headed off to see dj jazzy jeff!!! not kidding! i found out later that sadly uncle phil did not make an appearance. it's almost scary that rebecca and i talked the entire day and probably could have chatted all through the night as well. :) :) leos rule.and then sunday. sunday bloody sunday! another bbq, only this time at melrose place, aka knolly's house in russell square. ahhhh if only i lived there and was a full-fleged cast member instead of a special guest star! all the residents were in attendance, brian, tomasz, michael, louise, gitta, raj and phil... and then about 30 guests by the end of the night! wonderful food and loooooooooots of wine!!!! Many shots of vodka also made an appearance, and I can’t wait to see the pictures…. Brian and I continued our quest to eternally be adolescent girls, making ourselves laugh over and over with silly games…. Hahahaha. Hilarious.
Woke up monday morning, half-on/half-off brian’s couch, brian was on the floor with Murphy, and tomasz was in bed with any number of lovely ladies!!! Hahaha. Got a very brief cuddle with the murph-amator before the very very painful tube ride home. And by painful, I mean humiliating, as everyone was giving me the look of pity since I was obviously in a lot of pain. Haha.
Spent five solid hours in bed recovering from the craziest night of all time before meeting up with Patrick in Leicester square. It was a beautiful day… perfect for sitting around and chatting. I’m looking forward to rides on the Vespa. ;) saw ‘melinda and melinda’… very good movie, sad and uplifting all at once. Nothing will beat the star wars experience, however. Can’t stop thinking about that amazing movie. kinda want to see it again, but is that too nerdy?
Came home to collapse in bed only to *finally* talk with brian…. who shocked me with the most startling news… he fractured his knee at some point during the party! Ahhhhh you know you’ve had the most successful party of all time when people are leaving on crutches! Toooooo crazy!!!!

Anyway, big week ahead. J and it’s already Tuesday!

~courtney

happy friday.

a funny article. very true.

http://www.thephatphree.com/features.asp?StoryID=239&SectionID=11

bastards changed the setup of our desks at work. less blogging. more working. OVER IT! ;)

~cfc


ps- ... who am i kidding? i'll never stop blogging!

Music Was Saved

sometime ago ... (last week possibly?) i said that my trip was complete because damien rice is playing london while i'm here. that was a lie. travis has announced a tourdate today and NOW my trip is complete. :)

went to see starsailor last night with the lovely helen and fellow clapham-ite rebecca. good times, good show. except the astoria was about 4 billion degrees and starsailor delayed the start of the show by 20 minutes so they could watch the end of some stupid football match. liverpool and someone. who knows? who cares? but i'm really looking foward to the new album now, the songs sounded good. so funny that the last time i saw starsailor they were playing new material as well.... only that time i was with the dynamic duo yusef & chad and that was the beginning of the end for "courtney and yusef's enternal quest for the LTR guestlist in the sky". oh well, it was a fair loss, chad's a great guy. :)

it's a kind of overcast but still warm day here in london, was very sunny earlier. but i'm listening to the Z104 (from washington, DC) live online thing and they're playing gavin degraw. it reminds me of that day, (about 2 years ago to the day actually) that sarah and i made the long trek up to baltimore to see mr. degraw and my car was about a week old and traffic out of DC sucked as it always does.... sigh.... good times. i miss my car.

anyway, bank holiday weekend coming up! love 3 day weekends. then next week is a big week at work... one event after another it seems.

~courtney

"If life is a carnival,
can I stay here a while?"
~starsailor

hot sex & dmb

woke up this morning to some tragic news this morning.... then on my lunch break i got a HILARIOUS voicemail from the jury's inn housekeeping service. i can't get into detail because it's simply not lady-like, but believe me, hilarious.

anyway starsailor tonight at the astoria!! yay!

oops

oops forgot to mention that i stole some of helen's fabulous pictures (since i haven't gotten around to developing mine yet)....

the rufus in ireland experience can be found here....

This is how Liberty dies - with thunderous applause...

i have a really big problem with couples making out on the tube at nine o'clock in the morning. and i have an even bigger problem with couples making out and then having the nerve to giggle about the fact that they're making out on the tube at nine o'clock in the morning. gross! ;)

another crazy, latelatelate night. i'm beginning to feel like i live at the jury's inn in south kensington. went to the latelatelate showing of 'star wars' in leicester square last night with the amazing mr. lala, then we went out to the cheers bar london for 30 minutes of intense drinking before the 3AM cut off time. (i was amazed that there was any place open after the movie ended at 2.30am, but apparently piccadilly is the place for late monday night drinking!) i really enjoyed the movie, although it was so sad. too bad darth vader looked horribly outdated when he put on his infamous (1970s) suit at the end of the movie. wouldn't george love to do that all over again.

anyway, two nights in a row of virtually no sleep are making me a little loopy, i think. but i'm feeling pretty good overall. actually, i'm feeling great. ;)

~courtney

Today's Horoscope
Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)
All of a sudden, you're in a terrific mood. You're even exchanging niceties with that coworker who usually manages to push your buttons without even trying. Just go with it.

Tied up and twisted...

well it's official. my job has asked me if they can start submitting paperwork to sponsor me to stay in london indefinitely. woah. this is especially surprising given that i rolled into work at about 10:15 this morning, obviously suffering from the solid three hours of sleep i got last night. fantastic weekend though... totally worth the suffering today. ;)

more later,
cfc

"Oh I watch you there
through the window
And I stare at you
You wear nothing but you
wear it so well"
~dmb

Just drifting through the sea of life...

it seems like the less actual work i do at my job, the more they talk about sponsoring me to work here indefinitely. i don't get it. this week, for example, i took off two days to frolic about ireland with mr. rufus wainwright, and i come back and am taken out to lunch to discuss my long-term plans. "do you have a job waiting for you in DC?" "Um, not exactly." "Well that's good to know!"

whatever. so i get back from the most amazing trip ever wednesday night and immediately run to the computer lab to see if our antics are the talk of the (virtual) town... only to be immediately buzz-killed by an email from my mom. tuesday morning my aunt passed away from ALS (lou gerhig's disease). if you don't know anything about the disease try to read up on it, it's horrible. my aunt makes the fifth person in my family to have ALS in the last 2 generations, even though ALS isn't necessarily hereditary. my aunt was only diagnosed just before i left to come here, so the disease took its toll very quickly. typically people with ALS live for several years after being diagnosed. anyway, the whole affar really enforces how far away from my family i am right now. spent most of wednesday night and thursday night on the phone calling family and friends back home. :(

there's a big hairy story about the irish rufus experience, but that will have to wait for another day. i'm exhausted! need a quiet weekend i believe... perhaps with the new DMB cd that just arrived from the states.... ;)

~courtney


"Suddenly the sky is falling
Could it be it's too late for me
If I never said I'm sorry, then I'm wrong, yes, I'm wrong"
~I. H., T. H., Z. H.

one last time together

unbelieveably amazing trip ended with some sad news from home.
not entirely surprising, but definitely sad. :(

~courtney

"For all that we struggle
for all we pretend
it don't come down to nothing
except love in the end
and ours is a road that is strewn with goodbyes
but as it unfolds as it all unwinds
remember your soul is the one thing
you can't compromise
take my hand
we're gonna go where we can shine"
~d. gray

it's all about me...

so i'm watching the geri halliwell (former spice girl) documentary/biography/reality special on five last night and several things occured to me:

#1 - geri would love for the UK audience to believe that she is anything other than totally obsolete in the states... she mentioned living in LA was 'better' because the paparazzi was 'not as bad'... read: the paparazzi in LA have no idea who geri is... let's not kid ourselves, geri.

#2 - any record industry employee watching last night got a biiiiiig giggle from the part where geri was motivating/patronizing the Virgin staff by telling them in her experience, 'i would be nothing without every single person at this table... you all play a key role in my success.' jebus, are you kidding me?

#3 - geri doesn't realize how universal her problems are. 'i have my mother's catholic guilt and my father's sex drive, so i want a lot of sex but i can't have it! isn't that sad? it's my problem.' well no duh, geri. with the exception of prostitutes and adulterors no one gets as much sex as they want.

#4 - i think i love geri... during a rehearsal for a performance in london at G-A-Y (been there!), geri looked at the camera to complain about the fact that none of her family was going to be there to watch her... she said "well i'm the baby of the family and i used to be the most important thing in my mom's life and now that i'm older i guess i'm not... well i'm not the most important thing in anyone's life i suppose... am i?" and then she kind of stared off into space with an expression of vacant disbelief. geri halliwell might not be able to sing very well, but she speaks for all single women.

so excited that mr. yusef is back into the blogging business. missed his insightful and sometimes insulting observations on life. (and by insulting i mean 'def don't crave live DMB like i once did'... PUH-lease!)

did anyone know about the most hilarious website of all time? the superficial. i read it every single day. HILARIOUS. especially when the site bashes stupid celebs.

~courtney

ps - HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. BOYD TINSLEY. :)

bloody mother f....

jebus. what a start to the weekend.

went to dinner with brian, gitta, and michael at our favorite place in the world, ciao bello. i've been there about half a dozen times since i got to london and it's far and away the best italian i've had in my life. we laughed over wine (red & white) and everyone got a big laugh at me when i took a shot that's appartently not a shot. hahaha. (pictures of that to follow.) we went to a pub afterwards for more drinks, and we all sang along to the cranberries, i had one of those ridiculously cheesy moments where you suddenly realize how happy you are that exact moment. i have made such good friends here. :) gitta's off to germany today and michael's right behind her tomorrow. then possibly brian and tomasz go to south africa which would mean i get murphy alllllll to myself!!! :)

anyway so we're sitting at the pub and i realize vikki's been blowing up my phone all night so i call her back and manage to find out she's out with the frenchman in covent garden in some sort of state of emergency. i bid adeiu to the gang and head down to meet up with her only to discover the "emergency" isn't exactly so horrible... so we frolic about covent garden before wandering towards charing cross. stayed up until who knows what time and raised alllllll sorts of hell, directly resulting in me drinking about 14 billion glasses of iced tea today. *love* my iced tea. [quick side note: fastest way to gross out an english-person is to sing the praises of iced tea... they find the entire concept of iced tea to be the most replusive thing ever.]

meanwhile the brazilian's blowing up my phone with crazy text messages to the effect of "mi haney, how is you this beautiful day?" yesterday he left me a voicemail with no words, but played the main chorus of 'heaven' (dj sammy's version) into the phone... at first i was actually really flattered/impressed by this thinking it was perhaps an ode to "the virgin suicides" but i doubt it. (and i'm definitely not being held hostage by my parents so it would be a bad ode anyway.)

i am annoying myself by being so adverse to a (cute) guy that's obviously making a big effort, as i constantly complain about the lack of (cute) men willing to make an effort and generally obsess over me.... and indeed the date on wednesday was a lot of fun and i must admit it was almost odd to walk arm-in-arm with someone a solid 3 inches taller than me.... but perhaps when i wished for a nice, cute man to whisk me off my feet i should have specified that a solid grasp on the english language is a must as well. i know, i know, international language of love blah blah blah, i hear ya, but everyone knows i'm a big opponent of physical affection so the language of love doesn't translate well with me... hahahaha. jebus.

point of this being, i'm pretty sure that at some point last night both vikki and myself spoke to him on the phone as he called many times, but who knows what was said and more importantly, who knows what plans were made? i would hate to pull a vikki/ian and break any lunch date plans! haha.

and it's only just now saturday afternoon. this could get a lot worse!

~courtney

"Baby you're all that I want
When you're lyin' here in my arms
I'm findin' it hard to believe
We're in heaven"
~b. adams

oooh la la

so one of the 50 best restaurants in the world (#18 to be specific), according to restaurant magazine, is right across the street from where i work. we're talking about going to lunch there pretty soon. the website is amazing. http://www.sketch.uk.com/

hot date with the brazilian last night. more details to follow.

so tired,
courtney

quarter (1 century) = 25 years

HAPPY "THREE MONTHS TIL MY BIRTHDAY" DAY TO ME!!!!!!

*sigh* nothing like a good 11th day of the month to bring it all together!! :) So excited about the big quarter-of-a-century party. it's gonna be fantasmic.

last night was jonathan rice at the barfly with vikki and allie. [not to be confused with the real LEGEND! damien rice... that's next month....] anyway, vikki and i have become absurdly professional at being front and center for every show. (as jonathan just finished his support tour with martha wainwright, i couldn't help but be reminded of the life-altering scala show two weeks ago... *sigh* oh to do it all again) there were two opening acts, an english girl named polly something (who vikki loved, but then again vikki's a sucker for any good post-break-up ballad.) the other opening act was a swedish group, whit line or white lion or something?? they were... interesting... and perhaps not bad when the full band is there, rather than the somewhat acoustic performance we got last night. either way, i'm slightly concerned about Tray-Z's impending semester abroad in sweden.... because if that's the typcial of what sweden has to offer these days.... we got trouble.

anyway so mr. jonathan rice. i know vikki would be delighted if i simply wrote long wordy paragraphs about how dreamy he is, but we all know he's under 30 and therefore too young for me!! haha. i will admit i enjoyed him much more as a headliner than i did when he opened for martha. he was slightly more sober this time around, despite the fact that he was drinking from a bottle of white wine the whole show. there was a CRAZY superfan in the audience making the most obnoxious comments... ugh, then he tried to hit on vikki afterwards. i think she gave him her number... haha just kidding. highlight of the evening was unquestionably a spontaneous graham parsons cover. :)

had a nice little chat with the man himself after the show. or, rather, vikki had a nice chat. ("oh, v-i-k-K-I?? i've never heard that before!!") spent so much time chatting that we were forced to do the run of shame to the tube to catch it before the last run at midnight. god bless clapham being on the other side of the city from basically everything interesting.

the madness ensues,
courtney

conversation during j.rice song.....
vikki: "i knew you were looking at him! i know you too well girl!!!"
me: "ahhh shut up you know i am!!!"
both: laughter
j. rice: "hey, what are you guys laughing at?"


OOPS! :)

love taught me to lie

so i drag my dead-ass in to work for an 8am meeting (courtesy of about 800 wakeup calls from vikki, haha)... and serindiptously glance at my email to discover......

DAMIEN RICE TOUR DATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

just one date (so far) and it happens to be right across the street from where i work!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhh my trip is COMPLETE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"life, it taught me to die
so it's not hard to fall
when you float like a cannonball..."
~d.rice

OOPS I FORGOT TO SAY 'HAPPY RELEASE DAY'!!!! AS DMB'S NEW ALBUM IS OUT TODAY IN THE STATES. ONLY SIX MORE DAYS TIL THE WONDERMENT HITS THE UK.

hallo mi haney...

ay yi yi! what a weekend!

(i realize this won't make sense to basically everyone, but i must say there's no greater feeling than marching to the oystercard machine at the tube station to add more money to your card, only to discover that you still have £10 left on it!! it's better than christmas!!!)

friday before i left work i listened/watched to 'american baby' (dmb's new single) for the first time in it's entirety EVER and i must say i'm very excited about the new album. people, especially DMB fans, fear change and that's fine but i think the new song sounds good. :) finally found out my seat assignments for the gorge '05 extravaganza, and it appears that between stacy and myself we're looking pretty good. still need to find someone to do the west coast drive with me, post-gorge. i'm thinking i'll just close out the tour, hahaha. [/delusional]

friday night was ladies' night with the vikkster. got to meet her little frenchman and i must say that our tastes are *entirely* different in men. although it was hot when he said "au revoir" on his way out the door. talked about life and love at vikki's place with fran and several bottles of white wine and 1 charcoaled pizza.
(side story: earlier in the week in leicester square....
vikki: "i'm getting a beer"
me: "i think i'll get a glass of white wine"
vikki: "oh, i had no idea you had good tastes, i want wine as well!" hahaha! thankssssss!)
made several late night connections, and i'm still getting follow-up voicemails from said connections!
trouble... trouble, trouble, trouble...

saturday i had a long talk with brian about how i wanted/needed a slow night so i agreed to meet the gang at the murder scene for early evening drinks.... hahahaha, YEAH RIGHT!!!!!!!!!! got to the guatabara club at 8pm, joined the outrageous 45 minute long queue, only to be whisked away by brian after 20 minutes and placed into the VIP line... cause, you know, i'm a very very VIP. ;) .... so anyway, the club is a brazilian - salsa place, fantastic drinks and a FANTASTIC atmosphere!!! :) at one point a samba-dancing couple actually cleared the floor with their moves, like in a movie where everyone stands around in a big circle watching. met a cute bulgarian boy wearing a 'cat power' tshirt, only to find out that he's not actually a fan. (and, according to tomasz, not actually that cute... tomasz: "are you alright over here?" me: "yeah i'm fine, isn't he cute?" tomasz: "uhh, no, he is not actually that cute, sorry..." hahahaha) just as sharelle showed up brian, tomasz, and michael hit the road home, so it was two knock-out blondes on their own! ;) we discovered that not only do blondes have more fun, but two blondes are better than one. i tried to pull a cinderella and leave at midnight to catch the last tube, but sharelle was hearing none of it. cut to: courtney salsa dancing (very poorly) with a cute tall brazilian for the remainder of the evening....

got to watch the sunrise again, only this time without vikki so it wasn't exactly the same. haha. spent sunday making plans and brainstorming before heading over to brian's dinner party featuring chef tomasz!!! sooooo good. the dinner party consisted of: 1 irish, 1 polish, 1 german, 1 new zealander, and 1 american. then we met up for after dinner drinks with an additional irish and 1 scottish. i'm sooooooooooo wordly.

big week ahead, possibly including more salsa dancing, hahaha, although the text messages are a little hard to decipher!

~cfc

in honor of brazilian hotties, i will close with a quote from enrique. even though he's from madrid, hahaha.

"Si decides dejarme
No te voy a suplicar
Alla tu si mas tarde
Aunque corras, te escondas, no puedes escapar"
~e. iglesias

sex & the city - the european version

so i totally forgot to mention that on sunday when i was out with gitta & gang we accidentally wandered by the london premiere of 'kingdom of heaven' and who should be walking the red carpet but international super-hottie orlando bloom!! yowza!!! and he's actually not that short. i never cease to be amazed how many HOT HOT men there are in england, and how many of them are practiccally midgets. ha! my kingdom for a man over 6 feet tall!!!

so anyway last night i begrudgingly met up with the vik-ster again... i say begrudgingly only because i was tired after a long night of lost sleep due to bad dreams. (yes, sometimes i am a 6 year old.) anyway, she brought along helen (english) and felli (italian, full name fellicetta) and it was about 40 minutes before we declared ourselves the european version of sex and the city. (3 guesses as to which character i was!!)

we started the night, as women tend to do, with polite pleasantries and happy exchanges... nothing too serious or personal. heard about recent dates and crazy drunken adventures. laughed and smiled and during bathroom breaks revealed to each other how great the others were...

by the second round of drinks our miranda-wannabe was dishing details of her recent divorce and her anger at her exhusband and our carrie admitted she missed the friendship of her exboyfriend immensely. our samantha announced that casual sex is just easier than relationships because men simply cannot be trusted. so we toasted being smart, attractive, free and single... :)

by the third round of drinks our charlotte revealed the details surrounding the loss of a close friend to cancer eight months ago and the lasting impact it has on her every single day. our miranda shared her recent breast cancer scare and reminded us that life is too short to fret over every little thing. so we toasted being alive and our carrie phoned the accountant that adores her and set up a date for the next evening!

rounds four and five were shots... tequila for miranda and charlotte, "crystal garden" shots for samantha and carrie... (courtesy of the ever-so-serious polish bartender). phone numbers and emails were exchanged and bold plans were made for future nights out. haha.

happy cinco de mayo!
~courtney

We're here because of the music. We are band-aids.

so the big weekend wrapup! my oh my. what fun.

may i preface this by announcing that the cough is back! for PETE'S sake when will it go away entirely? it could have something to do with the fact that i feel asleep with the window open the other night, which was not only unhealthy but unsafe, considering my window is ridiculously easily accessibly by anyone walking by. [david at my office: "you WHAT? oh please courtney, be more careful or you *won't* be coming in to work the next time that happens!!" - so sweet!]

anyway so the big weekend. didn't mention this last week because it seemed so silly, but at martha's after party, her drummer asked vikki and i to show him around london when they had some days off. so after many rounds of phone tag, we finally made plans for friday night. so i met up with tony and the guitarist, cameron, for dinner and drinks before vikki joined us and we all partied like rockstars. they told us that in addition to harper simon and ringo's son being at the after-party, sean lennon and mick jagger's daughter were supposed to have been there as well. how impressive.

so it was a late night, to say the least. laughing over coffee the next morning, there was some talk of glastonbury. spent the whole day recovering and contemplating life in general, called stacey and laughed about the latest nancies drama, and then got ready for round two of vikki and the rockstars. practically got killed by an insane cabbie and participated in my first ever lock-in!!! woo hoo. i've basically accepted the fact that a night out with vikki will always mean watching the sun come up. which is grand! :)
sunday i spent recovering, again, then went out with brian and crew for what should have been a nice quiet dinner but turned into a wild night of clubbing with hot gay men. as seems to happen more and more these days, my night ended on regent street waiting for the godforsaken #88. gross! idiots!

monday was a BEAUTIFUL day! :) love sunshine. acted like tourists with gitta and crew before meeting up with... who else? the vikkstnator. nearly got assaulted by two gross men in a pub, before a cute polish waiter came to our rescue.... kind of.

keep smiling,
courtney

"I always tell the girls never take it seriously. If you never take it seriously then you never get hurt. If you never get hurt then you always have fun, and if you ever get lonely you can just go to the record store and visit your friends. "
~penny lane

color me ignorant...

so i'm chatting with a coworker this morning about the general election happening on Thursday, and i comment that the pubs will be surely packed that night, between watching the election results and cinco de mayo...

and then my coworker looks at me like i've got three heads and he's like 'what cinco de mayo?' and i'm all, 'you know, cinco de mayo??! major drinking holiday??? ' and i even start singing him the song... when suddenly i get this funny feeling like i should know better, so i consult the internet, and sure enough, cinco de mayo is a mexican holiday, which would explain why it's not a big deal to countries on the other side of the planet. GOD i love being an ignorant american.....

sad sad sad.

major weekend wrap-up coming soon! insanity again. :)

~courtney