tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-93836842024-03-13T00:56:36.651+00:00angelic fruitcakeSalva mea.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.comBlogger331125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-84013219087995888252009-12-28T03:49:00.003+00:002009-12-28T04:00:44.853+00:00There are far too many things to say.<br /><br />I'm here - here as in 'on my blog' - purely because the Boyfriend, his friend and I ended up back at our house watching Alien. I started telling a long story about watching Alien for the first time when I was 17, in my AS Film Studies class and being forced to watch it for the first time, and <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/110/2500/640/bad%20place%202%20coloured%20in.jpg">this</a> came up. This, being: the horriblescaryface I drew whilst watching it and determinedly staring away from the screen so as not to see the chest bursting bit. Naive I was, but even I had heard about the chest bursting bit.<br /><br />So I drew this picture, then, watching Alien, and tonight I showed it to the Boyfriend so he might better understand my neuroses. The outcome of the venture remains to be seen, but it reminded me of a time when blogging was not only a thing I needed but a thing I enjoyed - perhaps right now, right here, that's an important recollection to have.<br /><br />(As I write, the chest bursting thing has happened and other Alien-related things are unfolding. Perhaps I should go and partake of them. Wish me luck.)<br /><br />Merry Christmas. Anyone else know why they didn't just jettison the dude as soon as he got the face-hugger? Because I'm at a loss and it seems like that would've solved all their problems.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-49269676864656288512009-07-12T18:01:00.005+00:002009-07-12T18:06:11.466+00:00tragicSo, I spend a good portion of time updating all the links sections on my blog and - hey! - it looks good, so much more relevant and up-to-date. Excited am I, and carried away to the point where I click 'change template' and lose every single last damn one of them. Ta-da! Shiny, different coloured blog. No links.<br /><br />I guess if any of you are desperate to know which right-on, left-wing, too-hip-for-words news sources I read every day, you'll just have to ask. I'd be happy to tell you all about it.<br /><br />Oh, and labelling posts? Who knew?Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-20061009763717331402009-04-13T11:52:00.003+00:002009-04-13T13:09:53.884+00:00petition for healthy livingHaving a mosey around the <a href="http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/">Official Site of the Prime Minister's Office </a>reveals some interesting petitions (We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to...):<br /><br />...not support a state funeral for Baroness Thatcher. <em>Apparently one was offered to Florence Nightingale and she was a thundering racist, so why the hell should Thatcher be denied just for hating poor people? /Snark.</em><br /><br />...direct the government to provide Jaguar Land Rover with the targeted assistance it is requesting to weather the credit crisis and retain its central role at the heart of the UK's automotive and manufacturing industries. <em>Yes, because the beauty of striving for deregulated capitalism during a boom is that when it all goes tits up the government that were expected to mind their own business are now expected to cough the fuck up. Mmm, taxes.</em><br /><br />...increase the sentences of those found guilty of attacks on horses, ponies, and other equines. <em>Increase the sentences of those* found guilty of attacks on members of the public?</em><br /><br />...capital punishment for paedophile's and child murder's (<em>sic</em>). <em>Mandatory smacks upside the head for those who attempt to petition the Prime Minister using improper punctuation and spelling?</em><br /><br />...call on The Sun newspaper to back the social work profession. <em>Makes more sense if you </em><a href="http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Backsocialwork/"><em>read the details</em></a><em>. Nonetheless, actually </em>asking<em> the government to control the free press seems ill-considered.</em><br /><br />...make urgent representation to the Broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, the broadcasting institutions operating in the UK and film regulators, asking them to stop the use of unnecessary swearing and bad language in their productions (including those available for downloading from websites) and to urge providers of user-generated content to take similar action. <em>Couldn't agree more - about fucking time.</em><br /><br />...establish an automatic buffer zone of at least 2 km between any new industrial size wind turbine and any home. <em>Not in my back yard, etc.</em><br /><br />...change the law to allow children born alive the right to life. <em>Because everybody knows that currently, children born alive are tossed out the window by Act of Parliament.</em><br /><em></em><br />Yes, yes. I'm being horribly facetious, particularly with that last one. It actually refers to children born before viability and makes a good point. I just really think one should check the wording of their plea to government to make sure it, you know, makes sense and junk.<br /><br />(As an aside, the act of tossing something out the window is called <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestration">defenestration</a></em>. The simple fact that we have a word for this should be broadcast on the Beeb daily, in order that the petition-wrights of this world - myself included - might momentarily unclench.)<br /><br />*****<br /><br />In other news, I'm eating toast. Hurrah! I no longer feel like my body is trying to turn itself inside out and - as a thank you - shall now embark on that time honoured campaign of wishful thinking known as 'looking after myself'. I.e., no booze, fags, Dominoes, KFC Fully Loaded, or drinking coffee as a replacement for both food and water. I shall henceforth replace Coke Zero with fruit juice and a slice of lemon, endeavour to eat my five-a-day (and stop trying to convince myself that having lots of salad on my foot-long Sub makes it <em>ok</em>), cook simple yet delicious meals from scratch and curl up with an improving book and vegetable smoothie sprinkled with hemp seeds rather than getting wasted.<br /><br />I give it a week.<br /><br />But really, I'd like to be a little different. I wonder what my friends are like when I'm sober?<br /><br />* read: police officers.<br /><br /><em>Edit: <a href="http://blog.seattlepi.com/amazon/archives/166259.asp">This I would sign a petition against.</a></em>Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-13986612107607954862009-04-12T21:11:00.002+00:002009-04-12T21:28:52.063+00:00I thought it was a hangover - which, technically, it was - but it was also so much more than that.<br /><br />It says something, though, about my alcohol consumption on the average Friday night that when I'm praying to the porcelain-altar at 4pm the next day I don't really think there's any cause for concern. Anyway, whatever it was, it blew.<br /><br />So the boyfriend and I have spent a pleasant Easter curled up in bed watching golf (him) and surfing the blogs of former America's Next Top Model contestants (me), drinking Lucozade (both of us) and occasionally dashing to the bathroom to make deals with God (thankfully, just me).<br /><br />Good grief! I have one week left of my impossibly, beautifully long Easter break and then it's back to Brighton, early mornings, Metro, Nero espresso at Gatwick, the shit-stained smell of trains and endless reading and dissertation doing.<br /><br />Now? I'm happy with an evening of South Park, rice cakes and the contemplating the inner complexities of the toilet bowl because - believe me, the way I feel is no laughing matter but still - I'm really enjoying hanging out just the two of us. If roles were reversed, I'd feed you Rennies and stroke your hair too.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />In other news, my parents, brother and half of the Scottish extended family are currently out for dinner in Aberdeen and I am jealous. Oh, for a plate of stovies. And the ability to digest food.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-10016168332226142272009-04-08T13:06:00.003+00:002009-04-08T14:01:35.059+00:00thinkingThat deciding to do a dissertation about free-market economic theory was probably slightly ambitious. That is to say, I am indeed fucked.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.paulkingsnorth.net/2009/03/i-am-for-woods-against-world.html#links">This is amazing.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.net/content/protecting-children-making-them-centerpiece-anti-gay-campaigns">This is horrible.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/08/ian-tomlinson-video-inquiry-ipcc">This is terrifying.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://community.feministing.com/2009/04/this-teens-take-on-the-virgini.html">This is so bizarre it's almost funny. Until you think about it.</a><br /><br />Of course, I should be grappling with the finer points of Milton Friedman at the moment, so reading news blogs is obviously the sane choice.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-24851790154147545622009-03-04T22:02:00.002+00:002009-03-04T22:27:36.010+00:00tubs of funTonight I am blogging as the latest weapon in my defense against the powerful urge to cut my own hair. I KNOW it's a bad idea, I KNOW. But I WANT to.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />My appearance is on my mind (or, my mind is on my appearance? Boyfriend has a thing for switching the nouns in a sentence - switching the sentences in a noun - and it's catching) today. If I don't have time to get a paper on my way to uni, I'll just read whatever I find - Metro is always good, on the way home there's sometimes even a Times - and on Tuesday I found the Daily Mail.<br /><br />Horrors. In the Mail, they had a surprisingly enlightened article about women and body image (and if you're thinking they thought body image was <em>political correctness gone mad</em> or <em>immigrant invasion gone mad</em>, you'd be wrong, as was I). This woman did a creative writing competition where women wrote in how they felt about their bodies, and the Mail published some of the entries. Other than the <em>earth-shattering</em> counter-productivity of having women compete to see who can hate their body most eloquently, it was interesting.<br /><br />One entry completely ripped off an entire page of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wasted-Marya-Hornbacher/dp/0006550894/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236204622&sr=8-1">Wasted</a>, which fucked me off because it's a stunning book and so personal. This girl had absolutely no right.<br /><br />One was by a girl with cerebral palsy, talking about the perceived asexuality of the disabled. It was fantastic, nothing self-indulgent, none of this 'we are all unique and beautiful snowflakes' bullshit, just 'Alright, this is me, I'm fantastic and sexy and clever and why the hell wouldn't you want me?'. Good lady.<br /><br />It gets me thinking about things that I hate to think about.<br /><br />Today I went shopping with my gran, aunty and mum. Good times. Granny and I are looking at big jumpers, and I say that I want to get a really oversize one and wear it as a dress. So I pick one up that's about 4 sizes too big and hold it up and my granny says - "Yes, that should fit, you're like me, bigger than you look."<br /><br />Out of the mouths of grans...<br /><br />*****<br /><br />God, I hate putting on weight and I hate even more that I hate it. I want so much to be right-on and feminist and 'lalala' I love my curves because - honestly - most of the time I do. It's just that I've crossed that line between Tyra Banks bootilicious and looking slightly pregnant. I'm not being mawkish, it's true. But girls are so impossible to talk to sometimes.<br /><br />Eg., hearing two of my skinnier than me friends talk about how fat they are, I try to interject - don't be stupid, I'm bigger than both of you and I love the way I look - but I don't get as far as 'I'm bigger' before it's <em>oh no, oh no, you're way skinny, we're fat</em>.<br /><br />How patently fucking ridiculous is that? These girls weigh less than me, take a smaller dress size, eat better than me, drink and smoke less, work out more - of course I'm bigger than them, to me it doesn't seem like a big deal. <em>Until</em> they start trying to tell me otherwise, because then I think - you protest too much.<br /><br />I hate the whole thing so much. And now that I do feel fat, I want to hear 'oh no you're not' even less.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />Why is this such a mountain we feel like we have to climb? If I get a bad essay mark, I'll find out why and work harder on the next one. If I don't like my hair, I'll cut it or dye it. If my house is messy I'll tidy it but GOD FORBID that I should be so flippant about this. God forbid that I should casually remark that I'm packing more junk in the trunk these days - this is the one problem girls actually can't talk about.<br /><br />Perfect world?<br /><br />Girl 1 - I've gained weight.<br />Girl 2 - OK. Do you care?<br />Girl 1 - Yes.<br />Girl 2 - Then go to the fucking gym.<br /><br />Simples. I so wish it wasn't a big deal, for me, for any of us.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-40785622512209184972009-03-02T14:31:00.003+00:002009-03-02T14:50:36.323+00:00books, turn up for theSo, I just got round to watching the Terry Pratchett programme, Living with Alzheimer's that's been saved on Sky Plus for a few weeks. Other than crying, a lot, I also found the time to panic about losing and forgetting things. Recurring nightmare No. 347 - this blog suddenly, mysteriously gets deleted from the mighty interweb and I lose my only copy of about 4 years of writing.<br /><br />I'm sure there's a better way of backing up your blog, but I don't know it, so I've spent the last hour going into the posts from <em>every single month</em> and copying the whole text into a Word document. Are you curious?<br /><br />303 pages; 150,131 words. My God. That's long, that's book-long. That's a crying shame.<br /><br />Since my angst-spectacular resignation from the blogging world, I've only really come back for the occasional rant/hangover story/misery-fest. It seems like I only actually want to do this when I'm feeling something bad so - just to reassure you - I'm fine.<br /><br />Really, absolutely. Amazing, hey? In case you're wondering I wouldn't ever trade. I miss being a creative person (I don't think I quite deserve the label anymore), miss feeling like a writer. But being happy and comparatively well-adjusted is far better than I ever could imagine it was. It's so alien in fact that sometimes I get paranoid, start looking for problems because I really can't believe that days and weeks can go by where I'm just ok. Just, fine.<br /><br />Anyway, I think I'm on here because I feel like I have something to say again. No idea what, as yet, but I seem to be spending a lot of time on the net at the moment, on message and debate boards/whatnot. It seems strange to be spewing all this opinion out anonymously while this blog - which I am so proud of, so attached to - just moulders away. Not literally, y'understand, that would be impossible. But metaphysically, yes, it is covered in mould. *chases mice out of long-abandoned photo section*<br /><br />Theoretically, I could do this again. It's not like I'm incapable of writing now, in fact I'm enjoying studying so much at the moment that most days on the train home I'm frantically scribbling down my two-cents about pretty much everything. What's stopping me is that I am so not the same person that started this blog, or even the same person that was writing it until maybe 2 years ago. I'm not that borderline-bipolar, born-again Christian, hyperactive drama student, head up my own ass, pious little motherfucker. And that's not a bad thing. I never really loved that girl, she was pleasant enough to be around but pretty shit to <em>be. </em>So as far as I'm concerned, I've lucked out.<br /><br />Now? Ha. Relatively sane, heavy-drinking, chain-smoking, cheerful, atheist humanities student? Slightly heavier? Better dressed? In the same, constant, dire need of a haircut and a good bath? Hm. I guess I've spent the last couple of years learning to just <em>get shit done</em>. I pulled my head out of my ass long enough to sort my life out, then messed it up again, and now - balance! Fun! Domesticity! Cynicism!<br /><br />I could write a whole blog about the cynicism alone. Maybe that's where I start.<br /><br />(Tenner says I never post again.)Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-84441845152579051572009-01-13T22:21:00.005+00:002009-01-13T23:21:03.860+00:00to the various horror-story fundamentalist republicans i've come across recently<strong>Note:</strong> There's a high chance of incoherence here because I'm quite tired and absolutely furious about a couple of articles I've just read. I want to rewrite this into something better and longer but I also wanted to break the posting drought, so here it is. Apologies also for horrific sweeping generalisations, this is about a particular kind of religious/political hybrid that in no way represents wider Christianity of wider conservatism. I hope.<br /><br />As far as I've gathered, one of the key desires of conservative/right wing political movements is the reduction of state power, ie the preservation of individual liberties. Economically, this often translates into a preference for neo-liberal or <em>laissez-faire</em> markets, in which trade is deregulated, institutions are private rather than nationalised and state spending is cut dramatically. Meaning - every individual has the right to bear arms, to worship and vote as they see fit, to earn a living, start a business, make a profit as best they can and, importantly, pay only the bare minimum of taxes, as the only functions of the state would be bare necessities - police, law and order, military protection and the wages of a skeleton government. <br /><br />It's important to note here that, as was seen in the 2008 US election run-up, <em>socialism</em> is considered a dirty word almost on par with <em>communist</em>, hinting that even for those Americans not down with their economic theory, this must, by default, be the kind of thing they're going for. Also, traditional neo-liberal theory (Friedman and chums) states that the market itself can only be perfect when left alone. Any kind of state spending or intervention in pretty much anything will upset the delicate flower of capitalism and that is bad.<br /><br />Anyway, that seems to make sense to me, rationally if not morally. The economic principle of the free market ties in pretty nicely with the conservative values of the American dream - work hard, earn bucks, protect family against communist invasions and be ruled by yourself, your God and <em>then</em> your government.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />But I stand confused. Factor in the undeniable link between fundamentalist Christian values and this particular political framework, specifically in the US, and it stops making any kind of sense.<br /><br />If individual liberties (rather than social liberties) are to be protected, how can gay marriage possibly remain illegal? If every citizen has the right to look out for themselves, what business is it to all the other individuals if two gay individuals wish to marry? State interference in personal lives is surely an example of the nanny-state that proud, upstanding conservatives supposedly revile.<br /><br />Not to mention the right of every woman to make decisions about her body. Not to mention the hypocrisy of a state that could potentially turn a blind eye to the children in ghetto poverty whilst declaring the womb a site of state intervention.<br /><br />Censorship, too. Traditional Christian values are apparently at risk from the filth in the media, but if a state can't intervene to provide subsidised farming or unemployment benefits, then why on earth should it beep out the dirty words on South Park? And, even if you wanted it to, intervening for the moral fibre of a country rather than allowing individual families to choose what they watch, whilst allowing individual families to choose to bear arms despite the risk to the country's moral fibre seems... contradictory.<br /><br />And Jesus? Who bid us to love each other, to feed the poor, the Bible that tells us it's easier for a camel to get in through eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven? What would he make of your self-regulating market that, in order to be perfectly balanced, can have no welfare state, no fixed minimum wage, no state programmes for helping young mothers balance work and child care because that would count as excessive state spending ?<br /><br />*****<br /><br />How exactly does it work in your head, this right wing Christianity? How do you figure you can have the prejudice and inequality and still have the god-given warm fuzzies? You think the state is a puppy that you play with, that runs to catch the big-gay-stick when you want it but is quite happy to piss off into the study while you watch your favourite get-rich-quick-and-damn-the-working-class-tv-show. Because you don't really like the idea of being told what to do, unless you're the one doing the telling.<br /><br />These two girls can't marry each other to solidify their loving commitment and raise some children, but you can buy lethal weapons from supermarkets.<br />That woman isn't allowed to have an abortion if she chooses to have one, but you don't want to pay taxes that could potentially help her support the baby.<br />God talks to you, but not to the liberals.<br />Jesus loves you, but not him or her or them.<br />You must have religious freedom, but everyone else has to agree with you.<br />I'm going to hell, but you who take God's name in vain every time you pretend to know what he's thinking, you're ok because God tells you who to vote for.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />You know what an awful lot of people, Christian and not, think? If Christianity is comparable to any economic system, it's socialism. Parts of the New Testament read like a slightly more flowery Communist Manifesto. Jesus didn't want you to get rich, or isolate you and yours from the world and its poor. He wanted you to embrace the poor, invite them in for dinner, share whatever you had so that everyone ended up with more - you don't want the poor to ever be with you.<br /><br />The conservative politics that seem to suit you do not satisfy your religious obligation in the least, and your religious beliefs are often at odds with the system you support.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />I cannot, cannot, get my head around this Jesus-Politik that bears so little resemblance to either Jesus or politics.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-31941078882018089042008-09-21T10:35:00.002+00:002008-09-21T10:57:29.391+00:00ain't it just beautiful?I get terrified by how quickly things are passing. I'm twenty-one, in 3 days it will be 3 years since my parents dropped me off in Egham. Now what?<br /><br />This summer was amazing, really lovely. I've been living with the boy in our little bungalow since February and - save a couple of vicious disputes regarding the merits of Sex and the City versus endless endless sports channels - that's been lovely too.<br /><br />I just like how things change. I like that I've become an Arsenal fan and more of a heavyweight drinker than I ever could have imagined. I like that I had some fun with substances and I like even more that I don't like that anymore. I like that the house is tidy these days, that we actually clean and things. I like that UKTV Gold are showing Jonathan Creek. I like how life is going.<br /><br />- Also that you can chart our financial fortunes, like so many people's, by the supermarkets we've been shopping at. Tesco turned briefly to Waitrose, which turned back to Tesco, then Aldi, Lidl, a brief peak back to Sainsburys until this weeks Iceland extravaganza brought frozen comfort. We're so disloyal though, as soon as pay day comes Iceland can shove it. -<br /><br />And this, thing. This really odd sensation in the gut that we are all twenty-somethings now. We're relating more to early Friends than Skins, suddenly we know what Council Tax is (and why it's a Bad Thing) and, my God, the weddings. People are getting married like it's going out of style and I love it (how do you hate being bridesmaid for the friend you've known since infant school?), don't get me wrong, but again the fear.<br /><br />I'm a sucker for the whole first dance thing. I cry, without fail, the inner girl-cliche comes racing out and I'm not ashamed. But there's a difference between imagining your own wedding and actually realising it. After an embarrassing incident in York (in which a friend and I actually jumped <em>away </em>from the bouquet, causing it to hit the floor with an unceremonious thwup) I'm trying to stay realistic about things - I don't want to get married, I just really, really fancy a wedding.<br /><br />And elsewhere? I'm returning to Brighton in a week, after a year's absence enforced by the tight-ass student loan company who - I'm sorry - should be doing a fucking tango for the amount of interest they'll be getting off me in the next few decades. My brother's starting his photography degree, my pet snail's been looking awfully sluggish recently and I'm still not over how absolutely incredible Rage Against the Machine and Manic Street Preachers were at Reading this year.<br /><br /><em>We don't talk about love</em><br /><em>We only wanna get drunk</em><br /><em>And we are not allowed to spend</em><br /><em>'Cause we are told that this is the end</em><br /><em>A design for life</em><br /><em>A design for life</em><br /><em>a design for life</em><br /><em></em><br />All in all.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-25718186341822339122008-06-18T14:12:00.004+00:002008-06-18T14:28:47.018+00:00the morning after<div align="center">I count sixteen mosquito bites. Legs, back and shoulders - one exactly in the centre of my knee.<br /><br />It takes two washes - a drunken shower at 5am when I peel off my tights and see the muddy tide marks on my thighs; a long bath today - to soak the stink of the lake out of my skin. In the tub, steaming with half a bottle of bubbles my legs are lobster red with heat and swelling. I turn the cold tap on with a clumsy toe and the icy water drifts up around me, blissful as falling asleep.<br /><br />While I wait, I count my vices: caffeine, nicotine, booze booze booze. I can feel excess weliing up inside me, the nausea from a near permanent hangover. What am I doing to myself?<br /><br />Outside, the sun is setting on a day spent in bed, nursing our wounds. Inside, the cool water subsides swollen skin and my legs look like legs again. I count the bites, touching my finger to them; tight red lumps, yellow, I've been scratching in my sleep again. But more than that. Red scribbles cover my feet and ankles, tiny cuts appear on the pale skin. What? Nettle bites from the long walk there in flipflops; skin rubbed raw from the longer walk home; skin grazed from the gritty, sucking mud of the shore.<br /><br />My left foot. Still swollen from a slight sprain three nights ago, the tight bandage unravelled somewhere out there in the cold black. I remember splashing out there and thinking of the album my brother's band wrote, when they were living in a town of the same name - Black Water.<br /><br />Was there a moon last night? Up close I could see their faces, count the bodies treading water, struggling in warmer depths. I left my underwear out there somewhere, I remember that. Will someone fish them out?<br /><br />Naked, six or seven of us nightswimming. Someone pushed my head under and I froze, let myself float back up, too drunk to push up from the floor. Deadman's drift.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />Jenny and I swim out, almost to the centre of the lake, shout and hear the echoes. On dry land the bonfire blazes, we head back, someone throws me a jumper, music booms across the field, someone flies on the swing by the Chinese lanterns.<br /><br />People laugh at us baking dry by the fire, tell us we smell like swamp.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />I came home with ears and eyes full of silt, minus my flipflops, legwarmers, panties.<br />I don't want to be here hungover, by lamplight, the football blaring in the next room - - I want to be drunk again, striking out across the water at dawn so silent, hand in his hand.</div>Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-59423448818416726542008-06-11T13:29:00.002+00:002008-06-11T13:33:49.709+00:00isn't it ironicSpending twenty minutes searching Amazon in vain for a particular book, trying quick searches, advanced searches, every combination of the words "Understanding Cultural Globalisation, P. Hopper, 2007" that can possibly exist, scrolling through page after page of vaguely related results, finally admitting defeat and accepting that they just don't have the damn thing....<br /><br />...Before realising that despite the inexorable march of American culture across the globe, despite McDonalds and Starbucks appearing in every continent of the earth, despite it all, we Brits still spell globalisation with an S, not a Z. And that bloody book was right there all along.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-33428067969008852272008-04-29T13:34:00.002+00:002008-04-29T13:48:21.334+00:00news in briefIt's pretty hard to get your head round sometimes, for the people I try to explain it to, but also for me.<br /><br />I get to live in a bungalow with a lovely man. Lovely, very tall. Like an Ent. I have a pet snail, called Stan, who's currently on the roof of his tank, upside down and weeing. We have a big TV and lots of DVDS and I get to sit in the doorstep to smoke so I don't get rained on. Also we might get a dog. Brilliant.<br /><br />I don't have a job, nor am I studying. There was a cock up with my finances and, oh, lots of things, so I'm going back in September. As for the job - I got bored of doing the work of three people for the pay of one and getting treated about as well as a half, so I left. Then I got ill. It all starts to sound like an opportunity for the world's smallest violin, I know, but it's not. Because of all the things I have, because of the house and the boy and the snail and, well, because I was given a tax rebate the size of Surrey just as I got ill so I don't have to go back to work until I'm ready.<br /><br />So, once you get your head round it, it's actually pretty damn good. The only thing that I have yet to figure out is why, with all this spare time on my hands, I'm still not writing that novel I keep thinking about.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-73383781674302025242008-04-28T23:10:00.002+00:002008-04-28T23:17:15.184+00:00pennies"It's not death that you should be afraid of, but living, and how quickly we have to do it," he said.<br /><br />"And whose quote is that?"<br /><br />"Some girl's. It's like, that death shouldn't really be scary. There's nothing to be afraid of after the event, nothing you can really believe in anyway. Heaven and hell are just so many rumours, who cares? When you get there, if you get there, you're there and - well, that's that. Trying to aim for one or the other is shooting in the dark, it's dangerous."<br /><br />"Dodgy insurance policy."<br /><br />"Exactly. Life? That's scary. What's interesting about death is not the thing itself but everything that's left, everything we do to try and get around it. Believing in heaven isn't half as important as the fact that we do - I mean, there's pennies on gravestones, shrines by roadsides. That's scary. Why exactly do we think that any of that matters? But we do, and we should, because being alive when someone else is dead is scary."<br /><br />"That's crazy," she said, "you don't think death is scary?"<br /><br />"Oh yeah, I do, but it's the fact that I do that's terrifying."Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-14838999105608481972008-01-03T00:41:00.000+00:002008-01-03T00:43:34.263+00:00motivationYou are absolutely right. I do take my job too seriously; I give too much and get too little in return. I should work somewhere else and do something else before that place eats my mind. But I don't want to.<br /><br />Because it makes sense.<br /><br />Wiping tables makes sense, customers make sense. I know that place and those people and this work inside and out and through and I do it well. And it's the only thing I can say that about, the only thing I genuinely think makes sense.<br /><br />And that takes the piss.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-70830626937337549842007-12-30T03:42:00.000+00:002007-12-30T03:50:06.340+00:00celebrityThe notoriety gained from working in the friendly neighbourhood boozer would be slightly more enjoyable if every person who tapped you on the shoulder in a club to shout "Hey, you work at 'Spoons, I know you!" didn't then follow this up by saying "If you can remember what I drink, why can't you remember how old I am and stop <span style="font-style: italic;">fucking ID-ing me</span>?"<br /><br />That, or trying to lick your face and insisting on introducing you to all their friends as "My mate what works in that pub what I drink in, innit."<br /><br />Why bother? Any physical attributes you may possess are, I assure you, far outweighed by the possibility of you being there tomorrow morning ordering breakfast and complaining about your hangover when I've been at work for three hours still drunk.<br /><br />I am not your mate. Not until you can remember my name without prompting, and certainly not until you stop thinking I'm easy because I serve you beer.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-70140900171475499102007-12-28T03:21:00.000+00:002007-12-28T03:34:28.580+00:00a letter to estherMarra, I don't care what time it says I published this, it's now half past four in the morning and I just got in from work. It was a very long shift indeed - somebody called me a 'titbag' and then was sick in the garden (deliberately, I think).<br /><br />I'm addressing this blog post to my marra for two reasons. One, it would be pretty damn rude to call you at this hour - although you're probably awake and doing something horrendous involving vino and Frankie - and two, my phone has been cut off by Orange because I haven't paid my bill. An overreaction on their part, I feel, and definitely not worth being charged to call them and pay the bill. Stalemate continues. It's all very complex.<br /><br />Everything is very, upsettingly about money. I wish it wasn't, because it's such a sad way to look at life, but money is the reason I cannot sort out my phone, or get the train, or go for drinks. Money is the reason that I have to work until four in the morning just to not have enough money to do the things that would make the job worthwhile. I fucking hate it, so fucking much it makes me swear.<br /><br />Also, I thought it would be fun to write you a blog letter. Sort of creepy, because it's not <span style="font-style: italic;">from</span> me as such, it's <span style="font-style: italic;">by</span> me. This could well be fiction. Except it's not. I'm pretty tired.<br /><br />On the plus, Santa brought me a hench bottle of Bombay Sapphire for Christmas. Tonk, if you like. It's massive; it's calling to me.<br /><br />I love you very very much and missing you makes me sad. Royal Holloway feels fucking years ago, I can't even tell you how different everything is. It's like it never happened and I've been in this shit job the whole time; I've always been a hard-ass bar bitch and I just happened to take some drugs one night in Cambers that made me dream that I sat in a kitchen with a souped-up Soho mincer and made ransom-note poetry. "Biting in love/ in French/ in death/ in England."<br /><br />I am still a pikey, but with less of a knowledge of scripture. I want to go and sit underneath Queen Victoria on the North quad and drink wine and talk about how uncanny things are. That was one of the best nights I've ever had.<br /><br />Love,<br />FUFFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-4612841455857973812007-12-26T01:20:00.000+00:002007-12-26T01:31:06.132+00:00ho ho hoThank you, to the drunk man with the dog who I almost walked into whilst sliding my way across Yateley on Christmas Eve in boots with no grip. He had what looked like several days worth of conjunctivitis scum around his eyes and reeked of booze and worse, but after I skidded to a halt in front of him and shrieked "I'm sorry!", he said something.<br /><br />"Huh?"<br /><br />"I said, happy Christmas."<br /><br />"Happy Christmas."<br /><br />Because even though I spent the rest of Monday night serving copious amounts of shit booze to other drunks and partaking in banter such as "If you wave that ten pound note in my face one more time I'll bite your fucking hand off" and "No, mate, I don't fancy your mate, your mate thinks my name is Sharon, mate", even though there was drinking and dancing and singing that do-they-know-it's-Christmas song, even though a beautiful man gave me a Christmas card made from a Marlboro Lights box - that crusty old man almost made my day. Almost.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-43090963149710867632007-10-29T16:50:00.000+00:002007-11-05T00:35:41.400+00:00fuck luckyM4 towards Cardiff, just after a junction, the traffic grinds to a halt. About a mile from the services. The car forces its way in from the outside lane to the hard shoulder, pulls up, stops by the concrete steps below the bridge. You get out into spitting rain and start to scramble up, bogged down with brambles and honking horns because three lanes of trucks can see you, know what you're doing, have precious little else to do but watch. Your boyfriend cheers as you slip on a wet leaf, throw out your hand to break your fall and feel thorns embedded in your palm as you run on.<br /><br />Out of sight (you hope) you find a sheltered place to squat and remove six, seven spikes from your skin. It's bleeding, you're bleeding.<br /><br />Back down the steps, you throw your hands up in a victory salute and notice that (after you've just pissed in the bushes) the traffic is miraculously moving again. You're so incensed by this, and trying not to slip, that you somehow don't notice what actually just happened.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />She was sitting in a chair, in a bedroom, in a building; she was glassy eyed, staring at her lap. On the desk in front of her was a razor of the expensive sort, with the block of moisturiser and the plastic bed around the blade to make them virtually snag-proof on the skin. It was chosen for this exact reason but past its usage now, lying mangled beside a pair of nail scissors.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">What people fail to realise about sharp objects is that they are everywhere. Prison guards, health professionals - trained to search them out in any room - they know. Lighters, badges, safety pins, compasses, broken photo frames. It takes a certain turn of thought to see them. To see that a scissor blade or similar (no matter how blunt) can be taken to an overpriced shaver (no matter how snag-proof) and used, with perseverance, to lever a skinny sliver of steel from the plastic bed, bending it in the process to a corner that will hack much harder at skin than a simple sharp edge.<br /><br /></span>She was the mistress of her own undoing, beautifully adept at avoiding bread and fruit knives in the washing up, throwing out the craft blades she used to use in art class, buying the safest and bluntest of everything. She knew how to remove the more obvious of temptations, but not all of them. There always had to be something, something vulgar and harmful, in a black cloth pouch that was hidden so as not to be thought of, in a secret corner of the room that her thoughts went back to several times a day.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />You know, when you reach Cardiff and find your phone is missing, that this isn't exactly new. In two years you've lost/been robbed of four debit cards, three sets of various house keys, one passport, two NUS cards, one university ID and more miscellaneous items of clothing than you can count. A mobile phone lost (and really lost, as in, somewhere between Wales and England lost) is unusual but not unexpected.<br /><br />Let's just say you're not too worried.<br /><br />Ten years old and, after weeks of waiting, breathless trips to Toys'r'us, sold out shelves and nagging and nagging, you finally get your hands on a Tamagotchi. You celebrate by leaving your little pet on top of a vending machine in a service station in Scotland. Your parents are understandably annoyed.<br /><br />On a whim, on the way back down south, you convince your father to pull back in at the services because maybe, just <span style="font-style: italic;">maybe</span>, it'll still be there. The man in the shop smiles, hands it back to you. They've been playing with it, keeping it alive for two weeks. It's been something of a running joke.<br /><br />"You're a lucky little girl, you know that?"<br /><br />*****<br /><br />Back then, on days when the way it felt was completely separate from the way it should be, when the misery was a tangible, physical force, she chatted shit a lot. For this person and that cause, for general edification and spiritual growth. With the controlled, delicate sincerity of someone who likes the sound of their own voice - she would ask God for stuff.<br /><br />Sometimes, on her own and not nearly as often, she would actually <span style="font-style: italic;">pray</span>. The kind of gut-spoken prayer that's more like yawning or being sick than actually trying, the cry that bubbles up behind the eyes and hurts.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Please, make it stop. </span><br /><br />She couldn't stop asking anymore than she could stop crying and, when that failed, she'd sit up and breathe in and get back some of that calculation that served her so well in church. Hating it, knowing it didn't work that way, she'd strike a deal -<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">if ever I don't have to feel like this, if this ever, ever goes away, I promise you there will never be a day that I won't get down on my knees and thank you. I will never take it for granted, never stop being grateful, I'll do anything, give up everything, just please, please, make it stop.<br /><br /></span>God, if ever he saw it as a bargain, was dutiful and kept his part. She threw away the black bag, stopped crying, felt it lifting. She smiled, put on her new life like a new outfit, checked her make-up in the mirror and left the room humming to herself. She forgot all about her side of the deal.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />On a whim, two days later, you tell Ben to come off at that junction, go over the bridge and wait while the two of you jump out of the car and clamber over the fence to the hard shoulder. Down the steps, shining torches into the brambles, you find your phone snug in the grass by the steps, soaking wet with two days rain.<br /><br />You dry it out, switch it on and find it works perfectly. Not a scratch on it. You tell the story of the Tamagotchi and remark how you've always been lucky with things like that. The little things, the eleventh hour, twist of fate, would-you-believe-it anecdotes. As if the fairies were on your side.<br /><br />The irony hits you like a punch; you stop talking. Fuck <span style="font-style: italic;">lucky</span>. Your sporadic ability to get away with things by the skin of your teeth, your smug, jam-covered approach to life's little complications - you think that's what makes you lucky? You think there's something called luck at all?<br /><br />*****<br /><br />That night she got into bed and decided to stop talking about luck, once and for all. She rolled over into him, pushed her face into the gap between his shoulders, listened to him breathing, counted her blessings, one by one. She thought about it, but not for too long, started to whisper in that sincere-little-church-voice and then the prayer bubbled up from somewhere deep and happened, sort of by accident.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Fuck lucky.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Thank </span><span>you.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-2141594162186612292007-10-17T14:20:00.000+00:002007-10-17T15:32:22.098+00:00the fruitcakeSo I decided to rip off RLP by rewriting this post with his <a href="http://www.reallivepreacher.com/node/1424">man in black</a> substituted for my own. Shameless, hey, but I thought it was a good excercise - personifying your unconscious, the parts of you that cause and create your writing. What would they be like, what would they say, would you get on with them?<br /><br />Anyway, I tried it, hoping I could get to the bottom of my complete inability to write and then post it on here by way of breaking the block. It half worked, in that I figured out pretty quickly why I'm not writing anymore, but then got upset. Really upset.<br /><br />It turns out that I know exactly why I'm not writing, it's screamingly fucking obvious but it's also tied up, achingly so, with pretty much every other issue in my life. I do want to try and explain it here. if only so (if this is the last post I ever make) passers-by will see an appropriate full-stop on this rambling journal of the last three years. But the 'man in black' format really isn't the right way of doing it. See, once I coaxed him out, put a drink in his hand and sat him down by a roaring fire for some chit-chat, he wouldn't shut up. That bastard thinks he's got an answer for everything. Mainly because, well, he does.<br /><br />I haven't quite plucked up the balls to tell you what he said, yet. First I want to say a couple of things about this blog, why I'm so fixated on my failing to keep it up.<br /><br />1) It's almost embarassing to admit it but this stupid little site means an <span style="font-style: italic;">incredible</span> amount to me. I've been painfully open about my life on here, using it as an ill-disguised source of therapy throughout the absolute hardest period of my life. There's been periods where I literally could not have coped without having this as an outlet, where the only comfort I could find on black days was planning these posts, putting them up and waiting on tenterhooks to see who might comment and what they might say. It sounds pathetic, even to myself, but when you're that low, a friend or someone you barely know dropping by to say 'that was good' or 'hang in there' can mark the difference between a hideous day or a better day. Writing here, striving to write well, not only gave me immense satisfaction in the work itself but the comfort of knowing people were listening. However distantly.<br /><br />2) I guess this is the same point, but writing is the only thing I've ever really felt that I was any good at it. I knew I was sometimes good at drama, sometimes clever, sometimes pretty, sometimes funny, but I've always been able to write. It's the only thing I've ever felt was talent rather than fluke. When I was 15 I won a literary competition at school and the judge said a lot of things, about how I could turn professional, how he would give my name to his publishers. It was flattery, a nice little prize, but it didn't stop me waiting every day for someone to call. It also started me writing for real, in earnest, constantly. Obsessively. I never got a call, there was never any publisher but the can was open and worms were everywhere. I didn't stop writing until about September last year. That's about 4 years of constant scribbling. Now it's gone. Take a moment to imagine what this sudden absence feels like.<br /><br />3) I know this blog isn't dead yet. Most months show a couple of posts, however bad or pointless they might be. And I know that the sheer volume of writing I produced during the first year of uni couldn't last forever. It was insane. I was posting almost every day, alongside writing two separate diaries, countless poems and pieces of fiction. Then there was the compulsive note taking and essay writing and just <span style="font-style: italic;">shit</span> that I couldn't stop putting down. Was physically terrified of <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> writing. It became a symptom of the illness, it became an actual fixation, but I think I would have died without it. It was an extreme, but the material I produced then (some posted on this blog, some not) is one of the only things I am actually proud of. Now I've reached the other extreme. For the last year or so, what you see on this blog is actually the sum total of my output. It's shit. I am no longer proud.<br /><br /><br />4) There aren't that many coincidences in how my relationship with writing has developed. I started working at it when someone told me I was good; started blogging when I was feeling particularly confident about my ability to be interesting; started blogging about serious matters as soon as I realised that the internet wasn't gonna laugh at me. Then, I left home, started uni, and everything changed. The only constant things were being miserable and wanting, needing to write about it. So I did. As I got more and more depressed I wrote more and more, with increasing honesty, about myself, my illness, my faith, my life. I reached breaking point. Got help. Got put on meds. Lost my faith.<br /><br />Six months later, I guess it was, I took myself off meds, got a new boyfriend who subsequently came to live with me. It's difficult to get lost in your head when you and the person you're in love with are cohabiting with everything you own in a comparatively small room with a single bed. I blogged, occasionally, but it was nothing like the same. Worse, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. He never read a single word I wrote. I desperately wanted him to.<br /><br />That was a distraction though, from the biggest single change. I was still messed up, certainly. My estranged granfather dying, the realisation that I was going to have to leave Royal Holloway, losing touch with most of my friends, all made it a difficult year. But apart from a few very black days, <span style="font-style: italic;">I wasn't depressed anymore</span>. The process of becoming happier didn't just cost me my faith. It cost me <span style="font-style: italic;">this</span> as well.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />So present day, I'm staring at this blog, feeling utterly disconnected. I don't know how to process any of the things that are happening to me and (this is very important) I <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">FUCKING HATE</span></span> every single thing I've written here for the last year or so.<br /><br />I try so hard to get it back, to shake off this block, but I can't. On the train, by the beach, in the park, over and over again, I snatch so hard at every idea that hits me, try to pin them down and find some way of getting back to that place where I could just express myself and I can't. I cannot write a single word without instantly, instinctively criticising it. Too wanky, too blunt, too boring, too pretentious. Everyone will see right through that and smell the desperation coming off a girl who's lost her edge.<br /><br />Even this post. Especially this post.<br /><br />Why?<br /><br />Because right at the heart of everything, is this one fear. When you strip away all the pretty words (which the meds did pretty well) and spiritual crisis (the meds took care of that one too) and even the depression itself (counselling, balls of steel, but yeah, the meds) the only real thing that's left is this one fear. Not a mental illness fear, a chemical imbalance fear or a religious fear. Just a me-fear.<br /><br />I'm so so scared that I will fail. Why I didn't apply for drama school. Why I never try to lose weight despite the fact that sometimes I hate my body. Why I didn't go for Oxbridge. Why, on changing universities, I went for somewhere that asked far lower grades than the ones I actually have. Why it took me so long to acknowledge I was ill. Why I have never ever pursued any interest other than writing to any sort of challenging level. Why I stopped auditioning for plays as soon as there was a hint that I was out of my depth. Why I cannot, cannot write.<br /><br />Deep down, on the most primal level I think I have, I'm convinced that, basically, I'm a twat. That if I was to dress snazzy, lose weight, have perfect hair, amass this wealth of knowledge on every conceivable subject, have impeccable taste in music, sing, act, work hard, be published... if I could be proved worthy in every possible area of my life, then I could be confident. But what if I'm not found worthy? What if I'm found wanting? Surely it's easier not to try?<br /><br />It's the most ridiculous cliche. If I heard one of my friends say what I've just said it would break my heart, but I'd be furious. How could anyone genuinely believe that anyone expected them to be perfect? That it was better to atrophy than to attempt to improve? And yet... and yet.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />The man in black didn't love me so well. He didn't reach over to stroke my face, there was no heart to heart over french toast and diet cokes. What he said was horrible, and true, and I hate him for saying it because it's taken so long for me to realise it:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">This is the only part of your life where you've ever felt like you've achieved, where you've actually done something you feel proud of. You feel like you've lost everything else you knew about yourself and if you lost the ability to write that would be the end of you. But you know what the saddest thing is? You're so scared of being shit you're actually gonna let it happen. Just like dropping out, just like every opportunity you've ever thrown away, every time you've been too lazy or scared or sad to get up and </span>do<span style="font-style: italic;"> something with your life. You'd rather never write again than write badly and have someone else think badly of you.<br /><br />So end it, stop it, stop trying, give up, why don't you? What the fuck made you think you could do it anyway?<br /><br />*****<br /><br /></span>What title do I give this? What snappy one-liner do I save for the finish line of the most uncomfortably, brutally honest thing I've ever written? How the hell do I end this?<br /><br />I guess by saying that even though I don't want this to be my last post, I don't see how it can't be. For so long now I've been so unhappy with everything I've written for this site. Whether anyone reading picks up on that, I can't tell, I absolutely cannot be objective anymore. But now you know. Now the self-conscious writer is revealed. Now you can see exactly what I'm thinking when I try and put the world to rights.<br /><br />It's horribly embarassing. But here's the silver lining: it's the feeling you get when you sit down and take a long, unforgiving look at yourself. No secrets. No excuses, no tiny-violined and artily worded railing against god, no stilted accounts of piss-ups and break-ups and falling apart. No poetry. No essay. No structure. No photos. No humorous similes or analogies about the G8 or student life. No fucking bullshit effort anything. Just writing exactly what I saw when I looked, and exactly what that means.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br />I take it back. If this is the last one ever then that's ok, because this one at least, I was a little bit proud of.<br /><br />:)Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-87564796529167855012007-10-02T13:38:00.001+00:002007-10-02T14:51:45.588+00:0012 bar acid blues<span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" >Dropping out, being in debt, breaking up, cheating, moving home, sleeping on the sofa.</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" ><br />Kings of Leon - On Call<br />Mika - Grace Kelly<br />Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Pin<br />Finger Eleven - One Thing<br />Maximo Park - Postcard of a Painting<br />Athlete- Tourist<br />Stereophonics - Dakota, Local Boy in the Photograph<br />Steve Harley and the Cockney Rebels - Come up and See Me (Make Me Smile)<br />Muse - Endlessly<br />REM - At My Most Beautiful<br />Gnarls Barkley - Just a Thought<br />Johnny Cash - Hurt<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Snow Patrol - Set the Fire to the Third Bar<br />The Fray - How to Save a Life<br />The Kooks - Seaside<br /></span><br /></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" >New job, no money, no boyfriend, the drinking binge, pulling that terrible man, 8:30am hangover walks to the bus stop, getting perved by alcoholics, inappropriate work place crushes, living at home, sleeping on the sofa, sleeping in the back of Charlotte's car, Camberley with the marras, pissed in Janine's car.</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" >Dizzee Rascal - Fix Up Look Sharp<br />Muse - Supermassive Black Hole<br />VAST - Pretty When You Cry<br />The Cranberries - God Be With You (Ireland)<br />Linkin Park Feat. Jay-Z - Numbencore<br />MIA - URAQT<br />Justin Timberlake - Sexyback<br />Siobhan Donaghy - Man Without Friends<br />Bush - Glycerine<br />Beck - Go it Alone, Black Tambourine<br />Rihanna - Umbrella<br />Dresden Dolls - Coin Operated Boy, Girl Anachronism<br />Editors - Munic<br />Modest Mouse - Float On<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" >Things getting steady, the summer starting, the big unfriendly giant, walking home from Camberley, small-talking and the awkward hug goodbye, nights at the Red Cross Hut, smoking in Sian's car, last ever legal fags in pubs.</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" >Nelly Furtado - Say it Right<br />Moody Blues - Nights in White Satin<br />Oasis - Champagne Supernova<br />Longview - I Would<br />Ash - Barefoot<br />Kings of Leon - Fans<br />Shaun Colvin - Trouble<br />Faithless - Salva Mea<br />Chemical Brothers - The Boxer<br />Peaches - He's not Dead<br />The Noisettes - Don't Give up, Count of Monte Christo<span style="font-style: italic;"><br />Head Automatica - Beating Heart Baby<br />Fall-Out Boy - This Ain't a Scene<br />Justice Vs S</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">imian - We Are Your Friends<br /></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" >Bloc Party - The Prayer</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" >Reading '07.</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" >Smashing Pumpkins - 1979, Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Stand Inside Your Love<br />NIN - Hurt<br />Maximo Park - Going Missing, Graffiti<br />Jimmy Eat World - Sweetness, Get it Faster, The Middle<br />New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream, Hiding on the Staircase<br />Arcade Fire - Neighbourhood #1, Wake Up, Rebellion, No Cars Go<br />Kings of Leon - Knocked Up, Black Thumbnail, McFearless, On Call<br />Gogel Bordello - Start Wearing Purple<br />The Gossip - Standing in the way of Control<br />Lostprophets - Last Summer<br />Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Turn Into<br /><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" >Brighton, the last two weeks, the endless train journeys, everything.</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" >Kate Nash - Foundations<br />Idlewild - You and I are Both Away, Paint Nothing, Everyone Says You're so Fragile<br />Ellegarden - Mr Feather<br />Imogen Heap - Goodnight and Go<br />Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps, Y Control<br />Regina Spektor - Fidelity<br />Siobhan Donaghy - 12 Bar Acid Blues<br />2 Many DJs - Androgyny<br />Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees, Idioteque<br />Maximo Park - I Want You to Stay<br />Kings of Leon - The Runner<br />Peter Sarstedt - Where do you go?<br />Kanye West - Stronger<br /><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" >Can one song sum up your entire summer?<br /><br /></span><pre style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Time is never time at all<br />You can never ever leave<br />Without leaving a piece of youth<br />And our lives are forever changed<br />We will never be the same<br />The more you change, the less you feel<br /><br />Believe<br />Believe in me<br />Believe believe<br /><br />That life can change<br />That you're not stuck in vain<br />We're not the same<br />We're different tonight<br /><br />Tonight, so bright<br />Tonight, tonight<br /><br />And you know you're never sure<br />But you're sure you could be right<br />If you held yourself up to the light<br />And your embers never fade<br />In your city by the lake<br />The place where you were born.<br /><br />Believe<br />Believe in me<br />Believe believe<br /><br />In the resolute urgency of now<br />And if you believe there's not a chance tonight<br /><br />Tonight, so bright<br />Tonight<br /><br />We'll crucify the insincere tonight<br />We'll make things right, we'll feel it all tonight<br />We'll find a way to offer up the night tonight<br />The indescribable moments of your life tonight.<br />The impossible is possible tonight<br />Believe in me as i believe in you...<br /><br />Tonight<br />Tonight, tonight<br />Tonight, Tonight</span></pre>Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-26935215437880343282007-10-01T18:08:00.001+00:002007-10-01T18:57:16.038+00:00brightHow good does it feel to be typing up notes from today's seminar, last week's lectures; how messy my handwriting is now, after six months of nothing much at all.<br /><br />A week ago today, two years since my parents drove me (shaking) to Egham and dropped me off in a flat with Kate, Adam and Reena. I can't even remember the last time I spoke to them, but I remember meeting them. Kate, bounding down the hall behind her boyfriend and not knowing which of them was actually moving in. Reena, unlocking her door with her mother, and thinking she said Rita. Adam, waving while the door slammed shut on him. We went out for drinks, we girls, but everywhere was full so we came home again and went to bed. Around midnight, feeling bored as hell, I went to get some water and ended up talking to Adam in the kitchen until daybreak.<br /><br />I remember him saying he'd idealised university in his head to be this utopia of coffee shops and ragged jeans, budget cooking and deep and meaningfuls. We bonded over the unshakeable feeling that the better party was happening next door. As it happened, they were having a party next door, but we weren't invited.<br /><br />This time round? My introductory letter gets lost in the post and all I can wrangle by way of information is to show up at Pavilion Parade at 9am on the first day of term. Oh, and bring passport photos.<br /><br />I rock up late, 9:15, after a 6am wake up call from my dad, a two hour train journey and getting hopelessly lost in the Lanes in the pouring rain. Sit down in a room full of painfully cool people and think, oh <span style="font-style: italic;">God</span>.<br /><br />It gets better, quickly. I realise that several fashion students have mistakenly wandered into our induction and, with them gone, I see a lot more hippies. Good sign. It's also reassuring to realise that everyone else seems to be as disorganised as I am.<br /><br />An hour and a half later a transvestite called Janine asks me out for a 'smoke'. Is that smoke or <span style="font-style: italic;">smoke</span> smoke? <span style="font-style: italic;">Smoke</span> smoke. Some time after that I queue outside the ladies in a pub only to see two men walk out together and see the shiny red condom they left in the toilet bowl.<br /><br />Everything you've heard about Brighton is true. TRUE.<br /><br />I can't tell you how surreal it is to be doing this again. Visiting Charlotte's halls, seeing the empty curry trays, the cider cans, the fags out the window. It's so familiar and yet several thousand miles away. I leave our coffee shop conversations to commute home, change out of my hippy clothes to the black shirts of bar work. I don't stay for a smoke, or a pill, or even a drink. I have work to do if I'm gonna afford this.<br /><br />Walking into a talk in an actual lecture theatre. There's a power point presentatio set up, the SU Sabbs waiting in the wings, royal blue curtains covering the concrete walls. A room full of nervous, buzzing freshers. I'm told that university, no matter how old you are, is a once in a lifetime opportunity. The irony doesn't escape me.<br /><br />The journey, door to door, takes three hours each way. That's 24 hours a week, £55 of rail fares, £13 bus fares for six hours of classes. Jo, a Leeds girl clutching a multicoloured book called 'The Politics of Ecstasy' says I'm more than welcome to crash on her floor, in fact, I could easily stay on a different floor every night of the week but it's not really an answer.<br /><br />I smile instead, secretly made up that they like having me around. It's unbelievable, how easy they are to get on with. Unbelievable how much I love this city. Unbelievable how incredibly, life-shatteringly tired I am from trying to work and study full time simultaneously.<br /><br />I can't remember the last time I was this excited, this nervous - except I can, it was two years ago and part of me feels so incredibly guilty that I should really be a finalist right now. I'm not though, I'm a fucking Fresher again and it feels very, very good.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-58773496801436582612007-09-18T00:17:00.001+00:002007-09-18T00:42:16.487+00:00why my mum is standing in my doorway, holding a salt shaker and threatening to evict meMy room is a funny old place to be at the moment. Aside from the obvious (it being the size of my armpit), it is now also the home of two important things - the first one being every item of clothing I own.<br /><br />Because my chest of drawers and wardrobe are outside on the landing (they have to be - I told you it was small) I've needed to readjust my usual clearing out routine. I tend to follow the 'make a gigantic heap of everything you own and only put things back in their rightful place if they're necessary' regime but the fact that the landing is already occupied by my furniture means that every item of clothing I own is now in a gigantic heap on my bedroom floor. Which is to say, my bed, because I have no floor. My floor is where I keep my books. If I mention the only two things I own in any great amount are clothes and books (not make-up, DVDs, music, jewellery, nic-nacs, just clothes and books) then the picture may become clearer.<br /><br />I've spent most of today rifling through the heap (or, Mount Fi, as it has been called) trying to whittle down the sheer amount of crap that I've accumulated. Half of it I don't even remember buying. Or 'obtaining'. Why do I have a 'Topshop Couture' grey lycra jumpsuit that doesn't fit me? Or a fluorescent blue 'Pavlov is my bitch' t-shirt? From which man did I once steal tartan boxer shorts? Is that shiny thing lurking underneath my favourite jeans <span style="font-style: italic;">actually</span> a cape? Yes, it <span style="font-style: italic;">actually </span>is. I conclude that working in a charity shop is actually a bad career move for those living in anything less than a house sized wardrobe.<br /><br />Lots of hard work. But unfortunately most of Mount Fi is still there, because of the second very important thing. Stan.<br /><br />Stan is a giant African land snail, or 'achatina fulica' and it's important to note that despite all the very interesting qualities this breed possesses (such as being able to crawl along the edge of a razor blade without getting hurt) and their many advantages as a pet (such as being able to eat pretty much anything), there's only one reason why I now own one:<br /><br />When I was pissed one time last Easter I thought having a pet snail would be the funniest thing ever and convinced my snail-breeding friend to save me the next egg that her snail (Vince) and her mate's snail (Fibonnaci) created. Not really fully comprehending that I was swearing the life of another into my hands.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong, I'm very much on board with this. A creature that moves at 0.004mph and positively thrives on neglect is well up my street as an irresponsible human being. But I wasn't prepared for just how <span style="font-style: italic;">distracting</span> a gastropod can be. When it gets quiet, I can hear him eating. He's got a little mouth and everything, and if I stroke his shell he comes out all 'who the hell are you?' and <span style="font-style: italic;">looks</span> at me.<br /><br />What I'm getting at here is, I think, a perfectly rational and valid explanation for why I spent most of my day off sitting on a mountain of badly matched and hideous clothing holding an enormous snail in my hand and cooing. Is that so wrong?Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-47094183322503102812007-09-17T13:51:00.000+00:002007-09-17T15:06:02.360+00:00upon the side of this mountain of mine<span style="font-weight: bold;">Work<br /><br /></span>Saturday, you get a call early in the day. Can you come in early? You settle on six, but a rash of Morris Men distracts you on the way so you don't get there til half past. Apologise profusely, then realise that the pub is dead, so grab yourself a packet of crisps.<br /><br />Discuss new members of staff with your co-workers and finalise names for them (smoking hottie; flaming hottie; cutey pie; nice but stupid; lanky pleb). Explain for the fifth or sixth time why you won't be moving away quite as soon as you thought.<br /><br />Clean the cappucino machine, polish some glasses, retell the story of the family that left dirt nappies on table 39 to your friend who just ate at table 39. Clean the ale-lines, flirt with one customer, twat tax another for calling you 'darling' more than six times during a single transaction.<br /><br />Realise that you've called your area manager a wanker on your Facebook profile page - the same page where you've named the company you work for. Shit.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />The evening picks up, you sneak out for a cigarette and chat to Cider and Black, who just got some bad news, and Smiths in an Abbot Glass who wants to know why Old Rosie in a Chilled Glass and Carling (Fosters on Mondays) got barred. Explain, get upset about the whole thing all over again.<br /><br />Crack on, serving ten deep at the bar, cut your finger on a broken glass, drop ice cubes down someone's back, start to develop a weird sense of ESP with people's orders.<br /><br />She wants a pint of Fosters, a glass of Rose, two apple sours, a Summer Fruits Kopparberg, a pitcher of Vodka Red Bull and a double Jack and Coke/Archers and Lemonade/Malibu and Diet Coke....<br /><br />Either that she's just weird, plain weird, and she wants Bells and Ginger or Malibu and Milk or Absolut Appletise or one shot Bells, one shot Amaretto and one shot Smirnoff in a glass with two ice cubes, half a slice of lime and a dash of soda.<br /><br />It wears on, you're shattered. There's time for a sandwich, sat by the food lift, flicking cherry tomatoes into the bar, into the ice dumps; time for a fag on the roof, resting your head against the railings, counting to 100, screaming.<br /><br />You close early, bouncers roaming up and down "Les-be-aving-ya ladies and gents <span style="font-style: italic;">please!</span>" and people whinge, as always, the same way they whinge at quarter to 1 in the morning when they should've been gone half an hour ago and they think you're stupid enough not to notice that they light a new cigarette everytime you come outside to yell at them.<br /><br />"Ah just let me finish this darling.. I ain't getting kicked out in the middle of my fag.. you want me to leave you oughta give me another fucking fag innit.."<br /><br />Hold the door open for the last one. Shout FUCK OFF as you lock it behind them.<br /><br />Hours pass. You scrub the tables, sweep the garden, take the furniture back out, clean the ashtrays, wash and shelf every glass in the place, recycle every bottle, wipe the bar, the taps, take down the Pepsi hoses, soak the nozzles in soda, empty the drip trays, count the wastage, buff the fridges, wank the wines, decant the spirits mop and sweep and scrub and empty and -<br /><br />at half 2 in the morning realise that a rotary club is coming in tomorrow for a Sunday lunch and you need a table set up for 50 people so<br /><br />at half 4 in the morning sit down in the garden with a pint and a fag and the three out of six of you that made it to the bitter end shoot the shit for a while until<br /><br />half 5, get the bones from the rack of ribs you ate and hide them in the fridge for the morning shift manager then<br /><br />climb the stairs into the flat, two of you, hear boss setting the alarms and curl up on the sofa beds under the jacket and blanket you found.<br /><br />Half an hour later you hear the morning manager taking off the alarms, hear the beer delivery coming in.<br /><br />Half an hour later you realise your colleague is a snorer.<br /><br />Four hours later, get up and pull back on the blouse, the trousers, the hideously painful shoes, put on some make up, sort out your hair, eat the shakiest bacon sandwich you've ever had and by 5 to 11, get back behind the bar and pull the first pint of the day.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Play<br /><br /></span>Saturday you get a call early in the day, will you come out tonight? You settle on 9 but dinner with your parents distracts you so it's more like half past. Buy a bottle of wine and some tobacco on the way, listen to Kanye West up the street and allow yourself a little dance under a streetlight. Night off, yeah.<br /><br />Arrive at the house and discuss Mutual Friend's Hair. She's devastated, says she's never had it this short, she went there with a picture and everything, pixie cut, she said, she thought a pixie cut would look good. Friend has messed with the cut, snipping at it and bigging it with mousse until it actually looks lovely, just a million miles away from what she wanted.<br /><br />She takes her bottle of wine home untouched. It's not her fault, says the Friend, if you don't have much confidence something like that can really kick you. You say, she should've come out, just said fuck it and had a laugh and reminded herself that she's a really fun person to be around.<br /><br />You say, look at me, I'm over 12 grand in debt from a course I've never finished, I work like a dog for shit all money in a pub full of wankers, I'm starting uni in two weeks and I have no house, no job, no loan, no nothing, my parents are mad at me, my boyfriends mad at me, I've put back on all the weight I lost at Easter and my hair hasn't been cut in a <span style="font-style: italic;">year</span>. Am I gonna let it ruin my night? Fuck am I.<br /><br />Friend smiles. Cock it, shall we just get some pills?<br /><br />*****<br /><br />In the car, towards Hawley, on the phone all the time "Left where? That field? Where... if you can't see us then we're lost."<br /><br />Headlights slicing the darkness, a man appears, flinches, so you shut them off and don't see him til he appears by your window. Gonna let me in then?<br /><br />He's got some but not enough. He can get more though, five minute drive, same price, £2.50, no problem. How many?<br /><br />Well, he chuckles through his drink, his cigarette hanging out the window, he's picking up about 200 so - how many?<br /><br />By the time it happens, there's four of you in the car and this man in the doorway, with a medallion. It's the medallion that does it for you, you've never been part of this scene, this meeting up in car parks and corners, it's always been friends and house parties and sharing alike and this man (he takes a swig of your wine and grimaces, 'you wanna get straight off that shit, darling') is not someone you'd want to be seen with.<br /><br />Even so. It happens. You stare firmly out the window, as if you've no idea what's in his pockets, you hold open a plastic baggy and look up at the ceiling as if he's handing you a packed lunch but your eyes flicker down as he counts them out and he grins, all Cheshire Cat in the dark. "You girls can have one extra for your petrol money, yeah?"<br /><br />****<br /><br />At half eleven you drop, washing it down with red wine. It tastes more horrible than you remember and you sit in the car, reliving licking it off in the inside of a baccy tin at Easter, off the inside of your hand on a floral carpet in Surrey, choking one down dry at Reading. This one goes down easy, too easy.<br /><br />Midnight is crunchtime. If they haven't sent you up in that half an hour then you know you'll lose your nerve. You're there finally, the club, after a nervy drive to arrive before the chemicals start working. Car safely parked, you sip some water, leave the wine for your mates who haven't dropped, head inside.<br /><br />Half twelve and something is happening. Your cheeks are hot and swelling like a chipmunks, you could store food in there, or hot air, you push your hands slow and hard back into your face so that no one can see. You're on a rollercoaster, you're sick, you just feel bad, bad, bad and you think of Mutual Friend and her haircut and how bad feeling bad can be for you.<br /><br />Black, red, yellow, smoke, green, lasers, beats, Faithless, friends, your whole world goes two degrees left, right, forward til you have to shake your head.<br /><br />Twenty five to one you start dancing, working against it, you will not feel bad you will not feel bad, you will not. You pretend the drug isn't real, that it's a placebo and it's only you that can make it happen and you dance and you fake happy so hard and then suddenly-<br /><br />Like a geyser, like a volcano happened beneath you and you were shot up skywards, like a net scooped you up and swung you, like taking off, like hitting the top of the ride, like standing on top of the mountain.<br /><br />Oh. God.<br /><br />Everyone is incredible. Everyone is amazingly beautiful and the feel of other people, their touch has never been so good. This vodka and coke is the darkest, sweetest, strongest thing, this roll up is the sharpest heat you've ever inhaled. You could stand or sit or run or dance anywhere for however long with anyone because you are absolutely invincible, you are strong and beautiful and happy and you feel in every inch of your body that you are having sex with the entire world and you love it and it loves you.<br /><br />A couple more drinks, a couple more drops and you've made gold, defeated alchemy, found the magic combination to the meaning of life.<br /><br />You stay on top of that mountain for 15 hours. You sleep on a dew covered lawn. You talk to strangers. You tell a taxi driver that you love him. You slump on a sofa, smoke a joint, spend minutes or hourse with a boy and a girl, running your fingers along the inside of her wrist, stroking his cheekbones while someone plays with your hair.<br /><br />You sleep, briefly, then walk out across the town in blazing sunshine, sweating in your leather jacket, reach your boyfriend's house, give him a kiss and fall asleep while he watches the Grand Prix.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br />He doesn't want to know about the drugs; you don't want to know about the football. When he drives you home, the car jerks around a corner while the music is playing and you dig your heels in and struggle but gravity takes you back down the mountain and you hit the floor.<br /><br />And go get ready for work.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-60128609043283827942007-08-31T02:37:00.000+00:002007-08-31T03:25:51.922+00:00the teaches of jesus-manLesson 1. To write, even when you don't feel like writing.<br /><br />Lesson 2. To work, even when you don't feel like working.<br /><br /> Lesson 3. To run, when walking seems difficult.<br /><br />Lesson 4. To fail, when success seems frightening.<br /> <br /> Five, to pour three pints with two hands.<br /> Six, to eat and smoke at the same time seven, to fall in love (and<span style="font-style: italic;"> hard</span>).<br /><br />Lesson 8. To allow, when something knocks, to answer.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />I call him the Jesus-man. They, the regulars, all end up with names of some description (Julie, Pete, Steve, Graeme...The Doctor, Stinky McSpectacles, the Guitar-man, the Good-luck-man), if only because referring to them by their drinking habits seems somehow impersonal.<br /><br />The Jesus-man could, for example, be called Fosters on Curry night about half-7, usually with two friends (Fosters), likes to sit on table 26, you know, the nice one. He deserves a special mention beyond his statistics, but to get a nickname you have to really stand-out.<br /><br />The Good-luck-man was the Good-luck-man before I came to work in Camberley. He was a regular at Help the Aged in Egham -along with Flower-lady, who waters the plants on a Tuesday- but it wasn't his face I remembered, it was his incredibly individual habit of grabbing one's hand and reciting (repeatedly) <span style="font-style: italic;">I wish you good luck for this year next year and all the years to follow I wish you good luck for this next year I wish<br /><br /></span>Jesus-man was like that. We'd met before, you see, one time, but it wasn't his face that rang the bell. It wasn't even <a href="http://sickbutimpretty.blogspot.com/2006/04/divorce.html#comments">the dog-collar</a>. It was him on his phone, mentioning a funeral.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Sitting outside the church, leaning against a pillar, writing. The vicar was on his way out and -it seemed like a good idea at the time- I </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> stopped him and asked if he had time for a question. He was on his way to a funeral. I said, then, in 30 seconds could he give me a reason to believe in God again?</span><br /><br />It was the stupidest of stupid things, my penchant for the dramatic getting out of hand. But he answered. The fact that the very next day was D-Day, the losing-my-faith day, didn't matter. It stuck with me. I thought about it. Still think about it.<br /><br />That whole love concept.<br /><br />See, people tend to drift in and out of your life. These people now, the pub-dwellers, I spend more time with them than with my own family some weeks. I chat to them more regularly than half my friends. I know which of them are having operations, what they used to do before they hit the bottle, what they still do in between times. They want to know about uni, how's my boyfriend, have I been to the doctor about my toe yet?<br /><br />Nobody really makes much difference to anyone.<br /><br />But then Jesus-man comes in, answers his phone at the bar, I hear him say that word funeral and <span style="font-style: italic;">click click click,</span> I know why he's familiar. I know that he knows that I'm the kind of girl who sits outside churches smoking and pondering, in my own special way, the questions of the universe. Before I really think it through, he's off the phone and I'm telling him that I know him and he remembers.<br /><br />"Yeah... you asked me why you should believe in God... I was going to a funeral."<br /><br />"Yeah!... Yeah."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I'm mortified, no one who comes in the pub to drink should know about that side of me. You have to keep people away from you, the other side of the bar, the other side of a thick wall of make up and a black shirt. Otherwise you forget who you are. And yet.</span><br /><br />I want to sit and talk to him. I want to collar him again and ask him questions, get that little bit closer to the faith I used to have. He has that vibe, you know, that peaceful vibe. Talking to him makes me feel like I'm in church - that love, or God, or whatever it is, shines out of him in the most amazing way.<br /><br />It makes me feel tired and small, like an orphan meeting their parents' friend and feeling that perhaps the burden could be passed to them, that they might take over and look after and fill that gap. The 'good, the grown ups are here' feeling.<br /><br />Because I miss it. I miss that. I want to talk to this man because he's suddenly the only person in this pub, in this town perhaps, who would really understand what I mean when I say that I miss God and how it felt... That peace he has - I miss it because I never quite had it, but sometimes I felt I came close.<br /><br />*****<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">i wish you good luck for this year and next year and all the years</span><br /><br />*****<br /><br />Lesson 1. To sit down at 4am, after work, and blog when you don't feel like blogging.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span> Lesson 2. To <span style="font-style: italic;">work at it</span>, even when you can't stand what you produce.<br /><br />Lesson 3. To jump in, <span style="font-style: italic;">head</span>first.<br /><br /> Lesson 4. To fail, but not set out to fail.<br /><br />Five, to learn interesting facts and drinking habits of customers to encourage familiarity.<br />Six, to talk and pray at the same time, seven, to act like a lovestruck teen with the vicar.<br /><br /> Lesson 8. To look through the peephole, squint, whisper <span style="font-style: italic;">who's there?</span>Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9383684.post-69357189788935919962007-08-28T21:28:00.001+00:002007-08-28T23:17:41.558+00:00i didn't want to go back there, to its gently welcoming glow of a doorThree times.<br /><br />Once a week ago, once two days ago and once today. Three times I've sat down with the spangly new broadband we just got installed in our house and tried to blog. Three epic, rambling, confusing, over-detailed, vain, pointless posts that I didn't finish. Honestly, no one cares how many boys I've kissed or times I've been pissed since last we spoke. I've become harder this summer, impatient with myself. I don't want to read my own bullshit.<br /><br />Looking through Facebook... pictures of friends. Sailing, acting, making puppets, going to festivals, travelling, playing in bands, doing charity work, church work, painting, dj-ing, graffiti design, starting careers.<br /><br />Whichever way you look at it, I've spent the last four months since leaving Egham working like a dog behind the bar and getting pissed. Yeah, there's been other stuff. The end of one relationship, the beginning of a new one, getting to know my parents again, making new friends, losing an entire stone through being too stressed to eat and then putting it back on again when I chilled out a bit.<br /><br />But mainly, yeah. Work/Drink.<br /><br />Oh/God.<br /><br />When did that become me? Some smarty-knickers left a comment on this blog once, I can't remember what I'd written, it just said 'who are you, Fi?'. I seem to remember I wrote something snippy back. Anonymous comments are the height of cowardice - if you can't say it with your name attached you shouldn't say it - and I didn't like the implied disapproval.<br /><br />Would that they would ask me again. A few months later, the dizzy thoughts of moving back home to find myself have somewhat disappeared. I think I've learnt a lot, etc. I feel more adult, etc. I feel like I'm fading away, etc.<br /><br />Because I'd like to say I have a lot more interests than I do. These things you do that tether you to the world around you. Ice hockey or your love of whittling; your encyclopaedic knowledge of electro music or your complete works of Plato. Gone. You become transparent.<br />You don't <span style="font-style: italic;">know</span> anything.<br /><br />The only thing I've ever been good at is this. Writing. I don't do it anymore. This is the first thing, other than a couple of drunken poems (about a boy who smelt of Armani; about a club I went to) that I've written in weeks and it's taken me four goes.<br /><br />This is... depressing.<br /><br />Some of the stuff in the archives of this blog feels like it was written by someone else. I can't believe I used to be able to take the way I was feeling and actually explain it. Now, I can't even feel it. It's sickening to think I was miserable for years because I could feel things so keenly and now, now I feel nothing at all and I realise the only thing that kept me alive through that time was doing this, writing, and now-<br /><br />Sometimes I even wish that I could go back. I think, perhaps it was worth it to be able to capture it. Then I realise what I'm saying, how utterly wanky it is to even suggest that a knack, a way with words is worth the incredible darkness of that cloud.<br /><br />No. Nope. Nope. No.<br /><br />This is... the problem is that I've been writing this for an hour, trying to break the block, to get it moving, to employ every constipation-related analogy I can in order to relieve the backed up emotional blockage. I can't.<br /><br />Because I don't want to admit that I'm unhappy again. And I can't even remember how it happened, when it started. But I don't want to do anything, everything seems like I'm watching it through glass again and every time I smile I'm faking it and all of these cliches. These black cloud, don't wanna get out of bed in the mornings, feel like I'm missing out cliche.<br /><br />This dirty great cave I used to live in, with the big bed in the corner for me to sleep all day. The piano that only plays the minor key. There, over there is my teddy bear and there's the little black blag that no one ever, ever gets to look inside.<br /><br />And there's me in the doorway, looking slightly stunned.<br /><br />I'm going to uni in September. To Brighton, a new life, new course, new city, new everything. And now, after four months of relative simplicity, working and dating and enjoying life - NOW - the bad place finds me.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />At least I've managed to write something.Fihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09430107731483726357noreply@blogger.com1