a drab lie, sir

oh.

2011-07-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

but what am i saying. i yearned for this, ached for normaliy, to have someone next to me as often as possible which, let's face it, is now my truth. achingly normal, but when alone all i can think of is that comfortable moment when i settle into the shape of his arms and we talk about nothing, or don't talk at all. i ached for this, and now having it i ache for it even more. i may have lost one part of me but it's a part that i could afford to lose. the lonely part. now my lapses into my former self are bright, searing moments of pain. you can't share displeasure, it only tears you apart. so happiness, i suppose i'm saying, is now something i understand, and enjoy, and am terrifed of losing.
i have so many half formed thoughts that i never have time to air, but perhaps that's no bad thing.

over at mary's place

2011-07-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

i wasted so, so much time.
to think that it, the two of us, could be something by now, a something that would be walking and terrifying in equal measures, and yet.
but that wasn't wasted time. now the future is a painful yet obvious point, every day. to think that so much time was wasted. but without it, the present wouldn't be.
i'm torn between joy and melancholy. my self was lost, confused; now, found, is it my self?
the sky curves away in a purple dusk over windows of light and roof-shaped shadows. i wach the candles burn and think about identity.

Suited and booted

2011-05-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

I'm trying so, so hard not to get my hopes up.

For the first time in years my life is hinging on a what if...

... but it's best to just carry on, even if that slight spring in my step is maybe a little too noticeable. Just in case my hopes are dashed.

And of course, a question - what is this? I feel such tenderness towards the words on these pages, which capture in fleeting glimpses the life before this one, but I'm increasingly aware that this life requires no questioning, no dramatising, no lingering. I feel simultaneously as though I'm standing still and running forward. Have I lost something or gained everything, or both? Do I continue and develop, or draw a line and move on?

For now, I guess I just wait and see if this potential turning point comes to fruition.

cleanse song

2011-05-04T05:17:00.000-07:00

a voice carried on the chill air, its source a shirted Irishman
who paced the pavement and sang,
his words echoing from the buildings ahead and behind -

a hymn, a simple chorus,
whilst our fellow travellers shrank away
and averted their eyes -

i leaned my head on the cool plastic of the shelter
and remembered the country almost united
under a sky of flags -

and in the lanes where once we ran,
for just a moment the wonder
touched the ground.

revolutions

2010-12-31T01:52:00.000-08:00

time to resolve
to vow to remember to not forget to attempt
to act

a numbered list or a back-of-the-mind insistence
which will curl and fade

but for me

just words
and songs
and captured memories
and the building bricks of some future

happy illusion of novelty!

i'm wide awake, it's morning

2010-03-17T10:49:00.001-07:00

i felt a pull from within that raised my morning eyes
to the pavement, the people, the shop fronts, the sky
to the easy movement of the world

and for a moment longed to whisper

all this is to come

but with only my emptiness
travelled on

from an attic window

2010-03-14T04:45:00.000-07:00

time has once again proven that it's a master of the disappearing act.
in over a year,
nothing -
and yet so, so much.

to be continued...

sick note

2009-02-17T12:39:00.000-08:00

my main problem with being sick is my emotional reaction. i turn into a blubbering wreck the minute i start getting the aches. it's not suprising that i've got some form of chest infection (although being able to breathe properly again sometime soon would be a bonus), but i'm looking forward to presenting the doctor with my little list of silent migraines (or whatever the hell the trippy swirly visions i've been having are) and lack of feeling in my fingers, which has been going on for a good few weeks now. meanwhile, i'm just going to sit here, feel sorry for myself, worry about work and cry.

okay, so i'll probably watch some buffy as well. it's not all bad.

bought myself a heartbreak of cigarettes

2009-02-12T23:26:00.000-08:00

even water stung the creases of my face

ache of wine
although longed for
is quite unwelcome
(it's a drowning drink)

i dreamt of dirt and boredom

willed the faces away

it's merely a common or garden malaise

let it breathe

2009-02-12T00:10:00.000-08:00

thinking
that i don't feel like myself
and i can't put my finger on it
thinking
thats it's almost like anger
but dry and detached, and not specific
thinking
that this quiet morning feels familiar
in an old-time way
thinking
that if i think too much i'll fracture this
cosy little world i've slipped into

on the sunny side of life

2009-02-07T03:47:00.000-08:00

it's a light-bathed corner overlooking a sky that breathes easy after a week of choking clouds
in a city that breathed easy for one lost day
it's a certain smell that takes me right back to the evening when i returned, walking, to a new home, where already (and true to form) an ironing board stood waiting
in a town that i wished violently to make mine
it's night after night wrapped close and warm in a fort of pillows
in a quiet certainty that i'd convinced myself i'd never find

i was thinking only this morning that sleeping next to someone is just about the sweetest gift
but my words come only haltingly and fall flat

it's an easiness with living that's taken so many years to find

when the pawn...

2009-01-25T03:03:00.000-08:00

the movements to me seemed unnatural, accustomed as i am to jumping and only ever in one direction-
the sheer scope was for a while overwhelming;
that something can so quickly go so far.
there was something pleasing, though, in the ritual of it,
the naming and the dance,
and i can see how people while away hours just staring at the possibilities.

i've never missed someone quite so keenly,
or felt so utterly pointless when alone.

for a while last night i tried to be sociable,
seeing that i've been failing quite miserably of late
to put up with more than an hour or two in group company;
strange to sidle in to an unknown collective, their own habits and histories
winding around them almost visibly with the smoke
and not knowing what will please
or at least connect.
i excused myself from the party before they left, all scarved up,
the balloons that had been passed round now scattered on the floor.
nitrous oxide makes me feel seventeen again,
although it always seemed too frivolous a pastime
when i was actually in my teens
(they call it the hippie heroin, and i was vehemently
not a hippie, despite all the prog rock and the flares
and the weed. for the first few days of university,
when we were all acclimatising to the new walls,
the new faces,
i was alive with the possibility of finally
Making a Statement.
i hung around with two goths for two days,
but even by the end of the first,
when i found myself sitting on the floor and listening to talk of tarot cards
and how rock and hip hop should really be tried together!,
i was disgusted by pigeon holes).

i've been living in my new flat for three weeks now,
its boards and floors growing more familiar each day. on my windowsill,
tulips leap from a glass and seem to curve like smiles.

the great indoors

2008-11-22T16:05:00.000-08:00

it was already beginning to grow dark when i left the house, although it was barely afternoon. the glorious sunshine had given way to a sort of dull but content grey, and with numb fingers and a shiver that seemed neverending i hurried along old street, my hood pulled firmly around my face, to my first official flat viewing.

and all the while remembering. last night was a delight, watching so many of my friends gathered in the glow from my hastily assembled fairy lights and candles, soon-to-be-regretted smoke curling from their fingers... drinks were mixed and downed, food was thrown into the oven, forgotten about, and then eaten wincingly as the too-hot pastry steamed fresh. if i could gather everyone together, all these people in my life, the friends, colleagues, friend/colleagues, acquaintances, barely-knowns... i'd just never stop smiling. it's something i'm learning and loving more and more, day-to-day, this complete and utter love for everyone who's special to me. and it grows and grows, can only grow, as the tiny intricacies, the tiny annoyances, the tiny endearments make themselves gradually known. the quirks and weaknesses. it's why i don't 'do' relationships, i think. because how can you choose one person when there could be someone just as special round the corner?

and this is, and will be, my downfall. as ever. my first viewing went like a dream. i only met the girl who's moving out of the flat (and within minutes we were giggling and i was promising to get hold of some shrooms for her to try before she returns to the states), but left with the promise of meeting the actual flatmates within the next couple of days. and then, most fantastically of all, i simply walked around the corner to clerkenwell road before heading back to hackney. the sheer thrill of living so centrally would, i think, keep me going for a good long while in the smiles stakes.

so there's one more person to add to the list of fun! interesting! i walked slowly back to hackney, killing time and sipping a bubble tea - possibly the oddest drink ever - and fully preparing myself to dismiss the next flat (having been told, a couple of times, that the room there would only be very small). i think in my head, having been going by the picture on the internet (and incidentally, thank god for that aspect of technology), i was expecting something very modern, very clean, very antiseptic. i couldn't have been more wrong. the room is small, yes - a bed, a set of drawers and bugger all room for anything else - but the flat! oh, the flat! high ceilings, the craziest selection of furniture you've ever seen, a floating staircase... it was like a warehouse conversion, only not in a warehouse. two girls live there, both of whom work in music (and yes, the opportunity to noodle with them and their music biz friends is part of the appeal), and we had a great chat before the probably-insane landlady popped round to get her post and tell me, with a shrug, that i could move in whenever i like, and that her and her partner could help me, since they have a camper van and all. and finally, whilst it's not clerkenwell, it is hackney - and i do fucking love hackney.

now, of course, the practical part of my brain is yelling at me not to rush into anything. i've half-heartedly made another couple of calls to people offering rooms in brick lane for, shrug, affordable sums of money. but i just can't shake the feeling that i've found exactly what i was looking for. my gut instinct when i replied to this girl's ad was right. and it's only a bed to sleep in, at the end of the day.

oh, the decisions...

life is repeatedly smoothing over cracks

2008-11-18T17:52:00.000-08:00

fifteen nights straight i've been crawling back home in the early hours, which doesn't leave much time for philosophising, or much else for that matter, but as long as life keeps rushing past like this, one hour leaking into the next like so many rotten apples, as long as i can't stop to think, then everything will be okay because that's just how it works. the constant making-right of all the tiny mistakes we make from day to day.

some perfect moments though, even amidst the seeping time and gnawing worry of everything slowly slipping backwards, as everything is wont to do -

- a group of tourists gathering huge autumn-fallen leaves on the corner of kingsway
- falling asleep in (a few) someone's arms
- sitting below paper lamps in a soho vegan cafe with neon lights and people blinking in and out of view beyond the glass and la vie boheme repeating over and over in my mind
- dancing on the ninth floor in my best friend's apartment whilst fireworks explode in the distance, with only the whisper of an echo of a bang
- steam from my cup of tea reflecting orange from the strip lights that line the royal festival hall
- eating in an empty thai restaurant with only the crazy lady proprieter for company, and tasting coconut for hours afterwards
- my friend's baby's eyes as she turns and looks into mine, and her smile that is a mirror of both her parents, and her tiny hand clasping my finger, and twice in a week!

it's never good to focus on the negative. my mind is skittery, so apologies for this all-over-the-place writing.

tomorrow (today... yet again, it's 2 in the morning) is my first day At Home for... a long time. i tend to panic when i haven't filled my days with people, but tomorrow, until my friend comes for dinner in the evening, i think i'll enjoy keeping myself to myself.

there's a new playlist up, by the way...

they won't let you smoke and you can't get drunk

2008-11-07T11:03:00.000-08:00

feeling a wreck? aren't we all. winter hit hard and fast this week, and it's been a regular cavalcade of joy. i'm feeling all gritty with a cold, my housemate has put down a deposit on a flat with her boyfriend leaving me to find somewhere else to live, and last night i didn't sleep at all thanks to the rather nasty fight that broke out on our street. after a morning spent giving statements to the police (i'm such a curtain-twitcher) and enduring all the unpleasant close-to-home type memories that have followed the incident, i'm left wanting nothing more than to get blind drunk, which is essentially what i've done every other night this week so far. why spoil the pattern?

and so it's a cheery return to the blog...

i hate this part right here

2008-10-08T10:22:00.000-07:00

very very quickly i'll write this since i have to go back to work
i have no internet at the moment
by which i mean my housemate does, but she is often asleep or otherwise engaged in her room so that i can't use it
and i've had no spare time for going to the library
this weekened i may have some time for going to the library
but in the meantime, as an update, because i have these couple of minutes at the end of my lunch break:
i'm tired from working
i'm miserable but not from working
i'm bored mainly from working
and i have been tearful for too many weeks now, working or no
how jolly depressing
i'm not actually depressed though
that is all

spoonfuls

2008-09-12T14:34:00.000-07:00

i've always had something of a mary poppins-style approach to cleaning. and life, actually, when i come to think of it. sugar, music and brief flurries of intense work followed by lots of mooching around to music, eyeing up mirrors and getting a little bit dirty with inappropriate men.

i've spent nearly fourteen hours at work today, and still it's not as tidy as i want it to be, but i do have the pleasant sensation of having held out my hands and watched the lettered blocks fly neatly into place between them.

ah, order. quickly followed by beer. time for home!

now i only see the garden when they read the weather

2008-09-11T00:51:00.000-07:00

i once bought a handbag for £1.50 from a cheap shoe shop in reading. i often bought cheap shoes from there, some with high heels, but that's another story. this handbag was kooky. it was green, with a cream-coloured faux-wool lining, and i thought it looked a little like a sickly sheep, and plus it was only £1.50, so i bought it.

i stuck badges on the front, because i was in college now and could, and for extra kookiness i added my blue peter badge, which i'd won when i was 10 for a poem that me and my friend natasha sent in. it was about witches, and it rhymed, and was funny. it took us about 2 hours to type it up on the computer at natasha's house, because we didn't really know how to use computers, because we were only 10, and we were too early for the ipod generation.

anyway. this handbag was very small, which pleased me because i could only fit a couple of books into it and this forced me to travel light, which is one of my great aims in life (nowadays i fail on a daily basis thanks to the wonders and endless possibilities of the canvas bag that we all now carry in the event of doing shopping, or picking up a paper on the way home). i was very fond of the bag, and its array of badges (one of them read 'betty ford clinic' which, as a trainee alcoholic, i found endlessly amusing. it came off kerrang! magazine, i think).

then one day my blue peter badge disappeared. into thin air. it was a scandal - someone must have stolen it! i thought that it had most probably just dropped off, maybe knocked by someone else's bag (and besides the pin was slightly worn after six or so years of use) but my friends were adamant that my badge must have been the victim of a cruel crime, targeted for its evident value, and was likely now sitting proudly in the drawer of some boy or girl who, too cool to write to blue peter aged 10, had always longed for a badge of their very own. this, of course, didn't really narrow down the list of suspects, so after a day of speculation my little badge was forgotten.

a week later i started using a different bag, and decided i was too grown up for badges.

i remembered this yesterday, and i also remembered another poem that i wrote for blue peter (i don't recall actually watching the show, but there was something thrilling about writing to proper television people). it was about the new year. it went like this:

welcome new year
welcome here
welcome to this place
out in space

i think it was a very good poem.

stair porn

2008-09-02T04:07:00.000-07:00

no, really

and they always have messy handbags!

2008-09-01T01:51:00.000-07:00

i forgot to mention...

i spent a good part of my saturday (before going to a friend's to watch spaced and drink beer - and yes, that's a valid social activity) reading a horrible, horrible chick lit novel called be careful what you wish for which, naturally, i loved. the premise, loosely, is that the protagonist (heather) is in a bit of a mess until a gypsy woman gives her some lucky, you guessed it, heather, and suddenly all her wishes seem to come true. of course, she realises by the end of the novel that a perfect life is actually quite an unhappy one, that things aren't meant to just go to plan (oh, joyous chaos!) and that, yes, she's in love with her best mate. la la la.

anyway, i had lots of fun immersing myself in the awful girliness of the thing and as usual (when reading chick lit, which i promise isn't too often) started internally narrating my life as if i were the main character in a cheesy book. and guess what? it paid off! queuing in tesco to feed my slightly worrying mozarella-and-wine habit (how delightfully bridget jones!), the guy i'd just been making eyes at in the dairy aisle came up to me to ask for my number!

now obviously, this happens fairly often in london. it's hard to walk down the street in my locale without some guy half-heartedly following you asking for a date or being slightly less delicate and just going straight for the dirty talk (headphones, thankfully, render any inappropriate requests completely inaudible - thank you, mobile music technology). but still - it was a warm, damp sunday evening just off brick lane, which lent itself perfectly to the little chick lit bubble i was walking around in, so i'm going to ignore reality (he'll inevitably be desperate, an idiot, a teenager or - gag - a student, and therefore all three) for a while longer and remember the whole thing with a smile.

i might, however, lay off the girly fiction for a while. some nice gritty crime should sort me right out.

achoo

2008-09-01T01:44:00.000-07:00

having been hungover now for three days in a row, i'm hiding from the sunshine for just a little bit longer before i venture out. i'm thinking, maybe i should give blood this morning? think they'll mind the high alcohol levels?

myself and a friend spent our sunday chasing clues round the city as part of a launch event for slinkachu's new book, little people in the city, which documents a series of his installations. you'll see his tiny figurines dotted around the streets and parks of london, if you keep your eyes peeled.

i am so in love with being on holiday.

whatever happened to nico blue?

2008-09-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

somewhat choked up and disturbed in equal measures by this:

i always hoped this wouldn't happen. fingers crossed we don't see frances bean belting out teen spirit at any point in the future...

walks like a pharaoh, dresses in day-glo

2008-08-29T08:33:00.001-07:00

oh god oh god

all i heard was 'you've seen the flat'

and given the conversation i thought we were having i assumed the worst

and prepared myself for the downward glance, the modest smile, the evasive answers -

because if i'd ever kept one secret i wanted it to be this one

because there would be no need for anyone to know

because i'm still not sure how i feel about even looking at him

but it turned out that we were talking about something, someone, completely different

i caught the n38 and smiled all the way home

they're gonna throw it back to you

2008-08-29T01:47:00.000-07:00

into the shop the other day walked a man who has based his entire life around the now! that's what i call music series. he was born the year the series was, in 1983, and has every single record on vinyl or cd. his opening line, when he approached the counter, was 'oh, i do love my pop music!'. whatever birthdate and year combination we threw at him, he could tell us the day of the week and the number one single on that day.

once i'd overcome my awe, i came home and dug out the few now! cds in my own collection. did you know that the bestselling to date is number 44? my littlesister owns that one. sob. but regardless, the last couple of days have been very, very nineties for me.

i think mainly it was nice to have some sort of justification for my own current obsession with the latest now! cds. such teenage joy! so many exclamation marks! and i've discovered that i can now, after over a decade, finally bear listening to oasis, although this might have more to do with my love for the ryan adams cover of wonderwall than the assault of time on my usual good taste...

your soul's a bowl of jokes

2008-08-27T01:02:00.000-07:00

at one in the morning, with the drone of a police helicopter echoing through my open window and a ladybird rattling against my lampshade, i was still wide awake, staring blankly at the purple mountain range of my duvet against the white wall

instead of sleeping, i read a book

ate some toast

drank a beer

and finally drifted away for an hour or so before waking to a cold, wintry morning

not quite rimy, but certainly cooler than august should be

i found a message this morning on myspace

(not quite as smile-inducing as one a couple of weeks ago, which said simply, 'you look like you appreciate nice lingerie - how about we go shopping for some then you can come back to mine to try it on?')

and i quote - 'hey babe u look like my tipe'

but my type, sadly for him, is definitely dark

with kind, sparkling eyes

something i realised through the wine of saturday evening

(because of the wine?)

i'm starting to consider going to church to try it out

i don't think i can believe, but i think i might like the company of it...

o my soul o my soul

2008-08-26T06:10:00.000-07:00

on the lawn in the sunshine, mid photos, she joined us as we waited our turn, and for a minute we just clutched hands tightly. it was only me needing the reassurance. the day was so perfect, she was so calm and so beautiful and just plain ready for this, whilst all day i was holding back panicked tears. as if something had been severed, finally. my fellow wanderer, as separate as we've been for so many years now, has sealed her future, and i feel as if i'm still standing in that bright sunlight with a blur of white and tartan flashing around me, the day passing too quickly until they disappear, taillights in the night, and me crying into the shadows.

everything is flat and tired. all i want is something bright, something to hold on to, something to make smiling worthwhile again. i tried to describe all this to maleparent as he attempted to force some fruit into my system (even blueberries are boring! this is madness!). for years i was heavy with it, this feeling of nothingness, but it was a dark, storm-cloud nothingness that weighed and dragged and surrounded me. now, i feel as if i'm floating, with barely an emotion registering, and the tears that come are like tiny pinpricks of sad. like being rained on even as you hold your face into the sun, hoping for rainbows.

i love the chosen one, loving him is so much fun

2008-08-18T05:06:00.000-07:00

shortly after having been admonished by a bus driver for being too hasty with my oyster, and having apologised bemusedly, i was back in shoreditch and walking slowly towards the owl and the pussycat. you know when you watch dramas and sitcoms as a child, and everyone's dealing with "issues"? that's the feeling, right there. suddenly life seems to have switched up a gear. every time she mentioned the word 'wedding', i flinched.

leaving the pub with the latter day's wedding roses clutched in our hands, we walked through the rain and laughed as a teenager hung out of a car window to yell, before disappearing back inside, "you and me, yeah? i've got a condom on me!".

so - me, hanging out with christians. i still managed to deftly avoid saying anything incriminating, save maybe for my reply to "were you at gracechurch today?" - admitting to being at work on a sunday. a crime? i'm still not sure. the evening passed in a veritable symphony of contented smiles; sharing bread and cheese and cheap, sweet wine. and me simply welcomed without question.

i walked home in the hour of one, listening to the same chords over and over, through the church yard in the rain, and thinking, thinking... religion. does anyone else feel cheated? because i sat there watching the happiness, just as i'd sat listening to the ardour of the gospel choir earlier in the day, and just grew increasingly angry. wouldn't it be so much simpler to believe in something? to be denied through cynicism seems a little cruel. although i still don't understand how anyone remains uncynical, or how such blind faith can actually exist. it's precious, and completely out of reach.

cherry chopsticky

2008-08-16T06:35:00.000-07:00

new dress, yum yum

i shall party in it like a party thing

and from now on write all my numbers as follows

1ne

2wo

3hree

4our

5ive

6ix

7even

8ight

9ine

i am done

thinking is boring, my head is hurting

some red stripe should sort that out a treat

jamaican beer time!

although before i go, if i ever catch miss kate whatsit i shall headbutt her and see if she likes that

so wrong but so right, right, kate?

stupid stupid song

themetune

2008-08-15T02:07:00.001-07:00

i'm really not such a miserable bastard

(although the time i spend vehemently denying this probably speaks against me)

i really am ever so much a different person to the one i was even a year ago

which is what makes it doubly disappointing to find everything else unchanged

it's the 12-month blues, we conceded, and i was glad that she shared my opinion

and the same sense of lethargy

but somehow her admission of defeat

drove it all uncomfortably home

it's almost like we're holding our collective breath, waiting for something to happen

which, to be fair, it had better bloody do sometime soon

i believe i mentioned i'm bored

get out before they go down

2008-08-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

I had the wrong room, after all that.

I'd stood, proud of my lack of nerves (where such a simple situation would once have had me shaking and faltering), with my fist still clenched from knocking, and had bitten down my irritation when the woman who answered - more flustered than myself by a great distance! - explained that she and the other occupants of the room (a self-defense class for children, maybe?) would be another half an hour at least. Stood there thinking well, it happens, people make mistakes. And all along it was me who'd mistaken these double doors for the meeting room-cum-practise room, the door of which I should have been knocking on and which, if i'd only looked closer, was plainly on the other side of the (really very small) hallway, and moreover labelled 'Meeting Room'.

A series of further confusions later, I knocked again. On the correct door, this time. Of course, I didn't need to, given that the door was mostly made of glass and the man behind it had already acknowledged my presence, but I was determined to stick with the formalities with which I'd begun my afternoon: the telephone call, the numbers and keys exchanged and recorded, the sheaf of music tucked neatly, almost reverentially, inside a canvas bag. As if this were a movie montage, and I the bespectacled, wildly talented but generally underestimated musician whose touch on the keyboard would right all wrongs and inspire a kind of group singalong, with Hackney youths clambering up the walls and throwing open the windows, and people at the bus stops bursting into joyful dance.

As it was, I was very much lacking in spectacles, these having been amongst one of my latest batches of stolen possessions, not to mention the requisite talent, and after the man had departed, leaving the key and an empty coffee cup, I spent a good five minutes shuffling papers before I even approached the piano.

No dancing. No gospel choirs, no tasteful lighting or panning cameras. The lid rose too high, blocking the last few staves of music, and the lower Gb didn't work, making instead a tired, gasping thump as the hammer hit the space where the string should be. The people passing in the street below remained oblivious, and no faces crowded around the glass of the door, and yet after a few moments of awkward adjustment to the unaccustomed loudness of the thing, I was suddenly transported back to the cool dining room where, years ago, I would play for hours on end, drowning in the chords as they flowed from inside the polished casing. The keys themselves, which at first felt cumbersome, were once again wooden kisses which brought the hidden strings to life, seemingly without effort. I was still imperfect, still frustratingly amateur, but the joy of the whole hadn't disappeared completely into my years of abandonment.

Half a blissful hour, and then a bespectacled girl knocked at the door, demanding her own time with the creaking old box. Leaving the key, I tucked the canvas bag over my shoulder and walked quickly away before I heard her play, before the street choirs came running for the wrong person.

chuckle vision

2008-08-13T07:32:00.000-07:00

bored bored bored of everything and so angry at myself for just sitting here allowing this boredom to take hold - so apathetic that i can't even be bothered to try to feel well, so am instead sinking ever further back into this duvet and wishing for nightfall - so hot and disoriented from the fever that crept up on me over a week or so - as the sun slowly rose, i couldn't tell what was what from reality and dreams -

but i think finally it's receding and leaving me be, so i can concentrate more fully on the boredom once more

being in one place for longer than twelve already long months

- i'd forgotten -

but i can't be doing with this, the reminder of this going-nowhereness that defines me, and which i'm perfectly happy to live with as long as it's not for too long; as long as, at regular intervals, i can at least attempt the illusion of movement - everyone seems to be drawing further and further away, their sleeves catching on the exposed parts of other people's lives which lift them, speeding, into the distance, rings and mortages and children scattered in their wake - and i'm left breathlessly slowing and giving up as they disappear, with nothing moving in the vicinity to carry me away. like benny hill in his fez - 'wait for me!"

(what's most amusing to me is other people's optimism, for me. not that i'm pessimistic. i'm nothing. can barely be bothered any more to think about the who and the when, since yet more options have been recently exhausted, and i myself am - well, constantly exhausted. so there's that hopeful smile, that knowing nod or comment, and i'm smiling back and still not caring, knowing that neither does he, neither do they, and that... is fine. just fine)

a non-american tail

2008-08-10T07:29:00.000-07:00

there's the cutest little mouse running around our flat. it looked a few weeks ago as if we were going to be overrun - at one point i walked into the kitchen to find one in the toaster, and they were starting to get a little too cocky in general - but they've since disappeared. until now. it seems likely that one of our more hard-hearted neighbours (my housemate and i can't even kill a spider, and we both despise the things) took care of the matter, and it's been with just a tiny glimmer of guilt amidst a tide of relief that we've been enjoying not hearing the sound of tiny feet scurrying away upon our entrance into any room (let alone aforementioned toaster incident, or the constant, darting presence whilst eating, reading or sleeping).

this little one, though, is not only endearingly tiny, but being the sole survivor, has something of an air of the action-movie hero about him. and he's not shy, either - for the last two days he's been dancing around my feet and pretty much having run of the flat, coming out to play with very little hesitation the moment we remain stationery for more than a few minutes. so housemate has her illegitimate hamster; now i have a lone ranger baby mouse to amuse me.

but you've got dreams he'll never take away!

2008-08-09T05:05:00.001-07:00

a friend of mine recently discovered feminism, and this week over pizza and wine we entered into the now familiar conversation (one i seem to have increasingly with all my female friends) about how, as women, we will never, ever be taken seriously. and i don't just mean by men, although someof them are guilty as charged (and, moreover, happy to admit it); i actually consider myself inferior. now, yes, i do suffer from a somewhat less-than-mild inferiority complex, but regardless, when i think 'woman' i think 'weak' and 'emotionally unstable'.

i'd like to interject here, before everyone reading this starts hitting the 'comment' button (or sending me angry texts etc etc) that i don't truly believe this. obviously i know a lot of very capable, strong, intelligent, creative and wonderful women. women who know what they want, who practically lead their partners by the nose in order to get it, who balance work and families, other people's problems and their own with breathtaking calm and still come out smiling the other end. i know these women just as i know those who use their gender as an excuse to manipulate, who lie, cheat and steal or are, generally, just a bit annoying. and on the surface, this is no different to all the men i know, who can be just as incredible or just as weak and terrible. basically, yes - i know, we're all human.

the point i'm making is not that women are unequal, but that it is becoming more and more obvious to a lot of females of my generation that we are still seen that way, and the most shocking revelation of all is when we find ourselves thinking, unconsciously, that this is true. the aforementioned friend used to argue, when i'd return from university seminars all in a fluster about feminism and gender issues generally, that feminism itself is redundant in today's world; the fight has been won. i'm reluctant (because i'm fucking awful at debating) to properly enter into this argument, but it seems that some of those women around me who once shared this opinion are starting to realise that actually, maybe we've been too quick to hope that the fight is over.

a boyfriend of a friend of mine doesn't even try to hide his misogyny, having been brought up in a society that values the individual but doesn't encourage us the individual to value those around him or herself. and not that he's a horrible person - he just has very limited time for what women think, as central to his view of the world is the opinion that he, as a man, is somehow more valid.

at work, both in this company and previous ones, i've sat and watched as myself or other female colleagues are ignored or sidelined - again, not through any malicious intent, but purely because we're not taken seriously.

small, small issues, maybe, but i can't help but feel slightly despondent when i consider my own place in the world. i can't escape the fact that everything i do will be tarred with the 'female' brush, as if to excuse (or validate) it - other, perhaps, than acting, every profession i could care to consider inevitably labels you by gender. you're a female writer - hence not as serious or skilled as a man. you're a female engineer, or scientist, or other skilled worker - well done!

this is, of course, all fairly subjective, and i apologise for my lack of aplomb when it comes to arguing things through. it's just been on my mind. a lot.

murder on the dancefloor

2008-08-03T09:35:00.000-07:00

i felt my heart lift when i saw them hand in hand, even though he was the reason i was there, or part of it, standing pressed against strangers and turning every time someone walked downstairs. so i saw him, and their hands clasped as he led her back up and out of the basement, and i was pleased, even though it could have been my hand he was holding if...

it's been a real week of revelations.

and the winner is

2008-08-03T09:34:00.000-07:00

Me: "I'm sorry, you can't drink in here. I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
Homeless guy: "Well, you're cute, aren't you? Why don't you wrestle me out?"

now you're gone

2008-07-21T01:21:00.000-07:00

there's a chapter in 'quirkology' about luck. some people think they have it, others think they don't. the point is, of course, that 'luck', like everything else, just comes down to perspective and your personal outlook on life - someone born under the proverbial lucky star will generally be a more positive, easy-going type, who sees the brighter side and doesn't dwell on the bad stuff, whilst someone who considers themselves unlucky interprets everything that happens to them in a negative light.

i've always considered myself something of a jammy bastard when it comes to luck. i've won more than my share of competitions, gotten away with murder on the odd occasion when i've really pushed my luck to the limits (irresponsible behaviour being one of my fortes) and generally experienced enough coincidences to regale more than a few people at parties and the like.

sometimes, though, i feel my natural pessimist itching to come forward. quite honestly, if i by some miracle of chance manage to find out who stole all my possessions from the staff room of the shop yesterday, i may have to injure them quite severely. homeless, professional thief, teenage chancer, bitter pensioner - don't care. i will have their guts for garters and then i will strut up and down the southbank, wreathed in blood and crowing.

i mean seriously, i do sometimes think this city hates me. in the last few months i've now lost or been deprived of two handbags (and that last one was so purdy...), two passports, two purses, two credit cards, my mp3 player, my cd walkman, my shiny new sunglasses (sob!), my digital camera, a mobile phone, two sets of keys to my house, the keys to my work, a £50 oyster travelcard (and don't even get me started on tfl and how they fucked up my potential refund), several books, a few cds and around £60 in cash.

the worst thing this last time round is that they got my journal.

try as i might, though, i still can't see this as bad luck. the phrase 'divine retribution' is quite literally ricocheting off the insides of my head. whatever i've done, i keep paying with my personals, apparently.

tatil is turkish for holiday

2008-07-15T03:50:00.000-07:00

it's some kind of luxury out here where the breeze ripples in from the bosphorous and deep in the blue, doves dance like pinpricks of light. i lay back in the water until i could hear nothing but its stillness and my own breaths slowly passing in and out, watching the impossibly empty sky.
on the asian side of the city, here, it feels as if we're floating, with the shadows of the european mainland and the princess islands below us and only the clouds and seagulls for company.
for all the blue perfection, it is still a city teeming with life and breaking apart at the seams. a worn and rusting dolmus will rush you through the streets for just a few lira, and the boats come steaming into harbour, billowing black, to ferry the ramshackle crowds across the water for even less. pavements buckle and burst, and stray dogs and cats stare at you insolently from the shade of trees or rubbish bins.
every morning i pull aside the heavy red curtain with trepidation, looking for clouds and rain, but the sun is endless.

it's enough to drive you crazy... and you let it

2008-07-05T15:51:00.001-07:00

a call in the early hours of the morning, when i already couldn't sleep and the house had that strange, christmassy or holiday feel to it when the lights are on for much longer than they should be, was really the last thing i needed
and i knew he would, funnily enough
but playing hard to get has somehow morphed into being plain fucking annoying by dint of always being at work, or spending the little free time i have seeing someone else, because fitting everyone into those few hours per week is a hell of a task
so
'you're a constant disappointment'
followed by a very curt 'sorry i interrupted you' (doing what, sleeping for four precious hours before traipsing back into work again?) and then the hanging up
it stung then and it still stings now
ironically it's my deep-down knowledge that he simply won't understand my working all hours for a pittance (even if it is less of a pittance than most of my colleagues get for the same amount of effort) that makes me shy of even thinking of hoping that anything might actually happen
i've been at work for sixteen hours
and all i can think of is the cheese-yellow glow of the hall light and the moth that circled its reflection on the wall, only a half foot away from freedom
and that sinking feeling of having let something slip through my fingers
but really, what choice do i have?

bromance

2008-06-28T12:18:00.001-07:00

i knew maybe when he offered to keep me company and certainly when he asked me if he'd see me later

these magnets come and go

and we're drawn together briefly and inevitably when the timing is just so

i want a dude with the wickedest slam

2008-06-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

i am truly pathetic. practically fainting, dimly aware of the need for food, very much aware of the lack of it at home. and i may have to stop off at a friend's to steal some tobacco on the way back.
on a very big plus side, we've had saxon sound system outside the shop throughout the afternoon, and i had great fun shelving to the beat as it and the sunshine pulsed through the doors, with a scattering of leaves. it felt a little like being at uni again. i think i'll pop on some damian marley for the journey home.

yoghurt on concrete

2008-06-22T00:10:00.001-07:00

in work by 7.30 on a sunday,
and it reminds me of the mornings i spent walking half-asleep to work at the tower, with only the cleaners, security guards and seagulls for company before the tourists landed -
it seems strange that the river running outside is the same one that flowed past there, a mere hop skip and jump away from the southbank, really -
early mornings are so deliciously intimate, as if you've stumbled on the world sleeping; as you tip-toe past you hear its breathing, see the peace of its resting face, and despite everything, you know you're irrevocably in love with it, huge and terrifying but so beautiful when caught unawares.
i'm slowly sipping orange tea, trying to quell the nausea that inevitably washes over me at the start of the day, and trying even more desperately to focus on the screen.
sometimes i sleep so deeply that, when i wake, it feels as if i haven't breathed all night. i'm still gulping down air as if it could fill my lungs any further. almost dizzy with the cold, alien oxygen.

i don't mind you under my skin, i let the bad parts in

2008-06-21T14:21:00.000-07:00

i ignored a call - three calls - at nearly four in the morning, even though the voice on the other end of the phone would have made me smile, because i was simply too tired to talk, or even think about talking. and too tired to consider how i feel about anything. it's been one of those weeks.

there's a distant rumbling outside that could be thunder.

there's a distant uneasiness underlying everything that could be the full moon.

i no longer consider the world to be ending every time i'm feeling down, although tuesday was an exception to that, and i cried in the bathroom of the bar, hoping that no-one would notice when i walked back through with red eyes. no-one's listening to anyone else, we're all just talking to ourselves and hoping for some comfort. what i want is someone to listen, really listen, and not just hear what they want to hear.

i'm trying to string sentences together but getting nowhere.

the rumbling outside could be fireworks, or gunfire. now there are sirens. the darkness looks wrong, somehow, as if it's glowing.

i'm gathering myself for the days ahead, with no money in my purse, a cupboard full of lentils, miso soup and brandy, and a final cigarette rolled on the edge of the table downstairs, waiting to smoke-signal the end of this week of fractured conversations and sleepy eyes.

i'm not what you think i am, any of you. and i'm different for each of you. so where does that leave me?

ooh, the fancy type!

2008-06-19T06:54:00.000-07:00

fucks

2008-06-13T22:12:00.000-07:00

little too stoned n coked up

& getting up, well, not sleeping, very irresponsible

dialogue between written and typed word,

well,

i polish this, make it ready for consumption, even if it's limited

consumption at best

i want to explore language as a formative construct

as a map

because we navigate so much by words

i never, ever mention you

because i feel i don't need to

but

i'm so, so lucky

to have you there

and i feel i'm always taking, never giving

i could have stayed tonight but didn't

they all retired and i could've gone on all night

- too much coke! -

but didn't

and the difference is, i'm getting up in... well, now.

now.

fucks.

my favourite mug asks me to spot the maniac

2008-06-10T02:46:00.000-07:00

benefits to being sober:

ability to think ahead,

ability to react,

downside being mainly the ability to feel fear.

i was calm enough

- thinking -

this has happened before, and worse, on

fairly regular occasions.

but the adrenalin made me react made me shake (mostly i was embarrassed by the shaking) and lo! i still have my money!

i only stopped for the briefest of moments,

the desperation enough to make me consider helping

(i know it's foolish but you still want to do something,

even if you know it's pointless);

a speedy risk assessment sent me walking on, but quick as a whip a striking fist sent me tripping

and watching my bag -

quite collectedly, considering -

as it arced away from me into the street.

fucker! throwing it all around like i have anything worth grabbing.

which of course, i didn't,

my money having been placed with cunning foresight in my pocket

along with my phone.

there was a lot of wailing, after that,

and i slowly gathered my things,

feeling an uncharacteristic itch

to slap someone,

muttering only under my breath

you could have just fucking asked.

watch as the sun comes up endlessly

2008-06-09T01:46:00.000-07:00

there used to be a romance to the stunned early morning streets, didn't there?

and - yes - the sky doesn't disappoint, blossoming pink and gold.

fiercely i still love the silhouetted city

when it is framed by such an impossible kiss of light

that the whole seems to be singing.

flying through it, we were,

up into the golden archway of piccadilly,

the sky seeping yolk-yellow through the brush of green,

charing cross road, as always, appearing

shrunken and vulnerable, as if by night

it poses as a village in a shawl of trees.

it's easy to be lifted from nothingness

if you let your mind delve into the city

and love its every sun-bathed or shadow-strewn corner or plane.

these were the words that would have trickled through my brain this morning,

had i been capable of more

than holding my breath and wishing to disappear into the scab-coloured clouds

along with the night.

i'm not at home in my own home

2008-06-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

something i love about this country - there are always fireworks

here it's barely dark and they begin

lost somewhat the will to write over the last couple of weeks

thinking why?

sometimes, occasionally, i'm reminded just how small and pointless this all is

and if it weren't for the beautiful people that surround me day by day i really would have no reason to get out of bed

feeling, as well, bitter,

because we are promised so much, so many lies...

i'm sick to the back teeth of getting my hopes up only to wake to reality

why bother hoping in the first place?

apologies, always apologies, but i'm in a sorry mood

because i can't seem to help the tone that seeps through these postings

which is one of pointless melancholy

and i really don't don't DON'T want anyone to hate me that reads this

i laugh it off

say i'm not like this, really

and for most, i'm not

but the sad thing is that those who've managed to crack the shell know that deep down, i am, and that won't change,

and it makes me undesirable

because no-one wants someone who's ultimately pointless

'why am i here, then? if it's all pointless?'

two years ago that question broke me, because i couldn't for the life of me think why i dared assume someone would want to be there just because

i'm angry at this lack of ability to communicate

and because i'm eternally waiting for something that will never happen

i would like to be a new start

so that maybe i'd have hope again

for now, sitting in this dark room, i'm more angry and bitter than i'd ever intended

and it's NOT ME

at least the kids are still screaming in the streets

joyously and with hope,

and the fireworks continue to burst through the window behind me

bounce like your ass got the hiccups

2008-06-03T11:58:00.001-07:00

clarification.

this is not a diary. it is not chronological. it is rooted in reality as much as i am, which is to say, not much. nothing expressed in these pages should be considered fact (except 'speaking to strangers' - generally too amusing or odd to be make believe - or anything to do with maleparent, for that matter. too disturbing or generally irritating to be anything but reality).

if anything, it's an experiment in making solid the threads of thought that too often disappear before they're examined. maybe they don't need examining in the first place; maybe this is a bad, foolish, self-obsessive thing to do. but, and ultimately but, it is nothing but words. i love to see them crawl across a page, i like the dance they perform for the eyes and the mind, i like to catch them on the verge of dissipation and smash them into reality.

these are half-truths, trains of thoughts, streams of consciousness, cliches, lyrics and very, very bad poetries. remembered conversations. immediate reactions, and generally inebriated ones at that.

one of my problems is that i talk too much, without thinking. maybe i write in the same manner. either way, it should never be taken to heart, and it surprises me every time my words are examined beyond the moment.

i won't be hypocritical. it's not as if i take others' words so lightly. but i file them rather than analyse them. meanings fade into nostalgia. a script, if you will, like that of a crackling b-movie, fondly remembered even for its most excruciating moments. interpretation is too fraught with possibility.

i'll leave it at this. if i'm being specific, i'll have probably already told you. if i don't know you, then it's all the same.

i hope that they aren't just hopeful; i hope that you will be careful

2008-06-01T17:44:00.000-07:00

"i think you're ready for a relationship"

never rains but it pours, right? and bloody men are like bloody buses.

how best to explain that no matter how much i like someone, i'll probably run away at the first indication of being considered anything more than a casual one-nighter? i stood watching the security guard behind the flowers, wondering this and stumbling over my words.

i have a helluva lot of growing up to do before i decide that committing to any one person is a good idea.

and they're always ready with the sweet nothings, which are terrifying in either their brevity or their longevity. a happy medium? someone for whom i aspire to being good enough, just holding my hand.

and as for chemistry; well yes, we have some. but there are always those. i need my dreams to come true a few more times before i let reality take hold.

there's a field nearby where it's written in stone: our love will not die

2008-06-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

i was feeling more girly than usual yesterday, all dressed up and sipping rose (wetherspoons aside, it was girly, okay?)
sex and the city felt a lot less relevant than it used to, perhaps because all the characters are now in their forties and having considerably less of the former in the latter
and lisa, you're right - it finally hit me, when i eventually crawled in at nearly 1 in the morning, that it actually is obsession
i've been laughing it off, thinking that i wasn't serious, really, but all the while i've been creating this little bubble of fantasy in my mind that has no relevance to real life whatsoever
taken people and turned them into characters
and all the while unknowingly convincing myself that something was going to come of it
oops
so today i'm a smidgen low, but with a red bull and a blast of dizzee rascal (and a dose of good, honest hard work) i think i'll have snapped out of it again by the end of the day
and on the good news front, megabus is a very cheap way of getting around
looks like i might make it up to my friend's hen do in edinburgh after all

you must live in a palace, eh?

2008-05-30T06:25:00.000-07:00

free lunch courtesy of a portuguese-by-way-of-old street caterer called fabio who initially irritated me by interrupting my marian keyes break (yes, i'm reading chick lit) but who turned out to be quite fun
he went back to work
interested or not, i still had free bagels

step into my zone get your whole face rearranged

2008-05-29T15:15:00.000-07:00

was trying to explain to littlesister over the phone that there's no real way to deal with maleparent

he is just absolutely completely and utterly

psychotic

and as females who are not only FEMALE but his daughters, we are ultimately powerless

and have no legs to stand on

if you tell him he's wrong, he'll find some way of twisting it so that that you end up being wrong, in the end

and he makes up his own truth

not to mention being generally fucking psychotic

as i was saying to my boss the other day (sometime soon i shall learn the value of keeping one's business to oneself, but for now it's good to talk), every time i get to thinking that i've misunderstood/misinterpreted his general way of being, that i've misjudged him, he goes and does something to prove me right all over again

like the violence

or the getting locked up

or the casual misogyny

or the suicide threats

seriously, it's like skins times a million in here

mish mosh begosh

2008-05-29T15:11:00.000-07:00

what the fuck, man? i mean THE FUCK is wrong with me?

nothing nothing nothing nothing

and yet i can't

i cannot

need desperately to clear my head of this ridiculous obsession so that i can move forwards, onwards, upwards &c &c

because what's most terrifying to me now is that i'll never be able to return to a 'normal' way of being

and never look at another the same way

and... well,

i suppose i'm just scared of hurting the people closest to me which is really a very neat excuse for being scared full stop

(although the former is true)

damn damn damn you and your winning over of me

your shape on the dancefloor will have me thinking such filth i'll gouge my eyes

2008-05-29T08:58:00.000-07:00

waking this morning i could have risen in the summer that was, for all that i could hear the world warmly humming outside whilst in the calm breeze-trap of my room i was all a-flutter with the feeling of being dragged under or perhaps of tripping slowly sideways, the day being pulled out too quickly from under my feet
my smile dies on my lips as the beat rushes back in and i realise this is your music i'm betraying, as if you even know that this song belongs to you
it's often easier to long for something

blood on paper

2008-05-29T06:18:00.000-07:00

ooh ooh ooh
just remembered i still haven't been to this yet
roll on the next day off...

it gives you wings

2008-05-28T09:01:00.001-07:00

i am all full up with wine and i think i am in love with all the people running through my mind
it's a floaty kind of a hangover

archive # 7 - auto.bio.graphy

2008-05-28T03:01:00.000-07:00

presented as a pack of cards

* * *

auto.bio.graphy

self. one's own. automatic, spontaneous.

of or relating to life. biological. of living beings.

a descriptive science, a technique of producing images. a style or method of writing or drawing. writing about. a written or printed list.

instructions.
1. prepare yourself for the reading in your usual fashion. light incense. read spontaneously.
2. shuffle the cards and place them face down in pile. do not shuffle cards. place them face up.
3. lay out the cards in a spread such as the seven card horseshoe, the golden dawn or the celtic cross. or lay out at random. or pick out only one card. read one card per day. or read all the cards in one sitting. use the cards for divination, meditation, counselling or story-telling. attribute meanings to the cards. or use them for a bit of fun at parties. take them seriously. don't take them to heart.

cards produced using a tarot deck to determine quantity of lines per card and words per line

Inky fingers, papers
spread and multiplying.
Books pile.
A dead end no hope
spent. Dry. Forcing
from
chapped fingers a word,
two. Crawling across
white space,
deathly slow. Empty of
dark staining words
which spill
uninhibited from a long
lost fountain pen. Stop,
start.

Sabbath born, sabbath blessed, but
drawn to the
bad side of things out of cat-killing
curiosity. It's a curse. A first shiny
handful
of milk bottle tops, a chanced-upon
ring,
then a guilty note hidden in a shoe,
quick on the trail of skin-slicing stones,
tales of paper and playground taunts.
The stuff
of magpies, glimmering half-truths and
glistening lies,
filed neatly a to z next to
the catalogue of recent wrongs,
compiled so dutifully
since temptation winked and beckoned
towards an overflowing
cup. Forgotten. But look how easy, to
skip
away and not look back, to forget and
forgo, how light the chains. And yet
how
sharp the teeth, and yet how they glint.

Such events
are not
unheard of -
the fall
of towers
is a
story old
as time.
Our fall
was indirect,
an ancient
fault at
the top
split, and
the whole
thing crumbled.

A tree, and running, and
she. Always the illicit sips
from a frosted
glass, the sweet bite of
alcohol on my tongue. A
tree. Chords fade
into sound, a guitar gently
weeping and five strangers
grouped around a guilty
videotape as she runs
forever, chasing me
forever, the first glimpses
since a
final tear and a smile.
Guiltily I name this
moment, tree, running,
mine.

This skin has died and died, this feline
skin with
layered lives, life lines, this skin has lived
lifetimes.
In a past life, it cloaked itself and moved
amongst
the world invisible, laughed at the
burning sun, cowered cold
in yellow. In a past life, it braved air in
skirts and heels, shimmered silver in
disco lights, blushed under
pressing needles. Raised itself uneven in
chills of freshwater, refused
the kisses of flying things and blanched
in clouds
of flying talcum. Tide-marked it
breathes. This skin lives
in a cage built by these hands, shadow-
lined, waiting.
For a moment it is bound, its story the
one
that I choose to tell, reduced. It will die,
and
live again, and these bars will join the
other echoes.

Monday. A bowl of oat cereal,
vegetable cous cous, sweetcorn, pasta
and a cereal bar. Water (seven glasses),
two cups herbal tea.
Tuesday. No breakfast. Bagel with
mozzarella, tomato and pesto, salad,
chicken,
potatoes and veg. Fruit, cereal bar,
water (seven glasses), bottle wine.
Wednesday. Two clementines, salad
with beans, yoghurt and a cereal bar.
Water (seven glasses), herbal tea, and a
glass of apple juice.
Thursday. Banana, yoghurt, bagel with
cream cheese and smoked salmon,
salad,
cereal bar, crackers and another
yoghurt. Water (seven glasses), herbal
tea.
Friday. Fruit, yoghurt, cereal bar and
quinoa for breakfast. Salad. Shop-
bought pastie, many cereal bars,
crackers and a bottle of wine.

I have taken to sleeping with
the curtains open, the
streetlight
shattering into a thousand
fragments on the mirror ball
that spins,
slowly, from the curtain rail,
and dancing across the
magnolia walls.
Occasionally, heels march
beyond the garden's border, a
car passes its
search-light beam through
my window, cats fight. Every
so often
a plane thunders across the
frame, after two years still
fascinating.

A dream of
fluffy things,
spinning,
coloured lights
and miniature
clothes. The
concept of
creation. Larger
than
comprehension.

Start again.

Rehearsed in
my
mind - the
words
that will win,
the clothes that
will impress,
the
walk that draws
their gazes on.

Past dreams
promised a
boy. Or perhaps
he
was only of
dreams.
He has not
returned.
I am alone. How
to help him
escape?

A thought, flying, to what if.
Distant unknown,
rainbow-hued,
drifting
on the horizon of maybe.
Floating into view,
ghostlike,
a future.
But
it cracks
and fragments
and breaks into
spots of coloured television light,
and each spot dances,
jeering as it flaunts
the movies songs soaps
that brought it into being.
But
stretching endless,
the featureless path
to make mine.

A small
space of
light and
hanging things,
a cottage
hidden in
honeysuckle, gabled
and stone
floors, a
grey-wall
spray can
high-rise,
a faceless
semi, soft-
carpeted and
smoke-lined.

Dust and vacuum. Add
most recent spending
(ice cream, fruit) to
current
balance. Order a CD on
the internet for mum's
birthday. Think of a
present for sister's
birthday. Buy cards for
both. Wash dressing
gown and pyjamas.
Divide up phone bill.
Ask for overtime. Write
letter of complaint to
BT.

Making spaces, steadily I crawled
from behind the armchair to claim
a patch of earth, raked and seeded
and yielding poppies, framed
by an African violet and a spider-
plant (that, too, one
day grudgingly sacrificed a shoot
to my care). When Narnia failed
to materialise behind the red dress
and summer jackets, the space
became a dedication to the arts of
spying and prayer, a
den for feasting at midnight on
dry crackers and orange squash.
A sun-bleached corner of the
dining room, warm and blinding
green at midday, and in the rays
peeping through the too-
cool windows of the living room,
dust danced as I read.

Gleaming and smug they sit,
the objects of my father's
desire. This one silver, this
red, this the colour or
the sea, polished and
radiating. My memories of
both interwoven.
We watch through diamond-
patterned glass as they speed
out
of sight, always too fast,
through clear bay view as
they dance with the
hosepipe in the sun. My
nightmare
of them disappearing
forever, speeding away for
good.

Escape. Into
worlds between
the spidery
letters of books,
through the
looking-
glass and into
secret gardens of
the mind (but
really, preferably,
real).

None of this waiting around. A rush through the
cold popcorn air as the
lever is released and we rise, shakily, into the
sky, rocking through the stars,
the trampling crowd fading into silence below.
Flick off the television. Lights dimmed, the
music throbbing and faces pass through, blurrily
part of the background for a moment
then gone. Still rocking, metal creaks against
metal. Silent moments. Then a plunge
downwards,
rushing through space, pressed jolting bruised as
another thrill-quenching ride throws bodies into
oblivion, laughing screaming voices ripped from
throats and tossed, carelessly, aside. A memory
of
starry stillness as once again there is only sky,
and silence. Skip frames. A
dark room, pitch, humming low and building, a
beat, a beat, building to a
pulse and the lights explode, slicing the
throbbing darkness into arms legs eyes teeth,
a company of demons green-lit, swaying jerkily
and looming. Abandoned limbs thrash
wildly, the dense air churns, smoke and spice
invade the lungs, hands turn up
and puncture the noise, a forest of waving arms.
A forest, spinning closer, earth
flies under feet running fast and silent through
trees, none of this waiting around.

Always lucky, a game of chance
that (mostly)
goes my way. A spin of the
wheel,
and the world changes, the
scene jumps. Flickering.
One wrong step and suddenly I
slip between
the spinning reels, grasping at
speeding tape, falling.
Into the wrong story. These
words, familiar from
years of watching the lives of
others, now
forced into my mouth. Choking.
From this
tongue, formerly genre-less,
they spill emptily, and
rattle, ignored, on the floor
where they fall.

Tragedy in
blue jeans,
I have
fallen by
my own
foolish
hand.

* * *

procedural writing/continuation of dissection of autobiographical writing/form as meaning, spring 2005

betcha on land they understand

2008-05-28T02:49:00.000-07:00

aaaaah the walk of shame & as always when i've worn those heels for too many hours & am limping slowly homewards i can't help but think of the little mermaid & the price she paid for the freedom to go after her man, every step like a knife being driven into her skin
i pay for my freedom with what i'd consider a similar amount of pain & an in-depth study of the pavements in clapton
- which, i noticed, are markedly dirtier the closer one draws to my road -
that andersen really was a messed up dude

at the bus stop, waiting, i gave a man money for tea
& another admired my dress
& another
& another
so i shoved my earphones in & pretended i couldn't hear any more - it's tried & tested!

i walk the walk well

beware the glitterball, my son

2008-05-27T06:53:00.000-07:00

i'm all aching as if the running in my dreams was real but need to be fresh as a daisy for party purposes & so will go trip-trapping into town to buy a frock or similar
- will of course most probably wind up with nothing -
all a-flutter at the prospect of free drinksies & the company of mes amies or at the very least mes colleagues, although in absolute starkhonesty there is one who concerns me slightly....
but that's not for the telling, not in the here-now anyway
... where was i?
oh yes, with the trip-trapping & the daisyness. party party here we come
(soon)
many sorries to be extended to you who be reading for the deplorable stream of nothingness but i thought it best to record where i can before i forget what i've writ in the past
& so hence all the worrrrrds & yes, sorry, a lot of feminism
n the like
.
but onwards! perchance i shall exchange these batteries
- too many aaaaaaa -
for something glitterable & funkynstuff
laters laters

archive # 6 - awakes

2008-05-27T06:37:00.000-07:00

The "killing" of oneself into an art object - the pruning and preening, the mirror madness, and concerns with odors and aging, with hair which is invariably too curly or too lank, with bodies too thick or thin - all this testifies to the efforts women have expended... trying not to become female monsters.
- from The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar

Open eyes, sleep-heavy,
burning slumber-filled
into unwelcome half-light -

centuries of dusty air wrench, heaving, from lungs
moss-thickened and decaying -

tongue twists free from a cage of rotting teeth.

As deeply I roar.

Serpents uncoil slowly from scalp,
awakening -
all coal-black of eye and
darting.

Bones lie scattered,
hung with fly-
trap
flesh congealing,
torn from remains of heroes.

As I rise creaking

scales slide smoothly over powerful frame,
tail whipping festering sheets into disarray -

the body of another revealed,

buried in muddied sheets,

bloodied face broken chest.

Rip from ribcage the heart still warm and devour

as blood drips from cracked lips

breathe shield-melting flames

and watch wallpaper blacken and curl

as it melts into ash

as it dances in the putrid air

and comes to rest on my skin -

my deadened skin
my human skin
empty skin.

To pull it on,
this skin -

to scour scales from crinkled green,
to watch them fall
and pile at my clawed feet -

to hack off these wings,
this tail,
and veil the bloody stumps with smooth flesh -

to reduce this pulsing strength
to pathetic pink bone cage,
plucked powdered perfumed -

to squeeze monstrous form into one
which daily shrinks,
revealing

teeth
claws
blood
spittle
mud
sweat -

as deeply I roar,

wings unfurl and stretch creaking
long-folded
and creaking

and flex with a snap

shaking free dampness

and dead skin

as I rise creaking

and

fly

Discarded,
human skin lies shredded bloodied
(and
as an afterthought
defiantly scorch-marked) -

without it,

monster

I remain

* * *

impossible to edit the layout to mirror the words' original shape on the page/needless to say this was erratic/breaking of form &c &c, spring 2005

archive # 5 - be perfect flesh

2008-05-27T06:09:00.000-07:00

presented in chapbook form, each separate piece framed by virgin page

* * *

"A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He watched the cocoon for several hours as the butterfly struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it could go no further. So the man decided to help it. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shrivelled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly. He expected that at any moment the wings would enlarge and expand to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shrivelled wings. It was never able to fly."

- Anon

bleakly. she sits. her veins have burst from her
body and clear liquids pulse through them, rush-
ing into her arm and filling her up.
traitor veins. traitor arm. heavy it lies.
but. she is light. her veins carry light. she
is light and she is cold. the still air chills
her buffets her bruises her. her skin. of
spun light, brittle

bums and thighs, she. carnival pear-shape in
harsh light mirrored, diamond and stone-centred.
big behind her. these gape, these cling, big bum
thighs bursting out betraying slim waist pert
and clear-skinned. betrayed by her middle, she
dreams brazilian beaches and sun-kissed
worship of bum and thighs others. dreams her-
self perfection

glue fingers trace bodies. happy bodies.
cut them free. paste them down, a crowd of tans
and smiles of white teeth. beautiful bodies.
glue in her hair, drying greyly on her
fingers. she peels it in strings, feeling the
tug on her skin. her unhappy skin, grey,
blotchy and peeling, hanging sad on her
shadow body

her feral hair splits and shrieks. gasping, she
waits, eyes narrow. attacks. it rips, squeals, twis-
ting from her grasp. a hold. she holds, fighting,
and tames it with a blow. feebly it crawls.
she stops it with a second blow, brands it
with fire, flattens. and lies in wait for the
next victim. eyes narrow, she waits, gasping.
feral, her hair

in dark. she touches her face. feeling. if
it were blank. a canvas. a block of clay.
to remould. her fingers soften the lump
between her eyes, her trespassing brain, push-
ing it gently back. smoothing. she straightens
her new brow. hot weary tears journey a-
long uneven contours as her skin,
stubborn, reforms

inhale. flex. pull in. strain. hold. taut, burning
core of her. she wills it iron. release,
lower, relax. muscles like stone, pressing
her breath hot, burning from her core. iron
core. strength. inhale. flex. pull in. strain. hold. burn-
ing muscles pulse, she feels pulse, she is pulse,
pulsing, the fire licks at her eyes. she wills
herself iron

made in romania punishment of
cotton. the too-much body which swallowed
whole. swallowed all. refuses, bulging, its
former trappings. she punches too-yielding
flesh, pulling it back into shape, feels it
push against her fingers, mutinous soft.
organs bones blood float free atide the swell
inside she-whale

quick heeled, she marches. sharp heeled, claiming con-
crete. calves tension tight, toe-tied in lycra
tan, her legs stretch through her body and in-
to the sky. pain of precision, muscles
toned to a point, of tapering toes and
tender soles rubbed raw, worn through, one two one
two these machine legs these dead feet this sharp
step battle heeled

red-rimmed eyes as she rubs them, rubs them, blood-
shot, rubshot, rubbed raw. returns to the mir-
ror, tries to rub them away. the freckles.
sobbing the freckles the freckles. staining,
staining her, marking her. freckled. stained. sun-
stained, sun-marked, sunshot. she screams at her mo-
ther who hands her a new powder face, nude,
number 15

red-rimmed flesh mouth gapes at his touch, spilling
butter yellow over his invading
fingers and invading knife. he pulls and
she yields, fleshily, spare flesh, splash. over
his fingers. the knife. the sculpting knife. the
sculptor. his saving fingers. his saving
knife. saving flesh. saving her flesh. soon to
be perfect flesh

this is becoming. she lifts the soft cot-
ton pad, daubed with fresh skin, and erases
her face. a sweep. jawline. hollows. blankly,
she glows. a mist of gold, a shimmer. dust.
glimmering. eyelids flutter and blush li-
lac, and she arms them with blackened spears. rose-
bud lips bleed a lustre smile, cloaked crimson
red and deadly

under cool light. dry mouth. body lies flat,
laid bare. cool hands press, a movement. sudden
searing flash of hot melting, cooling then
stripped. her body stripped bare. screams. she sits, gum-
my naked skin. dresses. feeling beneath
her clothes the wind as if on her. close. a
butterfly, she emerges, her skin a-
quiver, drying

* * *

spring 2005, ongoing exploration of the body as text, writing theory and writing the female form; see 'awakes' for gilbert and gubar quote

archive # 4 - temptress

2008-05-27T06:04:00.000-07:00

Sweet flames to engulf all,
leaving blackened in their wake another cut
of my once again dance around the house soul,

its puppet saint flames to silently burn all,
vain sigh of defiance dying -

a drowning darkness, calling to rise up
to newly-distant wings

tears of helpless defeat,
of weak-willed submission to this snake
is sinuous, it coils tight within my heart
whispering dark forbidden and unashamed.

And for such a one as I to burn, what's this?
Temptress. The word.

* * *

with thankful debt to william burroughs's cut up machine, unkown date

archive # 3 - return to (from)

2008-05-27T05:59:00.000-07:00

Breathe.

A bright moment,
my space.

These my colours, shouting from the white that I am here! & welcoming me
with vibrant voices back into the arms
of sweet, pink present.
Flagship of the recent past, this, mine!

Breathe.

So soon (too soon)
to pass into patchwork history, my story -

green muslin beginnings
explosions

- & to join all those who first
embraced me

blue clouded rest,
flowered mess overflowing,
apricot warmth retreating & dissolving,
a confusion of colours bursting from the walls & bursting into flames in the afternoon sun,
sacrificed to childhood

but for now brightly,
loudly,
now.

* * *

continuation of escape from (into), ongoing autobiographical project after lyn hejinian, unkown date

archive # 2 - the o.c.

2008-05-27T05:37:00.000-07:00

love on the walls over and over

(conversations)

who knows, perhaps I should -

you chose me.

this weekend,
your own Happy Valentine's Day

be
lonely.

eligible for sainthood, roaring round the house,
I'm a total mess
left (for you?) at the door.

sweet ruins, just somebody unspoken

love in a box,
dark twisted pain and pink drapes
- it's always been summer,
(we have sunshine here you know) -

I'm the one for laughing
Tomorrow.

Another day of wisdom;
don't think talk think talk think talk think talk about it, you know how
it goes.

Back to normal,
reminding me -

Tomorrow.

I'll get a little holiday spirit,
reflecting on tomorrow -
I survived.

* * *

'automatic' writing edited via Hannah Weiner's Clairvoyant Journal, october 2004

archive # 1 - orthodoxy

2008-05-27T05:19:00.000-07:00

Orthodoxy denies desire to create through the act of
writing.

Its particular tradition?

Structures,
associated intellectually by
unwashed labour from
scripture
and the dung goddess;

implied levels and
nationhood
from discreet history.

After all, a tablet
in much the same way possesses stories,
implicit for authors
who (linearity as stylistic terror and
elation/rejection)
become the background.

"There, she - "

Hands hit upon a method,
promote it.
Chaotic
tumbling
of narrative
around lifelong passages,
long ago transcribed, has meaning, little
background
(more radically than any notion
of delirium)

Back to the story, waiting patiently to enter the
narrative.

* * *

procedural writing using grid & source material (Timothy Brennan's Salman Rushdie and the Third World) october 2004

song for someone else

2008-05-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

baby, you're a death scene;
i can see my outline
chalked into the mattress where i lay beside you.
i'll walk away tomorrow,
but for now i'll keep my breath slow,
pretend that i'm already gone,
try not to wake you.

the bruising pain of your kiss
and the blood like blame on your lips
like marks you made, they soon will fade,
i can forget this
and hold onto the days when
we'd talk until the sun came;
before the words were lost and swallowed
by this hunger for skin.

for a moment there, it felt like i was feeling
something like the way i used to feel before;
for a moment there, it felt like i was smiling,
but i don't leave here smiling any more.

bathed in the candlelight, holding onto you tight,
i thought you might be a dream;
bathed in the candlelight, i thought that we looked like
lovers in movie scenes.
but bathed in the candlelight, i couldn't see you right,
i never thought this would be
nothing but candlelight, struggling through the night,
dying in morning breeze.

you never saw me cry,
but since this is the last night
these tears i'll shed into your bed
for you to find.
i'm breaking with the new day
and rising from this cliche
as shadows die, i feel like i'm
already miles away.

song for someone

2008-05-26T15:43:00.001-07:00

smiling faces from a past we thought we knew
make a fool out of me and empty shadows out of you.
boxes of photographs, eyes that stare into the gloom
of the cupboards where we leave them, and the albums where they're hidden
from our time-embittered view.

you said i'd someday leave you, and i was saddened at the sound
of your voice, so calm and steady, as you told the tale we knew now had no choice but come around;
but i do feel guilty sometimes, when i get to thinking how
i discarded you completely just to turn to cheaper comfort with new families i've found.

no-one holds onto the light the way you do,
so keep it glowing and reflecting, always growing, always warming
all the cold places in you.

so i'm sorry that it didn't turn out the way you would have planned,
if the cruel forces of time and age had not crept in and dealt too many jokers to your hand.
an old reflection haunts me - my frame an image of no care -
now illusion's taken over, stolen all emotions, keep on checking but they're still not there.

numbly we forgave you for your despair on that dark road,
knowing that your words were dragged from somewhere in your soul that someday
our own aging souls would know;
and i hope you can forgive me my apparent lack of time,
it's just remembering your existence often makes me angry that i feel such little now for mine.

she went to beachy head, and all i got was this lousy sunburn

2008-05-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

i decided fuck it, in the end, and walked up onto the cliffs, sandals or no sandals. it was worth it, just to sip atop, the sea magnificent and wedgewood blue beyond a fringe of dancing grasses. on my way i disturbed a couple, who took a good while to notice me ambling past but an amusingly short amount of time to rearrange themselves into a nonchalent tableau of repose.

it's a strange feeling, going back to the place where i was born. i go there with expectations, holding my breath for a flood of emotions, but as i look across the town painted before me i find i'm still waiting. do these hills, these beaches, remember me? does my presence fill an otherwise empty gap? it doesn't. so why do i always approach with such anticipation?

earlier in the day i sat at the foot of a statue in victoria, sharing cigarettes with a man from america who was waiting for the guy he'd been conversing with when i arrived to return with booze. he invited me to join them, but even i have to draw a line at drinking in public spaces with complete strangers before 9 in the morning. at least when i'm waiting for a train.

what struck me, always strikes me, was the sheer simplicity of it all. after wandering along the seafront and up into the hills, then making a quick stop in the town centre to confirm that yes, it's still a shitty shopping arcade, i went to the pub around the corner from the b&b and spent a good hour and a half talking to locals (one of whom tried not to insult me by insinuating that i wasn't a local myself - 'i mean, i've seen you here before' - and another of whom tried to chat me up before finding out i was from 'that dangerous, noisy' london), playing with their dogs and children and generally being made welcome in a place where literally no-one knew my name. today i sat in my mum's boyfriend's garden, drinking wine and reading the daily mail, and even reports from the other 'home' of my maleparent's latest foray into insanity were just another part of this strange, family life that more often than not nowadays seems to resemble a slightly more disturbing pastiche of eastenders. nothing could burst the bubble. and sitting for breakfast in the b&b this morning, i was surrounded by a family that could well have been my own, their oh-so-familiar sussex-by-way-of-essex accents tripping over tales of wedding dresses and bar brawls.

and do you know, i love all that shit. too often i feel like an imposter, no matter where i am - at home i was always slightly different, too book-ish, too inane, and as a student i was always hankering slightly too much after the tv dinners, pubs and football matches that were, in my head, the normality of life, as opposed to the reading-artwatching-newspaperreadingness of daily academic existence. i'm never on one side or the other. and when i say home, well, the place that i grew up in really wasn't. so it is nice to go back south, occasionally, and feel part, just for a moment, of a community that talks the same way i do and that, even if only in isolation over a period of hours, makes sense.

and then of course i can come back to my books, and my inanity...

volare

2008-05-23T16:04:00.000-07:00

not an everyday evening, although somehow when these things are happening you wish it were everyday
flamenco dancers and some dude from the gypsy kings on guitar, in canary wharf of all places
i sat on the lip of the fountain and ate a punnet of tomatoes in the low london sun
whilst the crowd shook their hips and clapped
mostly out of time

in a few hours i'll be on a train to the coast
my first proper weekend away, alone

but one of my heels is broken so i'll be in sandals, which makes me sad
they're such pretty shoes

brilliant disguise

2008-05-22T02:05:00.000-07:00

a recent almost-dispute at work (caused partly by my own shoddy organisation skills and slack pace of late) has finally come to an end with an email from the disputee.

i'm a little bit in love with this strange, little man since he said this:

'The confusion would have been avoided, had I known there was a General manager above you who I could have contacted. I thought you were THE BOSS and nobody said to me anything to the contrary.'

he thinks i'm bruce springsteen!

it was at that moment

2008-05-22T00:44:00.000-07:00

there's only really one thing to do when in emotional turmoil - which, clearly, i am - and that's watch scrubs. so i did. all night. it's so comforting to listen to someone else's neurotic internal monologue for a change, fictional or not. plus it really helps me focus on what's important in life.

okay, so that last bit's bull, but it is nice to escape into a world where every half hour is themed, where relationships can be plotted as they come and go, develop and disintegrate, and where everything is finally and neatly summarised.
oh, and with theme music. i think if life had theme music it would somehow make everything okay.

and just to save this all from the whiny nonsensical niche which i seem to have carved out for myself - everything is okay. i just wish certain people hadn't already pigeon-holed me as a big, fat, histrionic mess. maybe then we could start afresh with all the normality i was spouting on about last night.

i also wish i'd slept at least for an hour or two but hey. for today at least my life will be narrated by my mind's impression of zach braff. definitely worth it.

i started nothing

2008-05-21T12:42:00.000-07:00

i was on a bus at the end of the day - travelling in daylight was slightly surreal - and staring through the neat frame of the bridge at highgate towards the spread of the city below, st pauls and canary wharf swimming into view like matchstick models, and a sudden, sinking realisation hit me. i couldn't meet him, was actively avoiding him, because i couldn't go looking like this, which is - well - like me, and more to the point, i couldn't meet him sober. i want to be perfect for him, want to be perfect for everyone, not to present this sad visage as my only offering to an occasion, not to turn up with only myself to fall back on. and it was heavy in my stomach and on my brow, this knowledge suddenly, clearly, that i'm nothing, that i'm ashamed of this... dependence. and yet.
and yet i still stopped by the shop and bought some, and as soon as i had it in my hand i was fine again, even if i was frowning with this weight, this shadow, this knowledge of myself that was as laid out to me as the peaks and spires of london, in relief against the mist of distance
- all day i've been mistaking shapes and colours for things, shrinking from inanimate objects or double-glancing into the faraway as if the shapes were something more; i never thought i'd miss my glasses until they were gone -
i am ashamed. and a little scared. and all this while, all i want, really, is normality. warm, comfortable normality. like this time last year, or some such time, when i piled into the car with my ex and his housemates and we went into town and shopped, just shopped, in second hand stores and supermarkets, and bought barbecue food and rum, and then sat until the shadows fell and i could barely walk for rum and weed, and i felt as if i was part of the stream of life that usually passes me by, if only briefly.
i'd like to fall asleep next to someone and wake up with them still there, and just be normal.

that's not a scene from requiem

2008-05-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

he's holding it right up in my face
- i'm telling you, it's not right -
and i'm trying to step away without offending him, but all the while he keeps on edging closer and closer, and when my foot hits the wall behind me i know i'll need to try another tactic
- look, love, i didn't ask for this either, you know -
so i fake a call, feeling around the buttons blindly until my phone is convinced to sound out from my pocket
i'm rather impressed by its urgency
got to go! sorry! people! waiting!
and it's a very physical relief that shrugs through me as i walk away
and a very small sprinkling of guilt
as i remember his arm all webbed white with scars
and seeming to be bursting at its seams in ugly purple
and really not looking right at all

hook line sinker

2008-05-19T14:35:00.001-07:00

pathetically, i realised yesterday that i really really like smoking. and that i have to be able to enjoy a few bohemian puffs whilst sitting on the beach at the weekend. and that if there's a work party imminent, i need to be one of the smokers in order to get all the juicy gossip outside.
sad, but true.
i'll give up when i'm good and ready.

girl i wanna make you sweat

2008-05-17T15:56:00.001-07:00

ub40 and peter andre playing at the party over the road
and yet despite all the constant noise

this is a relatively quiet place after dark

without headphones i'm too jumpy in hackney

this week i will make a dedicated start (without hindering my progress by losing anything) at being a proper human being

i had my last cigarette a few minutes ago

so....

go

carrie bradshaw knows good sex

2008-05-17T13:50:00.000-07:00

i've just shaken myself from that particular malaise that only a saturday evening spent slumped in front of the television can bring about. in all fairness, a good dose of friends did cheer me up immensely, but i had to drag myself away from a second episode of sex in the city.

my rare, if brief, indulgence in american tv did, however, make me think. mainly about dating, which isn't exactly the most profound of pastimes my lazy mind could muster up, but after spending the best part of three days in bed, any kind of thought (beyond 'how best to get downstairs without falling over?') is a productive one.

i mean, dating. for me, it's a bit of a foreign concept. my admittedly few 'relationships' (i'm sticking with the inverted commas), or indeed any kind of fleeting flings, have come about mostly by chance and alcohol, which is to say i've either ended up with a pre-existing friend/colleague because i'm drunk, or i've ended up with some random because i'm... well, you get the picture. now, obviously that hasn't really worked out for me in the traditional sense, in that i've now been single for coming up a year (yelp! and no, i'm not counting aforementioned 'flings', because no-one does), but in the short term it's suited me down to a tee.

imagine, then, a date. you have to put actual effort into getting to 'know' someone, or at least get on with them, and for part of that time (unless you've pre-prepared) you'll be flying without alcohol! added to which, you both know exactly why you're there (and of course being a dirty cynic i don't really go for the 'looking for the one' line, which really only leaves one realistic goal) which is, let's face it, slightly embarrassing. no? why do people put themselves through all of this?!

both friends and sex and the city, naturally, had me suckered in for a little while. for a teensy moment i was sitting (okay, okay... slouching) on my sofa, thinking 'yes. i could do this. i could wear pretty dresses and meet cute guys and go on dates and then decide to break it off because of this and this, or to keep seeing them because of this and this, and did i mention the pretty dresses?'. until the inevitable, crushing realisation that not only do i own less than three pretty dresses (i have two), i also live in what is possibly the most date-defying city in the world.

or rather, i've no idea how one goes about trying to get one, or even if i'd want to 'do' dating full-stop. it all sounds very stressful. apart from the pretty dresses.

one of my colleagues seems to be on an endless stream of dates. he's gay. most of my other friends are happily partnered. so where oh where the boys? and do people still go on dates? i went on one or two when i was younger, and they were mortifying.

to be absolutely, frankly, sex-and-the-city honest - if we've actually made it to the date stage, the chemistry probably ain't there in the first place. whether this says something about my lifestyle or my general personality is, i hope, besides the point.

oh, what a girly rant. i promise normal, depressive service will resume shortly.

l'apres midi

2008-05-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

my friend who is soon to be married has given me the greatest gift i think she could have, short of converting me and marrying me off into christendom
- at her wedding i will play
in public
which i haven't done in three years (the three year anniversary of the death of my grandad is tomorrow, and it was at his funeral that i last played for anyone to really hear) -

over the past month i've toiled and sweated and cursed my keyboard in the unrelenting light of the east london sun through my window as i've failed and failed again to produce anything of worth, the pain made worse by the pressure of the wedding and the knowledge of my general failure to Live Life Normally*
but finally
finally!
i can play the first of the three pieces
and it's as easy as breathing once more
albeit breathing that's come as an all-or-nothing gasp through fluid
but still
i can play, i can achieve, i can try and i can succeed

all things that i'd give up on

on the subject of my grandfather's death, actually
- it was in the shop, some while ago now, in a strange mood, that i picked up a book, casually**
and then threw over my shoulder to one of my colleagues
'i was reading this the night i watched my grandad die'
- which is true but the fact of the statement itself unnecessary

and so t, if you're reading, i'm sorry for my flippant unprofessionalism
generally

*for which read Meet Somebody, Achieve Something
** Julie Orminger, 'Breathing Underwater', i think

mourners of mourners of mourners

2008-05-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

secrets are odd things

i'm pre-disposed to telling everyone everything and yet even i have a couple, which vary in importance and strength depending on the circumstances
it was at the end of two novembers ago that i told one of mine for the last time, thinking mistakenly that shared it would be halved &c
but

the next autumn i held my tongue and bit my lip and kept things hidden that i thought were desperately pertinent to the situation and it turned out
that without them
i was fine
gradually

some secrets are none of one's business in the first place and so aren't one's to tell
and that includes anything that has a tangible place in the life we live everyday
or that might hurt or influence or change
pretty much anything

my secrets
i learned all by myself
aren't on this list and yet still fall under the category of not to be told

unmentioned, they can fade into nothingness, even for me

and so it was that i told him i had all but forgotten my past

it's true. without me feeding it, constantly, worrying at it like a scab,
i can and do forget, finally
and there is no freezing (or at least only occasionally)
only a once-in-a-while, sudden, takes-me-by-surprise moment that will shock me into tears but which i can then analyse and file away for future reference

because some things should remain hidden, so that they can be buried, so that we can pass by on the other side as at a stranger's funeral and watch the figures moving, darkly, slowly, away, and know with an unexpected lump in our throats that something is sad

and yet not quite know what, or why, that is

the beauty is that occasionally there will always, always be that solitary figure who
(like on the day of my grandmother's funeral as we drove through the streets)
actually takes notice and truly, truly sees through the darkened window and tactfully says nothing,

just raises his hat in respect

and moves on

accusatory

2008-05-16T07:58:00.001-07:00

why are you always tired? every time i speak to you, you're tired. why is that?
well, i'm working, i'm tired.
but you shouldn't be.
but... i am. isn't that what working does?
are you doing too many hours?
no.
well you must be.
i'm not. i'm just... look, i'm just tired.
well, you need to look after yourself. you shouldn't be so tired.
...

what a way to carry on

2008-05-16T04:20:00.000-07:00

i'm always slightly concerned
when i read back over anything i've written
ever
by my overwhelming capacity for gloominess

looking back further
it seems
the poor english language fared no better
during my teens

i need rid of the negativity!
but am scared that it's all i'm capable of
which is a shame, considering

and so i shall recite for my/your
reading displeasure
- and in hope of expelling some of these melancholic demons -
- and because i'm so drained right now that moving beyond this
chair is more than beyond me -
some adolescent examples

you have been warned

(introductory stylings brought to you courtesy of cb, whose exuberant manner i could only ever dream of emulating
but try anyway
again in hope)

- - -

glass

i have a vague memory of writing this whilst under the influence of sherry (or port?), siphoned from the cupboard after school whilst my parents were elsewhere. i was playing, quite possibly, a perfect circle. which explains a lot. still, i'm pretty sure this was directly influenced by some book or poem or other... the sun was bright through the window and i drifted away quite sweetly into the words

i don't want to it's not like i have a choice but all the time there's this voice
somewhere in the trees the clouds the wind maybe i don't know but it screams like
pain it screams that i want to i want you i don't want to but i do

how can i stop this voice this pain this floating between everything somehow sitting
on a cloud in full view of all the archers with their bows their arrows pointing at me
and beyond the points gleam like silver like teardrops like pain and still it screams

can we share this sun this light please let it fill us completely overcome us until the
voice drowns in its own pain its hollow screaming like knives the arrows fall
and all i hear is the silver the teardrops glistening as they plunge suspended in the air

let me stay with the silver the cold light let it hold me out of time away from the
voice the light inside me gold like the sun so warm and filling me completely the cold
silver arrows outside holding me like teardrops just ready to

still they fall without moving and as i turn i hear the echoes see them as they shatter
into fragments of light the voice it breaks like glass but why does it still scream so
angrily so quietly so painful like glass why does it not stop now it is broken

i shatter with the drops of ice i break into tiny pieces float on the wind in the clouds
up to the sun of pure gold and the light is still in me but now it spreads to the stars
and now i know why did no-one tell me the voice does not break it is me who
shatters

- - -

inside of me there lies a rose

now this one i know was written in response to 'the handmaid's tale'

inside of me
there lies a rose;
a red, red flower
that shrinks and grows

at first, it sleeps,
a tiny bud;
the smallest speck
of crimson blood

then slowly it
begins to grow,
uncurling soft
petals to show

at full bloom
it waits, to preen;
but blood-red hues
remain unseen

given no love
or praising eyes
it hangs its head
and slowly dies

its petals fall,
my body mourns;
for all that's left
are sharpest thorns

they tear at me,
these thorns, and then
i find i'm hollow
once again

a new bud grows.
i must be cursed,
for this one hurts
more than the first

no

i will remember
through this test
that with this flower
i am blessed

and though i long
to rip it free
i cannot - for this
rose is me

- - -

the forgotten craft

oh oh oh the painful time i had one english class trying in vain to explain to a girl (lyndsey?) that this wasn't based on the film of the same name, that the film in question simply touched on themes in which i had a pre-existing interest, that i hadn't ripped the concept of witchcraft straight from the media and that paganism did exist in a real sense. oh oh oh the painful time i have now reading it, and all i can think of is neve campbell. it doesn't even make sense

understand that flesh is sin
demystify the soul within
life's illusion, fine spun thread
connects the living with the dead

feel the power of the earth
every death another birth
liquid skin and bone of rock
another leader of the flock

what voice replies when in the black
the lost souls fall under attack?
what is there now that hope has flown
and life is wandering alone?

now we tread the forgotten path
wakening the forgotten craft
our minds and hearts combine as one
leading us into the sun

and when the harmony is restored
the seas will once more beat the shores
in keeping with the lunar rhyme
until the very end of time

guardians of the watchtowers stand
minding over sea and land
earth, fire, water, air and soul
a burning symbol of the whole

- - -

and on a similar theme...

the ancient

i actually quite liked this one. strong, mysterious female figure with ultimate control of the rebellious earth, symbolically giving birth to the world morning after morning? can't think why this would appeal to a teenage girl...

high on an airy hill she stands,
moonlight kissing her upturned hands;
eyes aglow with dewy tears,
she weeps for man's forgotten fears.

high on a hill she stands and sees,
long hair brambled by the breeze.
naked to the human eye
she stands, a shadow against the sky.

she clenches a dark fist, slim and strong
and the roving breezes halt their song.
the silence settles, time is still;
a frozen moment high on a hill.

parting her lips, a moan escapes;
it does not falter but gathers its pace;
a cry so full of dark despair
it pierces through the leaden air.

the silence is broken, the stillness gone,
the night explodes with sound and song.
she slowly dries her face of tears
and into the shadowy dawn, disappears.

- - -

i think this'll probably do for now. you were warned.

one final burst before i leave you in peace to contemplate how utterly glad we all are to have finally grown out of the terrible, histrionic teens. um...

morning

more rhyming joy. based loosely on my idealised version of myself. i didn't bleed though, and there was no comb. or delicate lace

caressing her face, the soft
light of the morning drifts
in as she rises and draws back the drapes.
framed in the window, she
smiles at the sunrise, then
smooths down her nightdress of delicate lace.
for a moment she stares, simply
watching the morning, then
lifting a comb, starts to tidy her hair;
framed in the window and
watched by the morning, she
whispers her thanks for a daybreak so fair.

a door slams behind her, she
turns round too slowly. the
sun, heading cloudwards, deserts her bright frame.
the shadow invades, turning
dawn skin to darkness; she
claws at the drapes as her lace blushes shame.
she steals one more glimpse, then the
shadow engulfs her and
splits her skin; furious, blood-red and raw.
he closes the door, leaving
daybreak to wonder; it
hastens on noon, and she fades on the floor.

grains

2008-05-14T02:43:00.000-07:00

my body's instinct is to eat whatever eventually comes to hand, and so it is i find myself nibbling on a slightly stale loaf of bread, the taste taking me back immediately to the farm we visited when i was very young, in the infants class still (funny how that word looks wrong with an 'i'; infant/enfant, strange), maybe seven years old. we sat on a straw-strewn barn floor learning how to pull the strands of raw, greasy wool apart with brushes to be woven into yarn, and the farmer passed round chunks of bread made from the wheat in the fields outside, which later we walked through, surreptitiously eating the nutty grains. later, i snacked proudly on my hard-earned sheaf, clutched in my hands all evening. i thought i could taste the earth.

and she was still at the bus stop, the bitch!

2008-05-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

sustainability. it's a concept i only ever court at work. such and such a solution to such and such a problem. works in theory, but is it sustainable? so and so stepping into this role or that, roles created in the short-term, projects that come and go. is it, are they, sustainable? because in business terms, things need to be. building blocks for future growth.

but every now and then, i'll find myself thinking of the term from a personal point of view. this, for instance, right now, certainly isn't sustainable. a couple of weeks ago i was functioning fully, awake and alert and ready. the minor, trivial stumbling blocks were just that. i could finally deal with anything. rationally i know that hasn't changed - as much as it may not feel like it sometimes, i'm still the same person from day to day, with a constant (however fragile) capacity for dealing with life as it throws itself at me. but i dip in and out of patterns of behaviour that i know will not do. won't wash. can't, ultimately, be sustained. and yet in the short term they're my best solutions, my gut reactions to situations. tried-and-tested, proven to fail but, finally, mine, and i will continue to cling to these responses no matter how temporary.

it's these moments that are hard but bring such stregth of resolve. waking. taking the first steps out of my house and to the corner of the real world. standing up. alighting from a bus. anything requiring energy, which i find is gradually dissolving. and these which aren't hard at all. feeling all one. feeling small again, but collected. feeling the fabric around me loosen slowly until i have the sensation of floating inside a shell. two years ago i could write of nothing but bones and air. think about nothing but.

travelling home i fell asleep, and when the driver woke me, walked me to the bus stop and gave me a cigarette while we waited, i told him i lived in streatham. i still don't know why, but perhaps it's been that long since i've revisited this pattern. for a moment perhaps i forgot that it's no longer the walk past the park or from the hill that brings me home, or that the latter is no longer a sun-drenched garden with a melting pot of emotions waiting inside.

whilst i wash my dishes i'll be following your plan

2008-05-06T09:47:00.000-07:00

crying over, i swear
it's much more interesting to sit on the front step drinking a tea/beer and smoking a few rollies whilst watching the mental neighbours being mental
it's a jamboree of big african men yelling at their unruly and extremely noisy children (in vain, i might add) and teenage girls driving by, honking at each other. with their car horns, that is
i shall give up smoking (again) when the world is put to rights and i have an oyster card (again)

in the meantime, i have a veritable feast of library books to plough through, which are free, and which are very, very big

for my reading pleasure:

aaah, tea. or maybe just a beer or two.

please don't be offended if i preach to you awhile

2008-05-06T07:08:00.000-07:00

i'm taking time out from this undeniably gorgeous pre-summer day to reflect on my utter uselesness as a human being. not, perhaps, the most constructive use of my time, but certainly a spoke on my wheel of individuality, given that every other human in the direct vicinity is indulging in the thoroughly unoriginal pastime of 'enjoying the sunshine' and 'looking on the bright side'.

some days ago i lost what i think i can safely call my wordly possessions, these possessions being neatly positioned all together in the one bag, which was in turn positioned somewhere in relation to my body, although obviously not close enough. said possessions included (and this is by no means an exhaustive list, being that i'm still remembering further items): my wallet, passport, phone, keys, mp3 player, glasses, money*, new cds purchased with this money (see note below), other cds purchased recently and which i'd only that day decided to finally bring home from work, my diary, a library book, a book given to me by a friend, and my oyster card, complete with monthly bus pass that, naturally, i'd only just bought.

of course, i'm no stranger to this situation, having lost or been deprived of (by thieving bastards) pretty much all of these items at various points in the last couple of years. so, in theory, i'm fine. it's all material anyway, and whilst it's an unfortunate turn of events, i can't really complain, as it was my fault, being as i am completely useless.

with all of this taken into account, however, i can't help but feel utterly despondent, and mostly because of the last point. i keep telling myself that someday soon i'll get past all of these little messes i get myself into on a regular basis, that i'll be able to take control of my finances and my life in general and then start getting on with all the living that normal people manage to do, day in and day out, but every time i set a foot on the path heading in that direction, i fall flat on my face and end up walking the wrong way. which is a really bad metaphor for 'fucking up repeatedly'.

so, in the spirit of despondency, i'm officially giving up for today. in all fairness, this decision was somewhat influenced by the man who opted to follow me through the (beautiful, sunny) park this morning calling out 'can i suck on your boob for a bit?', and the two men in the graveyard in hackney who also decided to follow me for a while, although making slightly less intrusive kissing sounds, which are easier to ignore than straightforward questions a la park guy.

i knew it was all coming to nothing when even the nice moments failed to make me smile. one of the regular town drunks stopped me on my way to the library to ask for tobacco, and we had a nice little chat about his female companion's possible breast cancer. oh no, wait - that wasn't one of the nice moments. what i meant was the elderly lady and her daughter sitting on the wall outside their house, hands tightly grasped, talking about the weather until the ambulance pulled up. hold on...

back to me, then. because i'm selfish like that, and besides, if i can't rant here then i'll go mad, seeing as i certainly can't rant to my housemate, who's having to pay for my stupidity quite literally by getting new locks for the house, as well as lending me money so that i can travel to work (so that i can earn more money to pay her back and replace my lost life etc etc), and really i don't have a leg to stand on in the whole ranting issue anyway. it was my own bloody fault - deal with it.

but - and this is it, almost, i promise - as i was saying, i'm currently reflecting on my uselesness, which can be summed up as follows:

i have no money. i will have no money for Quite a Long Time, which is now an Even Longer time as this replacing things debacle is going to set me back another couple of months. i have no boyfriend, have had no boyfriend for almost a year, and can't really see how i'm going to get a boyfriend due to a) my lack of money (i can't travel very far or get out to meet people) and b) my lack of time (and this is not the place to start moaning about my work hours - plus i'm bored of doing that anyway). furthermore, i don't even really want a boyfriend; or rather, not any old boyfriend. and of course the two people i do like are either uninterested because i'm demonstrably a Fuck Up, or only interested in sleeping with me, which i'd be okay with if it weren't for the fact of my long-term crush and pitiful need for comfort.

and by the way, all this negativity is in direct response to the random myspacer who messaged me simply to say that i must be a really depressing person to travel on trains with.

you know what? no. i'm not. fuck you.

*incidentally, money that i was awarded at work and which constituted the Only Thing I've Been Happy About Recently, due to its status as 'extra to earnings' and 'for use solely for pleasure' as opposed to my actual earnings, which are swallowed up approximately 3 hours after they're deposited in my bank account by living expenses etc etc

a tisket a tasket

2008-05-04T12:35:00.001-07:00

i have a new bag
bought it a month or so ago, with some vouchers left over from christmas
it's black, and lined with flowers, and has a bow on the front
and metal rings on the straps
bought it to signify a change
as in when i finally get started on the right track
whatever that track may be
but it's been forced from my cupboard where it lay waiting
smelling new
and all too soon it's in the ugly world
and like me, it's not ready
a victim - like me - of my usual carelessness
a life in my possession and i lost it all again
which could probably be symbolic if i had the energy to make it so

i mean, i did still like my old bag
and everything in it

i'm not ready for the new one
or the cost of filling it with life
all over again

sick of making a show

2008-04-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

pleasantly surprised whilst sitting on top of the windblown theatre to realise that i no longer live in my past
which, as the conversation was going, is generally a bad thing
those awkward silences weren't, and even more strangely i had no desire to fill them

after so long, what to say?

everything must belong somewhere

2008-02-17T03:14:00.000-08:00

we danced all night
walked seemingly all the way home in the bitter cold past railings that never ended and taxis that drove darkly away, heading to bed
ate chips until gone 6
and then i left for work again

the floor of the bus was actually frosty when i stepped off into the delicious sunlight
and the grey on blue of the familiar roofs and spires as i crossed the river had me sobbing into my scarf
i think with happiness

the world is a little unsteady and my eyes are a little heavy

no business

2008-02-02T17:28:00.000-08:00

i screwed up again. big time.
see, in my head there's no real distinction between the physical and mental. if anything, the former comes before the latter in terms of getting to know someone. i know it's a self-respect issue, and probably something i should work on, but i honestly don't see why sex is such a big deal. we go around giggling because of so-and-so and so-and-so, but really, who gives a flying fuck? it's so much easier to sleep with someone than it is to have a conversation about your childhoods.
so anyway, once again there's someone i shouldn't have. but it seems that everyone else is so intent on creating dramas around everything and i'm just there, as usual, calming it all down and trying to be reasonable. you know that you give it a week or two and it all goes away. so why all of this in the meantime?
on the plus side, cider followed by baileys is the current winning formula.

ghosts in such an empty shell

2008-02-01T10:46:00.000-08:00

i've fainted, or nearly fainted, three times on public transport in the last two days

i started walking to the doctor and turned back when everything started turning black

this evening i sat in the bath for two hours trying to breathe properly again, and constantly there's this almost-lump in my throat and i don't know whether to cry or just stop breathing altogether

when i think about real life, i want to throw up

someone keeps turning my radiator off so that i wake up numb with cold, a draught rattling the window, but there's no-one here but me

the living room light turned itself on, and the vase of flowers was on its side, water dripping from the table to the carpet

in all this stillness i'm not sure if i'm actually here

think i'll go back to bed

break it down

2008-01-22T02:55:00.000-08:00

a new toy for the long nights...

tony b machine

you do you don't you do

2008-01-07T00:42:00.000-08:00

i'm always sounding like a grumpy cow on here.

so today i shall not.

i woke up at 2 o'clock this morning with my heart racing, which it proceeded to do every time i closed my eyes (i mean, come on - who actually develops a fear of sleep, for chrissakes?), so i had a cup of tea and read for a while. then i did some financial doodling*, made myself a jasmine tea and had a bath. at 5 o'clock. and it was lovely.

not that yesterday was particularly terrible either. myself, housemate and her boyfriend set out for west india quay to see 'i am legend', a plan which fell through when boyfriend realised he felt too ill to enjoy anything, let alone a scary film about vampires (but sigh... will smith...). we were all kitted out in colourful tights, and all. anyway, housemate and i went on to docklands anyway, mainly because it was such a gorgeous, bleak, sunny, wintry day, and in part because we thought we might catch st trinian's at some reasonable hour. when that didn't pan out, we just got back on a bus and went home. the afternoon should have felt wasted, but strangely it didn't.

so now i'm back at work, after a week of feeling completely drained and incapable (and i'm now very close to my sick pay limit, not to mention another step away from any kind of positive review, should one offer itself any time soon), and despite having already been awake for seven hours (jesus. it's only 9 o'clock), i feel okay.

okay.

*sounds boring, and is, but i find it quite therapeutic to come up with a new 'plan' every month or so which details roughly how i'll pay off all my debts by... let's see now... next march

that's what i want

2008-01-05T14:49:00.000-08:00

i hate talking about money. i really do. i find that when i think too hard about the stuff, i never have any, whereas if i just forget about it and spend what i want, i can normally get by.

but here's the thing. i have, in the world, minus more than £2,500, not including my student loan, with just enough left in that figure to get me a bus travelcard for the next three weeks. when we get paid at the end of the month, nearly £400 of that will need to be paid off, being as it is a credit card balance. £400 is roughly how much money i have to spend in a month on everything that isn't rent, travel or basic bills. so i'm already out of pocket for february, and we haven't even got the dreaded january gas bill yet (why do they always send it at this time of year?).

so let's ignore that i'll be scraping through january and february, which is fine. then comes march, and the long-awaited 'holiday' with maleparent and littlesister. if it ever gets booked. i don't want to be ungrateful, and i'm sure it'll be wonderful (gulp) but truth be told, there's no way i'd go on a holiday of this type if it were my choice. so, the destination was all up to me, and thank god for that, but maleparent wants to do it the expensive way - package flights, half-board hotel. again, sounds lovely. but i'm paying, at least for most of my share. and at roughly £500-600, that's going to be the best part of my expendable income for something like two months.

is it just me, or am i going to be utterly flat broke - well, unable to move in a slightly-less-flat-broke-direction, anyway - until may?

like i said, i fucking hate talking about this, but i'm a little scared. this was supposed to be the year when i sorted it all out, and now i'm going to be set back for nearly half of it.

oh, happy new year, by the way. it's all still a pile of wank.

birmingham skull fuck

2007-12-23T15:34:00.000-08:00

i've had great fun living up to the cliche of a single twenty-something girl at christmas today, and fell short of giving myself a french manicure only because the set i bought was missing, fairly vitally, the little strips designed to prevent me from making a right royal cock up of the whole thing.

but there has been shopping for vast amounts of alcohol and biscuits, some general sprucing up of the house, a bath, and lots of baileys. oh, and candles. i've tried to watch tv and read, but both are boring me silly... i ended up watching 'hogfather' on youtube, which also irritated me after about 20 minutes, and now i'm at a loss as to what the fuck to do.

probably should get that last sleep before santa.

the other night really got me thinking. i have changed this year, a lot more than i'd thought. i know now that i'm not going to be happy until i actually sort myself out, and for the first time i feel that i'm in the right place to do that. shock! horror! me, settling down and looking for a serious relationship! me, considering 'careers'! me, not smoking (much), drinking considerably less and getting my weed fix only as an occasional treat!

i'm sure i'll be back to normal by the 2nd of january.

gray's inn

2007-12-22T17:51:00.000-08:00

couldn't resist bumming a cigarette so we
went outside
and he leaned in, swaying and drunk and
like i'd not really seen him before,
and told me over and over
how he kicks himself every time he sees me
for letting me go
and then in the next breath
that he's seeing someone else
and of course she's the editor of a music magazine
and a musician herself
and i'm happy, and i told him that
but most strange of all, i really was

not that there wasn't a moment when his fingers
grazed my waist and i would have killed
just killed
to be back in april again
and to feel more than a slight flutter
at his touch

but overall i was pleased
with how mature and composed i was

even if i did cry all the way home

musical interlude

2007-12-20T08:02:00.000-08:00

how quickly moods can change
(goddamn hormones)
two days ago i felt... well, christmassy. bought all my presents, or at least most of them, maxed out my credit card and remembered how christmas is basically one big shopping spree, and therefore wonderful
wrapped some, sent them off home for the price, just about, of a train ticket
...
it's funny. i decided i wasn't going home this year, because i can't bear the sameoldsameold of it all, and the way that everything hinges on me to make it a good time for everyone, when they shouldn't rely on me, and it shouldn't be such a tragedy for the whole family if something doesn't fit into the strange jigsaw we've created since it all, technically, fell apart
...
and since i decided that, i've felt awful. i mean, how fucking selfish? the only time of the year that really means anything for families, and i just stick up my finger to the lot of them
...
but it's going to be okay. i finally feel a bit christmassy (as if it means anything), and i've spent all of my money for this month and the next, so it's really, truly, That Time of Year. and i'll see the family and we'll have a 'good' time on a non-prescribed date
...
but back to the selfish theme. i hate to be a cliche, but sadly i'm really longing for someone to share the winter with. i've never really wanted a boyfriend before, but right now it's that snowballing few days before christmas and all i want is a sepia mariah carey-esque video montage with someone. pathetic, non? last night, housemate and i were supposed to be seeing 'enchanted' at the cinema, and looking forward to it was pretty much all that was getting me through the day (if one more customer tells me that i should be ashamed of the freezing working conditions that i personally am making the staff endure, i may impale him or her with an candy cane). when we met after work, though, she'd had a really shitty day and quite understandably wanted to go home. but did i understand? like feck. i made a big show of saying 'well look, if you don't want to go then there's really no point' before grandiosely announcing i was just going to go back to work, since i'd uncharacteristically left on time, then crying all the way to the bus stop and just getting on a bus, alone, anyway, so that i could sit and drink the baileys i'd bought for the cinema on the way home. and then she's texting me and thanking me for being so understanding! how much of a bitch am i?
...
anyway, the point is, i just feel really alone right now. and i hate that it's at christmas. because for the next week i won't be able to think in anything but lyrics from crap '80s seasonal hits. it's gonna be all 'last christmas' and '2000 miles' from here on in.

what would jim carrey do?

2007-12-17T09:26:00.000-08:00

i'm fucking sick of being so many different people in my life. as usual, i'm constantly compromising. i have to shroud my own truth in symbolism and hints and outright lies so as not to offend those around me, or to shatter the image of myself in their eyes that i've carefully, or accidentally, created.

and i'm terrified that amidst all of this play-acting, i've just forgotten to actually have a 'self' at all.

talking to jonathan the other day, and he asked me what i do when i'm not at work. one of my least favourite questions, and one i find hard to understand ('time', 'outside work'? quoi?). anyway, typically i stumbled over my words until finally coming to the conclusion that i 'do' very little indeed, and what i do 'do' is so far off the 'interesting' mark that it may as well not exist at all.

it was the first time in a while that i've actually felt challenged, in an existential way (too heavy a word but the aptest i can come up with given the amount of painkillers i've taken today). and the first time in ages that i've actually felt like myself. it's as if certain people have the magical ability to block any bullshit aimed their way; no matter how hard i try, i can't pull on a mask and pretend i'm someone infinitely more exciting, insightful or generally capable. of course, the last couple of guys with this ability have ended up breaking me into tiny little pieces and then walking away, so it's probably not a trait i should actively pursue. but it's certainly refreshing, if a little unsettling. when i'm laid bare like that, i really don't have much to show, and i'm painfully aware of it.

a while later on this same evening, i threw the attack back at him, and was relieved when he basically shrugged and said that in asking the question of someone, you're really saying 'how do you justify your existence?'. and in that case, i'm sorry, i've got nothing.

i am, however, somewhat relieved that i didn't answer straight away with 'well, i spend most of my money on alcohol in an attempt to make the big bad world go away, and occasionally i end up of an evening in the house/hotel room of a strange man or men. oh, and i have a cinema membership'.

did have to bite my tongue, though. damn bullshit-guard.

green carnations

2007-12-11T12:38:00.000-08:00

in a crowded room i felt strangely alone and as if i was watching through glass
and it struck me how repetetive times like christmas gradually thin and thin until we feel like shadow puppets dancing to a muted drum or some such vague excuse for a simile

another party and another morning walking home in someone else's shoes
which means that now there have been more boys than years in my life
it's the only thing i collect
(and yet i am still always on the periphery of the conversations that other women laughingly have
and one of my colleagues thinks i'm pink and fluffy and naive
which tickles me)
other, that is, than cds that make me happy

to think that this time last year i was in a daze of happiness because for once i spent the night with someone i actually liked
and to think that it wasn't until june that we both remembered that i'm 'not the relationship type' as my friends have often lovingly put it
and to think of all the others since
after i said i'd changed, definitely

such petty little cycles

i miss the pillars and lunchtimes of smoke and wine and anais nin

i think i shall retire to my lovely little home to drink baileys
and pretend that i haven't had a good four or five bottles already this month

i don't regret a single penny

i'll leave you with a highbrow quote. it's from 2 pints of lager

"am i right in thinking that you might be up for a can't think of an aphorism so i'll just say shag?"

from the ex to the music

2007-12-07T18:48:00.000-08:00

this is hilarious

in august, on a day when i grabbed maybe half an hour of lunch in order to rifle through loot just to ascertain that - yes - we had looked at absolutely every flat on offer in east london, a music video was being filmed on the balcony of the royal festival hall. the music was irritating us all day, but i did become fairly distracted from the property pages by the girls in yellow dresses prancing around to what i thought was some shitty europop

well, it was. it was the sugababes, to be precise. and the moment where the lightest-haired one (i lost track of their names when i was, hmm, 14) is writhing against a concrete post - i watched that being filmed

ha

it's a sure-fire way to ruin my day

2007-12-07T18:01:00.000-08:00

i keep starting posts and never get past the first paragraph.

i'm not sure what i'm writing for. who i'm writing for. in a way, it's nothing, no-one. my housemate hates blogs, thinks they're jumped-up, self-indulgent, electronic soap boxes. which i have to agree with, in a sense. when i was a teenager and during my first two terms of uni i had a diaryland page, and it was wonderful - i was completely anonymous for a while, just writing whatever i pleased, for an audience who i would never meet or know. i think maybe it's a generational thing, but seeing your words scroll across a page is somewhat validating. and as a teenager, the feeling of being part of a network of similarly self-obsessed people was amazing. it said 'you can be heard, if you want to be'. and this was after years of keeping it all in, maintaining the stiff upper lip and whatnot. suddenly i could moan! gripe! complain! and simply talk about the things that i couldn't talk about to anyone around me at the time.

of course, i soon replaced this internet agony aunt with real people, and deleted my blog soon after that. it was real life encroaching on it that brought about the end - i still remember writing what i felt to be an inconsequential post about how a particular song made me feel, and my friend's subsequent comments about how that destroyed her perception of the song in general, and i suppose of me, and how i was immediately dragged back to my room at thirteen years old, cradling the phone as i talked to a girl i barely knew about how my unwelcome revelation of nasty-things-that-should-not-be-mentioned had really upset my good friend.

well, the nasty things kept on happening. so it makes sense that i'd write about them, n'est-ce pas?

anyway, i think the point i'm getting at is what is this for? i don't (can't) post enough, and i don't write well enough (or have enough to say) for this to be an artistic venture. and i can say what i want, to a point, but i'm very much aware of those people that i do know reading it and judging me, or not having faith in my words because they know a 'different' me in real life. so i'm censored even here.

thank goodness i still keep diaries, because they really do keep me sane. and that's what it comes down to - balance. for all that i've changed since my teenage self - as in, i talk about my problems rather than keeping them all inside and becoming bitter and twisted - i still need the outlet of writing, no matter how crude of soap-boxy. i'm not here to be judged on my ability to string a sentence together or to showcase my life (if i had much of one, that is) - i'm writing this because in tiny doses it cures my sensation of being invisible. it gathers me into the world and gives me the voice that i would willingly share in daily life if i wasn't so worried about making everyone like me.

on that note, actually, i had a good long chat with the manager this evening, and was pleasantly surprised by her opinion of me, which seems to be more favourable than i'd thought. certainly over the last few months i've become less and less worried about making friends with everyone i meet, and by now i can live with ambivalent attitudes towards myself in a work sense because hey - i'm an assistant manager after all. and i consider that training for 'manager someday in a distant time and place where i actually think about careers and job prospects'.

this is rambling all over the place, but i think it all comes down to self-confidence. i can confidently exist, now, on a day-to-day basis, where i couldn't before. but always there will be that small part of me that needs to sit in a dark, smoky corner, scribbling frantically into my notebook about how i feel like i'm sinking into the wall behind me, or falling into a never-ending darkness, or some such bullshit.

so bring on the soap-box, because frankly i need it in order to keep up the daily facade.

pillow talk

2007-12-06T00:57:00.000-08:00

everyone is so damn tired at the moment. we're all quite literally falling asleep at the wheel/on our feet.

i'm leaving 'change' until the new year. best just to muddle through the rest of this one with at least some sanity remaining.

although saying that, i might dye my hair again at the weekend. i miss the orange.

there's a particular way the sun drenches the top floor of a bus that makes you feel as if you're drowning in light. i was even holding my breath as we trundled slowly along down the town centre yesterday morning, all of us silently gaping into the glow as a shoplifter legged it up the road, with a shop assistant in hot pursuit.