Blog description? Furious rants, idiotic quibbles, sleepy misspellings, pissed-off ramblings, joyous witticisms, megalomaniac implications, sanctimonious declarations... Call it whatever you want, I'm done with fancy words. Think of this blog as an essential means for me to release all the thoughts that amble through my mind as life throws challenges such as love and an untuned ukulele at me in spite of the white flag I've been waving for a fair while now.
It's been a while. I'm growing negligent in my old age.
Eighteen soon. That's not right.
Do you know what's cool? THIS. It's just, ack. I want to have sex to this song one day.
People keep pouring their hearts out to me when I'm not expecting it. It's nice, even if a problem shared is half of someone else's problem on my shoulders, and even if I can offer no kind of advice when I wish I could. I don't know exactly why it's nice. I suppose everyone wants to know that someone trusts them, even if it is when they're blind drunk and on the verge of doing something remarkably stupid.
Generally... things are good. Good days equal the bad days, and like that things are manageable. The meds help. A lot.
I have a boyfriend. He's a really good guy. I think he helps, too.
Sigh. It's depressing waiting on someone so like yourself that you can justify why they're not doing anything, simultaneously finding it the most annoying thing in the world and still thinking, "fair enough".
I'm probably going to begin a course of anti-dees sometime soon. Which is a little disconcerting, when you think about it. I'm kind of wary of becoming one of those kids who's so reliant on their happy pills and a therapist on the other end of a phone that they forget to learn independence.
I don't remember a time I've been so completely sick of people. Not even people who deserve it! I got pissy at the cat for coming to sit on my lap because he was crowding my space and what the fuck is wrong with me.
Christmas is soon! As great as that is, Fairytale of New York has already been on the radio enough times for it to become annoying. Still. Doesn't mean I'll ever stop singing along when I hear it.
On Tumblr just a few hours ago, I saw a challenge of sorts which I think is really cool: at the start of 2013 you start to write good things that happen on a scrap of paper and collect them in a jar, and at the end of the year you read them all. Everything that made you happy for 365 days. There's proper scrapbook potential there.
Silver fox silver fox silver fox oh my silver fox yes fox iloveyoudavidbowiefox
Grah. I am so sick of being this bad at interacting with other people. At the moment, my pulling technique consists of avoiding all eye contact and never speaking and hoping that he's going to fall deeply in love with me for my wonderful personality. Do any of you do this? Please tell me that you do, I'll feel so much better if I'm not the only incompetent loser out there.
I swear, this is the best music video ever. I'd love to walk around like that. Out the way old lady, moving vehicle, young mum. Peasants.
Today was exciting. I cooked quesadillas, and burned them horribly. Like the absolute fool I am I forced them down anyway, and it was probably the worst thing ever. I compensated by baking my first rainbow cake! Which was not as vividly coloured as I think it's meant to be, but it's still blue, and purple, and pink, and orange, and yellow, and it's cake, so overall, success!
Tuesday 16 October 2012
Fucksake. Everyone in the Leaver household is so useless.
I AM MEANT TO BE WRITING A FIFTY THOUSAND WORD NOVEL NEXT MONTH. KINDLY TELL ME HOW I'M MEANT TO ACHIEVE ANYTHING OF THE SORT WITH NO COMPUTING DEVICE ON WHICH TO TYPE.
First world problems. I'm such a fucking brat. More than anyone else, I make myself sick.
---
Something I've come to realise, is that the only person you should trust is yourself, because you know to not give yourself unnecessary shit/guilt trips/hard work when you know you don't need it, where other people are too dense to notice that you're right at the end of your givingashitaboutanything measure.
Ha, ha, bollocks to everything but the first bit. Everyone I know gives themselves way more shit/guilt/work than they need and most are incredibly perceptive, which is reason 9647328193 why everyone else in the world is good and I'm gradually paving my way to losers' hell, reserved for the likes of the fucking pussywhip Claudius and the fucking epitomeofeverythingfeminismstrivestoavoid Hero from Much Afuckingdo About Nothing. (Bad move, Shakespeare.)
But seriously, numero uno and all that. Only way to get anywhere, it seems.
---
I swear, caring uses up so much energy. Care workers, vicars, Ghandi - how the ever-living fuck do they do it? I struggle to remember to feed myself, how can I ever be expected to take responsibility for someone who actually matters? How do people remember so much stuff? Birthdays and bed times and how to cook vegetable lasagne and what makes your boyfriend uncomfortable - it's all so incredibly irrelevant, according to my selfish little mind! I want to care! I want to remember! I want to go ten minutes without a major incident! I try, I really do, but sometimes, like now, it seems more effort than it's worth. Complete isolation isn't all bad.
---
Distractions. How very welcome, in a sick, ironic way.
Have you seen New Girl? My brother made me watch the first episode a few days ago, and I'm like, what have I been missing?! I love it! Watching eight episodes in immediate succession is nothing to be ashamed of!
Saturday, yesterday, was a day of firsts. First tragus piercing. (Which hurt so much less than I thought it was going to, even if the size of the needle did initially freak me out.) First time gin failed to leave me hammered on the floor in a gibbering mess. First time vodka succeeded. First time taking control in successfully putting up a tent.
I found this note to myself that I wrote sometime last night:
Which was considerate of me, I guess.
I miss people. Is it just me, or is everyone completely busy and huffy and preoccupied right now? Maybe I'm the same and just not seeing it.
Still. Nothing you can do. Off to watch Fiddler on the Roof, because I'm a good Jewish* kid. Seeya.
The more I think, the more pissed off I get, and the more I rationalise that I have enough friends to not have to put up with one of them being a prick.
It's not like much that happens now really matters anyway. I'm okay, I'm okay.
Provided I don't chicken out, come Saturday my tragus is going to have a piece of metal gored through the middle of it. Yay, stabbings.
I have found a person in existence whom I simultaneously want and want to be, and I hope she's happy being my screensaver:
'Christ said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." And the Indians say that and the Zen people say that. We're allGod. I'm not a god or the God, but we're all God and we're all potentially divine — and potentially evil. We all have everything within us and the Kingdom of Heaven is nigh and within us, and if you look hard enough you'll see it.'
There's something special about nighttime. It's cold and dark outside, but in my room it's cosy and brightly lit and warm and I can totally do whatever the hell I want, provided it's done in complete silence so as not to wake the rest of the household, but that still leaves a pretty wide scope for Stuff To Do At Night.
A concise list:
Read;
Watch a film with earphones in;
Listen to calming music;
Read 50 Shades of Grey;
Watch the entire first series of Doctor Who with earphones in (that was a good night);
Write sleepypoetry (poetry characterised by a sleepy poet prone to falling asleep mid-sentence, resulting in a half-finished scrawl of unintelligible inky metaphors that make sense only to a tired brain);
Read NC-17 gay fanfiction (each to their own);
Flick through old photo albums and get stoned with nostalgia;
Watch gay porn, definitely with earphones in;
Snack;
Think about the future and cry;
Revise (lol, jk);
Have after-hours Skype conversations with someone awesome/special;
Have the idea to write a list but have no intelligent ideas so end up coming up with the first things that come to mind, no matter how irrelevant they are.
I spent the weekend in Kent, with my lovely family, for a twenties-themed murder mystery birthday party.
I think we look hot.
School is difficult. I'm giving myself more work than I'm told to do because a small part of me is still convinced that nerding it up will make a difference when it really results in no spare time at all and the same average grades I'm resigned to. CBT is going well, even if it is throwing up more questions than answers right now. The shrink asks what I think will happen if I'm contaminated and prevented from washing my hands, and it's frustrating to have no idea. It's happening in my head, how can I not know? I'm... exhausted. In every sense of the word. Not sleeping enough, probably not eating enough (even though I don't want to because I'm not fucking hungry), getting myself down about the scribbled mess in my head I'm left trying to decipher, not working as hard as I should be, freaking out about the shambles that my attempt to sort my fucking life out has become LALALALA don't want to hear it. Something I've discovered recently is what it's like to be on the receiving end of someone asking if you're okay without having to say anything.
It's a strange place to be, here, where I am, in whatever sense you want "here" to mean. On the outside it feels like I'm floating from day to day in this weird little bubble of getting by (which I'm slowly getting better at), working and reading and talking and writing and sleeping and still being a little bit ill while out there, in the world outside of mine, is a whole planet and more of stuff that I'm still yet to discover. Time and space might be off-limits to me, but I'll be damned if I go my life without seeing what Planet Earth can show me, because for all its flaws, it's still pretty incredible.
Mount Rushmore, South Dakota
The Scottish Highlands
Copenhagen, Denmark
Lake Titicaca, Peru
Maracas Waterfall, Trinidad
Tokyo, Japan
Patagonia, Argentina
Easter Island, South Pacific Ocean
Lake Panajachel, Guatemala
Mount Rushmore ( )
The Highlands (x)
Copenhagen ( )
Lake Titicaca ( )
Maracas Waterfall ( )
Tokyo ( )
Patagonia ( )
Easter Island ( )
Lake Panajachel ( )
One down, longing sigh.
Inside, as in, inside my conceited little mind, things are even less lucid. While my body is going through the motions, my head is an assortment of random fruits in a blender, that could either turn out to be the most delicious smoothie in the world or a black, disgusting poison, and there's a finger hovering over the "blend" button, wanting to see how the experiment will turn out but also wary, so very wary, of which way it's going to go. I'm scared, I'm really scared. This life, this future that I've decided to pursue - I hate how uncertain it is. If I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer and I didn't make it, I've still got med/law studies under my belt and that's fuckin' impressive! However if I completely fail as a writer then I'll just end up the frustrated thirtysomething with a dead-end office job and a degree in creative writing. See my point?
"You will soon find that the world is less strange than you think, but that people are more so." I'm really grateful to the brains behind that quote, and I feel really privileged to know him, in an endlessly-awkward, completely secret kind of way. I wish I could thank him.
SICK SICK SICK, gnyeh. I hate being ill. I especially hate being ill just in time for the biggest family reunion since last summer, and I really hate passing it all on to people who never see me, thus ruining their holiday and generally messing up life in a spectacular fashion. Go Katherine.
Not hungover anymore! That is my victory for today. Last night was good. I woke up with a tonne of unintelligible messages to myself scrawled all over my arm, which was nice. It was like an "I love you sober-Katherine!" from drunk-Katherine.
We're having something of a reunion. There's family slowly trickling into the household in bitesize amounts. On Thursday Granny arrived. Yesterday my sister and nephew arrived. Earlier this evening my uncle arrived. Since then we've eaten a beast of a dinner and my sister and uncle and I have partaken in a megaconvo about TV shows and movies we've seen. In a way it's reassuring to know that my addiction to dramas and films is hereditary and not just nerdiness. My sister is in love with the entire cast of Avengers too! Oh, Mark Ruffalo is so hairy.
GNEH, GHYAHHH MY BROTHER COMES HOME IN, LIKE, FORTY-EIGHT HOURS. Thirteen months, thirteen months it's been.
Today my nephew snuggled into my neck and chilled out when he was all angry and upset. It was so special :)
It kind of dawned on me some time last night that a compliment is a compliment, and it doesn't matter who it comes from because, provided it's sincere, it's still a valid compliment. Compliment!
Do you ever wonder if your life is already mapped out? The people you meet, the job you end up doing, the time you die, etc - what if we have no control? Even spontaneous decisions - getting on a last-minute plane to some far-flung paradise in the throes of a pissed-off breakup and finding the person of your dreams and spending the rest of your life in a fuck-fuelled, romantic idyll - what if it's not spontaneous, and is in fact the consequence of SOMEONE ELSE picking everything we ever do the way I do playing Sims 2? It messes with my head.
So, hello. My posting habits are losing routine. I'm sorry.
I have the overwhelming urge to read all the Series of Unfortunate Eventses again, for the first time in about five years. In my infinite wisdom I saw it fit to put all the ones I owned in a bric-a-brac sometime last year, which is a little bit of a spanner in the... book.
Book.
Less than a week until my dorky brother and his equally dorky wife come home. Teehee!
Watched Captain America: The First Avenger last night. He was so weedy! His face was so big! I much prefer him with all the, uh, body.
Something cool. A thunk is "a beguilingly simple-looking question about everyday things that stops you in your tracks and helps you start to look at the world in a whole new light". For example: Is thinking you're right the same as knowing you're right? Is it better to play well and lose or play badly and win? Is there more future than past? Can you touch the wind? In a dark room is there a reflection in the mirror? (That last one gives me the collywobbles.)
Went to the adolescent mental health centre in Ipswich this morning. The psychiatrist (or "shrink", if you want to be a cliche) was really reassuring, in exactly the way I needed someone who knows what they're talking about to be. We talked, for ages, and he gave some really helpful advice on studying up, getting down with the terminology and the like. He told me to squeeze an ice cube.
I feel more relieved, than anything else. Just, relieved. Mum is doing her best to understand and that makes a huge difference.
And that hilarious I-have-CDO-it's-like-OCD-but-in-the-right-order-the-way-it-should-be joke? Don't even try.
I'm growing my first wisdom tooth! It's surreal, to have this intrusive bit of calcium getting in the way of my tongue after a ten-year hiatus, since the last adult tooth grew out. It has occurred to me that my baby nephew and I are teething at the same time, and I don't know yet if I have a problem with this.
The link leads to the first YouTube advert I have not skipped. Maybe I'm going soft or something, but it made me really sad. GOOD ADVERT. Click here. Check these out:
Do you know why the rain comes? It's because someone is praying for all your sadness to be erased to comfort you. It seems as if I've already known you since I was young. After I met you, I even stood in daybreak's heavily falling rain to help you. I was the one who believed. When the rain comes, think of me. Will that give you strength? I've left and my trace is over the rainbow. I'm sorry. Ever since an age too young, I think I was already dirty. When I disappear from this world I want to become clean before I go. So deep into ground and very bright. If I become dirty I'm afraid you might become dirty too. Because you'll try to follow me, like you always do. When the rain comes, think of me. Will that give you strength? I've left and my trace is over the rainbow. When the rain comes I pray. When I see the rain I pray. When I see the rain I pray. I'm sorry. Don't throw me away. I'll be waiting. Do you know why the rain comes? It's because someone is praying for all your sadness to be erased. So that I can comfort you.
I'll become your rain.
It's from a song called Over the Rainbow, by the Trax. This is the English translation, and it genuinely stuns me, how damn pretty the words are. Have a list of songs I can't get out of my head:
My results turned out to be AABBC, if you were interested. The C is going to annoy me for a long time, but only in the way that, compared to the others, a C is a little too far from the start of the alphabet for me to really accept it. But accept it I shall, on the basis that I never had any intention of taking Biology to A2 anyway. In a way, I should be grateful that it turned out this way. If I'd got full marks in Biology and completely failed something like English Lit, that'd have meant a huge rethink of everything I've planned for the future so far. As it is, it's just a superfluous annoyance.
Soul Survivor was good - better than I expected it to be, in the end - but still among the most lonely few days of my life. The loneliness began when we arrived on the Sunday, and gradually built up over the next couple of days, leaving me alone on a bench sometime before midnight in the pitch black on the Tuesday, wallowing in self-pity and wondering when it was going to stop being so... shit. I must have been looking really pathetic, because a complete stranger stopped and asked if I wanted to be alone or if I needed someone to talk to. Talking to him was so incredibly therapeutic, that a part of me regrets that we're almost definitely never going to meet again (and even if we did, it was dark and I don't remember what he looks like), but on the other hand, communication outside of those couple of hours would ruin the magic. So I'm left slightly bemused, but generally happy to think of what we talked about, and it's just really satisfying, finding out for myself that some people are capable of decency in extending a hand to someone they don't need to care about. It's just good to know. --- While away, the lady whose kids I sometimes babysit texted to inform me of a job vacancy at the Chinese takeaway just over the road from us. I called them, and they offered it to me immediately, under questionable conditions (i.e., the exploiting wage, i.e., the dubious lack of questions concerning my wellbeing {National Insurance number, etc}), and I began on Saturday, the day after we got back from Soul. So there I was, spending my Saturday evening shuffling around awkwardly behind the counter in an ugly apron, surrounded by people who barely speak English outside of what's on the menu and occasionally taking phone orders (something I learned that has made me a better person from this experience: customers who speak really quickly deserve to go to hell. Fucksake, if ever you order by phone, speak slowly! One of the most stressful things I've ever had to do.) To be fair, I was spending a lot of time sitting around doing nothing, which was what the boss reasoned at the end of my shift when he handed me some cash and told me in broken English to not come back. My sister thinks it's hilarious, that I was fired after three hours. Mum's pissed, but I find the whole thing puzzlingly amusing. --- Sophie arrived last Monday! We didn't do loads. Arsed around in each others' company, mainly. She made me watch The Princess Bride, and I was totally surprised by how much I liked it. Classic Monty Python-esq ridiculous comedy. On Tuesday we meandered into Woodbridge and meandered back home again, and spent the rest of the day writing our respective stories with Twilight playing in the background, with all its bad scripting/acting/directing and naked young men as our inspiration. Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, we tried not to hit small children at the holiday club we were volunteering for - but a lot of Thursday morning was spent in the spare room, she writing and I getting angry with Tekken 5, being antisocial together. She is an excellent gaming partner, for the reason that she completely ignores my Steve Fox-oriented ramblings and anguished cries of "No! No! FUCK YOU TO HELL -bollocks, I died" and doesn't tell me to shut the hell up, instead recites little snippets of her writing at me and asks what I think. It's a neat system :) Rory and Sam and Ben came over on Friday. I don't know about everyone else, but I had a really... pleasant day. I'm happy, in a way I haven't been for a while. Repercussions are on my mind but there's not a lot I can do about them. We made pizza. I didn't actually get to have any but I'm assured that it was good. I watched The Avengers on Friday night! After months of Tumblr references that I got tired of not understanding, I caved in - and damnit, everyone needs to see it. It's like - if you took everything that is good with the world and put it into a film, Avengers would be the result. Please, watch it! As my first venture into the Marvel universe it was such a great way to spend two hours - and now I'm part of this huge, active fanbase! I now see the full appeal of Tom 'FUCK ME WITH YOUR VOICE' Hiddleston! But Captain America is just too adorable. I want to hug all the mournfulness away. Or get the Doctor to do the same, because he's lonely and out of his time too. They'd understand one another. It's meant to be. Sometimes I depress myself with my tenacious nerdiness. It's not even endearing, it's just weird. Want to watch a relentlessly sad video? You know you do.
--- On Saturday I was home alone with the cat. It wasn't too bad. We watched About a Boy, read some Catcher in the Rye, ate pasta, licked our own bollocks and then hairballed it out half an hour later. My cat is disgusting. But he's my disgusting, ugly, bad-tempered fleabag and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm off to bake a cake. Talk later. *Later* We had no marg. (-arine.) No cake. --- On Sunday, I had something of an epiphany. I don't know why, it had no relevance to the arsing around I was doing at the time - or perhaps it did - but anyway. We're constantly told to enjoy childhood while we still can, because as we become adults, we gain responsibilities, which lessen the amount of freedom we have. For whatever reason, that only sank in then. I was thinking about going into town that day, when there're no buses, meaning that I'd have had to ask one of my parents for a lift. The drive into town is about fifteen minutes; for me, fifteen minutes there, however many hours spent in town, fifteen minutes back again. But for whoever's giving me a lift, it's double that - half an hour to take me there, and that again to get me home. As a bluntly selfish teenage girl, it's not hard to see that I don't really like doing favours for other people - and when I do do a favour, more often than not there's something in it for me and it doesn't take much time or effort on my part. The idea of being dragged out of the house when I'm happy minding my own business to ferry someone else to where they want to be, thus sacrificing half an hour of my time - and then another half hour when the bastard wants picked up again - is just shit. --- On Monday my village hosted a street fair. I did my bit, once again, in pretending to be a statue and submitting to abuse from bratty kids in exchange for their parents' money - though, actually, they were nowhere near as bad as I expected them to be. Seeing the pictures, I looked pretty good. My mother really is wonderful - my sister and I both worry about what we're going to do when our children need us to make costumes for them. We're so rubbish at all that! Granny Janny is chief costume designer and maker, it seems like an insult to even try when she's just so much better than me.
I was a white marble garden statue, if you couldn't tell. It was fun, actually, for the first hour, after which a combination of factors (i.e., the heat, the heavy costume, the noxious facepaint, my lack of sleep and food) pushed me into the secondary stages of passing out, after the dizziness and onto the blurred vision and hyperventilating. I was carted home and told very firmly to stop and take it all off. That was a very white bath. I made £15 in small change for the Mother's Union, which really isn't bad, for one hour. If I could work for £15 an hour every hour I'd do it all the time. --- Tuesday was great. Just, great. There's no other way of describing it in ways in which I'm comfortable with you reading, but on a scale of diabolical to superlatively marvellous, yesterday was roughly between "great" and "wonderful". --- For several unrelated reasons, James Blunt has been brought to my mind after eight years of prejudice for the abomination that I still believe You're Beautiful to be. Did you know that he served six years in the army? It's just one of those things that... to me, anyway, it automatically places a person on a pedestal of sorts, one that means that, if nothing else, they are worthy of respect, above politicians and lawyers and everything else Tory-biased and well paid. I couldn't be bothered to switch from ITV2 after Notting Hill finished, and I half-watched a programme where Fearne Cotton tailed him around the world as he tours and talked to him about the benefits of partying like a student at thirty-eight. I mean, in all seriousness, his liver must be fucking ruined. Other than coming across as a little self-absorbed, he seems like a sweet guy. He speaks like Benedict Cumberbatch, albeit several octaves higher in pitch. I'm still totally unqualified to come to any sort of conclusion on him as a person, but, he just seems, you know. Nice. I still hate You're Beautiful on the grounds of it being an unreasonably creepy threat of sorts, but he's cool. No Bravery is such a good song. And Wisemen. And Stay the Night. And Goodbye My Lover. --- It is Wednesday. Today I plan on catching some sun while I still can. And I will actually post now, instead of putting it off for another week. Have a good last week of the holidays! I'll be alternating between writing my personal report and reading Hamlet, which translates into "rolling around on the floor like a walrus and watching My Name is Earl". Ciao.
Tom baby your face is just oh I can't even it's just, face.
I don't talk to people about religious beliefs because, in my experience, differing opinions on something that personal lead to arguments and, like a pussy, I guess, I try and avoid conflict. But it goes further than that. Sometimes it reaches the point where I can't even question myself about it, for fear of getting myself worked up into some kind of paradoxical turmoil - basically meaning that my beliefs are like a valuable ornament, that you look at every day but don't really think about, and you're fiercely protective of it, despite not really knowing why. After all, a valuable ornament - it's just money, isn't it? Religion - it's just a way of thinking, isn't it?
My parents are strong Christians. Mum is a vicar, ordained into the CofE when I was about ten. I first attended church at five days old, and I've been going most Sundays ever since.
But what does it mean? Really?
It's so frustrating. I hear amazing stories, things that God has done for people in their lives and I'm left thinking, "That's great, when's my turn?" And THEN I remember that I'm pretty damn fortunate, to be where I am, with potential and a future and freedom and everything else, and so I feel guilty, and then retract all thoughts and, once more, revert to admiring Christianity like a valuable ornament, fucking hating myself for even challenging what's just been so all my life.
Even writing this is uncomfortable. I'm pathetic.
I go to church every Sunday because I like going. That's fine, isn't it? I'm allowed to enjoy the company and the atmosphere, aren't I? It's nice. Mum speaks well. The songs are nice. Even reading the Bible, even if I refuse to think of it long enough for any secondary meanings to come to me, it's nice, it's poetic, it's a good story. But it's like... argh. I want it to mean something to me. It's so, so frustrating. I want to believe! All those people whose lives have been touched by Jesus, they're not making it up, and I really want that! It's just... crushing. This is a part of me that I want to be prominent, that, at some point, detached itself from me and now the distance between faith and me grows more and more and I don't know what to do about it.
From tomorrow to Thursday, I'm at Soul Survivor, a Christian youth/music festival based in Shepton Mallet, in Somerset. This will be my third year of attending. There's no denying it, even from an atheist perspective, it's impressive; fourteen thousand meeting from all over the world for this incredible, electric experience, and the previous two years I've really enjoyed it - though I'm aware that I enjoyed it mainly because it was essentially a residential knees-up. The first year, a knees-up with friends, new and old, and the second year with family and family friends and a load of strangers, so I couldn't be swayed by their opinions. This time, it's the same strangers, but they aren't strangers anymore - they're the people at school you kind of know, and your relationship hasn't progressed from the awkward eye contact stage yet - so, this year it's a muddy residential with half-acquaintences and my mum. It's just embarrassing. The next few days are probably going to go one of two ways. Either, it'll be the worst week of my life and I'll be put off the entire faith indefinitely, or it'll be great and I'll feel stupid for getting so het up about it. Obviously I want it to go well, but from where I am now, I just don't see it happening. Pish. Moments like this I have a theological, sensible reason for my never being confirmed. But I never wanted it, despite having the opportunity on more than one occasion, for the very reason that, in the back of my mind, I knew I'd eventually have some kind of crisis like the one I'm having now. I know people who've jumped into confirmation and then, a year later, "changed their minds", and that's just fucking stupid, and defeating the purpose of ever being confirmed in the first place. It's a tender subject and now I am angry!
This song is so... relaxing. If I could have it playing in my mind on repeat for the rest of my life then doubtless I'd never worry.
It's that time, again! Four months already. How time flies. 1. Last Beverage→ Tea! Nice and British. 2. Last phone call→ From my sister, cancelling my babysitting services tomorrow 3. Last text message→ From Anonymous: "OH GOD THEY'RE COMING FOR ME, PLEASE SAVE ME! THEY'RE... AHHH, THE PENGUINS ARE COMING AHHHHHH" 4. Last song→ That "four 'o' clock in the morning" song has just come on the radio. One of the great mysteries of life: what the hell is that song called? 5. Last time you cried→ I don't remember, but it's been a while
HAVE YOU EVER: 6. Dated someone twice → Meh, yes, but I realise now that neither of us liked the other, because I was desperate and funny-looking and he will always be an unloveable fucktard 7. Been cheated on? → I don't know 8. Kissed someone & regretted it? → Well, yes 9. Lost someone special?→ Lost, losing, I don't know. Yes. 10. Been depressed?→ Megadowned. 11. Been drunk?→ Yeah. Not for a while though. I feel a lash-up is in order, Anonymous.
LIST THREE FAVORITE COLORS: 12. Purple 13. Yellow 14. Bottle green
THIS YEAR (well, in the last four months, since completing this last) HAVE YOU: 15. Made new friends → I have made a new friend! He's a drummer and he's cool. 16. Fallen out of love → Well, no, not really 17. Laughed until you cried → Less often 18. Met someone who changed you→ It's a bit of a bummer of a time of year. I haven't really met anyone new. 19. Found out who your true friends were→ Yes, yes 20. Found out someone was talking about you→ People always do. A very humbling pastime is to sit by yourself and realistically imagine what bad things people have to say about you, and work to reduce that, either by a) becoming perfect, or b) tightening your security. 21. Kissed anyone on your friends list→ What exactly is a "friends list"? Just, the people I'm friends with on Facebook? Then, yes 22. How many people on your friends list do you know in real life → Most of them 23. How many kids do you want to have→ Pff. How should I know. 24. Do you have any pets → Bingo the disgruntled feline, Brutus the spiky cactus and Emily, his considerably punier daughter 25. Do you want to change your name→ I like my name, but, heh, I was thinking the other week how all writers have catchy names, and mine's just... inoffensive. I need to think up a megasuperawesome pseudonym. 26. What did you do for your last birthday→ Heh, got drunk. 27. What time did you wake up today → 1145. 28. What were you doing at midnight last night→ Reading. What I was reading, I'm unwilling to digress because, um, it's embarrassing. 29. Name something you CANNOT wait for → I don't know. It's sad. I'm not looking forward to anything. 30. Last time you saw your father→ Earlier this evening. We watched Usain Bolt win the 200m sprint, like a boss. 31. What is one thing you wish you could change about your life→ Just one? That's hardly fair. 32. What are you listening to right now → "I am your laaaady... and you are my ma-a-a-an..." Fucking terrible song, I don't know why I think Heart is going to improve its playlist any time within my lifetime. Oh, fucksake, it's just changed. "I don't care who you are, where you're from, what you did, as long as you love meeee."Shut up! Fucking Backstreet Boys. 33. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom → I created a person called Tom the other day 34. What's getting on your nerves right now? → Backstreet Boys 36. Whats your Zodiac sign?→ Aquarius, but I could've been born under the hamster constellation for all the difference it'd make. 39. Male or female→ Uhh, ask the audience. 40. Elementary School→ Broughton CP, Mawsley Primary 41. Middle School → We don't have that 42. High school → Bishop Stopford, Woodbridge School, Fairly-gay High 43. Hair color → Ginger 44. Height→ I measured myself the other day, actually. Very badly, apparently, because I got 5'7", and I haven't been that short for years. 46. Do you have a crush on someone? → I don't know. 47. What do you like about yourself? → I have the courage to do what I want and, more often than not, I'm clever enough to do it. I hadn't thought of that until it was pointed out to me. I don't know if it's good or bad. Like you said, it can lead to greatness, or catastrophic downfall. 48. Piercings?→ Six. But one measures 6mm in diameter, which is gross. 49. Tattoos → None, sadly. 50. Righty or lefty → Right
FIRSTS : 51. First surgery → Giving blood, I guess. I'm giving my second donation tomorrow, help. 52. First piercing → Earlobes. I wonder if anyone ever gives a different answer to this. It seems that anyone who has any metal in their body at all started out with the lobes. 53. First tattoo→ No! 54. First best friend→ Danielle 55. First sport you joined → Running 56. First pet → Spider the utterly feral cat 57. First vacation remembered → Scotland, though they mostly merge into one until a couple of years ago 58. First concert → Big Gig, with the Girl Guides. I saw the Saturdays before they were massive, yeah. 59. First crush → In year five, there was a guy called Robert, who marked the beginning of a long line of wankers I was going to like from then on. 60. First alcoholic drink→ Eggnog, good old eggnog.
RIGHT NOW: 61. Eating → Should I be eating? 62. Drinking → Cold tea 63. I'm about to → Change to BBC2 64. Listening to → Fucking adverts! Heart is shit! 65. Waiting for → Life to begin YOUR FUTURE : 66. Want kids? → I don't want to be lonely 67. Want to get married? → Same answer. Maybe I'll just get married. Maybe I'll just have kids. Adopt or something. I can't see myself raising a child with someone else, says the naïve little seventeen-year-old who still has a teddy bear kicking around her room. 68. Careers in mind? → It's so wispy, but I want to write
WHICH IS BETTER WITH THE OPPOSITE [or same, whatever] SEX? 69. Lips or eyes → Eyes are good for seeing out of, but I don't think they're really all that beautiful. I mean, yeah, you get pretty eyes, but they're not what I first notice in a person. That thinking is kind of whimsical and, uh, dumb. So, lips. 70. Hugs or kisses → Just... affection. 71. Shorter or taller → It doesn't matter. Lanky, petite, gigantic, elfin, wheelchair-bound, winged, centaur, completely average - it's irrelevant. 72. Older or Younger → Provided it's not illegal, it doesn't matter. 73. Romantic or spontaneous → Depends. There's a thin line between "romantic" and "creepy". For that reason, I suppose I prefer spontaneity - though now I think about it, there is literally no relation between "romantic" and "spontaneous". No kind of oxymoron or juxtaposition. They're just different things. It's like asking if someone prefers teaspoons or jelly. Silly questionnaire! 74. Long hair or Short? → Teehee, long. But I'm not fascist against short hair. Short hair is good. But I can plait long hair. Oh, such fun. 75. Tattoos or piercings→ Both, if it suits the person 76. Sensitive or loud → Bit of both is good 77. Hook-up or relationship→ I'm tired of the former 78. Trouble maker or hesitant→ Ugh, just, it depends on the person.
HAVE YOU EVER : 79. Kissed a stranger → Yes, more than once, and it was bad, very bad and shut up. 80. Skipped class?→ Same answer, heh. 81. Lost glasses? → No, I've been quite good. 83. Broken someone's heart → Yes 84. Had your own heart broken → Yes 85. Been arrested?→ Yes, always 86. Turned someone down → Yes 87. Cried when someone died → Not anyone real 88. Liked a friend that is a girl? → Well. Yes.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 89. Yourself → I want to 90. Miracles → Ugh. I don't know. 91. Love at first sight → No? 92. Heaven → So many questions 93. Santa Claus → No. Never did, actually. 94. Kissing on the first date? → Yeah, why not. 95. Angels → I don't know
ANSWER TRUTHFULLY: 96. Is there one person you want to be with right now? → Yes, but it wouldn't achieve anything, and so there is no point 97. Had more than one boyfriend/girlfriend at one time? → No 98. Do you believe its possible to remain faithful forever? → Provided the sex and conversation stay fresh, of course. 99. What's the one thing you cannot live without? → Oxygen 100. [OWN QUESTION]: Who let the dogs out? → Kit Harington, the bad boy.
Have you seen I Love You Phillip Morris? Have you have you have you?
That is much of what I have to say.
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Met up with Ben and Rory yesterday. Aside from the minor guilt at managing to cadge four cups of tea from the former and getting away with contributing nothing at all money-wise, it was great. Sometimes I wonder how the dynamic would change with the three of us if I were a dude as well.
Today I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING yay. Woke in the early hours of the afternoon, and I put off eating breakfast until 1500 to create a NEW MEAL, called breaklinner, which is exciting.
The first impression I had of Great Yarmouth was one of a provincial hellhole, populated by a particularly ugly breed of illiterate half-humans and all the while hiding behind tack in order to conceal the underlying layer of scum (in every sense of the word) for whom the little seaside town is unfortunate enough to play host - but after two weeks camping in the aforementioned hellhole, I have come to the conclusion that, actually, it's not that bad.
The campsite is utterly devoid of any kind of atmosphere, but the facilities are clean, very clean indeed, and therefore I was content during the ten days we spent there. And the ice cream van that came trundling around between six and quarter past with military precision gave generous portions, even if Greensleeves is a weirdly ominous take on the traditional ice cream jingle.
Probably the best thing was being so close to the sea. Five minutes walk would find you curled in a blanket in a sand dune, protected from the cold wind and left to listen to the waves banging the shore and read a book. I've read a lot, the last ten days. Fight Club. Vernon God Little. The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Motorcycle Diaries. Pride and Prejudice. I'd forgotten how much I love reading. It's the best kind of escape from a monotonous existence, or a painful reality.
My only venture into the amusement arcades was, I suppose, victorious; my sister and I toiled at the 2p machines for a considerable portion of the afternoon and came away with a painted wooden duck each.
One afternoon, I went with my parents to the Hippodrome Circus, having seen posters all over the place for a week. I was sceptical, thinking that because I'd seen one circus I'd seen them all - but ohhhhhh my, it was amazing. Incredible. Mindblowing. Just. Perfect. I don't care if you're a friend living in Lowestoft or one of the 15% of my readers apparently residing in Russia, go, go! It's a permanent establishment, the Hippodrome, with a couple of different shows a year, showing for a few months at a time. I hope to return to Yarmouth in winter for their Christmas show and bring everyone I know. I left with the overwhelming desire to become an acrobat.
I came home of the mind that, once you get used to it, Yarmouth has its own kind of charm that you just don't get in nice places.
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During my Yarmouth stay, a short train journey brought me to Norwich station last Saturday to meet with friends for the annual gay pride march! I had a wonderful day, getting "I ♥ PRIDE" painted on my face, drawing a rainbow on the faces of others, accumulating brightly coloured merch, meandering to the big park, eating strawberries in a sensuous manner, ogling a blue-haired angel, getting down with Morris dancers, inadvertently finding ourselves marching with the Tories, invading Caffe Nero in a tastefully rainbow fashion, loitering by a river, basking in our homosexual tendencies in the receding lights of the Norwich Gay Bus, completely freaking out over the train tickets home, etc.
What struck me as wonderful was just how much love there was. Everywhere. It was the nicest atmosphere. Everyone was so very affectionate and lovely, to groups of complete strangers openly asking for a hug on the grounds of we like your wings, heh heh heh.
I'm sorry! I didn't get his beautiful face!
Bring on Pride '13! Already planning my outfit. It's going to be luminous.
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And, so, home again.
Seventeen years of being a loner has been ample time to reach the conclusion that, unlike people whose moods take a natural downward trajectory in winter (called SAD - it stands for something, don't remember what), during the summer holidays I seem to deflate. Sink into megadowndom. Probably caused by extended time spent alone, which, while I love spending time by myself, turns me into a bit of an obsessive maniac. While I have something safe into which I can channel my obsessiveness, I'm generally harmless. Just a little unpleasant to be around. Routine! I crave routine! It's depressing, no doubt, considering that my idea of a perfect life constitutes no routine whatsoever, to think that, should I ever reach the point where I can support myself with my writing, I shall almost definitely be spending most of my time... bummed. Cashing in on my megadown with depressing short stories. If you get the opportunity, watch Jon Richardson: A Little Bit OCD while you still can. A lot of it rang true. And now I have ammunition against unhelpful people being flippant because they don't understand. Leo is almost eleven months old... He's getting so big! It never fails to completely and utterly blow my mind, just how gorgeous he is. And chubby. Brilliantly chubby. Always.
"Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us." - Pride and Prejudice
