not a diary

Hello everyone.

I'll be briefer than usual, as I'm pretty tired and quite obviously needing my beauty sleep. today on my way to choir practice a boy (quite literally) gave me a look of PURE HORROR when our eyes met.
which set me to thinking, as most things do... smiling is seriously under-rated. i'd been on the theme of smiling when i'd got into my car this evening too after work, so i've decided this blog will be about the power of a smile.

my friend james who i went to uni with had a smile that practically made him famous among the female population. if he ever saw someone he found even faintly attractive it was almost as if hearts appeared in his eyes, like mickey mouse or something. i used to call him 'my fruit machine' because you'd pull his arm and he'd just be three hearts in a row. i'd always say to him 'oh my god, you like that girl, don't you' and he'd be like 'how the hell did you know?' and the smile had just given it away.

the girl who runs my choir has a different kind of smile. as she's conducting us it's almost like she's grinning away in encouragement. she has a way of making eyecontact with absolutely everyone as we sing, as if she knows it's the bit ur unsure about, so she grins at you. so, even if you don't have a clue what you're singing, you smile back, and you feel happy.

smiling really does make me feel happy. it might only last for a split second, but it tends to be what i do just to get myself through my 9 to 5. i have another friend who i feel i should bring up here, who has probably the most infectious grin i've ever seen. he grins at you, and it doesn't matter whether you felt like crap the second before, you grin straight back. i went into his office today, however, and i could see he was in a meeting. (serious faced meeting), so i said to the woman on reception 'oh, he's got his serious face on, he's busy, i'll wait', and she looked over and said...

'he always looks like that.'

although she had no idea, to me, she'd actually made a pretty powerful statement. i see my friend as completely the opposite to the way she does. she sees a serious, maybe even intense, person. i see a bright, buzzy sort of person with a huge heart. sometimes people put on fronts, either because they are in the workplace, (as with my friend), or because they are around people who make them feel unlike themselves. i think i tend to remain pretty constant wherever i am. but i don't necessarily think that putting up a front is a bad thing. i think i'm learning that i need to start feeling things less and just ploughing on through.

that way, when those moments of feeling sneak through, they mean more.

night

Seeing as I'm having one of those Sunday evening moments when going to work tomorrow appeals about as much as eating a mouldy oyster, i thought i'd make a list to cheer myself up. it's a list of things that MIGHT POSSIBLY happen which will make my day go a bit smoother, or easier, in the office. sheesh, maybe even 'happier' but that is sorta pushing it.

1. i might wake up tomorrow to blue sky. it would be a good start. traffic also might be ok. it's unlikely seeing as it's the first day back after half term, so i'm going with blue sky.

2. i might turn my inbox on and discover under 10 emails. it's unlikely, but if there are less than ten of them it means i can be clear of the back log and good-to-go by 9.30.

3. the meeting i've got with my boss might be ok. it's possible he might choose not to talk over me at every opporunity or to answer every question i ask him with a complete cliche. chiches such as 'it takes one to know one' or 'to make a good omlette u have to break a few eggs', or my personal favourite 'if you want to tell me i'm a wanker, you can, and i'll say 'why am i a wanker' and you'll tell me, and if i think i am, i'll say 'yes kath, i'm a bit of a wanker, i see what i did there'.

4. the meeting i've got with my 'team' might be positive and not just a list of things for me to bullet point and try to work out afterwards - which takes me back to the point above about the way my boss reacts to my questions. tomorrow i might see the light and realise the magic words i'm not saying or magic things i'm not doing which would make the difference. i might.

5. i might get the chance to have a longer than 20 minute lunch break. or spend my lunch hour away from my desk. oooh perhaps it will be a day for shaking off those chains of repression! eeek

6. maybe i'll see a friend for a cup of coffee. ok. maybe that's a little toooo much positivity!!! it's monday, after all. ;-)

7. well, i know something good WILL happen, and that's that after work i will go to choir and have a sing song with some friends. that will round all of the above off well, especially if none of them happened.

ok. so... wish me luck! if i manage 3 of the above, i'll be chuffed.

evening all

last night i shared a bizarre experience with friends. we went to see don mclean at the royal albert hall. it became a bit of a family outing because my parents had got tickets for themselves, and then my friend called to say his family had a ticket going spare. ended up 6 of us, scattered around the place, being able to wave at each other as the show kicked off. to be honest i only know 2 or 3 don mclean records, but that didn't make much of a difference, it was still a good time. i was on my feet dancing to american pie with the rest of them. there was one particular song in the show that stuck out to me 'and i love you so', which, apparently is one of his classics but i had no idea. all i could see, after all, was a bloke with a comb over and a guitar (!) still the lyrics made an impression on me and i looked down the line at two of my best friends standing next to me both singing along. the bit i remember went: 'and i love you so, people ask me how, how did i live til now, i tell them i don't know'.

i looked at my friends at that moment and just felt this huge appreciation for the fact that i was there with them, and family, in this amazing building, beer in one hand (sneaky beer) and my friend kate's hand in the other. we were just sharing a really simple moment together, but it meant a lot after a difficult week. the lyrics in the song tho, made me think. sometimes it is a bit like i'm running on empty and i don't realise what i'm doing or feeling until i've got time to feel it. on thursday night i crawled into bed, completely shattered and with only my mobile phone to connect me to the people i love. sometimes that's tricky, particularly when ur tired and there's loads of stuff on your mind. obviously, sometimes it's easy because i can lie there like a starfish and imagine myself onto a desert island.
last night, however, i got into bed realising that what i was needing was just some good times with the people i need around me. i've been letting myself get soooo absorbed in the office that it really takes over. you leave yourself nothing in reserve, so when life interrupts, you're left thinking 'i've not left myself the energy for this'. but there are people around me who give me that energy, and i couldn't be without them.

luckily enough, i've got a week of socialising planned which will hopefully lift me out of this current misty situation and help me focus on the good things i have. i fear i'll need my friends a lot more than usual in the coming weeks and the more i 'use' them, the more i worry about pushing them away. it'll be a week of bolstering the friendships which are about to get me through the darkest of times.

x

Tomorrow, a good friend meets with a milestone in life. I have ten minutes. I am going to dedicate this blog with my own little happy birthday poem. (It's meant to be silly. it's also meant to say happy birthday down the side)

Happy birthday

Happy 30th birthday
andy
please don't forget
people like
you are the
best sort of people and that
i think you're a bit of a star
really
that's the truth
however it may seem a lot of the time i
don't mean it
andy,
you really do mean a lot to me.

I have a small pink cardboard covered notebook beside my bed. It's old and dog-eared. It used to have a piece of velcro sealing it up, but that's broken off. It has a huge old coat button stuck to it, now there's nothing left of that. It was beside my bed my entire university life, so all in all i've owned it for about 6 years and it contains a lot of random lines. I looked back on it last night for the first time in ages. A lot of it is throw-away, as far as i can tell. And although the below is pretty much also throw-away, it stood out to me. it's scrawled across a page, i can barely read it. i might have written it when i was half cut in 2nd year or something.

it reads...

What does it matter
all the good things i do
what's it gonna take
what will it ever take?
it takes up
everything
and now i've got nothing left for me
alone

there aren't any days left with you
and now i'm surrounded
by buildings - i can't see where
i'm supposed to walk
to find you.

I promise i miss you so much.
it's been years, but i think about you
every day

Too many people want me
to care about them
and to leave me with nothing
of my own-
until my breath comes out
in really short little gasps
and i realise
it's been doing that for ages
probably since you left
i can't breathe.

---

Sometimes, as I was thinking last night, the words don't change. the people they could be about do. we as people change, but as i've said before in this blog, our fundamental nature simply can't change.
i'm very tired this evening. tired of everything. tired of life events beyond my control, tired of feelings i wish would disappear, maybe even tired of worrying (and worrying is one of my major strong points). times like this i find myself practically clawing for my own place in the world. i have ownership of so much, and yet so little of the things i really want.

i'm practically climbing the walls of my own life.
while someone else's is nearly over.

i feel - selfish, obsessional, anxious...
i find it difficult to believe myself at the moment. or IN myself, for that matter.

I want to write about the 'frying pan in the face' moments in life. i'm certain most people will have no idea what i mean. imagine yourself as a cartoon character, running around a kitchen like tom in 'tom and jerry', when suddenly a frying pan hits you smack in the chops. KA-DOIIIIIIIING... it hits really hard and suddenly your shaking, and thinking 'what WAS that?'

ok so, speaking in metaphors... the frying pan hitting you in the face is that moment when you suddenly realise something HUGE is going on. i suppose people could call it 'when something dawns on you' but it's more than that. it's this moment of total and utter, complete realisation. i wonder how on earth these (very obvious) moments sneak up on us and take us by surprise.

When I was at University, my friends and all the people around me (even those i didn't really speak to) could see my 'frying pan' a long way off. it was obvious to all that I was falling madly in love with someone. but it wasn't obvious to me. how, exactly, it wasn't obvious to me remains a mystery to this day. when i first met him i was convinced he was a complete and utter idiot. but very slowly, as we spoke and the more experiences we shared, we became very close. i thought at the time that he was one of the greatest friends i've ever had, in fact i'd convinced myself of that. the moment of realisation came to me when i was far too hooked to pull myself back.

we were in seminars together all the time, on the same course at uni, and i remember it distinctly. some friends were bad-mouthing him outside the tutor's office, in the tiny coridoor. he was never really one for 'study' as such, and he'd never prepared for classes. yet, he had the gift of the gab, which meant that much to everyone's irritation he always contributed in class, made the tutor raise their eyebrows and write his name down as a possible genius. it drove other people mad. so, there we were waiting to go into the class and he was late. a friend made some snide remark about how he'd probably only just woken up and was reading the text on his way across the park, and i snapped. i remember flying to his defence. how could they know how much he'd prepared? they didn't even know him after all, or words to that effect. it occured to me when we sat down that what i was trying to say was 'you don't know him like i do'. and suddenly, there it was. i understood it all - i was in love with him. and from then on i couldn't look back. i was past saving.

now that i can look back, of course i see him completely differently. but i still get those moments of realisation on occassion. and it's funny how they creep up. you don't realise they've been creeping until they are there.
the focus of this blog seems to have switched to feelings lately, and the main image that springs to mind is a tap, dripping into a sink with the plug in. it doesn't look like a lot if you watch the tap dripping. it's only when you look and see that the water is over flowing that you realise - you can either let it over flow, or let the plug out.

In the car on the way home from work I realised I had more than one blog topic for this evening. Although, as soon as i considered all the varying blog topics i could write about tonight, it seemed they were all coming down to one thing. feelings.

I'm reading a book at the moment called Emotional Intelligence. I read it on the plane during my weekend away and I've just hit on a part which is about the difference between people who understand their feelings and are able to recognise them, and people who are emotionally unintelligent... just feel things and get upset when they can't explain what they are or why, then get more upset because they can't explain why they are upset... it goes on in this way.

I am obviously in the first camp. You may have realised it from reading my blog, or if this is your first read... maybe you realised it from the first paragraph. I recognise my feelings. However, sometimes this helps me, and sometimes it really doesn't. Feelings are not something we can control, so everytime i feel something and say to myself 'that made me really angry', for example, i am forced to confront WHY, which then leaves me in a position where i'm wishing i had more control over how i felt, not just the ability to go 'well, that was quite obviously jealousy, you IDIOT' instead of a more considered approach.

lately i have had feelings which, as a 23 year old, i've only recently begun to confront. everytime something happens, i wonder whether it's all part of a grander scheme for my life. i recently got a promotion in my job, (although, considering how crap i appear to be at it, it hasn't got me very far) when i got the promotion most of the time i just kept thinking 'is this a turning point? is this the moment when x, y, and z will also fall into place?' i'm pretty certain it's not.

it's impossible to believe in a grander scheme for life when things creep up on us at every turn. feelings sneak in. quite often these days i find myself walking to a meeting or some other mission for work, seeing some poster on the wall and being reminded of someone or something. then this sudden rush of feeling is there, pushing me around. sometimes it's as simple as 'i really need to call so and so and arrange a dinner, coz i've been useless lately', but most of the time it's about the sheer amount i care about my friends and family. i'm certain it gets ridiculous from their point of you. when i'm thinking of them, i now act much more on impulse, and tell them.

recently, a close friend called me to tell me that a mutual (and mutually close) friend had forgotten their birthday. in fact, instead of wishing them a happy birthday this friend had texted them on their birthday just making conversation (thus proving that they had forgotten). My group of university friends are far too close to forget each others birthdays. this just isn't something on the friendship agenda. so, i'm sure there was an excellent reason for it. but when i found out i felt this incredible rush of anger, sadness and disappointment. i agonised over whether to call this friend myself and tell her she'd forgotten, but then it would have been obvious to my friend with the birthday.

so i did nothing.

and now, i still can't pull it out of my mind. all i seem able to do is tell my forgotten friend how much i love and care for her, as if somehow that might be enough to pacify her and make her forgive our mutual friend. i'm powerless to solve anything. this, for me, is a prime example of how at the moment i'm using my feelings to try to solve situations which they just can't solve. the phrase 'stop thinking that way, because i love you' is in two halves. the two halves simply don't connect. both are true, but neither solves the other.

i have another friend who i fear is in need at the moment. and again, i'm pretty much powerless there. i don't have anything to give in order to solve a situation, or even to get closer to understanding it. so all i can do,then, is offer my feelings to this person on a plate. somehow i have a vague hope that the intensity of feelings on my part will cause some dramatic shift in the other person. of course, they won't. when i smile at my friend i can quite easily see when the smile i get in return is real, and when it's fake. again 'smile properly, coz you're amazing' doesn't really cut it, does it.

so, the blog below was about acting on impulse. whereas this blog is coming round to the conclusion that it's probably wiser not to. maybe there are feelings i'm not ready to let out. if i do, i might lose something. if i don't, i appear cold and unemotional. something which, as u might have noticed, i'm certainly not.

goodnight.
x

Evening all

Only a few hours ago, I was on a plane. Frequent flyers among you (or even occassional flyers, like me) will know what I mean when I describe that moment when the plane has made it through the thick layers of cloud and darkness covering the ground below (Poland, in my case) and is suddenly zooming along on what looks like a cotton wool desert, the sun catching you completely by surprise and turning everything brilliant white. maybe most people prefer to stare down at whatever airport tack they are reading, but I like to use that moment to have a good think. and normally, a positive one. you can see for miles and miles. next time you're up there, give life a bit of thought. the other side of that reinforced pane of glass is... quite frankly... oblivion. but there you are, sailing across an ocean of white, thinking nothing of it.

so, what was i thinking about?

funnily enough, a friend has recently got me pondering change. he has made me wonder what change actually means to me. by this, i don't mean changing your socks or changing your hairstyle, i mean... changing everything. i think people find change so difficult sometimes because for a lot of people it goes hand in hand with losing something. you have to stop doing the one thing, and begin on another. for some you have to stop being that person, and change into this person. and with loss, comes grief, and sadness. 'a change is as good as a rest' is the phrase, isn't it. but is that really true?

a close friend of mine knows change better than most people. 4 years ago he decided (his own words) to 'stop being someone else, and start being myself', and now his entire life is different. at 40 (a milestone for anyone, i guess) he was married (for the second time) and had three daughters. the youngest was 3 months old. he was going to work everyday, coming home at night, chief provider. however, he was also realising day by day that it was time to stop living a lie, and tell his family he was gay. my friend (who won't mind me sharing his story) has always known he is gay. when he reached 40 and became a father of three, he decided it was time to actually be a real father to his children, and not a fake one. 4 years on, and he continues to rebuild his life. of course, it hasn't been easy. he sees his children twice a week and they are three of the loveliest kids i've ever met. their mother is settled with someone else, so they now have two father-figures in their lives. my friend has plenty of heart-aches to come, i'm sure. but he's never once regretted his decision. whenever i ask him, he maintains 'i know i have a lot to deal with, but at least this is me, not someone else. i'm dealing with my own life now, living it my own way.'

i would never say that changing his life has solved everything for my friend, but it has solved his identity, and cleared the mist. he has a solid sense of self now. which is more than a lot of people have. i find his story inspiring, which is why i wanted to share it. recently i received an email telling me my blog was having a profound affect on one of my readers. as a relatively new blogger, i'm taking this as a massive compliment. so thank you. i've been doing some deep thinking lately. in fact, while i was away i went on a long walk in the freezing polish forest with my sister, which was a great chance just to breathe out and wonder where i'm going.

in one sense:
i think i'm headed for a disaster. i'm full of feelings, questioning the future all of the time. i'm needing some security back because at the moment i seem only to feel uncertainty.

in another sense:
i could be wrong to see security as equal to happiness. i could get myself the security i seek and always be looking for another kind of happiness.

and in a third sense:
i'm just going to see where all of these feelings take me. i'm going to be impulsive and try to just say what i feel, when i feel it. maybe i'll lose friends, maybe i'll gain them, and perhaps i'll gain something i need.

x

A little something I wrote.

What next?

I close my eyes at night and realise
I'm terrified.
I couldn't have expected this.

When I remove the plastic pin
it holds for just one moment then
deflates
I'm at that moment now
and it's too late.

I walk back to my car in the dark
now rain, or is it something worse
I'm terrified of falling
back to where i was.

This isn't real.
but still. I'm terrified
confusion grips me in a vice
of things i'll never have
nor hope to be

and now i can't take your advice on board
it deepens our divide
i'm in the deep-end by the time i realise
you never ever held me while i cried.
your expectations, now, are satisfied
i won't go back.
I put my arms around myself at night.
I'm terrified.

I've made a recent decision to switch off the part of my mind that feels negative things and questions everything, and try to feed the part of my head that knows everything is ok... really.
However I think I have one part that is sitting in the middle. The part of my head that thinks things to make itself happy and then realises to its bitter disappointment that in fact they are not true. By this, I think i mean the daydreaming part.

I daydream a hell of a lot. I picture entirely unreal situations in my head. I dream up the conversations I'd actually like to have with people in my head. You know, that old faithful daydream where you walk up to your boss and explain to him exactly why he is a complete and utter prick, giving him your resignation. or the one where you walk into the bar and that bloke you've had your eye on does that 'jaw drop' thing but you know it's too late for him? yes... daydreaming can be fun. but it's also completely lethal. it's both positive and negative at the same time. how quickly a daydream becomes a nightmare when we end up scolding ourselves for even imagining something to be possible when it just isn't. i'm not going to tell my boss he's a wanker. a guy is not going to stare open mouthed at me (not while i'm at work, anyway) and it looks like it's about time i started daydreaming about reality.

but maybe that's just what thinking is.

one final question for the group:

are daydreams completely harmless if the person concerned NEVER finds out about them?

x

I've been weighing it all up.
It doesn't balance.

I shared my parallel universe/another world just like ours theory last night. It goes along the lines of loads of tennis balls and loads of golf balls dropped from a sack, measure the distance between them and at some point you are bound to get two measurements the same. That, to me, equates to the earth and the sun. The fact we have life (some believe) is based on us being the perfect distance away from the sun. So... the golf and tennis ball theory implies that could have happened anywhere. Ok, maybe far away, there's another me living exactly the same life. or, maybe there's another me making all the decisions and going in all the directions I've yet to go in.
I think the other me would be a lot braver, think a lot less and not take everything quite so to heart. I'd care about people only to the healthiest of amounts and not push it until i end up hurting when they don't quite behave the way i would to them. the other me would definately not struggle to get out of bed in the morning without a black coffee.

i was recently asked what makes me happy. it's an interesting question. i'd say plenty of things make me happy, but it's sods law that i can't surround myself with them on a day to day basis, and some of them i just can't have right now. i'm going to focus on the good things as my heart feels particularly heavy this evening.

In no particular order my happiness list is:

1. Sitting around a table with my university girls, cocktails, wine and bar snacks.
2. looking around art galleries, with friends or without, wondering, thinking, reflecting, existing amongst great works of art.
3. seeing live performances of anything on stage anywhere, even if it's rubbish
4. singing in the choir, performing in the choir, drinking with the choir post gigs.
5. just HAVING to dance
6. being held. in general, that's better than most other things on this list
7. open fires, agas, scrambled eggs made by my friend who lives in the middle of nowhere
8. getting into clean sheets on a sunday evening
9. my family on boxing day after the races at kempton park
10. roast. potatoes
11. mashed. potatoes!
12. hot ribena on the weekend
13. waking up on a saturday morning
14. going to bed on a friday night
15. hearing someone's voice on the phone when you didn't realise how much you'd missed them
16. surprises. oh god, i love surprises
17. being chatted up by a guy with sparkly eyes who you know you'll never see again
18. walking in the midlands near my dad's work flat down to the coffee shop at the bottom of the hill
19. buying stupid presents for those i care about
20. seeing the look on someone's face when you stop and help them to pick up all of their money as it rolls down guildford highstreet, only to disappear when they try to thank you.

Yeah, all of the above do make me happy.

As I drove home from dinner with a friend this evening, it wasn't too late, and I was actually thinking to myself 'I've got petrol in the tank. what if i just keep... going?'

what if?

x

evening

just a quick blog tonight as i'm tired. but i think i'm happy tired. this is good because the past few days i have only really been exhausted and miserable to boot. i'm happy simply because i've been singing with 45 friends.

to say i've been singing with 45 friends probably doesn't illustrate the fact i've been at choir practice, but there you go. i do have 45 friends there, i know all their names, their jobs, and random facts about their family lives. it's amazing going to choir practice. i can enter a room at 7 on a monday evening and immediately be surrounded by people who i really hardly know, but then can connect with these people on a pretty intimate level for a couple of hours. by the time we reach the tea break we are all buzzing with stories to tell each other and news to share. the things i can tell my friends at choir are above and beyond a lot of the things i'm willing to share with my closest friends in life. i'll come out with quite serious statements and know that the two or three people listening will answer honestly, taking it all on board. we rarely ask each other for updates, but we know each others business on quite a personal level.

i love to sing. i wouldn't say i can sing particularly well, but i seem pretty able to hold a good tune. i struggle when the person next to me suddenly reverts back to the melody because they've lost the part, but beyond that, i'm ok. we're currently singing 'mr sandman' which is actually hilarious because a lot of the lyrics are those awful 'bung bungs' which occupy the introduction and the end of each line. watching grown men with legal careers singing 'bung bung' over and over again makes you drop all your worries the moment you walk in the door.

of course, i pick it all back up again soon as i'm sat in my car driving home in the darkness. tasks for the next day flood into my mind but i'm somehow able to be incredibly clear about what needs to be done, or even if it's not a good feeling - very clear on exactly why i feel the way i do. i'm struggling lately with the way i feel and why, quite often wanting to hit myself over the head (of course, that would look odd to people, so it's more of a mental-hit). my mind quite often runs off with me until i'm about 20 years ahead of myself, forgetting i'm 23, relatively free and can more or less do what i like within reason.

did you know that 'mr sandman' includes a rather freaky lyric 'mr sandman, bring me a dream, give him a pair of eyes with a come-hither gleam...'
really. WHAT were they thinking? but hearing fully grown men singing it is truely HILARIOUS.

Hello.

I had some interesting discussions this morning over coffee. nobody has ever really analysed the way i think or act, apart from myself, so it was interesting to hear my friend's viewpoint. the way he sees it, if i am faced with situations of loss which are beyond my control, I desperately try to get control of situations that I can have some kind of power over. i cling to my friends like clingfilm, i guess. he's right.

onto a more comfortable subject:

later on, in a book shop, i was glancing over all the books i've read and wondering what i could be reading next. i've read a fair amount, and not just because i've had to as a student. i always want people to either read or listen to the books or the music i believe are amazing. i've probably only touched the surface of amazing books and music - possibly i'm stronger on music than on books. poetry, of course, is an excellent compromise between the two. it only takes a couple of minutes to read a poem unless you'd like to read it properly (or unless it's an epic).

i also don't think poetry necessarily ever has to have a name attached. it's at its best when it becomes just words, there on the page, knocking you out. below are some of my favourite poetic lines... ever. I guess they speak to me, and i'd assume they speak to others too. Let's see:

One day you'll see
you've been knocking on a door
without a house.
You've been waiting, shivering, yelling
Words of daring and hope.

One day you'll see:
there is no-one on the other side
except as ever, the jubilant ocean
that won't shatter ceramically
like a dream
when you and i shatter.

---

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
what kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world
determined to do
the only thing you could do
determined to save
the only life you could save.

---

At the top of the stairs
I ask for her hand. OK
she gives it to me.
How her fist fits my palm,
a bunch of consolation
we take our time
down the steep carpetway
as I wish silently
that the stairs were endless.

---

It's not that I think she's boring, precisely,
that isn't the word i would choose;
I know there are men who like girls who talk nicely
and always wear sensible shoes.

It's not that i think she is vapid and silly,
it's not that her voice makes me wince-
but chilli con carne without any chilli
is only a plateful of mince.

---

If I was not myself, I would be somebody else.
But actually I am somebody else.
I have been somebody else all my life.

It's no laughing matter
Going about the place all the time being somebody else:
people mistake you; you mistake yourself.

---

Hello everyone.

The topic for this evening is change. Yes, we're back to the drudgery of serious blog topics, although I will try to make this one interesting. i like to relate what i write to music - there's actually a Coldplay song i quite like (shock, horror as i believe they are a scurge on society) called 'we never change' which is very pretty and is more or less what it says on the tin. it's about how people always fundamentally want the same things as they always have. the last line says 'i wanna live in a wooden house, where making more friends would be easy. i wanna live where the sun comes out.' i think it's a really simple sentiment but it's actually very true. when we get down to the crunch, we only really want the simple things in life. the basics.

does what we want ever really change as we grow up? i don't think so. I feel like the root of our needs always remains the same, but we see it in different things. when i was a child i sought security and love from my parents, as we all did, but now i seek that in friends or boyfriends. really what i'm after is just a transfer of that same thing. security.
so, does the way we actually ARE change then? my answer to that is no, again. it just grows out in different directions, and our experiences with other people develop our understanding of who we are... but not WHAT we are. not the fundamental way we live and interact.

about two years ago i walked straight into a very bad situation. i could see, quite plainly, that it was a bad situation and it wasn't going to do me any good, but i went there anyway. the result was incredibly messy. i almost flunked my masters, worked obsessive long hours in a job i hated, and did incredibly irrational things. i willingly gave up my time, effort, energy, in order to feed the situation. i'm not sure now exactly what i was trying to improve. but i did learn something fundamental about what i am, who i am, all of it. i have the tendancy to give up too much too quickly, plug everything into something, then find i'm completely by myself with it.

now that i know that about myself, it doesn't mean i can change that. but it does mean i can say 'woah, hold on there' to myself if i ever see that bad situation on the horizon again. give me a moment of weakness, however, and i'd be in there feet first. at least i'd know what i was doing this time. so, human beings probably don't change - they just learn.

seeing as we're sharing, i feel it's about time i 'shared' one of my poems. i'm not a particularly good poet but i give it a go, i wouldn't say i write the kind of poems that make people cringe, but they don't make people smile either. the below is a villanelle (a french song), altho it's not in french, and you can't sing it. whoever invented giving verse forms names should be shot. seeing as it almost IS 10pm, here's er... 10pm exactly...

10pm exactly

I wait unnoticed while you tie your shoes
while all around us darkness now descends
the newsreader begins to read the news

I try to think of something, light a fuse
make pleasant conversation with your friends
i wait unnoticed while you tie your shoes

can you imagine what it is to lose?
shall we explain it, or shall we pretend?
the newsreader begins to read the news.

And does existance always move in twos?
(an overwhelming silence at the end?)
I wait unnoticed while you tie your shoes

You were my most inevitable bruise
I now have only aching to defend
the newsreader begins to read the news

How can I sleep? I only question whose
destructive force could come between us, friend.
I wait unnoticed while you tie your shoes
The newsreader begins to read the news.

Well, goodnight everyone.

I quote a favourite from the flaming lips there. yes, this blog IS getting too heavy so I have decided to lighten the load. not gonna talk about work, work probably sucks for everyone. not gonna talk about love, love most CERTAINLY is not my best subject. so, one of my favourite subjects. my friends.

i'm wondering if you could choose say... 5 of your closest friends and then think of your top 5 household or day to day objects that remind you of them, what those objects would be. it's a strange question but it sure as hell makes you happy to wonder.

my top 5s are below (not top 5 friends tho, seeing as i don't do rankings!)

1. Kate

- hair straigteners
- egg cups
- large tea cups
- black books dvds
- kitten heels.

2. Adam

- indigestion tablets
- cigarettes
- running shoes
- mixed tapes
- bananas

3. Lucy

-friends' dvds
- sheer blonde shampoo
- heart shaped cushions
- eiderdowns
- hugs (ok... not an object...)
- enchilladas

4. Andy

- audi cars
- corduoroy
- computers
- roast dinners
- laughter (not an object, sorry)

5. Becky

- hair products
- blankets
- chocolate cake
- dressing gowns
- dance floors

Blimey, I enjoyed that!

I often wish I was born in 1960. This means I would have been 17 in 1977. I think about the things i could have done, how wreckless i could have been, the great gigs i would have been to... and exactly WHO would i be right now? I'd be 47, is what I'd be. I would have done all the things i still have to do, want to do, seriously NEED to do.

Do you ever wish you were born in a different time?

I have a lot on my mind at the moment, can't you tell. It seems that since this blog has started I'm being forced to reflect on the way i think. I wish i could have a bit more control over all of that. my boss is evidently a complete and utter wanker, but i wish beyond all wishes that i could turn around and say 'you're evidently a complete and utter wanker' instead of 'yeaaah, i see what you're saying'. I don't see what he's saying. In fact i would part with serious cash if it meant ensuring I never end up as jaded at the joys of life as him. he's one of those EMPTY people that you read about in books. he says things he really doesn't mean. 'i'm a can-do person' is a phrase i love to hate. i AM a can-do person, he's more of a 'piss off' person and that's putting it lightly. i still haven't signed the contract for the new job. it's still a bit... doubtful that i will.

i'm powerless to control the way i feel about every-single-thing right now. feelings come along and smack me right in the face leaving me going 'whaaaat?' and scratching my head.

where did this all start, exactly?

Evening all

This will be short because I'm this close to falling asleep. This close.

However there is too much in my head. A song on the radio on the way home from my choir practice just said 'there's not enough paper in the world' and that could end up being true of my brain if I don't at least get a LITTLE bit of that out.

i chatted below about always making things difficult for myself. unless it's difficult, maybe it's not worth doing. well... i'm actually feeling seriously tired and desperately wanting at least ONE thing to be easy. there is a wide difference, although people who experience it won't realise, between walking in the door and pressing 'go' on the kettle yourself, or walking through the door and someone else doing it. which i guess is what i'm getting at.

i've not been very good at admitting it in the past but seeing as blogs are meant to be places to vent such things, i'd quite like to be able to breathe all of the little irritating thoughts in my head out onto the same person every evening. it's that unconditional 'crunch' that i'm talking about. there's a travis song that a friend of my loves from their first album called 'i love you anyways'. the main tag line of the song goes 'i know you disagree with me, but i love you anyways'. that, perhaps, is exactly what i want.

i say perhaps, probably because i'm trying to convince myself there could be another side to this argument. quite clearly, tho, there isn't.

looking into a abyss is always easier when someone is at your shoulder, looking too.

night.

Ok so this is not a diary. I explained that, at the beginning, it's more of an 'observational piece' but I'm afraid that this might get a bit more true to life than the posts below. Breathe in, everyone... here goes.

Everything I have ever done, from when I decided to be born with a knot in my chord, i've worked hard for. I worked hard for life 23 years and a few months ago, and each day since I seem to have been intent on making things difficult for myself.

walking down a street in bath with a close friend this weekend, i was actually heard to utter the phrase 'but WHY does everything always have to be so difficult??'

ok so, thursday afternoon i was simultaenously 'given' a promotion AND made to feel like a gibbering child at the same time. now, although i know i'll be doing my best to stop it, it looks like my working life is going to take a rather dramatic nose dive as i'll be shooting down in the opinion poles as we speak. (or as i speak). I worked very hard, was nice to almost everyone, and licked almost everybody's butts in the office over the last year, and now it seems i'm going to be getting my fingers burnt by a manager who doesn't respect me, and some colleagues who feel entirely out of the loop and not a little bit messed around. no matter how much we put into situations, no, it's never actually easy, is it?

does it have to be difficult for it to be worth it? that was the response of my friend this weekend. maybe it does.

because i was having a 'girls' weekend, and because it was inevitable that it would, the conversation went from problems at work to disasterous relationship decisions. she took me through a running commentary of every relationship decision i've made since she's known me. and yes, they are all 'work hard' decisions involving brick walls (some higher than others) that had to be climbed first, or that were never climbed, and have stayed there since. 'you always make it difficult for yourself, even with guys' she said. and she's got a point. not that i want this blog to become a mess of 23 year old angst about the state of my relationship history, i can't help but think these brick walls which keep emerging are going to have a serious impact on my relationship future. i look for walls everywhere. if there's isn't one, i'll invent one just so it's not easy.

life in general tho, isn't very easy at all. at the moment it doesn't take much AT ALL before i find myself either in a total state, or bounding into feelings which are completely and utterly non-starters. once or twice this weekend my friend stopped me in my tracks, told me what i was thinking, and said 'i know you, i know where this is gonna go, don't go there with it.'

she's right. i'm a catelogue of errors at the moment. i'm starting to think of praps moving away in about 6 months to an entirely new place, new surroundings, new job. praps then, my brick wall, whatever it is, won't follow me.

Hello

I AM at work, that's a promise. However, something just occured to me on the walk into the office and it actually made me stop in my tracks. I must have looked very weird to anyone walking the other way, because i stopped and actually SNIFFED the air in a 'seriously?? whaaaat?' sort of way.
one of my closest friends from university used to wear 'happy' by clinique. It's a bloke's aftershave but I think it's pretty unpopular in the scheme of the aftershave market, or maybe it's just pretty expensive. anyway, there it was, coming out of the air at me, for some reason. and it made me think (as most things do)...

what IS that 'thing' that makes you distinguish your friends from other people? when you met them for the first time, there was just as much chance that you would talk to them over anyone else? what IS it about the people in your life that is entirely irreplacable, that nobody else could ever do in the same way? ok so, there are probably thousands of people out there who wear my friend's smell, but they wouldn't wear it in the same way. just like there are tens and thousands of girls out there who line their high heels up by their front door, but there's just something about the way one of my friends does just that which makes them different.

Possibly, the things we value most in people are also the things that irritate us the most about them. For example, I value the fact that my friend adam never has any money on his phone to text or call me. he never allows anyone to pay for anything, no matter the cost. he holds doors open, buys drinks, and when he says 'it will be ok' you know he genuinely means it. whenever he does get in touch, then, you know he's singling you out as someone who means a lot to him. yesterday he missed called me to get me to call him back (very strange of him) and when i did, the first thing he said was 'i'm so sorry i'm doing that lame call back thing but i REALLY needed to know how your job interview went.'

and i just thought 'thank you'.

similarly another good friend with a brand new high powered, very busy job, who doesn't really know whether he's standing on his head or sitting down at the moment walked out of his office after i sent him a text just to say hi properly and see how things had gone.

i know my friends have all had their moments when they've gone out of their way, or done something they wouldn't usually do, to make me smile. but i also know that just the way they irritate me in various ways is enough to remind me how much they mean to me.

x

Hello and good evening to all

Whoever all is, who knows. I'll rephrase that

Hello and good evening to, quite possibly, nobody. But hey, that's a great feeling, like shouting at the sky. Yes. Or, what I did once, which was to shout 'i'm freeeeeeee' across the grand canyon while the sun set, and everyone else wondered what the hell i was doing. That was not meant to sound like 'are you being served' but it seems it did. ok, moving on...

Tonight's amusingly philopshical question is - when do we actually make the conscious decision NOT to love someone else?

I know it might not seem like it to most people, but i really believe there's a single moment (maybe only a milisecond) where we can make a conscious decision about another person in terms of a relationship. Most of the time, we ask the question, and the voice inside us shouts back 'oh, what the hell', but i'm wondering how the whole system works. there is a moment of doubt for all of us. we're testing the water, i guess, deciding whether it's the right temperature for the whole of us. i used to take only a few moments to make this decision, and it was usually on the 'oh what the hell' side of things. nowadays i guess i get more drawn into the 'i'm not sure about - ' 'but - might go wrong...' and i spend a bit longer deciding what i'm going to do. i'm not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

changing it slightly then, WHEN do we make the decision that we don't love a person anymore? at what point do we decide that? do we ever? maybe love develops, gets a bit older, a bit more tired, a bit less 'what the hell' a bit more 'not tonight, thanks' but when do we ever get to that point where we go 'actually... it's just not there anymore.'

is it ever just not there if you've said it?

too many questions tonight, i fear.
i'm going to pack a bag for the weekend, although it's only tuesday.

;-)

x

My mind is playing some serious tricks on me tonight and i am suffering from a serious bout of self doubt coupled with some thinking that i know i really should not be doing.

how would things be if everyone just did what they wanted, all the time? anarchy, right? well, maybe not in terms of what is right and wrong, but if people behaved how they wanted to in terms of their personalities and their relationships, we'd live in a much happier world. james taylor sings about it in 'shower the people' - 'shower the people u love with love, show them the way that u feel, things are gonna be much better if u only will.'

so... if anything was possible...

what would you change if you could? if tomorrow, u could wake up with everything completely different, what would u actually change? the flaming lips have a song i love called 'the yeah yeah yeah song'. the words say - if you could blow up the world with a flick of a switch, would you do it?

would u flick that switch?

i'm not sure about blowing up the world, but i'd make a hell of a lot of things different if i was given the chance, if there weren't any consequences. in the main, people don't tell each other their feelings enough. i leak my feelings all over the damn place at every turn. there isn't one of my friends or family in any doubt of my faith in them or their value to me. i'm not ashamed of any of it but i think too many people are. and too many people are afraid of the perceptions of others.

i'm not.