do something pretty

2007-04-21T23:03:00.000+01:00

it was about 2 and a half months ago, i was on the train going back to the big city, feeling familiar pricks in my eyes and on my arms as i watched the countryside i pretended was my home but which really was the next county up, drive past my window, and i was feeling low to leave it. i also felt a sweet sweet pain (the pain...), realising, undeniably, that i still loved the boy who had told me it was over. and the fields were sweet green, ripping themselves from my eyes and leaving me, and the pain in my flesh was sweet green, the pain of people ripping themselves from your soul and leaving you.
trouble is, its been over 2 months, tomorrow i have another train to catch, to the big city, i will again have to watch the sweet fields hurtled backwards away from me, and i just know that i will be sitting there, knowing that i still love this boy. the boy for whom it has all been over for so long now. my first love, my best friend, the person who has been most intimate with me in the world. and i will have to sit on that train, knowing that for the last 2 or 3 years i have been cruel to the person i love most in the world, and that it has finally caught up with me, and that all the memories i hold dearest in the world, and all the moments which have been the holiest, the most divine, the moments where for once in my life i have felt beautiful and safe and deeply calm, are now all worthless trash.
and my words here sound like trash, trash anyone would write on any blog... which is sad... because to me this is real enough and sharp enough that it blinds me to the vast expanse of shining sea, to secret coves and shady lanes, to the cottage gardens and unexpected streams, to the calls of the great tit, the blackbird and the chaffinch, too blinded by tears in my eyes and my mind to notice any of the things i hold dearest today. experiences i should have been storing and remembering for all the times i won't see them... but it wasn't even possible. too much heavy pain.

2006-08-23T19:37:00.000+01:00

the swifts have left behind my back, like they always do. the way it makes me smile on an early summer morning when i'm sitting inside and i strain to listen - was that high pitched faint streak across the sky one of my soaring icons? was it a car? no.. it was a bird... a blue or white sky streaked by the tinest black pixel - is perfectly echoed by the inaudible sigh i tend to release someday in august when it occurs to me i haven't noticed or heard them for days, and i hadn't noticed and they've gone. and it doesn't matter how many more summer days we have, no matter how many more beach days, somehow its not possibly summer at all any more now they've stopped whirling circling arching minutely outside the window of my eeyrie, cutting up my rectangles of blue sky with compass-perfect curves. i think the last time i saw them was before i left for the usa. it never occured to me to take a last look. and theres just no way any more to pretend that winter isn't coming, because the swifts have left.

the sky is turning slowly pinkish outside my window, a little nice touch to make up for the dreadfully heavy headachey clouds that have scummed up the day.
one month till london.
morning glories have been the heroes of summer days flowering every morning for months now with luminious glowing trumpets of deepest ultra violet and sky blue even when the sky is white. putting forth hundreds of new buds even now. grapes are hanging heavy now, bump gently into my head every time i walk over the veranda to water, making our house look strangely exotic. and its time to pick blackberries again. we've only just used up those from last year.

2006-06-21T19:15:00.000+01:00

cheap (well, thats an insult) old fashioned sci fi novels, i laugh at during the day, and at midnight, scramble to the end of the bed to quickly shut my window because the strange sound outside is making me feel six again and frightened and if i'm not quick then it might catch hold of me, and whats that shadow by my head? oh, its my hair, wait, whats that shadow out of the corner of my eye? oh its just my hair... in the morning i can't understand myself... wait... whats that...?
today i was saved by a big shivering saw, quivering and shaking and biting in my hand, light and long and sharp, as i crawled into green dens and (a little less conversation a little more action, please) big plasticky leaves stroked my face before i heartlessly cut the easily fleshy limbs, and threw them into a mass grave on the grass. small reprove from the pink rose desperately budding, a few well placed stratches (deep marbled pink now budding on my arm - xenogenesis).
should really give this strange mass of blood and flesh, heat and softness, hair and water, pink orange brown black green, more thanks for its ability to ache and move and sweat and contort and walk and run and pound and... prune.
i wonder, if i don't take so kindly to simone de beauvoir's arguements because its just easier to be the underdog? but i feel some sort of truth in it, of feeling rather... kidnapped by your own body. held hostage by the womb? of being female and feeling like you are looking at the world through a glass window, and not that your body is actually yourself at all. its hard to think of the body as possibly "yourself" when it works so much against your will. hard to feel at home when your home is constantly under threat of invasion (men and babies, however pleasurable they might be, still invade). it is a block to true transcendance to feel like a conciousness locked inside flesh. hard to "like" this body when it insists on bringing regular pain and constantly lets you down. hard to feel it is yours to do with as you like, when it has a "purpose" (reproduction) which is not one of your own choosing, and which seems "above" your own personal wishes. hard to use it as a means to fully jump and laugh and smell and see and run and listen and touch and experience the world, when it is full of curves and glands and fat and not so slick and fast and hard as the other sex...... hard not to feel desperately let down.
the palest blue just breaking through outside my window, and i'm feeling pleasingly grown up these last few days. funny how quickly a year goes. i think i'm different from last summer. better. which is good, because this headache is reminding me of the mayfly falling down as the water beneath it was sucked into the open infinite trouts mouth.

2006-06-06T17:09:00.000+01:00

robin chicks in the garden centre, amongst the plastic plants, and the warm stifling plastic smelling air that seems to have seeped from the inside, and even engulfs the plant area outside... protected only from any careless heartless or stupid person by a bit of flismy mesh fence (of the sort that caged our playgrouds and tennis courts in school). surely they'd be happier in some wild breezy place with crystalised sunshine. but, i loved crouching down to the pot's edge and looking at them, opening their mouths to me in hungry trust. yellow gapes disappearing, mottled feathers appearing, rich brown and soft, stretching out wings and stickly legs in an action startlingly similar to a lazy cat. wide circular shiny glossy black eyes. very deep for such a small fluffy thing. huddled like 5 parts of one.

http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/wildlife/

2006-06-02T10:14:00.000+01:00

"this world is full of crashing bores,
and i must be one because no one ever turns to me to say
'take me in your arms, and love me'"

2006-05-21T18:44:00.000+01:00

... it is almost the end of may, already. i wouldn't like to say where the months have gone since january, that is, its far too crippling sad to say what the truth is, that they are nothing any more, and won't ever return.
alright yes, i do sound terribly sad about everything. perhaps it is just my nature. more likely though i just don't write here unless i have thought about something, and thinking about anything, i think, leads to sadness in the end. its what comes from living in a world where everything comes to an end, eventually, and of liking that world, despite it.
sitting amongst graves at 5am and entirely alone. the graveyard slopes though, when you are at the entrance, you can't see down to the bottom, and when you are in the middle, you can see neither the bottom or the top, the various paths slope and slide away leaving you with ominous crests and dips out of which anyone could emerge, quite suddenly. in the daytime the crests are areas of opportunity and friendliness, where an old friend or a friendly stranger will probably stroll, come over, and make you smile. at 5am, they attract your eyes constantly, with if not fear, at least watchful mild anxiety. i ask all the birds just for a few seconds to please stop singing so loud so i can listen - was that a human shout, laugh, call? is there someone else over the other side, hidden by the stones and trees? - they ignore me, of course. watchfulness slips into blurryness, and i want to sleep, hearing the church tell me every 15 minutes how long i've been... rely instead on blackbirds, rabbits and pigeons to be my alarms. they are constantly false.
finding, that the remembrance of food creates a backwards feeling on the roof of my mouth and tongue, something being rubbed over it from back to front, a sort of disgust. finding myself wondering detatchedly whether this, in fact, is the route of eating disorders, an unmeditated repulsion to things that have been eaten and enjoyed, and nothing to do with body shape at all, an addictive side effect. so i push thoughts of past meals out of my head.
can the mind be trained to just not think about things? if i tell it "no" often enough when it does, will it obey? i feel i could manage a partial exclusion, a diminishing, though never complete, as a thought could be triggered at any time by anything... but i don't know if this could be by force of will, more likely it just comes from passing time, and what i would like to term authority, is just forgetting.

2006-01-30T10:58:00.000Z

the light, the light and the cold (what a tease), the birds puffed up, watching the throat of the blackbird shining white in the light, through the leaves, rippling with its warning song...
i can't grasp time, i can't rein it in. the days are meagre, a few poems, a few roots, a few chapters, a few escapes. not even memory will back me up here, is it alright just to float in the present? i need some return, some physical thing to hold in my hands and say that is what i have achieved. the thing is i don't think i would worry if it weren't for other people, strange how they impinge on you without even speaking or doing. i wish my life were my own...
taking advantage of the empty house, i should be downstairs, lying cat like in the sunshine doing something impressive, now where exactly is that novel hmm? that poetry collection? where are those paintings and drawings? where is the money? where is the intelligence? where are the stunning thoughts, the radical ideas, the insights, the discoveries? where is the talent, where is the speciality? the burden is too much to bear, the internet yeilds pitifully little.
instead i am singing out of tune to the charmless man and regretting leaving my jumper downstairs...
ah... life... what a joy it all is...
(sarcasm? i can't tell.)

Imaginary Postcards

2006-01-16T11:47:00.000Z

current artwork besides portrait painting and the odd drawing seems to revolve around making these imaginary, almost utopian landscapes...

drawing birds in the library

2006-01-13T17:49:00.000Z

my head hurts, and the tv keeps giving me unsubtle hints as to why... ok, so i might be ill, but that doesn't mean i want to confront it... lets just lie back in soft pillows, try to freeze away the headache with my computer cold hand and hope that it all goes away by itself... most things do.
i haven't had a clock in my room for a long time, at first the ticking kept me awake at night and i thought i would never get used to it... now it is starting to fade, though i still hear it and notice odd things like how it gets quiet or disappears when i turn my head towards it, and gets loud when i lie on my side facing away from it. i guess we all get used to things in the end, which is a shame in one way, those beautiful things you think you love forever, you realise you only loved in contrast when you get an undiluted overdose of them... and things you can't stand you eventually learn to live with, in hazy acceptance. it makes me feel a little odd to think my loves and hates are only circumstancial and not so real as they seem...
why is there an inability to do anything in the face of eternity? why does endless time wish to be filled with nothing instead of everything? i wonder how the universe ever got started since space and time seem so reluctant to be filled when they are endless...

2005-12-11T15:55:00.000Z

finally, perhaps, a return to this blog (i always seem to drop things, when life gets in the way) looking back over my last few posts i get a strong sense of blazing sun and ednless waiting, i think the summer was mostly over by the time i had written those, but at the time it seemed it was only just beginning. now i can't understand how the world has sealed itself up suddenly, everything retreated, sucked backwards into itself, none of the full and easy flowing of summer. sometimes i worry about how fast time passes, the moment i really start to notice that summer is here it has gone, and no doubt it will be the same for winter. this never used to happen, and i worry this is what is called growing up. perhaps those endless summers we all seem to remember from childhood are just a perversion of our memories, but i think time really was slower back then... and as it is speeding up now, i can now longer pretend i am a child, but must accept that i am an adult, and the seasons will continue to pass like ripples instead of ages.
i have suddenly freedom on my hands, and no idea what to do with it. i remember last year i had so many plans and thoughts, they crystalised in my head like little diamonds... i know in reality all i want to do is go for walks, and plant seeds, and draw and paint, and write, and bake cakes, and write letters, and most of all read and think and just take some time to clear my head, allow myself for once to only have to answer to myself. but, the pressure is, i shall never be able to describe that eloquently to anyone who asks what i am doing... i feel i should be producing grand visible things to justify that this time is not a waste, but it is the nagging feeling i should be doing so that is exactly what is wasting this time.
hot sun on my back today, walking across the carpark in the sharp air, only a yellow cardigan in december...

2005-07-09T19:48:00.000+01:00

sonnets
i like their construction. i think i shall... adopt them for a while. though with a mind to honesty, because poetry, i find, has a knack of making you forget to focus on what you really meant to. the very medium which (i think) should be only about honesty can so easily slip away into only what sounds like honesty. rosehips and memories and tactile sensation and high romance, it wasn't where i was going really, because really rosehips and memories and tactile sensations were what i wanted to write about, but not high romance, human romance. perhaps i can perfect this over time.
and the whirlwind of family life continues and everyone spins in their own orbit at a speed too high to be safe and i feel especially dizzy and my gravity is all out. i don't know where i stand, and i have no clear perception of what my relationship is with anyone at the moment, just a vague disconcerting feeling that it is certainly not what it should be.
i'll try and lose myself in byron and shelley, except i want to turn their thoughts into a new more clarified dignified version of my thoughts, their lives mix with mine as i read and i end up pondering my own rather than escaping it.
thinking about the doctor. thinking about the pill. thinking about blood pressure and strokes and questions. i don't want to go really, but the pain was so bad...... i just want any way out of this, and if the side effect is not getting pregnant all the better i guess...
and i feel like i'm floating in space weightless and no air just floating and waiting and looking at the calender and floating and waiting. and when i should be very happy, how is it that i am just nothing?

2005-06-30T17:31:00.000+01:00

right now i feel... happy? content? i probably shouldn't, but i do.
well it is waning by the minute but still...
happy. content.
probably something to do with the fact i woke up this morning with a smile on my face. i'm not sure i have ever done that before. my dream broke just at the moment i was smiling and laughing in it, and though i certainly would have preferred to continue dreaming because it broke right before things got really good (why does that always happen?) it was still nice to enter the day feeling happy.
and i am spending my days listening to 60's music and making necklaces out of beach-combed treasures and reading virginia woolf and eating toast. trying to single-handedly drink up the flat lemonade in the fridge.
it would be nice for a while to slip into easy contentment, for days to slide by quickly in sun and singing, i think thats what i'm aiming for right now.

2005-06-29T17:36:00.000+01:00

do one thing that scares you each day. thats what they say. i find it odd that even little things scare me. well, not scare, but i'd rather not do them. in which case i have done many today already, including asking the man at the library to get books for me from the stack. or wandering around the ghost-town photography corridor wondering how i am going to rescue my coursework and eventually having the courage to ask the technician...
he was very sweet. and he had amazing eyelashes (today is an eyelash day). not overly thick or dark or long (sighs...) but they framed his eyes like a star.
tomorrow i will buy knitting needles.
i think i should read before i go to sleep. i have a very big book rosseau's "confessions" it is red and old and i can anticipate it's weight on my legs through the cover as i sit in bed. hopefully it will tire me enough so i fall asleep right away, rather than, like the last few weeks, staying awake wth conversations running through my head, and imagined emails until i have to get out of bed and actually write them before i get any peace...
federer has cut his hair.
....................................................
....
.

2005-06-27T17:41:00.000+01:00

you know if you cry in the shower you can almost pretend you aren't doing so at all. like that song about crying in the rain... i forget who by... but our record player broke and we got rid of it, and now we can't play that record any more. which is a shame, i liked that song.
i don't think crying helps with revision though.
look at all that freedom now webster's out of the way! "glories like glow worms afar off shine bright, but looked to near have neither heat, nor light".
"The robin redbreast and nightingale
Never live long in cages"
.........perhaps if i can just be nice. i must be nice, and turn off that spiteful voice in my head. being nasty will only increase the problem...... its so hard to be nice when it hurts.
i must be nice.

2005-06-22T22:56:00.000+01:00

so... i've been slacking. i really wish i wouldn't get upset at times like these, because my exam is on friday and i did no work today. i was too sad. i sat in the library in a leather seat and it was so hot the sun shining right onto me and i looked out of the window at a boy and a girl in the road below they seemed to be doing nothing but hugging and kissing with breaks to smile at each other in between.... and i did no work on the bus, i think i was thinking. i shall have to do some tomorrow whether i am content or not. losing yourself in philosophy is no bad thing, i should think, when you can't work out life.
i could see, in the dark grey reflective glass of empty abandoned shop windows on my way to the bus this morning, my own reflection, and red parted lips and eyes raised upwards, and i looked like a painting but i felt like a video. tears prickling in my eyes but not coming.

but we made elderflower drink today, drinking flowers, how wonderful. we collected them in the evening sunlight, and it was all golden. we saw baby frogs, my favourite things. and at home we mixed flowers and lemons and sugar and it was all golden and cream and green and we tried not to see the bugs. perhaps summer will be good (if it smells like that.)

i should go to bed.

2005-06-14T17:11:00.000+01:00

shes not in the darkroom. and no one has grabbed her waist or kissed her neck. in fact, if you ask me, i think shes still in her head.
i mean really... it would have been long enough if it was flat and white, it would have been long enough if it were full of flowers and birds. but i am quite tired of it especially when i keep nearly falling off the cliff. *looks at map* this isn't the path i wanted to take.
doesn't life seem to drag sometimes? i mean, when you go to the same bed every night and your head wants to ache from having to sink into the same pillows and the same sleep. and every morning you try to look at your watch but can't, because your eyes are too blurry... it gets tiresome...
but the 4am blackbird is lovely, in swirling sleepiness... gosh... it sounds almost human. its light out at 4 now. or its dawn at least.
tiredness. that is it. tiredness. that is it. tiredness. that is it. tiredness.
oh it just goes in circles.

2005-03-24T21:31:00.000Z

3 types of darkroom developer agitators:
1) gutsy and reckless. tip the tray so hard and frequent they are lucky the chemical doesn't spill.
2) careful. tips gently and slowly to cover the whole print.
3) forgetful. slips the paper in, stares at it for a while, then suddenly remembers to agitate.
i hang somewhere between 2 and 3.

i like the darkroom, but most especially when it's empty. i like hiding out in there for a whole lesson even when i have no more than one or two prints to do. i spend the rest of my time by the cold wash, running my fingers through the freezing water, and playing with it like a child. when you start to lift your print out of the wash, and the water runs off it, the red lights reflect all over it like glowing red maggots. gently pressing your palm down onto the smooth surface of the water, without breaking the surface, gives the same resistance as pressing your hand against human skin. in the darkroom alone i always wish someone would come up behind me, wrap their arms around my waist and kiss my neck. i like the quiet hum of the extractor and the darkness.

keats reassured me in the library today. i was glad we got on, he likes me much better when i don't press him for love poetry. today i was quite happy to be introduced to melancholy personified, and he rewarded me with soft gems.

2005-02-23T16:42:00.000Z

when i was little, me and my sister used to go around and play with the son and daughter of my dad's friend. there was a boy, who was my age, and a girl, who was nearly my sisters age. we spent a lot of time with them, they were probably our main friends. we used to play with their pets, play board games, make tapes, and we invented a lot of games too. then, as we grew up, that stopped, we all became teenagers, and we stopped going around to play. when i started going to college, i realised this boy was starting at the same college as me. on my very first day, the very first room i had to go to for registration, he was in too. i wasn't expecting that, so i looked down, and sort of pretended i hadn't seen him. i passed him one day, and i nearly smiled, and i nearly said hi, but he looked right through me. as i saw him around the place, i noticed he smoked... how could this be the same boy who used to sleep over on my bedroom floor? the same bedroom that i am in even now? is this really the same boy who i played cluedo with, in the attic? or murder in the dark on winters nights? it seems strange to think all those memories must surely be in his head as clearly as they are in mine, and yet we walk past each other like strangers. this year, he is in my art class. i spent 5 and a half hours a week in the same room as him, but we still don't speak, or smile, or even say hi. perhaps he doesn't realise that the reason i at first bent my head and pretended not to see him, and the reason i continue to not make eye contact is because i am shy, and because he seems to have changed, not because i am proud. perhaps the reason he doesn't talk to me is because it is as obvious to him as it is to me that we have both changed and are not the same as the kids we were. and he has his own friends so he doesn't need the company of the strange girl who sits at the back of the class and doesn't talk to anyone.
i suppose i should be sadder about this loss than i am. the truth is, i find it quite interesting to think about how we have grown apart, but not really that sad. strange how we choose to ignore our past. strange the gulf between childhood and now.

2005-01-06T19:57:00.000Z

LIFE SLOWLY SINKS BACK INTO PLACE

accidental capitilisation there, but effective.
i wonder where normality went. and when i say normality, do i mean childhood? or do i mean complacency? or do i mean boredom?

2005-01-04T10:02:00.000Z

outside it is windy, the birds are clinging onto the trees, the fat balls i hung up are swinging. this morning the orange clouds were swirling across the sky so the sky changed every second it's colour and form. i sat and watched it instead of doing my essay.

is it possible to have your heart broken if you have not fallen in love? is it possible to have a broken heart if you haven't broken up with anyone? if they are still saying sweet things to you? if you know they still care? if distance is the only factor involved, can you still get your heart broken?

pink skies. they have never been as bright since.
glowing globes.
glen campbell and the temptations.

2004-12-16T19:08:00.000Z

ah.....
ahhhh.....
ah.

what just happened? did everything i wanted just happen? and then did it slip away mischieviously, leaving me unsure whether to be happy or sad?

i think so.

why did no one tell me that just holding hands with someone can send your body into rainbow-coloured fountains? to make the surprise all the better i suppose. what a well kept secret.

and now i don't know what to do with myself. oh, for just another night with that warm arm holding me as i sleep. just sleeping. tenderness i've always wanted, were it not such a crushing thing to say (it now being gone) i'd say i'd found it. well i found it. and not lost it exactly.... but.... i am alone.

2004-11-22T18:58:00.000Z

...................................for, I 'll tell you,
If too immoderate sleep be truly said
To be an inward rust unto the soul,
It then doth follow want of action
Breeds all black malcontents; and their close rearing,
Like moths in cloth, do hurt for want of wearing

waiting... waiting... yes, it rusts the soul, and though i may like sinking into warm, dark sleep, how much rather i'd be staying awake with good reason! and though slothfully i may spend days indoors, how much rather i'd be out walking!

perhaps i am fickle. observe how a soft "bye" calmed all those storms i thought so strong? observe how that yellow spark kicks at the thought of that other laugh. it is more than possible that i just like the attention... is it just that i think i have no other option? is it desperation? is it lonliness? or is it real?

waiting... i have no patience. though really, waiting is only so straining when you think what you are waiting for might not happen. and every moment is at once an anticipation and a disappointment. and with every moment that passes and it doesn't happen it at onces becomes more possible that it will the next moment, and less possible that it will at all.
why do i live my life underneath contradictions always? it drains my energy.

2004-11-21T15:36:00.000Z

ok so it's been a while.

whats been going on? hot tears and mild winters i suppose. silver crosses and black hairbands. glowing orange leaves falling down gently all around my head, the company of magpies then blackbirds then crows then a lone buzzard. finding myself smiling to myself accidentally and all the time. diamonds... diamonds... sparkling... the light through my bedroom window - the pink sky. "whether it is the spirit of woman or the spirit of greatness i know not... i owe her much of pity..."

i suppose in this period of relative safeness i can say that its the butterflies in my stomach that i can cope with. perhaps it's even safe to say (though this may be a lie) that i can cope with the crushing weight that comes with mild disappointment, that comes with the unknown, with not knowing, with not being able to see clearly, or at all. that is all becoming familiar to me now (like when i first found myself in the film processing cupboard, and in the pitch dark just out of habit i kept holding the film up in front of my eyes, trying to see it though there was no light. after a couple of times i stopped, and just did it by touch. you can get used to not seeing.) but i cannot say that i was expecting the burning heat in my heart. i know my body pretty well. it has never done that before. i am used to feeling emotions in my stomach, in my throat, even in my hands. yes, occasionally, my heart will jump, or skip a beat, but never has it burnt before. heat radiating outwards... i thought i was wearing a red tshirt, but it was actually black.

2004-10-31T13:21:00.000Z

ha! or not......

tell me, why does optimism only work when something good has just happened? why, when everything goes back to normal, is it hard to muster even the tiniest bit of hope or optimism? and at the time when you most need it too, it's nowhere to be found.
and so what can i do now? except sit here and laugh bitterly at the ridiculously unfounded things i wrote yesterday or whenever, when the blinding pathway of light, and the butterfly, and the promise of a conversation and countless other glorious things had lifted my hopes far higher than was sensible. what was it that made me believe so surely that i'd be able to maintain this? that even come sunday with it's grey skies and lonliness and clarity of everything to come, i'd be smiling instead of crying? i was wrong.

what can i say? this really hurts.

2004-10-29T22:28:00.000+01:00

cloud upon cloud upon my head.

ah.... yes. why didn't i think about this before? there is no need to think about it! everything can just.... roll..... there is nothing wrong with feeling but sometimes it's best not to over-analyse. .............. so long as you just relax, there is plenty of time and things need not crush you if you don't let them...........

........

i'm very tired

...........

and a little dizzy from the wine.

...........................

but things are grassy in the meadow. fields don't have to be walked alone, though you may end up talking less than you would hope..... theres no daisy chains of course, but the sky is blue and just take a look at that horizon.

and anyway i like walking.

novels are created slowly...................... even if i can't see out through the pages yet, but thats dramatic irony for you.

2004-10-25T18:59:00.000+01:00

why must everything be about opposites? i wouldn't mind, if they were sort of objective, impersonal floaty things on the edge of my vision, but it does become rather wearing when they will insist on coming up and hitting you in the face. desire and repulsion are uncannily similar, you can change from one to the other and back again without hardly noticing, so similar are they in intensity and tone. i cannot work out which one is real and which is the imposter, as i refuse to accept that i am entertaining both simulaneously. and time is another... how can i sit at 2pm and wish it were 10pm, whilst at the same time hoping that no time ever passes from that moment onwards? what is this, doublethink? it is tiring trying to walk down two paths at once, i would like to be able to commit myself to something definately. we will see what the postman says tomorrow.

meanwhile, perhaps keats has something to say.

2004-10-21T22:15:00.000+01:00

theres a tiny spider crawling across the wall.

i love it when the world eases suddenly, and everything becomes that much easier, if just for a day. suddenly everything just dissolves, and i smile and comment that the new paintwork looks good.

the spider fell, caught himself with his thread, and has continued on his way.

2004-10-17T20:09:00.000+01:00

but then again... i have a feeling life is just going to be a constant barrage of conflicting emotions, and i shall float omnipotantly, yet inextricably involved, above it always, unable to disconnect myself or to avoid being tugged one way or the other, and my only outlet being to comment on the whole mess in a blog or a journal...

yes the sky looks heavenly,
yes i can't help but smile at the flocks of birds
yes i still feel those stars twinkling around my head

but i couldn't sleep last night for the metal pressing down on my chest.

and, really, who is that strange voice in my ear? the one who, when i am walking down the street or sat on the bus, whispers in my ear "so, what are you going to do?". i wouldn't mind so much, aside from the fact i never have an answer for it.

2004-10-15T20:03:00.000+01:00

i sat on my bed this afternoon, idly writing in my journal and gently working through the possibilities of holding a hand in the twilight, when all around me stars began to glitter. it was the return of a very interesting feeling, state of mind perhaps, that of the desire for change, and not only the desire for change, but the courage to pull off change. for a few days in january i remember feeling this, and i sat up late at night and mades lists of things to do. wonderful things, beautiful things. but it didn't really make all that much difference, because the feeling passed, and without the feeling, the inspiration, the things lost their wonder and their beauty, and i had no time or desire to do them. but i felt it again today, and i sat very still and quiet, and contemplated it, and hoped not to dislodge it. it's left me for the moment, but i have a feeling it may return.... it's some sort of delightful enjoyment of the world, some satisfaction to be gained from every passing sensation, a new kind of courage and optimism, faith in humanity and faith in nature, the desire to be true to myself and to others, to make the most of human relations, and of the beauty of the world, some sort of... glittering way of living.
i can't quite pin it down. it is shadowy, and if i'm not careful i shall lose it.

courage. courage and love.

2004-10-14T21:49:00.000+01:00

i
........
have
........
nothing
........
to
........
say
..........................

listen to the bland emptyness of .... i don't even know what this is. waiting? the calm after the storm? the calm before the storm? the eye of the storm? no storm?

things are.... drifting....

2004-10-12T22:13:00.000+01:00

what does it take to fly?

2004-10-11T16:24:00.000+01:00

i could sit here and say that things were hectic, that i felt decidedly uneasy the whole time, uncomfortable, unable to be myself, and with a longing all the time to be sat under a tree somewhere, or on a clifftop, rather than in a stuffy, badly decorated, noisy, crowded hostel.

but what were the good bits?
the swans in the dark.
the sleek diving bird, fan like tail in the water.
chocolate raisons first thing in the morning.
the surreality of seaside towns, mixed with the incredible blandness, the muted colours, all made me think it rather beautiful.
watching the bouy i had kicked the day before, begin to be gently rocked by the first waves of high tide.
simon talking about 24 hour daylight.

things were suspended for a while, and it wasn't until i got back into our house, and sat down in my usual place, that the warm orange feeling returned to me. i had thought a lot, but i hadn't allowed myself to feel anything. it gushed over me in only a second or two, like someone pouring over a bucket of warm water, pleasant at first but cold and uncomfortable afterwards. i've been trying to catch things as they float to the surface, before they sink again.

it has been accepted by me for some time that i may be dangerously close to being a hermit. but then, i realised this weekend, that this is not the case. i do not like spending time with people i do not like. (is there something wrong with that?) with people i do like, i wish to spend as much time with them as possible. unfortunately, there are not many people i like, as i put a high standard on "like".
i have thought before... perhaps i expect too much of my friends...

2004-10-03T13:53:00.000+01:00

of course it's strange the course that emotions take. at first they seem to maul you, and you loose yourself entirely in them, you're immersed in them, but they are far to hot to touch. and then after a while, they cool and you pick them up and observe them, you give them names, reasons for being and you organise them. but now i feel like they're just dragging on... after the passion, where does it go now? is everything going to stay in this frozen state forever? they no longer shock me any more, will they become part of the mundane reality of my life? i now enter the long drag - look at that road stretching to the horizon. theres still no signs of hills.

i don't tell anyone that the tepid air is getting me down, the mess on the table, the crumpled pillows. (that is, i do declare often "i'm restless!" but no one ever takes any notice, i sometimes wonder if i spoke at all). days in advance i plan a mini escape. nothing so swift as those birds that just pierced the sky like a needle, but something soft. i change my trousers, put on my boots and my coat, in my bag i put my phone, my key, a letter to reread or an old letter and a pad and a pen to reply. i walk downstairs and i announce "i'm going for a walk". i say "i have my phone". i say "i'll be back in 3 hours". i say "i'm going to the woods" even though i'm not. i do this quickly before anyone can stop me. i do it when sunday afternoon is settling in like a mist and everyone has already breathed too much of it to be quick enough or sprightly enough to offer to come with me. i step out the door and slam it behind me, feel the cool air. i shove my hands in my pockets and look like i have somewhere to go. i try to convince myself that this is worth it, that this is a real escape, that i'm not just treading the same roads i have done millions of times before. i do this not because i ever get anywhere and not because this is in any way a substitute for what i really want (to go to new places with someone i like) but because if i didn't do it i think i'd simply die. the same old roads and the same old hedges, the same dull sky and half-hearted rain, but at least it's something, at least it's wind in my face, at least i can watch those crows fly. not enough to save me, but just enough to keep my from quite falling over the brink.

2004-10-01T19:23:00.000+01:00

you can talk as much as you like, but when it comes down to it, theres something about physical contact that just is... essential. when i'm alone with my thoughts they invariably take the form of a non-existant body beside me. i had a dream last night of an arm around my waist and a body pressed against my back as i lay.

courage! courage and love. (phaethon was right)

i hate waiting for post.

you might aswell smile

2004-09-29T18:54:00.000+01:00

strange fanfairs and the gazes of strangers seemed to push the very boundaries of the air, like curved bubbles were pressing into me from all sides, sometimes everything just seems to push and squeeze and i've already been filled up and i can't take any more in without overflowing. but i suppose theres something glorious about the way the world seems to be so busy and full and exciting that you can drift through it without any identity at all. like bernard who's engaged to be married. only... sort of the opposite feeling.

things have become familiar enough now to be able to catagorise them. i can organise them into groups: fire, stone, air. no wait, thats not right. brick and lead, which both behave like fire. and the small green flash of repulsion and clarity which i can only call emerald for want of a better word. i can think about them now, like a scientist with his samples laid out on the wooden desk in front of him, i can pick each one up and magnify it and lable it, and put it where it should go. i can't destroy them, but i can draw graphs on them.

I just couldn't say it.

2004-09-28T17:26:00.000+01:00

sometimes i think my life would make a good film. sometimes i think my life is a film. at least so far it is the beginning of some obscure alternative film, hidden away in a dusty corner of the video shop. the first 17 years of my life could be condensed into a pretty good 10 minute start to a film. a few arty shots of reflections, a few humorous moments involving pigeons, ending up with a slightly-melancholy teenager gazing out of the bus window or perhaps sitting on a cliff looking out to sea. the only thing is, i'm unsure of the plot from here. i assume some of the details from my childhood will be instrumental later on in the plot, as they so often are. but of the supporting cast so far, who is going to be there at the ending? have i even met them yet?

it's amazing what a difference 4 lines can make.

you can't shame us now

2004-09-26T18:57:00.000+01:00

i'm sitting here slowly watching the world grey into dusk before my eyes. and i thought i was feeling better, the music shivering through my body and laughing at idiotic romantic comedies (who can help being swept up by love stories?). but people keep leaving and there were only 3 places set at dinner tonight. i don't want people to leave, because instead of getting on with my life i end up just waiting, constantly waiting for contact from them, checking my emails at ridiculous times of the day and waiting for the postman.
the blackbird that has been calling outside the window all day long just flew off, with a rustle of feathers and leaves and almost disguised by nights deepening cloak it emerged from the tree and disappeared. another person has left. and who's left now except the flashing blue instant messenger window at the bottom of the screen - the disembodied type of someone i'm only talking to because they'll talk to me about him.
tomboyish cloaks, the first brown leaves in the gutter, forms, lists and don't forget to write it in pencil first. plait your hair and give yourself a sword, pretend you're thinking about something else and not just hopelessly bathing in your memories.
things have turned from grey to blue outside.

rescue me

2004-09-25T17:34:00.000+01:00

autumn is here because i can smell the strange scent of smoke in the air, even when there doesn't seem to be a fire any where close. the air is cooling noticably, and whilst i still go out of just a t-shirt, the air feels refreshing against my skin rather than stifling. blackberries are falling out of the hedges, and everything around is producing fruit. i'm taking in my last glimpses of the swallows and housemartins because i know it won't be long before they leave here, and i'll have to wait all winter, until next summer when i will look up in the sky one day and smile as i see they have returned. the swifts left weeks ago, and i miss their calls.

since he left, the trees have started to turn. they stayed green for him, while he was here, but they won't stay green for me, they know me too well. autumn always creeps up on me and surprises me.

freedom. beauty. truth. love. (?)

2004-09-24T16:29:00.000+01:00

i don't understand what is going on. it's not like anything happened. it's not like it's the end of a routine of years. it's not like i didn't know what was coming and it's not like i even got deep enough into it to reasonably feel anything. perhaps he was wrong though, he said he trusted me not to be so far gone as i thought i was. misplaced trust perhaps, because i think i am farther gone than even i thought i was. during the day, there are moments of clarity when i realise that what just happened was a small hill in a flat landscape; it was interesting, difficult, exciting and different while it lasted, but now i'm back on the flat ground. surely theres something nice about flat plains? ok, so they lack the amazing views and the wind in your hair, but they also don't have the climbing up and down steep slopes either, which is a bonus. and theres a certain ease of step and freedom to be had on the plains. at least, there would be, and there always was before, but now it's overpowered by my sense of disappointment that i had to come down off the hilltop before i was ready, and i'm saddened that i can see no other mountains on the horizon in any direction.

and if anyone can follow that extended metaphor then i'm impressed.

a few tears, and some hot bright sunlight warming my neck through the window, songs embellished with meanings from my own mind, and the armour still pressing against my chest. its the weekend, i should be glad.

i got confused and i thought your eyes were mine

2004-09-24T09:09:00.000+01:00

yes, this blog has been neglected for a few weeks. things have been... happening.
i'm never quite sure how much to write in this blog, i'm not entirely sure i want to give every last detail of my life out to anyone who cares to see. and also, how can i ever write honestly about people and situations, knowing theres a chance they could read it? i think perhaps names and details will have to remain confined to real-life-paper-journals, but i'll do my best here to explain.
what do you do when you have to say goodbye to someone who you won't see again for years and probably never again? and what do you do when you were just getting dangerously fond of them? and when for several months you won't know where they are in the world and you won't even have the pitiful comfort of emails or letters? and you don't even think that they think of you in the same way anyway? and they can't possibly be finding it as hard as you are?
nevermind trees growing out of churches, what about trees growing out of people? i don't suppose anyone would understand if i tried to explain the dappled green light that seems to muddle around my head constantly, or the weight of carrying branches on my shoulders. i ran my hand down the iron handrail, covered in peeling white paint, just to hear the soft sound it made, and to feel the reassuring extension of the real world, just to give myself some sensation that came from outside myself. i seem to have unintentionally donned an invisible suit of armour. my reasons being that something is weighing me down terribly, why do i just sit for hours finding it hard to move? also, there is something cold and hard pressing against my torso at all times. or perhaps i have just swallowed a brick. fountains run hot and cold in my throat. i thought at the very least i would tell him that i would miss him, but how can you talk when your throat is stuffed full of cotton wool? so i just turned around and walked away. and i hate myself for it.

still, i suppose it'll only take a few days for these feelings to fade. i'll get caught up in the world and normality, daily routine and all that, and only a fragment of the feelings now will return when he drops me a line. i'll stop thinking about never seeing him again, and i'll stop associating songs and places with him, and i'll stop thinking of things to say to him........ and everything will fade back into normality.

2004-09-06T22:31:00.000+01:00

i left my window open all day and now find that my bed is covered in tiny orange seeds from trees which have floated in through the window.

the sky was blue today. blue all over, without one single cloud. days like this are rare it seems, even in summer. on the weather forcast there were big yellow suns covering our part of the country... again, it's been a long time since i've seen that. i thought by 4pm it would be cool enough to go for a walk, but i still overheated. perhaps it's because i insist on wearing trousers in all weathers... so i sat under a tree and thought long and hard about nothing. i tried to focus my thoughts, but it didn't work. there is something about being out under the sky and walking which does ease the mind, i may not properly think anything through, but it does stop my thoughts from mugging me.

on the way back i found a very very tiny caterpillar which was bright red climbing very determinedly up my shirt.

2004-08-29T18:13:00.000+01:00

some places around here are so pretty, i wonder that i'm not more in love with the place. just down the road is a small village with a stream running through it. we stood on a small wooden bridge and watched the overgrown plants dangle in the water, listened to the sound of pigeons calling and everything was so peaceful and ridiculously pretty. a white flower came floating under the bridge, and got caught in some grass at the edge of the stream.
england is always going to be my home. not because i feel any pride in it, i don't think where i come from makes me any better or worse than anywhere else, i don't think england is any better or worse than anywhere else. but it'll always be the place i think of as home because it's the only place in the world where the people speak without an accent to my ears; because the letterboxes are red and sometimes inbuilt into walls and houses; because i know the way the hills roll, the temperature of the sea, and i can recognise the birds and plants. i like living on an island, because the sea is freedom, and because if i lived on a huge expanse of land, i would feel like an ant in the middle of a huge piece of paper, no matter how far i walk i'll never get off it. and i like this country because it's the place where i've grown up, it's the place i've had all my thoughts and emotions in so far, and when i go for walks to try and sort out my muddled head, it's england's sky and scenery that provide the backdrop. thats as far as my patriotism goes for this place.

but then again, there's always been a wanderlust inside of me. it was raging a few years ago, but i learnt to subdue it and to hide it, and now it's just steadily simmering under the surface. but thats not to say it doesn't floor me at times, just today i saw some pictures of scotland, and it was all i could do to restrain my frustration and disappointment by shaking my head and sighing. i want to go north. scotland. ireland. norway. canada. iceland. i want to see more sky. i want to be rescued and i want to be taken away, if only for a little while. if only for a day.

i can't help it, i'm a romantic fool

2004-08-28T20:31:00.000+01:00

this morning i was in the bathroom, lazily stretching my arms out of front of me, then to the sides, then behind, and looking at myself in the mirror as i did so , trying to work out exactly how foreshortening effected my arms as they moved, and vainly trying to remember the weird shapes they made, in order to help me next time i tried drawing. i walked a couple of steps, froze, and felt myself take a sharp breath, before my body, of it's own accord, propelled me a couple of steps backwards. the reason for all this? a spider in the bath. i'm just glad my dad was there to trap it under a glass and a postcard and let it go in the garden. for some reason insects and spiders scare me, and i don't know why. i don't have it as bad as some people, but i can't pretend it's not there. it's nothing rational either. i can think about it all i like, and reason that there is nothing to be scared of in a spider, but this doesn't cure me. because the feeling of fear doesn't come from my mind, it's like a bodily reaction. i didn't choose to gasp and step back when i saw that one in the bath this morning, but i did. and i know if i tried to pick it up myself, i'd have to really put "mind over matter" into practice and literally force my body to remain under my command. but for all that i may be scared of them, i don't hate them like some people. and i would want nothing less than for the spider to be carefully released back outside, theres enough death and pain in the world already, i don't see the point in giving it out so freely as some people, no matter how small the recipiant is. i cringe when i hear someone swotting a fly.
a few months ago, i was sat on the bus, and a few minutes after getting on i realised that right in front of me, clinging onto the seat in front was a bumblebee. it wasn't moving, but it was alive. i was a little shocked, because when they get lazy, they sometimes sting, but i figured if i didn't provoke it, it wouldn't harm me, and it was really pretty to see up close. it started to get more lively as the journey went on, and started to crawl around the headrest of the seat in front, i was a little worried it would accidentally fall into my lap, but it seemed to have pretty good grip. having spent about 20 minutes in the company of this bee, despite being a little wary of it, i suppose i was getting quite fond of it. then, suddenly, it decided it felt much better, and off it flew, centimetres away from my head, with a speed i wasn't expecting from such a lazy bee. it circled around the bus a few times, and i could map it's flight path by tracking the little gasps and screams of my fellow passengers. it made me smile to think they were all so scared of my little friend, who had accompanied me for the first half of the journey. but when the bee started circling around 2 women and a girl at the front of the bus, i grew a little uncomfortable, as they started to talk about killing it. the women complained they had nothing to hit it with (for which i was glad) but the girl offered them her water bottle. i tried to block out their voices, not wanting to hear. luckily they laughed it off, neither of the seemingly wanting to actually perform the deed. but i was nervous for the rest of the journey in case they changed their minds, i would have felt sick if i had had to sit there and listen to them crush that bee to death.

2004-08-26T17:57:00.000+01:00

it's a good job that time is so soft and invisible, otherwise i would have noticed it so boldy striding past me. why is it that it seems impossible to ever get anything done? and why is it that waiting takes up so much time? and why is it that i always have such grand intentions and they always melt away in the cool english summer sun? until i get to the end of the holidays and all i seem to have is a puddle, and wet feet.

but then again, every now and again, the world crystalizes into a jewel. i was walking along the canal, thinking about the nature of beauty, and doubting the existence of uglyness, and trying to prove that beauty is at once good and indestructable and the bringer of hope and proof of a god. and then a flash of metallic gleaming turquoise interrupted my thoughts as a kingfisher sped down the water in front of me, it had a kind of weight and speed about it like a train, and the colours, blue and orange were so bright and so shining in the afternoon sun i could all but stand staring after it. luckily, i saw it 3 other times after this first one, each one amazed me as much as the last. such beauty.
sitting on a bench a little further down, i was descended upon by a whole host of housemartins. they seemed to come out of nowhere, and suddenly they were all around. just a few metres in front of me they were skimming the water of the canal, some just touching the water, leaving fine ripples behind them, in order to drink, others seemed to (without breaking the speed and agility of their flight) drop almost straight into the water, and out again, i presume they were bathing. they were soaring all around, in between diving down to the water, riding the air currents and gliding just centimetres away from me, over my head. there were so many and they were so fast that my eyes felt slow and stiff trying to turn quick enough to watch them. in the end i gave up, and just sat there, being aware of being within something of a tornado of small birds, listening to the sound of their wings as they passed. i felt as though they were my thoughts, spiralling around my head in the air.

2004-08-22T13:27:00.000+01:00

jonathan richman. genius.

take the chewing gum wrapper song. this never fails to make me laugh because it's just so close to the truth... and here was me thinking i was the only person in the world had a slightly worrying habit of picking things up in the street.
"it was full of dirt and it was full of grit
but colours like that you can't get"
too true, jonny.

i bought a little green bible from a secondhand bookshop the other day, for 50p. it has illustrations, and the spine is falling off, the paper is soft and brown with age, and inside the front cover, written in blue ink are the words "to Faith, with granny's love". i've started reading it, hopefully i will read it from cover to cover, i think it will do me good. something's kicking up inside me, reading 'a portrait of the artist as a young man' by james joyce struck a chord and... well... yes... i think it'll be good for me.

2004-08-21T18:51:00.000+01:00

films i have seen recently:
hedwig and the angry inch - pretty darn good! fabulous make up and costumes, great songs. a spunky, entertaining musical.
the virgin suicides - struck a chord somewhere. beautifully filmed, heartwarming characters that remain real, tragic storyline without being melodramatic. i was impressed.
dogville - started interesting, turned gloomy, then depressing, then downright horrible. i can see what he was trying to do, but it was very serious stuff, and i wasn't in the mood for the darkness. (nice to see nicole kidman doing something different though)
american splendor - i was hoping it would be better than it actually was. however, still miles better than most things around. definately worth watching.
lost in translation - the micky-taking of the japanese wasn't necessary and was a bit distasteful. the storyline was obvious (and can someone tell me why the beautiful young woman always falls for the older man?) it was trying to be different but it didn't do it very well. didn't live up to the hype.

2004-08-02T22:17:00.000+01:00

i bought a green silk headscarf today for £1.25 (extortionate price... but it is nice) from a charity shop. it smells like old ladies. i bought 2 t shirts, a shirt and a pair of mens jeans from various other charity shops. one had a changing room that smelt so pungently of medicine that i had to breathe through my mouth.

2004-08-01T16:36:00.000+01:00

and then the world turned powder-blue, the pink people on the beach looked like a martin parr photo, the sailing boats on the horizon were almost sickeningly picturesque, the cliffs sang jonathan richman, banksy spray-painted the sky, and as the sea stole my breath i asked the seagull "is my life a film?"

2004-07-30T14:03:00.000+01:00

last night the moon was shining through my window, it wasn't quite a full moon, but it was close. it looked like a painting, round and bright and white, with a halo of hazy light surrounding it, and wisps of grey clouds half obscuring it. it threw a shaft of cool light into my room, and across my bed, the shaft of light moved slowly as the moon slowly rode across the sky, but i fell asleep before it reached my head.

with full moons and mozart and a room with a view, i have been feeling romantic. i had a dream that prolonged this mood, the feelings concerned with the dream have invaded the whole day and my mind keeps wandering back to it. nothing much happened in the dream, it was a boy, who took all the rings off my fingers and laid his head in my lap. i put my hand on his head. it was one of the best dreams i've had for a long time, i woke up feeling peaceful, i could almost still feel the weight and warmth of his body as he lay on the sofa, resting against me. i didn't want to move for a while, after i awoke, for fear of disturbing the feeling, but i needn't have worried because it has remained all through the day.

2004-07-28T14:10:00.000+01:00

i'm just letting these days slip by i hardly notice them perhaps i don't even want to notice them perhaps i'm letting them slip past because i want them to go perhaps i'm not letting them at all perhaps i'm actively forcing them.
emotion is interesting when your days are spent alone and with your own thoughts. there is a tendancy to become complacent about the world, if there's nothing to stimulate you, doesn't everything become flat? so when i get so angry with the cd player for telling me "no disk" when thats a blatant lie, and i hit it, and it hurts my hand and doesn't make me feel any better anyway, well thats interesting. it's like, if you feel nothing for long enough, then emotions are going to spark out of you whether you like it or not. and then i sit on my bed and look at my hand and hope i didn't break the cd player and wonder why whenever it tells me "no disk" i get so angry i can't contain it. there's the opposite aswell, an amusing thought will take hold of me, and a laugh will escape by accident, just bubble right out of my mouth. and i'll have to check myself, and hope no one was around to hear, because you know, only crazy people laugh to themselves.

i was thinking the other day about the year 2000 and how we spent that new years eve with people we didn't know, and like ever with people we don't know i couldn't help but hide away in my shell, i'm not sure i said 2 words all evening. and i remember wondering vaguely beforehand about the passing of the century and suchlike and trying to work out whether i really cared or not and whether it really meant anything or not, and i was kinda hoping it did mean something because that would make it exciting. i remember watching the clock edging towards midnight, i remember the last 10 seconds. and then i remember when it hit midnight. there was a split second, where i noticed that the clock had struck midnight but no one else had. this, as i said, was a fraction of a second, but it seemed to last forever. the first second of the new century and everyone else's reactions were too slow, and there i was, lost and floating in the first fraction of a second of the new century, wondering why no one else was reacting. i wanted to clap or laugh or shout, but i was in the company of people i didn't know, and didn't much like, so i stopped myself, and i waited for someone else to notice first. that was my very first experience of the new century: too quick for other people, but too shy to show it. hanging back waiting for someone else to take the lead. lost in uncertainty about myself and surrounded by people i didn't want to be surrounded by. i can't help feeling that the turning of the millennium was important, that it did mean something, because the very first moment of it seems to have tainted the rest of it.

2004-07-27T14:08:00.000+01:00

i go for walks usually to try and clear my mind. this i find, does not actually work, i'm unsure why i do it. in fact the process of walking alone allows my mind free reign to think about whatever it likes, often getting me into a worse state than i was before. however despite this and the air being so warm and the clouds so low, it was enjoyable. i like the fact that whenever you get out of the town people smile and say hello as they pass.

2004-07-26T13:57:00.000+01:00

the sky is white again with clouds. seems as though i haven't seen a blue sky for weeks on end, the sky seems too low for summer, it's so close i can practically touch it. at least the air is cool and not muggy. the thundery days have passed and the ants have mostly stopped flying. the sparrows are bold nowadays. theres one in particular, he must be young, just born this year. he's got more intense chestnut-brown feathers than i've ever seen on a sparrow. when i'm sat out in the garden reading he'll fly down near my, hop about, perching precariously on plants that are barely strong enough to hold his weight. he doesn't seem afraid of me so long as i don't move suddenly.

2004-07-25T14:02:00.000+01:00

hmmm.. i wish everyone else would stop writing such good blogs... it's making mine look terrible.

felt peaceful in the woods today, listened to the buzzards calling and was patted gently on the head by young new branches. finally got myself out of the dreadful mood i had been in for the last few days. nowadays i can mostly control my teenage moods, i can feel them coming on and steer safely out of the way. unfortunately sometimes i'm just not strong enough to resist and i get dragged down into it. and the silly thing is, it's like a whirlpool, i just start feeling worse and worse until the severity of the mood i am in is completely disproportionate to whatever it was that put me in the mood in the first place. sometimes i can't even remember what put me in the mood in the first place. i find it very difficult to crawl back out of it once i'm in it. it usually lasts all day and takes a nights sleep to make me forget about it. (thats if i can sleep - bad moods give me headaches, i assume from excessive frowning.)

i like the way that i can tell myself what time i want to wake up in the mornings and my body will do it for me. cuts out the need for an alarm clock.

2004-07-21T22:10:00.000+01:00

you know things are getting bad when you've just sat down and watched "how clean is your house?", "honey, i ruined the house" and "supernanny" in one go... talk about bad tv. television just does me no good at all, it just annoys me. i'm sick of being advertised too. i'm sick of being told how i should be. i'm sick of 20 year olds advertising anti-ageing creams, and i'm sick of everyone on tv being young and thin and beautiful. i don't want any more stuff, so i wish they'd stop trying to sell it to me. what i think and what i say and what i do are far more important than what i look like or what i own.
my day has not been completely wasted though. i did sit down and write a (rather bad) short story on my typewriter (my typewriter makes me feel like i'm actually writing something good, even when i'm not). and i started a painting.

2004-07-20T18:07:00.000+01:00

my lemon tree is starting to put out new leaves. after i "pruned" it (er... chopped the top off) to stop it becoming too leggy it has looked a little sorry for itself. i am too fond of my plants... i go out at least twice a day to check on them. i have now adopted a small jasmine plant to add to my collection of small/weedy/close-to-death plants. last weekend we had some visitors, they were sat out on the veranda, and one of them was sitting near my group of pots. his legs were crossed and his foot was dangerously near to the tops of my plants, it kept swingin down and nearly mangling them beyond repair. i spent the whole time we were sat there watching his foot and feeling anxious. obsessive? quite possibly. i don't even like bizzi lizzies.

thought of the day from jonathan richman:
"well it takes gall to reach out and try affection, on people who maybe want your touch but you can't tell. because they can laugh, and thats like rejection, and you probably won't like that very well."
(the point being of course, that you should try anyway)

2004-07-19T13:42:00.000+01:00

finding it difficult to eat. finding it difficult to sleep. finding it difficult to concentrate. smiling a lot though.

got up last night at 2am, i'd been lying there awake since 1. i had to turn on my light because my lamp has broken. it's one of those dull energy saving lightbulbs, but it still blinded me for a few seconds with brightness. the darkness fled to the window panes and stayed there pressing against them. all i could hear was the church bells striking 2:30 and the ticking of my clock. at that point in the night, the only thing that counts is the passing of time. i tried to do some writing, but the sound of my pencil travelling across paper was tremendous. it seemed so loud i was afraid of waking other people with it. i had nothing much to say anyway, i was trying to tire myself.

2004-07-17T16:19:00.000+01:00

the boxes of seaweed under the desk are making this room smell like salt again. it smells thick and heavy, but not strong. for a moment i almost mistook it for something else.

i was lying on the sofa a few minutes ago. i had read a bit more of birdsong, and listened again to a song by beth orten. strangely enough, i am being seduced by both, it was not a sensation i anticipated. but they both wrapped me up in something brown and mustard coloured, like a blanket, only it wasn't soft or warm, just comforting, just good to have. the sensation of having your mind stretched. i felt i could continue this feeling on my own, i felt i could sustain my own original thoughts and ideas, i lay back and expected to be a poem or a novel or a thought, i wanted my mind to carry me along, but realised too late that such things require strength that i just don't have. instead i resorted to reliving pink memories of hot summer exam days, water bottles, and awkward acquaintances.

i'm feeling drawn to my tpewriter. all pistachio green and ready, sitting on my tidied desk, it's an inviting sight. but with other people in the house this just isn't possible, and i believe i am too young to make any good use of it anyway. i read a section of a story about a man who lost the ability to speak. words just dropped out of his vocabulary until he had nothing left.

the colours of this post... pink... pistachio green... mustard yellow... i think they are reemerging from my mind from yesterdays experience. i looked at all the tiny shells and pieces of glass and china that i collected from the beach. it took me hours to collect them, i moved around the small pebbly beach in an illogical manner, sitting down on areas i had not yet searched and looking carefully among the grey stones for little pinpricks of colour glowing, little delicious fragments of shell or glass or whatever. i made them into a necklace yesterday, glueing them onto little circlets of wire twisted from paperclips, and threaded the circles onto yellow cotton. the colours... pink... green... yellow...

nighttime adventures

2004-07-17T14:01:00.000+01:00

the one major disadvantage of being female is the immense amount of pain you have to endure. i'd like to think, perhaps, that it's just me. that most women get by quite easily without too much hardship at all, and it's just something that, unluckily, plagues me. however, i do not think this is the case. after conversations with various family and friends i have come to the conclusion that it is not uncommon to, like me, every month become reduced to a quivering mess as the so-called "dull ache" (!! i remember thats what we told about it in biology lessons... hmmm... it never felt particularly dull to me) takes over.
every month it surprises me just how bad it is. i woke up at about 5am this morning, and experiencing a very mild ache i decided it would be for the best to drag myself out of bed and take some painkillers. i find it's much better to take some early on to sort of halt the progress, rather than wait until it's unendurable (however heroic a path that may be) because once it gets to that stage the painkillers don't actually work. at least this way you can stop it before it starts. well, thats what happens usually anyway. after an hour of sitting hunched up in bed without any killing of pain happening at all, it actually started to get worse. i then went down to my parents bedroom, to get some sympathy and a hot water bottle from my mother, and to avoid disturbing the 2 girls sleeping on my bedroom floor. (we've got guests). it became apparent that the painkillers were not going to have any effect and i would simply have to tough it out. not a pleasant prospect. i rapidly descended into the quivering mess aforementioned, sitting doubled in two, rocking back and forth clutching the bottle to my stomach, my breathing heavy and irregular. what can i say? it hurt. it really hurt. it hurt so much that i experienced that queer sensation where your mind (soul? conciousness?) starts to sort of detatch itself from your body, in an attempt to make it less painful. you feel as though you're not quite in control of your body, or you're not fully occupying it, or that it's not really yours.
eventually it passed, after running to the bathroom to be sick. i guess i just wanted to rant about it. i can safely say nothing has ever caused me any more pain, and yet i know that it will happen to me every month, and even sitting here now i know i will have several more days of this.

mist

2004-07-16T13:01:00.000+01:00

just got back from cornwall. the weather was mostly overcast and very misty, and whilst i suppose i missed the sparkling sea and the blue skies of previous holidays, there was something deliciously mysterious about the mist, the grey choppy seas and the black rocks. and anyway, to make up for it, we did get a couple of really nice balmy soft sunny late afternoon walks across the fine white sand and green seas.
tried a couple of times (mostly unsuccessfully) to draw the cliffs and the headlands. drawing the cat was more successful. also collected a lot of very small shells, and lovely pieces of coloured glass and pottery from the beach. i'd like to make a necklace out of them but i'm not sure how as they don't have any holes to thread through. but the colours altogether are too wonderful. greens and blues and yellows and pinks - summer colours.

2004-07-11T18:30:00.000+01:00

have you ever tried not to think about something? it actually requires a lot of effort. i mentioned before my overactive imagination. today i tried to reign it in a little by forbidding myself to think about the offending subject. it was very tricky. it sneaks up on you, and before you know it, it's playing around in your mind again, and you haven't even noticed. it's almost impossible to find anything distracting enough either. thoughts are sneaky, they slip into your mind when you think you are otherwise occupied. talking to someone or reading a book doesn't even keep them away. and when they do come, it's hard then to suddenly banish them, seeing as you need a thought similarly interesting to take it's place, and those are hard to come by on the spot.
i spent the morning frustrated by my attempts. it wasn't too bad, but i certainly didn't acheive the total clearance that i wanted. in the afternoon i relaxed a little, the mornings' hardwork had at least calmed my brain activity, and the thoughts i was trying to keep away now come less frequently than before. to keep up the total ban all the time would be both mentally straining and also silly. i shall settle for what i have acheived.

2004-07-11T10:40:00.000+01:00

i'm a little worried by the fact that i think i may have a disposition towards jealousy. "beware the green-eyed monster, it doth mock the meat it feeds upon". clever guy, shakespeare. but then, i also have a dispositon towards an overactive imagination and i find it easy to become obsessive about things... it's like i can't control my own mind, or my own feelings... they just sort of snowball and suddenly get out of hand, and i get dragged down with them against my own will. and then i get jealous................................................... my thoughts in the first place are based on silly inconsequential things, and then silly small things are also the basis for jealousy. it's ridiculous. the circumstances do nothing to dictate my feelings, they're too small to possibly have invoked what they have invoked, and then of course, they being small in the first place, it only takes something small to knock the whole thing down. it's like mount everest balancing on a drawing pin.

i think i should stop here.

try and distract myself.

(though i already know nothing will work)

2004-07-10T16:04:00.000+01:00

having my bed under the window is nice. it means when i wake up in the mornings the first thing i see is the colour of the sky (today it was pale blue). i opened it when i woke up, because i like the feel of the breeze, especially when i've just woken up. (it reminds me of the feel of the soft dark air early in the mornings, most commonly experienced on winter weekdays when i have to get up and catch a bus before the sun has even risen, the first refreshing feeling of being engulfed by cool (yet strangely warm) black air).
made soda bread for breakfast. i forgot how easy it was.

2004-07-10T09:15:00.000+01:00

a zine sounds like a fun summer project... i wonder if i'm up to it. need to go and check out the library's photocopying facilities...

2004-07-09T18:37:00.000+01:00

an empty house... what to do in an empty house... throw a wild party and trash all the furniture? perhaps. or perhaps i'll just sit here and write my blog.
the atmosphere in the house isn't the pleasantest in the middle of the day, hours stretching in each direction. i should have gone out but i feel tied to the task of clearing out my room. it's becoming obsessive. i just want to get rid of everything i own. all my drawers are empty. i should have gone out. old photographs made me cry, they always do. university prospectuses just made my head feel like a big ball of cotton wool, and made me clench my fists in frustration. i thought i had ruled out taking a foundation art course next year because i thought i had ruled out going to art school altogether. but i think that decision was rash and made under the wrong circumstances. so now i'm back to square one.... but i have a plan. that plan being to simply ignore the fact that i shall have to make desicions soon and pretend none of it is going to happen.
but we're going down to cornwall next week, and that should be grand. fresh air, beaches and cold water. i like the feeling of space on beaches, i like walking down across the dunes where the grass pricks your skin and the little yellow snail shells lie in the sand, and then you stand on the edge and look out over the vast sandy stretch below you and how it reaches all the way down to the sea which looks like miles away. and everything is yellow and blue and green. and you stand for a few seconds on the dune and feel the huge expanse of air, and of space, that surrounds you. and then suddenly you run down the slope of the dune to the beach and you slip and slide on the sand on your way down, leaving huge skids and footsteps behind you on the soft smooth sand and you nearly fall over from momentum as you reach the bottom. yes. i shan't stay in this stuffy house for long.

2004-07-09T09:23:00.000+01:00

i had one of those dreams that when you wake up make you feel quite good about things. mostly i suppose because in the first few moments of waking up the dreamworld and the realworld are still leaking into each other, and the feelings you had in your dream are carried over into the real world, though nothing has happened in the real world to make you feel like this. i shan't relate the whole dream, but it involved a nice irish man, licking typewriters and ryhming couplets. i woke up before i had a chance to tell the man that the reason both our answers were the same was because we both chose the lame answers.
it's 9:20am. i'm sitting at the computer in my pajamas, my hair looking like i've slept in a ditch for the last few months. i ate an apple for breakfast in front of clifford the big red dog. cartoons aren't what they used to be. still a nice loud blast of Bis is helping to wake me up.
i'm not sure why it is that whenever a letter from my college arrives i always feel nervous, as if i have something to be afraid of, as if i've done something wrong. yesterday a big brown envelope came through the door addressed to "the parents or guardians of.." i thought it must be something really bad. of course, it was silly to feel like this, because what was it? a newsletter! i have done nothing wrong for the college to start writing me letters about, apart from skipping all my IT key skills lessons *guilty conscience*. everyone skipped those lessons. and anyway i can use a computer can't i? look at me, i'm doing it right now, and not having any problems either. i don't need to go to lessons to show me how to do it! and that stuff about uni's wanting you to have this qualification is the biggest lie i've heard for a long time.
ah, the sun is coming out. this is good. i haven't seen it for a couple of days, the clouds have been heavy and white and low and the days have been dull and grey and muggy. perhaps in this fresh light weather i might get out on the veranda and dig up those dead cacti. there is nothing more depressing to have in your room than a dead cactus. i'll have to get rid of them today.

2004-07-08T15:04:00.000+01:00

why it never occured to me to try carving rubber stamps out of rubbers themselves i don't know. that attempt about a year ago of carving into a cork and getting nowhere was very off putting. but this morning i dug out my scalpel and an old eraser and drew a picture of a swift on the front. it took a while to carve the picture, and then there were quite a few adjustments needed. all in all it must have taken an hour at least. and the result? well, not all that great, but perhaps it has a sort of rustic charm about it. great fun anyway! and think of the possibilities! i think i'll go down to the art shop soon and stock up on some more rubbers, and then try my hand at some other designs. i think i might stick with birds for the moment, and see how it goes. this is so much cheaper and more exciting than buying rubber stamps, and will be great for letters and things.... i am excited by the prospect.

2004-07-07T21:05:00.000+01:00

i watched the swifts flying around in the onsetting rain. the prequel to the storm that's coming tonight. they didn't seem to care. at first i glimpsed a flash of black against the white cloudy sky, and i knew from it's shape and style that it was a swift (i've spent far too much time watching them to mistake it) and i thought that it's quivering wings and the flustered arch it flew across the sky was a sign of desperation. i thought it was fleeing from the rain, like most birds do. but then i saw it flash past my window again, so i left my bed and went to the window, and i saw that there were in fact 2 swifts. they were chasing each other across the rooftops, around and around in the same circle, out of my sight behind some buildings and then back around in front again, past my window. they looked as much as if they were enjoying it as they do when they're tiny pin-pricks flying higher than you could imagine in a blazing blue summer sky. i wished then that i had a video camera, so i could film them flying around and around in the drizzle, flashing in and out of view, with the backdrop of greys and browns of the wet town, and the doves grinding out of my cd player behind.

2004-07-07T09:29:00.000+01:00

I can feel the length of summer holidays setting in. every day seems white and long and muffled.
i threw out all my old diaries yesterday. i found them in a shoe box under my dexk. it only took a few minutes flicking through them to realise there is nothing more painful and embarassing than old diaries. i wrote them when i was in high school, they're full of crushes and angst. it felt good to throw them away, it's probably a bad thing to run away from your past, but it felt good. at the moment, being rid of such memories is worth sacrificing a moment in the future when i'm all grown up, reading them again with a tear running down my cheek for my lost youth or whatever. what i really didn't like about them though, aside from the content, from what i actually wrote, was my handwriting. you could see in the very way i formed the letters how i was struggling between childhood and adulthood, and how i was in limbo, not in one place nor in the other. i could see the haste of an adult's writing combined with wide round letters and as much neat style as a child. i don't like the way i used to write. yes, the old handwriting distressed me.

2004-06-30T17:57:00.000+01:00

well, the very first post to my new blog. i was hoping to be able to link it to my website, but stupid ol' freeservers doesn't seem to like it all that much. so nevermind.
did some solarising in photography today, and i don't really like the effect, but it's quite nice to see what can be done in the darkroom.
i was sitting on the bus looking out at the fields and seeing how they had grown creamy yellow in the summer sun, and how the leaves had grown dark and heavy on the trees, but it was like i could FEEl the fields and the trees, the grass and the hedges, i could feel what it was like, i could feel the air and the water and the plants and i could feel HOW THEY WERE. but there was no way i could have described it to you. the closest i got was that it was like the sensation of slowly easing your fingers into a tin of golden syrup. the frustration of physically sensing the world and being at a complete lack to describe it was immense.