Crikey, I'm off for a lie down.

 

Laters.

xx

 

 

 

Found this book in the parental garage. We don't know where it came from, but we agree it's definitely being kept.

 

 

 

 Nothing flash, is it? Just one of those old Co-op family cookery books. Still, who wouldn't want to cook this? :

 

 

 

 YUMMY!!! You can't see it on this scan, but my favourite bit is where the directions indicate to "remove all fat, gristle and blood vessels"....

And how about some of this??

 

 

God, I love giblets...

But the very bestest bit, the bit that actually had us all standing round thinking "wha?" was the back cover, which for no explicable reason, looks like this:

 

 

Now that cheered me right up.

 

Laters.

xx

I feel v bad, and when I feel bad like this, specific kind of bad, my shoulders burn and my heart feels like it's rattling its tin cup over the bars of my ribs. Why do my shoulders burn? Is this a specific kind of anxiety hereto unidentified?

 

I think my problem is that I haven't slept at night for about a week. I am currently sleeping only between the hours of three and six pm. Which is odd, because I never usually have trouble sleeping. Quite the reverse, as anyone who has ever tried to talk to me about cricket has rapidly discovered. I have therefore been reading constantly for the last fortnight, in an attempt to render my sleepless instability somehow worthwhile. I have not, thankfully, quite got to the watching Big Brother Live stage yet. Just three nautical novels and a fine pair of dark circles that even my trusty Rimmel coverstick can't beat. Oh, and a strange display at a houseparty on Friday for which I apologise. I've been drinking cheap cider every weekend for a while now (at night: I'm not modelling Derelicte yet, either...) and as is its way, my resistance is becoming less over time as opposed to more. Pretty soon I'll only have to sniff the bottle and I'll be crying in the kitchen at parties. What a dolt. Perhaps I might have more fun if I was sober, but its a worrying concept. Alcohol is a depressant. Why, I never was any good at doing math.

 

I also managed to spend all of my budget for this week at the fair on Friday, leaving me wide open to having to give up smoking again. Haven't I suffered enough?? I also have two eggs, half a loaf of stale white, half a pint of milk and some savoury rice to get me through. The savoury rice is a touch of genius and a remnant of my student days. If you have savoury rice, you can eat. It's like eating little bits of warm plastic, but it will provide the energy required to enable me to use the laptop and press "513" on the remote to get to the wrestling. If I don't sleep at night, I can sleep during the day to further eradicate the need to expend energy. As you can see, glamour is as standard in mine life. Of course, this is all temporary until I finally sort my life out, but at the minute my shoulders are still burning and I'm having jamais vue like a Catch-22 veteran. Jack Johnson can help, but only so much. The rest is up to Jack Aubrey and John Cena. Only they can save me.

 

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, fear not.

 

Funnily enough, I haven't heard from the job, which has caused mild internal haemhorraging and a strong desire to take religious orders. I still have all the brochures from being fucked over by Wayne. Knew they'd come in handy.

 

But no, I'll keep writing stuff and watching Buffy and eating savoury rice until I get the job / fall off a ladder in the Metrocentre / win the lottery / marry someone who can keep me in a manner to which I have become accustomed (hell, the manner to which I've become accustomed aint much to write home about afterall... "Alreet love, wanna come back to mine? I've got chicken and mushroom or Mediterranian vegetable on the go...") / miraculously recover / everyone at work I never want to see again leaves to go and join others of their kind in the Taliban. I'll be fine. I was fine before and I will be again. I just need time. And something to work towards. I think that's the problem, actually; I'm floating around without purpose for the first time in my life. Event the good stuff, like the writing and learning to edit is so unstructured. I'm not sure where it's going. I've always had college, or a boyfriend, or even a trip planned that I can use as incentive. I can't even afford to go food shopping next month.

 

Blatant complaining is fun. Sorry for being a whinge, but I think I've been so terrified about who reads this blog recently, that I haven't really said anything about what's actually going on in the heed. Now? I've realised that there's nothing wrong with feeling what you are feeling. And this is my Space. It has been for over a year, and I love it for being the one place that I can say all this stuff. I absolutely refuse to allow myself to be intimidated by anyone else any more, especially when it comes to doing this. In fact, it's this that I can actually hold up at the end of the day and say "I did this: Fuck you. What have you done?"

 

Er, so there you go.

 

Right, I feel better and my shoulders have quietened to a dull roar.

 

Oh, and I'm at The Mam's. Any concerns over savoury rice-related malnutrition are unnecessary. I am, I am happy to say, blessed with as fine a set of parents as anybody could wish for. I'll not go hungry.

Well, at least until Wednesday, when I go back to the flat, but I brought a big bag, and there's a treacle pudding in the garage that wouldn't be good for The Dad's cholesterol at all.....

 

 

Sorry about the rant. I'm really rather balanced on the whole...

 

Laters.

xx

 

PS: Apologies for spelling errors. Couldn't be bothered with Word. 

I should probably think about sobriety for a while, considering that I had to force myself to go to sleep on Saturday night after a "second wind" that involved wandering around the flat in a deerstalker until almost 6am.

Still, plenty of fun was had earlier in the night, not least when Jonjo began playing my ancient Postman Pat soundtrack (vinyl, no less) five minutes after entering the flat, and repeating it three times throughout the evening. I even got to watch my SFA DVD with COMPANy for the first time ever. Generally speaking, this DVD has sent more ex-boyfriends to sleep than I care to remember. Well, two at least. But at last! People were interested!

 

So that was fun. Yesterday was spent in an extremely inclement Lake District which (as always) involved me looking constantly around whilst in the car to see if I could identify a crag that I once sat on with my Landscape and Poetry class at uni. Much Camomile tea and hilarity form my general memory of that day. In fact, it is such a happy memory that it has the potency to reduce me to tears in dark moments. Oh well, I didn't manage to find it again, so it may well be consigned to legend. Besides, the idea of trying to replicate the experience with two aged parents and a couple of dogs didn't exactly fill me with a sense of unabateable joy....

 

*phone call*

 

Back. Just been talking to the good Captain Paranoia: Someone who is having almost as bad a time of it as me at the minute. She's teacher training, and every time I speak to her I'm filled with a profound sense of awe, and pride, cos she's my mate. Difficult thing, controlling assorted scrotes and attempting to impart to them a sense of interest in poetry. Some of them make her life hell, and as a non-teacher-y type, I wish to slice their little faces open and make them eat sherbert for all eternity.

 

I can't actually spare any more time here, because I have to transcribe the entire UK STD code directory for Wednesday. There's something vaguely Herculean about this task: Like cleaning the Augean Stables. My eyes are watering and I have a distinct cramp in my hands from two-finger typing at 60wpm. Has to be done though. The glamourous life of a writer. Is not glamorous at all.

 

Still no word from the dream job. Who'd want me anyway - it was a really good job that I would have loved, but I come from a span 3 civil service position, which is kind of like trying to get into Oxford because you won a poetry competition in second-year infants. At the minute I have to use all my concentration and self-esteem to stop my hands shaking in shops. I'm hardly an exciting prospect in the employment market. Especially for anything other than treasury tag management. I have two degrees. And I feel almost completely worthless. Oh God, I have to go and stick my head in a bucket or else become Marvin permanently.

 

Laters.

xx 

 

LATER.....

 

To cheer myself up, I sent this email to Tony the Tiger via the Official Kelloggs website:

 

 

 

LATER STILL:

 

This is massive, apparently. Check these out:

 

 

And finally, and most importantly:

 

 

SIGN IT!!!

 

Ok, ok, I should be doing work.

 

Bye now.

 

Hey all. Back at the ‘rents for a bit due to a …. um …. Nervous Thing last night which I’m putting down to working almost solidly for three days in the furnace that is my front room. Here’s something fun: air conditioning. I’ve been in the flat for a year, and it was only last night that I decided to poke about with the strange boxes on my walls beneath each window. Having written them off as long-abandoned heaters, I’d ignored them. Well, they looked a bit dodgy to be frank. Anyway, I flicked a switch, ripped off a bit of duct tape (strange place, my flat) and lo! Cold air!! Considering that I’ve spent the last week waking up around every hour in a vile sweat (once having been sleeping bolt upright against the wall for no apparent reason) and having the sorts of nightmares that would have Eli Roth behind the sofa, it was a nice thing. Rather than spend time and effort to check whether or not the thing was going to explode and kill me in my sleep, I just curled up under my duvet, happy to be able to feel a cool draft.

Still had a shit night, like, but I think it might be more to do with the broken head than the heat to be honest. Well, not broken…. Bruised.

 

Anyway, The Mam and The Dad took me into town today to cheer me up, and did. So that’s ok then.

 

What else, what else….?

 

Reading a really good book about pirates. Real ones, that have to eat their dog when they get caught in the doldrums, and have their teeth fall out from scurvy. And what crush the lice in their shirts with rolling pins. Its pretty cool. Next, I plan on reading some Master and Commander, then The English Passenger, then I will move onto a different genre; possibly crime. I never had much time for crime (apart from the odd foray into the world of student pranks and pastimes… ahem), so I’m interested to see what all the fuss is about. As you can tell, I’m going to attempt to broaden my horizons so that I can, er, have broader horizons.

 

God, this is fairly indicative of the last few days… not much going on… stressy and miserable.

 

England won. Woo. Anyone else got a very bad feeling about this?

 

I’m going to go and download some very random music. Possibly something Cuban, just to see what I think.

 

Laters.

Xx

 

PS: Still no word from the dream job, although the closing date was only yesterday. I never did count patience as one of my better points… x

Thanks for the good luck messages: I'm keeping everything crossed myself cos its a good job, it is. Not IT!

 

Short entry (heh) to prove I'm alive. I'm wicked busy at the moment trying to get the book finished. As in finalised-ly finished. Its had more final drafts than George Best, but I'm determined to have it shiny and sexy for August when its published. Again, no pressure.

 

Other news?

 

Got drunk Friday and Saturday for about a tenner for both. Although Saturday did involve two litres of cider and a bottle of Green Ginger and a drinking game devised in that special hell reserved for really nasty people.

 

Watched entire series of Firefly and have decided I want to be a space-mercenary.

 

Watched Mirrormask - Excellent, excellent, beautiful film.

 

Got a new tattoo, pictures of which will be had at some point. Including fun ones of blood.

 

Went to see Just a Minute being recorded and laughed some.

 

Remembered that summer is shit and that shaving one's legs is a pain, but not as much as remembering that summer clothes make me look normal.

 

Celebrated a year in the flat! Fucking hell!

 

DIDN'T sort out the back room. So its only taken a year so far.

 

Did lots of work. Oh, I said that. Guess that's all then.

 

Hope you are all ok and having summer fun (sweating, looking normal, shaving too often...).

 

Laters

xx

I have found a perfect job. I am doing the application forms.

 

Start praying.

 

x

Hey there. Had a decent weekend, for once, beginning with The Suz and me drowning our sorrows with a bottle of Vladvar and a Colin Farrell film. We didn’t get the film, but he looked hot, so who gives a shit. Then, on Saturday I went to a race night somewhere in Fenham and got drunk again, almost entirely against my knowledge. I kind of caught on in the car on the way home. Upon my return I must have tried writing something in my notebook, but instead discovered the following yesterday morning:

 

DRUNKEN NOTES ON DAREDEVIL.

 

“Ben Affleck is sort of cute, but he is NOT Daredevil.”

“Is Daredevil even cool? He’s good, but he’s SHITE.” (Not sure what I was meaning there…)

“Has Bullseye got special powers? Go on net.”

“Is a church really as big as that one?” (Again, not really sure.)

“Colin is sexy even when he has no hair.”

“Why are priests always cliché?”

“I like that DD is a Catholic.”

“Elektra is rubbish in this.”

“Evanescence are almost acceptable in this context.”

“CGI ruins films.”

“I want a Preacher film soon.”

“And an Invisibles one, although I should play Ragged Robin. (NB: Lose weight.)”

“Punisher could well chin DD. Oh, he did didn’t he?”

“This bit with the stained glass is stupid.”

“I can’t take Michael Clarke Duncan seriously after seeing him sing Leaving on a Jetplane in Armageddon.”

“Oh, just fucking kill him.”

“’Justice is served’? This is shit.”

“I should write a comic.”

“In the last café scene, there is a syrup bottle shaped like a bear. I believe I should own this.”

“Stupid film. Shiny yet pointless. Like Natasha Bedingfield.” (??)

 

So there you go, that’s what I write when I’m drunk and think I’m creating my meisterwork.

 

Yesterday I went to a car boot sale with Gillian and Mark and bought some stuff. Namely, two scarves, a picture of Madonna and child which lights up, a poster about Jesus which says “I ASKED JESUS, How much do you love me? THIS MUCH he answered, and stretched out his arms and died.” This made us laugh. I got a top which I wouldn’t buy ordinarily, but which was cheap, and then Mark donated two statues of Mary and a St Theresa. Blessed am I. Good haul.

 

I also found an article in the Indie on Saturday which made me piss myself. A website has been set up for English teachers to compare students’ problems with classics, specifically SH-hakespeare (love you, Jeremy.). Here are some answers from pupils up to GCSE level that were taken from exams:

 

“Romeo drowned on the Titanic.”

“After the balcony, Romeo and Juliet jumped in the swimming pool.”

“They lived in Italy. Romeo’s last wish was to be laid by Juliet.”

[After hearing about his wife’s death] “Macbeth goes into full-on soliloquy mode.”

[Macbeth gets revenge] “cos as my mum always sez, wot goes around comes around.”

[After Duncan’s death] “Lady Macbeth ses to Macbeth sort your head out.”

[Lady Macbeth asks her husband] “to show her his manhood.”

[On the appearance of the witches] “Macbeth had been smoking up and imagined them all.”

“Macbeth is like a snail shell without a snail when Lady Macbeth dies.” (I like this one…)

[Miguel Cervantes] “wrote a book called Donkey Hote.”

“The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.”

“The greatest writer of the Renaissance was Shakespeare. He was born in 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies and hysterectomies – all in Islamic pentameter.”

[Julius Caesar] “extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul.”

[Again, on Caesar] “he was murdered by the Ides of March and his dying words were ‘same to you Brutus’.”

 

Fantastic.

 

Laters.

xx

ANOTHER wrong week.

Everything is definitely a bit messed up at the minute, although its getting gradually harder to see exactly how. Whilst resepecting that you are probably making an "eh?" face at that last statement, I can only assume that there are a couple of people out there who know the feeling as well as I do, so its a fair description. It's just that I seem to have drifted a bit and now I'm somewhere off the Hebrides trying to avoid Basking Sharks, which, whilst being placid plankton-sifters, are far too big to be allowed.

Anyway, reality tends to have a way of making itself felt so it shouldn't be long before I'm back to normal and being twatted against the rocks of South Shields again.

 

I now have 160 songs on the pod, a fact which I'm sure will ease rest and bowels across the nation. This sudden upturn in my tastes has been almost entirely due to my watching Raw last night and concentrating really hard on the entrance songs to see which ones I like best. Tragic? I make Anthony and Cleopatra look like Posh and Becks. 

Also on the list is a fair bit of Bluegrass which I missed in my desperation to download songs which might not allow me to fall asleep on a bus. The Blind Boys of Alabama would never let me fall asleep on a bus.

 

This, I feel, should be the point where I get excited about new things and describe my future adventures. However, I still feel no strong urge to leave the house for longer than four hours, so you can whistle for it. I am suffering from yet another bout of mid-twenties crisis (this does actually exist - ask everyone who ever finished uni and remembered that their parents don't work where they want to...) and looking at a whole new set of options for the future. These mostly involve:

 

1) Marrying a millionnaire. This would feasibly mean sharing time with a man. I am not yet ready to do this as I am still finding scraggy bits of my entrails and vital organs down the back of the furniture in the flat from the last time my insides were strewn all over by a dingle-bearer.

2) Getting knocked up and allowing the Government to be my sugar-daddy. See above. Even for the three minutes it would take.

3) Sell a kidney. I still haven't found a spare since before.

4) Win the Lottery. Ha ha ha. Have my remaining kidney. I have more chance of surviving with a sponge and a bit of inner-tube to clean my bloodstream than that.

5) Go mad. A possibility, but I did remember that it wouldn't really be like Taking Over the Asylum, and that I would probably have to wear a nighty with my bum out. Not good for anyone.

6) Write a novel. The Novel, should I say. I got six thousand words more than last time, you know, bringing it up to twenty-six thousand. I am, however, beginning to bore even myself. Which isn't a good sign. Perhaps I should leave out the chapter about how The Monkees changed the world. (Joke.)

 

Ah well, if I get to work on the first three tonight and then go for the rest tomorrow, I should have reached something like Nirvana by the second edition of Neighbours.

 

That is to say, with a gun in my mouth.

 

No, I'm fooling. The Mam is going to buy me some fish and chips and then I shall get back on the computer and continue to look for ways to change my life. Its fun. In a sort of weird, horrible, fucking boring kind of a way. Sod it, who am I kidding? I'll watch Big Brother then go to bed.

 

By the by, I watched Serenity last night. I liked it. A lot. Hurray for film criticism, eh?

 

Laters.

xx