Stranger than your sympathy

- Dreams are funny things. They can be enlightening, disappointing, ridiculous, incredible. And always believable, somehow. Doubt all you like, but if you have the dreams, you're believing.
- But what if everything is standing in the way? My dreams at the moment seem so unreachable. And too heady. If they came true I can barely imagine how I'd cope. What happens when we get everything we want?

- I'm usually a happy person. Something's changed recently, and I can't put my finger on it, but I'm not so happy any more. Not like before. 
- I think it's because my dreams were always close in check. Now I'm wide-eyed and vulnerable because I'm letting myself hope for things beyond arm's reach. Is it better not to hope? It hurts less.

- I think what I need to do right now is remember how wonderful it felt to be ordinary. Not to 'try' like Buk said. To consign my dreams to a far-off corner of my mind and stop hoping with reckless abandon. 
- Perhaps expecting less is the key to feeling better? It's hopelessly bleak.

The Old You/The New Me. and some big talk.

- Every so often I forget who I am and everything I learned, and need a good kick to remember it. My last post was miserable. My last few days were miserable.
- I have so much that I love. I mean, that I LOVE about myself. Why would I let anyone else get involved in that? I'll take love, but keep the vulnerability, thanks.
- Last time I was here I fell apart and it felt fantastic - first love, like a riot in the heart, and what can anyone do to pull you out? I've even given up forgetting, and accepted that a bit of me will always love him. But that bit should also remind me of what I gave up for that all-consuming love. 
- I wont fall apart like last time. Try as you like. Your best shot. 

- I'm not better than you, I'm not beneath you, I'm your equal. I wont hate you, because you never confirmed or denied any of these things. I wont forget that I'm your equal, that's what I promise tonight, because I'm always forgetting.
- I want to know. I have every right to feel this way. Friends cant help. Funny that what I always thought I was missing, what I thought would make my life complete, could be what made everything so awful.
- Friends talk too much, their advice is flimsy, their convictions questionable. And lovers leave. I love them both, but I won't live or die according to either. I'm too young to put that much trust in anyone. 

- I have to live with myself for the next howevermany years. I should rely on my own advice and my own confidence. 
- Who knows what happiness is? To me it's a homely soul. 

The Waiting Game

- At the moment, all I seem to do is wait. I'm constantly drifting and a little bit lost. It reminds me of the Austen characters who sat around and sewed and embroidered and aged and waited for their men. 
- I don't have much confidence. What little I have gets crushed with every day. I'm escaping into my daydreams all the time, which are inevitably disappointed, and constantly in agony.
- And then, like a refreshing sip of water removing a cloying taste, someone reminds you that all of this is transient and temporary, and if you could be a bit less self involved the world might move faster and less gratingly.

- This is my current situation. Isn't it a sorry state of affairs? 
- I'm not the sort of woman who sits by a phone. I proved it, I got away last time, I won't be tied down again. How can I be just 18 and already terrified of love's advance? It's inavoidable and subtle as thunder.
- I'm sick of protocol and procedure. 21 questions through text. It's not the game I'd choose. I want to be honest and transparent. I want my heart to break today and heal tomorrow. This slow twist of the knife is hell and it makes me hate him.

- But I'll go on waiting. Because it gives me hope, though it's hollow sustenance. 
- What's at the end of the wait? Disappointment seems so likely, almost inescapable. With every love song I feel more lonely, and my daydreams more unlikely.
- The waiting game is a long and lonely one.

Don't Try.

- There used to be a bench outside my house, about ten years old, a bit weatherbeaten but sound. It had a little engraving in the wood, in the middle, right at the nape of your neck, and it always caught me a little - 'good night, darling. god bless. see you in the morning - wait for me'. I always hope somebody will remember me like that.

- Charles Bukowski is my new favourite beat poet. I think I like him. I don't like Gainsbourg or Snyder, but he makes sense, in that he looks more tragic than hedonistic, which I admire. You get the impression, reading Kerouac, that a generation tore themselves apart for some cheap thrills. 


- His life story - the abuse, his eschewing of poetry for two decades, losing the love of his life.. it's so sad, you feel that he deserves to be a liquor-soaked ink-stained old deadbeat. But he wrote this beautiful poetry. I like the disjointed syntax. You hear the echoes of Neal Cassady - the lines jump about, like some crazy heartbeat.

- His grave is marked 'Don't Try'. My first thought was that it was simple hopelessness, the cynicism that seems to infect the intelligent who lived too long and saw too much. But it's not. It's saying, don't push for your inspiration. In a letter to John William Corrington he explains it: 

'Somebody at one of these places ... asked me: "What do you do? How do you write, create?" You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it.'

- I like it, I love it. I push my inspiration to the limit, always thinking, can I write a song about this? Does anyone want a song about this? Do I care too little? Do I care too much? Who needs to know this? The best songs I wrote hit me when I wasn't looking.


- Im also glad I found this right now - I applied to creative writing courses on a whim, and have steadied myself against becoming too devoted to them, as I'm going to come across as far from a perfect student. I'm reassured that the masters struggle for their inspiration, but the struggle is organic and natural, and if I give up whenever it gets hard, it was never worth starting.

- I secretly worry that my half-arsed confidence won't hold out if I fail on this one. English lit is so competitive. But I love it. I think it's worth the fall. I could have taken an easier course, probably should have. But I can't explain the glow of a beautiful poem, or the smile of a witty passage. That's probably my main failing. Well. One of the top 5.

Did the Hipsters get me?

- A broad sweep across the internet would give the general impression that we all love love, that we would all die without our music, and that our friends are incredibly important to us. Each of us truly believes that this is completely organic, that we have developed these loves independently. 

- For example, I love:

 the Kinks, Jelly Babies, Acoustic Guitar, Southern Comfort, Diet Coke, Malbro Lite, my denim shorts, Jamie T, the Impressionists, Marcel Duchamp, Vintage Clothing, Folk Music, Irony, Men who look like Viggo Mortensen, Women who look like Jane Birkin, Baking, Knitting, and Egg Fried Rice.

- Excepting the egg fried rice, that principally adds up to a pretty accurate description of what US Kids call a 'Hipster'. 

- But, let's face it. I'm not one. For a start, I'm from england. I like guitar because I grew up in folk clubs. I like baking and knitting because my mum doesn't. I like southern comfort because tequila tastes like nail varnish remover.

- All the same, I panic. When I was young I was terrified I had no personality, and simply jumped on whatever bandwagon passed me. I've been so proud that my friends recognise me as the one who knits or bakes or plays guitar or maybe puts on a little bit too much makeup but it's ok really.

- I worry that I'm all made up of somebody else now. I go to jumble sales and occasionally I spot my clone. I have a few. It's no coincidence. 

- Is my personality just a fragment of this movement?

Aerosmith - Crazy

I love Liv Tyler and Alicia Silverstone in this film.. 
absolutely amazing!

Snow day!

The amount of snow in my garden is incredible. It's so beautiful, even the word - 'drifted' sounds perfect. I've already been outside to make huge dinosaur-sized footprints. Supposedly it's going to snow even more today! 

It hit me the hardest

- It just occurred to me. He'll never see this. I don't know if anybody will. But this is a bit of my life he's got no control over. I think I'm going mad. It's been a year. He's everywhere I look. Nobody understands.

 - I don't understand it either.
- It's like something irreversible, a chemical reaction which cannot be undone. But only for me. Miles away, he smiles, he laughs, he calls, he's happy. And so am I. 

- Whenever I tell the story, I skip out bits. I keep the worst bits to myself, bite down till they bleed, hoping that otherwise it's just a tragic love story. Can I write the whole story? I want to try. But I don't want him to find me. I don't think I can claim to be embarrassed any more - I've had enough opportunities to move on. I agree with people that he's a bastard. But it's not enough. I want to stamp the truth out of this story. Once, please.

- I remember. I remember that smile, and the day it started. I remember what he said as you watched me play the piano. I remember twisting my ankle. I remember the first texts. I remember the last texts. I remember all three of us. I remember the two of us. I remember the piano and the lights and your answerphone message (I saved it for days). I remember every drink we drank, everything we ever sang, and every single hug. I remember believing every word. I remember new years. I remember easter. I dont remember crying. I remember how easy it was to hate and love you at the same time. I remember when you said you loved me. I remember it was a joke. I remember the international texts, you paying 56p telling me I was beautiful. I remember telling you that I thought you were great. I remember us hating ourselves. I remember being weak and failing. I remember the three-hour phonecalls. I remember the silences. I don't remember being the one to hang up. I remember never being close enough. I remember our last hug. I remember the day I told the truth. I remember the day I told a lie. I remember the first song I wrote being about you. I remember every song being about you.

- I feel better, I think I do, at least. I'll probably think of a thousand things I should have put in there tonight. My key memory is being in far too deep and being scared off my tits. The key elements are there.
- I don't tell people most of those memories because they hurt too much to think about. I worry if I put too much good or too much bad in, people will draw their own conclusions. People still do.
- Would a normal romance have been the same? Without the caffeine, without the insomnia, without the music, without the tension, would I still feel like this, drowning in uncertainty? Working it out is like fighting on ice, nothing is decided for certain, no purchase can be found anywhere.

Most honest of all.

- I'm not alone. Everyone who loved you once still loves you. And you know it. Fuckwit.

- Stay away from me.

- Try that again and I will have you.

I love snow the most!

- It's snowing in London. What could be better? It's as though Christmas came early for me. I'm just hoping it thaws out for Saturday as I've got shopping to do. I'm completely knackered, it has to be said. Three posts in a day! That's commitment, my friend, and no doubt about it. 

- Tomorrow I'm going sledging, apparently.. which should be great fun! In the next few days before Christmas I'm attending a house party and a masquerade ball, as well as going ice skating! It's all go for me right now, although I'm looking forwards to devoting a bit of time to this blog in the holiday season.

Progress

- I can't believe I just wrote all that. I think I really needed to take the time to write that, I feel better. It's like warming up your voice before a song. How can I write without loosening up? Words feel more definite now. It's strange, as though you're walking in the dark, shuffling in case you trip, uncertain, and always reaching. It feels a bit brighter and a little lighter.

My insecurities just flooded back. 
- I'm being ridiculous, my writing style is awful, pretentious, devoid of emotion, pathetic, derived, toneless, flat. 
- But it's a blog, I think this might be my best chance of airing those many failings. And getting some nice mixed metaphors in. And some bad grammar. It feels good.
- So be it. You'll read this tomorrow morning, and you're going to think it's shit.
- Probably. Hopefully nobody will notice.

A fresh start

- When I was seven, I thought there was a tiny book in my head that recorded all my thoughts. It was red with gold leaf around the pages, and a little ribbon poking out the bottom to mark where I'd got to. It mainly stemmed from the fact that I had a lot of thoughts in a day, but there wasn't room in my head for them, so they had to go in the book. It might be a solitary, ordinary moment that I chose to repeat and rephrase until it was perfect. It might be a little story I'd invented. Whatever it was, I'd think it over and over, slimming it down, adding or taking away when necessary, whittling it down to get to the most perfect thought. It always reminded me of peeling a potato, or maybe nibbling an apple to its very core

- I wanted you to know, just because the same concept will be applied here. I don't really want to write about myself, just the stuff I think. I'm going to make that little red book come to life. Because I really want to be able to write, but in a more honest way. I am always adding, and all it does is take away. 

- A good 80% of what I say or write is bullshit. Writing probably more so, I hate reading back what I've written. I'm always out to prove. I want to be liked. I'm Willy Loman's direct descendant, where's the pride in that? Ha... I want to get away from all that, the grammar and the spelling, they lock down what you want to say. I find it difficult to marry words and their meanings, because what words sound like they should say, and what they do say, are such different things.

- I am a musician, a writer, an artist, a dreamer, and about 1/3 worthless. I wish I could be a quirky, crazy, carefree, beautiful, intelligent, wondrous woman. Sometimes I think I am all these things. Sometimes I think I'm kidding myself and should get the fuck back to bed before the day hits. Every so often I realise the pile of rubbish I load myself with, and give myself a break. Those are my best days of all. 

- I have to admit, I don't know myself at all. I can't really decide if I've ever been in love. That probably means I haven't. Once in a while, I think I'd be better off if I'd never met him. But in almost every reflection, I practice the smile I'll give him if I ever see him again. I tell people he's awful. He's awful. He is. But even as I say it, or think it, I am so aware of every breath because I am suddenly so heavy, I turn to lead, and my head starts to swim, and the desperate barrier that keeps back the memories wobbles, and it takes everything, everything not to go back.

- Does being honest mean I have to be pathetic?

- I don't want to think about him any more.

- I love London. It's my city - but I'll share it I guess. Success loses all meaning to me there. I have train rides at sunrise with a hundred silent city suits, but the grey-haired man in the shop where I get my lunch knows my name and my favourite drink. I love the museums and galleries, the people, my lonely moments, my friends, the moment when my train crosses the Thames. I love the grey of it. And I love its colour.

- I wanted to put an Eliot quote here.

- I'm not going to. 

- I love poetry, but not in a pretentious, crap kind of a way. I like Eliot because he cuts close to the truth, lets our insecurities and our habits spill out, and feeds them back to us. Sometimes I feel cut to the core reading him. Prufrock makes me suspect I'm a pretentious bitch. Eliot was probably a bit of an arsehole himself.