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.