Sussex is not as gay as I thought

Guess where I went on Wednesday?

I've got lots to tell you. I have left the misty, opaque smoke of coursework and major deadlines have passed once and for all and I am very happy at this moment. But first, Sussex.

They have campus tours each week and I finally managed to stop the panic procrasination and actually call them and arrange things and tell my Dad about it and make food (cereal bars) for the journey. I even organised a meeting with the Head of the History department and made sure we got on the right motorways - we didn't get lost, we were early and the tour answered all of my questions. It's a campus place with everything like laundrettes and 7 bars and the most amazing library I've ever seen (apart from the British Library. I've never been but if I did I'm sure I'd never come out.) Anyway this was FOUR STOREYS of library - all those books...yum! And a cinema! And a nightclub, but I suspect thats shitty because who wants to hang in the same place all the time?

Meeting the historian was cool because she told that because I'm taking single honours I can take on other courses like Politics and English and American studies which was birdsong to my ears. Afterwards me and Dad went to the pebble beach (with 100 Billion pebbles, some sad-ass counted) and had a good old bonding session throwing (not skipping) pebbles, watching surfers and guitarists with rainbow straps and photographers, thinking: it's so blue and so calm. You know, the wind changed as we got nearer - I haven't been to the sea in months and its good to look at something so never-ending and peaceful as if the future wasn't too bad...the future...I don't like the future. Especially the short term future - this whole university thing - people keep asking if I've chosen yet and I can't because I won't be able to satisfy anybody...not even myself.

It was probably at this point I realised Brighton wasn't as gay as I thought it was before. I saw a giant rainbow flag on the beachfront but that was it, and I liked that because being isn't my whole life even though I would like a girlfriend to have evening cuddles and do stupid cute indie things with...



And then today I finished my coursework in the morning. The moment it all printed, title page, appendixes, bibliographies and everything I knew it was all over and I was bloody ecstatic. I even picked a wild daffodil on the way to college. It was a good decision because I had cool conversations like:

"Hey Betty, can I borrow some water?"
"Sure- could you hold my daffodil for a moment?"
"No problem."

Or -

"Oh yes, you cutie daffodil-dilly you, with your yellow rays of petals and your trumpet-head, my aren't you scrumptious...*glares* what? I don't care if it's in the library, its my daffodil and it needs attention its wilting!" (Ok that was made up)

Most people were miserable especially my teacher because a couple of students never stop moaning about having to work and never understands a damn thing...she's lovely but annoying! And the day was so beautiful. Oh my god I could never tell you how beautiful I'd have to be silly and cliched: the sun was tangoing with the clouds on the first day of the year that actually looked like spring and the sun light moved in sheets not waves and moved across this spread of green grass and fields, moving and shifting so fast it was like an upbeat rock music video it was so beautiful.

So now, I'm back to business, making plans and giving in CVs (no one has replied. With this much abuse how can you expect worker satisfaction?) trying to get my Prozac (Flouxatine?) trying to work with my Dad, trying trying trying to fix this whole life of time while I've still got time and I'm not in anyway defined....as yet.

Jungle Skyscrapers

Today was a short exercise on the futility of fate. I applied for what to "hopefully" be my next job working in a jolly old supermarket (I shall call it The Super) - I'm thinking of taking a temporary job in a Deli because The Super doesn't open until June and Dad's still refusing to give me money, which means that to him I've now come of age, or he's poor, or he just sees me as really, really lazy. Even so, I haven't been this broke since I was a child, which wasn't so bad because kids never spent money, all I wanted was sweets, not bras or books and trips to Central London (I haven't been out to C. London since February - sooner than later I'm going to break out into industrialized hives caught from the concrete jungle.)

During all of this madness I have no time to be depressed during the day, and so I can function fairly well when the sun is up, and laugh and skip and ignore all the weird stares I keep getting - I can't tell if it's lust or disgust for the girl with blue hair (which I need to redo soon).

Today, one of the archetypal modern nights happened to me as I boarded the bus, in my hurry to drop off my Super application. I ran my hands through my pockets for my mobile but they weren't there, and with each pocket, and each bit of space I went through my stomach would drop a few more inches. It was horrible. The scene on the bus became more apparent as I began to detail the prams and the old people being so quiet and stoic. The bus was quiet and sedate even though people were chattering away. I surprised myself by not crying, making the 40 minute journey to the community centre to hand in my application and turning back to Twickenham where I spent an hour searching the streets for my mobile. It was on silent so I couldn't call it. What would I have done if it was lost forever? I couldn't stop thinking of some annoying stranger looking through my texts and my pictures with some kind of grim satisfaction if it would warrant a half-assed short story...

It turns out I left it in careers back at college (the only place in college where sanity runs riot), undamaged and comfy in my pocket. What was also strange was that my journey was exactly the same - I waited for the bus for the same amount of time...even the prams were exactly the same, with no babies in them, just shopping and the same yellow bib thingy. It was as if I was being allowed to relive the journey - a second chance for me to take note of something. This made me feel like both control and fate was some illusion, although I should never endeavour to force its hand. Who knows, maybe I was overthinking it. But I did feel so lost and alone without my phone, like a Q without an U (note The Simpsons reference).

Antidote

Lemon Jelly plays Space Walk (Beautiful!) and I try to comprehend myself. My college life has become a nice blob of organized chaos. All I can remember is studying and chatting, trying to make myself make horrid decisions, namely universities. Up North or 'dahn' South? Politics or History? How can I possibly choose? And so accidently on purpose I've been avoiding making appointments to visit the places, which I WILL get to, I will.

I've been very tired, I must say. I tried to get some work done over the weekend and I just fell asleep, leaving me burning the midnight oil (and beyond) each day of this week which just makes Betty more tired. I saw my dear Ria on Monday for what was to be a DVD toss up and a Trivial Pursuit showdown, but we ended up just doing the showdown (and won! Three times!) I got to check out my old high school which really hadn't changed at all. Even the kids were the same, but it was nice to see Charlotte, Darren and Em (who reads this blog! :S) and my old teachers who seemed happy to see me. It was...nice in the purest sense of the word.

Big news pending, I am to be prescribed anti-depressants. It would be a more scared post about it being five years in the making if it wasn't for Dad speaking up about hormones because my periods for the last two, three years have been more or less non-existent. I'm seeing an endocri-summat-gist first to affirm I haven't got some hormone freakery. It's annoying because it pushes an extra two months from me getting these drugs. Unfortunately I couldn't start shouting at my Dad in front of psych so I have to go along with it. Grr.

Ric has been amazing. He is more than a little nuts (only last week I was used as a ranting box about Oxbridge because his gorgeous intelligent girlfriend is going there and he's a complete Marxist). I told I felt like I was boxing underwater (quickest thing I could say on text) and he said that without me being responsible his life would look like Kosovo, which was sweet. He also wrote me a mini-script in Icelandic to help me learn and says I could use his name and birthday to enter for this script-writing competition (£15,000 first place! And I do have an idea for a play, but I can't tell you yet!)

Ooh, I won my debating thing - I managed to prove that religion is not inherently evil! And it is evil at the core, but the direction people have taken it, fundamentalism, evangelism, arrogance and disharmony has made religion rotten. It can be fixed, but I can't elaborate on this at the moment because I'm near to collapse. Keep on trucking. Happy Birthday DM!

Check-in, Check-out

Hey there. Long time, no see.

I've been battling those depression demons - they like to swoop upon me at this time of the year through books and TVs and the net and music. They foul my mood and pepper everything with optical and audio illusions. Frankly, these last couple of weeks, I just haven't been up for living. Functioning. Eating. Honesty. Those basics of life.

At this time of the year I'm usually very reclusive, although you wouldn't know it if you were talking to me, but I'm not really there talking to you. I'm very distant, I don't where I go. All I know is that between now and just after my birthday is the time I cry the most. How very dramatic, and how spectacular the timing! I've finished my big fat Chinese Cultural Revolution assignment exam (4,148 words in four hours! W00t!) and now tomorrow I'm to be set my big fat Russian Coursework essay. Thats scary because I have a novel's worth of notes and I have no idea what to do - burn them all for warmth or create an origami city? I've no idea.



Last week had me worse than usual. Everytime I got out of bed was such a colossal achievement that by the time I got to college I was already exhausted. Bad luck with buses seemed to follow me everywhere -I wasn't on time ONCE last week. I had no motivation, no energy - just thoroughly depressed really. I wasn't eating much - no more than 800 calories a day and I more or less kept it up which made me feel quite proud and I exercised more, threw myself into work and avoided looking people in the eye. When I cut on Saturday it was such a relief. It sucks because I'm going to Italy in under a month and I wanted to be relatively scar free when I went, but I haven't been able to keep it up. But since I've been able to take a step back and breathe, and get some perspective. It's as if I knew when was the right time for me. Strange.

With my energy back and alcohol free (it's hell) I embarked on an organize life stat! weekend. My room is now a swathe of carpet, my books are in the right place and I have assorted another plastic bag of magazines I plan to read when I get the chance. I've also organized open days in Manchester and Sussex - a London gal out of water, for sure. So thats a blog post coming near you, folks.

Being organized meant finding the most fascinating things, like old articles I've written, university letters, notes written during my time in the National Portrait Gallery, photos where I'm slim *sigh*. You can't help thinking of the future when you see those. Actually it reminds me of Postsecret from last week where this girl wrote in about cutting and hiding her scars. She said she wanted to scream at her family "I'm not myself and I don't know how to be", which I thought was disturbingly perfect. I mean, I'm sure everyone gets into that situation once in a while, and isn't it fucking scary? Isn't it terrifying, the thought that you may never know yourself, or be yourself for the rest of your life - and never feel comfortable or happy in your own skin? Or even that you were yourself once but you threw it away for some reason and you can't turn back because life is never like that. It just isn't...

What else? Well, I've started writing erotica *blushes*. I was in a writey mood and my mind hit on this idea of this art freak becoming obsessed with this young beautiful fuck-up and having lots of sexual adventures from the view of this rich, luxurious 30 something. So I started writing it and it's all right. It's not stupid or sleazy or implausible and frankly, I like it. It's called "Beauty" and if there's demand for it I'll post it on Blogger but you have to ask first - if anyone still reads this, that is.

And I found this graveyard not far from my house. It's so beautiful. I was having one of my other-worldly, crazy depressed moments and I walked through the graveyard. The priest for the church is more church-obsessed than God-mad which is disheartening. It is a gorgeous building - build around the Tudors (1600s) and some of the gravestones still had engravings from the 1763. Some stones were really poignant. Like, this one had a man die in 1933 in his 30s and the wife is buried with him, who dies at the age of 92 in 1998. I mean, its amazing, strange, beautiful that someone could wait 60 years to join their loved one in heaven. It made me wonder if she ever dared to fall for someone else. If makes me wonder if I could love so fatalistically. I don't know. It feels good to blog again. I've missed it and I'm glad I'm back.