Quick Blog - Qlog? Before I leave My Manchester

Hey, the end of the first semester, and I've spent the whole time settling in. I still haven't exhausted how nice and friendly people can be or how indifferent...

What I've loved most of all, is most obviously is the freedom. To be up until 5 am watching TV, or reading, or essay writing. The freedom to listen to Nina Simone whenever I please. To eat what I want and be able to appreciate food all over again...

Of course there's also the freedom to fall into the dark hole of depression and no one could know where you had gone. I had to pull myself out of many shit scenarios, missing a ton of tutorials in the process, and although I've been working to catch up I haven't completely so I still got lots to study over the holidays...and my hair is a mess, I'm still single for some reason and it makes feel all undesirable and rough like a potato sack. I think I'm packed now, although I've managed to lose a whole handbag! which had my headphones, and now I'm stuck for FOUR hours without music. But I've got a friend and lots of books...

And I'm going to be home for christmas! Where there's no real chance I can go clubbing, in horrid old Feltham, with a broken oven and christmas dinner to prepare! (It's at our house this year...) and my sulky brother and expensive and slow bus travel...can't wait :)

xxx

It's Been One of Those Nights

(I'm afraid this will be messy and badly organised until Monday. Read it anyway!)

Tonight has been very, very eventful.

At first I was to be going on a date with a new-found murakami fan. There's me getting carried away again. I'm still looking for a girlfriend, after all. But msn and the internet conspired against me and i ended up going out all bootylicious by myself. Then, I bumped into one of my friends and her sister at the bar, but ended up getting separated because I was on the guestlist which I had to verify downstairs. Now, I was going to see Miss Amy Winehouse at uni to review her stuff for Fuse FM. I made him email them twice - and I still was somehow not on the list. I was hoping not to seem to poncey although it was pretty cool that I was doing all this journalist stuff. Should definitely do this more often! But then of course I wasn;t on the list.

I was saved by this lovely skinny black girl called Temika who reminded me of my baby cousin Sophie, but is like 23 has two degrees, learning to be a teacher and speaks four languages including portugeese (I cant spell it :o) She got the tickets by blagging her way onto the guestlist from the opening act, Bobby Kray. He was lovely, a cutie - looked like Justin Timberlake, but more European (tanned i thinks) and had a better voice. He was to be this sort of soulful pop reggae thing, and was surrounded by the real deal with two rasta guitarists who might have well been my uncles, and the two backing singers were two big black beautiful ladies in white. We even went backstage and drank wine! So surreal, considering I only met her like 30 minutes ago. So we all chatted, and they smoked pot (wasn;t at all interested really.) and Temika was very charming and compelling, being all crazy and making everyone laugh. I did my fair bit too. And we danced as well with the band as we watched Miss Amy do her thing. She was very cool. I love her voice, but when all you're talking is about love, which of course is a many splendoured thing that affects everything in our lives, but really can just as easily roll into one long long song. The set was picked up by the saxophonist and trumpeter in pyjamas and the two gorgeous black male back up singers who Temika loved dearly. They had a really cute smile :). The highlights for me was defintely stronger than me, rehab and this song that I just can't remember. One of the other problems with the gig is that I couldn't understand what she was saying. Maybe her voice is just incomprehensibly sexy, or just plain incomprehensible. She did look gorgeous, even if she have a "pickee-head" (any caribbean peeps will understand lol.) And she didn't look anorexic either, just a bit travel weary which can always affect weight.

Being with Temika and the band backstage just reminded me how uncool and well, Vanilla I am. I mean sure I understood what the rastas were saying most of the time, but I had trouble getting into a conversation with them because I was speaking Queens english compared to them and it was really weird. And evetyone knew everyone all the old djs and market ppl in Hackney or Sheperds Bush. I missed home. I wish I could have joined in but most of my friends were white becaus ein High school we were in this intellectual chasm and I was just too different from them to get on, or want to get on with them. And they bullied me quite a bit (well like one of them but she was the ringleader). Anyways, my Dad was a super hot dj and knew lots of rastas but I;m so bad with names it would have been pointless hmm ^o) At least I got to hug everybody. They thought I was adorable and could tell I wasn't a faker, which I liked. I even saw Amy Winehouse up close! She pinched Temika's bum and walked off (I think it was jokey lol) and went to Po Na Na's (I know.) as recommended by some freak out fans who would probably be sick at the thought of me somehow blagging my way backstage with everybody. Of course, eventually packed off. One guy said I was adorable and never wanted to stop hugging me lol! He reminded me of the general super cool dude I tend to hang out with at my rock festivals during the summer so I got him str8 away.

And then they went to London...leaving with having swapped numbers (with Temika. She gets what she wants hahaha) and then promptly met some of her close friends by complete surprise. We were all gonna get driven down when suddenly, the guys car wasn't there. It had been stolen. It was scary like that, how your things can just disappear. You don't really assume your car can be stolen. So we took a taxi. And then I fried some turkey in soy sauce, honey, black pepper which was delicious with cheese on toast. And here I am. What a weird night.

Oh, and Megan called. I hadn't spoke with her since before August so I had no idea how she was doing. I wonder what she think that I ended up as part of the cool crowd, even though frankly I just don't belong there. I used to be in love with her a long time ago, then I hated her, now I miss her, then I didn't. Hmm. Don't know what to do with her!!

Moving Ever Forwards

Well, I was going to go to bed, but then a film featuring transsexuals has come on Channel 4 and opened with Anthony and the Johnsons (Not work safe!), some of my favourite vocalists of all time. His haunting voice can turn you into a bad bad person :)

I'm glad that tonight of all nights I have managed to keep my sanity in check, and keep smiling. A year ago, 365 days, I tried to kill myself. At about this time...I was either crying all over on RYL or being violently sick and weak in my bedroom, I can't really remember. All my thoughts just seemed to pass through time into meaningless musings. And I'm glad of that, because I don't really think anymore, and this would confuse me!

I'm also happy because I'm going to be visiting my best mate soulmate, Ria (read her blog she is such a fabulous writer), in wholey Hull because I just happen to love her that much. And we seem to be getting on this wavelength where we can understand each other and when we have hurt each other, and especially when we need each other. It's just going to be a weekend of drinking, duvets and DVDs but I can't wait.

And I'm kinda happy because the other day I threw away my razors. I was going through this hard timw where everything was coming back. Those Salesmen (this post too), have pretty disappeared. They just upped and left. They seem to have forgotten all about me. It feels kinda lonely. I feel as if they have grown tired of me fighting them, that I never fully gave in to them (even on the night of my overdose as I called an ambulance the next morning) And so I felt like giving in, maybe it was irony. I had brought with me a bag of all my razors and placed them in front of me. I played depressing music. I thought of all of my missed chances. I was trying to push myself to fall off that cliff I had spent so long climbing, just to see if I could do it again. If it wasn't for Ria, my walking stick, I doubt I would have made it. But with her and her unconditional love pulsing through our laptops (haha) I managed to throw them all out of the window. They were gone and they weren't coming back. I still mourn them, since I've forgotten the feeling of them pressing against my skin and beyond and how everything just floats when I cut myself. Recovery is tough.

I also had a tough time with finances. Overdraft has been killing me, and it makes me sick to talk to some of my tutorial peeps who just go shopping all the time, have no job, talk about how hard the work is without barely even trying, and tell me that they're £800 pounds overdraft as if they actually managed to tap into some free money scheme I've missed because I'm still (barely) surviving on £30 a week searching for jobs, going on library hunts and having consistent anxiety attacks and plain old tiredness.

In the same tutor, I began to partly feel this clash of the two Me's. There's one that's a bit of a fuckup and lets her mental issues and her lazyness breed her into something she disdains. And then theres the old me that loves library hunts, actually, and is actually near the top of the class and talks very eloquently...because when she talks everyone just looks at her and think oh gosh I could never do that, I could never make it look so easy I could never work that hard, all without having to work so hard...it happened today and I loved the feeling of being intelligent, and that today of all days, I feel kinda good about myself. Yay me!

I had all sorts of plans (new bank account, job hunting, writing, reading those piles of books from my last library hunt) but I got completely fatigued. I literally couldn't move and felt as helpless as an old book in the back of the shelf that never gets used and isn't able to call attention to itself (poor book). That's my tiredness. My flatmate said it sounded like glandular fever and I have been hanging out a lot with my new friend who has glandular fever (and no, we haven't been kissing cos she's straight and I don't see her that way...she didn't get it through kissing either. Makes me wonder why it's called the kissing disease.) So right now I'm praying it isn't!

And lastly, I would like to formally express my glee at being on the sub banner on Lioness' shiny new pink blog. Yay!!!
Goodbye and bless!!
(icelandic for goodbye. How sweet is that??)

I Have So Much to Do!!

Being an adult sucks. You never have enough time for anything and then during a really important point in your government tutorial you almost throw up in some adverse affect from starving yourself and your prozac. I've just had a small bowl of cornflakes and I don't feel like I'm going to keel over now, which is always a good feeling.

Got letters to send, money to make, bank accounts to switch and an essay to write. And then I've signed up for Nablowrimo I guess to instill some concentration and I guess to make sure I do SOMETHING with my days. And hopefully once blogger (now blogger beta - do you like what I've done with the place?) will stop fucking up I'll be able to post pictures again which I thought was really nice. Thing is I haven't taken a picture in ages, mainly because Ria has my camera which is too bad because I've been seeing great pictures everywhere. And of course I want to document my discovery of a whole new city.

But yes, so much to do!! I promise to write something more interesting tonight or tomorrow! And all my readers (you and ... you.) delurk! I need encouragement that I'm not just posting to myself these days. xxx

To keep myself distracted....

I'm going to do Nanowrimo AND Nablowrimo. I don't ever figure I'll actually finish a novella but I hope to write something every day to amount to a day decent sum of words and kick out my inner editor which just happens to KILL everything.

AND, I will also write a post every day. I hope they will keep up my sterling standard of blog writing, to be used in later history as evidence for how crazy bitches lived! Will elaborate later! It is wayy too late for me to be doing anything apart from sleeping. xx

My Crazy is Acting Up Again!!

Ok, well, my crazy was acting up before. But that's because I was forgetting to take my meds. And I got to see how crazy I am from some strange neutral perspective my prozac puts me in.

"My Crazy" includes:

Not being able to concentrate in tutorials because I was scared of my fingernails and had a strong urge to snap them off

Spending hours applying for jobs, getting a panic attack just before I am to leave for any interviews I ever get, making me wonder if I'm ever gonna get a regular job at last!

Procrasinating reading ANYTHING scholarly

Freaking out after eating a burger and chips and making myself throw up in the library toilets (it's a big four floor type of library)

Throwing up twice in one evening in indian restaurant (after the starter and the main course :S)

Staying in the "arghness" position (when I'm feeling really really anxious - on all fours in a ball - kinda like those stress positions I saw in those SAS torture programmes) for 30 minutes.

Yeah....

I'm fucking nuts! Hahaha.
Anyways, working on my music collection has definitely helped. I've made a "What's This?" section for general listening, so for morning noon and night (v. difficult) and mostly upbeat with lots of 60s 70s music cos I'm in love with "Good Vibrations" and The Who in general. And I got a studying playlist, and a Falling Apart playlist for downbeat tracks and upbeat (but not too smiley or I resent them) and somehow when listening to it the music slowly emphasizes with me but then slowly, very slowly, fixes me again and then I'm listening to something upbeat and inspirational and I'm OK again.

I have a feeling if you crack open my soul (I think I believe in dualism because I think we have souls, but studying philosophy seems wants me to squash that so badly.) That you'll find a song by Pearl Jam or Regina Spektor. I'm in love with Pearl Jam's Elderly Woman Behind a Counter or something and its so beautiful, and reminds of me what I'm afraid of if I ever stand still, and what may happen if I never stop running.

On a happier note, I have managed to make friends with nice eccentric people who like baking and love dancing as much as I do and watch French films and talk about sex and their lives don't revolve around alcohol. And I'm sorting out my money issues. And that unspeakable secret that I just couldn't say? I've written it all down, as a scribe to my own issues. Also, in two weeks I'm going to have an outpatient assessment with The Priory. Yep, thats the UK equivalent of the Betty Ford clinic or something isn't it? Where lots of fucked up celebrities go for their fuck ups and so on - Kate Moss, Ronnie Wood and Peter Doherty too I believe. I don't care about any of that, but it's all grand looking and sometimes I'm scared that I go in there and never come out. Or worse, they don't think anything is wrong with me and I'm just alone all over again. We'll see. Sorry I took so long to update. Manchester has been keeping me very busy to make any little blogs.

Yeah, manchester. Four hours' drive from London, not so far from Wales and the Peak District. Rainiest place in Britain and the home of so many of my favourite bands (Joy Division, Oasis) and where I hope to grow up and find people.

Mother Mother

When you sent me off into the world,

Were you scared that I might get burned?

Would I try a little...tobacco?

Would I still be lifting up my skirt?

(Tracey Bonham)

I was going to write about what my mother did to me, but I couldn't. It's too damn truthful. I can't talk to Nik (not for a while. Is that bit over?) Can't afford to talk to Ria. Dad is not calling. I'm spending too much time trying to not get angsty/fall apart. I can't now, because I'm four hours from home and London and if I alienate myself here and don't find someone to cling to SOON I might not last the year. Where did all the potential best friends go? I have to get up and buy washing powder and organise my life, send out letters. At the moment, because I can't get a job and I have no money, I am whoring my fuck-ups in psychological experiments for money. For example, next Friday I'm going to talk to a practicing psych for an hour for 10 pounds. Now I'm applying for another experiment for anxiety sufferers for another £25. How long till I feel like a complete freak show? How long until my anxiety and my OCD gets the better of me? (Believe me it's trying). Am I doing the wrong thing by whoring out the fuck-ups? I need some advice here...