Wednesday 28 September 2011

Confess your love as well as your folly

Moving forward from the first guy I ever liked to the age of 15, before my life truly started. We used to holiday in Gran Canaria every October half term, as it was cheap and nice heat and the parents enjoyed it as much as the kids did. One year, when I was fourteen I think, there were a lot of 'us kids'. Me and Louise (my unrelated little sister), Rachel (family friend, slightly younger than me) and Billi (slightly older than me, has ever since been nicknamed Billi BJ), Jessie (Jackie's daughter, 4 years younger than me) and Lucy (Jackie's neace, my age), Will (family friend, slightly older) and Kel (will's friend). This was by far the most dramatic of all the Gran Canaria trips. The year before Me, Louise, Rachel, Jessie and Will had all attended, including my sister Charlie, her best friends Martie and Katie, My brother James and Will's brother Tom. But those guys were too old, so now it was our time to go out the latest and get into the most trouble for missing curfew and being drunk (woo! fourteen is the new eighteen...)

Anyway, long story short, Rachel and I both fancied Will and new this about each other, but it was Lucy who got with him during the holiday. This lead to a very obvious divide, and then one night Billi gave a DJ head in the toilets, drank something that was spiked and did some kind of epic run home up the 700+ steps to our hotel, with me, Louise and Rachel in hot pursuit, Lucy not caring, Will carrying my shoes (because despite the gross local cats, I knew it was the fastest way home) and then our attempt to cure Billie without adults stirring being useless, Margaret got involved, couldn't do much, so went back to bed, and I was trying to help Billie, Louise fell asleep whilst sat under a table (drunk for the first time, I think) and Rachel has disappeared... possibly to throw up... I had to help Billie to throw up, which was charming, and quickly resulted in my first ever exclamation of "I'll never drink again!". Oh how many times I've said that.

Anyway, that exciting night aside, I then barely saw Will until March of the next year, I was about to turn 15 and we were at a family friend's funeral. Very emotional times, many many people had far too much to drink, and I ended up getting very drunk and unable to move from a chair. I demanded that Ben find Will, as I needed to tell him something. I can barely remember the next few hours of my life, but through the dark, patchy images I remember telling Will that I really fancied him, and he laughed and told me I was drunk. This was not the reaction I was hoping for. I then got slightly upset at said lack of reaction, and somehow a bizarre kiss started between myself and Ben, the unrelated brother who I've known my entire life. Weird. I also remember some family, namely sisters, witnessing said event and making many comments to me, to which I replied "I'm really fucking drunk.... what's happening?" and quickly learned that this is a good technique to use when trying to shun responsibility and admittance to embarrassing moments. Since then, I have very rarely seen Will - when I have, I haven't said much, but it's not awkward or weird. It's just finding what to say to someone you haven't seen for years after that's happened...

Monday 26 September 2011

How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes

You know those stories that people tell you sometimes, about how they knew someone for ages and really liked them, but didn't have the guts / believed it mutual enough to tell the person. Then, some time later, the truth comes out, and the other person liked them back the whole time. My best example of this is Millie, my darling number two, who spent so long being unsure of whether a guy liked her back or not, even though he had driven all the way from Brighton to Norfolk to meet all her mental female friends and be with her on her birthday. So darn cute, and basically restored my faith in men, because previous to Chris and Millie going out, I hadn't really ever felt like my life followed any cliched stories like that.

The first guy I ever liked, I liked for a very long time. He used to tease me a lot: some might even call it bullying, but I don't see it that way. All I know is that we had a kind of banter, even at a young age, and when my parents forced me to go to the Girl's School I didn't want to go for a variety of reasons: I didn't want to have to try and make friends again, because I'd found friends I liked, and I was shit with new people and pretty shy, so I didn't want to have to do all that again. Also, I knew I still liked that boy too much to leave. All my friends went to the same school together. I went off, on my own, to the City, and the land of Bras and Gossip. The first 18months, I pretty much hated every moment, more because I was trying to make a stand, and trying not to fit in. The first friend I made at the Girl's School was Vicky... and well, that says a lot, if you've ever heard any of the tales of Vicky.

Needless to say, I had left primary school, and with it I had tried to shove all the old stuff about me into a bin and move on. But I was still pining, as one does when surrounded by pre-pubescent females, about the loss of the first crush which I never got to explore. So, in a typical me fashion, as often goes when I tell the story about something that went wrong in my life, I wrote a letter. I was eleven, let's remember. I can't recall what the letter said. I know I wouldn't want to know, as I'm sure it was about how much I missed him and regretted never telling him how I felt. *vom*

Either way, I quickly forgot this dark moment in life and moved on - fast forward four years. Vicky, said 'friend', has a friend who lived in South Norfolk, who went to Hobart High School with all the other people from my primary school. Vicky, having been my friend for quite some time, recalls the few names I've mentioned around her - and on mention of the boy, her friend suddenly puts two and two together. Yes! Of course, Vicky must know the girl who sent the love letter all those years ago, and was repeated daily, mocked and laughed about for months and months. Vicky, ecstatic with the news, comes squealing into school the next day to tell me all about this revelation. My four years of forgetting are wiped away and the years of horrid nicknames and being teased coming flashing back to me: I can't escape the child that I was, and he, that horribly smart and cruel boy, has not changed in the slightest. I've accepted many things in my life, one of which is that you cannot run or hide from your past, and in doing so I can accept what has happened. But I have not spoken to that boy since I left primary school. I saw him once, when I was 12 or 13, when shopping in Tesco with my Mum, and he was with his mum, and our mums stopped to chat and we both cringed away from the obviously embarassing moment. As I got older I saw him occassionally, on buses, or around the town in which he lived and I frequented - and on one occasion I found my friend talking to his younger brother, and delighted at how his little brother was little emo rocker, and not a chav like he was.

So, to this day, apart from a very brief and unfulfiling facebook comment, I've had absolutely no contact with him. It's weird, because I often have dreams in which we are friends, and there is no awkwardness or weirdness, and he's not that much of a chav. My head is obviously very backwards, but that is the story of Bob.

Sunday 25 September 2011

Better go get your armour...

Firstly, I know that I have already quoted this song, but I feel it's apt, and I love it.

Secondly, I feel like a lot of things happen at specific times for a reason. Nathan's newest blog is so similar to what I was thinking about two days ago: how you can't escape the people and problems from your past. You can get over it yourself, work through your problems, move on physically, emotionally and sometimes geographically, but if you bump into a person who knew you whilst you were at your ultimate worst, you cannot close your eyes and run away anymore. A lot of things happened to me in high school, or at least whilst I was supposed to be attending high school, and for some reason there is something locked in my psyche which I have not processed, and I cannot for the life of me think of what it might be, but it affects my dreams: 90% of the dreams I have are set in some part of my old school, or some version of it. It's weird. I even have dreams about university, people from university, the classes with the lectures and all, set in high school. It makes no sense. I wonder if a shrink would be able to help me with this, if it's just a glitch in my head that will never go away. I hope it does go away. It's really frustrating having the past chase me in my own head.

Thirdly, I'm getting urges to write episode three of Impressions. I have no idea what to do with it, as all my ideas are half-formed, not quite fitting, and kind of like when you have one piece left to put in a jigsaw, and you literally force the edges to go in, despite the picture not being correct. Watching The Fades made me want to write it more, as I know exactly what I want from it, as a concept and as a piece of art, and seeing something which is similar to my own creation but sort of hap-hazard and imperfect really frustrates my passions for the project. So, as of tomorrow, my creative fuel is in the Impressions engine... hopefully I'll get somewhere, and not just stall!

Fourth thing, and final: One person has been frequenting my dreams for the last month or so. They won't go away, and I don't know if this is good or bad. I miss them, and maybe this is my way of holding on to them. Or maybe my head is telling me to talk to them, to confront the issues - or worse, my head is telling me to get over the issues and move on. I'm in a state of limbo: Sat on my fence, with two rather bleak looking views either side of me, I really don't know what to do, but the longer I sit on the fence, the more frequently said visitor enters my dreams. Is inaction causing the problem to grow? Or is this all a trick of my mind, fucking with me slowly as I flip my metaphorical coin over and over, hoping that it lands on it's side as neither face holds any hope right now.

I know that two people will understand this last paragraph, and unfortunately, unless you have access to my dreams, it will be lost on most. Sorry if confusion has occurred, but I am in need of advice, particularly from anyone experienced in the art of self-sacrifice.

Thursday 22 September 2011

This year's most open heartache

Is it wrong to tell someone that you love them?

In the past few months, many things have been happening to my heart. This isn't to say anything about my current relationship, however. I have felt the serious pangs as I feel friends slipping away from me, and my heart still hopes that one day, it can beat for them again. I've felt myself growing more and more infuriated with my family, and the 'love' that one has to have feels more like a burden, and a forced bond. I have never said the three magics words to my brother, and frankly, I don't ever want to. I know that it sounds childish and cruel, but I don't believe that the knowledge that my heart has a small space for him would affect his life at all. If anything, it would hinder it. And my admittance to said space in my heart would be done begrudgingly, as he has done nothing to deserve it, and if anything, I've been trying to push him out. I don't want to waste my love on him anymore.

Then, there's the confusion of friends, of people who have called shotgun on the bit right in the middle of my heart, where it beats the fastest, and loves the most, and therefore hurts the most. Two years ago, I gave that middle bit to someone, and ever since it's been trodden on, mistreated and spat on; then self-abused and malnourished, hoping it would shrivel and die, but alas it never did. It still beats for her, and it causes me fear. I know that my heart still gives a shit. I know that something inside me - the part of me the makes me break out in puddles of sweat when talking to the guy I used to fancy; the part of me that still smiles when I hear 'Sweetness' by Jimmy Eat World; the part of me that can't listen to The Killers or The Fratellis - will have a small breakdown at Graduation. I genuinely got 'the fear' when I went to Southampton to see Coates/Taking Back Sunday. That crippling fear of not knowing what to do, say, how to stand, where to put your arm, or whether to wipe the sweat away or pretend like it's not there when you bump into that person who you don't ever want to see again, because of said embarrassing moment. My problem is that I've got three of them: One lingers between Norfolk (very infrequently) and Guildford, where I plan to never ever go again. One inhabits the city I have to return to for, and will also be attending, Graduation. And the last - well, I've lost track. Could be in Suffolk, could be at Uni somewhere, could be smashed off his eyeballs in Ibiza. He's really low on my 'Fear Radar'.

So, to conclude, love is a difficult thing. My insecurities, paranoia and general social awkwardness make love even more difficult, but apparently we're all cursed with some kind of short-fall. I only wish mine didn't make my make-up run and my forehead moist.

Wednesday 21 September 2011

What comes after ambition?

Today, as I walked through the streets of Brighton at sunset, a beautiful oranged sky hanging behind the city of endless hope and dreams, I realised something that is both very blissful and also slightly depressing. I have done exactly what I wanted to do.

This time last year, I set myself some goals. Some quite small, like 'turn up to class even if The Sims is calling', and 'don't let other people infect your life anymore' - but some quite large, long-term goals. Today I feel I have accomplished most of them. I've had an almost perfect year, I've got a degree which when you hold it up to the light it looks surprisingly similar to a middle finger aimed at my sister; I went my own way, battled through the odds and despite a rough start I'm finally living totally independently, in the city which seems to whisper sweet nothings into my ears every time I walk out my door, and in said city I have a job which is both rewarding and fun. I am in the best relationship I've ever been in: for once the only thing which seems to be scaring me is the very hazy nondescript future in front of us, as I have no idea where we're even headed, but I know I'm glad to be headed there with him. I'm happy, I'm hopeful and I have a lot of things I want to try and do.

But right now, I also have no more long-term goals to really think about. As much as 'saving for the big trip to the Americas' is a goal, it's pretty loose, it's very far away and frankly, it isn't enough inspiration to me right now. I need something to be thinking about. I need something real to focus on in my afternoons. The approaching winter is making the notion of jogging terrifying, so as soon as I get enough money I'm going straight to the gym, as that is my current aim - loose weight for graduation. Knowing me, I'll accidentally find all the weight again, hiding beneath the innocent looking cupcakes which I can't help but bake huge batches of. NaNoWriMo seems like a good thing to sort my head out a bit, focus on writing and knuckle down, but that's over a month away.

Can someone inject me with motivation please?

So, as much as I have ideas floating around in the vast abyss that is my skull, I still stare at blank pages longing for the 'autofill' option to appear. As much as I can smile at my own success so far, I find it hard, as my year-long policy of 'looking back does nothing but give you neck ache' pushes me to always look forward, and all I can see is a 5 and a half hour day of work, then a bed, a TV show, a few hours of The Sims and worst of all, laziness. Laziness is something I can't afford right now. I'm too eager to do stuff that I can't be bothered to do. It's a horrible situation. I wonder what situation I might be in a year from now? 

Monday 19 September 2011

Cowards die many times before their death

I want to say something about Shakespeare. Some people shiver at the name. A girl on Million Pound Drop lost a shite load of money from not knowing that Romeo and Juliet is set in Verona. That town is so small, the only reason we know of it is because of that play. And what is known as one of the most famous love stories ever told is not actually a love story. If you read the epilogue, which you would have if you'd read the play, and even the Leo film has the exact same epilogue, except read by a Newsreader, you hear exactly what this story is about. Two families who have an "ancient grudge" which is reignited when their children elope, and only in their deaths can the families forget their strife. It is a tragedy, it is a play about humans and our simple yet destructive emotions: lust, love, hate, anger, jealousy, vengence. This is what Shakespeare did best, which is probably why this play is the most famous - he takes the very worst of us and entertains us with it. If you've ever read any of his early stuff, like Titus Andronicus, you'd see the twisted difference between him writing about the shitness in the world, and him just writing about death. I love the cruel twisted irony he constantly let his plays curl into, and the amazing sense of his immortality: he saw death coming, and he wrote himself into history. I love the way that his words are totally normal words, but people get so mixed up in the missing letters and double meanings that they give up before they've even tried.

Sonnets are complicated, and some of his plays do get story-heavy and confusing - A Comedy of Errors is a bitch to read, it needs to be watched, because the hilarity gets lost in half the stage directions. But I think Shakespeare could enlighten everyone, each a totally unique way, and inspire us to write about the world slightly different. If you read the passages below slowly, figuring out what each line means before getting scared of the next one, then you can see just how simple and honest his work really was. Shakespeare was all about life and death, and the mess that happens in the middle: anyone who thinks he was the most romantic man ever, or the inventer of new stories, or the beginning of some great era of plays, really needs to do a bit of studying. He's just a wordsmith, but a brilliant one nonetheless.

 Romeo and Juliet Epilogue:

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows  
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Sunday 18 September 2011

Why does love always feel like a battlefield?

Today, I'm feeling a certain warmth for music. I love a few songs at the moment, and they are a constant must-have on my youtube playlist.

The first, Loverboy, is the first single from You Me At Six's new album. I've always liked their pop-melodies over a good guitar and base, but for the first time I'm actually listening to them properly. This new album has a lot of hype, so I'm very excited about it's release. They're playing a few gigs, the nearest being in Southampton, but I've decided to not go, because the other two artists aren't that great, and frankly, I'm hoping they'll do a full album tour soon, and come to Brighton.

The second artist is always Charlie Simpson, but which song varies daily. His album (which I've yet to receive) has some corkers on it, namely Parachutes and Farmer and His Gun, but the thing with Charlie is, he can take any song at all and make it his own. Umbrella, Died in Your Arms Tonight, and my personal favourite, Battlefield, are stunning covers of heartless pop songs, which he just adds so much emotion to.

This, I find, really encapsulates everything I love about Glee. I know people mock it, and I'm not saying that it's the best thing in the world, but to all those people who do mock it, if you actually tucked your tail between your legs and watched an episode, you'd realise that the show takes the piss out of itself, and happily mocks the same things that you do. Ranting aside, I genuinely believe that Glee's version of Like A Prayer is better than the original. It makes me so happy, like I should have the mantra of Carpe Diem or something... It evokes things that Madonna's original just doesn't for me. I don't know if this is because I was never part of the Madonna-era, but I just don't get her songs sometimes. Vogue - what the fuck?

A few more songs have really caught my eye - or should I say ears - recently. 30 Seconds To Mars, joint favourite band of all time next to Muse, have a little-known album track called Alibi. Struck a chord with me, it truly did. Also, their cover of Bad Romance is unbelievable, as is their now very famous cover of Kanye West's Stronger. Jared, quite like Charlie Simpson, can change a song completely. One of the many reasons I'm slightly in love with him. Marry You is my current cute-song, introduced to me by Glee, it's a pick-me-up when there is no chocolate in the house. In an ode to the end of summer, Good Life is one of the most summery songs I've heard in a while, but I've stopped listening to it to embrace the Autumnal weather, which is best depicted by the rough voice of Mumford and Sons. Or, for those beautiful clear days, when the sea looks turquoise and the wind encourages people to get stuff done, Angels and Airwaves can really put you in the right mood.

I want to fill my ears with music. I want to lay in bed all day listening to the best possible music, and just breathe, and be inspired. My writing tends to stem from two things: music and dreams. Dreams aren't as interesting anymore - too many real-life problems, and too many unresolved issues just keep churning away in my brain, leaving no room for creativity or spackiness. Today, I will write. I will listen, I will dwell, and I will submerge myself into an artist whom I haven't listened to recently, creating what I can only describe as a "fresh wound"; a new way to perceive the song's meaning, a new way to read into that one profound line, a new way to hear it. And from there, something magical will occur.

Monday 12 September 2011

The Noises From My Bedroom Window

Rustling paper bags, as the wind blows through them.
The curtains billow inwards, the air that we all breathe.
Murmured voices, drunken voices, echo down the street.
A car screams past, a taxi brakes; tyres screaming in their wake.
A lot of noise, a lot of trouble, a lot of wind and yet, there's stillness.

Silence, and the gentle peace of a dark room.
Silence, with a great lift off your heart.
The lack of noise shared only by the most intimate of friends;
Silence, ripping confidence and arrogance apart.

Thursday 8 September 2011

93 million miles

Sometimes I feel like life/fate/the universe/ god / the devil / whatever is out to get me. Sometimes it feels like everything I do, no matter how hard I try, I still get nothing in return. Like, I'm screaming bloody murder at this universe, asking for something, anything, and I don't even get a response.

I've been on two epic job-hunting sessions around Brighton. The first I got a random call, went to London the next day, 'wowed' the people there and they told me they'd set up an interview, be it a phone or group interview, they wouldn't know. That was two weeks ago. I've heard nothing. Then, I go out, I hand out CVs, I look online, I find a job, I phone them up, she sounds keen, she posts me an application form, and still, no phone call, no setting up of things, I feel like I'm not getting anywhere, I'm not progressing as much as I should be with all the efforts I've put in, and at the end of the day, it's so de-motivating. Waking up in the morning to just expect a phone call is ridiculous.

And on top of all of that, emotions are driving me insane recently. It's just a hormone thing, but I genuinely don't understand how my body can determine how my head is reacting and feeling to things. Biology confounds me. Another reason why life would be much easier as a Sim....

Wednesday 7 September 2011

Challenge Accepted!

Set yourself a challenge that will last a while, like learning to touch-type or reading that book which you never got round to reading at Uni, or watching those poncy films that you just can't be arsed with. Do something small for half an hour each day, which after two weeks, will have really paid off.

Basically, when unemployed, start using your time preciously. Otherwise it trickles away in an instant.