Ugh.

I really really REALLY don't like the ominous noises that my tummy is making. I'm not very keen on the nauseous feeling either. When I filled in the form and licked the back of the stamp for 'New Improved Time Off Work (The Illness Edition)' this was not what I had in mind. I was after laryngitis, pharyngitis, or perhaps a nicely debilitating properly sprained ankle. Hell, I'd even have taken the varicella zoster edition and donated twenty tubes of blood for a reasonable cause.

Maybe licking the stamp was the mistake. I feel that anything crossing my lips might be a mistake right now. Oh my.

Paranoia Overdrive

I sometimes forget, when I’m writing, and I’m sure people sometimes forget, when they’re reading, that this space is, to all intents and purposes, my diary.* It’s not a particularly good diary. It certainly isn’t all inclusive. In fact, I keep rather a lot of secrets from my diary. I keep secrets and fail to name names and point fingers because I do realise that I am writing to and publishing on the internet. Things can get hellishly awkward when too many people read your diary. Well, I presume they could. It doesn’t really seem to be a problem for me.

Here’s the thing about diaries, and I’ve read a few – both real and fictional, and they’re really always fictional – they are temporary possible realities distorted through a diarist’s emotional state, psychosis, neurosis, bender status, tiredness level, and, oh, about a million other petty little irritations of life. They flex reality to such a degree that they make history look stable and that, my friends, takes some doing. Or, at least, it does to me. I tend to perceive the world and shattered and oddly bound. I’m not even sure it was shattered. Perhaps it was fragmented to begin with and we just keep tying bits together to create a sort of cohesion that we’ve noticed is lacking and that makes us feel very uncomfortable. Ah, whatever. I was talking about diaries.

How seriously, I wonder, can you take a diary? I can and I do, I can’t and I don’t. The answer is as simple as that. How seriously do I take this diary? Sometimes very and sometimes not. I write when my mind is full, I write to get things out, I write when I need to do or say something even if I don’t actually know what. Sometimes I just write. Sometimes things wriggle out and wiggle away when I think I’m writing about something else, when I’m talking about the other and not this. In the end, it’s what makes sense to me, what I get out of it that is the point. All else is bagatelle. In fact, sometimes so am I.

It’s strange how this has devolved over the years and become a world of self-obsession. I suppose it reflects my outlook and my reality. Not so much a kitchen sink drama as a kitchen table one. I am embarrassed that my world has shrunk and that I am so dull and insular. It is ironic that my mind and body are in sync – both have crap that shouldn’t be there and that needs scraping out. Both leave me feeling weak and exhausted and somehow removed. No ever fixed marks here, apparently. Mind you, I was never comfortable with eternity anyway. Not nearly transient enough for my small mind.

* Yes, I did just try to see if I could write a sentence with lots of commas that made sense. I think I sort of succeeded.**

** What, you thought this note would be something about a diary and not some sort of commentary on my sentence making skills? Silly, very silly.

My father always said I had champagne tastes...

There I go acting like a rich person again.

I cook the salmon. I take it from the oven. I attempt to transfer it to a plate. I drop the nicely cooked tasty looking salmon on my very dirty kitchen floor. I take two minutes to decide that it really can't be salvaged. In case you're wondering, hot freshly cooked salmon kind of splatters when it hits the floor. Splatters and flakes and just generally falls apart. All the better to get maximum dirt and minimum chance of being rescued and eaten.

I should be writing poetry to poverty and the lost salmon.

It's hard to get by just on a smile, girl.

A long time ago we used to be friends.

At least, I thought we were. These days I’m not so sure. There are a lot of things I’m not so sure about anymore.

I want to throw blame around – because that’s my way. I’ve been cast aside for the beautiful people, the clever people, the far more interesting people. And maybe I have. Most likely, however, my appalling behaviour, my random extreme hatred, my angry hurtling of words, my constant verbal tantrums have once more ruined something I valued. For a studier of history I am awfully bad at learning from the past.

I continue to stab at people and situations with my words. Pretending obscurity, pretending that you’ll never know what I’m thinking, you’ll never understand what I mean. Not really. No really. How I hate this game playing girl. Walking the edge and wounding with words. How can I continue to claim that I both mean and don’t mean? Can I really be so fragmented?

And I was talking about you and got back to writing about me. Maybe I have to be so self obsessed. Maybe I’ll be the only person who is ever that interested in me. That’s not a problem you’ll be having. I’m not even jealous. At least, not in the obvious way.

I’m sure I’ve written extensively on my jealousy; that charming constant of my nature and hurdle to interaction. Hurdle to action, if truth be told. Lately it’s lodged chokingly in my throat. It remains there now while I swallow hard and try to be a better person. Better but new, I think. I don’t know that one can go back and I seem to have moved on. No, at the moment I don’t like this new person either. She frightens me too. She’s fiercer and more practical and full of righteous anger. I think she’ll get things done and make things happen like I used to be able to do.

But I was talking about you. Talking about me wanting to be the person you seemed to like – quite some time ago now. Thinking about you and things I’ll not quite have the courage to say and the handful that I will. I miss the ease, the camaraderie, and the jokes. Things that I thought were there, shared, mutually enjoyed.

I start to think that I’m wrong from start to end. That I misread every word of every phrase. That I’ve misunderstood everything every time. This is me, you know, and it’s quite possible that I have. It is equally possible that I have not and that this is the tragedy I imagine.

With some friends you can have it out. Have a drunken session or some kind of clichéd heart to heart or just flat out say ‘what the hell happened? What went wrong? I miss you.’ That I can’t find any kind of option like that with you suggests to me that it never was. Any friendship was imagined on my side. Have you any idea how good my imagination is? No. I suppose not.

The meme of B.

Favourite Shakespeare quote. If by favourite you mean most commonly used and abused - mostly the latter - then: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more... Henry V.

Favourite Simpsons' moment. I have a dreadful memory for moments. Oh wait, Lisa's version - or was it versions? - of Howl. I also very much liked The Raven episode.

Last thing you made a complaint about. The time it took my new mobile phone company to connect the phone and change my number over. They paid for the months it took. And I screamed at several people. I was not amused. Now that it's sorted, however, love my phone plan. So cheap. So much cheeping.

First crush. I don't even remember! I must have been very little. I'm one of those people who's always crushing on someone or someones. It can be a bit hard to keep track, actually. Who'm I meant to be crushing on now? Volunteers?

Woken up by what in the morning. 1) The alarm clock's alarm. 2) The mobile phone's alarm. About 1/2 an hour of alarms going off every few minutes. Yes.

Most hated sound. The ringing telephone.

Favourite sixties track. Ugh, unfair question. I love sixties music. So diverse, so fun, so silly, so doped, and so rocking! You can have a couple of favourites. Happy Together The Turtles, San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) Scott McKenzie, large chunks of The Kinks and The Animals discographies...oh dear, I could go on half the night. Shall try to stop now.

Favourite eighties track. Probably Bizarre Love Triangle New Order. There are tonnes of songs. So unfair to make me even try to choose.

Favourite naughties track. Oh yikes, um... Can't decide. Not even of favourites. There's been too much music and not enough time to process it.

Worst electric shock. No idea.

Favourite game as a kid. Not so much as game... When I was little and we were living in a unit in Sydney we lived near this awesome cliff. Off to one side of the block of flats there was this rock face that you could climb. Absolutely loved it. We spent huge amounts of time on that rock face. I'm sure I could still find the way up and the secret way that lead to the back of the flats.

Worst retribution sought as a kid. I tried to strangle a friend once. Strangely, we remained friends for a very long time after. I am not joking when I say my temper is fierce, frightening, and sometimes totally beyond my control.

Favourite film ending. Something Almodóvar.

Favourite dip. I don't actually have one. Dips are fascinating but not a major food source and not something I really think about.

Kind of watch. None at all. I use my phone.

Most precious possession that would fit in an envelope. My garnet ring.

Last run-in with a bug. Ah, this was last night. Arrived home, headed in for a pee, damn near peed my pants as there was a gigantic and worried looking cockroach on the bathroom floor. It sat there and stared up at me. Then it bolted into my bedroom. I peed - cautiously (there are some situations where being caught with your pants down is just awful) - and headed off to find the bug spray. Some time later there was a very dead roach on the living room floor.

Weirdest dream. All dreams are weird and I'm a lucid dreamer so that can kind of double the weird on occasion. I think the one I recently blogged about was pretty seriously weird. I didn't tell the whole story of that dream. It ended with the quiverfull guy giving his wife a sad little anniversary fuck whilst surrounded by the whole family including, for reasons I never worked out, me. He was coming on to me while he was fucking his wife. It was pretty weird.

I'm still fantasising about the flat from that dream though. It was absolutely perfect. I want that flat. Not the neighbours though.

Best compliment recently paid you. Someone keeps calling me lovely. It's all bollocks, of course, but it is very sweet.

Most embarrassing teenage moment. Probably vomiting all over my desk at school. Nasty. No, I wasn't drunk.

Most recent earworm. Angela Jarvis Cocker

Favourite soft drink. Coca Cola.

Best comeback. From me? All of mine are divine, darling! You just have to be in the room to realise that my mouth is frequently disconnected from conscious thought and that my unconscious mind is a rude, crude, and sometimes rather witty beast.

Favourite meme question. I like that it's all about my me.

Mitzi's meme

Where is your cell phone? Table.

Your hair? Wet.

Your mother? Elsewhere.

Your father? Ditto.

Your favorite food? Haigh's.

Your dream last night? Absent.

Your favorite drink? Tea.

Your dream/goal? Equilibrium.

What room are you in? Lounge.

Your hobby? Being.

Your Fear? Marionettes.

Where do you want to be in 6 years? There.

Where were you last night? Here.

Something that you aren’t? Happy.

Muffins? No.

Wish list item? Numerous.

Where did you grow up? Australia.

Last thing you did? Dinner.

What are you wearing? Scruffiness.

Your TV? Skins.

Your pets? Elsewhere.

Your friends? Quiet.

Your life? Sad.

Your mood? Heavy.

Missing someone? No.

Vehicle? Docs.

Something you’re not wearing? Bra.

Your favorite store? Pentimento.

Your favorite color? Red.

When was the last time you laughed? 3.30ish.

Last time you cried? Days.

Your best friend? Ah...

One place that I go to over and over? Work.

Person who emails me regularly? No-one.

Favorite place to eat? Soni's.

BOOK MARK

I have been - oh so briefly - away. I am back and really rather brown. It's like this, despite my southern pallor I am, in fact, an olive-skinned little brown baby. I'll never be one of your gorgeous white skinned lasses. I spent maybe six hours in a pool - over several days - slathered in SPF 30 and have returned to a more natural and less anaemic hue. Yes, I brag. I need something to cheer me up.

I still feel a little down. I always feel low after leaving my family. I can't bear the thought of moving back there but, ah, it hurts a wee bit to be away. And I miss the cat though she charmingly bit and scratched me as a memento before I left. And I have taken home rather a lot of grey fur - mostly as decoration for my clothes.

Despite my depths-of-despair-ness I think things may be picking up. Slowly, you know, just slowly. I'm trying not to be a bitch about the things I can't change. I'm trying to lose some of the hate and pick up a few threads. I'm trying to stop treading water. Or, at least, I think Iam.