love steals us from loneliness?

I think my dog is lonely. He has a teddy bought for 50p at a car boot sale which he carries around everywhere and treats very gently and with fondness. I noticed this, and realised that he doesn't really have any friends and probably uses the somewhat sad little bear as a substitute. The other day, he nudged the speed-dial button on the phone, and Helen and I both mocked him gently because, well, who would he ring? It's not like we can get another dog to keep him company. I think there is very little to be done. We have a lonely dog on our hands. So why am I telling you this? I'm not sure really. It's very possible that I have spent too much time at home with my dog in the past couple of weeks, or perhaps the tale of my lonely dog can be seen as an allegory. Perhaps I'm just the sort of person who notices when a dog is sad. Hard to say...

Sunday morning...

Well, it's been over a week, and for this I can only apologise. Happy Sunday, everyone! For lapsed Christians like me, Sundays are a particularly special day. I try not to find myself awake around ten o'clock because this is when I feel I should probably be in church, not eating biscuits for breakfast. So when I eventually rise around midday, I make some tea and invariably go on Facebook for a bit, before wallowing about in self pity. Sometimes I make porridge.

Thing is, even when you're a good-for-nothing layabout like me, and the days merge so utterly, Sundays never stop being depressing, do they? You can never shake that back to school feeling, even if you know your Monday will be just as empty as the day before. A while ago, my friends and I decided that to combat this Sunday feeling, we would mark the end of the weekend in celebration rather than mourning by going out and keeping ourselves occupied (getting drunk). Unfortunately, these outings only lasted a couple of weeks, so I wouldn't exactly call them a success.

Tonight, however, there will be a certain legitimacy to my Sunday night blues. That's right, I have a job. This week, I will be working in the deli in the village alongside my lovely sister who I'm sure will criticise me 'til the cows come home about my waitressing technique. I'm probably a bit rusty, to be honest, but as it's only three days, it's not like I have to really make a lasting impression on those in charge. Unfortunately, even I like to be liked sometimes, so I probably will try really quite hard, and I'm sure I will be exhausted next time I write here (which will not be another week. I'm a bit ashamed.)

Oh! Yeah, I went to Wales. It was very Welsh. I got to see my great uncle Danny who is now 93 and probably more active than me. Of course, this isn't saying much, but he is pretty damn old. Then we went to deepest, darkest Gower and stayed on my auntie's farm with the chickens and geese and sheep (oh my!). It was nice, but also nice to come back to civilisation (and by this, I mean my dvd player).

Bye then!

P.S. I love Jonathan Creek. Why is it always the fictional ones?

I don't see what anyone can see in anyone else.

It appears that I am approaching rock bottom. I am sat alone on a Friday night drinking wine and watching French films about murder and adultery. Of course, to me this is pretty much the perfect evening, but soon my mum will come home from wherever she's been this time, and she will make me feel pathetic and lonely. Both she and Helen have admitted that they find being alone at night in my big, horrible house a bit creepy, but I don't mind it one bit. I'm the sort of person who needs time to myself which I haven't really got much lately while Mum has been off sick and Helen has been home.

This weekend will either be ace or a bit of a bore; I guess you could say that of anything really, so I'm sorry for talking bollocks. Last night we all stayed at Christina's for one last time and tomorrow evening I'm going to Bewdley with Hagley people which seems a bit odd, but it's close to home so I'm not going to complain. On Sunday, I'm going with Sarah to Ikea for the all important university shop. It's difficult to get excited about cutlery and pen-holders, but I do like the general Swedishness...

I really do need a phone now, but I hate spending money on things that aren't shoes or books, so I'm generally quite sulky about the prospect. Things are complicated somewhat by the fact that this time next year, I will be in Italy, making contracts and stuff tricky. I've just realised that I am writing about frightfully dull things tonight, so I can only apologise (though the phrase frightfully dull does make me feel like a prim Victorian, which is fun in moderation).

Goodnight!

P.S. watch 'Free Agents' on 4od. It's good and she's stylish. End of.

variations on the word love...

Variations on the Word Love

This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.


Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside.
You can hold on or let go.
. Margaret Atwood

I love this poem. I found it earlier when I was feeling a bit despondent and it made me feel... not happy exactly, but different. And sometimes change is good.

I'm considering going to stay with my auntie who literally lives at the end of the world (Gower). I have decided this because there is no wireless, no noise, and very few people. A bit of walking in a truly pretty place might do me a bit of good. Plus, unlike my house, they have fruit and vegetables so I might avoid the almost inevitable onset of scurvy.

Last night, I went to see Scott Pilgrim Vs the World, which made me want to dye my hair blue. I also get this feeling every time I watch 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' or 'Ghost World'. Unfortunately, I neither look like Kate Winslet or the much less famous ones in the other two films, so I think I'll refrain from being too hasty. Not that becoming 'the weird girl with the blue hair' wouldn't be fun...

you have to suffer to be well-read...

Because my books seem to breed when I leave the room, I have had to purchase a new bookcase. This has been my day today:

• Went into town with Helen and Mother to look at bookcases.
  
• Found a bookcase and a big thing in which to put my absurd amount of CDs
  
• Got the bus home because I could no longer fit in the car
• Arrived home after a fairly non-eventful bus trip
• With the help of Helen, removed both pieces of furniture from the courtesy car (necessary due to the fact that a drunk driver crashed through our wall, hitting trees, cars and houses. I told you about that, right?)
• Spent half an hour getting the bloody piece of crap upstairs, made more difficult by the fact that Helen and I have the combined upper body strength of a six year old girl, and the fact that we had to be clever due to the narrow staircase and the longest and heaviest bookcase ever made. I pulled a muscle in my tummy and laughed so much I thought my face might fall off.
  
• Moved around furniture in my bedroom to accommodate the new members of my family of furniture crap
• Spent three hours alphabetising the books by author
• Realised that in the process of all this alphabetising, my room seemed to vomit dusty crap all over the carpet
• Wrote a blog about it.
  

right then.

I was meant to go out tonight, but as I have previously mentioned, there has been a terrible mistake. I am some kind of horrific teenage/grandma hybrid, and as such I'm sitting all wrapped up with a hot water bottle sitting on my arthritic shoulder and writing a little blog post.

So instead of partaking in regular social conventions, I have taken it upon myself to watch every episode of Ultimate Big Brother so far. In a night. I probably haven't watched Big Brother for about five years, but what people forget is that it used to be brilliant. Back in the days of Brian and Helen - when the housemates were normal and viewing was not optional, I used to watch it all the time. It was just so interesting watching people form friendships, romances and irritations. Really it was just a big anthropological experiment. Then they started sending in the crazies...

Really, I'm just watching 'Ultimate Big Brother' because it's my final chance. It's like a fond farewell, and actually it's quite good, so I'm willing to overlook the years of terrible television that fell in between.

Already this evening, I have been entertained with such lines as "misogynistic, isn't that like feminist?" "Erm, yeah sort of but more like the opposite." Brilliant.

So there you have it. I'm not going to pretend I'm not a bit ashamed of myself right now, but I'm in the mood to do little else. Just staying awake is an achievement. I'm not even thinking about the seven hundred weekend bags I have to unpack. They can wait 'til tomorrow...

the ghost of corporate future...

I write all the time. It's a disease. When I was in Europe, I had to buy myself a little notebook because I missed jotting things down and turning my silly thoughts into silly words. I have so many exercise books in my room (mostly robbed from the Languages staff room) filled with endless description and unsuccessful metaphor. This is why I will never be able to do anything else with my life.

I was looking at graduate jobs earlier. Just for a laugh. A lot of them, although not requiring a particular degree stated that 'money driven' candidates were required. Funny then that I would rather eat a leper than consider myself to fall into this category. I am always poor. I gave up my part time job when I started being given a pension around a year ago. Had I continued to sell my soul to a supermarket, I could have been quite well off. Had I not spent so much time being self sufficient this summer, I could have saved up quite a sum. Had I any sort of entrepreneurial skills, I'm sure I would never have to scrape every ten pence piece in my purse together just to buy an ice cream from the village shop.

The thing is, it's all bullshit, isn't it? To become 'money driven' is to sell your soul to consumerism. I think we all do this to a point, but surely it's best to earn just enough to scrape by in life, going on as many holidays as possible and working as little as we can get away with? If we spend all our time at the office, we spend all our time away from our friends and loved ones. If my short life has taught me anything, it's to spend as much time as possible with the people who matter most, and I don't care how lame that sounds.

Perhaps my bohemian attitudes reflect my age and there are more experienced people reading this right now marvelling at my naivety, but that's okay, because this is my idealist manifesto, and things never turn out quite like the business model. I guess my point is that we are all so rich in comparison with the rest of the world, and that should be enough. Those who strive for millions have very little sense of self. Money can't buy me love, etc.

Goodnight.

P.S. the picture is a letter from Virginia Woolf. Just because she was a writer. And I like her handwriting...