Girls can sometimes do funny things when they have a crush. Even when you're technically an adult you often find yourself acting like a high school kid, getting all giggly and doing some really silly stuff. I know one friend who cut out a picture of her crush from the newspaper when he was MVP in a football match, and put it in a little picture frame by her bed. I know another friend who printed off a picture of a guy from his Facebook profile and now uses it as a bookmark when she reads romance novels.
Oh OK, I'm lying, both of those girls were me. I read about girls doing that stuff in books, though.
Do guys do things like this ever?
Wednesday 15 October 2008
Saturday 11 October 2008
Dreaming of Jon
I dreamed about Jon again last night. He always bothers me at this time of year - basically from now until Christmas - because it was in October that we went to that first party, the one where he stroked my foot. I wouldn't exactly say that's when it all began, because I'd noticed him at school and in the local nightclub before then, but that party was the first time that I realised he'd noticed me, and the event that I think of as the beginning of my real infatuation with him.
In my dream, we were married, and we had twins. Michael and Mariah. And this is haunting me, because it's so unlike my normal dreams, both sleep-dreams and daydreams. In my sleep-dreams, I either have nightmares or they're filled with erotic pictures, and in my waking hours I mostly daydream about guys who are close friends, if I'm doing the comforting-happy-future thing. Sure, I daydream about Jon now and then, but they're not married-settled dreams, they're nostalgic memories mixed with a little bit of porn.
Dreaming about being married to Jon is totally illogical, because a) I don't want to get married to anyone at the moment; b) I don't think I want kids at all; c) I haven't seen Jon in years and d) I don't think I'd ever marry someone like him, I'd marry one of my close friends who knows me inside and out.
*sigh*
In a day or two, the dream thoughts will go away, and I'll be back to being the old Sati, who's generally comfortable in her own skin and doesn't yearn too much for future things - or at least doesn't consciously think about them too much. Practical, logical Sati who doesn't really want kids, because she doesn't want to pass on the genetic legacy that's travelled through her family line since the beginning of time, and who'll likely adopt teenagers if she's going to do the mother thing at all. But right now, I want those blue-eyed, golden-haired toddlers who giggle when you grab them and scoop them up, and who smell like fabric softener and baby shampoo, and who make me think of beach sand and sunny days and melted butter, just the way Jon always has.
Evidently I need sleep. I've been sitting up for most of the night, watching TV in my old black and gold clubbing dress and the gold necklace with the garnets that came from a secret admirer years ago, and that I have no reason to think was from him, but for some reason I always felt like it was. <--- Sorry for the garbledness of that last sentence - and indeed much of this post - it is 9.55 am after all, and I only slept a couple of hours tonight, which was when I had the dreams.
I was thinking about him so much I even posted the story I wrote about him to Literotica, although I haven't yet got to the sex bit, and had to post it as Chapter 1.
Right, well, I'm going to sleep. Hopefully I won't dream this time, or if I do, it'll be about something that's a bit easier to cope with. I could try putting a moonstone under my pillow, for good dreams, or a tiger's eye to keep away bad ones, but somehow I don't think that the universe counts marriage dreams as bad ones, somehow.
Which means I guess I have a slightly skewed perspective on things, but oh well.
I bought a pumpkin the day before yesterday, and it's sitting in the hall. I also ate a whole packet of Maryland cookies in the last three days. And that's basically all my news right now.
In my dream, we were married, and we had twins. Michael and Mariah. And this is haunting me, because it's so unlike my normal dreams, both sleep-dreams and daydreams. In my sleep-dreams, I either have nightmares or they're filled with erotic pictures, and in my waking hours I mostly daydream about guys who are close friends, if I'm doing the comforting-happy-future thing. Sure, I daydream about Jon now and then, but they're not married-settled dreams, they're nostalgic memories mixed with a little bit of porn.
Dreaming about being married to Jon is totally illogical, because a) I don't want to get married to anyone at the moment; b) I don't think I want kids at all; c) I haven't seen Jon in years and d) I don't think I'd ever marry someone like him, I'd marry one of my close friends who knows me inside and out.
*sigh*
In a day or two, the dream thoughts will go away, and I'll be back to being the old Sati, who's generally comfortable in her own skin and doesn't yearn too much for future things - or at least doesn't consciously think about them too much. Practical, logical Sati who doesn't really want kids, because she doesn't want to pass on the genetic legacy that's travelled through her family line since the beginning of time, and who'll likely adopt teenagers if she's going to do the mother thing at all. But right now, I want those blue-eyed, golden-haired toddlers who giggle when you grab them and scoop them up, and who smell like fabric softener and baby shampoo, and who make me think of beach sand and sunny days and melted butter, just the way Jon always has.
Evidently I need sleep. I've been sitting up for most of the night, watching TV in my old black and gold clubbing dress and the gold necklace with the garnets that came from a secret admirer years ago, and that I have no reason to think was from him, but for some reason I always felt like it was. <--- Sorry for the garbledness of that last sentence - and indeed much of this post - it is 9.55 am after all, and I only slept a couple of hours tonight, which was when I had the dreams.
I was thinking about him so much I even posted the story I wrote about him to Literotica, although I haven't yet got to the sex bit, and had to post it as Chapter 1.
Right, well, I'm going to sleep. Hopefully I won't dream this time, or if I do, it'll be about something that's a bit easier to cope with. I could try putting a moonstone under my pillow, for good dreams, or a tiger's eye to keep away bad ones, but somehow I don't think that the universe counts marriage dreams as bad ones, somehow.
Which means I guess I have a slightly skewed perspective on things, but oh well.
I bought a pumpkin the day before yesterday, and it's sitting in the hall. I also ate a whole packet of Maryland cookies in the last three days. And that's basically all my news right now.
Friday 10 October 2008
Surveyness
The last time you were in the fridge, what were you looking for?
Something edible. I didn't find anything so I ended up eating toast. My eating habits are pretty bad atm - I eat like a horse half the time and a bird like the other. I just don't have the energy to cook.
Where was the last door you shut?
Bedroom, I guess.
If science found that beer causes cancer, would you still drink it?
Ehh, depends on what you mean by "causes". Causes as in, contributes significantly to, the way smoking does to lung cancer? Or causes as in "might have some sort of link since in lab trials it's been shown to create possible carcinogens" the way cooked meat does? (See heterocyclic amines if you're interested, I'm not giving you the lecture here.)
I don't smoke. I do eat meat. The beer would probably fall somewhere in the middle, depending on the reliability of the tests and the amount that it contributed to cancer probabilities.
How old were you when you lost your virginity?
Either 15 or 18. Take your pick.
Favorite South Park character?
I was always quite fond of Stan, if you're talking main characters. Although I also liked Chef, and Big Gay Al. (Not sure if that's PC, but whatever.)
How often do you have to shave?
LOL, which part are we talking about?
Generally every couple of days if I want to stay silky-smooth. Which I usually do.
Ever sleep at work?
I've catnapped.
Ever go ghost hunting?
Are you frickin' kidding me? You think the girl who is bothered by spirits at all times of day and night is actually going to go LOOKING for them?
Actually, yes, I have. When I was a kid. And a couple of times recently when I was looking for someone in particular.
Usually if I'm ghost hunting, it's because I don't know if someone is dead or not. I figure if I don't find 'em, it's a good sign.
In the last conversation you had with yourself, either aloud or in your head, what did you say?
Something to do with second declension Latin nouns. Don't ask me why, I don't have a clue either.
If you came home and found a super hot model sitting on your bed eating chips and salsa, what would you do?
Depends how super hot we're talking.
What are your views on abortion?
Aye in theory, nay in practice.
i.e. I'm not gonna tell anyone else what to do, or chastise them for making what they believe is the right choice, but I'm not sure I could go through with it myself.
That said, I'm pretty sure I don't want kids anymore, so perhaps I could. Who knows.
How about animal rights?
I don't believe they have the right to have a line of credit and filet mignon for dinner, if that counts.
Death penalty?
Meh.
The last zit you had was on your:
Chin. Stupid, because I haven't had anything like that since I was a teenager...until recently. I don't feel stressed emotionally, but my body is obviously run-down, because I have a pimple on my chin and a shingles outbreak along my spine and the beginnings of a stomach ulcer. Yes, me, Satiana the urban warrior who laughs in the face of despair and eats stress for lunch. I don't even know what it is that's stressing me out so much, because I'm not consciously aware of it.
If you got fired from your job today...
I would wonder what the heck I'd done to warrant it, since short of screwing one of my teenagers or offering them illegal drugs (or you know, theft or murder) there isn't much that I could get fired for.
Would you rather have a tiny head and a huge body, or a gigantic body and a small head?
So basically, would I rather look like Missy Elliot circa 1996 or Christina Aguilera?
Neither, actually.
Whats the longest you have gone without seeing your reflection?
Couple hours I guess. I'm always checking myself out. When I'm out, people stare at me and it makes me wonder if I have something on my face. I never have something on my face, and they always stare, and I still haven't figured out why.
Have you ever fed an animal a jalapeno for revenge of something they did?
LOL, no.
When a hermit crab loses it shell, is it naked or homeless?
Don't know the answer to this one. However, I can tell you that in the MegaDrive / Genesis version of the game "Cool Spot", the hermit crabs are wearing white boxers with red polka dots on.
Now isn't that something you always wanted to know?
What did you dream about last night?
Having my foot stroked at a party I went to back in October 2001.
Don't know why I'm thinking about that NOW. I guess it's just the season.
What are hot dogs made of?
Sugar and spice and everything nice?
Guess not.
Do you own a pair of Uggs?
No. If I'm gonna pay that much money for footwear they're damn well gonna be shaped like the shoes of the gods, make my legs look like I should be gracing the cover of Playboy or Maxim, and made of silk or suede with embroidery or lace or ribbons. Expensive shoes and boots should LOOK expensive, not like something you'd pick up in a costume shop.
Color of your toenails?
Right now they're dark red, but they need painting, they're chipping and one of them broke the other day.
Would you rather have hairy feet or a hairy belly button?
Unfortunately I'm pretty hairy in general. I get it from my Dad. I don't like it, so I spend a lot of time plucking and waxing and shaving various body parts.
Are drummers, guitarists, or bassists more attractive to you?
All, neither. Whatever. If a guy's attractive to me, he's attractive even if he plays the castanets. If he's not, I don't care if he's rich and famous and talented.
What words will you put on your tombstone?
No tombstone. Medical science! And Halloween decorations!
What was the nature of the last lie you told?
I can't remember the last time I lied, actually. It's not something I do often, except to telesales people and occasionally my doctor.
Views on global warming?
Do what you can, when you can, to keep things right.
How do you think we could fix our economy?
Stop spending billions of dollars on blowing up sand and camels?
You can choose to eat your weight in marshmellows or eat your weight in dark chocolate, which do you choose?
I don't think I could eat my weight in anything.
What WOULDN'T you do for a klondike bar?
What's a klondike bar?
98 percent of your brainpower is wasted on:
Seeing things that shouldn't be seen, and that I can't do a damn thing about anyway. I truly believe I could have changed the world if I'd had my RAM freed up to focus on making a medical discovery or a leap forward in quantum mechanics instead of being enslaved to stupid pictures in my head.
OK, maybe I couldn't have changed the world, but I could at least have a decent job and a university degree.
What was the last thing that you said to someone that made them go "OUCH!?"
Can't remember. Sorry.
Have you ever lied to a doctor to get a doctors note to miss work or class?
Nope, I've lied to a doctor to get a note to go BACK to work.
Last Halloween, your costume was:
Probably an angel. I'm usually an angel, since all it requires is a white dress and a pair of wings and a halo, which I already have. Plus I can accessorize with lace and ribbons, which I love.
Typecasting. *shakes head sadly*
Last time you got lucky?
August?
Depends on your definition of lucky, I guess.
Last time you binged on ice cream?
Must have been a couple weeks ago.
Why did your last diet fail?
Ear infection didn't let me exercise, and if I'm not exercising it's hard to keep up the diet. I really need to get back to the gym soon, I've been away for two weeks or more. (Bear in mind I usually go for 3 hours a day, 6 days a week - so 2 weeks is a huge gap for me.)
Favorite song, what do you like about it?
The second verse, as much as it has verses.
"You can hide 'neath your covers
And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
Well now, I'm no hero
That's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey, what else can we do now?
Except roll down the windows
And let the wind blow back your hair
Well the night's bustin' open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We've got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back
Heaven's waiting down on the tracks..."
Coolest. Lyrics. Ever.
Something edible. I didn't find anything so I ended up eating toast. My eating habits are pretty bad atm - I eat like a horse half the time and a bird like the other. I just don't have the energy to cook.
Where was the last door you shut?
Bedroom, I guess.
If science found that beer causes cancer, would you still drink it?
Ehh, depends on what you mean by "causes". Causes as in, contributes significantly to, the way smoking does to lung cancer? Or causes as in "might have some sort of link since in lab trials it's been shown to create possible carcinogens" the way cooked meat does? (See heterocyclic amines if you're interested, I'm not giving you the lecture here.)
I don't smoke. I do eat meat. The beer would probably fall somewhere in the middle, depending on the reliability of the tests and the amount that it contributed to cancer probabilities.
How old were you when you lost your virginity?
Either 15 or 18. Take your pick.
Favorite South Park character?
I was always quite fond of Stan, if you're talking main characters. Although I also liked Chef, and Big Gay Al. (Not sure if that's PC, but whatever.)
How often do you have to shave?
LOL, which part are we talking about?
Generally every couple of days if I want to stay silky-smooth. Which I usually do.
Ever sleep at work?
I've catnapped.
Ever go ghost hunting?
Are you frickin' kidding me? You think the girl who is bothered by spirits at all times of day and night is actually going to go LOOKING for them?
Actually, yes, I have. When I was a kid. And a couple of times recently when I was looking for someone in particular.
Usually if I'm ghost hunting, it's because I don't know if someone is dead or not. I figure if I don't find 'em, it's a good sign.
In the last conversation you had with yourself, either aloud or in your head, what did you say?
Something to do with second declension Latin nouns. Don't ask me why, I don't have a clue either.
If you came home and found a super hot model sitting on your bed eating chips and salsa, what would you do?
Depends how super hot we're talking.
What are your views on abortion?
Aye in theory, nay in practice.
i.e. I'm not gonna tell anyone else what to do, or chastise them for making what they believe is the right choice, but I'm not sure I could go through with it myself.
That said, I'm pretty sure I don't want kids anymore, so perhaps I could. Who knows.
How about animal rights?
I don't believe they have the right to have a line of credit and filet mignon for dinner, if that counts.
Death penalty?
Meh.
The last zit you had was on your:
Chin. Stupid, because I haven't had anything like that since I was a teenager...until recently. I don't feel stressed emotionally, but my body is obviously run-down, because I have a pimple on my chin and a shingles outbreak along my spine and the beginnings of a stomach ulcer. Yes, me, Satiana the urban warrior who laughs in the face of despair and eats stress for lunch. I don't even know what it is that's stressing me out so much, because I'm not consciously aware of it.
If you got fired from your job today...
I would wonder what the heck I'd done to warrant it, since short of screwing one of my teenagers or offering them illegal drugs (or you know, theft or murder) there isn't much that I could get fired for.
Would you rather have a tiny head and a huge body, or a gigantic body and a small head?
So basically, would I rather look like Missy Elliot circa 1996 or Christina Aguilera?
Neither, actually.
Whats the longest you have gone without seeing your reflection?
Couple hours I guess. I'm always checking myself out. When I'm out, people stare at me and it makes me wonder if I have something on my face. I never have something on my face, and they always stare, and I still haven't figured out why.
Have you ever fed an animal a jalapeno for revenge of something they did?
LOL, no.
When a hermit crab loses it shell, is it naked or homeless?
Don't know the answer to this one. However, I can tell you that in the MegaDrive / Genesis version of the game "Cool Spot", the hermit crabs are wearing white boxers with red polka dots on.
Now isn't that something you always wanted to know?
What did you dream about last night?
Having my foot stroked at a party I went to back in October 2001.
Don't know why I'm thinking about that NOW. I guess it's just the season.
What are hot dogs made of?
Sugar and spice and everything nice?
Guess not.
Do you own a pair of Uggs?
No. If I'm gonna pay that much money for footwear they're damn well gonna be shaped like the shoes of the gods, make my legs look like I should be gracing the cover of Playboy or Maxim, and made of silk or suede with embroidery or lace or ribbons. Expensive shoes and boots should LOOK expensive, not like something you'd pick up in a costume shop.
Color of your toenails?
Right now they're dark red, but they need painting, they're chipping and one of them broke the other day.
Would you rather have hairy feet or a hairy belly button?
Unfortunately I'm pretty hairy in general. I get it from my Dad. I don't like it, so I spend a lot of time plucking and waxing and shaving various body parts.
Are drummers, guitarists, or bassists more attractive to you?
All, neither. Whatever. If a guy's attractive to me, he's attractive even if he plays the castanets. If he's not, I don't care if he's rich and famous and talented.
What words will you put on your tombstone?
No tombstone. Medical science! And Halloween decorations!
What was the nature of the last lie you told?
I can't remember the last time I lied, actually. It's not something I do often, except to telesales people and occasionally my doctor.
Views on global warming?
Do what you can, when you can, to keep things right.
How do you think we could fix our economy?
Stop spending billions of dollars on blowing up sand and camels?
You can choose to eat your weight in marshmellows or eat your weight in dark chocolate, which do you choose?
I don't think I could eat my weight in anything.
What WOULDN'T you do for a klondike bar?
What's a klondike bar?
98 percent of your brainpower is wasted on:
Seeing things that shouldn't be seen, and that I can't do a damn thing about anyway. I truly believe I could have changed the world if I'd had my RAM freed up to focus on making a medical discovery or a leap forward in quantum mechanics instead of being enslaved to stupid pictures in my head.
OK, maybe I couldn't have changed the world, but I could at least have a decent job and a university degree.
What was the last thing that you said to someone that made them go "OUCH!?"
Can't remember. Sorry.
Have you ever lied to a doctor to get a doctors note to miss work or class?
Nope, I've lied to a doctor to get a note to go BACK to work.
Last Halloween, your costume was:
Probably an angel. I'm usually an angel, since all it requires is a white dress and a pair of wings and a halo, which I already have. Plus I can accessorize with lace and ribbons, which I love.
Typecasting. *shakes head sadly*
Last time you got lucky?
August?
Depends on your definition of lucky, I guess.
Last time you binged on ice cream?
Must have been a couple weeks ago.
Why did your last diet fail?
Ear infection didn't let me exercise, and if I'm not exercising it's hard to keep up the diet. I really need to get back to the gym soon, I've been away for two weeks or more. (Bear in mind I usually go for 3 hours a day, 6 days a week - so 2 weeks is a huge gap for me.)
Favorite song, what do you like about it?
The second verse, as much as it has verses.
"You can hide 'neath your covers
And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
Well now, I'm no hero
That's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey, what else can we do now?
Except roll down the windows
And let the wind blow back your hair
Well the night's bustin' open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We've got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back
Heaven's waiting down on the tracks..."
Coolest. Lyrics. Ever.
Thursday 9 October 2008
Profiles
People fascinate me. Especially people I either a) don't know as well as I'd like to or b) knew awhile ago and want to know more about the person they've become.
I love Facebook because you can easily link from one profile to another. You check out a friend's, and then you see someone on there and want to know more about them. And then you see someone else on THEIR profile and check them out too. And so it goes on. At least for me. Like a free-floating thought association.
I'm not a stalker, far from it, but I may check you out again and again, until I've read every note you've written and seen every photo in your albums. I like to watch. If you know me at all, you'll know I'm that girl who sits and watches, because watching never gets boring for me.
So if your profile is open to the public, or you're in my network - even if I'm not one of your friends - you're fair game.
Just a warning.
I love Facebook because you can easily link from one profile to another. You check out a friend's, and then you see someone on there and want to know more about them. And then you see someone else on THEIR profile and check them out too. And so it goes on. At least for me. Like a free-floating thought association.
I'm not a stalker, far from it, but I may check you out again and again, until I've read every note you've written and seen every photo in your albums. I like to watch. If you know me at all, you'll know I'm that girl who sits and watches, because watching never gets boring for me.
So if your profile is open to the public, or you're in my network - even if I'm not one of your friends - you're fair game.
Just a warning.
Ghost Stories - Updated
Bless you to the anonymous person who emailed me with details of the book of ghost stories I was looking for. (Although why on earth didn't you give me an email to reply to you on? It's not like I can reply to the phone box, y'know...*sighs*)
But anyway, it was much appreciated.
Just for any of you who were wondering, the book was called "Ghost Stories" and edited by Robert Westall - how's that for a memory? Took me a bit of research, because there were several editions released in different years, and the US editions aren't exactly the same as the UK ones, but as far as I can tell the one that I had was published by Kingfisher in March of 1988 - that sounds about right, but it means I was younger than I thought, because I know my Mom bought it when it was first out - and contained 22 short stories by various authors.
And since we're on the subject, and I haven't posted for a couple of days, I'll give you the whole story list.
My edition contained:
~ A Knock At the Manor Gate by Franz Kafka
~ Yesterday's Witch by Gahan Wilson
~ A Legion Marching By by John Hynam
~ The Lawyer and the Ghost by Charles Dickens
~ The Ghost Who Was Afraid Of Being Bagged by Anonymous
~ School For Ghosts by P'u Sung-Ling / translated by Vida Derry
~ The Little Yellow Dog by Mary Williams
~ The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (from The Wind in the Willows) by Kenneth Grahame
~ The Lilies by Alison Prince
~ The Emissary by Ray Bradbury
~ John Pettigrew's Mirror by Ruth Manning-Sanders
~ Sredni Vashtar by Saki
~ Miss Mountain by Philippa Pearce
~ Was It a Dream? by Guy de Maupassant
~ A Pair of Hands by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
~ The Boys' Toilets by Robert Westall
~ Left in the Dark by John Gordon
~ Video Nasty by Philip Pullman
~ Lost Hearts by M.R. James
~ Thurnley Abbey by Perceval Landon
~ Not At Home by Jean Richardson
~ The Shepherd's Dog by Joyce Marsh
The American editions removed the Philip Pullman story and put in something called The Monkey's Paw...I don't remember the author, although I could look it up. I think there might have been a couple other changes.
The funny thing is that although I forgot about a lot of these stories, and that even when I finally found the list I didn't remember them all, they're all coming back to me now. Not all the details, but I have at least a vague memory of every one of them, and clear memories of a couple. There were some really neat illustrations on some of the stories too, which is why I'm hoping to get my hands on this particular edition rather than ordering one of the paperback reprints, or the US one.
So anyway, thanks to Mr or Mrs Anonymous - and feel free to tell me who you were. If it was you who sent the email, and you live locally, I'll make you cookies.
But anyway, it was much appreciated.
Just for any of you who were wondering, the book was called "Ghost Stories" and edited by Robert Westall - how's that for a memory? Took me a bit of research, because there were several editions released in different years, and the US editions aren't exactly the same as the UK ones, but as far as I can tell the one that I had was published by Kingfisher in March of 1988 - that sounds about right, but it means I was younger than I thought, because I know my Mom bought it when it was first out - and contained 22 short stories by various authors.
And since we're on the subject, and I haven't posted for a couple of days, I'll give you the whole story list.
My edition contained:
~ A Knock At the Manor Gate by Franz Kafka
~ Yesterday's Witch by Gahan Wilson
~ A Legion Marching By by John Hynam
~ The Lawyer and the Ghost by Charles Dickens
~ The Ghost Who Was Afraid Of Being Bagged by Anonymous
~ School For Ghosts by P'u Sung-Ling / translated by Vida Derry
~ The Little Yellow Dog by Mary Williams
~ The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (from The Wind in the Willows) by Kenneth Grahame
~ The Lilies by Alison Prince
~ The Emissary by Ray Bradbury
~ John Pettigrew's Mirror by Ruth Manning-Sanders
~ Sredni Vashtar by Saki
~ Miss Mountain by Philippa Pearce
~ Was It a Dream? by Guy de Maupassant
~ A Pair of Hands by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
~ The Boys' Toilets by Robert Westall
~ Left in the Dark by John Gordon
~ Video Nasty by Philip Pullman
~ Lost Hearts by M.R. James
~ Thurnley Abbey by Perceval Landon
~ Not At Home by Jean Richardson
~ The Shepherd's Dog by Joyce Marsh
The American editions removed the Philip Pullman story and put in something called The Monkey's Paw...I don't remember the author, although I could look it up. I think there might have been a couple other changes.
The funny thing is that although I forgot about a lot of these stories, and that even when I finally found the list I didn't remember them all, they're all coming back to me now. Not all the details, but I have at least a vague memory of every one of them, and clear memories of a couple. There were some really neat illustrations on some of the stories too, which is why I'm hoping to get my hands on this particular edition rather than ordering one of the paperback reprints, or the US one.
So anyway, thanks to Mr or Mrs Anonymous - and feel free to tell me who you were. If it was you who sent the email, and you live locally, I'll make you cookies.
Sunday 5 October 2008
Because I Never Wanted To Be The Hive Queen, Anyway
I am not just here for sex.
It seems to be that I'm primarily here to blog. This comes as something of a surprise to me, because who joins a sex site just to keep a journal about non-sexual things? I could have joined livejournal, I could have continued to write in my msn space or to use my facebook notes page for blog entries.
And yet somehow I ended up here.
Even as far as my blog choices go, they're not primarily or even secondarily focused around sex. I neither write nor read about it any more than I would be doing if I'd chosen a different site. The blogs on my watched list are not all by men of my own age in my own area: they're a mixture of male and female, from all corners of the earth, between the ages of 19 and 49, and cover all sorts of subject matter. About the only things that my watched bloggers have in common is that they're all smart and they all have interesting things to say - or at least things that *I* find interesting.
I was trying to pinpoint today exactly what it is that attracts me to this site so much. It's certainly not the reliability of it. It's not the possibility of meeting sex partners, although I may take advantage of that at some point. The anonymity would be closer to the mark, but it's not even that entirely, because I know that many people who check out my profile - and by extension, my blog - are people from my own town, who would know me if I put up a picture, and who may know me even without one.
I think it's very possible that the thing I like about being here is not so much that nobody could possibly know me, but more that nobody will care too much. Not so much that I can make up a false personality - because I can't really; I'm not someone who can be fake for too long - but that I don't have to give out too much of my real one. People on here don't ask a lot of personal questions, and if someone asks one that I don't want to answer I can just ignore it. We're sort of on a need-to-know basis, and people on here simply don't need - or feel like they need - to know the same degree of things that people in the real world, or even on other social networking sites, do.
So many sites out there seem to be collections of people that are brought together by secrets. A lot of people join websites so they can confess things to strangers that they don't feel ready to say to their friends. I never really got that, because my friends know basically everything there is to know about me. I don't talk a whole lot about myself, but I don't keep secrets either. This site, for me, is the opposite of a confessional: it's one of the few places where I don't have to be That Girl, but instead can just be one of many.
I like having one place where I don't have to give too much of myself.
Well, this good little worker bee is heading off to bed now. Enjoy the evening.
It seems to be that I'm primarily here to blog. This comes as something of a surprise to me, because who joins a sex site just to keep a journal about non-sexual things? I could have joined livejournal, I could have continued to write in my msn space or to use my facebook notes page for blog entries.
And yet somehow I ended up here.
Even as far as my blog choices go, they're not primarily or even secondarily focused around sex. I neither write nor read about it any more than I would be doing if I'd chosen a different site. The blogs on my watched list are not all by men of my own age in my own area: they're a mixture of male and female, from all corners of the earth, between the ages of 19 and 49, and cover all sorts of subject matter. About the only things that my watched bloggers have in common is that they're all smart and they all have interesting things to say - or at least things that *I* find interesting.
I was trying to pinpoint today exactly what it is that attracts me to this site so much. It's certainly not the reliability of it. It's not the possibility of meeting sex partners, although I may take advantage of that at some point. The anonymity would be closer to the mark, but it's not even that entirely, because I know that many people who check out my profile - and by extension, my blog - are people from my own town, who would know me if I put up a picture, and who may know me even without one.
I think it's very possible that the thing I like about being here is not so much that nobody could possibly know me, but more that nobody will care too much. Not so much that I can make up a false personality - because I can't really; I'm not someone who can be fake for too long - but that I don't have to give out too much of my real one. People on here don't ask a lot of personal questions, and if someone asks one that I don't want to answer I can just ignore it. We're sort of on a need-to-know basis, and people on here simply don't need - or feel like they need - to know the same degree of things that people in the real world, or even on other social networking sites, do.
So many sites out there seem to be collections of people that are brought together by secrets. A lot of people join websites so they can confess things to strangers that they don't feel ready to say to their friends. I never really got that, because my friends know basically everything there is to know about me. I don't talk a whole lot about myself, but I don't keep secrets either. This site, for me, is the opposite of a confessional: it's one of the few places where I don't have to be That Girl, but instead can just be one of many.
I like having one place where I don't have to give too much of myself.
Well, this good little worker bee is heading off to bed now. Enjoy the evening.
Saturday 4 October 2008
I Hate Lodgers
So I was wrong about the Italian guy being pretty good in most other areas of hygiene. He sucks. In general, he's a very annoying person to have around.
Since I'm having a cranky day - blame it on PMS, or just say that I'm a bitch, I don't really care - I'll share a couple of the most annoying bits about him with you.
I know I've mentioned this one in the last note, but he speaks NO English. Nor does he seem to WANT to learn to speak English. I really don't get this, because I can't fathom the idea of moving to a country without making some attempt to learn the language, at least enough of it to communicate with people. Hell, when I take even a week's vacation I try to learn enough for basic communications. Even if college courses are expensive, you can buy a book, or talk with a friend who speaks the language. (And you can guarantee he knows SOMEONE who speaks English.) But it seems that he just cheerfully packed his stuff and moved here, with no preparations whatsoever. I've told him about the Italian society in St. Albans, where he can go to talk to people in Italian and through them, get an idea of where to go to learn at least the basics, but he doesn't seem at all interested. Personally I think he likes not speaking the language, because it allows him to ignore you when you ask him to do something. Like...
Flush the toilet, put the seat down, and WASH YOUR FLIPPIN' HANDS. There is no excuse, EVER, for not flushing and not washing your hands afterwards. Or...
Keep the house tidy and basically clean. It's not rocket science. When you use things, make sure you wash them afterwards. I don't care if it's dishes or the cooker or an ashtray or the bathtub.
Ugh, the bathtub. I can't even speak about the bathtub.
Well, maybe I can.
He doesn't clean it. No surprise there, since half the time he doesn't even clean his dishes. It would be bad enough if it were just normal bath stuff (although "normal" is a relative term - what kind of man takes two bubble baths a day, really?). But it's not. It's other stuff besides bath foam that I find in there.
Male stuff. Excited male stuff.
In case you're a little slow, or just find it too weird and disturbing to contemplate, I'll put it bluntly: he whacks off in the bathtub and then leaves it for me to find. And although I've asked him half a dozen times to clean out the bathtub, and pointed at the tub and the cleaning products and even the residues that he leaves behind, he just shrugs his shoulders at me like he hasn't the faintest clue what I'm talking about.
So every time I take a bath I have to put on rubber gloves beforehand and scrub the bath out twice, once with bath cleaner and once with Dettol. And I still don't feel clean.
Unfortunately, the shower doesn't work, and the one we ordered from B & Q hasn't come in yet, otherwise I'd forgo my baths - even though they're one of the few things that helps with my muscle cramps - and take showers. At least that way I'd know there wasn't anything lurking in the water.
Those aren't his only horrible habits, they're just the worst ones. He never gets up to his first alarm, but lets it go off four times every morning, with music louder than I usually play mine in the daytime, and he won't turn it down. He never turns lights off. He begs for food and drink, because he's too lazy to go out and buy his own, and if you say no he keeps asking and pleading until you give him what he wants. He seems to be angry most of the time, either because his sister won't give him any more money (although she's already paying his rent and his phone bill) or because she won't answer his phone, and he walks around shouting curses at her. On the occasions that he actually does wash his dishes, he leaves them out for us to put away, and sometimes you have to ask him four or five times before he'll deal with them. Which means I usually end up doing it for him, just so Mom doesn't get pissed and take it out on me. (Which is something she's been doing a lot lately - there's a lot of anger going round this house.)
It's like having a spoilt, selfish child living here, and frankly I'm sick to death of it. I am so so tired of taking care of grown men who are too lazy to do anything for themselves and too selfish to care that a girl who's a) younger; b) no relation to them; c) disabled and d) working longer hours than they are ends up having to do it all for them. First the Marshall woman, then Paul, then Martin and now Narcissus (that's not his real name, but it works) - all from different walks of life, but all of them spoilt selfish brats who strut around with this sense of entitlement, like they're owed a great deal from life and they're damn well going to get everything they can from everyone, no matter who it hurts.
He'll get his notice soon, but not until we can get together the deposit money to give back to him.
I hate lodgers. I'm not too keen on men right now either.
That said, Brian - he's the guy from South Africa - seems to be working out pretty well. True, I haven't seen him much, but he's friendly and helpful, and keeps things in good order. I wish we could find another lodger like him.
This shouldn't be my business. If I could, I'd take off to my own place, where I lived blissfully alone, or at most with one roommate. But even if I could get the finances together, I couldn't leave Mom in the lurch like that. Every time I've mentioned moving out, she's made it very clear that to do so would put her in an impossible position, and I don't have the heart to do that.
So I stay here, feeling more and more trapped, in a house that contains several very angry people, and just try to keep my head down and get things done.
This is a pessimistic note. So shoot me, I'm not having the greatest of weeks.
Since I'm having a cranky day - blame it on PMS, or just say that I'm a bitch, I don't really care - I'll share a couple of the most annoying bits about him with you.
I know I've mentioned this one in the last note, but he speaks NO English. Nor does he seem to WANT to learn to speak English. I really don't get this, because I can't fathom the idea of moving to a country without making some attempt to learn the language, at least enough of it to communicate with people. Hell, when I take even a week's vacation I try to learn enough for basic communications. Even if college courses are expensive, you can buy a book, or talk with a friend who speaks the language. (And you can guarantee he knows SOMEONE who speaks English.) But it seems that he just cheerfully packed his stuff and moved here, with no preparations whatsoever. I've told him about the Italian society in St. Albans, where he can go to talk to people in Italian and through them, get an idea of where to go to learn at least the basics, but he doesn't seem at all interested. Personally I think he likes not speaking the language, because it allows him to ignore you when you ask him to do something. Like...
Flush the toilet, put the seat down, and WASH YOUR FLIPPIN' HANDS. There is no excuse, EVER, for not flushing and not washing your hands afterwards. Or...
Keep the house tidy and basically clean. It's not rocket science. When you use things, make sure you wash them afterwards. I don't care if it's dishes or the cooker or an ashtray or the bathtub.
Ugh, the bathtub. I can't even speak about the bathtub.
Well, maybe I can.
He doesn't clean it. No surprise there, since half the time he doesn't even clean his dishes. It would be bad enough if it were just normal bath stuff (although "normal" is a relative term - what kind of man takes two bubble baths a day, really?). But it's not. It's other stuff besides bath foam that I find in there.
Male stuff. Excited male stuff.
In case you're a little slow, or just find it too weird and disturbing to contemplate, I'll put it bluntly: he whacks off in the bathtub and then leaves it for me to find. And although I've asked him half a dozen times to clean out the bathtub, and pointed at the tub and the cleaning products and even the residues that he leaves behind, he just shrugs his shoulders at me like he hasn't the faintest clue what I'm talking about.
So every time I take a bath I have to put on rubber gloves beforehand and scrub the bath out twice, once with bath cleaner and once with Dettol. And I still don't feel clean.
Unfortunately, the shower doesn't work, and the one we ordered from B & Q hasn't come in yet, otherwise I'd forgo my baths - even though they're one of the few things that helps with my muscle cramps - and take showers. At least that way I'd know there wasn't anything lurking in the water.
Those aren't his only horrible habits, they're just the worst ones. He never gets up to his first alarm, but lets it go off four times every morning, with music louder than I usually play mine in the daytime, and he won't turn it down. He never turns lights off. He begs for food and drink, because he's too lazy to go out and buy his own, and if you say no he keeps asking and pleading until you give him what he wants. He seems to be angry most of the time, either because his sister won't give him any more money (although she's already paying his rent and his phone bill) or because she won't answer his phone, and he walks around shouting curses at her. On the occasions that he actually does wash his dishes, he leaves them out for us to put away, and sometimes you have to ask him four or five times before he'll deal with them. Which means I usually end up doing it for him, just so Mom doesn't get pissed and take it out on me. (Which is something she's been doing a lot lately - there's a lot of anger going round this house.)
It's like having a spoilt, selfish child living here, and frankly I'm sick to death of it. I am so so tired of taking care of grown men who are too lazy to do anything for themselves and too selfish to care that a girl who's a) younger; b) no relation to them; c) disabled and d) working longer hours than they are ends up having to do it all for them. First the Marshall woman, then Paul, then Martin and now Narcissus (that's not his real name, but it works) - all from different walks of life, but all of them spoilt selfish brats who strut around with this sense of entitlement, like they're owed a great deal from life and they're damn well going to get everything they can from everyone, no matter who it hurts.
He'll get his notice soon, but not until we can get together the deposit money to give back to him.
I hate lodgers. I'm not too keen on men right now either.
That said, Brian - he's the guy from South Africa - seems to be working out pretty well. True, I haven't seen him much, but he's friendly and helpful, and keeps things in good order. I wish we could find another lodger like him.
This shouldn't be my business. If I could, I'd take off to my own place, where I lived blissfully alone, or at most with one roommate. But even if I could get the finances together, I couldn't leave Mom in the lurch like that. Every time I've mentioned moving out, she's made it very clear that to do so would put her in an impossible position, and I don't have the heart to do that.
So I stay here, feeling more and more trapped, in a house that contains several very angry people, and just try to keep my head down and get things done.
This is a pessimistic note. So shoot me, I'm not having the greatest of weeks.
Meh, Again
I love you, because I'll probably always love you.
But I sure don't like you very much right now.
But I sure don't like you very much right now.
Tuesday 23 September 2008
Missing Title
The ear infection is back for the fourth time in five weeks, and this time it's both ears.
I could cry, I really could.
Oli's home. He told me a little about Nigeria, and I think I understand a little better why he was so depressed to be going there in the first place.
But he still seems to want me, which is a big plus. No declarations of undying love, but plenty of suggestions about places he wants to fuck me.
...somehow, that's romantic to me. With any other guy it wouldn't be, but...ehh. It's Oli. We have a strange romance.
I can't even exercise properly at the moment, because I'm so feverish from the stupid infections I drip sweat even from the stretches, before I get to the cardio or the weights. Yesterday I did 10 minutes on the crosstrainer and 15 on the treadmill - less than half of what I usually do happily - and I thought I was going to pass out. I hate fevers. I've had a temperature for more than a month now. It goes away for a few days, then returns with a vengeance. I thought I could exercise and sweat it out, the way I can usually do with a cold, but it hasn't worked.
*sigh*
I know I'm probably gonna have to go private, go see Mr. Pickles at BUPA, but he charges £100 a consultation - at least he did five or six years ago, it's probably more now - and I'd need probably three treatments to clear them out. I simply can't afford that. I guess I'm just gonna have to cope with earache for awhile, unless my GP manages to sort it out somehow. So far flucloxacillin hasn't worked, and the Otosporin ear drops work briefly, then it comes back. I don't know what they're going to try next. I'm open to just about any suggestions other than flumethasone.
Meh. I need food and a comfy bed and a back massage and lots of painkillers.
I'm sorry that I'm always moaning at the moment...I just don't have all that much good stuff to write about. The good stuff is stuff you've already heard about to the nth degree - Oli, the gym, etc. The rest of my life is just infections and not being able to find a new job.
It'll be better soon, I'm sure.
I could cry, I really could.
Oli's home. He told me a little about Nigeria, and I think I understand a little better why he was so depressed to be going there in the first place.
But he still seems to want me, which is a big plus. No declarations of undying love, but plenty of suggestions about places he wants to fuck me.
...somehow, that's romantic to me. With any other guy it wouldn't be, but...ehh. It's Oli. We have a strange romance.
I can't even exercise properly at the moment, because I'm so feverish from the stupid infections I drip sweat even from the stretches, before I get to the cardio or the weights. Yesterday I did 10 minutes on the crosstrainer and 15 on the treadmill - less than half of what I usually do happily - and I thought I was going to pass out. I hate fevers. I've had a temperature for more than a month now. It goes away for a few days, then returns with a vengeance. I thought I could exercise and sweat it out, the way I can usually do with a cold, but it hasn't worked.
*sigh*
I know I'm probably gonna have to go private, go see Mr. Pickles at BUPA, but he charges £100 a consultation - at least he did five or six years ago, it's probably more now - and I'd need probably three treatments to clear them out. I simply can't afford that. I guess I'm just gonna have to cope with earache for awhile, unless my GP manages to sort it out somehow. So far flucloxacillin hasn't worked, and the Otosporin ear drops work briefly, then it comes back. I don't know what they're going to try next. I'm open to just about any suggestions other than flumethasone.
Meh. I need food and a comfy bed and a back massage and lots of painkillers.
I'm sorry that I'm always moaning at the moment...I just don't have all that much good stuff to write about. The good stuff is stuff you've already heard about to the nth degree - Oli, the gym, etc. The rest of my life is just infections and not being able to find a new job.
It'll be better soon, I'm sure.
Saturday 20 September 2008
Vacation - Friday
So where did I get to on the holiday news, anyway?
I think it was the end of the first night. So I went to bed that night (Thursday), read my book - The Strange Power from L.J. Smith's Dark Visions trilogy (don't knock it 'till you've tried it) - and woke up the next morning feeling strangely refreshed. I say strangely because, as any of you who read this blog often will know, I don't sleep well. A lot of the time I don't sleep at all. But when I'm away from home, the spirits don't seem to follow me, and I sleep better than I've done in months. (Providing I don't have to share a bed with anyone - or if I do, that they're someone I can tolerate sharing with. I don't snuggle well while I sleep.) I really relish the times when I get to spend a night or five away from my house, because I'm almost guaranteed a good night's sleep. Oh sure, there can sometimes be problems, like if I have to sleep on a camp bed, or if someone keeps the room too hot and stuffy, but most of the time it's great. And the last time I really got away, aside from one or two nights at my Dad's house in London, was when I visited Oli in Liverpool last October and spent five nights on his floor.
Not that he didn't offer to share the bed, or even give me the bed, but honestly I kind of like the floor, as long as I have a sheet or a duvet underneath me to protect my skin from the carpet.
Actually, there doesn't even have to be carpet. My floor is wooden, and I sleep on it well enough. And when I was in Spain I slept on a duvet on a stone floor, quite happily.
Anyway.
Friday we beached. The Bournemouth Air Festival was going on for the whole weekend, so Brian didn't want to drive into Bournemouth, so we went to Poole Sandbanks. I like the Sandbanks well enough, but it isn't as compact and convenient as a couple other places, like Boscombe or Branksome. The main Sandbanks part, where the car park is, has a little shop and a cafe and an ice cream stand, but the bit where we usually go just has a restaurant called the Jazz Cafe and the posh hotel, no shop or place to get a drink (unless you want to pay restaurant prices). On the other hand, I like that little bit, because it's where I'm used to. I'm comfortable there. So mostly we go to that bit, and if we want the shop or a snack, we walk up the beach to it.
I actually really like the Jazz Cafe, despite the fact that the prices are a bit painful. (Although not as painful as the hotel brasserie prices - those are extremely ouch.) Part of me likes the cafe because of the decor - the outside is bland, but inside it's really cool, with an old wood floor and surfboards on the walls, with all the menus painted in bright colours on blackboards - but the main reason is Keri.
Yes, Keri. I'll have to tell you more about her in a minute.
Anyway, we went to the little bit for awhile, but we didn't get lunch there. We usually do, but not this time. This time we walked up the road, past the watersports places (finding out that it's £50 for an hour's waterskiing lesson - eek!) and settled up by the shop. I ate a cheese and bacon panini and bought a bikini from the shop, white with little pink flowers on it, that funnily enough I thought about buying last year. Through the year I'd regretted not buying it, although at the time I figured that I didn't need yet another string bikini, and I was really surprised that they were selling the same ones again this year. I lay on the beach for a good long time, happily soaking up the sun and reading my trashy novel. I ate ice cream. Why is it that sea air makes a person so hungry all the time? Hungry and tired. When I'm down there, I eat like a hog and sleep like a dog.
Although not like my dog, actually...my dog snuffles and chases rabbits in her sleep.
We ate lunch in the cafe by the shop - a hamburger for me (I'm such a hamburger hound, I'd eat them every day if I could, but I mostly just eat them when I'm on holiday because of the calories) - and then lay in the sun some more. I swam two or three times, and for a long time I just lay in the water watching the air show. From Sandbanks you can see pretty far, probably as far as Boscombe, maybe even Christchurch way in the distance. The jets flew in some amazing formations, arrows and darts and crosses and it was so cool to watch. And then, something that I'd never ever seen before: they released coloured smoke that turned the jet streams different colours. They split into thirds, and had one third in red, white and blue. It was so pretty to watch, I just bobbed there in the waves and watched for nearly an hour.
In the evening we went home and ate leftover chicken. Nausea and exhaustion struck at about 8ish - that often happens after my first real day at the beach - so I went to bed early with a chicken sandwich and read my book until I basically passed out at about 9. I woke up in the middle of the night, starving, but didn't want to disturb Mom and Brian, so I ate potato chips and chocolate - very healthy, LOL - and read some more until I fell asleep again.
Aside from the nausea, it was a nice day. I love the ocean more than just about anything.
I wanted to write more about my vacation, but I have to go...dinner needs making (although I did just eat some wonderful fried parsnips that Mom made) and I want to watch Criminal Minds.
I think it was the end of the first night. So I went to bed that night (Thursday), read my book - The Strange Power from L.J. Smith's Dark Visions trilogy (don't knock it 'till you've tried it) - and woke up the next morning feeling strangely refreshed. I say strangely because, as any of you who read this blog often will know, I don't sleep well. A lot of the time I don't sleep at all. But when I'm away from home, the spirits don't seem to follow me, and I sleep better than I've done in months. (Providing I don't have to share a bed with anyone - or if I do, that they're someone I can tolerate sharing with. I don't snuggle well while I sleep.) I really relish the times when I get to spend a night or five away from my house, because I'm almost guaranteed a good night's sleep. Oh sure, there can sometimes be problems, like if I have to sleep on a camp bed, or if someone keeps the room too hot and stuffy, but most of the time it's great. And the last time I really got away, aside from one or two nights at my Dad's house in London, was when I visited Oli in Liverpool last October and spent five nights on his floor.
Not that he didn't offer to share the bed, or even give me the bed, but honestly I kind of like the floor, as long as I have a sheet or a duvet underneath me to protect my skin from the carpet.
Actually, there doesn't even have to be carpet. My floor is wooden, and I sleep on it well enough. And when I was in Spain I slept on a duvet on a stone floor, quite happily.
Anyway.
Friday we beached. The Bournemouth Air Festival was going on for the whole weekend, so Brian didn't want to drive into Bournemouth, so we went to Poole Sandbanks. I like the Sandbanks well enough, but it isn't as compact and convenient as a couple other places, like Boscombe or Branksome. The main Sandbanks part, where the car park is, has a little shop and a cafe and an ice cream stand, but the bit where we usually go just has a restaurant called the Jazz Cafe and the posh hotel, no shop or place to get a drink (unless you want to pay restaurant prices). On the other hand, I like that little bit, because it's where I'm used to. I'm comfortable there. So mostly we go to that bit, and if we want the shop or a snack, we walk up the beach to it.
I actually really like the Jazz Cafe, despite the fact that the prices are a bit painful. (Although not as painful as the hotel brasserie prices - those are extremely ouch.) Part of me likes the cafe because of the decor - the outside is bland, but inside it's really cool, with an old wood floor and surfboards on the walls, with all the menus painted in bright colours on blackboards - but the main reason is Keri.
Yes, Keri. I'll have to tell you more about her in a minute.
Anyway, we went to the little bit for awhile, but we didn't get lunch there. We usually do, but not this time. This time we walked up the road, past the watersports places (finding out that it's £50 for an hour's waterskiing lesson - eek!) and settled up by the shop. I ate a cheese and bacon panini and bought a bikini from the shop, white with little pink flowers on it, that funnily enough I thought about buying last year. Through the year I'd regretted not buying it, although at the time I figured that I didn't need yet another string bikini, and I was really surprised that they were selling the same ones again this year. I lay on the beach for a good long time, happily soaking up the sun and reading my trashy novel. I ate ice cream. Why is it that sea air makes a person so hungry all the time? Hungry and tired. When I'm down there, I eat like a hog and sleep like a dog.
Although not like my dog, actually...my dog snuffles and chases rabbits in her sleep.
We ate lunch in the cafe by the shop - a hamburger for me (I'm such a hamburger hound, I'd eat them every day if I could, but I mostly just eat them when I'm on holiday because of the calories) - and then lay in the sun some more. I swam two or three times, and for a long time I just lay in the water watching the air show. From Sandbanks you can see pretty far, probably as far as Boscombe, maybe even Christchurch way in the distance. The jets flew in some amazing formations, arrows and darts and crosses and it was so cool to watch. And then, something that I'd never ever seen before: they released coloured smoke that turned the jet streams different colours. They split into thirds, and had one third in red, white and blue. It was so pretty to watch, I just bobbed there in the waves and watched for nearly an hour.
In the evening we went home and ate leftover chicken. Nausea and exhaustion struck at about 8ish - that often happens after my first real day at the beach - so I went to bed early with a chicken sandwich and read my book until I basically passed out at about 9. I woke up in the middle of the night, starving, but didn't want to disturb Mom and Brian, so I ate potato chips and chocolate - very healthy, LOL - and read some more until I fell asleep again.
Aside from the nausea, it was a nice day. I love the ocean more than just about anything.
I wanted to write more about my vacation, but I have to go...dinner needs making (although I did just eat some wonderful fried parsnips that Mom made) and I want to watch Criminal Minds.
Tuesday 16 September 2008
Fucking Infections!
Yeah, I know. I'm not around much. I have a life, y'know? Looking for a new job, which isn't going terribly well. Nobody wants to hire a 24-year-old with fibromyalgia and no real qualifications who's never worked anything that was both permanent and full-time.
I have a throat infection, that I picked up from my rat of a lodger. Yes, we have two new ones now. The one I picked up the infection from speaks NO English, so I'm having to learn Italian (Come sta? Non troppo bene. *sigh*), and although his sister - who lives here - speaks good English, she hasn't managed yet to convey instructions to him. Like, Don't go near Sati when you have an infection. Or, Don't use her blue dishes, those are for Christmas and dinner parties.
Or, for that matter, make sure you flush the toilet.
Men!
Now I know that's not a fair comment to make, but there do seem to be an astonishing amount of men around - at least of male lodgers - who don't think it's necessary to flush. I don't know if it's a male thing or a cultural / national thing (maybe in hotter countries you're supposed to save water? Even though you'd think that hygiene would be MORE important if it's always warm, but...ehh) or if we've just had bad luck getting lodgers with no sense of cleanliness. *shrug* He seems good enough at washing the dishes and keeping the bathroom relatively clean, so it mystifies me even more.
ANYway, he gave me this thing which I thought was going to be a cold, but it seems to be a nasty strep throat type thing. Hasn't gone to my lungs, touch wood, but my throat is agonizingly painful.
The other lodger's from South Africa. Tribal SA, not White SA. I can't remember what he said his tribe / language is called, although he did say it was one of those clicky-sounding ones. i.e. ones that I'll never learn in a million years. He seems nice, although he only moved in day before yesterday, so time will tell.
The Italian guy's probably nice too, I just can't understand him well enough to be sure. But either way, I'm glad the lodger problem was sorted that quickly. We had a lot of calls, actually. Heaps more than we usually get. There was one boy called Patrick who I adored, and was hoping that he'd take one of the rooms, but he ended up getting something closer to work. I think he might go to my gym though, I've seen someone who looks like him there, and when he met me for the first time (here) he seemed to recognize me. Although I can't be 100% sure; I don't wear my glasses when I exercise, and I don't have contacts yet, and anyway I'm always so caught up in my body and the music that I don't notice much.
Three ear infections and a throat infection in the space of a month...not having the best luck right now. *rolls eyes*
I did my first hour of cardio at the gym. Which is good, since an hour is what I was hoping to work up to, and then stay there for a couple months.
Did it, and then promptly dislocated my shoulder, but I don't think that had anything to do with the exercise. It was strange, I was just reaching back between my shoulderblades while I was in the shower, and it popped out. What surprised me most, aside from the fact that I actually did it in the first place, was that it wasn't all that painful. Oh, it hurt quite a bit, but it wasn't the immense screeching pain I was expecting. So I just yanked down and out the way they taught us to do in first-aid class, and it popped right back in.
I feel a bit bruised today, but I don't know if that's due to the shoulder or the fact that MY MOTHER CRASHED MY CAR THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY. Yes, my beautiful car, my almost-perfect-condition MX-5 now has a scrape along the whole passenger side, and the door has a huge dent and will probably need to be replaced. I know I shouldn't complain, because frankly I'm lucky to be unharmed - if the other driver had hit us at an angle 5 degrees different, I probably would be lying in a hospital bed right now, if I were lucky. But my car...I have spent the last three years keeping that car looking beautiful, and shiny, and generally having the pride of ownership that a person should have. (And before you start berating me, get off your high horse, I'm not saying that a person should be more proud of things than personal qualities, just that my car is a beautiful item and should be treated as such. I don't get a whole lot of nice things, because we're poor, and I think that if you're lucky enough to have nice stuff, you should treat them with respect - ESPECIALLY when you still owe two years to the bank on them.)
So I've been so nice to my car, and even though it's coming up 19 years old, it's always been in good condition. Just needed the standard repairs - new tires, new brake pads, etc. And now it has a huge great chunk out of it.
Nobody was hurt though, except me, and that was just bruises. At first I thought I might have cracked a rib, but it seems to be getting better already, so I guess it was just a bump.
Hell. Strep throat, ear infection that's just getting better now, car crash. My car's in the shop, and I can't understand my lodger, and I can't find a job, and I can't afford to go to college this year, and about the only good things that are going on are my gym workouts. Cute gym guy number 1, the one I thought might be called Chris, is just gone. Kaput. I don't even know anymore if I actually saw him or if he was a figment of my imagination. But cute gym guy number 2 is still cute as ever, and his name's Tyrone. Ain't that just the coolest name ever? And cute gym guy number 3, I don't know his name, but I heard him speak for the first time the other day, and I think he's Australian. Which makes his already significant hotness go up to three times what it was, since I really have a thing for Australian accents. And in addition to these fine specimens of manhood that I get to watch surreptitiously, there are a bunch of other people - mostly men, but some women - who are all really nice to me, and smile and occasionally chat when I'm in there. Because I - yes, I, Sati Marie Frost, the Most Unlikely Candidate Ever, am now a gym regular. Hear that? Not a weekend exerciser. Not a Monday guilt-tripper. A regular. Hah. It's so surreal I can't quite believe it.
I think that's all, aside from the fact that Oli's back in a few days, and I'm praying to god that he still wants to know me.
So there's my news, and once again what was meant to be a short post saying "Go away, I'm not well and don't want to write right now" has evolved into an actual news bulletin. Hope everyone's doing okay, and enjoying the autumn. I hope that I get better soon, because fall is my favourite season, and I'd really like to get some enjoyance in soon.
I have a throat infection, that I picked up from my rat of a lodger. Yes, we have two new ones now. The one I picked up the infection from speaks NO English, so I'm having to learn Italian (Come sta? Non troppo bene. *sigh*), and although his sister - who lives here - speaks good English, she hasn't managed yet to convey instructions to him. Like, Don't go near Sati when you have an infection. Or, Don't use her blue dishes, those are for Christmas and dinner parties.
Or, for that matter, make sure you flush the toilet.
Men!
Now I know that's not a fair comment to make, but there do seem to be an astonishing amount of men around - at least of male lodgers - who don't think it's necessary to flush. I don't know if it's a male thing or a cultural / national thing (maybe in hotter countries you're supposed to save water? Even though you'd think that hygiene would be MORE important if it's always warm, but...ehh) or if we've just had bad luck getting lodgers with no sense of cleanliness. *shrug* He seems good enough at washing the dishes and keeping the bathroom relatively clean, so it mystifies me even more.
ANYway, he gave me this thing which I thought was going to be a cold, but it seems to be a nasty strep throat type thing. Hasn't gone to my lungs, touch wood, but my throat is agonizingly painful.
The other lodger's from South Africa. Tribal SA, not White SA. I can't remember what he said his tribe / language is called, although he did say it was one of those clicky-sounding ones. i.e. ones that I'll never learn in a million years. He seems nice, although he only moved in day before yesterday, so time will tell.
The Italian guy's probably nice too, I just can't understand him well enough to be sure. But either way, I'm glad the lodger problem was sorted that quickly. We had a lot of calls, actually. Heaps more than we usually get. There was one boy called Patrick who I adored, and was hoping that he'd take one of the rooms, but he ended up getting something closer to work. I think he might go to my gym though, I've seen someone who looks like him there, and when he met me for the first time (here) he seemed to recognize me. Although I can't be 100% sure; I don't wear my glasses when I exercise, and I don't have contacts yet, and anyway I'm always so caught up in my body and the music that I don't notice much.
Three ear infections and a throat infection in the space of a month...not having the best luck right now. *rolls eyes*
I did my first hour of cardio at the gym. Which is good, since an hour is what I was hoping to work up to, and then stay there for a couple months.
Did it, and then promptly dislocated my shoulder, but I don't think that had anything to do with the exercise. It was strange, I was just reaching back between my shoulderblades while I was in the shower, and it popped out. What surprised me most, aside from the fact that I actually did it in the first place, was that it wasn't all that painful. Oh, it hurt quite a bit, but it wasn't the immense screeching pain I was expecting. So I just yanked down and out the way they taught us to do in first-aid class, and it popped right back in.
I feel a bit bruised today, but I don't know if that's due to the shoulder or the fact that MY MOTHER CRASHED MY CAR THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY. Yes, my beautiful car, my almost-perfect-condition MX-5 now has a scrape along the whole passenger side, and the door has a huge dent and will probably need to be replaced. I know I shouldn't complain, because frankly I'm lucky to be unharmed - if the other driver had hit us at an angle 5 degrees different, I probably would be lying in a hospital bed right now, if I were lucky. But my car...I have spent the last three years keeping that car looking beautiful, and shiny, and generally having the pride of ownership that a person should have. (And before you start berating me, get off your high horse, I'm not saying that a person should be more proud of things than personal qualities, just that my car is a beautiful item and should be treated as such. I don't get a whole lot of nice things, because we're poor, and I think that if you're lucky enough to have nice stuff, you should treat them with respect - ESPECIALLY when you still owe two years to the bank on them.)
So I've been so nice to my car, and even though it's coming up 19 years old, it's always been in good condition. Just needed the standard repairs - new tires, new brake pads, etc. And now it has a huge great chunk out of it.
Nobody was hurt though, except me, and that was just bruises. At first I thought I might have cracked a rib, but it seems to be getting better already, so I guess it was just a bump.
Hell. Strep throat, ear infection that's just getting better now, car crash. My car's in the shop, and I can't understand my lodger, and I can't find a job, and I can't afford to go to college this year, and about the only good things that are going on are my gym workouts. Cute gym guy number 1, the one I thought might be called Chris, is just gone. Kaput. I don't even know anymore if I actually saw him or if he was a figment of my imagination. But cute gym guy number 2 is still cute as ever, and his name's Tyrone. Ain't that just the coolest name ever? And cute gym guy number 3, I don't know his name, but I heard him speak for the first time the other day, and I think he's Australian. Which makes his already significant hotness go up to three times what it was, since I really have a thing for Australian accents. And in addition to these fine specimens of manhood that I get to watch surreptitiously, there are a bunch of other people - mostly men, but some women - who are all really nice to me, and smile and occasionally chat when I'm in there. Because I - yes, I, Sati Marie Frost, the Most Unlikely Candidate Ever, am now a gym regular. Hear that? Not a weekend exerciser. Not a Monday guilt-tripper. A regular. Hah. It's so surreal I can't quite believe it.
I think that's all, aside from the fact that Oli's back in a few days, and I'm praying to god that he still wants to know me.
So there's my news, and once again what was meant to be a short post saying "Go away, I'm not well and don't want to write right now" has evolved into an actual news bulletin. Hope everyone's doing okay, and enjoying the autumn. I hope that I get better soon, because fall is my favourite season, and I'd really like to get some enjoyance in soon.
Friday 12 September 2008
Ghost Stories
So I know I owe all you guys the rest of my holiday news, but there was something else I wanted to talk to you about:
When I was a kid, my mom gave me this cool book. I was an avid reader as a kid, read everything I could get my hands on - actually it's only in the last couple of years that I've found I don't read so much. As a kid I liked almost everything, but my favourite subject was the supernatural: werewolves, vampires, spontaneous human combustion, witches (both of the pointy-hat and the Wiccan type), but especially ghosts. So my mother, who always encouraged the aquisition of knowledge (of whatever type) bought me a lot of books. Some of which were probably too grown-up for me, but I remained blissfully ignorant of this fact for many years.
This was a really neat book, though. It was a book of ghost stories, and I'm not entirely sure if it was meant for kids or adults. Perhaps both. It was my first introduction to several authors who I consequently read more of - Franz Kafka, Guy de Maupassant, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Ray Bradbury, Philip Pullman, Robert Westall and a couple others - and although I haven't seen the damn book for years and years (I can only assume it's packed away somewhere in my black hole of an attic), most of the stories have stayed with me for the last eighteen years.
SO...what I want to know is, does anyone know what this book is called? Because I can't remember, and even though I'm pretty good at searching things out over the internet, so far I've had no luck.
It was a big fat hardcover book with a black cover, and a picture of a skeleton with a hooded cape on it. I think it was just called "Ghost Stories".
I can't remember all the stories, but the ones I remember are:
~ A Knock at the Manor Gate by Franz Kafka
~ Video Nasty by Philip Pullman
~ Was it a Dream? by Guy de Maupassant
~ A Pair of Hands by Arthur Quiller-Couch
~ The Emissary by Ray Bradbury
~ The Boys' Toilets by Robert Westall?
There were also stories called:
Not at Home (maybe)
Thurnley Abbey (I think)
A Legion Marching By
by authors whose names I can't remember. And a story by Philippa Pearce, the title of which evades me.
No more info that I can think of, but bear in mind this is from when I was six!
So if anyone remembers this book, or even any of the stories in it, send me a message.
When I was a kid, my mom gave me this cool book. I was an avid reader as a kid, read everything I could get my hands on - actually it's only in the last couple of years that I've found I don't read so much. As a kid I liked almost everything, but my favourite subject was the supernatural: werewolves, vampires, spontaneous human combustion, witches (both of the pointy-hat and the Wiccan type), but especially ghosts. So my mother, who always encouraged the aquisition of knowledge (of whatever type) bought me a lot of books. Some of which were probably too grown-up for me, but I remained blissfully ignorant of this fact for many years.
This was a really neat book, though. It was a book of ghost stories, and I'm not entirely sure if it was meant for kids or adults. Perhaps both. It was my first introduction to several authors who I consequently read more of - Franz Kafka, Guy de Maupassant, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Ray Bradbury, Philip Pullman, Robert Westall and a couple others - and although I haven't seen the damn book for years and years (I can only assume it's packed away somewhere in my black hole of an attic), most of the stories have stayed with me for the last eighteen years.
SO...what I want to know is, does anyone know what this book is called? Because I can't remember, and even though I'm pretty good at searching things out over the internet, so far I've had no luck.
It was a big fat hardcover book with a black cover, and a picture of a skeleton with a hooded cape on it. I think it was just called "Ghost Stories".
I can't remember all the stories, but the ones I remember are:
~ A Knock at the Manor Gate by Franz Kafka
~ Video Nasty by Philip Pullman
~ Was it a Dream? by Guy de Maupassant
~ A Pair of Hands by Arthur Quiller-Couch
~ The Emissary by Ray Bradbury
~ The Boys' Toilets by Robert Westall?
There were also stories called:
Not at Home (maybe)
Thurnley Abbey (I think)
A Legion Marching By
by authors whose names I can't remember. And a story by Philippa Pearce, the title of which evades me.
No more info that I can think of, but bear in mind this is from when I was six!
So if anyone remembers this book, or even any of the stories in it, send me a message.
Saturday 6 September 2008
And That's Summer Gone For Another Year...
So I'm sure you're all dying to hear about my holiday, right?
Right?
Heh, so I had a pretty good time. Three full days and two half-days of sun (mostly) and sand and sea - and yes, suntan cream and the smell of coconut - as well as just that wonderful sense of relaxation, knowing that there's nothing urgent that needs doing. I didn't get to the gym (I wanted to try out the one in Bournemouth, because it has a pool and an aromatherapy room - I've never been in an aromatherapy room before) but we shopped a little on the one day that it rained, and went to the beach every day (even the rainy day - and yes, I swam in the rain, although not in the lightning and thunder).
And we ate a LOT of food. I can see I'm going to be working it off at the gym for a long time.
I actually made a detailed diary, in a pretty little notebook, that I'm going to give to Oli when he gets home. But I'll give you a short run-down:
Thursday we drove down there. I like the drive down because it's always the same. We leave early in the morning, early enough that I don't want to eat much and feel a bit cranky because I'm still half asleep. Drive through town, down to Chiswell Green, and take the M25 West to Heathrow. At Heathrow we change to the M3. At Fleet services we rest the car, since it's old and tends to get a bit hot on long journeys, especially ones where we're carrying a lot of weight. At Fleet I use the bathroom, buy a couple of those chewable toothbrushes that I never find anywhere except motorway rest stops, drink a cup of coffee to wake me up a bit, perv over all the army guys who you can find there on any given day, gasp in shock at the price they charge for meals (no matter how many times I make the trip, the prices still astonish me), buy a baguette - either tuna or chicken salad - and sometimes a burger from KFC. It irritates me that every time I get there I want McDonalds, because I love McDonalds breakfasts and the only time I'm ever up early enough to get one is when we're driving down to Brian's, but although there's a McDonalds sign when you pull into the service stop, there isn't actually one there, it's on the other side of the road. But that's just life. *shrugs*
Mom uses the bathroom and then stands outside smoking three cigarettes in quick succession, because I don't let her smoke in my car, even with the roof down. Occasionally she eats a pastry from the coffee shop - a cinnamon danish this time - or gets KFC with me.
From Fleet we carry on down the M3 and then when it ends, onto the M27. The M27 takes us through Winchester to Ringwood, which is always a nice leg of the journey, especially when you're travelling through the New Forest and get to see deer and ponies. I was happy this year to see that they've fenced it off so the wildlife can't wander onto the busy road. At Ringwood, we basically follow the signs for Poole. We always end up going the wrong way on this last bit of the journey, because Bri's directions are wrong and in four years we've never bothered to change them. Every year Mom says "this doesn't look right" and every year I remember, oh yes, we should have turned left there. It doesn't really matter though, it just means we go the back way and add a mile or two to the journey.
A couple of things change from year to year. Sometimes I buy something from the gift shop, although I still haven't bought one of those beanbag pillows that I've been wanting for four years. Often it's a Ben & Jerry's ice cream sandwich (that's another thing that I've been looking all over for, and rest stops are the only places I can ever find them.) The flavour of my sandwich varies between chicken salad and tuna mayo, and sometimes I get chips with it. I may or may not get KFC; if I get it I save the sandwich for later. But the bathrooms are always the same. The toothbrushes are the same. The army guys are the same - different guys, but always there as a definable presence. The ridiculous prices - £8.99 for a cooked breakfast - are the same. The car always overheats slightly, and Mom always smokes like a chimney, and I always wonder whether I should leave my laptop in the car, in which case I need to worry about whether thieves (something I don't usually worry about until I see the signs on every lamppost warning you against it) or bring it inside, in which case I have to keep an eye on it every minute.
Did I ever mention that I like things that always stay the same?
The other thing that's always the same is this feeling of excitement. Fleet is Mart's territory, and there's always a little thrill that I get as soon as I see the signs for the turnoffs to Farnborough / Farnham / Fleet, always a voice inside me saying, maybe you'll see him this time. Most of me knows I won't - Marti lives in Fleet, and there is no reason he'd be using the motorway rest stop. I'm never disappointed that I don't see him. But every year I still get that shiver of anticipation.
So anyway, the journey's always the same. The first night is usually the same, too. I unpack in the guest room, put my clothes in the closet, my cosmetics on the vanity, and go over to Brian's apartment to take a shower. After I shower, I nap for an hour or two. Then Mom wants beach, so Brian drives us to Branksome Chine, because it's the closest to where he lives. I swim every year, even at 8 or 9 at night, since it's my first opportunity to commune with the ocean ( LOL ). This year Mom swam too. Usually we go home and shower and get Chinese takeaway, but this year Brian bought a rotisserie chicken from Tesco, and we ate that instead. It was a fantastic chicken, actually. I've never bought one of those ready-cooked ones, but I'll have to remember it for the future. The flavour was incredible.
I always go to bed early the first night. Travelling exhausts me. Last year I retired early and texted Oli all night, but this year he's not available, so I read for a while and then fell asleep. I like somewhat-junky books for the beach, either sweet teenage romances or big fat love-and-lust books in the Jilly Cooper vein. This year I took a little of both: Jilly Cooper's Wicked, which funnily enough is what I read while I was down there last year (and actually didn't get round to reading this year) and Laramie Dunaway's Hungry Women and Wicked Women for the fat paperbacks, and L.J. Smith's Dark Visions trilogy for the teen romance. Somehow, even though I'm 24, I still enjoy reading some of the books I read when I was 12. With L.J. Smith and Christopher Pike and a couple others, I imagine I'll still enjoy reading them when I'm 84.
Well lookie that, I've been writing for ages and I've only managed to tell you about my first day. I'll have to update the rest of it later or tomorrow, because my back aches and I need something to eat.
And yes, dear one, it's good to be back.
Right?
Heh, so I had a pretty good time. Three full days and two half-days of sun (mostly) and sand and sea - and yes, suntan cream and the smell of coconut - as well as just that wonderful sense of relaxation, knowing that there's nothing urgent that needs doing. I didn't get to the gym (I wanted to try out the one in Bournemouth, because it has a pool and an aromatherapy room - I've never been in an aromatherapy room before) but we shopped a little on the one day that it rained, and went to the beach every day (even the rainy day - and yes, I swam in the rain, although not in the lightning and thunder).
And we ate a LOT of food. I can see I'm going to be working it off at the gym for a long time.
I actually made a detailed diary, in a pretty little notebook, that I'm going to give to Oli when he gets home. But I'll give you a short run-down:
Thursday we drove down there. I like the drive down because it's always the same. We leave early in the morning, early enough that I don't want to eat much and feel a bit cranky because I'm still half asleep. Drive through town, down to Chiswell Green, and take the M25 West to Heathrow. At Heathrow we change to the M3. At Fleet services we rest the car, since it's old and tends to get a bit hot on long journeys, especially ones where we're carrying a lot of weight. At Fleet I use the bathroom, buy a couple of those chewable toothbrushes that I never find anywhere except motorway rest stops, drink a cup of coffee to wake me up a bit, perv over all the army guys who you can find there on any given day, gasp in shock at the price they charge for meals (no matter how many times I make the trip, the prices still astonish me), buy a baguette - either tuna or chicken salad - and sometimes a burger from KFC. It irritates me that every time I get there I want McDonalds, because I love McDonalds breakfasts and the only time I'm ever up early enough to get one is when we're driving down to Brian's, but although there's a McDonalds sign when you pull into the service stop, there isn't actually one there, it's on the other side of the road. But that's just life. *shrugs*
Mom uses the bathroom and then stands outside smoking three cigarettes in quick succession, because I don't let her smoke in my car, even with the roof down. Occasionally she eats a pastry from the coffee shop - a cinnamon danish this time - or gets KFC with me.
From Fleet we carry on down the M3 and then when it ends, onto the M27. The M27 takes us through Winchester to Ringwood, which is always a nice leg of the journey, especially when you're travelling through the New Forest and get to see deer and ponies. I was happy this year to see that they've fenced it off so the wildlife can't wander onto the busy road. At Ringwood, we basically follow the signs for Poole. We always end up going the wrong way on this last bit of the journey, because Bri's directions are wrong and in four years we've never bothered to change them. Every year Mom says "this doesn't look right" and every year I remember, oh yes, we should have turned left there. It doesn't really matter though, it just means we go the back way and add a mile or two to the journey.
A couple of things change from year to year. Sometimes I buy something from the gift shop, although I still haven't bought one of those beanbag pillows that I've been wanting for four years. Often it's a Ben & Jerry's ice cream sandwich (that's another thing that I've been looking all over for, and rest stops are the only places I can ever find them.) The flavour of my sandwich varies between chicken salad and tuna mayo, and sometimes I get chips with it. I may or may not get KFC; if I get it I save the sandwich for later. But the bathrooms are always the same. The toothbrushes are the same. The army guys are the same - different guys, but always there as a definable presence. The ridiculous prices - £8.99 for a cooked breakfast - are the same. The car always overheats slightly, and Mom always smokes like a chimney, and I always wonder whether I should leave my laptop in the car, in which case I need to worry about whether thieves (something I don't usually worry about until I see the signs on every lamppost warning you against it) or bring it inside, in which case I have to keep an eye on it every minute.
Did I ever mention that I like things that always stay the same?
The other thing that's always the same is this feeling of excitement. Fleet is Mart's territory, and there's always a little thrill that I get as soon as I see the signs for the turnoffs to Farnborough / Farnham / Fleet, always a voice inside me saying, maybe you'll see him this time. Most of me knows I won't - Marti lives in Fleet, and there is no reason he'd be using the motorway rest stop. I'm never disappointed that I don't see him. But every year I still get that shiver of anticipation.
So anyway, the journey's always the same. The first night is usually the same, too. I unpack in the guest room, put my clothes in the closet, my cosmetics on the vanity, and go over to Brian's apartment to take a shower. After I shower, I nap for an hour or two. Then Mom wants beach, so Brian drives us to Branksome Chine, because it's the closest to where he lives. I swim every year, even at 8 or 9 at night, since it's my first opportunity to commune with the ocean ( LOL ). This year Mom swam too. Usually we go home and shower and get Chinese takeaway, but this year Brian bought a rotisserie chicken from Tesco, and we ate that instead. It was a fantastic chicken, actually. I've never bought one of those ready-cooked ones, but I'll have to remember it for the future. The flavour was incredible.
I always go to bed early the first night. Travelling exhausts me. Last year I retired early and texted Oli all night, but this year he's not available, so I read for a while and then fell asleep. I like somewhat-junky books for the beach, either sweet teenage romances or big fat love-and-lust books in the Jilly Cooper vein. This year I took a little of both: Jilly Cooper's Wicked, which funnily enough is what I read while I was down there last year (and actually didn't get round to reading this year) and Laramie Dunaway's Hungry Women and Wicked Women for the fat paperbacks, and L.J. Smith's Dark Visions trilogy for the teen romance. Somehow, even though I'm 24, I still enjoy reading some of the books I read when I was 12. With L.J. Smith and Christopher Pike and a couple others, I imagine I'll still enjoy reading them when I'm 84.
Well lookie that, I've been writing for ages and I've only managed to tell you about my first day. I'll have to update the rest of it later or tomorrow, because my back aches and I need something to eat.
And yes, dear one, it's good to be back.
Tuesday 26 August 2008
All That Catch-Up Stuff
Sorry I haven't been around for a while. Especially sorry to my watchers. I deleted a whole bunch of blogs from my watched list the other day, because they simply hadn't written anything in months, and I could definitely understand why people would do the same here when I don't post for a long time.
Nothing's really wrong in my life right now, it's just...ehh. Little irritations, like that stupid ear infection, and the tiredness I've been feeling for the last couple of weeks from lack of sleep, and rotten weather, and not really having a proper regime at the moment. My job at the youth center is...well, not exactly coming to an end, since I'll still be there, but most of the kids are now starting to prepare to go back to school, or looking for jobs, and the few who can afford it are going on holiday, and there isn't all that much for me to do. Come October-November time, they'll all trickle back, but August-September is always the slowest time of year there.
Speaking of holidays, I'm going down to Poole on Thursday, to spend five days at the beach. I'm praying that the weather's nice. Last summer we went down for four days, and it basically rained non-stop. I think we had half a sunny day, and most of the rest of it was spent driving around and freezing in a beach cafe in a sweater. And the summer before THAT wasn't all that great. If that happens again this year, I'm going to be very miserable. I want beach parties and sunbathing and lots of swimming, the way we had a couple years ago. I can smell September in the air, and I'm looking forward to Autumn - it's my favourite time of year - but I really really want my five days of suntans and sand and salt water and the smell of coconut.
I even bought two new dresses, in a show of faith. Strangely enough, they're like nothing I've ever worn before. Both of them are brightly coloured - one with a floral print that's mostly pink and red, but has splashes of yellow and green and purple too, and the other with silk-screened star-flower-thingies and lots of green and purple. Neither of them is harsh or painful to the eyes, though. Despire the brightness, there's something very soft and floaty about them, which I love. They're also both silk, although that was a coincidence - I didn't go looking for silk - and I got them at obscenely good prices in the end-of-summer sales.
I don't usually wear bright colours, at least not all together. In autumn I love clothes that are sort of bright-but-subdued - vibrant colours like cranberry and teal and royal purple and peacock blue, but no mixed colours or patterned clothes. It's very rare for me to wear patterned fabrics, especially bright ones. But these just caught my eye, and they're perfect for a summer evening.
(Of course, ideally they're dinner-in-a-nice-restaurant-in-Menorca or sipping-cocktails-on-a-terrace-in-the-Caribbean dresses, but if Bournemouth and Poole is what I'm getting, then Bournemouth and Poole it shall be.)
The weather didn't bother me last year as much as it could, because the night before we went away last summer was when I gave Oli my cell phone number for the first time, and most of the nights I found myself retiring to my room early (we stay with my mom's friend, who lives in a sort of assisted-living place; they all have their own separate flats and it's open-plan and single-story, so the flats are like little houses, but there's a guest room in the warden's building that anyone can book for a small fee - something like £10 a night - so I'm in a separate building about 100m away from mom and her friend) and texting Oli all night. It was the first time we really flirted, and I was so caught up in it that I sort of ignored the weather to a large extent.
(I also ignored my phone bill. I use pay-as-you-go, and typically get a £10 top-up maybe once every two or three months, since I hardly ever use the phone...but I topped up THREE TIMES in those four days, I was texting him so much.)
But anyway, Oli's not going to be around this time. He's going to Nigeria today with his parents - they might be gone already, actually - and he'll be gone for three weeks. He doesn't seem overly happy about going back, but he won't talk about it - all he says is that it's a miserable place. He seems kind of irritated that I don't get how bad it is, but how the hell can I get it if he won't talk to me? And sometimes I end up saying stupid things, things that I don't realise are stupid at the time - like asking him to send me a postcard - and he either finds it very funny that I'm so ignorant, or he gets even more moody and withdrawn.
(Apparently the postcard thing was funny because I was assuming that they'd have postcards, let alone a working mail service. I didn't find it that funny, personally. I repeat, how the hell am I supposed to know these things? And I thought they *did* have a working mail service. When I send letters and birthday cards to my friend G, he gets them, albeit a bit late. And when he sends letters to me, I get them too. So I don't know what the fuck Oli's on about. But then he has a tendency to exaggerate when he's miserable. I have it too, and so does my mom...I think maybe it's an Aquarian thing.)
But anyway. He's been weird with me recently, and I've been wondering if he's going off me or something, but it's too soon to tell. There are so many things he could be upset about - going to Nigeria, being back at home with his parents, not having any money, not having found a decent job yet, not knowing whether he's going into the army in the autumn (a BIG point of contention between us, and right now the less said the better, IMO ), a couple of health problems he's having (not major stuff, but irritating). Could be any or all of those things. Or actually, it could be none of them - could just be standard mood swings. He has them as much as I do.
I wish he'd talk to me, though.
But the break will probably do us good. I just hope and pray that he comes back safely. I don't know what to believe about Nigeria, honestly - G, who lives there, makes it sound like there are annoyances in day-to-day life (like electricity going out and stuff) but life isn't too bad. Oli makes it sound like you'll immediately get mugged just walking outside your front door. And as much as I've been reading about it, both on the net and in books - because I don't WANT to be another ignorant white person - it's all just either dry academic stuff, with little to no sense of what life is like there, or it's material blatantly promoting the country.
God forgive me, but sometimes I think I should just stick to dating guys who were born and raised in England or America, with no culture to speak of. Too many relationships I've been in have had this culture barrier, where I'm considered the outsider, the interloper, and as much as I try to fit in and learn about the culture and be whatever I'm needed to be, I never quite get it right, never fit in the way I need and want to.
I don't think this always happens. It can't possibly always be like this, or how would people ever date and marry outside their race and culture? I guess a large part of it depends on whether the person you're with is happy or not. I imagine that in a happy family, who love and embrace their own culture as well as people from outside it, I'd fit in fine. I could learn about the way of life, and in time I'd feel like I was part of it - a new part, but a part all the same. But so many of my boyfriends and friends, including Oli, have had this culture-related pain, this sense of misery, and that prevents them from ever sharing it with me. Which puts me in a difficult situation - they don't want to share, want to keep home life and life with me separate, but they become angry or sad when I don't understand things. In a way it feels like they hate - or at least resent - that part of themself, that they want to deny it exists, but at the same time it has such a huge influence on their lives that they can never quite forget their misery.
Which is possibly one of the saddest things I can think of.
Actually, now I think about it, I have had boyfriends who were happy to integrate me. Valentino taught me how to speak Italian. (Badly, but he still taught me.) Paul and Bruno both taught me French cooking. Bobby still teaches me Cajun cooking, and tells me about the rituals that his traiteur mother and grandmother do. Michael - who was white Australian on his father's side, Korean (I think) on his mother's - was always happy to tell me about food and religion and dancing and festivals and music and everything else.
I guess the sad ones are just the ones that stick with me the most.
Anyway...what else? Oh, the wedding. It was beautiful, what else can I say? I don't actually remember it in as fine detail as I wanted to, because the ear infection had me pretty doped up. (The valium worked, btw - I did sleep that night, and once I'd slept it didn't hurt so much. Still hurt, but not as much as when I was sleep-deprived, and then that allowed me to sleep again the next night. God bless prescription drugs, LOL. ) Debbie had the most beautiful dress I'd ever seen, and the really cool thing was that my brother designed the whole thing. If he ever decides he's tired of being a pharmacist, he could probably make a career out of dress designing. There were a couple really classic moments of the day that stick out in my mind. Christie walking down the aisle after her mother, looking all prim and proper in her green silk dress with her little bouquet of flowers, and making it as far as me (in the second row from the front) and then sticking her tongue out at me. I'm just praying that the photographer caught that one on camera. Jamie (Debbie's oldest son, and Christie's brother - he must be 20 now, or coming up) took much of the wedding responsibility on board - organising things, fetching people, etc - and that extended to getting people to dance. The funniest moment for me was when I was standing in the dancing room, just sort of shuffling my feet (dancing is NOT something I do wonderfully) and I obviously didn't look terribly cheerful, so to make me laugh he came up to me and started grinding his butt up against me. For a moment I was totally horrified - I was like, "Jay! You're my nephew!" - but everyone was smiling and laughing, and his girlfriend was practically wetting herself with laughter, so I danced. And I grinded. (Is that a word?)
I love Jay. He's such a character. His younger brother Craig is a lot more introverted, quiet where Jay is lively and chatty, but I love him too. And Christie...I adore her. Even though she drives me crazy half the time. I couldn't have inherited a better bunch of niece and nephews. With their ages what they are, they're more like brothers and sisters. Or at least stepbrothers and sisters.
And the newlyweds? I've never seen them so happy. I've never seen my brother happy like this, period. They can't keep their hands off each other (not in a porno way, perv) - they're constantly touching each other, just little pats on the arm or linked fingers when they're sitting down. And every opportunity they get to speak, they say "my wife and I"; "my husband" and all those things - you can see they're just so thrilled to be able to say that.
Yes, I am very very happy for them.
And I imagine once I start living instead of just existing, I'll be happy for me too. After my holiday I need to make a serious effort to get a better job, one with regular hours, and then I can start planning a schedule. And I also need to think about college, if I'm going to do any courses this year. I'd like to, I always like to, but the finance problems I had last year with the college were never completely sorted, and they may not let me in, which would mean I'd have to go to Hemel or Watford for West Herts College - everything closer is part of Oaklands.
Oh well. I'll think about that in a week or ten days. Until then, I'm off to the beach, and will hopefully return refreshed, happier, and with pretty golden skin.
Hope everyone's well, and enjoy the last couple of days of summer!
Nothing's really wrong in my life right now, it's just...ehh. Little irritations, like that stupid ear infection, and the tiredness I've been feeling for the last couple of weeks from lack of sleep, and rotten weather, and not really having a proper regime at the moment. My job at the youth center is...well, not exactly coming to an end, since I'll still be there, but most of the kids are now starting to prepare to go back to school, or looking for jobs, and the few who can afford it are going on holiday, and there isn't all that much for me to do. Come October-November time, they'll all trickle back, but August-September is always the slowest time of year there.
Speaking of holidays, I'm going down to Poole on Thursday, to spend five days at the beach. I'm praying that the weather's nice. Last summer we went down for four days, and it basically rained non-stop. I think we had half a sunny day, and most of the rest of it was spent driving around and freezing in a beach cafe in a sweater. And the summer before THAT wasn't all that great. If that happens again this year, I'm going to be very miserable. I want beach parties and sunbathing and lots of swimming, the way we had a couple years ago. I can smell September in the air, and I'm looking forward to Autumn - it's my favourite time of year - but I really really want my five days of suntans and sand and salt water and the smell of coconut.
I even bought two new dresses, in a show of faith. Strangely enough, they're like nothing I've ever worn before. Both of them are brightly coloured - one with a floral print that's mostly pink and red, but has splashes of yellow and green and purple too, and the other with silk-screened star-flower-thingies and lots of green and purple. Neither of them is harsh or painful to the eyes, though. Despire the brightness, there's something very soft and floaty about them, which I love. They're also both silk, although that was a coincidence - I didn't go looking for silk - and I got them at obscenely good prices in the end-of-summer sales.
I don't usually wear bright colours, at least not all together. In autumn I love clothes that are sort of bright-but-subdued - vibrant colours like cranberry and teal and royal purple and peacock blue, but no mixed colours or patterned clothes. It's very rare for me to wear patterned fabrics, especially bright ones. But these just caught my eye, and they're perfect for a summer evening.
(Of course, ideally they're dinner-in-a-nice-restaurant-in-Menorca or sipping-cocktails-on-a-terrace-in-the-Caribbean dresses, but if Bournemouth and Poole is what I'm getting, then Bournemouth and Poole it shall be.)
The weather didn't bother me last year as much as it could, because the night before we went away last summer was when I gave Oli my cell phone number for the first time, and most of the nights I found myself retiring to my room early (we stay with my mom's friend, who lives in a sort of assisted-living place; they all have their own separate flats and it's open-plan and single-story, so the flats are like little houses, but there's a guest room in the warden's building that anyone can book for a small fee - something like £10 a night - so I'm in a separate building about 100m away from mom and her friend) and texting Oli all night. It was the first time we really flirted, and I was so caught up in it that I sort of ignored the weather to a large extent.
(I also ignored my phone bill. I use pay-as-you-go, and typically get a £10 top-up maybe once every two or three months, since I hardly ever use the phone...but I topped up THREE TIMES in those four days, I was texting him so much.)
But anyway, Oli's not going to be around this time. He's going to Nigeria today with his parents - they might be gone already, actually - and he'll be gone for three weeks. He doesn't seem overly happy about going back, but he won't talk about it - all he says is that it's a miserable place. He seems kind of irritated that I don't get how bad it is, but how the hell can I get it if he won't talk to me? And sometimes I end up saying stupid things, things that I don't realise are stupid at the time - like asking him to send me a postcard - and he either finds it very funny that I'm so ignorant, or he gets even more moody and withdrawn.
(Apparently the postcard thing was funny because I was assuming that they'd have postcards, let alone a working mail service. I didn't find it that funny, personally. I repeat, how the hell am I supposed to know these things? And I thought they *did* have a working mail service. When I send letters and birthday cards to my friend G, he gets them, albeit a bit late. And when he sends letters to me, I get them too. So I don't know what the fuck Oli's on about. But then he has a tendency to exaggerate when he's miserable. I have it too, and so does my mom...I think maybe it's an Aquarian thing.)
But anyway. He's been weird with me recently, and I've been wondering if he's going off me or something, but it's too soon to tell. There are so many things he could be upset about - going to Nigeria, being back at home with his parents, not having any money, not having found a decent job yet, not knowing whether he's going into the army in the autumn (a BIG point of contention between us, and right now the less said the better, IMO ), a couple of health problems he's having (not major stuff, but irritating). Could be any or all of those things. Or actually, it could be none of them - could just be standard mood swings. He has them as much as I do.
I wish he'd talk to me, though.
But the break will probably do us good. I just hope and pray that he comes back safely. I don't know what to believe about Nigeria, honestly - G, who lives there, makes it sound like there are annoyances in day-to-day life (like electricity going out and stuff) but life isn't too bad. Oli makes it sound like you'll immediately get mugged just walking outside your front door. And as much as I've been reading about it, both on the net and in books - because I don't WANT to be another ignorant white person - it's all just either dry academic stuff, with little to no sense of what life is like there, or it's material blatantly promoting the country.
God forgive me, but sometimes I think I should just stick to dating guys who were born and raised in England or America, with no culture to speak of. Too many relationships I've been in have had this culture barrier, where I'm considered the outsider, the interloper, and as much as I try to fit in and learn about the culture and be whatever I'm needed to be, I never quite get it right, never fit in the way I need and want to.
I don't think this always happens. It can't possibly always be like this, or how would people ever date and marry outside their race and culture? I guess a large part of it depends on whether the person you're with is happy or not. I imagine that in a happy family, who love and embrace their own culture as well as people from outside it, I'd fit in fine. I could learn about the way of life, and in time I'd feel like I was part of it - a new part, but a part all the same. But so many of my boyfriends and friends, including Oli, have had this culture-related pain, this sense of misery, and that prevents them from ever sharing it with me. Which puts me in a difficult situation - they don't want to share, want to keep home life and life with me separate, but they become angry or sad when I don't understand things. In a way it feels like they hate - or at least resent - that part of themself, that they want to deny it exists, but at the same time it has such a huge influence on their lives that they can never quite forget their misery.
Which is possibly one of the saddest things I can think of.
Actually, now I think about it, I have had boyfriends who were happy to integrate me. Valentino taught me how to speak Italian. (Badly, but he still taught me.) Paul and Bruno both taught me French cooking. Bobby still teaches me Cajun cooking, and tells me about the rituals that his traiteur mother and grandmother do. Michael - who was white Australian on his father's side, Korean (I think) on his mother's - was always happy to tell me about food and religion and dancing and festivals and music and everything else.
I guess the sad ones are just the ones that stick with me the most.
Anyway...what else? Oh, the wedding. It was beautiful, what else can I say? I don't actually remember it in as fine detail as I wanted to, because the ear infection had me pretty doped up. (The valium worked, btw - I did sleep that night, and once I'd slept it didn't hurt so much. Still hurt, but not as much as when I was sleep-deprived, and then that allowed me to sleep again the next night. God bless prescription drugs, LOL. ) Debbie had the most beautiful dress I'd ever seen, and the really cool thing was that my brother designed the whole thing. If he ever decides he's tired of being a pharmacist, he could probably make a career out of dress designing. There were a couple really classic moments of the day that stick out in my mind. Christie walking down the aisle after her mother, looking all prim and proper in her green silk dress with her little bouquet of flowers, and making it as far as me (in the second row from the front) and then sticking her tongue out at me. I'm just praying that the photographer caught that one on camera. Jamie (Debbie's oldest son, and Christie's brother - he must be 20 now, or coming up) took much of the wedding responsibility on board - organising things, fetching people, etc - and that extended to getting people to dance. The funniest moment for me was when I was standing in the dancing room, just sort of shuffling my feet (dancing is NOT something I do wonderfully) and I obviously didn't look terribly cheerful, so to make me laugh he came up to me and started grinding his butt up against me. For a moment I was totally horrified - I was like, "Jay! You're my nephew!" - but everyone was smiling and laughing, and his girlfriend was practically wetting herself with laughter, so I danced. And I grinded. (Is that a word?)
I love Jay. He's such a character. His younger brother Craig is a lot more introverted, quiet where Jay is lively and chatty, but I love him too. And Christie...I adore her. Even though she drives me crazy half the time. I couldn't have inherited a better bunch of niece and nephews. With their ages what they are, they're more like brothers and sisters. Or at least stepbrothers and sisters.
And the newlyweds? I've never seen them so happy. I've never seen my brother happy like this, period. They can't keep their hands off each other (not in a porno way, perv) - they're constantly touching each other, just little pats on the arm or linked fingers when they're sitting down. And every opportunity they get to speak, they say "my wife and I"; "my husband" and all those things - you can see they're just so thrilled to be able to say that.
Yes, I am very very happy for them.
And I imagine once I start living instead of just existing, I'll be happy for me too. After my holiday I need to make a serious effort to get a better job, one with regular hours, and then I can start planning a schedule. And I also need to think about college, if I'm going to do any courses this year. I'd like to, I always like to, but the finance problems I had last year with the college were never completely sorted, and they may not let me in, which would mean I'd have to go to Hemel or Watford for West Herts College - everything closer is part of Oaklands.
Oh well. I'll think about that in a week or ten days. Until then, I'm off to the beach, and will hopefully return refreshed, happier, and with pretty golden skin.
Hope everyone's well, and enjoy the last couple of days of summer!
Friday 22 August 2008
The Month From Hell
Now, see, months like this are why I don't want children.
Kids are great. Kids are wonderful. I love seeing Jay, I love taking care of friends' babies, I'd even like to adopt some day. Babies or older kids, I don't know which. Maybe both.
But kids of my own...far too dangerous.
I was watching Private Practice with Mom the other night. (For anyone who doesn't know, that's Addison's spin-off from Grey's Anatomy - Addy moves to LA, joins up with a friend's clinic there. It's a great programme - classic Grey's flavour, but a lot more humour.)
Anyway, much of the storyline in this week's episode focused around a woman with Huntington's Disease in her family line, who wasn't sure whether she wanted to have a baby or not. After she got tested and found she had the gene, she left her husband, but then by the end they got back together and decided to try for a baby. You know how it goes, typical happy ending. (I do like those happy endings, you know.) And Mom and I had very differing opinions on this. I didn't state my opinion, since I knew that was one good way to piss her off, which was something I didn't really want to do right before bed. But anyway, her view was that their choice to try for a baby , despite a 50/50 chance of passing the gene on, and a certainty that the mother was going to die young, was a brave and noble thing to do. Whereas I was sitting there thinking, Woman, are you insane?
I simply cannot fathom why anybody would have a child when they know that there's a 50% chance that that child will have an illness that will cause them to die a horrible, scary, undignified death in their middle age. Some people view this as a show of faith, of hope, but to me it's the ultimate selfish act. If I found that I carried that gene, I'd book myself in for sterilisation right then and there. Some things simply should not be passed on.
The condition that runs in my family isn't as horrible and life-destroying as Huntington's. (Come to think of it, few illnesses are.) But it's definitely something that shapes your life. It's not something that you can escape. And unlike with a lot of genetic conditions, you can't really shrug it off and tell yourself that by the time your kids are grown-up, they'll probably have a cure. There isn't a cure for what we have.
And it's not something that merely increases your chances of getting the symptoms, the way the genes for certain cancers or things like asthma or glaucoma are. I am as certain as I can be without doing genetic testing that this is dominant. I base this on the fact that every woman on my mother's side of my family tree, as far back as I can trace, has had this in some shape or form. Most of the men, too. It doesn't seem to matter whether we marry someone with a similar genetic disposition or not: the children get it. And as far as I can tell, from looking at past relatives and talking to my Ancestors, it gets stronger with each successive generation.
The Ancestors don't agree with me on the no-children front. They tell me it's something my family line have coped with for millennia, and that my children and their children will continue to cope with it, increased strength and all. But dammit, I don't want them to have to. Nobody should have to. TV and books make it look so easy, even pleasant. It's not pleasant or easy. The reality is a life that's never your own. It's being dragged out of bed at all hours of the night for problems you can't do anything about. It's saying goodbye to any personal space. It's machinery that doesn't work, £899 laptops that constantly break down because of electrical interference, being unable to make a cellphone call within your own house because of the static and crossed lines you get. It's frequent headaches, nasty burns on the hand from where someone decided to turn the heat on the cooker up for a practical joke, sprained ankles from where you got tripped while going down the stairs. It's an estrangement from your father, and a boyfriend who left you after a pregnancy scare that occurred because some jackass decided to switch around the contraceptive pills in your medicine dispenser. It's finding soap on your toothbrush and sugar in your shampoo, and it's getting to the gym to find that your gym clothes are missing from your bag, and it's being late to work because all the clocks in your house miraculously got set back an hour. It's friends who accuse you of becoming cold and heartless, and wanting to scream at them and cry because that's not the way it is at all, it's just that you have to close yourself off from a lot of it if you want to survive. Most of all it's never having any peace, never ever being alone, because there's always someone who needs attention.
And that was just this month. Aside from the boyfriend and father bits.
...And I'm just realising that most of you guys will have no idea what I'm talking about here. But that's just the way life goes sometimes.
Krista passed this curse onto my mother. My mother passed it to me. And I am simply not willing to pass it further. I do not want to breed yet another generation of children who will be forced into this...slavery.
This stops here.
Kids are great. Kids are wonderful. I love seeing Jay, I love taking care of friends' babies, I'd even like to adopt some day. Babies or older kids, I don't know which. Maybe both.
But kids of my own...far too dangerous.
I was watching Private Practice with Mom the other night. (For anyone who doesn't know, that's Addison's spin-off from Grey's Anatomy - Addy moves to LA, joins up with a friend's clinic there. It's a great programme - classic Grey's flavour, but a lot more humour.)
Anyway, much of the storyline in this week's episode focused around a woman with Huntington's Disease in her family line, who wasn't sure whether she wanted to have a baby or not. After she got tested and found she had the gene, she left her husband, but then by the end they got back together and decided to try for a baby. You know how it goes, typical happy ending. (I do like those happy endings, you know.) And Mom and I had very differing opinions on this. I didn't state my opinion, since I knew that was one good way to piss her off, which was something I didn't really want to do right before bed. But anyway, her view was that their choice to try for a baby , despite a 50/50 chance of passing the gene on, and a certainty that the mother was going to die young, was a brave and noble thing to do. Whereas I was sitting there thinking, Woman, are you insane?
I simply cannot fathom why anybody would have a child when they know that there's a 50% chance that that child will have an illness that will cause them to die a horrible, scary, undignified death in their middle age. Some people view this as a show of faith, of hope, but to me it's the ultimate selfish act. If I found that I carried that gene, I'd book myself in for sterilisation right then and there. Some things simply should not be passed on.
The condition that runs in my family isn't as horrible and life-destroying as Huntington's. (Come to think of it, few illnesses are.) But it's definitely something that shapes your life. It's not something that you can escape. And unlike with a lot of genetic conditions, you can't really shrug it off and tell yourself that by the time your kids are grown-up, they'll probably have a cure. There isn't a cure for what we have.
And it's not something that merely increases your chances of getting the symptoms, the way the genes for certain cancers or things like asthma or glaucoma are. I am as certain as I can be without doing genetic testing that this is dominant. I base this on the fact that every woman on my mother's side of my family tree, as far back as I can trace, has had this in some shape or form. Most of the men, too. It doesn't seem to matter whether we marry someone with a similar genetic disposition or not: the children get it. And as far as I can tell, from looking at past relatives and talking to my Ancestors, it gets stronger with each successive generation.
The Ancestors don't agree with me on the no-children front. They tell me it's something my family line have coped with for millennia, and that my children and their children will continue to cope with it, increased strength and all. But dammit, I don't want them to have to. Nobody should have to. TV and books make it look so easy, even pleasant. It's not pleasant or easy. The reality is a life that's never your own. It's being dragged out of bed at all hours of the night for problems you can't do anything about. It's saying goodbye to any personal space. It's machinery that doesn't work, £899 laptops that constantly break down because of electrical interference, being unable to make a cellphone call within your own house because of the static and crossed lines you get. It's frequent headaches, nasty burns on the hand from where someone decided to turn the heat on the cooker up for a practical joke, sprained ankles from where you got tripped while going down the stairs. It's an estrangement from your father, and a boyfriend who left you after a pregnancy scare that occurred because some jackass decided to switch around the contraceptive pills in your medicine dispenser. It's finding soap on your toothbrush and sugar in your shampoo, and it's getting to the gym to find that your gym clothes are missing from your bag, and it's being late to work because all the clocks in your house miraculously got set back an hour. It's friends who accuse you of becoming cold and heartless, and wanting to scream at them and cry because that's not the way it is at all, it's just that you have to close yourself off from a lot of it if you want to survive. Most of all it's never having any peace, never ever being alone, because there's always someone who needs attention.
And that was just this month. Aside from the boyfriend and father bits.
...And I'm just realising that most of you guys will have no idea what I'm talking about here. But that's just the way life goes sometimes.
Krista passed this curse onto my mother. My mother passed it to me. And I am simply not willing to pass it further. I do not want to breed yet another generation of children who will be forced into this...slavery.
This stops here.
Sunday 17 August 2008
If It Ain't One Thing...
...it's another, no?
My brother's wedding was today. A lovely day, except that I have an ear infection. A really nasty ear infection. I get them like clockwork every August (I don't know if it's the heat or bugs or what...they come even when I don't swim) but this is the worst one I can remember having, and that includes the time I picked up pseudomonas in Greece. Doc started me on eardrops yesterday, but it seems to be getting worse. I'm hoping and praying I don't have to call out the emergency doctor tomorrow, since they're a nightmare to find on a Sunday.
I'd like to tell you about the wedding, but the pain (it's quite excruciating, really, and most pain I can usually deal with) has kept me up the last two nights, I've had 4 hours sleep in the last 64, and tonight - against my better judgement - I've actually doped myself up with the valium that Dr. Williams gave me a couple of years ago for PTSD, just to get some shut-eye. And if this doesn't work, I'm either going to go completely nuts, or call the out-of-hours service tomorrow and beg for painkillers and different antibiotics.
*sigh* Whatever problems I have, they always seem to come in clusters. In church today the vicar was saying something about how God never gives you more than you can handle, but sometimes I think he - or the universe, or who / whatever - is enjoying pushing me right to the limit.
My brother's wedding was today. A lovely day, except that I have an ear infection. A really nasty ear infection. I get them like clockwork every August (I don't know if it's the heat or bugs or what...they come even when I don't swim) but this is the worst one I can remember having, and that includes the time I picked up pseudomonas in Greece. Doc started me on eardrops yesterday, but it seems to be getting worse. I'm hoping and praying I don't have to call out the emergency doctor tomorrow, since they're a nightmare to find on a Sunday.
I'd like to tell you about the wedding, but the pain (it's quite excruciating, really, and most pain I can usually deal with) has kept me up the last two nights, I've had 4 hours sleep in the last 64, and tonight - against my better judgement - I've actually doped myself up with the valium that Dr. Williams gave me a couple of years ago for PTSD, just to get some shut-eye. And if this doesn't work, I'm either going to go completely nuts, or call the out-of-hours service tomorrow and beg for painkillers and different antibiotics.
*sigh* Whatever problems I have, they always seem to come in clusters. In church today the vicar was saying something about how God never gives you more than you can handle, but sometimes I think he - or the universe, or who / whatever - is enjoying pushing me right to the limit.
Friday 15 August 2008
Growing Up
I am somewhat happier today, although still thoughtful.
Oli came to visit on Tuesday, and most of it was great, although I found out that he's actually lying to his parents when he comes to visit me, so they don't give him grief. He swears that their disapproval wouldn't be anything to do with me being white, that they'd disapprove of him having a girlfriend (especially one who he sleeps with) whoever she was. I'm not sure if I'm convinced, but I suppose it's pretty moot anyway. I don't much like the lying, but since I don't have a better alternative, I guess we'll stick with it. The only ones I can think of are either to not see each other (or at least not sleep together) anymore, or to come clean with his folks and run the risk of having them forbid him from seeing me, in which case either he'd obey them and we'd split up, or he'd disobey and it would drive a rift between them. I wouldn't like to take bets on which it would be, either. Oli loves his parents, and is generally obedient, but he's also older than Richard was, and knows his own mind, and might well come down on my side.
But as I said, it's irrelevant, because neither of those two scenarios is something I'm willing to risk happening, so for now we stick with the "I'm in _____, Ma, just seeing friends" instead of telling the truth.
Some of the time this pisses me off, but mostly I'm OK with it.
The Richard-stuff screwed me up, admittedly. But it's also that fibromyalgia basically decimated my teenage years. So in some ways, I'm a teenager now. Still living with mom, still working teenage-type jobs, still perpetually broke (heh). And I sometimes get so caught up in my teen angst that I forget that I'm not a teenager anymore, I'm a fully grown woman, and I'm perfectly capable of making my own way in the world. Parents should not faze me one bit. And Oli's an adult now too, albeit one who's moved home for a while now that uni is over.
And I'd do well to remember that.
Oli came to visit on Tuesday, and most of it was great, although I found out that he's actually lying to his parents when he comes to visit me, so they don't give him grief. He swears that their disapproval wouldn't be anything to do with me being white, that they'd disapprove of him having a girlfriend (especially one who he sleeps with) whoever she was. I'm not sure if I'm convinced, but I suppose it's pretty moot anyway. I don't much like the lying, but since I don't have a better alternative, I guess we'll stick with it. The only ones I can think of are either to not see each other (or at least not sleep together) anymore, or to come clean with his folks and run the risk of having them forbid him from seeing me, in which case either he'd obey them and we'd split up, or he'd disobey and it would drive a rift between them. I wouldn't like to take bets on which it would be, either. Oli loves his parents, and is generally obedient, but he's also older than Richard was, and knows his own mind, and might well come down on my side.
But as I said, it's irrelevant, because neither of those two scenarios is something I'm willing to risk happening, so for now we stick with the "I'm in _____, Ma, just seeing friends" instead of telling the truth.
Some of the time this pisses me off, but mostly I'm OK with it.
The Richard-stuff screwed me up, admittedly. But it's also that fibromyalgia basically decimated my teenage years. So in some ways, I'm a teenager now. Still living with mom, still working teenage-type jobs, still perpetually broke (heh). And I sometimes get so caught up in my teen angst that I forget that I'm not a teenager anymore, I'm a fully grown woman, and I'm perfectly capable of making my own way in the world. Parents should not faze me one bit. And Oli's an adult now too, albeit one who's moved home for a while now that uni is over.
And I'd do well to remember that.
Tuesday 12 August 2008
My Demons
I'm not honestly sure how things are right now.
After Oli's visit the day before yesterday, I went to bed and slept for fourteen hours. I typically sleep for five or six hours a night, with maybe another two or three in the evening when I nap (if I'm lucky) so for me, that's huge. I woke up yesterday with a sleep-and-sex-hangover and basically muddled through the day with a goofy look on my face, smiling every time I felt the sore muscles in my thighs (and between them) or glanced in a mirror and got a glimpse of the bruises on the left side of my neck from where he sucked and bit me. I went to the garden center with Mom to find a rose for the soon-to-be newlyweds. I stopped in at the gym, only to find that my body wouldn't obey any of my commands, and even the stretches that I always start off with were difficult. I ended up stretching, doing about 15 minutes of cardio stuff (pathetic - my every-other-day workouts have now morphed into 20-30 minutes stretching, then 45 mins - 1 hr weights, then 30 mins cardio, maybe more) after which I gave up and went to sit in the sauna and steam room for a half hour before showering and heading home to bed. I took a bath, since I got caught in the rain between showering at the gym and getting home. I read some Mills & Boon. I slept for a couple of hours.
All in all, it was one of the laziest days I've had in a long time. But not lazy in an, "Oh, I'll curl up in bed and take a day off to read and be comfy all day" way. It was simply that my body and brain refused to work for me. The brain fog I'm used to some days, but I don't usually get the body and brain stuff together. Even walking was like I was trying to move through treacle.
(Thankfully, today was a lot better - but more about that in a while.)
Then I talked to Oli last night. And I honestly don't know what went wrong. He's the sweetest guy, and I know he would never in a million years say or do something to hurt me deliberately. But even with that knowledge, sometimes he says something that should be totally innocuous and I just take it the wrong way, and totally overreact, and it pulls me down into this state of misery. Last night it was about finding out that now he's back at his parents' place, he's not able to come and go as he pleases. Naive as I am, I figured he'd be able to come visit whenever he wanted, and stay over if he wanted, without having to answer to anyone. Turns out that he CAN stay over, but he has to give them advance notice. And since he's just got back, he doesn't really want to rock the boat at the moment by staying at a girl's house.
And I should understand that, I really should. The logical part of me does. I understand that not all families are alike - hell, I've lived it. (At my mom's, I bring guys home all the time, or stay at friends' houses whenever I want. At my Dad's, I'd never dream of doing such a thing.) And I understand that there's a culture difference, and things that seem normal to people born and raised in Britain aren't always acceptable to people born and raised in other countries - Nigeria, in Oli's case. (Actually, my mother is more permissive than even the average British or American parent.)
I should just shrug and accept this, because I know there's nothing to be gained by being upset about it. And really, it's not a huge crisis. It shouldn't be, anyway. There is no logical reason for me to feel the way I'm feeling.
Which is basically miserable. Self-pitying. Not good enough.
I know what I'm doing, of course. The practical part of my brain that I'm always able to set above the rest of me to keep an unbiased, objective eye on my behaviour, realises that what I'm doing is shoving all my Richard-issues onto my relationship with Oli.
Richard was my Ghanaian boyfriend when I was 17-18. He started off as my mother's lodger, and a couple of months after he moved in we became a couple. We had problems to start with - too young, too inexperienced, neither of us good at communication, he was a typical over-sensitive Virgo and I'm a typical cold and sometimes thoughtless Aquarian, plus when I met him I had a thing for my friend Curt from college - but after a year of screw-ups and arguments and apologies (as well as friendship, love and incredible sex) everything had gotten a lot better. Things had settled down, and we were happy - at least I thought we were. I was no longer thinking about Curt, he was no longer thinking about the girlfriend who cheated on him right before we got together. We loved each other, and we were getting better at the communication. I was learning to think before I spoke, and he was learning not to take everything personally. He had finished college and needed to stay in the UK, and we (or I, at least) thought that we wanted to build a life together. So we decided to get married.
And then his mother came to visit. And it all went to hell.
I never actually got to meet his mother - the day she came to meet us, I was in Bristol, celebrating my best friend's 21st. But when I came home, Richard was different. More quiet. More sad than usual. When we sat and watched TV, he'd hold me so tight I sometimes couldn't breathe, and when he kissed me there was a sort of desperation in it. He spent every night for a couple of weeks in my bed, under the pretext that it was cooler in my room (it was an incredibly hot July and August, 35-40 degrees in the daytime and not much cooler at night) even though previously he'd only shared my bed at night on occasion, since he was paying for his own room. And when we made love, he'd hold onto me afterwards, refusing to let me go, burying his face in my neck and wrapping his arms tight around me, instead of rolling over onto his side and letting me spoon him the way we usually did.
He never told me what was wrong. I thought it was just his normal depression, which was something he'd struggled with since his father died a couple years previously. He'd been mostly better for a couple of months, since we'd worked things out, but I figured it was coming back, the way depression does. He'd lost his job recently, so I thought that could have been the trigger. And then one day, he just left. Told me he had to move in with his uncle in London in order to find a job, but he'd be back to see me in a couple of days, and that we'd work things out. And he never came back.
That's when I started getting the phone calls. Hang-up calls, but not the type where the person hangs up immediately. Nor were they pervy breathing calls. The caller just called, and then never said anything. If Mom answered, they hung up pretty much straight away. If I answered, they sat there, listening but not saying a word. I'd hear them breathe (not in a panting, perverted way), and eventually I figured out who I thought it was, and started talking to him. I'd sit there, talking about my day or my life in general or basically anything I could think of, to a person who never introduced themselves or said one word. Sometimes he'd call twice a day, every day, for a couple of weeks, and other times it wouldn't happen for a month. Sometimes I'd talk for only a minute or two before he hung up, and other times it would be a half hour and I'd just keep on rambling about the dream I had, the donut I ate for breakfast, the three-legged dog I saw when I was walking to the mailbox, the yellow Ferrari that was parked at my neighbor's house. Random, everyday things. It never seemed to matter what I said, really, as long as I kept talking.
Mostly the calls would come between lunchtime and dinnertime, although sometimes they'd be later in the evening. And very occasionally, I'd get them late at night, and when I picked up I'd hear someone crying on the other end, never saying a word, just breathing hard and making that noise a man makes when he's sobbing and trying not to show it. Those were the calls that really broke my heart.
I thought about changing my number, but in the end I couldn't go through with it.
Richard left me in August 2003. Five full years he's been gone now, and I still get the calls now and then, although they don't come often anymore. Mostly I don't get them for five or six months, and then I'll get a cluster of them, every day for maybe two weeks, and then nothing again for months and months.
I never had any proof it was him, but I know, in the way you sometimes just know things, deep inside.
Most of the time I don't think about him much. I can't, because I have to move on with my life, and if there were any way he could come and get me, he'd have done it already. I know that it isn't going to happen. But when I get the calls, I get this mixture of sadness and rage. 80% of me wants to curl up in bed and cry, both for me and for him, but 20% of me wants to hunt down his mother and smack her for what she did to us. For what she's done to him, really. Because I eventually found out, that was what went wrong that weekend I was away. As a host family for her son, she liked us a whole lot, and she thought it was wonderful that we were taking such good care of him. But as a girlfriend and prospective wife, I was Not Suitable. She didn't even have to meet me to make that choice. I was too young. Too western and liberated. Too English.
Too white.
And good Ghanaian Christian boy that he is, he would never disobey his mother over something like that. So he spent that last month with me, wrung every bit of time and love out of it that he could, and then left. No explanation, because he knew there was nothing he could have told me that wouldn't have hurt me. I guess he figured it would hurt less if he didn't tell me the truth.
Most of the time I've moved on from this. It's Richard I hurt for, because he's the one who has to live with it all the time. Me, I have a pretty happy life most of the time. I've had plenty of dates, a handful of boyfriends, and now I have Oli - who's like the sun to me.
But clearly I bear my own scars from it, ones that I didn't really know about and are just coming out now. Now I have another love, a best friend rather than a boyfriend and fiancee, but a love all the time. And he's from a similar culture - Ghana and Nigeria are pretty close on the map, and Ghanaians and Nigerians, though they don't always get along, are very similar in a lot of ways - and here I am, projecting all my Richard-issues onto Oli, letting a stupid thing like him needing to keep his parents informed of his plans, get me down. Because I'm terrified that the same thing's going to happen again. That Mom and Dad are going to rail against the idea of their son being with a white English girl.
I have no real reason, aside from my paranoia, to think this would happen. Richard's Mom lived in Ghana, and rarely came to visit. Not to mention the fact that she was upper-class and close-minded the way the upper classes (of any country) often are. Oli's parents, on the other hand, have lived in England for years. And even if they hadn't, I would still have no real reason to think they would react the same way. One person is not the same as another. One person does not think the same as another. Assuming that they will, purely because they come from similar parts of the world, is totally illogical, not to mention more than a little offensive to them.
But the terror is still there, and with it the overreaction and the tendency towards bitchiness, the way I always am when I feel under attack. I have to keep reminding myself to be nice, to not throw little barbs at him, because the last thing I want to do is make him hurt or worry. Because I can't tell him about this. If I did, he'd feel bad. Likely he'd feel guilty, when he hasn't even done anything wrong. None of this is his fault, it's all me.
So I'm managing to be nice, most of the time, and pretend like nothing's wrong. But he knows me. He knows my speech patterns, the way I know his. We're just that close, just that attuned to each other. He knows something is up with me. So far I've managed to pass it off as PMS and preoccupation with my computer viruses.
I know in a few days I'll feel better. He's only been back for a few days, for pete's sake. Things will improve, and we'll settle into a routine, and my insecurities will put their fangs away and just settle into the background and eventually disappear. Actually, despite this depressing entry, I feel a lot better tonight than I did last night. I had a great workout at the gym - so much better than yesterday, it's not even possible to compare the two. I'm finally settling into the crosstrainer, managing to spend 5 minutes jogging on it without having to take a break, and I've pushed my time on the treadmill and bike up to 10 minutes each, with no breaks. And it actually feels good. Or at least it did today.
It's just hard not to have him here. I've only seen him once since he got back to London, and already I crave him all the time. But I doubt that I'll get to see him this week. Today he went to the British Museum with his sister. Tomorrow and Friday are the only days my mom gets off work, and we have to do last-minute wedding preparations. Wednesday Oli's going back up to Liverpool to collect the rest of his stuff from his room there and bring it home, and Thursday he'll probably be tired from the long trip, even assuming that he doesn't stay up there until Thursday. And Saturday is the wedding, and Sunday will be recovery day. Maybe he can come on Sunday, and we can nap together. He promised he'd teach me how to play chess next time he visits.
But man...I wish he were here now. My bed feels so cold and empty without him.
After Oli's visit the day before yesterday, I went to bed and slept for fourteen hours. I typically sleep for five or six hours a night, with maybe another two or three in the evening when I nap (if I'm lucky) so for me, that's huge. I woke up yesterday with a sleep-and-sex-hangover and basically muddled through the day with a goofy look on my face, smiling every time I felt the sore muscles in my thighs (and between them) or glanced in a mirror and got a glimpse of the bruises on the left side of my neck from where he sucked and bit me. I went to the garden center with Mom to find a rose for the soon-to-be newlyweds. I stopped in at the gym, only to find that my body wouldn't obey any of my commands, and even the stretches that I always start off with were difficult. I ended up stretching, doing about 15 minutes of cardio stuff (pathetic - my every-other-day workouts have now morphed into 20-30 minutes stretching, then 45 mins - 1 hr weights, then 30 mins cardio, maybe more) after which I gave up and went to sit in the sauna and steam room for a half hour before showering and heading home to bed. I took a bath, since I got caught in the rain between showering at the gym and getting home. I read some Mills & Boon. I slept for a couple of hours.
All in all, it was one of the laziest days I've had in a long time. But not lazy in an, "Oh, I'll curl up in bed and take a day off to read and be comfy all day" way. It was simply that my body and brain refused to work for me. The brain fog I'm used to some days, but I don't usually get the body and brain stuff together. Even walking was like I was trying to move through treacle.
(Thankfully, today was a lot better - but more about that in a while.)
Then I talked to Oli last night. And I honestly don't know what went wrong. He's the sweetest guy, and I know he would never in a million years say or do something to hurt me deliberately. But even with that knowledge, sometimes he says something that should be totally innocuous and I just take it the wrong way, and totally overreact, and it pulls me down into this state of misery. Last night it was about finding out that now he's back at his parents' place, he's not able to come and go as he pleases. Naive as I am, I figured he'd be able to come visit whenever he wanted, and stay over if he wanted, without having to answer to anyone. Turns out that he CAN stay over, but he has to give them advance notice. And since he's just got back, he doesn't really want to rock the boat at the moment by staying at a girl's house.
And I should understand that, I really should. The logical part of me does. I understand that not all families are alike - hell, I've lived it. (At my mom's, I bring guys home all the time, or stay at friends' houses whenever I want. At my Dad's, I'd never dream of doing such a thing.) And I understand that there's a culture difference, and things that seem normal to people born and raised in Britain aren't always acceptable to people born and raised in other countries - Nigeria, in Oli's case. (Actually, my mother is more permissive than even the average British or American parent.)
I should just shrug and accept this, because I know there's nothing to be gained by being upset about it. And really, it's not a huge crisis. It shouldn't be, anyway. There is no logical reason for me to feel the way I'm feeling.
Which is basically miserable. Self-pitying. Not good enough.
I know what I'm doing, of course. The practical part of my brain that I'm always able to set above the rest of me to keep an unbiased, objective eye on my behaviour, realises that what I'm doing is shoving all my Richard-issues onto my relationship with Oli.
Richard was my Ghanaian boyfriend when I was 17-18. He started off as my mother's lodger, and a couple of months after he moved in we became a couple. We had problems to start with - too young, too inexperienced, neither of us good at communication, he was a typical over-sensitive Virgo and I'm a typical cold and sometimes thoughtless Aquarian, plus when I met him I had a thing for my friend Curt from college - but after a year of screw-ups and arguments and apologies (as well as friendship, love and incredible sex) everything had gotten a lot better. Things had settled down, and we were happy - at least I thought we were. I was no longer thinking about Curt, he was no longer thinking about the girlfriend who cheated on him right before we got together. We loved each other, and we were getting better at the communication. I was learning to think before I spoke, and he was learning not to take everything personally. He had finished college and needed to stay in the UK, and we (or I, at least) thought that we wanted to build a life together. So we decided to get married.
And then his mother came to visit. And it all went to hell.
I never actually got to meet his mother - the day she came to meet us, I was in Bristol, celebrating my best friend's 21st. But when I came home, Richard was different. More quiet. More sad than usual. When we sat and watched TV, he'd hold me so tight I sometimes couldn't breathe, and when he kissed me there was a sort of desperation in it. He spent every night for a couple of weeks in my bed, under the pretext that it was cooler in my room (it was an incredibly hot July and August, 35-40 degrees in the daytime and not much cooler at night) even though previously he'd only shared my bed at night on occasion, since he was paying for his own room. And when we made love, he'd hold onto me afterwards, refusing to let me go, burying his face in my neck and wrapping his arms tight around me, instead of rolling over onto his side and letting me spoon him the way we usually did.
He never told me what was wrong. I thought it was just his normal depression, which was something he'd struggled with since his father died a couple years previously. He'd been mostly better for a couple of months, since we'd worked things out, but I figured it was coming back, the way depression does. He'd lost his job recently, so I thought that could have been the trigger. And then one day, he just left. Told me he had to move in with his uncle in London in order to find a job, but he'd be back to see me in a couple of days, and that we'd work things out. And he never came back.
That's when I started getting the phone calls. Hang-up calls, but not the type where the person hangs up immediately. Nor were they pervy breathing calls. The caller just called, and then never said anything. If Mom answered, they hung up pretty much straight away. If I answered, they sat there, listening but not saying a word. I'd hear them breathe (not in a panting, perverted way), and eventually I figured out who I thought it was, and started talking to him. I'd sit there, talking about my day or my life in general or basically anything I could think of, to a person who never introduced themselves or said one word. Sometimes he'd call twice a day, every day, for a couple of weeks, and other times it wouldn't happen for a month. Sometimes I'd talk for only a minute or two before he hung up, and other times it would be a half hour and I'd just keep on rambling about the dream I had, the donut I ate for breakfast, the three-legged dog I saw when I was walking to the mailbox, the yellow Ferrari that was parked at my neighbor's house. Random, everyday things. It never seemed to matter what I said, really, as long as I kept talking.
Mostly the calls would come between lunchtime and dinnertime, although sometimes they'd be later in the evening. And very occasionally, I'd get them late at night, and when I picked up I'd hear someone crying on the other end, never saying a word, just breathing hard and making that noise a man makes when he's sobbing and trying not to show it. Those were the calls that really broke my heart.
I thought about changing my number, but in the end I couldn't go through with it.
Richard left me in August 2003. Five full years he's been gone now, and I still get the calls now and then, although they don't come often anymore. Mostly I don't get them for five or six months, and then I'll get a cluster of them, every day for maybe two weeks, and then nothing again for months and months.
I never had any proof it was him, but I know, in the way you sometimes just know things, deep inside.
Most of the time I don't think about him much. I can't, because I have to move on with my life, and if there were any way he could come and get me, he'd have done it already. I know that it isn't going to happen. But when I get the calls, I get this mixture of sadness and rage. 80% of me wants to curl up in bed and cry, both for me and for him, but 20% of me wants to hunt down his mother and smack her for what she did to us. For what she's done to him, really. Because I eventually found out, that was what went wrong that weekend I was away. As a host family for her son, she liked us a whole lot, and she thought it was wonderful that we were taking such good care of him. But as a girlfriend and prospective wife, I was Not Suitable. She didn't even have to meet me to make that choice. I was too young. Too western and liberated. Too English.
Too white.
And good Ghanaian Christian boy that he is, he would never disobey his mother over something like that. So he spent that last month with me, wrung every bit of time and love out of it that he could, and then left. No explanation, because he knew there was nothing he could have told me that wouldn't have hurt me. I guess he figured it would hurt less if he didn't tell me the truth.
Most of the time I've moved on from this. It's Richard I hurt for, because he's the one who has to live with it all the time. Me, I have a pretty happy life most of the time. I've had plenty of dates, a handful of boyfriends, and now I have Oli - who's like the sun to me.
But clearly I bear my own scars from it, ones that I didn't really know about and are just coming out now. Now I have another love, a best friend rather than a boyfriend and fiancee, but a love all the time. And he's from a similar culture - Ghana and Nigeria are pretty close on the map, and Ghanaians and Nigerians, though they don't always get along, are very similar in a lot of ways - and here I am, projecting all my Richard-issues onto Oli, letting a stupid thing like him needing to keep his parents informed of his plans, get me down. Because I'm terrified that the same thing's going to happen again. That Mom and Dad are going to rail against the idea of their son being with a white English girl.
I have no real reason, aside from my paranoia, to think this would happen. Richard's Mom lived in Ghana, and rarely came to visit. Not to mention the fact that she was upper-class and close-minded the way the upper classes (of any country) often are. Oli's parents, on the other hand, have lived in England for years. And even if they hadn't, I would still have no real reason to think they would react the same way. One person is not the same as another. One person does not think the same as another. Assuming that they will, purely because they come from similar parts of the world, is totally illogical, not to mention more than a little offensive to them.
But the terror is still there, and with it the overreaction and the tendency towards bitchiness, the way I always am when I feel under attack. I have to keep reminding myself to be nice, to not throw little barbs at him, because the last thing I want to do is make him hurt or worry. Because I can't tell him about this. If I did, he'd feel bad. Likely he'd feel guilty, when he hasn't even done anything wrong. None of this is his fault, it's all me.
So I'm managing to be nice, most of the time, and pretend like nothing's wrong. But he knows me. He knows my speech patterns, the way I know his. We're just that close, just that attuned to each other. He knows something is up with me. So far I've managed to pass it off as PMS and preoccupation with my computer viruses.
I know in a few days I'll feel better. He's only been back for a few days, for pete's sake. Things will improve, and we'll settle into a routine, and my insecurities will put their fangs away and just settle into the background and eventually disappear. Actually, despite this depressing entry, I feel a lot better tonight than I did last night. I had a great workout at the gym - so much better than yesterday, it's not even possible to compare the two. I'm finally settling into the crosstrainer, managing to spend 5 minutes jogging on it without having to take a break, and I've pushed my time on the treadmill and bike up to 10 minutes each, with no breaks. And it actually feels good. Or at least it did today.
It's just hard not to have him here. I've only seen him once since he got back to London, and already I crave him all the time. But I doubt that I'll get to see him this week. Today he went to the British Museum with his sister. Tomorrow and Friday are the only days my mom gets off work, and we have to do last-minute wedding preparations. Wednesday Oli's going back up to Liverpool to collect the rest of his stuff from his room there and bring it home, and Thursday he'll probably be tired from the long trip, even assuming that he doesn't stay up there until Thursday. And Saturday is the wedding, and Sunday will be recovery day. Maybe he can come on Sunday, and we can nap together. He promised he'd teach me how to play chess next time he visits.
But man...I wish he were here now. My bed feels so cold and empty without him.
Sunday 10 August 2008
Oli
WARNING: This post contains sexual references.
If you're wondering what that glazed over expression on my face is, I got well and truly fucked today.
And possibly made love to, too. Hard to say. Most likely it was a bit of both.
(This is a pretty big event for me, since it's the first time in months that didn't involve my hand and something battery-operated.)
I don't really know what to say, honestly. My brain isn't functioning properly tonight. I'm very tired. After battling rogue antivirus software all night, I then got four hours of sleep, then got up at 12 noon and cleaned my room in preparation for Oli's visit. (Although I've known him for a year and a half now, he's never seen my house, since he's been away at uni.) After cleaning I headed to John Lewis, got rained on, decided on a mirror and some napkin rings for the wedding present, got rained on again, came home and bathed, and then Oli came over. And...well, this is where you came in.
Some people say that great sex plus friendship equals love, and others say that love is so much more. I'm not sure which camp I fall into. I suppose it's a moot point really, since whichever it is, I know I love Oli. I don't know if I'm *in love* with him, but I know I love him. I know that I light up when I see him, and he does the same. I know that I trust him in a way I don't trust anyone else in the world. I know that I can lie there with my boobs hanging out and my stomach all flabby and not feel particularly self-conscious, and that he'll tell me I'm beautiful and I'll believe him. More than believe him, actually - I'll feel beautiful.
I also know that I'd rather sit and watch boring TV with Oli than have incredible orgasmic sex with anyone else. Of course, incredible orgasmic sex with Oli would be my first choice.
So why are we not together, you ask? I don't know, really. The reasons are becoming less and less clear to me as time goes by. Maybe we will be one day, or maybe we're just better off as best friends who sleep together.
Whatever. I'm very happy right now. Oh sure, part of it is that goofy-happy you get from sex hangover, but a lot of it is also just from seeing him, hearing his voice say my name, holding his face between my hands and running my thumbs over his cheeks and lips and kissing his nose.
I'm also very sleepy. I was hungry and sleepy, but I ate an obscenely large Indian takeaway (I can see I'll have to work out for several hours tomorrow at the gym, but it was worth it) and now I'm just sleepy. Well, happy too.
So I'm going to go bed. *tired smile* Alone tonight, but I can still feel his presence here.
If you're wondering what that glazed over expression on my face is, I got well and truly fucked today.
And possibly made love to, too. Hard to say. Most likely it was a bit of both.
(This is a pretty big event for me, since it's the first time in months that didn't involve my hand and something battery-operated.)
I don't really know what to say, honestly. My brain isn't functioning properly tonight. I'm very tired. After battling rogue antivirus software all night, I then got four hours of sleep, then got up at 12 noon and cleaned my room in preparation for Oli's visit. (Although I've known him for a year and a half now, he's never seen my house, since he's been away at uni.) After cleaning I headed to John Lewis, got rained on, decided on a mirror and some napkin rings for the wedding present, got rained on again, came home and bathed, and then Oli came over. And...well, this is where you came in.
Some people say that great sex plus friendship equals love, and others say that love is so much more. I'm not sure which camp I fall into. I suppose it's a moot point really, since whichever it is, I know I love Oli. I don't know if I'm *in love* with him, but I know I love him. I know that I light up when I see him, and he does the same. I know that I trust him in a way I don't trust anyone else in the world. I know that I can lie there with my boobs hanging out and my stomach all flabby and not feel particularly self-conscious, and that he'll tell me I'm beautiful and I'll believe him. More than believe him, actually - I'll feel beautiful.
I also know that I'd rather sit and watch boring TV with Oli than have incredible orgasmic sex with anyone else. Of course, incredible orgasmic sex with Oli would be my first choice.
So why are we not together, you ask? I don't know, really. The reasons are becoming less and less clear to me as time goes by. Maybe we will be one day, or maybe we're just better off as best friends who sleep together.
Whatever. I'm very happy right now. Oh sure, part of it is that goofy-happy you get from sex hangover, but a lot of it is also just from seeing him, hearing his voice say my name, holding his face between my hands and running my thumbs over his cheeks and lips and kissing his nose.
I'm also very sleepy. I was hungry and sleepy, but I ate an obscenely large Indian takeaway (I can see I'll have to work out for several hours tomorrow at the gym, but it was worth it) and now I'm just sleepy. Well, happy too.
So I'm going to go bed. *tired smile* Alone tonight, but I can still feel his presence here.
Saturday 9 August 2008
Meh
OK, just a quick note -
I have a really nasty computer virus that I can't seem to get rid of, so I have to call in the techie guys (again) this weekend if they're working, and on Monday if they're not. Usually I can get rid of these things myself, and I've managed to kill off about half of this one, but parts of it are hiding very well (and it has to be really good to hide from me, LOL - like John Taylor, I find things. It's what I do.) I don't know if it can be passed onto anyone through msn conversations, so I'm staying offline for now, so apologies for my lack of appearance.
Thank god I didn't cancel the computer insurance, eh?
Hope everyone's well, and with any luck I'll be back on track in a few days.
*hugs* xx
______________________________
Oh, and before I forget, I managed to answer some of those additional questions on your profile that most people never seem to get round to filling in. Go read if you like - New Questions!
______________________________
UPDATED at 7.38 am:
Touch wood, I think I might have just about killed it. And it only took me all night. *yawns*
Oli's coming over later (he's back in London now - did I mention that? Yay!) and before that I have to go to John Lewis to look for a wedding present, so I'm now going to grab the two or three hours sleep that I can, and just keep hoping and praying that the computer stays fixed.
I have a really nasty computer virus that I can't seem to get rid of, so I have to call in the techie guys (again) this weekend if they're working, and on Monday if they're not. Usually I can get rid of these things myself, and I've managed to kill off about half of this one, but parts of it are hiding very well (and it has to be really good to hide from me, LOL - like John Taylor, I find things. It's what I do.) I don't know if it can be passed onto anyone through msn conversations, so I'm staying offline for now, so apologies for my lack of appearance.
Thank god I didn't cancel the computer insurance, eh?
Hope everyone's well, and with any luck I'll be back on track in a few days.
*hugs* xx
Oh, and before I forget, I managed to answer some of those additional questions on your profile that most people never seem to get round to filling in. Go read if you like - New Questions!
UPDATED at 7.38 am:
Touch wood, I think I might have just about killed it. And it only took me all night. *yawns*
Oli's coming over later (he's back in London now - did I mention that? Yay!) and before that I have to go to John Lewis to look for a wedding present, so I'm now going to grab the two or three hours sleep that I can, and just keep hoping and praying that the computer stays fixed.
Wednesday 6 August 2008
Why I Am Not Asleep
I don't seem to be sleeping well recently. This isn't an entirely new thing, I've had sleep problems for years, but it's especially irritating now because for the last couple months I've actually been really good about sleeping decent hours. I had even been turning my light off at night, which is something I hadn't done in years. (Don't ask. Really.) And now it feels like I'm back to square one - exhausted all day, then wired all night. And forcing myself out of bed in the mornings doesn't even seem to help: I either pass into unconsciousness in the afternoon as soon as I sit down, or I stay awake all day, fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow that night, and then return to my screwed-up schedule the next day.
If I were still working from home all the time it would be fine, but I have more going-out jobs to do right now, both with the youth group and the modelling I'm picking up with Kell for extra money (not that it's making much difference to my bank account - I've basically accepted that I'm going to have to live off my overdraft until after the wedding is over, at which point I can slowly start building up my savings again), and I have the gym and various other daytime stuff that needs doing, and I really really need to get back onto a decent schedule again asap.
*sigh*
I've been fighting with a sleep disorder since a couple years after the fibromyalgia was diagnosed. Apparently quite a few FM sufferers have this particular disorder, although a lot of doctors deny it exists. Among those who do believe in it, it's generally known as the Alpha-EEG anomaly. To understand it, you need to understand a little of how the brain works. The brain produces different types of waves at different times, see? Beta waves usually occur when a person's busy or concentrating hard on something. Gamma waves can't be picked up by an standard scalp EEG, only by taking readings right off the surface of the brain, but they occur when the brain is readying itself for particular cognitive or motor actions. Theta waves are a sign of drowsiness (or occasionally sexual arousal), Delta waves are the type seen when a person's asleep. And Alpha waves are seen when a person's physically relaxed but alert, for example during meditation. Most extremely vivid dreams take place during Alpha-wave times*.
A person can sleep during Alpha-wave activity, but it's not relaxing sleep. Alpha waves are fast waves, they're very active waves. Delta waves are the slow waves, and it's during Delta-wave periods - i.e. most of the sleep time, in normal adults - that we get the sleep that refreshes us and recharges our batteries. In the case of the Alpha-EEG anomaly, the brain can't produce Delta waves for long, because every time it tries, it automatically starts to produce Alpha waves and wakes itself up. Your body doesn't always come fully awake, but your brain pulls itself out of that deep sleep stage that's needed in order for your body to heal itself and recharge itself with energy.
So I don't sleep well. It's been many years since I had any sleep whatsoever where I wasn't at least 80% aware of my surroundings. I've learned to turn off a reaction to stimuli that isn't in my direct surroundings i.e. in my bedroom, so the doorbell ringing or Mom doing the hoovering doesn't disturb me. But anything in my room, I'm completely aware of, even when I'm sleeping. Something as little as a spider moving over the wall above my head is enough to jolt me out of sleep. And the sleep I do get, isn't refreshing sleep. Some days I wake more tired than when I went to bed. I dream constantly, too. Not a night goes by when I don't dream, and they're unusually vivid, and often precog.
I go through periods where it's somewhat better, and then periods when it's a lot worse. At least I'm not being haunted at night at the moment, touch wood.
Usually things get quite a lot better in the summer, because I can take in the sun in the daytime and then nap in the evenings, which somehow makes for better sleep. But the last two summers have been so crummy, I haven't been able to do that. Damn global warming. And if one more person tells me global warming is something that's been made up to scare people, I'm going to thump them. Seriously. Global warming is no more made up than AIDS is. Sure, it's cyclical, but a cycle shouldn't ever be *this* short.
Anyway, there's my whine for the day. Oli's off playing Xbox somewhere (he's coming home next weekend! Yay!) and my at work friends are...well, at work, and not chatting. So since it's nearly 3.30 and all, I'm going to head out. I have my gym review tomorrow, so I have to get up for that. Ola, who'd dealt with me previously, has now left, so I get someone called Steve. The gym's going OK - I don't think I look any better yet (although it's hard to tell - PMS has me horribly bloated atm) but I certainly feel better when I'm doing my cardio; the crosstrainer isn't so horrible anymore, and I'm very happy on the treadmill. And I've used the sauna a lot - I used it three times today, between showers. Once I get past the initial panic, it's very relaxing.
My ankles are knackered, though. The right one in particular is horribly sore. I don't know if I should rest it or just push through the pain the way I do when I overstretch my muscles.
Anyway, I'll catch you guys later. Hope y'all are well.
______________________________
*Interestingly Alpha waves are also reputed to be present during psychic activity, but that's a whole other ball game that we're not getting into here.
If I were still working from home all the time it would be fine, but I have more going-out jobs to do right now, both with the youth group and the modelling I'm picking up with Kell for extra money (not that it's making much difference to my bank account - I've basically accepted that I'm going to have to live off my overdraft until after the wedding is over, at which point I can slowly start building up my savings again), and I have the gym and various other daytime stuff that needs doing, and I really really need to get back onto a decent schedule again asap.
*sigh*
I've been fighting with a sleep disorder since a couple years after the fibromyalgia was diagnosed. Apparently quite a few FM sufferers have this particular disorder, although a lot of doctors deny it exists. Among those who do believe in it, it's generally known as the Alpha-EEG anomaly. To understand it, you need to understand a little of how the brain works. The brain produces different types of waves at different times, see? Beta waves usually occur when a person's busy or concentrating hard on something. Gamma waves can't be picked up by an standard scalp EEG, only by taking readings right off the surface of the brain, but they occur when the brain is readying itself for particular cognitive or motor actions. Theta waves are a sign of drowsiness (or occasionally sexual arousal), Delta waves are the type seen when a person's asleep. And Alpha waves are seen when a person's physically relaxed but alert, for example during meditation. Most extremely vivid dreams take place during Alpha-wave times*.
A person can sleep during Alpha-wave activity, but it's not relaxing sleep. Alpha waves are fast waves, they're very active waves. Delta waves are the slow waves, and it's during Delta-wave periods - i.e. most of the sleep time, in normal adults - that we get the sleep that refreshes us and recharges our batteries. In the case of the Alpha-EEG anomaly, the brain can't produce Delta waves for long, because every time it tries, it automatically starts to produce Alpha waves and wakes itself up. Your body doesn't always come fully awake, but your brain pulls itself out of that deep sleep stage that's needed in order for your body to heal itself and recharge itself with energy.
So I don't sleep well. It's been many years since I had any sleep whatsoever where I wasn't at least 80% aware of my surroundings. I've learned to turn off a reaction to stimuli that isn't in my direct surroundings i.e. in my bedroom, so the doorbell ringing or Mom doing the hoovering doesn't disturb me. But anything in my room, I'm completely aware of, even when I'm sleeping. Something as little as a spider moving over the wall above my head is enough to jolt me out of sleep. And the sleep I do get, isn't refreshing sleep. Some days I wake more tired than when I went to bed. I dream constantly, too. Not a night goes by when I don't dream, and they're unusually vivid, and often precog.
I go through periods where it's somewhat better, and then periods when it's a lot worse. At least I'm not being haunted at night at the moment, touch wood.
Usually things get quite a lot better in the summer, because I can take in the sun in the daytime and then nap in the evenings, which somehow makes for better sleep. But the last two summers have been so crummy, I haven't been able to do that. Damn global warming. And if one more person tells me global warming is something that's been made up to scare people, I'm going to thump them. Seriously. Global warming is no more made up than AIDS is. Sure, it's cyclical, but a cycle shouldn't ever be *this* short.
Anyway, there's my whine for the day. Oli's off playing Xbox somewhere (he's coming home next weekend! Yay!) and my at work friends are...well, at work, and not chatting. So since it's nearly 3.30 and all, I'm going to head out. I have my gym review tomorrow, so I have to get up for that. Ola, who'd dealt with me previously, has now left, so I get someone called Steve. The gym's going OK - I don't think I look any better yet (although it's hard to tell - PMS has me horribly bloated atm) but I certainly feel better when I'm doing my cardio; the crosstrainer isn't so horrible anymore, and I'm very happy on the treadmill. And I've used the sauna a lot - I used it three times today, between showers. Once I get past the initial panic, it's very relaxing.
My ankles are knackered, though. The right one in particular is horribly sore. I don't know if I should rest it or just push through the pain the way I do when I overstretch my muscles.
Anyway, I'll catch you guys later. Hope y'all are well.
*Interestingly Alpha waves are also reputed to be present during psychic activity, but that's a whole other ball game that we're not getting into here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
