Thursday 19 November 2009

TV, Plus

I am extremely tired today, so most of what you're getting this week is a review for a TV show that I had to write for a newsletter at work.

Last night (Thurs) saw the premiere of the new E4 TV show, Misfits. This dark comedy-drama is set in London, and follows the exploits of a group of young people who survive a freak lightning strike, only to find they've developed unusual (read: paranormal) talents. OK, so far, so Marvel. However, since this is a British urban show, our super-group isn't composed of the usual squeaky-clean youngsters (plus one villain) that you usually see in shows like this; rather, the lead characters are all tough-talking juvenile delinquents who were serving community service when the lightning hit.

In addition to the five teenagers (actually six, but one of them kicked the bucket during the first twenty minutes), their probation officer is similarly afflicted. Unfortunately, instead of developing a super-power, the lightning strike either imbues him with, or unleashes in him, a psychotic rage as well as super-strength. After the five leave for the night, the sixth member of the community-service squad is still sitting in the toilets, smoking (having completely missed the lightning strike) when ominous footsteps are heard outside the cubicle door, alongside a grotesque grunting, and as he puts his ear to the door an axe comes through it. Oops. Later in the programme, his body is discovered by the group, although from that moment on it's fairly obvious to viewers that he's been disposed of.

Meanwhile, some of the teens are discovering their powers. The ponytailed girl - I haven't yet learned their names - finds that she's able to hear what people are thinking, which causes her to break up with her boyfriend. The next day, while they're all changing into their work clothes at the community centre, the quiet boy finds that he's somehow turned invisible. There's very little time for them to discuss these strange goings-on, though, because after running off on her own, telepath-girl is attacked by the PO.

She manages to run away from him, and heads back inside the centre to frantically try to convince the others of what's happened, both with the telepathy and the psychotic probation officer. The others are derisive, even after the invisible-kid (who is currently visible) speaks of his own experiences. One of the others - a sprinter who had Olympic hopes, until he was caught with cocaine - heads towards the door, and as telepath-girl tries to head him off, the PO - who, by this point, has become little more than a humanoid beast, complete with crazy eyes and rabid mouth foam - breaks through the door and hits telepath-girl with a metal bar he pulled off the gate outside, killing her instantly. Suddenly, time stops for all but the sprinter, and seconds later we find that time has been turned back to a point before the door was opened. Obviously shaken, the sprinter corroborates the story, and tells the others about how time has been turned back. Some moments later, the probation officer manages to break into the centre, and telepath-girl is forced to kill him to defend them all. The body of the sixth member of the squad is also discovered in one of the lockers.

Naturally, as per the usual teenage paranoia, the five agree that nobody will believe them if they tell the truth, so they decide to sneak the bodies out of the centre and bury them down by the river. (This is achieved by cleaning the bodies up as well as possible, then putting them in wheelchairs and pretending to anyone who sees that part of their community service involves taking special-needs people for walks, in case anyone's wondering how they managed it.) The plan to hide the bodies appears to work, and the rest of the workers at the community centre (none of whom were there for the first and second days; I'm assuming that it was a weekend and the centre was closed for everything but the community-service group) are left wondering where the two missing people have got to. After some brief initial questions about whether they noticed anything out of the ordinary, the episode ends with the five teens standing on the roof, grimly telling each other that they think they may have gotten away with it.

There's nothing particularly ground-breaking about this show - it's The Breakfast Club meets Fantastic Four meets Skins meets I Know What You Did Last Summer - but somehow it manages to feel both fresh and exciting. The gritty setting, the interesting camerawork and the use of virtually unknown actors gives a feeling of reality to it, despite the paranormal subject matter. Unlike with many of the American superhero shows, there is a definite feeling that this could be YOUR life that you're watching. However, the complexity of the characters is what elevates the show from being watchable to being quite enthralling. The creators of the show have managed to fit a huge amount of personal moments into an hour, and yet there's the sense that all you've seen about them is just the tip of the iceberg. It's especially interesting to note that all of the teens seem to have developed abilities that centre around something that's a particular issue in their lives. Telepath girl obviously has low self-esteem, and now she can hear everything bad that people are thinking about her. Invisible-boy is the introverted loner of the group, and all of a sudden nobody can see him at all, and he's more alone than he's ever been before. The sprinter has fitted his entire life around being the fastest, beating the clock, only to find that time no longer obeys the usual rules. The fourth member of the group, a pretty curly-haired girl, has made her looks and attractiveness to men the main focus of her life, and now all of it is meaningless, because her power means men touch her and instantly want to rip her clothes off, whether she bothers with makeup and sexy clothes or not. It's only the power of the fifth member (an Irish boy) that has yet to be disclosed. However, the personality traits that I've most noticed in him are a need to be flippant and make a joke out of everything, and a need to be in control and to manipulate every situation, so perhaps he'll find that he has visions of things that he can't control and can't make a joke of.

All in all, it was a fascinating hour, and I'm definitely looking forward to next week's episode.

Reviewed by Sati Marie Frost



The past week was actually pretty OK. No nightmares, although last night I did dream that my mother married Gok Wan, in a sort of marriage-of-convenience thing. Let me tell you, however much you're going WTF? right now, it can't possibly compare to the things I was saying when I woke up this morning. Some of the things that I dream about are just so completely random that I have NO idea of where they come from.

Class was fun last night, although Magdalena mentioned something about an upcoming karaoke lesson...I really hope she's joking. While it would be very fun to watch everyone else sing, hell will freeze over before they get me performing in front of people.

I did some Christmas shopping today, and I'm somewhere between terrified and happy. I spent a fearful amount of money - more than a quarter of what's left of my monthly paycheck (after rent / bills / gym etc) and I only got paid yesterday - but I also got a lot of presents: something for Lauren, something for Chris, something for my Mom, something for Tony, something for Jamie, something for Craig, something for Lucy, something for Stacy, and a couple of other things besides. Plus I wrote down a whole heap of ideas from things that I saw, as well as seeing two things that *I* actually wanted. (iPod speakers and Tommy Girl perfume that was half-price in Boots.) Making up a Christmas list for myself is always a nightmare: most of the things that I want are out-of-print books and hard-to-find CDs, and everybody - even the people with internet at home - seems to be too lazy to search for them. So I usually buy the books with any Christmas money I get, and get a lot of cosmetics, since they're easy gifts. Not that I'm complaining; I like cosmetics, and I buy them for a lot of other people too.

I still have a ton of things left to buy, though. Christmas always bankrupts me. And I know lots of you will be saying that I shouldn't buy so much, it's the thought that matters, but...eh. I just don't feel right unless I go a bit overboard. It's the only time of year I get to be a little bit wild and uncontrolled.

I keep seeing things in the shops that I would love to get for Apollo. I saw a shirt today, beautifully cut, in an incredibly soft fabric that somehow managed to hold its shape even while it draped the body, and that peacock-blue colour that looks so incredible with his golden hair and skin. I actually would have bought it for myself, to wear to sleep for good dreams, had it not been for the price tag. And I see dozens of books that I know he would love. Actually, most of them were books that I would love, too - we have many of the same tastes when it comes to reading. I need to stop thinking about him, though - as much as I dream about him, and as much as his mentality affects the way I think and act, he is not an actual tangible part of my life. It's fine to keep him as a fantasy - thinking about him keeps me calm when I'm angry, and cheers me up when I'm gloomy, and helps me exercise even when I'm tired, and I always think that a daydream is better than a drug anyday - but I need to stop thinking of him as though he's a friend. Because he isn't. Not really.

I think I may FINALLY be starting to take off some of the weight that I gained this year. For the last couple of days I've been looking in the mirror and been somewhat pleased with my appearance. It's useless to get on the scales - as I get into shape, my weight goes UP to start with, because I gain muscle as I lose fat - but I think that my clothes are looking a little better. Sometimes it's hard to assess my weight and my looks objectively, because when I'm not happy I look terrible, regardless of my weight, and when I'm contented I have a glow about me that attracts people to me, whether I'm particularly heavy at the time or not. I seemed to glow today; at least two dozen people turned around to watch me and smile at me when I walked past, and I don't think ALL of that was due to pre-Christmas cheer. It's nice to have those days, although sometimes I find myself getting a little nervous, when people take it further than looking and smiling. My iPod and headphones are a blessing at times like these, because I can smile at the same time as making it very clear, I'm not available for flirting.

That said, I've been feeling a little more flirty recently, and have actually been on a couple of dates. Nothing serious, just casual things with a few kisses at the end of the evening, but it's been fun. Somehow, this last year, I forgot how to have fun. At least social fun. I still enjoy reading and playing computer games and sewing and watching a couple of programmes on TV, but I haven't done much socially this year - I think Lori and Chris and Oli are the only people I've gone out with at all, and I've only gone out with Oli for an hour or so a couple of times after visiting my Dad in hospital, back in the early summer. Oh, hang on, I picked berries with Sasha one day in July. Still, four or five evenings out all year is not much. The tendency towards reclusiveness is so strong in me that I have to constantly battle against it, and it's such a tiring battle that a lot of the time I stop fighting it and just let myself get sequestered with my books and my work and my once-a-week classes and my home-family. (That's how I think of Mom and Lori and Chris and Ry - my home-family.) I force myself to leave the house on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to work and go to class, but the rest of the time I do very little outside the house other than grocery shopping and chores for (or with) Mom. But I'm trying to push myself - I really am - and I'm (slowly) starting to remember that I'm not an old person, I'm a young, moderately good-looking woman who needs friends and dates and activity.

It's not easy, but what ever is?

Thanksgiving next week, and I'm (sort of) looking forward to it. Looking forward to seeing Tony's family, anyway. Not so sure about the cooking side of things, but if I get plenty of rest beforehand, it should be OK. One thing that I AM looking forward to is making cornbread - Mom and Debbie and Craig all loved it when I made it for Fourth of July, and I think Chrissie and Tony liked it well enough too. It's always nice to get praise for something. :)

I think I've probably gone on enough here. I'll let you guys get back to what you were doing. Me, I'm going to download a couple of Janet Jackson songs from iTunes ("Again" and "Every Time") and see if I can afford to buy the books that Mom wants for Christmas, and then I'm going home - my back and feet are sore, and my bank balance even more so, and I'm looking forward to a hot bath and dinner and an early night. I changed my sheets last night, so bed should feel wonderful tonight.

Hope y'all are enjoying the season, and have done at least some of your Christmas shopping by now!

Hugs. xx

Thursday 12 November 2009

News - Week Starting 9th Nov

Another odd week. I don't seem able to block out other people much at the moment, so at any given day I can be barraged with emotions. Some days I cope, other days not so well. I made the mistake of saying to Mom the other day that I was thinking about getting my own place sometime soon, which was stupid, because I'd somehow forgotten that she has to have the operation on her back. I suppose it's easy to forget stuff like this; the NHS moves so slowly that she hasn't even had her first consultation with the surgeon yet, let alone set a date for the op. But she was not happy about my thinking about leaving, to say the least, even though I fully intended to come back and look after her when she needed me. So I guess I'm stuck here for awhile.

I shouldn't complain. I have a roof over my head and I can just about pay my bills. I have a nice enough room, although at the moment everything is piled up to the ceiling, because of the decorating. I just don't play well with others, I guess. I love Mom, and Lori and Chris and Ryan, but there are times when I crave solitude, when I just want a little place that's modern, with a fitted kitchen and hot water on demand, that doesn't gather dirt the way Mom's house does, that's quiet and all my own. Those times are getting more frequent.

There is this constant guilt that pervades every inch of my life, and it gets stronger with each successive year. Some of it is rational guilt, and some is totally irrational. I feel guilty for being a burden to Mom. Guilty for not being able to help more around the house. Guilty for being ill in general. Guilty for doing my own paid work first and then not having the energy left to do the stuff Mom needs me to do. There always seems to be so much work - I don't know anyone who has the kind of junk to do around the house that I have - and sometimes I find that I'm totally infuriated about it all. I'm mad at the world, at the house, at Mom - because sometimes I feel like she makes more work than is necessary - and then I feel guilty about THAT.

I don't know where it all comes from, to be honest. I clean a thing and then half a day later it's dirty again. I try to put things in order, to find a place for them, and then when I come back everything's been put elsewhere. There are far too many possessions to fit in the house, even with just Mom and me there, and things that are normally stored in Lauren and Ryan's closets are now piling up in my room, because I can't get to their closets. And the open-plan things that Mom designed for the house years ago, that everyone notices and approves of when they visit? The open shelves of videos and DVDs, the kitchen full of glasses and crockery that sits nicely on shelves instead of hidden away in cupboards, the collections of pretty glass jars and containers that we keep pasta and rice and sugar and coffee in, that everyone admires, that make them say, "Oh, it's so pretty! So airy and bright!"? They get FILTHY. Keeping even one room in my house clean is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge: you finish, then you turn around and start from the beginning again. Because Lori and Chris now have one of the fridges, and two of the four food cupboards, Mom's moved some of the utensils out of the lower cupboards to make room for foods, and she stores them ON TOP of the high cupboards, and then they get covered with grease from the cooker and the boiler. (Whoever decided to put a gas boiler in a kitchen, without building a cover around it, should be shot.) And it takes me an hour or more to get one vase or one bowl clean enough to use.

What I need to do is empty out the cupboards, take everything that we never use, and give it to the Salvation Army. At least one of those cupboards is full of all sorts of crap that hasn't been used in years.

I HATE CLEANING. I REALLY, REALLY HATE IT. But even more than cleaning, I hate things being dirty.

Mom keeps things looking mostly clean, but it's the places that you don't always look that gather it all. Lampshades, and the gaps between the cupboards and the big appliances, and between the louvre doors. She actually cleaned the whole of the living room a few weeks ago, top to bottom, because she was so freaked out about my allergies, and I sat there begging her to stop cleaning, practically crying with frustration because there was nothing I could do to help, and nothing I could do to stop her, and I just had to sit and watch her get more and more sore, half-wondering if her spinal cord was going to snap and paralyse her all of a sudden. She doesn't give up on things. And she keeps telling people this, and I just sit there, more and more guilt piling up on me, because I'm a quitter and my mother isn't. I DO give up. If something hurts a lot, I stop. If I can't keep my place clean, I scrimp on food and hire a cleaner to help me. If I can't manage my class load, I drop a class and retake it next year. I'm more likely to let something slide than endure extreme - or even moderate - discomfort.

Rationally I know that probably I'm the sensible one. I'm in a lot of pain even when I don't overdo things. Nobody is going to be helped if I push myself to do something that I'm not capable of, and throw my back out, and end up in bed unable to do ANYTHING for a month or more. Yet I feel like I'm constantly surrounded with people or the memory of people who don't give up on anything, whatever it takes - Mom, Tony, Oli, Ellie, Richard, probably the SBD, Lauren, all of my Dad's family - and the knowledge that they're all so much stronger, so much more capable, so much braver, so much less selfish than me, is crippling at times.

And yes, I get the irony in that.

I used to have so much pride in myself. It was never an overabundance of pride - at least I didn't think so at the time - but I was able, and I knew it, and I was proud of myself for it. I was proud of myself for surviving a rape without getting bitter and hating men. I was proud of myself for not getting depressed, even when my life basically sucked. I was proud of myself for being a good person, for being kind and caring about other people, for always doing what I thought was the right thing, even when it wasn't the easy thing. But right now it feels like all that pride has been drained out of me by the rush of guilt that frequently sweeps in and drowns me.

Irrationally, I get mad, and then feel guilty about getting mad. Because of all that I've been given out of life, I feel like I don't have the right to get angry about things. I think I picked this up from Richard, who was horrified on the few occasions that Mom and I had a fight, and I disrespected her. In Ghana, you don't disrespect your parents, EVER, no matter what they say to you. Here - at least in my family - when you have a fight, you give as good as you get, and when it's over you both apologize and that's the end of it. But these days, I feel bad when Mom and I argue. It doesn't matter what the argument was about, doesn't matter who was in the wrong - I'm the one who feels like the bad guy. And more and more, I'm holding my tongue around my mother, even when I feel like it would be the morally right thing to say something, because I feel like she's given me so much that I don't have any right to be upset with her when she acts like a bitch.

The same goes for much in my life, really. The universe has given me so much - a life that's lasted 25 years, a home, a family who love me, good friends, the ability to love people, a mostly-decent brain, a body that basically works, enough to eat, plus a whole host of little luxuries - that I don't have the right to sometimes be sad about the constant pain, or the brain damage, or the money worries, or Obie, or anything else. Sometimes this is a good thing, because a lot of the time it keeps my spirits up to think of all the good things that I have. But at other times it's a burden, because if I feel even a touch of anger or sadness, I feel like I'm being ungrateful.

*shrugs* I don't know if a lot of people feel this way, or if I'm the only one.

On another (but related) subject, it can be difficult - especially at the moment - to tell what's my feeling, and what's someone else's. I saw Alistair the other day at the fireworks display, and while he looks good - mature and confident and all grown-up - I can still feel a wave of sadness emanating from him. He's one of the strongest projectors I've ever met, and I'm uncommonly senstive at the moment anyway, so that wasn't an easy evening. I couldn't even say hello, and I don't know if he noticed me, since I kept my face turned away, and he hasn't seen me in years anyway. But we saw him a couple of times during the evening - the girl he was with was a friend of Chris' - and every time they got near, I could feel him fifty feet away.

In class there was another sad one, too. I don't know what was the matter, because he usually seems pretty content. I meant to talk to him afterwards, ask if he was OK, but he slipped away before I could grab him. He was a strong projector, too, and for the whole two hours I kept thinking he was going to start crying right then and there. Distracting, to say the least, and more than a little worrying. Not that it's really my business to be worrying about people I don't really know, but...eh. I like people. I like this guy. I don't want him to be sad, and if he IS sad, I want to know if I can help.

Most of the time I've learned to block out the majority of the emanations around me; I have to, or I'd have gone crazy long before now. (*More* crazy, LOL.) But in the last couple of months - although it's gotten markably worse in the last few weeks - my shields seem to have slipped, or broken, and I'm not quite sure how to put them back up again. Perhaps I can ask the ancestors. The only good thing I can say is that, touch wood, I don't seem to be having so many nightmares, although I did have a Papa-Jackie-Obie nightmare last night, which followed much the same pattern as I told you about in the last note.

The rest of life is...well, it's life. Nothing much to say about it, really. I had some good moments in the last week. As I mentioned, I went to the fireworks display at the park last Saturday, with Lori and Chris and Ryan, although Ryan went off to join his friends after a while. The fireworks were incredible, and lasted at least forty minutes. It's been a long time since I saw fireworks, and I forgot how beautiful they are, and how much I love them. Afterwards, we wandered through the fair for a little while, and eventually managed to get on the Waltzers. I love that ride - it's probably my favourite, although I also like anything that goes high in the air, like a Ferris Wheel, or one of those Paratrooper things - and that was great. I used to be so in love with movement, but I've been mostly sedentary in the last year or two, and it was good to have a reminder of that glorious feeling. The whole evening was wonderful, actually. And not just because it was the first night out I'd had THIS YEAR that didn't involve seeing my Dad in hospital.

What else am I enjoying about life? Well, I haven't been getting to the gym as much as I should be. Mondays I hate, because the place is full of guilt-exercisers, who always come on Mondays because they overindulged at the weekend, and then you don't see them again until next Monday. On a Monday you're lucky if you only have to wait ten or fifteen minutes for the weights you want. Tuesdays I have class, and Wednesdays I work. Thursdays and Fridays are fine, and then it's the weekend, and everything's packed, unless I wait until the evening, and they close earlier at the weekends anyway. There just aren't enough days in the week for me. Friday evenings are my favourites, because there are hardly any people there - I guess other people have better things to do with their Friday nights than go to the gym - but for the last two weeks, I've just had too much to do at home, and in town, and the buses aren't running properly, and a lot of the time I just don't have the energy. I have the energy for the gym, but not for a forty or fifty-minute wait in the cold and wet for a bus that doesn't come.

I need to be driving. I don't know what to do with the MX-5, because the insurance people are still being idiots, and until I can replace the alternator it's not safe to drive in the dark (which is most of the time, at this time of year). Even if I get it fixed, and get my license, I don't know if they'll insure me to drive it without paying through the nose for it. I'm seriously thinking of taking out another loan so I can trade in Mom's old Fiesta and get something little that the two of us can drive - well, that I can drive now, and she can drive when she gets her back fixed. A Seat, or a Honda, something like that. Nothing flashy, just something that'll get me from point A to point B. Either that, or I'm going to have to move to a city where there's decent public transport. The rain is making me once again think longingly of those Northern cities with the Skywalks or the underground tunnels.

Fringe is back on TV. I'm enjoying that. :)

Thanksgiving is coming up soon, and after so many years of wanting to cook for it and not being allowed, because Tony and Debbie wanted to do the entertaining, this year we're probably having it at our house, and I'm not convinced that I have the energy to cook and get the house looking nice. Bleh. Plus, with Mom sleeping downstairs now, there isn't a huge amount of room. Perhaps it'd be a better idea to see if we can go to their house again.

I miss having Thanksgiving with Curt. Not just for the obvious, either, but for the sense of warmth and companionship that I had when he was here. Perhaps I'll invite him this year.

I've been doing some Christmas shopping - not easy when you're permanently broke - and I've managed to accrue quite a few things. I think I'm maybe a quarter done, which I suppose is not too bad. This week, though, I need to sort all my accounts out, find out how much I owe the bank and when it's coming out, and then sort out a budget to pay off my overdraft. And THEN I can start buying all the things that I need, both for Christmas presents and for the house.

Until next Tuesday, I have about £6 in the bank, and about £3.20 in my purse, so things are very tight. Mom owes me £20, but she won't be home until tonight, and I need to do some grocery shopping on the way home. Not quite sure how THAT'S gonna work. *sigh* I need to stop buying food. I keep forgetting to eat it, and then it goes off. I need the SBD to pull me out of my food problems. I keep telling people I'm not anorexic, I'm just so tired I forget to eat, but I suppose either way it results in poor digestion and low blood sugar, regardless of the reasons. Maybe I'll just buy some jam, or garlic sausage. We have bread and peanut butter, and I can make sandwiches. Not the most healthy things in the world, but they'll keep me alive.

*shrug*

This is why I can't have kids yet, you know. I'm still a kid myself, despite my advanced age. Sometimes I'm surprised that they keep me on at work, I'm such a bad influence, but I guess I manage to project an image of success and maturity while I'm on duty. I yearn for a life where I eat well, and make my own juices, and go to work, and go to the gym every day, and cook my own meals, and visit with friends, and answer my emails on time, and sew my clothes when they tear, and still have time to read informative, educational books - not just Mills & Boon - and generally live the domestic goddess life, but...eh. Some days it's all I can do to get the minimum food and exercise.

I do, however, always remember to brush my teeth and take off my makeup, so that's something to be proud of, ja? :D

Hell, at least I can usually find the humor in it all. I guess that's a lot more than most people have.

Thursday 5 November 2009

News - Week Starting 2nd Nov

I'm sitting in the library and for some reason it smells like lasagne and pistachio kulfi. Great smells...not too sure about them together.

This is going to be a fairly random note; I don't have the mental capacity today to try and put it all together.

I had to move a few minutes ago, and I think the cute guy I was sitting opposite might think that I don't like him anymore. I'd better go talk to him when he comes back to his seat, and tell him I just needed to use the plug point.

He has a really nice smile. People have been smiling at me a lot lately. :)

LOL my friend Nathan just sent me a link to a page with topless pictures of Leo the Lion...niiiiice. :D He's been trying to get me into photography recently - as a photographer, not a model - and I think this is his latest attempt. Might work, actually. ;-)

I use facebook a whole lot more than myspace, because I generally find myspace to be disorganized and hard to navigate. One thing I do like doing on there, though, is reading blogs of famous people. Some of them are the usual boring stuff - OK, most of them are the usual boring stuff - but now and then I come across one that's well-written, interesting, and presents them in a new light. I have very little patience for celebrity culture, and generally I don't think about famous people at all, either in a positive or a negative sense. They're so far removed from me that I don't even consider them the same breed of people most of the time. And it's weird, but oddly pleasant, to find out that sometimes they're just like me. Well, almost. :)

I got my books from Amazon in the mail a few days ago - The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe and the fifth and sixth Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobelle Carmody. I'm on the sixth book now, and they're really good. Which is a good thing, since I've been waiting forever for them. (She published the first book in the series in 1987, and I read the book in 1989, which gives you some idea of how long it's been. It makes it interesting, though, because you can really track her personal growth and the growth of her abilities as a writer, through the books, since they were written so far apart.)

The bank gets most of this week's paycheck. Boo hoo.

Bonfire night tonight, but the firework display here in town isn't on until Saturday. I'm hoping to go to that with Lori and Chris and Ryan...if they remember.

I was in Wilkinson earlier and I think I scared three teenagers out of buying condoms. Oops. That's not a good thing, IMO. Some of you would say, teenagers shouldn't be having sex...but I've learned many times over that not having condoms is NOT going to stop them having sex. Not most of them, anyway. It's just going to stop them being smart about it. *shrug* You work with teenagers, you learn to pick your battles. "Use a condom" is a battle I can usually win. "Don't have sex" is not. Even assuming I agreed with that idea in the first place.

It's funny, though, how when you're a teenager you get embarrassed by so many things. I wouldn't even buy underwear for several years. I got over the fear of buying bras when I was about 13, but other things, like tampons and condoms...forget it. And then suddenly, when I was about 17, I just didn't care anymore. It wasn't even a gradual process, it was practically overnight. One day I would blush every time someone mentioned bodies or sex, and the next day I had no embarrassment left. Now I grin when I have to go to the personal aisle of the store, because I know there'll be teens in there who are in the exact same position that I was in 10 years ago. I wish I could tell them that it gets easier, that there will come a day when you don't care who knows you're having sex, but if I said anything it would just make them feel even worse.

I found a really neat cami top today that I don't think I've ever worn. I bought it a couple years ago, and then didn't have anything to wear with it. It's the deepest indigo blue, almost royal blue, and it has these little tiny elastic spaghetti straps - thinner than spaghetti straps, really, more like vermicelli straps - that cross over in the back. It's a really sexy top, very much like something you might see in Victoria's Secret (still my favourite clothing store in the world - wish the shipping costs weren't so exorbidant), and I feel good wearing it.

I had to cut some of my hair last week - the bit in the front - because it was damaged, and for a week I didn't have any idea what to do with it. The short stuff just sort of sat there, all fluffy and disorganised, and I bore a strong resemblance to Dappy from N-Dubz. (Yes, Dappy. No, not Tulisa. Dappy. The guy with the hat.) But finally I managed to cut it into a more-or-less straight fringe, and with a little help from my hair straightener, I've got it looking OK. And I'm actually starting to warm to it. It makes me look younger. It makes me look - and Oh My God, I can't believe I'm going to say this - it makes me look fashionable. With the fringe cut, most of the blonde has gone out of my hair now, aside from a few bits that are mostly hidden by my ponytail, and it's very obvious all of a sudden that I am now a brunette. This is weird for me, because aside from the short period of time in college when I dyed my hair black, I've been blonde for at least ten years, maybe more. I THINK of myself as a blonde. Yet I'm starting to like the brown hair. I can't wear my normal (bare) makeup with the brown hair or the fringe, so I've been experimenting with eyeliner and mascara and darker eyeshadows, and then lipstick. And I look...well, I look kind of good, I guess. Good in a different way. Before I looked pretty, but I looked like a pretty soccer mom. Now I look 19, and a lot sharper and less suburban than I did.

I can't believe it's November...I have so much to do, and no time or money to do it with. I need to call Tony tonight, and start planning for Thanksgiving. I desperately need to do some Christmas shopping. I've found loads of things that *I* want, but very little that would be suitable for anyone else. And there are half a dozen people I want to see. I need to call Jackie and make an appointment to see my Dad - and I've no idea about how they're going to recieve me, after I've been AWOL for so long - and I want see Sasha, and Becki, and I really NEED to see Oli.

Of course, Ol
i and my Dad both involve going to London.

When my Dad had his stroke, I visited a lot at first, and I started having really bad nightmares right afterwards. I assumed it was stress, maybe compounded with my heart problems, but it didn't occur to me until recently that it might be to do with London itself. Something that I haven't admitted to you guys is that I've basically avoided the city since the rape. It's been easy to hide, because I don't HAVE to go there most of the time, and if I do, it's usually with someone. Before Papa's stroke, most of my trips to London were to see him, and just involved the outskirts - Highgate doesn't really feel like London to me, anyway - and half the time he picked me up or dropped me off, so I wasn't alone much. I saw Curt a few times, and he picked me up and dropped me off in his car. I went to work a few times, but I mostly commuted from home. And I didn't go clubbing. I didn't shop. I didn't hang out in the West End. I didn't go to see friends.

I didn't even realise what I was doing, really. I suppose I knew, but not consciously. And then when the stroke happened, and I HAD to be in London a lot of the time, the nightmares started. And stupidly, I wondered why.

People sometimes ask me if I'm still scared of Obie. I suppose a part of me will always be scared, because he's crazy and unpredictable, and there's always that slight chance that he'll come back. But most of the time, I don't think about that. If he comes to the house, I'll defend myself and anyone else there. What I'm most scared of is not remembering. Nobody wants to talk about the rape. We certainly don't talk about it in my house; my mother uses half a dozen euphemisms, like "the Obie thing", and any time I mention it I see her face go blank and she stops listening. The biggest mistake people make with rape victims is to tell them that they don't need to talk about it. When someone says "you don't need to talk about it", what they really mean is, "you don't need to tell me, I don't want to know". I'm sorry if that sounds cynical, but it's the truth, at least as far as I've seen. People need to talk. My mother didn't want to tell people about it at first, and she forbade me from telling the newspaper or writing into a magazine, saying that with the amount of money his family had, they'd hire a good lawyer and sue for libel. But you can't keep something like that secret - at least *I* can't. When something becomes a secret, it makes you feel dirty, and eventually ashamed. And I'm not willing to do that. I'm not willing to keep quiet because other people get uncomfortable. I've already made the sacrifice of not talking much about it when I'm there in person with someone, because they become awkward and don't know what to say to me, and it's just not worth it. But I will NOT keep it under wraps. Although that said, there are a few people I'd prefer not to know about it, since I know that they'd spread rumors about how I'm making it up to get attention. So just use your judgement - if you know someone doesn't like me, probably better not to mention it to them.

I talk because I'm scared that I'll forget again. My biggest fear, worse than him coming back, worse than him stalking me, worse than anything else - is that I'll forget his face. And then one day I'll be out in London, enjoying myself, and some guy will hit on me, and we'll dance and get friendly, and he'll ask for my number, and I'll give it to him...and it'll be HIM, and I won't know it.

This is what I have nightmares about. And sometimes I have other nightmares, too. I have nightmares about guys who get to know me, and then I find out in one blinding instant that they're friends of his, but it's too late to save myself from them. The worst of these dreams involve other people that I know, usually members of my Dad's family. The other night I dreamed that I was meeting Haley for something, I don't even remember what, and Delroy was there with a friend of his, and we talked, and hung out, and Delroy left and the friend stayed, and I don't remember what happened next, but suddenly we were in a dark alley at night, and I was finding out that the guy only made friends with Delroy because he was a friend of Obie's and wanted to get to me, and he hit Haley, knocked her into a wall to get her out of the way, and then he was tearing at my clothes and biting me on my neck and the whole thing was happening again. Different place, different guy, but same thing. It's not always Haley in the dreams. Sometimes it's Stacy, or Amy, or Lucy, or one of my cousins. Sometimes it's my Dad and Jackie, and we're at their house, and they've invited a guy in as a guest because he said he was a friend of mine from college who was trying to get in touch with me, and then the dream goes much the same way as the Haley-dream.

I do wonder, sometimes, if this isn't one of the reasons I've been avoiding visiting my Dad. Not just the fear of London, but the fear that I'll bring something unclean and wrong into their gentle, safe lives. My Dad's family are good people, all of them. I don't know how tough they are, because I've never had the opportunity to find out. But I think of them as sweet, innocent, CLEAN people. And I don't always feel sweet and innocent and clean anymore.

I go through phases where I don't think of Obie at all, and then phases where he bothers me a lot. I'll get over it; I always do. Part of this phase was precipitated by a TV programme I watched last week some time. It was supposedly an experiment to find out how racist people are - I say "supposedly" because I'm not convinced that it had merit, at least not the way the woman ran it - and much of the content took me back to the days after the rape, when I had to deal with the accusations from Obie and his lawyer, and even from the police and CPS, although to a lesser degree. It was a hard time - the aftermath was harder than the rape, believe it or not - and it's not something I like to be reminded of. I probably shouldn't have watched the programme, but I kept thinking that if I saw it through to the end, it would all be explained and I'd learn something. The only thing I learned is that I don't like fanatics, even when I agree with their cause.

I'm OK. I know you lot are worrying, because that's what you do, but I am OK. I'm not going to have a breakdown or anything. I'm just...dealing with things in my own time.

Halloween was good. I handed out a ton of candy, as ever, and have definitely kept the local dentists in business for the next few months. Classes are going well, too, and we're now learning about food, which has stimulated my appetite. :) Lovely Eli, who usually sits next to me, wasn't there yesterday, but I had a lot of fun with our table, and when Magdalena made us move and sit with people we didn't know, that was fun too, and it was nice to talk to some new faces.

OK. I have a backache, and I need to get home and eat something. The smell of pistachio kulfi is driving me mad. And I want to take a bath, and read some more of "The Stone Key". (That's the sixth Obernewtyn book, btw.) I skimmed ahead just a little, and found out that Domick is going to die, so I'm very sad, but it'll still be a good read.

Hope y'all will forgive me for not replying to messages today - my brain isn't working well enough to give you guys the attention you deserve, so I'm going to leave that until next week. Or perhaps work on them when I'm in bed. :)

Happy November!