Thursday 28 April 2011

We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident...

...That some men are awesome, and some are created douchey.

Note to self: do not read WhyWomenHateMen while eating. Now I have ice cream in my lungs. Gak.*

I've been dating around on some other sites recently. I've kind of given up finding men here, most of the ones who email me are guys who've mailed me before and I have no interest in, and the few that I would be interested in dating live too far away. But you know, those other sites aren't that easy either. Now, y'all know that I'm not really one to bitch about how men don't listen - because I think women are the masters at that most of the time, and because I think that most people won't listen when all they hear is whinging. Kwitcherbitchin', ladies, and maybe your guys will listen more.

Not that I'm tarring all women with the same brush or anything. *rolls eyes*

But in recent weeks I've found out that it's actually fairly true: a lot of men don't listen. On here, I kind of expect most men who mail me to not have read the profile. It goes along with all the glitches that we know and love about the A-Double-Eff. (That's sarcasm, btw.) Yet on the other sites that I use, there's much the same problem.

Case in point: one of the sites allows you to put a song on your profile. And in the last month, AT LEAST a dozen guys have mailed me to tell me how much they like Nirvana too. Yet not one of those has cottoned onto the fact that the song I have playing is not, in fact, Smells Like Teen Spirit - it's the Weird Al version, Smells Like Nirvana. To me, this is fairly obvious, especially since I don't believe Kurt Cobain ever started a song of his, "What is this song all about / Can't figure any lyrics out..." but apparently what is crystal clear to me is not so evident to a person whose blood is obviously being diverted out of his ears (and other unimportant bits) into his dick.

*shrug*

And again, I would find it obvious that when a girl takes a long time and much thought composing an extensive profile that tells you a great deal about her, in the hopes of finding a match that actually has a chance of being compatible, she would not be particularly responsive to a message that says, "Unlike these other fools, I'm a very busy man, and don't have the time for small talk. Are you interested? Let me know." Particularly when said busy man was too busy to fill out his profile. But perhaps these truths are not self-evident after all.

Yeah, I'm whinging. The new blog is not yet up and running. It's been a hell of a couple weeks.
___________________________


*That first sentence had nothing to do with the rest of this post, it was just an aside. Unless you consider the fact that WWHM is one of the awesome ones, IMO.

Friday 22 April 2011

St George's Day - Pimping The Best Of British

I am the worst Brit ever - I know NOTHING about St. George except that he was a hero who supposedly slayed a dragon - but I thought that since it's our national day today, I'd make a brief return to pimp some of my favorite British bloggers. And yes, I know St. George's Day is for English, not British, but I don't read a lot of Brits, so you gotta cut me some slack here, OK?

Before the post starts for real, I thought I'd steal a leaf from the Kid's book, and give you some English music to play. Pick your playlist - or pick and choose from any of them, I don't care - and YouTube it, then listen while you read. I would recommend opening this post in a second window, since I've got several blog links in here.

Of course, you can skip this part if you really want to, although I think a little theme music is nice, ja?

The Grimes:

Kano feat. Mike Skinner & Leo the Lion - Nite Nite
Wiley & The England 10 - She Likes To
Random Impulse - Overload
Dizzee Rascal - Do It
Bashy - Blackboys
Ironik - Stay With Me
Skepta - Rescue Me
Tinie Tempah - Pass Out
Aggro Santos feat. The Marvell Boys - Rhythm 'n' Flow
Tinchy Stryder - Stryderman

The Pops / R & Bs:

Daniel Merriweather - Red
Darren B - Shorty's Got It Bad
Lemar - Someone Should Tell You
Big Brovaz - Baby Boy
Sugababes - Freak Like Me
Lily Allen - Not Fair
Damage - Love To Love
Alexandra Burke - Broken Heels
JLS - Love You More
Leona Lewis - Better In Time

The Alternatives / Rocks:

Oasis - The Master Plan
Suede - Trash
Lightning Seeds - Pure
Mummy Calls - Beauty Has Her Way
Pulp - Sorted for Es and Wizz
Nick Stephenson - Innocent Dream
Travis - Driftwood
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Blur - The Universal
Manic Street Preachers - The Everlasting (Yeah, they're Welsh, suck it up)

The "WTF, Sati, that doesn't fit into any category!"s:

David Bowie - Space Oddity
Elton John - Your Song
Madness - It Must Be Love
Mike & The Mechanics - Over My Shoulder
Charlie Brown - Dependency
Space - Female of the Species
David Gray - Babylon
Adele - Someone Like You
Paloma Faith - New York
Kate Bush - Running Up The Hill

OK, now onto the REAL list.

First up? Naturally, it has to be
Kidfos. What can I say about the Kid? Well, I could tell you the things that HE would tell you, or the things that you've probably worked out for yourself - like he's smart, hilariously funny, good-looking, sarcastic, a little bit nihilistic, a little bit misanthropic, and a total pervert.

Or I could tell you the things that may not come across when he's blogging, but that are all too obvious in person and in email. Like, he's kind. When I met him in January he welcomed me with open arms the same way he welcomed everyone's favorite Bubbles, even though I pretty much forced myself on them. I could tell you he's patient - when I kept asking him if he was comfortable, he didn't hit me round the head with his (totally rocking) pimp daddy cane, the way my mother would have. Actually, the way *I* would have. I could tell you that he's less of a misanthrope than he would have you believe - he certainly manages to tolerate me, even with my fluffiness.

He has a shirt with The Hoff that is just this side of icy-cool. He managed to infect even cautious, unspontaneous me with enough excitement to try out a completely unknown restaurant, and enjoy it. He calls me Bambi, which makes me feel all happy inside. Those three things alone, without all the other good stuff, would be enough for me.

I would tell you that I absolutely love Kid, but then he'd snarl at me and say not to use that word around him, and I'd have to pat him on the head and tell him not to take it personally, I also love rice and clean sheets and the smell of Nivea sun lotion.

And don't worry, ladies - any l-word I have for the Kid is platonic, you're all still in with a chance.

Next on my list, I want to shout out to my girl
Babylonian_. I adore this woman more than words can say, even when you're a chatterbox like me. People may visit her in the beginning for her smokin' hot pictures and provocative titles, but they stay because she's a phenomenal writer with an innate ability to get to the heart of an issue. Every time I visit Babs' blog I want to start singing Johnny Cash, because she manages to walk a really fine line in a lot of her posts - she's unafraid to state her opinions, but is also willing to take on board other people's views; she has fire and passion but also a cool enough head to see multiple sides of a story - which is a really tricky thing to do. She's got a lot of compassion for people, and will also totally flame you if you act like a douchebag. She's totally cool, and endearingly geeky. She's very smart (although she'll tell you she's not) and happy to act silly.

I have a total girl-crush on you, Babs, just so you know.

For shits and giggles - although that's probably a really bad way of putting it, LOL - you should go visit
Mygentlecaress. Wince in pain at hideous penile modifications, laugh till you cry at idiotic signs and crap tats, and debate the pressing questions in the news today, such as, "Who was better, Kirk or Picard?" or "Who would win in a street brawl, Muppets or Sesame Street?" One of MGCs commenters will solve world hunger or find a cure for AIDS one day, mark my words.

Someone I enjoy reading a great deal is
hotdreamer1000. Dreamer's blog is much like his name implies - dreamy, introspective, and extremely hot. He writes some of the most piercingly beautiful erotic posts that I've ever read; even in a short couple of paragraphs that aren't set in a story, he has a way with words that I find spellbinding. But it's not all dreaminess, there's also some wonderfully dry wit there that ensures that I always stop in when I see a new post. I was lucky enough to spend an hour or so with Dreamer back in January, and I really hope that I get to spend more time talking with him at some point in the future.

Also on my watch list, and also someone that I'm thrilled to see new posts from, is
sabz121. Sabz / Bri (I'm never sure what to call her!) has a wonderful blog that's centered around sex - surprisingly few of the blogs I read are mostly sex-related, so this is a nice change for me - but she really has a knack for getting people talking about a variety of things. I love people who can get others talking and sharing stories, and Sabz manages to create an atmosphere that's perfect for this. Stop in and have a chat sometime!

Someone I've only started reading in the last week is
Fetishlover1975. I don't think it's really fair to say too much about his blog, since it's too early to have a good grasp of things, but I am enjoying it greatly, the same as I am with the comments of his that I see around.

Finally, I'd like to pimp three lovely ladies who aren't around anymore - Tiz_Only_Me, lucy_36C and HollyVanDeFlash. Tiz disappeared one day, but her blog is still up, so I've kept it on my watch list in the hopes that she comes back. Lucy and her blog vanished and were never heard from again, at least not by me, and I'm really hoping she's OK. Holly comes and goes - she's gone at the moment, but she may return, so keep an eye out for her. All of them were / are gorgeous women and unfailingly interesting bloggers who I was always overjoyed to read.

Of course this is just my subjective opinion, and I don't read nearly enough British bloggers. Who do you think I'd enjoy? Any Brits you want to pimp? Do it here!

Friday 8 April 2011

Deja Vu

[This post originally came with a picture of my bare breast. I've deleted the picture, because I'm sure my friends and family don't want to see that - seeing semi-nude "arty" photos is not quite the same as up close and personal.]

Three years ago - almost to the day, funnily enough - I sent my first ever current internet picture to a guy who I'd recently "met". This wasn't just my first A F F pic, it was the first non-childhood (and young childhood, at that) picture that I'd ever put up of myself, on any site. Before this, the one and only time that I'd sent any friend a picture of me was when I was fifteen, and I sent that through snail mail. None of my close online friends knew what I looked like.

I didn't want to. I did it because I had a lot of respect for him, and wanted the same, and I knew that fobbing him off with excuses about not having pics was one way to halt our friendship before it ever began. I was absolutely petrified, and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would turn away from me in disgust when he saw what I looked like.

He didn't. He said I was pretty, in fact that I had a face that he'd be happy to look at on a regular basis. We're still good friends today. Yet somehow I expect this dear man to be the exception, rather than the rule - even when I know intellectually that this is horribly unfair to y'all.

In person, or at least until I get in the bedroom, I am fairly confident. I know that I make friends easily, and that I can rely on my charm and friendliness and genuine affection for people to compensate for any physical shortcomings I have. Online, this is not how things work. Online, I expect every pimple, every scar, every unplucked hair, every roll of fat to be a dealbreaker, just the way that (offline or on) I expect every moral and emotional and intellectual failure of mine to lead to tragedy.

Of course there are reasons why I am this way. We all have our reasons for being the ways we are. Some of them I have gone into in the past, and some of them I will probably never talk about. But they are still there, and copious amounts of time and self-reflection and therapy have only made me able to deal with them, rather than making them go away.

So fast-forward three years, and here I am again, sending my first topless picture to a friend - or friendly acquaintance - of mine. I hear, "That wasn't so hard, was it?" Oh, my dears, you have NO idea.

A month ago I promised you bare breast pics. I didn't deliver. Part of this wasn't my fault - I got kicked off the internet for two weeks, and public places like the library and Starbucks don't allow you on this site - but the last week, HAS been my fault. I've been dragging my heels, because of the hassle of downloading from my old phone to my old computer to a flash drive to my new computer, and because of real-life sadnesses that have made any sort of frivolity seem...well, frivolous (and not in a good way). And yes, because of the reasons outlined in this note.

I am already regretting sending the picture. I am certainly regretting telling you that I would, because once I give my word on something I find it very hard to go back on, even if I sometimes don't manage to keep to the schedule I set myself.

And do you know something?
It feels really fucking awesome.


Yes, you heard me. Having regrets feels great. To understand that, though, you'd have to have lived a life for many years where you regret nothing, because you never do anything that you think you might change your mind on, never take a chance on something new and scary. Never step outside of your groove, even if you feel like your skin is now the wrong fit.

Five and a half years I've been living a rerun. Five and a half years I've been trying to fit myself into the life of a barely-grown child who died the day she was raped, and who was buried deep underground the day she miscarried the baby that either belonged to her rapist or the love of her life, and whose final shovel of dirt was thrown in the day she hit her head and lost all memories. I tried to make this life mine, with varying degrees of success. I gave up LOML, for the good of us both, and dated Oli. I joined this site - something that I will never, EVER regret. I came to terms - sometimes - with the fact that I will probably never grow any older mentally than 21. Sometimes it seemed a losing battle, trying to keep moving in a world that keeps turning, when your brain has stopped. But I did it.

The last couple of years I've got lazy, though. Or perhaps lazy is not the word as much as complacent. Changes come less and less naturally to me. I start out with good intentions, and then lose them in the comfortable monotony of my life. Yet I know this is not how a life should be, especially at my age - indeed, at either of my ages. A person should not sacrifice excitement in exchange for peace and calm, at least not all the time, not long-term. A person should not just consist of serenity and softness and a gentle smile, a person should also be sharp humor and giddy laughter and energy and a filthy mind and social skills and swirls of bright colors surrounding her. A person should. This person should.

And on that note, dearest of dear hearts, I am starting a new chapter in a fresh book, even if it is but a volume in the same story. This chapter will not be chronicled on A F F, but on a site where my blog is written in summery green, and decorated with daisies and narcissi, and things feel fresh again.

Anyone who asks for the link shall have it. You'll have to mail me, though, since I'm ball-less. If you can't mail me, my Facebook profile is always there, and links to new blog posts are on my live feed. I haven't yet worked out how to allow comments on there, and will miss the commenting here, but perhaps I'll sort it out soon.

I fully intend to keep reading your blogs on here, although perhaps not as often as I used to. I love the networking that we do on here, and would miss you dearly if I never saw you at all, even if this no longer feels like home to me. Perhaps I'll even post a blog here, once in a blue moon. And the old posts will stay where they are. After having my mental disk rebooted, deletion of any sort is not something that I can feel comfortable with.

My brightest blessings go out to all of you - particularly Bubbles and Kid, whose friendship online and in person has meant so much to me; Calmlys and Drunkat and Templar, who I've been reading almost since the beginning of my A F F journey; LuLu, whose friendship acted as a sort of nexus around which so much else of my blogging life has revolved, something that would not have been possible for me without her; Babs and Thom and InnerPeace, who I am overjoyed to be finally getting to know better elsewhere; AirForce, who's been a loyal commenter for a long time now; and Kel and MGC and Wordy and Annie and Arty and AspiringBo and Sasha, who stop in regularly or occasionally, but who always have something interesting to say, and who I truly hope will visit me in my new home.

Home is where the heart is, after all, and you guys all have a piece of my heart, and as such will always have a home with me.

Anyone who I haven't mentioned - watchers, lurkers, occasional visitors - each one of you enriched my experience here. Please feel free to continue to visit.


~ Sati - who will hopefully NOT be remembered as the girl with the giant hickey on her nipple ~

Thursday 7 April 2011

Yay For Vit D!

WARNING: This post contains bikini-clad pictures, although nothing too indecent. Hard to hide breasts this size, though. If you don't want to see, then move it along, cowboy.

I had a glorious day today. I slept from about 8am until 2pm - a solid six hours with few interruptions which, for me, is a luxury. Then I got up at 2 and lay in the garden in a bikini until 5.30, listening to Gyptian and The Script and wondering if I had the ingredients to make strawberry shortcake. (No strawberries - duh.) I answered status updates on the site that lets you make them, and a bunch of messages from work. I can't believe I can take care of my shit and sunbathe at the same time.



I accidentally took this picture when I left the camera app on on the phone, set it down and brushed it with my knee. I can't believe how responsive that thing is. (Almost as responsive as me, LOL. ) It makes me giggle because from this position, my boobs look like they've taken over my whole body, and are about to start conquering the world.

I came back inside and took a bath and washed my hair. I lay down briefly and then got up and spent an hour or so talking on IM to a very wicked man who shall not be named on the grounds that it may incriminate him and me both. I could happily have gone on playing show-me-yours-I'll-show-you-mine until bedtime, which in recent days has been 7am, but sadly he had some actual real things to do today. So I watched Fringe and Grey's Anatomy, for once not being able to concentrate on either because I kept squirming in my seat, wishing that I was wearing panties just so I could take them off again. And laughing. I laughed a lot today, which is something that I haven't done much of in the exhaustion of the last few weeks. Mom kept looking over at me and shaking her head. The one time she commented, she said, "There's nothing funny happening. I may not know the particulars of why you're laughing, but I know the basics from experience." Oops.

I'm trying really hard to take e.e. cummings' advice about saying yes. I've been reading a lot of him lately - actually, a lot of everyone lately (more on that in a different post) - and that poem ("love is a place") still resonates with me the way it did when I first heard it, when I was 12 or 13.

Now I have clean-shaven everything, including legs, and clean fresh sheets, which is one of my favorite feelings in the world. And it's a lovely cool evening, with a breeze coming through the open window, and I have a good romance novel to read.

I was going to make this post into a long one about how I totally suck at compartmentalizing, how something simple like laughing a lot or spending a couple hours in the garden affects every area of my life, but I've lost my taste for it. I'm turned on for the first time in weeks (since the recent problems in Curt's life, actually) and that's a good thing. I feel happy tonight, and that's an even better thing. So that's what's important for now, ja?

Tuesday 5 April 2011

Fun With Statuses

Righty-O, I've decided that the only way I'm going to find my music - and anything else that I've lost that I don't know about - is to totally reorganize EVERYTHING on my hard drive.

Therefore I will likely be online for the next twenty-four hours. Yowch. And yeah, I know I don't NEED to be online to reorganize my hard drive, but this way I can keep up on everyone's lives, nosy Aquarian that I am. Social network updates are manna to me.

I do wish that this site did something like Facebook, with a live feed of status updates that people actually USE. I know we have a status on here, but everything has to be approved, and there's nowhere (that I've found) to read a list of friends' updates unless you go on their profile, and we all know the problems there.

Sati is not wearing any clothes.

Sati just shaved her girlie bits* and is amazed at how soft everything feels.

Sati commented on
Subs' post A squirter?? Who fucking knew.....really??? and is wondering if she should change the name of her blog to "A Walking Talking Margarita".

This could be fun, ja?

* And yes, I did just say girlie bits. Whatever. I go through scientific phases, and crude phases, and fluffy phases, and I'm in a fluffy one now.

Holy Crabapples, There's A Monster In My Bed

[Considering that this happened a day or two after getting the iPhone, I really cannot excuse not taking a picture of the giant terror, but there you have it.]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

I turned off my computer twenty minutes ago, finally feeling like I could be a good little girl and get some sleep. Washed my face. Put my phone on loud so I'd hear it if it rang. Turned down the covers-- holy fuck, there's this giant caterpillar staring up at me. To which I screeched, "motherFUCKER!" and promptly woke up my mother.

(Aside: she doesn't wake up when I'm screaming and crying because I'm getting attacked in my own bedroom, and our grown-up male lodger doesn't come out of his room when that happens even though he hears, because he thinks it's not his business, but the whole house will gather at 7 am for a caterpillar emergency. No, I'm not bitter at all.)

For the record, critters generally do not bother me. There are a couple I don't like - maggots scare the crap out of me, and spiders and roaches can go either way - but as a rule I am not bothered by beasties. (I hesitate to call them insects, since I'm sure there's at least one entomologist on here who'll call me out on using incorrect terminology, so I shall stick to nice little fluffy words like beasties and critters.) In the garden, I'll happily examine them and even let them crawl over my hand. In Spain I expect to find centipedes and millipedes in the bathtub and sink. In the winter, earwigs gather anywhere that's warm, which often includes laundry piles, and in the summer the clothes on the line attract all sorts, so I'm used to shaking everything really well before I put it on.

None of that is the same as turning down your bedcovers to find a two-inch long, one-inch circumference, black and gray caterpillar that can move like Speedy Gonzales. Live, at that, and it really shouldn't have been, considering it was right under where I was lying on top of the cover.

I do not deal well with surprises. Anything that shocks the nervous system and screws with my adrenaline production is a no-no for Sati. Even NICE surprises make me feel physically ill - I'm the kind of person who will walk out of a surprise party that people have sprung on her. My brain chemistry is so screwy anyway, what with my PTSD, and my calcification, and the electrical disturbance that is my alpha-EEG anomaly, and my extremely high Substance P production, and my low serotonin and dopamine, and a pineal gland that doesn't seem to want to stay still, that anything that upsets the fragile balance takes me days to come down from. Remember last fall, when Oli broke up with me out of the blue? Didn't sleep more than a couple of 2-hour naps in a hundred hours. Remember January, when I met Kid and Bubbles? For two weeks or more I went around in a daze, either in Joan-of-Arc raptures or floods of tears that I couldn't find a reason for. (That time was totally worth it, but still.)

So, ix-nay on the surprises. That means you too, denizens of the leaves.

Yeah, I've calmed down a bit now. Writing sometimes does that to me, although not if it's stories. I think I can prolly eat something sweet, and take my meds, and read a bit of tacky romance, and then sleep.

Although the thought has crossed my mind that maybe I AM asleep, and this is some fucked-up dream where I'm being punished for my FarmVille addiction.

For Once, Technology Doesn't Hate Me

I did not do anything constructive today. I set my iPhone up, spent several hours searching for music (still haven't found it - and yes, I tried using the search feature), text-socialised with more friends in one day than I have the whole rest of the year so far (I freakin' LOVE the way it holds each conversation on a different page with all the texts with that person together, so I don't have to search for them in my inbox) and ate several bourbon biscuits. (Aside: English biscuits are not the same as American biscuits. I'm not sure what yours are, but I know that you eat them filled with things, and they're supposed to be fluffy, so I'm guessing they're like muffins or scones? Kel, some help here, as our resident translator? Anyway, English biscuits are sort of like small hard cookies.)

What else did I do? Nothing, really. Actually nothing. I didn't get dressed or take a bath, and I NEVER go a whole day without taking a bath. Typically I bathe when I get up and before I go to bed, and on days when I've exercised or it's humid or I'm sick or I have to go out, I often bathe three times. But today I did not bathe when I got up, and man did I feel grimy all day. Although I have to say, it makes the clean feeling now especially delicious.

Because I'm an evil bitch, I sent the following picture to a male friend with a heading saying, "Look, no panties!"




I'm hoping that they'll allow it as my main pic for awhile - I'm sick of face pics - but apparently there's something wrong with the format, although it should be OK. Oh well, A F F's problem, not mine. If they don't, they don't.

The camera on the iPhone is a lot better than the one on my Tocco Lite. I don't know how much better - I haven't looked at the specs yet - but the pictures are a lot less fuzzy. It's not perfect, of course, and I still want to get a good Canon or Nikon, or maybe a Rollei, for taking arty pics of nature and people. (Ideally I'd have one of those fancy ones with the changeable lenses, but that'll cost me anywhere north of £500, so for now I'd be satisfied with a small one that takes nice pictures.) But for pictures of ME, it's just fine, since I have those Monet-type looks - from far away I look alright, and in person the glow that seems to glamor people prevents anyone from focusing too sharply on me, but up close in photos I'm a horrible mess, with terrible scars and bites and ridiculous amounts of body hair (stupid PCOS) and having those scars and hairs and pores magnified is not something that I like the idea of. My skin is awful (not the face so much, but everywhere else) and my teeth are horrible and I never learned how to put make-up on properly, so it's just sort of smeared on, and I'm happier when photos are just a teensy bit fuzzy.

(Please don't misunderstand, I'm not terribly down on my looks or anything, and I know that the whole package looks just fine most of the time - it's just that I look better when taken as a whole.)

So yeah, the camera pleases me. In general, I'm very happy with the iPhone, although I'm thoroughly unimpressed with the fact that Apple does not support Flash, meaning that the YouTube app is absolutely appalling. Not only are there hardly any "real" videos on there (most of them are just pictures of the CD, with lyrics) and what's there is most certainly not HD (to someone used to VEVO, this displeases me) but on a lot of the videos the sound quality is horrible. So I guess I won't be checking out the toob using the phone. Oh well, I expect I can do that on the computer.

I still haven't managed to use the phone as an OpenZone point, though, because they keep asking me for a password and a security key, which was not provided to me. So I'll have to go bug Peter at the Carphone Warehouse about that soon. I don't want to cancel my old internet contract until I know for sure that I can use the phone as a modem. Meaning that I'm on limited data until I get it sorted - but I never use up 5 GB in less than 2 weeks, and if I procrastinate on it for 2 weeks then I bloody well deserve to be cut off.

I still haven't put the boobie pic up, as you may have noticed. Recently I've been peeved about the fighting on here, and sad about something that I'm not going to discuss with you, and when I'm either one of those things - let alone both - I get recalcitrant and drag my heels on things. Several of you donated, and I love you for it. And I said that I'd post the pic, so I will do. I just don't always manage to keep to the timescales that I set myself (as you can see by the lack of the recent Thursday Pointless Polls). [Unfortunately not on this site - I don't think there's a way to post a poll, and if there is I haven't found it yet.]


It'll have to be a fuzzy pic from the old phone, though - I have some really nasty mozzie bites on my boobs right now, and the ones that have healed have scarred badly.

Apologies to anyone who I bombarded with emails last night. I was in a bit of a manic mood, and I know a couple of you got several over the space of a couple hours. Tonight I intend to work on my massive Hanjie puzzle, and play a little Pokemon, and not emale people. We'll see how long that lasts.
Bubbles wants cupcakes, so I'll be posting a recipe soon, and I invite you all to do the same. One way to my heart is with baked goods.

And speaking of ways to my heart - a bunch of friends were mocking me, because I have such strange required specifications when looking for a man. (Being able to cook was one of the less strange ones.) So they challenged me to write a list of things that I'm looking for, and I expect I shall be posting soon. If I can actually verbalize the things that I'm looking for - so often they are intangibles that I only know once I see or feel them.

So there's plenty for me to be getting on with, plenty to keep my mind occupied. Plus all the spring shit like cleaning out my closet - but let's face it, that's been top of my list for about eight weeks now, and the closest I've come to it is thinking about it.

Monday 4 April 2011

Quizzes, Just Because

My heart is just not in this place right now. I'm not leaving, at least not yet, but I'm not up to making proper posts.

Therefore: a quiz that I answered on Facebook a while back. [Apologies if I already posted it via the Facebook blog, I can't remember when it was.]


LITTLE SECRETS (not really secrets at all)

ONE: Who was your last text from?


A guy I had two one-night-stands with a year ago who got the "this is my new number" text that I sent out to everyone this morning, and couldn't figure out who I was.

TWO: Where was your default pic taken?

I can't remember what the default pic is atm...is it the smiley one with the fat cheeks? Driveway, if it is. If it's the one with the pink cardigan and lipstick, it was in the bathroom.

THREE: Your relationship status?

Blah. Really, freakin' blah.

The short story? Not in a relationship, not looking. My body is available, but my heart and soul and mind have been stolen away until further notice. I hope I get them back soon.

And you don't need to tell me that if I'm not with the guy, I should look elsewhere. It's what everyone tells me, and I see their point of view, but until I get my head sorted out I'd only be going through the motions, and frankly I have better things to spend my energy on than fighting a losing battle with my heart.

FOUR: Have you ever lost a close friend?

Yes. Nuff said.

FIVE: What is your current mood?

I has the sleepies.

SIX: Whats your brother(s)/sister(s) names?

On my father's side, Haley, Stacy, Amy, Lucy. On my mother's side, Tony and Michael (Micky). Plus Chrissie, who thinks she's my sister.

SEVEN: Do you have a job?

Not a real one.

I'm a youth worker in a youth center in East London. Most of the time I work from home, running a helpline and filling in paperwork, although when my health improves I go into work and do hands-on stuff.

It pays my rent and food and phone bill and internet and gym membership and insurances and medical bills, and if I budget well it also stretches to university tuition and ice hockey tickets and books - my main passion and indulgence - and occasional trips to Jane Norman (a recently discovered passion). And yet I feel like I don't have a proper, grown-up job. I feel like I've NEVER had a proper, grown-up job. Maybe because I'm still living at home, and know that I couldn't afford to live alone.

EIGHT: Where do you wish you were right now?

New York. Or the Caribbean.

NINE: Have a crazy side?

Not crazy and wild, just a bit odd. I found myself in the frozen section of Tescos the other day, talking to ice cream. That's when I decided I needed to socialise more.

TEN: Ever had a near death experience?

Yes. There were several times when I should have died. Turns out I don't die easily.

ELEVEN: Something you do a lot?

Feel.

TWELVE: Angry at anyone?

Not acutely. There are a couple of people that I still have some vestiges of a chronic, low-grade anger for. I'm working on them, but most of the time I don't notice it at all.

THIRTEEN: What's stopping you from going for the person you love?

Well, there's problem number 1.

And then there's problem number 2.

And problem number 3.

And problem number 4, which is currently the biggest, but probably not the one that will last the longest: he doesn't love me. He will, one day, but that day is not yet here.

I'm psychic, remember?

FOURTEEN: When was the last time you cried?

Uh, yesterday.

FIFTEEN: Is there anyone you would do anything for?

A handful of people.

SIXTEEN: What you think about when you are falling asleep?

Oh, varies so much, depending on my mood. The best sleep I get is when I'm thinking about football (American) or baseball as I fall asleep. But it's not a thought that can be forced, unfortunately. I can't just make myself think about football, and then sleep well. I have to be thinking about it naturally, in that sort of peaceful, dozy way that makes me feel calm and like the whole world is in its place.

But yeah, the best nights - they're the ones where I don't check my email, and don't read, and don't play DS, and don't do logic puzzles, because all those things make my brain too active. The best nights are the ones where I take a bath with my rose and calendula bath foam and my apricot-almond facial scrub, and come to bed smelling like rose arbors and wedding cake, and listen to a little bit of music on my iPod - Jewel or Bruce Springsteen, something that makes me feel small-town American and homey - and as I listen to the music I fall into that half-awake-half-asleep state where I'm conscious, but not in control of my thoughts. And my mind drifts to an evening sitting in the stands at a game - football, baseball, occasionally basketball - with Dee Dee and Brian and a couple of other people that I know but can't put names to...sometimes Tommy and Laura are in the stands in front of me, and I lean over to talk to them. Sometimes there's hot dogs with onions on. Sometimes it's summer, but most often fall. But there's always love, and affection, and laughter, and there's always the beautiful game. And I fall asleep, and these are the only nights that my sleep is undisturbed.

This is my happy place.

SEVENTEEN: Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?

Mom.

EIGHTEEN: What is your favorite song?

Sheesh, how do you pick one? I have a couple dozen "favorites", that I cycle.

Currently, Fleetwood Mac's "Crystal".

NINETEEN: What are you doing right now?

Lying on my bed in a T-shirt, knowing that I need to go and take a bath. I was trying to find all the music that's somewhere on my computer but is for all intents and purposes lost...when I downloaded iTunes last night, for some reason it wouldn't accept the music automatically. It all got put in the i-toons player, but none of it would play. So I had to convert everything manually. A pain in the ass, to be sure, since it'll take me a few days to do - but it's doable. But THEN, when I went to find the music? I can only find maybe an eighth of it. The rest has disappeared.

Words cannot express how annoyed I am about this, because by nature I am a very organized person. Until my computer died last time, everything on my hard drive was organized into folders and labelled neatly. I had perhaps three thousand songs on here, a couple hundred saved web pages, and a couple hundred documents of varying sorts - stories, poetry, blog posts, msn conversations, game walkthroughs, etc - and a couple hundred pictures. And I could put my hand on any one of those documents in ninety seconds or less. I had folders in libraries, all of them perfectly organised to my own standards rather than Windows'. And although I've been slowly reorganizing since the computer crash, a healthy, awake, sober Sati would not under any circumstances have put some of her music into an easily accessible folder, and the rest of it into a hidden file. So I can only assume that, while I was either feverish from recurrent ear infections or under the influence of some strong painkiller, I accidentally misfiled everything.

I will find the music. Eventually. When, is another matter.

Anyway, I was searching for the music, and got sidetracked by this questionnaire which I'd saved in notepad to answer and then forgotten about.

TWENTY: Who do you trust right now?

Most people to some degree.

TWENTY-ONE: Where did you get the shirt you are wearing?

Sainsburys. They were really comfy for sleeping in, and on 70% off sale, so I bought like eight or nine of them - a couple black, mostly blue. This one is black. Somehow the black ones stayed in better condition and didn't bobble as badly.

TWENTY-TWO: Have you kissed someone in the past week?

Not when I was awake.

TWENTY-THREE: Who is your friend that lives closest to you?

Erm, I dunno. I don't think anyone still lives in this town - Becki was the last one, and she may well have moved by now, I know she was doing it soon.

TWENTY-FOUR: Describe your life in one word.

Ducks.

TWENTY-FIVE: Who are you thinking of right now?

Curt.

TWENTY-SIX: What should you be doing right now?

Anything other than what I'm doing.

TWENTY-SEVEN: What are you listening to?

Weird Al - Smells Like Nirvana

TWENTY-EIGHT: Who was the last person who gave you a hug?

I don't remember.

TWENTY-NINE: Who was the last person who yelled at you?

Me. I yell at myself fairly often.

THIRTY: Do you act differently around the person you like?

The short answer would be, no. But that's not entirely true. I could give you the really long answer, which would be all about how we change and become a different person with every single person we interact with - nobody sees exactly the same you as another person sees. But if I talked about that, we'd be here quite a long time.

The medium-length answer is that yes, I do act differently with the person I like / love. I act more like myself than I ever have before. In the past, I haven't always given myself freely to people, even the ones I've loved. People don't always realise that I'm holding back, because I APPEAR to be open and candid. And I am open...as long as it's on my terms.

This time, though, I made a vow. No witholding emotion out of fear of seeming like a psycho. No refusing to say how I feel because I worry that it places emotional demands on them. No trying to protect them from feeling obliged to me, no polite restraint. If me in full is too much, then so be it, but this person deserves honesty.

THIRTY-ONE: What is your natural hair color?

Haven't a freakin' clue. Right now it seems to be growing out a sort of cinnamony brown color, but that may change easily.

THIRTY-TWO: Who was the last person to make you laugh really hard?

Um. I'm not sure. Might have been Brian, or Arty, or someone else that I can't remember. I know it was a couple weeks ago, maybe a couple months ago. I haven't laughed hard much lately. Going purely on probability, it was probably Kid, actually.

THIRTY-THREE: Who was the last person to make you sad or pissed?

Pass.

THIRTY-FOUR: What do you hear?

Nothing, I'm a bit deaf at the moment.

THIRTY-FIVE: Is your hair curly or straight?

I don't know, actually. It seems to come different every day.

THIRTY-SIX: Has anyone ever called you "scrumptious" before?

Probably. I get called a lot of things on the dating site I belong to. Most of them just pass me by, since they're not from people who interest me.

THIRTY-SEVEN: Do you have a best friend?

Elle, Curt, Tommy. In different ways.

THIRTY-EIGHT: Held hands with the opposite sex in the past 3 days?

No.

THIRTY-NINE: Do you use smiley faces on the computer?

Sure, quite often.

FORTY: Have you ever changed clothes in a vehicle?

Yeah, when I used to take lessons after school...horse riding, ice skating, all that.

FORTY-ONE: Are you happy with life right now?

Ehh. It's manageable. I do feel on the brink of something, though, but I can't figure out what it is.

FORTY-TWO: Are you currently jealous?

Teensy bit, but it's only background radiation.

FORTY-THREE: What jewelry are you currently wearing?

None.

FORTY-FOUR: What are you doing Friday night?

Not sure. I usually work Fridays, but now that I have two phones that doesn't preclude going out.

FORTY-FIVE: Have you ever had your heart broken?

Bruised, battered, chipped. I don't usually like the term broken, because to me it implies shattered beyond repair, and mine is always repairable. But lately I've been using the term more often than I used to. My heart breaks in little ways quite frequently - much like the ankles of a morbidly obese person, it has too much weight on it, and sustains thousands of tiny little fractures just from everyday life.

FORTY-SIX: Have you ever broken someone's heart?

I don't know.

FORTY-SEVEN: Is there anybody you're really disappointed in right now?

No.

FORTY-EIGHT: What was the last reason you went to the doctor for?

Ear infection, but that was 22 infections ago, back in October. I don't even bother going to the doctor anymore, unless something is really critical.

FORTY-NINE: How late did you stay up last night and why?

I was up until about 7 this morning. It's that whole too-full heart thing.

FIFTY: Have you ever been with someone longer than a year?

On and off, yeah. Never constantly on though. Human Teflon, baby.

...Somehow, that phrase doesn't make me smile as much as it once did.

Sunday 3 April 2011

How To Break A Heart In Three Sentences

[Yes, I know I'm a little crazy. Save it.]

While I was AWOL this time, I spent a bit of time down South, and when we were walking along the beach, I stopped in a fortune-tellers. Yeah, I know most of them are charlatans, but there's always the possibility that you might come across a good one - and I can usually tell the good ones at a glance - and even the bad ones are good for a laugh. As long as you don't give them too much money, of course.

And what I got told (for free! She wouldn't take my money!) was this:

In another land, a man goes through life with an empty heart. He looks for love, but only a prophet can help him. The thing you need most is courage.

I can't say whether the man mentioned here actually exists, or is someone who will come into my life, but she's right about the courage - that's something I've always lacked, and have been trying to learn for so long. I'm no prophet, though.

And because I'm ridiculously soft and fluffy and emotional, my heart breaks a little every time I think of this hypothetical man with the emptiness inside and the need for love and affection. I know what empty feels like, and I don't want anyone to go through that. Not anyone, but especially not someone I could love.

Bambi Is Back In Business

Well, sort of. It'll take me a few days to get back into the swing of things. Boobies will be coming as soon as I get my new phone set up - or as soon as I get a pic from last week onto my computer, whichever happens first.

Till then, I'll give you a couple of posts that I wrote while I was away - if I can find them, LOL. (Damn notebooks.)


- OPEN SCENE -

Sati and Mom are sitting in the disability benefits office, listening to some bureaucratic a-hole talk about why they can't help, because you have to go through certain channels and when paperwork gets lost they can't expedite the new form, you have to start all over again from the beginning and wait however long it takes, etc etc ad infinitum.

As they leave the office, Sati is smiling widely.


Mom: Who did you see?

Sati: Eh?

Mom: You're smiling. I thought you saw someone you liked. [Note: she means someone I fancy, but she's trying to be diplomatic.]

Sati: Oh...no, I was just woolgathering.

Mom: Share the joke?

Sati: I was thinking about mass extinctions.

Mom: (slightly sarcastic) Yeah, I can see how that would be funny.

Sati: When the volcanoes erupted at the end of the Permian, do you think that guy was out there every day for 500,000 years, writing down in his little notebook, "Day X. Temperature 1200 degrees Celsius. Volcanoes still erupting."?

Mom: Volcanoes that erupted for half a million years? I don't think so.

Sati: Were too. [Note: why does talking to my mother so frequently turn me into a seven-year-old?]

Mom: Says who?

Sati: New Scientist.
Mom sighs and shakes her head, not quite sure how she ended up with a daughter who laughs at the apocalypse. Sati sighs and shakes her head and continues missing Hot Guy #3, who is the only person she knows who might share the humor in that situation.

- CLOSE SCENE -


True scene this time, not a dream.

Please tick the imaginary boxes at the end of each line if you:

a) Knew what I was talking about when I mentioned the Permian, and didn't just assume that it had something to do with the dinosaurs;

b) Knew what I was referring to when I mentioned half a million years of volcanic eruptions;

c) Knew what I was talking about when I mentioned mass extinctions, plural;

d) Actually care about any or all of a, b or c;

e) Smiled when you read my hypothetical Permian bureaucrat scenario.

If you ticked all five, you get my heart and body. Just call 1-800-BAMBI and swear your undying lust.