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I had a nice day today. I actually went out this evening, for a social thing, for the first time since November. My friend Nick is a musician, and he was doing a gig at The Mermaid in St. Albans, along with Katie Masson from Polly Poison. (Readers from outside the Herts area will likely neither know nor care who these people are, but people from Alby and the surrounding areas may. In any case, they're very good, and if it's at all possible you should check them out.)
Anyway, it was a wonderful show. Both Nick and Katie sing and play guitar - Nick does both covers and his own material; a mix of soft-rock, folk-rock and country, as well as plenty of stuff that doesn't fit into any categories. I've known him to cover Neil Young, as well as a couple of James Taylor songs and several David Bowie tunes (again, the uncategorizable - what on earth would you call David Bowie, genre-wise?) but mostly he sings his own stuff. Katie does occasional soft-rock pieces, but mostly seems to do light blues and a little jazz. Today I think she just did her own things, but in the past I've heard her sing songs that were originally sung by Jessica Rabbit, as well as an incredible cover of "House of the Rising Sun", which was the best version I'd heard since Joan Baez sang it.
There were several old friends from high school there, too, that I hadn't seen for many years, so it was really nice to catch up. I'm extremely glad I went, and will try to see Nick - or ideally Nick and Katie - play again soon.
This whole socialising thing isn't turning out to be as hard as I thought it would be. It's initially hard to push myself to get going, especially when it's raining outside and I didn't sleep well and want to take a nap (like today), but once I actually get my butt moving, going out and having fun is a lot easier than I expected.
People have been really nice to me recently, which makes it easier to be brave. Someone on here called my photo "gorgeous and captivating", which really gave me a happy moment. An old friend who'd never seen my picture called me beautiful yesterday. And when I went grocery shopping two nights ago, one guy called me beautiful, and another one said I was sexy as hell, and that he liked my clothes, and he sang Jay Sean's "Down" to me. Which was totally silly and totally wonderful, at the same time. I guess I didn't need to freak myself out about putting up a photo or going out dressed up, after all. Nobody's been hostile to me about the way I look, and several people have been really sweet.
I suppose I should go, it's just gone 4am and I'm really hungry. I've been getting hungry so often recently, which is a very strange sensation to me, after eating so little for so long. Some nights I wake up (if I've been asleep, that is) with actual hunger pains, even when I'd eaten six or eight hours ago, whereas last year and the year before (and, if I'm honest, the year before that, and the year before that) I'd eat once or twice a day, and sometimes I'd forget to do THAT. It was really, really rare for me to get hungry, and when I did I'd nibble on something convenient, but now I'm hungry often and seem to need to eat large amounts. Large for me, anyway.
I really, really hope that this eating thing isn't going to make me gain more weight, because this year I'm hoping to go down at least one dress size. It's hard to say how much actual weight I need to lose, because I have such a high proportion of muscle. According to height-weight charts, I could lose anything up to eighty pounds and still be at the top end of normal. Of course, those same charts are the ones that say that Kate Moss is in the normal range, and Tyra Banks is well into the "overweight" category. It's really bizarre, though - I'm 5'8" and wear a 14 on a good day (a US 10), and yet I see women in magazines who weigh what I weigh and wear a size 26, because they have so little muscle, and much lighter bones than me. I have my ancestors' heavy bone structure, and a lot of muscle - oh, it's muscle that's covered with fat, but it's there nonetheless.
Hopefully I can get to the gym tomorrow. I wanted to start back at the beginning of January, but the snow put a kink in my plans. (Buses in this town are crazy-bad at normal times, and with the snow a lot of them simply weren't showing up at all.) Aside from the gym, I intend to sleep away much of the day, and try and finish painting my room. (I won't finish tomorrow, but maybe Monday, if I push it.) I have a new bed arriving on Tuesday - my first bed in seven years; I've been sleeping on the floor since 2003 - and I'd really like the walls, at least, to be done by the time I set it up. I also need to sand the skirting boards, but that'll have to wait until February, because my mom's bought me a mini power-sander for my birthday.
I desperately need to buy some new furniture - particularly two bookshelves and two bedside tables, although a new vanity would also be appreciated - but I can't afford it unless the bank will give me an extension on the loan, or I can get a loan from elsewhere. Which I may have to look into in the next few days. I found the bookshelves I want - I can't post a link here, but you can go to ebay and search for "Tall White Belgravia Bookcase" - but they cost a fortune. I do have to get something, though - the ones I have at the moment are rattan, and while I quite like them, I can't ever get them clean of dust, and the dust is playing havoc with my allergies.
[I think I can post a photo in this blog! Actually, I can post pics on the AFF blog now too, they changed the rules a couple years ago, so forthcoming posts will occasionally include photos.]
Which reminds me, I need to buy a mattress protector and a hypoallergenic duvet to go on the new bed, I'm not taking a chance on getting any mites or allergic particles from my old duvet on my new mattress.
Argh - money! Everything comes down to money at the moment! I'm only two weeks away from finishing my first semester of uni, and the new semester starts in February, but I haven't quite got the money together yet.
Ehh, I'll think of something.
How's your January going so far? Are you managing to keep your resolutions?
I'm just sort of sitting here, waiting to see when AFF will allow me to view profiles again. Right now, I can't see ANY profiles, not even my friends, or any photos or albums or videos. I can't go in chat, or look at the magazine or groups sections. All I can do is send messages (to whom? How do I know if I want to message someone if I can't view their profile?) and post blogs, and occasionally read them, although even THAT sometimes brings up the payment page.
Obviously people can read MY profile, though, because I've gotten several messages today saying so.
Not quite sure what's going on...AFF has a lot of rules, and they seem to be different for each member. I wish that they'd set them out straight, tell us that if you do have the standard membership you can do X and Y, if you have the silver you can do X, Y and Z, and if you have the gold you you can do everything. But there are gold members who still can't see my profile, and standard members who can, and some of us can email and some of us can't, and the whole thing's very confusing. I'm not sure even AFF knows what the rules are.
I also wish that they'd let you pay for a membership monthly. I could MAYBE afford a monthly fee, but there's no way I can pay a lump sum.
*sigh*
If I'm not on here much, you'll know why. It's frustrating to get invitations from people to meet up, and not be able to find out anything about them. More than that, it's kind of unsafe. A person should be able to screen people before she commits to a date, or even a conversation. Otherwise you have no idea if you're ending up with a nice guy or a crazy person.
Egh. And I had such good intentions to use this site more, as well.
The boyband craze. We've all lived through it in varying degrees, depending on your age and the country you live in. We've certainly had more than our fair share of them in the UK, especially in the 90s. Take That. East 17. Westlife. Boyzone. Various imports - Backstreet Boys, New Kids on the Block, N'Sync, LFO.
Let Loose. Bad Boys Inc. 911. OTT. MN8. Damage. Code Red. O-Zone. O-Town. One True Voice. Hanson. Phixx. A1. BBMak. Bros. Blue. Blazin' Squad. Ultimate Kaos. Another Level.
Excuse me, where was I?
Oh yes. Boy bands. Some of us like 'em, some of us hate 'em. Plenty of us claim to hate 'em even though we've been guilty of dancing to their music in the living room when nobody's home. Some are actually pretty good, some are fairly crappy, some are listenable.
ANYway, there was one moderately-listenable band in the mid to late 90s, called Five. Oh, excuse me, 5ive. I actually quite liked them - unlike many other boy bands, they seemed to have a sense of humor about what they did - but naturally they split and went their own ways. At least one of them tried to pursue a solo career, which didn't take off wonderfully. I have no idea what the rest of them do now.
But the one member who did make an attempt at flying solo, after making a bunch of generic pop that quickly faded away into nothingness, came up with an absolute gem called "Seven Ways". The original features mildly annoying poppy background music, but I got my hands (ears?) on an acoustic version back in the day, which I have unfortunately lost, and it worked really well. If I had musical talent I'd like to cover it acoustically one day. I've no idea who wrote the song, and most of the internet seems to have forgotten its existence - I can't even find it on iTunes - but it had this beautiful, haunting chorus:
I'm talking to the mirror at 5 am
Waiting for your call in the pouring rain
Sugar-coated kiss and a lipstick mark
There are seven ways of breaking my heart.
Coded conversation and bad TV
Losing all original chemistry
Walkin' like I'm dancin' on priceless art
There are seven ways of breaking my heart.
If I ever find a guy who genuinely remembers this song, I'll marry him on the spot.
So the song's had me in its spell on and off for the last eight years or so, or however long it's been since it was released, because I've never heard heartbreak put in quite such terms. I can't even explain what it is about the words that catches me - the acuity of them, perhaps - but every time I hear them I get a little prickly sensation where my heart is. The second to last line, in particular - "Walkin' like I'm dancin' on priceless art" - haunts me.
Oli and I broke up a couple of weeks ago. It hurts. It's the best thing for both of us, but it still hurts. If you know me AT ALL, you know how much I hate change. Truth is, it wasn't exactly a break-up, because we weren't exactly together. If you're new to the blog and don't know the Oli backstory, the short version goes like this: we met through a friend, fell in lust, but he was just about to start his last year at uni in Liverpool and I was in London. We flirted, talked about how neither of us were looking for commitment, and promptly got (half-jokingly) engaged. I don't know why, we just did. I went to see him in Liverpool, we spent a couple of glorious days together, had a huge fight the day I went home, and decided that we weren't going to sleep together anymore. A week after I went home, his ex-girlfriend (who was still a good friend) decided she wanted him back, and he decided he needed to give things a shot. I stopped seeing him, we only talked occasionally, then many months later he and the girlfriend broke up and he and I started seeing each other again. As friends. With no commitment. And have continued to do so for the last - oh God, how long has it been? Year and a half? Yeah. A year and a half. Two and a half years that I've felt attached to him, counting the patch in the middle when we were apart.
It's hard to explain why I broke it off with him, except to say that it's all mixed up with the song. No, I didn't break up with him because a song told me to, I'm not *that* retarded. But a couple of those lines are just exactly how my relationship with Oli has felt for the last year - the part about coded conversation, and especially the line I mentioned before. When I fell for Oli, I fell for the guy who was my best friend, who I could talk to about anything, and over the years that person has become lost to me, and instead he's become someone who I have to constantly walk on eggshells around. When I fell for him, I was coming off a bad breakup from a guy whose emotions were a mass of twists and turns, and I was so happy to be with someone who seemed simple and uncomplicated. I don't know if I was mistaken about his simplicity to start with, or if he's changed in the last two and a half years, but what seemed to be uncomplicated emotions now seems to me to be a point blank refusal to admit that he HAS emotions, at least any that are more complex than happiness and horniness.
We used to be happy. I remember that much. He used to call me just to ask how my day was, and we'd giggle and chat for hours. He still asks me how my day was, but it feels more like he's doing it because he has to, not because he's genuinely interested. And more and more I find myself lying, making up stories about a wonderful day, because if I tell him anything negative he doesn't want to listen and give support, all he wants to do is tell me what I did wrong, and what I need to do now.
I used to find the fact that he wanted to look after me to be endearing, but nowadays I just feel like a stupid child who needs to be reprimanded if she's going to have any chance of getting it right next time. Thing is, I don't *need* reprimanding. I'm the most introspective person I know, and I've been my own worst critic ever since I was able to talk and think for myself. If I've done something wrong, I can guarantee you I know about it. All the things that he wants to tell me I've done wrong, I already know about, and the things he wants to tell me to do next, I've already thought through and decided on the most prudent course of action possible with the information that I have at the time.
I'm not blaming him. I used to like the way he was, and over the years I've perpetuated the cycle by believing that I need taking care of, and letting him believe it. And it's not like he's some controlling ogre that wants to have the last say on everything I say and do. He's not like that, not at all. He's just...well, he's an engineer. He's a problem solver. He sees a problem, he acts on it. And if someone he cares about comes to him with a problem, he assumes that they want him to fix it. It's the way he is, and he can't change it, nor would I want him to. The fact that I feel inadequate and stupid around him a lot these days is more my issue than his.
The problem is the age-old one that everyone experiences at some point: we've both grown and changed as people, but we've grown in different directions. He can't give me what I need anymore, and I...well, I don't even know WHAT he needs. He doesn't admit to needing anything, ever.
I need equality. I need not to feel superfluous. I need to be needed, really, although not all the time. I need a guy who'll support me when I'm weak, and who'll let me support him when he's weak. In short, I need a healthy, two-sided relationship with give-and-take in it. I need somewhere where I can be myself. He says I should be myself with him, but so much of who I am is tied into other people and how I relate to them. You can't be a teacher if there's nobody to teach; you can't be a healer if there's nobody to heal. Not that I really think of myself as a teacher or a healer, truly - I don't teach anything, at least not anything that you don't already know, and I maintain that people heal themselves. I just kind of give them a nudge in the right direction. People need to be needed, and me probably more than most. If I'm in a relationship where I'm not needed, I feel worse than useless: I feel like I'm losing my identity.
Much of my identity has been lost or changed in the last two and a half years. Oli pushed my boundaries, pushed me out of my comfort zone, and in some ways that's been good. If he hadn't done that, I wouldn't have become so comfortable with my sexuality. I wouldn't have learned that it's OK to be emotional. I wouldn't have known how good it feels to let someone else take control sometimes. I wouldn't have discovered that it's actually possible for me to give my heart to someone completely and fully, without holding back because of fear and pride. All of those discoveries are good things, things that it was probably important to learn about myself, but the process of learning them has involved such a harsh break-down of who I thought I was, that I'm only now starting to get that identity back.
Sure, I'm sad, because I've lost a best friend as well as the person who's known my body better than anyone. Most likely we'll stay friends, just not as close friends as we were. But at the same time, I'm finally remembering what it's like to feel happy about something internal. I don't mean to give you the impression that I've been walking round in a depression for the last year. I've been content at some times, joyful at others. But it's been a mostly external happiness - I've been happy because of snow, or sunshine, or butterflies, or Chinese food, or a good book. Transient things that fill me with exhilaration for awhile, then fade. I haven't felt that internal joy that I used to get just from doing things, or meeting new people - that joy that never fades, and you can access over and over. Oh, I can't describe this well. The idea of external vs internal happiness...it's sort of like the joy of the world around us vs the joy of being alive and feeling things. External stimuli vs internal peace. You either understand what I mean or you don't, and if you don't, you probably won't no matter how I try to explain.
Jeez, it's getting late. I've been suffering from inzombia for many months now, although it's been getting worse recently. Funnily enough, it doesn't seem to be precipitated by nightmares. I had a nightmare last night that Paul Southwood got killed, but aside from that, in the last month or so the worst dream that I've had was that I was buying a gown for a formal dinner and had to buy it in a size 20. (I typically wear a 14, at least on a good day.) I don't know why I can't sleep at the moment, but I spend many of my nights doing Japanese logic puzzles and playing Lunar Genesis (released as Lunar: Dragon Song in the US, I believe). I suppose the lack of nightmares is a good thing, since this is the first time in about fifteen years that I haven't been plagued by them. Although I am still getting the sleep-deaths, and none of my doctors, either of the body or the mind, can figure out the cause of them.
So anyway, dear reader, I shall leave you there, and go and take a hot bath - there wasn't any hot water before I went to bed, and I'm cold, and when I feel cold I feel dirty for some reason - and then I'm going to grab something to eat, and catch you guys later.
Hope your new years are going well! (I personally have made a second resolution: to read at least two non-fiction books every month. My reading habits have become completely appalling in the last year: romance, romance, romance, porn, romance, fantasy, sci-fi, romance, ad infinitum. This is the year I get myself edumacated, even if it just by reading biographies and factual books.)
Anyway, hope y'all are good. Take care of yourselves, and come back anytime.
This post was penned on Wednesday, but not posted until Thursday, due to jackass internet service people.
I used to hang out on a teen site called Bolt, and I generally got along with people on there, but I do remember one particular verbal scrap I had. I don't know who the girl was; I certainly never talked to her before she started sending me notes, and I can only assume that she took issue to something I put on one of the communal postboards. But whatever the reason, I remember being involved in a good old-fashioned catfight for a week or so, before I discovered the block button. And when I checked out her profile - I wanted to know who had it in for me - I was horrified to find out that she'd listed Jewel as one of her favourite singers. Jewel is one of MY favourite singers, and it somehow seemed terribly wrong that someone of a hostile nature, who claimed to hate everyone who wasn't rich and beautiful, who was clearly lacking both intelligence and kindness, could have any kind of appreciation for the haunting melodies, the subtle mocking of human failings but also the obvious love for people that characterise your average Jewel song.
Stephen Marshall's trial started yesterday. I was supposed to be there, but I had a migraine in the morning and Japanese class in the evening, so I didn't make it to court, which is something that I greatly regret. I currently - as I write this, at least - have no internet. 3 says that they've temporarily cut me off because of a computer virus (although by the time you're reading this, of course I have internet back, or I wouldn't have been able to post this note) so I can't search for information about the trial, and there's very little on the news - more snow plus an earthquake in Haiti have taken over the headlines today. All I know is that as of last night, he had pleaded guilty to dismemberment, but not guilty to murder. *rolls eyes* Because if you find a dead person, the natural way forward is to decide to cut him up and scatter him around in fields, ja?
I go through phases where I'm numb, and then other phases where I can barely speak. Most likely he'll get life in prison, if he's convicted of murder. But as far as I know, Hope Marshall is still missing, and I feel like hell. I feel...well, unclean. And I had this man in my house. I made him tea. He got in my way when I was trying to move the phone around, and I made a joke about trying not to garrotte him with the phone cord, and he laughed. I gave him a couple of cookies, and he told me that they were the best chocolate-chip cookies he'd ever had.
I feel like there's something wrong with me, that I can make cookies that appeal to a man like this.
You guys don't need to tell me how irrational this is. I KNOW it's irrational. But emotions don't always work in line with logic, and my emotions seem to be taking me over this year. And irrational as it is, they feel tainted.
I know that this doesn't mean anything other than the fact that I make damn good cookies that are loved by saints and murderers alike.
All the same, I don't think I'm going to be making them again any time soon.
For the last four days, I've been looking out at a snowy landscape through a cage of icicles, some of which are three feet long. It's pretty awesome. My room is the only room in the house that gets this view, because my gutter was hit by lightning and tore off a couple of years ago, and we never managed to afford to replace it, so melting snow drips off the roof instead of down the gutter and through the pipes.
Ry has a couple of short icicles, and there are a few on the eucalyptus tree outside the kitchen window, but none like these. I know that icicles generally only come when you have a poorly-insulated roof, and that I'm not only damaging the planet but pushing my heating bills up exponentially, and that sooner or later I will need to buy and install insulation. But I sure will miss the icicles.
I can never decide if they remind me of happy, soft Christmassy things, or of my late ex-boyfriend Julian. A bit of both, I think, depending on my mood.
I do love snow, but I have to admit I'm getting tired of it. If all of this snow had come in early December - or even late December - I would have been thrilled. Snow makes me feel Christmassy. But by January, my winter spirit has petered out, and I'm ready to start moving forward and thinking of spring, and I find the snow and ice sort of irritating, especially now that the Christmas decorations have been packed away. (Not in my room - my little tree is still up. I don't believe in bad luck, and tend to live according to my own internal clock.)
Although the day that it fell, everything was so beautiful it hurt. I love the way the world looks when the trees are still covered in it, when it rests on all the branches without melting or falling off. Everything looks so pure and untouched, and it gives me this cozy feeling.
Actually, I often feel that way with snow. I first noticed it when I read Wendy Rosnau's "The Spy Wore Red", from her Spy Games miniseries. Nadja and Bjorn are hunting the assassin Holic Reznik, but a blizzard comes and they get stuck in a cabin in a ski lodge in Austria, and for a couple of days there's nothing for them to do except eat stew and drink coffee, curl up in front of the fire in chenille blankets, and make love. I love those scenes in the book, and every time I read it I feel like I'm there with them. It's like the world stops for a little while, and I feel like I'm all wrapped up in a safe little corner where nothing can touch me, except the few people I let in. I also get it when I play Pokemon Diamond / Pearl / Platinum, when I come out of Mount Coronet into the snowy route up to Snowpoint City.
Yes, I'm a geek. So shoot me.
I know I was supposed to give you the rest of my news updates, but honestly, I'm not quite sure what else there is to tell you. I went to see my Dad and stepmother two Mondays ago. Stacy - my middle-up sister - was there, too (there's me, who's smack-bang in the middle, and then there's my middle-up sister (Stacy), my eldest sister (Haley), my middle-down sister (Amy) and my youngest sister (Lucy)), which was really nice - I hadn't seen her in a couple months. We ate chicken and mashed potatoes - Jackie puts swede and parsnip in with hers, and it doesn't sound like it should be good, but somehow it's wonderful - and salad, and I left feeling like even more of a blimp than normal. (My stepmother and my two stepsisters are just built very small, even though my sisters are only a couple inches shorter than me, and even when I'm slim I often feel like the Hulk around them, but never more than right now. I really HAVE to get back to the gym this coming week, if the snow clears up enough for me to get there.)
And, of course, we swapped presents, and I got a neat book from Haley (I can't remember the title, but it was something about being a fabulous queen who loves herself, and looked very funny), and some purple candleholders from Stacy(which I told her will look fantastic in my cherry-pink bathroom), and my Dad and Jackie gave me some coconut stuff from The Body Shop, and a vast makeup set (goodness knows what I'm going to do with all that stuff; most of my makeup is handbag-sized), and a book about vintage handbags, and a wonderful wintry handbag in black and white and emerald green, and a check. Which I fully intended to use to open a new savings account (my last one got totally cleared out when my Dad had his stroke back in April), but in the end I had to put it in the bank to pay my loan this month. Hopefully I'll be able to take most of it back out next week, though, and start a holiday fun with it. It won't get me to Ohio, but, as my sister joked, it might get me to O, and the hio part will have to come from any extra work that I pick up.
I was hoping to get to the States for 4th of July this year, but I don't know when Mom's operation will be, and I also don't know if I can get the money together. If not this summer, then hopefully next. Actually, next summer might be better for me. I have a close friend over there (in Chicago, not all that far from Ohio) who I want to visit, but I need to work out my feelings for him before I go and see him. Although, that said, he's going through a pretty tough time right now, and if he decides he needs me to come visit now, I probably will, even if it means extending my bank loan for a couple months.
Ehh, probably this is unrealistic, and I'll end up using the check to pay next semester's tuition, but I can dream.
Which reminds me, I MUST write up my Japanese notes tomorrow. I've been really good all semester about writing them up each week, but then in the three weeks before Christmas everything fell apart, and I have three sets of notes to write up. And I HAVE to write them up, or I won't learn anything. I really envy those people who can write neat notes right off the bat, because I've always been a scribbler. My brain works fast enough that my hands can't keep up, so it's useless for me to try and write neatly at the time. But I like things organised - some people would even say that I'm compulsive about it - so I always copy everything up nicely afterwards. Which is good, because otherwise I'd look back a couple months later and wonder what the heck it said, because my scribbles are pretty illegible. I just hope that I can still decipher the stuff from the beginning of December.
I've spent much of the last two weeks working, a little bit of my time sleeping, and quite a bit of it - more than I should have, anyway - shopping for things that I don't REALLY need, but I've managed to convince myself are essential to my emotional and physical well-being. Actually, I was fairly good this year, and didn't buy anything too frivolous. I got a long silk dress in a sort of minky-brown colour to wear to a couple of weddings that I have to attend this year. Brown isn't exactly a weddingy colour, but now that my hair's brunette I think it will look good. I love silk because I can wear it year-round, but even better, it's a silk-blend, so I don't have to dry-clean it, which means that I can also wear it on dinner dates and to garden parties and stuff. The dress is actually a bit big - they had a 12 or a 16, whereas I usually wear a 14 - but I think Lori can take it in at the seams for me. I appreciate the extra bust room, anyway.
Hmm, what else? Oh, I got some really neat Ruby & Millie makeup in the Boots sale - a set of 4 brushes for £7.99 (half price, and even at full price they would have been good, because usually you pay £12-14 for one brush, they're very good quality), and a set of greeny-blue eyeshadows for the same price. I really wanted a little Chilli Pepper eyeshadow pallette in blues that I bought for Stace, but they didn't have any left. They had the brown pallette, that I actually bought for Haley, but I don't wear brown on my eyes very well. I got an emerald-green leather wallet to match my new bag (which I'm very happy with, it's been years since I had a real wallet), and a red Chinese-silk diary for 2010, and a little business-card holder (which is actually identical to the one I got last year, and Mom misplaced before I could use it). And I got a long silver chain from Past Times, which was a lifesaver, because it's really hard to find a chain that's long enough for me, and a pretty cream keepsake box to keep letters and stuff in. And a totally awesome pair of redherring shoes from the charity shop that had only been worn once. I was overjoyed by the shoes, because not only are they totally hot, but they're almost identical to a pair that I had to sadly throw away not long ago, after many years of wearing.
I got some clothes, too. A couple of short-sleeved rollnecks with buttons at the back, in teal and royal purple. Two basic T-shirts from H & M, one in dark purple and one in pale lilac. A purple bolero-shrug thing to go over dresses. (I'm wearing a lot of purple at the moment, which is rare, I usually only wear it in autumn. I suppose there's a lot of it in the sales, because it was such a fashionable colour last year.) And a one-of-a-kind cardigan which is one of the most beautiful items of clothing I've ever owned. They called it a waterfall cardi, and it looks like one of those hand-knit South American things that you see in the Peruvian Collection catalogue for $600. I think it is hand-knit, and the fabric is amazing - soft, warm, but also thin and silky, not at all woolly - but it certainly didn't cost me $600. Actually, none of the stuff I bought was expensive except for the dress, and even that was half price. I think the dress and cardi were the only things I bought that were more than £10. I found really great sales this year, even without going to London.
I probably need to get a pair of snowboots, but I'm honestly not sure where they'll sell them, that won't have sold out. It may not be worth it now until next autumn.
I think I really should go now and try to get some sleep. I know I haven't written much of value recently, and for that I apologise - I know it's mostly guys who read this blog [Hah - how things have changed!] and there is probably not much in the world that bores you more than hearing about my shopping days - but not all that much has happened to me, aside from seeing friends and family, and court, and the stuff I mentioned in the last post that I am trying my hardest to forget about for now. Court was cancelled for most of last week, but I'm back on Monday. And I also have to start painting my room again, and make a dozen phone calls (ick) and an appointment with my dentist (double ick). So I may or may not be around much, but I'll try and check in.
Enjoy your week!
A pretty horrendous day today all round.
Anyone who lives in the Hertfordshire area will remember last spring, when various human body parts started showing up in isolated locations across the county. I remember following the case - mostly unwillingly; I'm not someone who likes watching or reading the news, but every time a new discovery was made the papers threw it out there for all of us to see - but after a while the horror and disgust died down, and I stopped following it.
Then today, I got a call from a journalist, asking to meet with me to discuss a murder case. Turns out it was the above case, which the papers dubbed "Jigsaw Man", and there are two people on trial for it - a woman who I've never met, but whose name has been haunting my dreams, and a man that I know. A man whose wife, in fact, I've known very well indeed in years past.
*sigh*
The case haunted me when it first came out, and I figured it was just down to the grisliness of it, and the fact that it was in my own backyard. We don't get a huge amount of murders round this way, and rarely one as high-profile as this. But finding out today that it's closer to home than I thought, that the probable murderer is a man I've had in my house, served tea and home-baked cookies to, had many long intimate conversations with the wife of...well, that's thrown me. A lot.
I don't know if I should speak to this journalist or not. He came by the house earlier, when I was asleep, and Mom told him that I'd talk to him, but that was before she knew the facts of the case. I knew he was a bad man, but this is worse than I expected. When I first heard he was up on a murder trial, I assumed it was a business-related thing. Murder is horrendous whatever way it happens, but somehow a man shooting another man over a drug deal doesn't strike the same horror in me as a man who stabs a guy for unspecified reasons, then cuts him up and scatters his body parts around a large county. It was only when I came online to do some research that I realised that the case the journalist mentioned, and the body-parts murder, are one and the same.
Apparently the journalist is looking for the wife, who I knew well for a time. All he told Mom is that she's been missing for a long time. I may or may not have information that could help find her - I don't know where she is, but it's possible that she said something to me in the past that could be dredged up with proper questioning. If she's missing because he's done something to her, then I need to help if there's any way I can, but it's equally possible that she's missing because she's hiding from him, in which case I don't want to lead anyone to her. And there is also a slim possibility that her husband knows where she is, and she's hiding from the law. I don't think she would murder anyone, but I know for a fact that she knows what her husband is capable of, and that she was comfortable enough with it to go back to him after they separated once before.
Hell, I don't want to get anyone into trouble, least of all myself and my loved ones. I don't know if talking to a journalist could put us in danger. Probably not; I think it's likely that the husband will go down for murder, and be away for a long time. He's supposed to be sentenced this coming week.
And of course, it WOULD be the week I'm serving jury duty, wouldn't it?
But then on the other hand I think that someone needs to find the wife, soon. Nevermind that we parted on unpleasant terms, that I have no charitable feelings whatsoever towards the woman, and that the day she left my house I danced around singing "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead". If she's in trouble, then she needs to be found.
*sigh*
I hate any kind of drama in my life, and this is more drama than usual. I don't even know what to feel - scared, disgusted, sad, worried...instead I'm just kind of numb. I've felt something bad coming for the whole last year, and it appears that this is it, but now it's here I don't know how to react to it.
So what's new, you ask?
Not all that much. I've been having a fairly boring couple of weeks. New Years was spent quietly at home. I know we watched a movie, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was, although I think I quite enjoyed it. I have this habit of falling asleep in front of the TV at the moment - I fell asleep on Christmas Day while I was watching "Spirited Away", and I'm really annoyed because I can't remember what happened in it when I saw it once before, and if I want to watch I have to watch the whole thing again because the DVD remote is broken - and yet when I come to bed, I can't sleep, except occasionally in the middle of the day. More and more nights I'm not sleeping at all, which is not good when you have to get up at 7am.
I'm supposed to be serving jury duty this week and next, but I went in today and Monday and spent several hours there, only to find that most of the cases have been cancelled due to people - usually defendants - not showing up. I don't know if I'm more irritated at the people who didn't show up, or the council who didn't grit the roads, which ensured that most of the bus routes bypassed my town today and I was stuck taking cabs, which the court are not going to reimburse me for. It never fails to surprise me that it seems to be the richest towns that have the poorest public services. I know there's a REASON I pay £1800 a year in council tax, but I'm damned if I know what that reason is. It's evidently not so they can grit the roads or repair the paving stones or collect the garbage.
So I've been spending many hours sitting on my backside on an uncomfortable seat, playing Lunar Genesis on my DS, reading several books, doing a bajillion Japanese logic puzzles, and praying that my panties don't fall down, which they've been doing a lot lately. (I don't know if they're too big, or too small, or if the elastic just isn't very good, but a lot of them seem to be doing it.) Also trying not to fall asleep, not entirely successfully. Even the Poetic Edda and Janet Evanovich couldn't keep me awake.
Today I gave up on the "responsible" outfits that I usually wear to court for work, and wore the only thing in my closet that was warm enough - Nike sweatpants and a long red T-shirt, and Guess trainers, because they're the only things I have with good grip. (I swore to myself in autumn that I'd buy snowboots before the first snow hit, because I KNEW it was going to be a harsh winter, but then there was always something else that took all my money.) I have to say, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd be attending court in joggers and trainers. I am generally someone who errs on the side of formality in my clothing - while I like jeans and a sweater for shopping or lounging around the house, I'm much more comfortable dressing to the occasion. And to me, court calls for a responsible look. Even at college I'm likely to wear a dress and low heels, or a skirt and sweater if it's cold.
Probably this is due to the fact that at 25, I often look 16, and dressing like a 30-year-old is the only way I can get people to take me seriously. Whatever the reason, I feel more confident if I dress well, and after many years of benevolent - and sometimes less benevolent - irritation, Mom's finally accepted that I am the way I am. I do my own laundry, I buy clothes that are easy-iron or no-iron, and I have yet to embarrass myself by being overdressed.
Christmas was good. Very quiet. Mom and I spent the day lounging around the house, eating copious amounts of incredibly good food, opening even more copious amounts of presents, and napping. Boxing Day we were supposed to go to my brother's house, but my sister-in-law scratched her cornea and had to go to A & E, so we went there on the 27th instead. Luckily, by that time most of the pain had stopped, or so she claimed. This was the first Christmas without Debbie's father - he passed away last January, I think, or maybe it was late December - so it was all a little strange, but we had a nice time. Her mother was there, and two of her three kids, although Jay (her elder son; 21) and Olivia (his girlfriend) had plans that day. But I saw Craig (20) and Christie (23), which was nice.
[The following paragraphs were edited to remove personal information, since I now use proper names.]
Christie and I, particularly, have always got on well, although she's been suffering from an as-yet undiagnosed illness for awhile, so she isn't always feeling up to being sociable.
She did however make an effort to come down, which was much appreciated. I miss her when she's not there. And we generally had a nice day. We played Categories. In case you don't know that one, you each write down four categories on a piece of paper - we always play with animals, plants and countries, and then argue over the fourth one - and then a random letter is chosen, and you have to put down as many things as you can think of that start with that letter. animals include fish and birds and bugs, but not male-female or adult-child differences. Like, you could have cow but not calf. Plants include all fruits and veg, and we generally allow for both common and latin names - if you had S you could have snapdragon, but if you had A you could also have anthirrinum. Countries have to be individually governed and current, although that involves a lot of arguments.
We usually get ten minutes to write down as much as we can think of, although if it's an annoying letter it may only be five minutes. Then we go round the room from person to person, and we read out our lists, and any time someone gets an item that nobody else has, they get a point.
Craig usually wins, because he seems to know everything about everything. I always knew he was smart, but I didn't realise quite how smart until this year. It's a little disconcerting for me, because until my brain damage I was generally used to being the smartest person in a room, but now Craig outstrips me by leagues, and probably would even before the brain damage occurred and I lost a couple dozen IQ points. That said, I did manage to rack up an impressive 16 points on the S letter, and won that game. (Craig won the T game, and Christie won the M game.)
Theoretically my brother should win, because he's both a fisherman and a pharmacist, so he has a heads-up on the rest of us in the animals and plants categories. (Fish for animals, herbal supplements for plants.) Sometimes he does win, but they're an incredibly intelligent family. Debbie and her mum know fearsome amounts about gardening, Craig knows everything, and Christie either has bad games where she can't think of anything, or good games where she doubles anyone else's score, probably depending on whether she's high or low at the time.
Mom and I are smart, but our knowledge is more contextual. Mom is good at in-depth analyses of stuff, but ask her to recite lists of things, and she's lost. And me...there was a time when I knew every person in my class of 86 by their phone number, but that time has passed. Even back when I had an eidetic memory, I needed a visual or auditory focus for my knowledge. Ask me to recite the name and atomic number of every element on the periodic table, and I could have done it, because I could see it in my mind. But ask me to tell you all the elements on the table that begin with S? No way in hell, unless I went through the whole thing. Likewise, in my teens I could have sung you the complete lyrics to any song I'd ever heard, but if you gave me a line from a song and asked me to name the song and artist, I couldn't do it. I'm great when things are in context, not so great when they're randomly ordered. The educational psychologist I saw when I was a kid said my brain was like the Library of Congress: full of an awe-inspiring amount of information, but completely impossible to access unless you know exactly what you're looking for, and how to look systematically for it. There's a clear order to things, but you don't see the order unless you're familiar with the structure to start with, and to a casual observer it probably looks like a jumbled mess.
It's getting late, and I need to read a little and then get some sleep. I'll give you the rest of my updates soon.
Hope you're all enjoying the snow!
