awesome

I'll tell this one in snippets, just like I used to.

Friday, Joe and I sit by the pond behind Founders, talk about relationships, how and why and if they're worth it. When you're happy you feel like you can never be hurt again; when you're hurt you want to become celibate, to close yourself off from ever having to feel.

It lasts until you get bored of crying, til someone catches your eye, and then suddenly falling in love doesn't just seem like a good idea, it seems like the only idea. Sometimes can take ages, years, to get to that place again. Sometimes it doesn't take half as long.

In the end, deathbed thoughts won't be of the pain, but of the joy. And in that, this is worth it.

*****

Saturday, my brother's house, his room full of things that used to be in my parent's house. That's the bed I slept on when I was 10, that table in the living room I used to play under as a kid.

I lie flat on my back, stare up underneath at the black capital letters printed on the tables underside. I tell Dave I used to fixate on those letters, on what they meant. He asks what they mean. I grin, tell him I don't know, I'm eighteen now and I still haven't figured it out.

*****

Chris and Dave, North for the Winter, play at the Point in Fleet. They're good, very good, about four years older than the oldest person there and with a kind of musical sophistication that the little shits can only dream about.

I like the way people, couples, stand together at gigs. This is the kind of music that makes guys hold their girlfriends a little bit tighter. I love it.

*****

Mex and I drive home from Fleet, listening to Jimmy Eat World, driving far too fast. Too fast, too dangerous. If I could drive, that would be the thing that killed me.

Dubiously, Mex lets me drive his Smart Roadster around the industrial estate. I'm terrified, but it's so much fun. The temptation to put my foot down, to get away faster is almost uncontrollable.

It's a good thing I don't drive. I'd never come back.

*****

The Ag, a guy from Tesco I had such a crush on is putting the moves on me and it's a lovely bit of closure I'll admit. A year ago nothing would have made me happier.

Tonight, I go outside and talk to a bald guy called Nathan, who tells me that no one can take control of my life but myself. Only I can fix myself.

He tells me not to worry, he's 31 and he's only starting to work himself out. I've got plenty of time.

19 year old graphic design students are all very well, but Nathan's got my heart tonight.

*****

The big white elephant you drive past on the way into Camberley. I get the urge to break in somewhere and, a traffic cone and a salsa central advert later, we're climbing over the fence and taking pictures of ourselves on the elephant.

I used to be terrified of that thing. Sarah swallowed a penny when she drove past it once, or was it me? I can't remember. Either way, I'm not scared of it anymore.

*****

Shaun says, "if your brother knew you were doing this, he'd kill us both", and he's right.

I'm in a shopping trolley in Andrew's front garden, smoking something special and trying to remember all the French words I know.

Half an hour later I'm asleep with Mex on the sofa. No, not asleep, just pleasantly incapable of moving.

*****

The Monaco Grand Prix wakes me up before I'm ready and Chris, my other big brother, watch it together.

*****

I talk to Liz at the pub. She wants to know how it's going so I tell her what's true, that now I'm starting to understand it all it's much easier to deal with.

I tell her I'm not a Christian anymore, that I've started smoking and I'm terrified that my parents will find out and be disappointed, that I'm taking control and losing control all at once but that every day is better than the last because finally, I'm figuring myself out.

She grins. "That's awesome."

bittersweet again

It's late. I'm drunk. Clearly it's time to blog. Blogtime!

Sometimes the moment is more important than the moment after. A lot of the time in fact.

As always, I have nothing to say; I'll find something to say, as always.

Nothing to say out loud, anyway.

It's been a while since I've said what I've been doing.

Today I did this and that, talked to Sam, talked to Joe, talked to Est, talked to everybody. Saw Tim off at the station. I'm pretty sure I talked to him too.

Drank wine, got locked out of my flat and had to gatecrash a party in the block opposite to steal a knife to break my way back in. Also managed to cadge a bottle of wine and two cigarettes off lovely Italian men named Alessandro and Lorenzo respectively.

I've had so many conversations with so many people about the same things that I can't remember who said what and all the words are overlapping into one big mess and I'm attributing the wrong phrases to the wrong people.

In theory, it doesn't matter who said what, only that it was said. In actuality it matters so fucking much, but what I want right now isn't what I'll want tomorrow.

It doesn't matter which 'he' said it, because even if 'he' said it, sometimes the moment to come is more important than this moment.

This moment, 'he' ought to call and tell me he loves me, he ought to come over. But it cannot happen unless it does. Everything that happens is a product of what happened before. Tonight, and the unfair thing that I chose to do, was already going to happen this morning. This morning was already going to happen the way it did because it had to because of last night.

Cause and effect, cause and effect, cause and fucking effect, til there's no point in worrying about tomorrow because it's all already in hand. Not in the hand of God, but in the hands of what every one of us is doing right now. Only that will affect tomorrow.

See how it goes up and down?

I knew in that moment that the moment that followed it would be painful, but our minds were made up. I know in this moment that is painful that the next moment will be better. Things will rise again.

Cheap wine and Italians and closure. Thank God it's Friday.

Roll on Saturday.

stronger / the best thought i've had all day

The realisation is sudden, scary even. I'm txting my parents to say thank you for an evening out at the cinema (conveniently forgetting that, by twist of fate, I ended up paying for it - how they must love a daughter with a debit card?) and trying to reassure them, above all, that I'm ok.

How 'ok' I am is probably debatable, but I'm less worried about myself than I was last week. Last week I had the luxury of a relationship, a shoulder to cry on. Now that I'm not there anymore, I'm faced with two choices. Wallow like a pig in shit or pull myself the fuck together.

Oddly enough, this stupid situation gives me more, not less, of an incentive to come off it and sort it out. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned; getting dumped means that being ok is a matter of pride, of principle.

It's not hard feelings as such. The fury isn't at him but at feeling bad itself, misery itself. I don't want to feel bad - God knows I spend enough time doing that already - so we'll send the fury somewhere better instead.

Txting my parents, trying to find something comforting to say about my bad situation, all I can think of is this: I'm harder than I look, it takes more than this to bring me down.

Which isn't true, really. I get down about misplaced library books, running out of cigarettes, no one being online, someone not smiling at me when I smile at them. Now I have a reason to feel down, an actual bad thing to worry about, for some reason I'm having none of it.

Maybe it's because the little things get to me. Because it's not the little things themselves it's what they spark in me. A misjudged conversation, a funny look, a bad day and it's like a chain of gunpowder with a very tall building instead of a keg at the far end. And that, I think, is something to worry about.

I think I've been suffering from depression for anything as long as five years. During that time several people I care about have died, and I've literally lost count of the times I've wanted to give up on life altogether.

And that's why now, after the initial sting has worn off, I can see the silver lining in this particular cloud. I've had so many big clouds, so many rainclouds, that I can see this for what it really is - an unpleasant situation in an otherwise fantastic life, in which I feel better than I have done in years.

I tell my parents that I'm stronger than I look and it's true. What would I be to give up now?

This is the Yateley girl in me, this is the stubborn in me, the hardass in me. I'm worth more than bitterness and regret, than feeling this way. I am worth more than this.

this is cool

Becci has had a good idea. Every day for a year, something that made you think, hey, that was cool. So you blog about it, just that moment, one moment, each day.

I'm in. Partly because I like the novelty of the thing; partly because the doctor informs me that postivive thinking is a good thing. Whatever. It's not like I'll pass up another excuse to blog every day.

Cool, huh?

pretty when you cry

You get sick. You get sad.

What scares me is the loss of control. I'm realising more and more that control is a real issue here. I only want to smoke because I don't like the thought of it being unknown to me. I want to experience things just to prove that I can.

I'm more confident with my hair short. When I was twelve I just looked like a boy. Now I look like a girl, and that is good.

I hate to be defeated by an empty screen, but I genuinely don't know what to write.

Yesterday we discovered our broken kitchen window opens wide enough that we can smoke out of it. Est, cigarette in hand, told me to come and yell out of the window, let it all out.

I screamed. Pigeons upped and flew away.

I feel like just screaming, over and over again, I want to scream away 19 years of emotion until I'm actually clean.

I want to scream at myself for wanting to scream. I feel like smacking myself in the face, on behalf of everyone who suffers worse than I do and doesn't complain half as much as I do.

I feel like smacking myself from thinking that emotions can be compared. For thinking that that matters.

But I can't do those things.

So I'm blogging instead. I'm always fucking doing that.

Fucking difficult to express things sometimes.

I feel like... like I'm going to keep typing until something comes of this.

The other night I said that what scares me about life is that there's no end to the pressure, there's always this to deal with and this to deal with, thing after thing until you die, and no one expects anything of you anymore. I tell him that's why death seems so appealing sometimes.

He said he agreed, and he was surprised to hear someone else say out loud what he'd always thought.

What hope I took from that conversation.

I don't want to write about breaking up. I don't want to write about depression, or pain, or misery, or hopelessness. That seems to be all I write about sometimes.

Sometimes you look at people and they seem so fucking unaffected by it. You get people who look like they've never had a bad day in their lives, people whose misery is only a temporary response to an unpleasant situation, rather than a constant. A pimple rather than a birthmark.

And then you listen to something beautiful and sad, or read something ancient, or just get that feeling in your gut, that knowledge that the strongest emotions are the most universal. More poems, more books, more songs to love and sadness than to anything else because they are the two, I think, that hit you hardest.

And they're the two that hit everyone.

Everyone wants to be loved. And everyone gets sad.

Does everyone find it shocking that someone can look at the most important emotions in life and think of joy only as an afterthought?

It only just occurred to me that happiness should be on that list.

Is that pessimistic or am I just low tonight?

I'll end this now, because I'm low tonight, and writing this barely seems worth the effort anymore.

Ugh.

maybe maybe maybe

You live; you learn.

Today I learnt that being dumped is shit.

I told everyone that you were sunshine. How appropriate that it won't stop raining.

Good thing you don't read this blog. You never got round to it.

Jusqu'ici tout va bien.

So far so fucking brilliant.

student safety

Last night this guy was following me.

Or maybe not. Maybe he was just walking home the same way as me.

Walking about 10 feet behind me, turns right into Harvest Road when I do, drops behind when I turn round to stare him out.

Blind drunk am I, shouldn't be on my own, should have stayed at Catherine's after all, shouldn't have gotten it into my head to go and see Sam, should have stayed at the party with people and people.

I call Sam when he's further away, ask him to come meet me. By the time I reach Victoria Street I'm on the phone and he's feet away.

I stop outside the chip shop and there's two guys with a pizza, I ask them to wait with me. The guy is nowhere to be seen now, but then there he is, hunched over, walking towards us, crosses the street before he gets to us, carries on.

Probably nothing. I'm drunk and I probably got Sam out of bed for nothing.

I'm more scared of the part of me that wants this guy to catch up and try something. More scared that I'm disappointed to find myself safe.

What the fuck is that?

drunken daylight

Let it be known, Catherine, that I wrote this in the brief period I was away from Medicine when I said I was going home to do stuff on the internet.

By stuff I mean BLOGGING.

Because you're drunk, the memories don't mean less. I said to Tim the other day, laughter when you're drunk is still laughter, the illusion of control of control that self-harm offers is still a comfort, however ill-founded.

We are the self-harm society. We know what it's about, we know it's cool.

It's not. But, like everything else, it's so good.

I will post this, just for the thrill that Cat will get to see her name in print.

I love you Cat. Mind you, I love everyone right now.

It's sunny but it's still raining - pathetic fallacy says that the weather and myself are in tune right now. As always, as always.

Love. Yeah? Important, right?

So drunk. Yeah!

readme

Suddenly it's all a bit too much for me again and I don't know I don't know I don't know what to feel.

Ugh.

What's odd is that this feeling will just be one out of many others when I look back on it and that's the strangest thing about life I think, how the present is the only real time, changed before you've even completed the thought of how fragile it is. And yet for all its fragility it's so fucking inescapable.

I cannot escape this moment, the crest of the wave that doesn't even exist. I'm already different to how I was when I started this post, to when I walked down the hill, to when I said goodbye to Sam, to when Est called.

Emotions last longer than moments, they're the only things, if cells and body and time are constantly renewing, that stay the same through all these different seconds.

Some feelings last longer than others.

Six months down the line, I flick through the archives and find this post, called 'readme' and I'm intrigued, forgetting, so I read this and remember this night in particular when I felt so bad and considered how strange it is to even feel bad at all from one moment to the next.

You savour the time like nothing else, you feel every second pass because you long for them to pass faster, I want it to be tomorrow, the next day, to be somewhere other than this. To the next day, the next problem, the next sick feeling.

The past and future don't exist. Time travel can't exist. Only the present has any link to eternity. And the present feels bad.

To be outside of time. Cigarettes burn down too fast and I want to be somewhere else with scars that don't heal because feeling better is so hard and I don't match up to myself yet.

not that i see myself as a prostitute, but...

Church, then.

Romans 7 is the reading. I don't even realise it til I hear it but these are the verses I read in the prayer room the night that I walked out and left being a Christian behind me. I wouldn't say they were the catalyst, but they certainly made me realise a few things.

Colin talks about the flesh and the spirit, and how they want different things and that's how we end up doing the things we despise. He talks about little steps, how each harmless cigarette is another step closer to being somewhere you don't want to be, eg addicted to cigarettes.

He makes a wise point, and illustrates it well. But it's too much like straight lines to me. I can't see life as one pathway, one straight road anymore. I see it more as being a pond, and we're sort of treading water and dipping under and what's more important is just breathing and enjoying the feeling of the lilies rather than getting to the other side.

I finally get the courage to pray, and ask God for someone to talk to who will understand. At which point Catherine comes and sits next to me to paint something on the wall, and I smile quite contently.

Before I leave, Tracey gives me Hosea 2:14-15, "but then I will win her back once again. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there. I will return her vineyards to her and transform the valley of trouble into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from captivity."

Hosea was told to marry a woman who he knew would be unfaithful to him, and he loved her quite faithfully until she was able to do the same for him. As with God and the church, he waited patiently til she tired of her other lovers and returned to give him the affection he craved.

Sat on Catherine's windowsill, as we are wont to do, I say that I think I'm too scared to give all of myself to faith. I threw myself into it wholeheartedly, with little thought, and I got hurt by it. I was encouraged and enriched and transformed at so many points but in the end it just hurt me too much because I knew deep down it wasn't going to work. Because I didn't really believe it.

I built a wall between myself and God and then threw myself at it, which I imagine is why it hurt because, let's face it, bricks are hard.

I don't disbelieve, but I don't believe, and I simply do not trust that I won't get hurt again by this.

If and when I go back it won't be because I think it'll be fun or because I'm so desperate for self-worth that I'll pretend to believe anything. It'll be for love, just like with Hosea.

consider a girl, descending a hill in the downpour

I'll start this post by informing you that I have nothing to say, which of course isn't true because now that I'm typing I'll end up going right ahead and saying something anyway.

My quest to eradicate Coca-Cola from my life is going slightly better since the discovery of Whole Earth Organic Cola at Egham's Holland and Barrett store. Bonus. Made with apple juice as well as kola nut/bean/whatever it is. Really nice as well.

And... I've started trying to write a play, more out of frustration at the lack of student-written drama being put on at RHUL than anything else. I don't know if it'll be particularly good but hopefully better than the only student-written play put on this year, Capital Punishment, which was well-acted and well-intentioned if nothing else. It'll be fun. It might never come to anything, but it's fun.

Being back on medication is fantastic and, so far, I haven't had any readjustment side-effects which makes me a happy bastard indeed. As it were.

This week has mainly been doing tech work and feeling ill. The tech work is getting better - yesterday I got to ride in the van and paint things, which was fun, and I get ony really well with my crew (crew in the actual sense of the word, not the ghetto sense of the word).

Tonight sees Est and I heading off to Ash for a hedonistic evening with Tim, everyone's favourite musical skinhead.

Tomorrow sees me going to church.

We'll talk later.

chocolate voice

You can tell with people. You can see it on their wrists and in the way they take too long to smile. It's like a gaydar for depressives and people who don't like themselves, we call out to each other like angsty beacons. You can tell sometimes - but then sometimes you can't.

What I realise is that the closer you look, the sadder people are. You take someone shiny and wonderful and either get them drunk or just take the time to talk to them and suddenly stuff spills out, secrets land on the grass and there's nothing to do but just try and hold it, because that's all you can really do for someone. You can't take someone's burden, but you can step underneath it, hold it with them for a while.

Yesterday, the psychiatrist asked to see my legs. As if short skirts and shorts hadn't given it away, he wanted to see, to really see.

No no. Because it's secret, isn't it. So secret that I can't even think about it sometimes, let alone talk about it on the internet. You just don't tell people. Misery is like that. Such a bad conversation starter.

On the quad I hear a guy telling another guy that he doesn't need Valium, he should just stop taking them, he doesn't need them. His dad's dead, he says, and he never needed them. It's as if, if people would just pull themselves together, there wouldn't be any depression or pain.

Why are we so unkind? We change the subject before I get to yell, much to my chagrin, because I've grown a few opinions about pills recently and I just love to shoot my mouth off. Mainly I just want to ask this guy if he's ok. Not in the way he's been asked, not in the 'what the fuck's so bad that you can't get through it without drugs' kind of way. People are so confrontational, like if they ask the awkward questions that psychiatrists have never thought to ask that they'll somehow find the answer, they'll prove themselves stupidly right and break that person a little bit more.

I want to give the guy a hug, because I can't make it better, but I can tell him that he's not the only person in this circle. Of course he's not.

You learn this about being unhappy - you have never been and will never be the only one. No matter how low, how awful you think you are, there's someone else who feels the same. And it doesn't diminish it, or take away your right to be unhappy because everyone has the right to eat and breathe and feel like shit.

You have the right to be weak.

Heart to hearts recently, it's like chocolate voice. You know when you eat too much chocolate or anything really sugary and the back of your throat clogs up with the syrup and when you try to talk you sound like a Fraggle? That's chocolate voice. When I got it one day, Est pointed it out and I was so fucking stunned. How could it be that someone else knew about chocolate voice? How could anyone else possibly understand the thing I thought only happened to me?

Being miserable is like chocolate voice. We all get it, even if we never notice it, and the moment you start talking about it out loud you realise that no one's immune.

Suddenly you see that everyone has chocolate voice, to some degree, and suddenly you see that no one's talking about it. Why aren't we talking about it?

getting what you give

"Hello, is this Get Stuffed taxidermy? I'm calling from Royal Holloway, University of London. We're putting on a production in the drama department and we're looking for a rather unusual prop, I was wondering if you could help us?"

"Certainly love, what is it you need?"

"A dead rabbit. Please."

"Well, I'm afraid most of the animals I have are family pets..."

"Oh no, not stuffed, just dead."

"Just dead?"

"Yup."

"Not stuffed?"

"Nope."

"Why don't you just go out and catch one?"

Why indeed.

"No, sorry, actually we're looking for one with the skin still on, if that's possible..."

"Um, I don't suppose it matters what colour..."

"Preferably not too cute, we don't want to upset anyone.

This, ladies and gentleman, is what you get for doing drama.

*****

And for kindness, what do you get? For being a pussy, maybe. This woman stops me in Egham town centre in her car, says her mum's in hospital in Chertsey, she lives in Basingstoke, she's got no money and sure enough she's run out of petrol, could I lend her some cash?

She'll give me her name, phone number, address, license plate...

Never mind love, consider it a good deed. I'm far too polite to call you up and ask for it back and I doubt you'll call me up to offer so just take it. Whether she's lying or not matters less than whether I'm willing to part with money, which in this case I am.

And it comes around, then. After my shopping, I'm suddenly exhausted and Egham hill has never looked bigger. A man at the station, heading to a conference at Royal Holloway offers to share a cab with me and pays for my ride, giving the driver two extra pounds to take me right to the door of my halls.

Everybody wins. This time anyway.

*****

In other news, I got the job. That's the toned down version of yesterday's reaction ("Yes!!! I got the fucking job!!!") but I'm still over the moon about it.

I'm also over the moon about having to buy a dead rabbit, but that's another story.

*****

My call register has never looked better, with the numbers of Dialogue Direct, two butchers and the college psychiatrist respectively.

Coming off meds without the knowledge of your doctors is a bad idea. Mainly because when you go back on them, you have to readjust to them all over again but also because when you eventually do get them flowing through your bloodstream again they might not actually work anymore.

This does not bode well.

My bag has never been more loaded with substances, between the alcohol and nicotine and Anadin and Citalopram... Up to my eyeballs. It's fantastic, even if the future does seem upsettingly full of withdrawal and adjustment and withdrawal and adjustment again.

*****

Sometimes, it's all a bit much, a bit scary. Sometimes it's not, sometimes it's so easy I just want to smile. Isn't it always that way?

pharmaceutical epiphany

I've been off meds for about 5 days now. Health centre chaos meant that I wasn't going to get a new prescription for a couple of days anyway and after a rough 48 hours last week I thought I'd come through the worst and stupidly decided to take a lax approach to drugging myself up again.

Turns out, that wasn't the worst.

Constant low-level nausea, come on down. Moodswings and teariness, come on down. Sudden urges to down a whole bottle of painkillers, come the fuck down and bring me a headache while you're at it.

Ugh ugh ugh. Completely self-made misery am I. On the plus side, I have discovered two important things.

1) After weeks of deep curiosity, I now know exactly what would happen if I were to 'just stop taking the damn things'. It's not pretty.

2) Anti-depressants do, in this instance, in my case, at this time, for what I need, work. In that I wanted to feel better and, whilst taking them, I did. In that I felt shit before, then I felt better and now I'm not taking them I feel shit. That's a pretty simple kind of science, simple even enough for me to understand. Yes, I know it's not always that simple, but simplicity is beautiful for me.

Suddenly, start to feel sick, have to lie down. Try to get up, collapse on Sam, which is oh-so dignified, have to sleep for a while, dream about being in Scotland, then feel a bit better and go for a walk.

Having to lie down though. It's genuinely terrifying how quickly depression hits you again. Without expecting it, it's like suddenly projectile vomiting as opposed to knowing you're going to be sick and taking the necessary precautions.

Fuck me, is all I can say about that.

Also, that no one's ever seen me that vulnerable before. Before, I could recognise when the Bad Place started yawning like a chasm underneath me; today I just thought I felt a bit tired and should sit down and was actually rather surprised to find myself paralysed in bed with utter exhaustion and misery. You know, you don't really do that much in front of people, least of all your new boyfriend.

How to explain it?

I guess the reason I'm writing about this is because I want to say that it's actually a good thing. I can't wait to get back to pill-popping. I'm practically salivating for it. Blah blah blah. Drugs are bad. Fuck it, not when they make you feel better they're not.

Today I realised how bad life was before. I don't ever, ever want to put myself through that again.

recurrence

These are the things I dream about most frequently:

Being chased and my legs being trapped in slow motion so I can't run away.

Having pet hamsters, and them dying.

Lifts. Always, always, always, lifts.

Someone getting ever closer, walking through every locked door I try to put between us.

Kit.

Kelly Clarkson.

Wells and underground prisons, being stuck in them.

The killer from Scream.

Going out for meals with strange selections of people.

University, but not as I know it. Specifically halls of residence, Runymede and Founders most often, but different, better, more spiral staircases, more pubs, less of my own stuff.

Being stuck in an MRI machine.

Suicide. Mine, other people's.

I'm not lying.

A big wooden house with a room containing a giant Christmas bauble that, somehow, visitors get stuck in and have to cling on for life with their fingernails. Not as fun as it sounds.

Soul Survivor.

Going on a date with someone, only for them to change into someone else, someone hideously inappropriate, at the crucial moment of the goodbye kiss.

People I'm annoyed with, normally so we get to argue.

Having my hair cut.

Giant, corporate parties where I'm the gatecrasher.

People dying and it being my fault.

Having a baby.

Meeting George Bush and not shaking hands with him for political reasons. Chaos ensuing.

Sometimes I quite look forward to getting to sleep.

that's me in the spotlight

I think I thought I saw you smile. Losing my religion. This song coming on WMP isn't as funny as I thought it would be.

Blogging, then. You find that essence, the overriding feeling of where and who you are at the moment, you put it up on the screen and send it out and sometimes lovely people comment on it and that makes you happy.

Then, then, then.

I'd like to write essays. I'd like to put more into this, to plan and draft and edit and come up with something more polished. I want to be a writer, but only because I can't be a preacher anymore.

Friday, sitting on the quad in exquisite sunshine, Sam, Cat, Est, Joe, Paddy, David, Ro. Mmm. Cat gives me a French lesson, I want to get a tattoo, someone steals our magazines and I smoke til my head hurts and it's wonderful.

Accidental conversation with God the other night. A beautiful moment, reading Bakhtin on the steps outside, ideas and universality and global culture flowing off the pen, pretty smoke, people walking past, Yateley's finest Elle Milano playing on my phone.

I think, what am I here for now? The little voice says, there was a calling on your life, there still is. There was standing on street corners, shouting out loud, there was wanting to change and be changed, to make films and write books that make people think and making some dent on the mess that fallen people make.

There's still that. I tell the still, small voice that it'll have to speak louder than that now. I want a voice so loud that I know it's not just my own before I'll listen again. However, whoever, this voice is right about one thing. I still know what I'm here for. What I wanna be here for.

I like to think that somewhere in the darkness, something's smiling. Maybe it's God, maybe it's my reflection in a car window.

Job interview. Hill says: if you were an animal, which animal would you be?

I say a cat, because they're wise and feisty, they're independent, they're adventurous and they've got the kind of class that dogs can only dream about. Afterthought: also, they're pretty.

Hill grins and I see him write the word 'pretty' down.

Hill says: you have thirty seconds to talk about something you're passionate about, doesn't matter what, we just wanna see the passion.

I smile, say "I'm really into politics..."

Thirty seconds later I think I've said far too much. Probably still got five seconds to go but it's fine. Passion and all that, the timing's allowed to be loose.

In the meantime, there's this headache. Above my right eye. It's the headache you get when you ran out of medication on Thursday and you are coming down. And you can feel it.

And it's as simple as, you stop taking the pills and you get sick again. The doctors say I'm on them for six months or I have relapse.

I tell Paul I'd rather be happy on pills. Yeah, everyone wants to be organic, we'd love to just sniff flowers for medication but life doesn't work out that way sometimes. Maybe I'll be dead in the ground. Doesn't get more organic than that.

Chemicals, then. Too many, not enough. I say that smoking is the least of my worries. A girl has to feel better somehow and if I'm not smoking them I'm stubbing them out on my legs. I make the call. Smoking them is far more social.

You make yourself happy. Sometimes it feels like every way of feeling better is just another kind of self-harm. Maybe I'm doing this all the wrong way. I feel much better though.

Apart from the headache. I could do without the headache.

And the guilt. Fuck the guilt.

try being happy

I wanted to call this 'sunshine', because that's more what it's about, but this deeply engrained superstition (probably more to do with my writing habits than anything else) says that to call a post 'sunshine' is to ensure that there will one day be a post called 'rain'.

It will rain again, inside and out, but who cares? There'll be pain again, and crying again, but isn't there always? Find me someone who can give that kind of guarantee, that you will always feel this way and you'll have found me a fucking liar. I'm not in the mood for fucking liars. Ever again.

It's so sunny, every fleck of dust on my screen has a shadow of its own. Poetry is like that.

*****

Anthony says "This is the best interview ever", and he's right.

Imran, Anthony, Tara and I are sitting in Hyde Park, overlooking the fountain, smoking and talking and drinking cheap booze, eating bread, moral values and a wish to change the world all fresh out of the oven.

All we have in common is this job interview, our fascination with the interviewer's name (Hill - the kind of hippy you want to be your friend), the cancerous bad habit that they let us do in the hotel lobby to soothe our nerves. And this vibe, the good vibe.

The good vibe is at uni as well, spilling people onto the quad to drink and pretend to work. Catherine and Sam are trying to teach me French, someone steals my magazine, it's fine, it's all fine.

Sunshine has come, and I realise that the single most important thing you can do is to learn to get by, and to help others get by. Love breeds love; karma is only a cliche because it's true; sunshine brings out the best like sunburn. Red, irresistible, painful I guess, but everything is.

Get by. So what if you get burnt?

gainful employment

Tomorrow I have a job interview with these nice people, hopefully my employers for the summer.

I'm reading up on Amnesty International for a role play in which I have to try and convince another member of the interview group to sign up for a monthtly donation. That's right guys, I'm gonna be one of them.

It's annoying, isn't it, when they show up with their clipboards in the street and make you feel guilty. On the flip-side, it's nice, isn't it, when charities get money to do good things with.

I won't pretend it's as simple as that, because it's really not, but if I have to earn money (apparently it's quite important these days) I'd rather do it with an organisation whose purpose is merely questionable rather than downright shit. By that I don't mean that DialogueDirect are bad, I mean that working for *insert corporation here* would just be really, really bad.

I'd like to go home at the end of the day knowing Help the Aged or Greenpeace or Childline are getting an extra £5 a month because of someone I signed up. That's the kind of satisfaction I'd like this summer.

In the meantime, what better opportunity to piss people off?

this is my ticket

I get in, throw down my bag, eat a banana and ten minutes later find a slice of it, perfectly formed, still waiting on my desk to be eaten. I love that. You think it's over, but it's really, really not.

Fun recently has been writing essays til my fingers bleed, mastering my first and last magic trick, getting a bump on the head that yes I'm going to mention on my blog because I love sympathy and going on a jaunt to London to interview this band.

*****

Arrive at Tottenham Court Road tube, take the wrong exit, wander up the nearest street making hopeful noises. We're interviewing them at the Metro in... 3 minutes. Right.

Est calls their tour manager while I approach some helpful looking strangers, huddled in a doorway with a cart marked 'cool gospel'.

"Alright guys, don't suppose you could tell me where the Metro club is?"

"Umm."

"No."

"Uh..? No. Don't... reckon. Sorry, love."

"Cheers anyway..."

"Uh, actually love..." The brightest of the three cottons on to something and points upwards to the sign above their doorway. Metro Nightclub and Venue.

Huh.

Before I can point this out to Est, she's gotten directions to the other Metro nightclub, the one we're actually supposed to be at, so I decide not to feel too stupid about, you know, that.

The band are from Aberdeen, which makes me like them instantly, and their tour manager is quite a dashing fellow called Scott Forrest, which makes me like them even more. We're worried that they're going to be arsey, but they're not. They're very friendly and each of them shakes hands with both of us.

There's nowhere quiet for us to go so, after my suggestion of sitting on crates in the alley is unanimously squished, we go to sit in Sloane Square, bundled up across two benches.

It's not every day a girl gets offered a seat by a Scottish bloke whose actually in a real band. A real band!

My function in this venture is to start conversation by mentioning that my family are from Aberdeen and generally be eye-candy, while Est handles the interview like a pro. We both fulfil our roles admirably, with the added bonus of getting kisses from the tour manager as we leave.

Will we stay for the gig? Nah, sorry darlings, we've got places to be. Keep 'em keen. We'll be in touch, see you soon!

Fantastic. The mp3 recorder worked and everything.

Having kept our cool for almost forty minutes in such esteemed Northern company, disappearing out of sight around a corner leaves us in absolute hysterical chuckles.

At which point a man in an official looking fluorescent jacket stops us and informs us that we've been under surveillance and are suspected of loitering with intent to give to the poor.

Say what? Have some money, have all our money because we're so ecstatic about not making tits of ourselves and getting sugar from Mr Forrest and we're also quite pleased that we're not actually in trouble.

Thank goodness for that mate, we thought it was about the drugs!

I learn that Pret a Manger do damn nice sandwiches, that The Needles are lovely blokes, that I am in fact capable of working an mp3 dictaphone and that scampering the length of Waterloo twice just for Krispy Kremes is so, so worth it.

Did I mention that today was wonderful?

be thou my vision

When they tore down the old halls, they sent the wildlife scurrying. They say there's an infestation in the pub, so last night I dreamt about cockroaches.

The only way to find the cockroaches was with these sticks, like drumsticks. We sifted through piles of clothes in the house trying to find them and kill them.

When I left my sticks on the floor, they started to spin.

Why's that? What's making that happen?

Someone from church comes over and tells me that's what happens when people die, their spirit leaves through the floor and makes objects move.

I say that's not very Christian. They ask, what would I know? The sticks start spinning again, a cockroach runs across my bedroom ceiling and music starts to play.

I'm talking in my sleep a lot more recently. And crying, apparently. I have 2,500 words to write for tomorrow. I'm not... bothered, exactly, but sleeping's getting kind of tough. He tells me I worry too much and I think, you have no idea.

Since writing this, three worship songs in a row have come on WMP. The big ones, the sad ones, the ones that make you cry when you're beating your head against the door and waiting for God to answer.

Some things hurt more than others.

The blister on my ankle is fine. That's fine.

The twisted ankle from falling off the pavement last night, it's not too bad.

The 'I've just discovered triple gin and tonics' hangover hurts pretty bad.

The dream last night hurt the most. I fell down the stairs at my parents house, dropped the dinner I'd been carrying and hurt myself. I was too sad to get up, but no matter how much I called out, none of my family would come and help me. I woke up whimpering, why won't daddy come and help me?

What hurts? That picture, the light of the world, the door being opened and Christ walking in, face full of concern.

The door jammed shut. Must have been the bugs.