All At Once

fuck it.

Be a Star

I've done something to my right hand. It's gone really spazzy. Gah.

Today I loved my job. Like actually. I was happy. It's so much better when there's stuff to do, or I create stuff for me to do, because standing around doing nothing is sort of stressful and dull. I found a super cute picture of a monkey, which has now been stuck on the inside cover of the repair book.

Last night was massively creepy. A weird old drunk man hit on me in the pub. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that only men old enough to be my dad like me. He said he wanted to bite Smem's nose off as well. So weird.

France in 2 days. It's going to be weird being away from work. And I'm going to miss people I guess.

3 weeks is a long time. And everything could change. Disappear. I'm just trying to convince myself to take chances before it's too late. Not that it'll really work out.

Some racing, some stopping, some skipping and hopping.

halp.

bai.x.

7th Fret Over Andres

On Wednesday evening I contemplated with Smem that maybe this hasn't been such a bad summer. Spending evenings in the pub and walking down deserted streets in the dark, sitting on Parker's Piece occasionally. In the grand scheme of things, it's not that bad.

"it's when you find that life is not a movie show"

So as the summer's ending, and my friends are going to be leaving soon, as is my brother, it's weird that I feel like everything's slotting into place.

This week has been a week of late night folk music. And the Album Leaf. My new work plan has worked really well this week, I got all my OU stuff done by Tuesday, and it was so great to wake up yesterday and be able to know I didn't have to do any work.

One more week and I'll be in France, sitting, reading in the sun, taking photos of pretty French flowers, and just relaxing. Away from everything else. It'll be good.

bai.x.

Astronaut

I just bought Transmitter Failure impulsively in the hope of getting a handwritten lyric sheet. I was going to wait to buy it until I see her, and then get her to sign it, so I had both of her albums signed, but oh well. Maybe I'll take it with me.

Feeling quietly confident about my essay this time around. This whole course has been a proper learning curve, and I'm finally feeling like I can deal with it, which almost definitely bodes well for the next course which I printed out the registration documents for today. Also, I've found a new subject of interest - the art of other cultures. I mean, that's the kind of thing that would be completely awesome to write a book about, because not only would I have to go to all these amazing places, like China and India, but it's just genuinely interesting how the art of other cultures has always been defined for us in terms of western conventions, and so to look at it from the point of view of their cultures would be really quite eye-opening and just generally cool. If I ever get to do a dissertation that I get to choose the subject of, I wouldn't mind doing that. Or Edvard Munch. He's still my main art love.

So hungry. It really is true that when you're happy you eat more. I've been eating so much this week it's ridiculous, and I just never stop being hungry.

Yeah.

bai.x.

As The Stars Fall

because everything can't always be perfect

and finding out something you could've done with knowing three years ago is always horrible.

x

This Is Our Emergency

So over the last couple of days I've been typing up all the notes I need to write this essay, and if my arm was fucked up before, it's even worse now. Somehow it seems a bit stupid to be writing this now because it hurts. But oh well. At least I'm feeling more prepared and have actual ideas about what to write for this essay. Which definitely makes a change.

The last couple of days have been pretty good. I actually feel really on top of things, like nothing's causing me stress, so it's super amazing. Well, apart from my arm a bit. But it'll be fine.

And I can take my laptop into work tomorrow and hopefully do some of my essay if we're not busy (obviously now I've said that we'll be super busy, but I always have my lunchtime...right?)

I've planned my next unit so my week is basically going to be like 2 days at work, 3 days doing OU, and 2 days to do other pointless stuff. Which works out a lot better if I can stick to it, because it should mean that I can wake up on 2 days of the week without thinking "oh fuck I've got so much work to do". Fingers crossed for that plan to work.

Did some improvised cooking today because there was nothing to eat in the house, so I made chicken with tomato, pepper and basil sauce type stuff. Which was awesome. Om nom nom. That's what I'll do on my two days of nothing, I'll cook. Yeah :)

I really hope things don't stop being good.

bai.x.

The Kids Are Ultra-Violent

Apparently I am getting lazy, because I can't be bothered to make soup as opposed to opening a carton and heating it, despite the fact that I've never made soup, and the people at Covent Garden are pretty good at it, I'm going to turn into a lazy slob.

There's a film coming out soon called "Julia & Julie" about a woman who cooks all the recipes in this other woman's recipe book. I don't know which is Julia and which is Julie, but it looks quite good. I'll probably go and see it, and come out wishing I had the dedication to do something like that, but in all honesty, I can't even commit to reading a book over the summer where I'm supposed to read about 70 pages a week. Yes it does weigh about a kilo, and yes it's not the most straightforward book in the world, but still.

Maybe I really am lazy. Maybe I need to start making soup and reading more. I have a list of 20 books to read on my wall, and only one of them has been crossed off so far.

I think to combat this, I'll use my holiday in France as soup-making and reading time, at the very least to make a sizeable dent in the number of pages I have left to read of Infinite Jest. And I'll leave my laptop at home, and stay away from the internet, and stuff.

When I was in London, I spent a few hours in bookshops, and I looked at other books by David Foster Wallace, and now I want to read all of his other books as well. But I'll have to find them from a library somewhere, because I have to stop buying stuff. I realised that my wages between October and June will cover roughly the amount I've anticipated spending on my epic train journey around Europe, and that's only if I don't spend anything.

Anyway, I need to do some work now. I've been sitting playing games on the internet all morning. I think I broke my work ethic by doing so much work in the last week that by Friday afternoon I physically couldn't write because my RSI was so bad. Win.

bai.x.

[edit: in other news, this has to be my favourite story of the week - it would've been brilliant irony if the gun had gone off whilst hidden in his flab - killed by obesity, in a totally different way...]

Of Your Mind

Milan Kundera destroyed me today.

"But in the tower where the wisdom of music prevails, we sometimes yearn for the monotonous rhythm of the soulless cry coming to us from outside."

"Love is a privilege, and all privileges are undeserved and must be paid for...the privilege of love was not only a paradise, it was also a hell."

He is one of my favourite people. Because everything he writes is so exact and true to me. These are books I'll read all my life, even when the sadness they can cause me is acute.

Today wasn't a bad day. But I don't feel so weightless. Lack of food probably. And too many expectations. I'm trying to keep the happy, really hard, it's just not so easy.

bai.x.

James

So in attempts to explain:

I've been such a massive ball of emo for the last... gah. God knows how long. But I woke up on Monday just like, ridiculously happy, for no good reason. I like it enough that I guess there doesn't have to be a good reason. And I'm still happy, even though I've maybe done some stuff in the last couple of days that would normally make me paranoid as hell and screwed up all over again.

It's insane, like I've just built a magic wall and become completely resilient to all this crap over the last few months.

So I'm carrying on, working harder than I have in a long time, starting to feel like I'm getting the hang of all the camera stuff...kind of. And with any luck the rest of this year will be good... or alright at least. I'm so tired of everything weighing me down.

"let's hit the road and leave our names at home"

Long live the queen

Resilient. And so good. Expectations of a train wreck.