Sock's Diary

Some days I feel like I have no purpose:  I feel like I just drift in and out of consciousness, occasionally doing or saying something that makes me feel important for all of 30 seconds before drowning again in the empty space of my mind.  I feel like I'm only really used as a stop-gap: that people fetter me to their hearts 'just in case'.  I find myself unwillingly drawn to these people despite my best efforts to remain more or less wholly anonymous to ninety percent of the world.  I form bonds and relationships and without my even realising it, I've become attached in the way that real friends would, which is why it hurts that much more when they find something better and break their hold on me.

I think that it's better to go through life being the way I'm clearly supposed to be.  People will relate to the glitter riot pretend rock 'n roll superstar I want to be, but they will run from the damaged, broken and trampled upon spirit that I really am.  It somehow keeps all the evils away, and it certainly saves me from the trauma that is relationships, both friendly and otherwise.

It's been a few days since I last fell apart;  I think that these little 'sessions' are becoming more frequent again.  The violence of tears and the inconsolable nature of my crying shocked me a little this time - I hadn't realised how far I'd slipped in such a short space of time.  It seemed like forever I lay curled amongst rumpled sheets, leaking tears and eyeliner onto the pillow and staring up and the rain coming in through the window, and there seemed to be nothing I could do to bring myself back to the world of the sane and happy. 

I really just want to shut myself off.  I don't want to be agreeable and I don't want to be loved, because neither seems to improve my nature and both seem to deepen this hole I find myself in.  I want so badly to be healed and have what's broken in my head fixed, but if that means I have to be lied to, cheated and deserted, then I think I'll take my chances with the monsters in my head...

I promised myself that I was fixed.  I promised myself that I was ok and that the tears were over.  I promised there would be no more drinking alone that that there would be no more praying to whatever god or goddess wanted to listen that things would get better.  I promised myself that things wouldn't slide again, that I'd be happy for the rest of forever.

So why am I laying on my bed, shaking with the tears I'm trying to suppress?  Why am I looking out of the open window at what few stars I can see and wishing on every one of them that I didn't feel like this again?  Why am I reduced to this crying, crumpled, pathetic mess of tangled bedsheets and smeared mascara when I thought that I was doing so well for myself?

I'm so weak and I'm so fucking pretentious.  I act like I'm queen of the world, when all I really am is the Queen of my own Misery.  I wear it like a fucking ballgown, swathing myself from head to toe in luxurious self loathing 'til I can't even stand the sight of myself in the mirror anymore.  I'm just wishing to the heavens that there's some logical explanation in all this.  That there's some kind of trigger that caused this and it'll all go away in a few days.  I can't bear to be like this again. Not the way things used to be.  I'm not going to make it if I have to run through that fire again and scream my lungs hoarse while it burns me from the inside.  So I'm drinking to numb the pain and I'm crying because it's the only thing my body can really ever do right. 

My tears are my friends...they're so fucking reliable it almost hurts...

I don't know why I spend so much damned time trying to alienate myself from the entire human population when all I ever wanted to be was loved and accepted.  What the hell is so wrong with me that I can't seem to just get over that constant loathing of people in my personal space and let somebody in?  I get irritated by people, I get depressed by loneliness; I crave the attention of somebody who cares and I never wanted to be more alone.

Why the hell am I just one big ball of fucked up contradictions? 

Why the hell does nothing in my ridiculous little life seem to fit together?

Why the hell can't I just find a way to be happy?

Self doubt can be crippling...This was the single most prominent thought in my head today, and so I thought I'd write about it.  I know nobody really reads all my inane ramblings, but I read somewhere that sharing is good for the soul. So here goes:

I spent most of today wondering if I'm good enough to do my job.  Maybe it's just because I'm running low on anti-depressants.  Maybe it's just because I had an exceptionally bad week last week.  Who knows?  Either way, I was left with this awful feeling that this month may just have been a fluke, and I'm going to suck and be fired next month.  What it makes me realise is that nothing is certain, not even your self belief.  You can be on top of the fucking world one moment, and come crashing to your knees the next.  My usual level-headedness escapes me as I try to hold back tears when I realise I may not be good enough, and I can't seem to hold my head up at that defiant angle I adore so much.

Thing is, I know everybody doubts themselves.  I hear it all the time in the people I love, and I take a deep breath, steel myself and become strong enough for them.  What makes me slump down in defeat is the fact that I can't seem to be strong enough for myself.  I can't seem to bear my own weight when it comes to standing up and being counted; when it comes to tilting back my chin and saying "fuck yes, I'm more than good enough to be able to do this".  I just mutter some empty, self-confident sounding phrases and pray like fuck that nobody realises I'm spinning a load of bullshit.  I'm not confident, I'm not defiant, and I'm certainly not fearless.  But somehow I manage to release my anxiety's grip long enough to function.

I love how much the world can give, but at the same time I hate how much it can take away.  People just suck the life right out of you sometimes: hollow, used-up people that have nothing to fill them so they take from others until they're full.  I hate that these people hurt me, and I hate even more than they hurt my friends, but at the end of it all, I shake my head and cover my pain-filled blue eyes with a small, pale hand.  I'm not woman enough to speak out, and I'm sure as hell not secure enough to ignore it. 

So I sit in the fading light of the setting sun and tap away with black polished fingertips into a blank white box that's as devoid of emotion as myself right now.  I sip back whiskey from a small glass and realise with a twisted smile of resignation that things probably won't change...

...But having said that, you'd be amazed at what you can live through

 I've been insanely busy these past couple weeks.  Not just with work, but with so many little things that have seen fit to crowd in on me all at once.  I've obviously been at work for most of the past three weeks, but I've also graduated, had my first mental health follow up appointment, been trying to fix my stupid laptop and drawing like a mo'fo' to finish a commission.  The following has been my life for the past 3 weeks:

1.    My Graduation on July 16th. It was pretty awesome as far as graduations go...I had to wear a stupid robe, but other than that I loved it - seeing my uni friends together all in one place for possibly the last time was both incredible and heart-wrenchingly difficult.  I've spent three years living alongside these people; laughing, crying, sharing successes and confiding failures with a handful of beautiful, effervescent individuals whom I hope never to forget. University was another of those times in my life where it was sink or swim - it did so much damage, but so much good.  Thanks to those who helped me through, dragging me kicking and screaming through the six semesters of impossibility and out the other side smiling.  Nothing would have been possible without you

2.    My First Mental Health Follow-Up. Wow, that went...down like a lead balloon would be a fair assessment.  I hate that I'm still so emotionally damaged when I'm trying my hardest to just live my life as normally as possible.  All the crap in my past is finally where it belongs - firmly behind me.  I hate being reminded of my fuck-ups and my failures, being told how far I have yet to go before I can be classed as 'normal' or 'not a danger to myself'.  I do these appointments because I know they'll make me a better person;  I know that they'll help me to improve and I want nothing more than to be able to function without these crippling anxieties and these impossibly impractical fall-apart sessions I frequently suffer.  But to have somebody talking at you about what you have and haven't managed in such a clinical way always gets to me.  I choke back the tears and look defiantly across the space between us, and I dare her with my eyes to tell me I'm not trying.  I'm trying harder than anybody will ever know, I'm trying harder than I thought it possible for me to try at this because I'm sick of the worry that I put my family through and I'm sick of the gut-wrenching loneliness that permeates my every fiber.  If there's anything I want to be free of, it's most definitely that.

3. My Stupid Laptop.  This piece of 3 year old crap has been on its way out since I bought it brand new.  Nobody tells you just how bad Dell laptops are, but when you don't really have a choice I guess beggars can't be choosers.  The damned thing died on me on Thursday and although I did all I could to stabilise the hard drive enough to use it, it gave up the ghost on Friday evening.  I had to go to PC World on Saturday and buy new parts which cost a whopping £90(that's $180 to you Stateside Types) and fit them.  Then the fun began...It was a case of fishing through the internet to find drivers for the various crap on my laptop because the geniuses at Dell don't provide recovery discs...retardedness FTW.  I think it's more or less sorted now, but it took freakin' hours to put right.  I take small comfort in the fact that it probably won't happen again for yonks...and the 1GB RAM I whacked in there for S&G has probably improved things immeasurably.

4. Drawing Like A Mo'Fo.   I've been kinda jonesing for a little bit of arty action over the past couple weeks, I've just not really had much in the way of inspiration to get up off my ass and get a pencil in my little hand.  So I've been chatting to a friend who appears to very much fancy himself one of my mech drawings...So who am I to deny a monkey his banana?  I've been sketching out rough ideas and I came up with something I liked a little.  A few hours and a lot of ink later and this came into existence:


So yeah, that about covers it for the past few weeks - maybe I won't leave it so long next time...that was a bitch to post

Sock

"I often amuse myself by pondering the complexities of your short lives.  I taste your fears, your regrets, your wishes.  I feel them sliding through your blood as you realise that you won't make it out of this encounter alive.  As your eyes glaze over and your heart slows to a weak crawl, I perceive nothing but unfinished business surrounding your death.  I often wonder what it would be like to be filled with so many unexplored possibilities; to be reigned in by my own frail existence.

I don't get the pleasure I used to from feeding.  Many years ago, the unrivalled fear singing through a person's veins as I took them was like a drug: both addictive and dangerous, urging me to lose myself in your deaths.  Mortals have long since lost those exquisite, primal instincts, and a feeling of complacency has settled upon your fragile race.  I hear you all, moving around above my sanctuary in the ground, your little hearts beating not with hope, but with the need to scratch out a meager 'living' by integrating yourselves into the society you so despise.  You are more fettered now than you ever have been, but still your leaders cry human rights from television screens, emphasising your 'free will' with every word.

And how you hunger to be something else.  How you hang your hopes on makebelieve and Hollywood fiction.  You seem unable to make your own fortunes, you who worship others and complain about your short comings.  Never once do you think to forge your own fate, to take a step into the light of uncertainty and to simply try something new.  You skulk in the shadows, much as I have always done, but you are afraid of what lurks there.  You perceive that which you cannot comprehend: a sense of helplessness that seems to embody your entire population and turn your nations into little more than sheep following the shepherd.

Blood: the taste of life flowing over your tongue; the sense of a person's knowledge - their complexity - contained in such warm, pulsing liquid light is enough to drive one to madness.  But I have seen that this taste has soured over the centuries.  No longer do you live with decadence and careless abandon, no longer do innocent young men stray out into the night alone to fall prey to dangerously beautiful creatures of sin, no longer do you place names to shadowy fears that lurk and hunt in the darkness.  No, you ignore that which you have not discovered, thinking that all you know can be explained by your science or your reasoning.  There are things that go bump in the night - things that prey on the young and the beautiful like wolves on rabbits; there are those who would not be named that walk amongst you, shattering your mundane ideals and stealing your very soul with sharp little fangs.

We are the things that you should fear, we are the children that daylight forgot. We are the ones who deserve your unbridled terror as we take your pathetic lives and we are the ones who should not feel your ridiculous regrets as your life slips through your fingers.  You spend so much time living in fear of reality, that you forget to be afraid of that which you cannot explain.

What I'm try to say is a simple and rather humanitarian statement of case: live your life as you would have some three hundred years ago.  Live uninhibited and unfettered, and go from experience to experience with as many bright colours and complex emotions as you can.  Feel like you've acomplished something with your life, and know that you have made a difference to your own existence.  Do these things while you can so that when we take you, and we will take you eventually,  you can die with a tantalising smile on your lips and not with an expression of regret that screams out your lack of achievements to the cold, dead night.

I'm not one to play with my food, but I felt it hard to resist.  After all, when you stop enjoying that which you're eating, is it not second nature to try to find the spice that revives the flavour? "

It's hard to find something to say when there are so many things in your head all moving at once.  I've got so many thoughts, so many emotions that I could put to paper at the moment: anger, fear, uncertainty, pride, tentative joy...but none of them will surface and make themselves prominent which makes writing something down that much harder to do.  I find that lately, I've been experiencing a lot of this - the feeling that I'm floating around, not feeling indifferent but feeling so much that it's impossible to work out exactly how I am at the moment.

There's a lot going on, and I'm going to put this overwhelming uncertainty down to exhaustion, and not down to the fact that I'm so confused I could scream. With so many things beginning and ending all at once I'm finding it hard to clutch onto something constant as outside influences continue to rain down upon me.  If I could just stop for one second and try to start untangling the mess that is my life at the moment.  Don't get me wrong, I love that it's a mess: such colours, such sounds and such experiences have never all come together so well in my little existence before.  But it would be nice if the mess would just slow down a fraction, allow me to fathom what the hell I'm doing next and where the hell I'm going.

Just a little pause...it would be so nice


Jennifer

"Love is like wildflowers, it's often found in the most unlikely places" - Confucius

Having 2 days of being too sick to get out of bed has allowed me to re-aquaint myself with some old friends.  It's amazing how time hasn't changed the dynamic of our friendship and they're just as keen to talk about random rubbish as they ever were.  I've spent so much time trying to re-fill my life with colour, but all I really had to do was reach back into my past.  I know that I continually say I never look back, but just maybe that's the issue.  I leave so much behind and just soldier on. Maybe it's time to rekindle those old flames and bring those old friends back into the present.

I love you guys xxx

Chris. says:
how are you anyway, hows life treating you?
//.Miss Sock.\\ says:
well at the moment I'm infected so that's shitty
Chris. says:
aids?
//.Miss Sock.\\ says:
cold
Chris. says:
oh
//.Miss Sock.\\ says:
the other common infection
Chris. says:
ah yes i forgot about that one


This made me giggle. The best conversations are held between the hours of midnight and 4am, preferably lasting all 4 hours and chatting about everything from sickness to drunken sex, an impromptu marriage and a house pet called Bastard Cat. Thanks for cheering me up Chris xxx

I'm sat at work and currently, I'm bored.  I've spent a week in Manchester on job training and got back on Friday night, and it's straight back into the office this morning to justify my manager spending way too much money employing me.  I'm in a bit of a pensive mood today; maybe it's because the sun is filtering into our office courtyard in such a charming way, making the view from my desk something akin to what you might find on a Hallmark card.  Maybe it's because the office is so nicely quiet during lunch, and the idle banter drifting up from the desk lifts my spirits and ensures me that I'm in good company.  Or maybe it's just because for the first time in a very long time, I'm able to say I'm content and not just 'oh, I've found a man so my life is dramatically better'.

I'm single, in a new job with lovely people surrounding me in both my personal and professional lives.  I'm smiling to myself on the way to work because I know that I make a difference to people's lives, no matter how small that difference might seem from the outside.  I'm contributing to my world in many ways, not just observing the changes that up until recently I was powerless to control.  I feel like thigns are easing on me, the weight on my shoulders lifting, and not just temporarily,  

I hope this feeling continues to imbue me - I seem to slide so quickly and so far I despair sometimes - and I hope that I can continue to make my way through my little life with a contented, cat-like small on my usually so miserable face.  It feels refreshing to finally feel like you've made it out alive, and Goddess knows I've been struggling for so long to break the surface of the life I always thought I was drowning in.  Sat here, feeling like I matter to the world, even just to the other 30 people in the office, is the most beautiful feeling in the world.

I think that maybe, honestly, I'm more than just one step closer to ok...

...I'm the whole 9 yards

She believed in fairytales.

 This angel of sorts, heading downtown, neon streetlight reflecting off her faded blue hair and washing over her pale face. Fruit cocktail lipgloss, dirty denim jacket smelled of sex and cigarettes. Overwashed cartoon t-shirt, shocked pink miniskirt and lime green fishnets; far too many holes that aren't meant to be there. Purple stilettos click nervously on the pressed asphalt, watching the world through rose sunglasses. Orange see-through handbag full of broken dreams, naively hopeful everything will be ok.

Pushes past the faceless, the nameless everybodies she'll never know. Punk rock girls with rainbow hair, colours crayola hadn't invented. Fearless miniskirts and jagged moheicans, screaming and ramming down little white pills, trying to stomach the heartache they swallowed. Emo boys with funked up hair, studded belts and tight t-shirts. Big earphones and blink 182, everyone wants to be a rockstar. She wished she could be them.

The lights glitter brighter tonight, the atmosphere seems heavier. Something different, something new. She feels the electricity and sex in the air, pulsing and weaving in the space between lusty bodies. Magnetic attraction, inescapable and typical. They're all looking for their teenage kicks, somewhere, somehow.

 Turns the corner, down the alley. Dark bricks, pale skin, steamed up cars scream riots and encounters. Pressing on through the blanket of this night she stepped into.

 Standing up on top of the drugstore, she could see her world. It all winked like glitter, sparkling in the lazy, sexy smoke-filled air. Sirens screamed into the night and shrieking punk rock teens drank their college loans and chances at a future. She could see it all from here, and everything looked so beautiful. Like a trashy teen novel, the city enticed dreams of superstar sex and hollywood-highschool. Menthol cigarettes and electric guitars, sipping hard liquor and hanging in bars. Her dreams of the perfect rainbow riot life.

She wished she could be the same, she wished she could be one of them. Struggling with heartache, heartbreak, heartfake. She can't go on like this. The orange bag lies waiting, beneath chipped black polished nails. Just take out a dream, swallow it down and live the movielife again and again. Doomed to this fantasy, this pretend, this pretence. Living through rainbow coloured pills and breathing in lies and chemical romance. It wasn't enough; it was never enough.

They shone brightly that night, like stars in her frozen hand. Blue, orange, pink. Fruit cocktail smeared as hand met lips. Fingers trembled and mind raced. Adrenaline fired hot into every vein and false hope spread through her body. The stars burnt out before her rose covered eyes and the world exploded as she hit the floor. Through dimming light she witnessed the making of the universe and the destruction of pain. With her last breath she felt all the perfection and simplicity of being alive. The eyes closed, the breath died, and finally she knew what it was to spread her make-believe wings and fly.

Because she believed in fairytales...

I could live my life the way I want, but then you'd tell me it was a twisted contradiction. I do what I do, when I do and because I want to. There's no simpler explanation than that. Sometimes I try to analyse myself, but it just leaves me feeling heartsick and wanting. So I just explain away my faults, idealising them like perfections until they make halfway sense in my bricked-up mind. I don't know sometimes why I do the things I do, because when I stop to think about them I realise just how insignificant my actions are. Sometimes I cry just to feel the beauty of my tears, how perfect they look, slipping fluidly down my cheeks, leaving eraseable marks in my makeup, cracked rivulets that expose the tiniest pieces of me. Cracks that I can powder over in front of my little mirror, striving to look like the girls in the Skin and Ink magazines, all synthetic hair and drawn-on eyebrows. Truth is I spend so much time trying to be different, when secretly I just want to be the beautiful powder room rockstar with the smouldering eyes and lips you'd like to kiss. For the moment I'm settling for the androgenous girl riot with the acid green hair and too big punk boots. She may not be beautiful, but in the right light she looks just happy enough to pass as confident, even if she does secretly doubt her motives and reasoning. She also talks in third person and uses this as a way to come to terms with who and what she is.

Sometimes I smile just to watch the lines of my face twist, to see how my eyes don't follow those lines and that makes me even more sad than I was to begin with. I wish I could make them sparkle; like midnight stars staring intrinsically down into your very soul they would have the power to make you fall in love with me a thousand times and more. Instead they shine dull and glassy, but pretty enough to make you look twice should you be so inclined. It's a shame I guess that I long to hide them behind the darkest espresso black lenses and float thought life looking like a washed-out 50's movie star, but I suppose that's what gets me through the days. The nights are quite a different story I regret to say, because they're much harder. When darkness falls so do my belligerent defences. There's nobody there to dry my freely falling tears and nobody to put on a show of pseudo-strength for. I sniffle my way through Tori Amos albums, watching the moon trace a whimsical path across inky skies and wondering if there was someone out there just like me, watching this same moon and wishing the same wishes as me. But that's just a little too contrived don't you think?

I suppose you could say I'm a little less than conventional, but then again I've always been a fan of breaking the mould. I would imagine that somewhere there are a thousand angsty teens just like me, with armfuls of rebellious pseudonyms and heads full of neon poetry just like mine, but this is the story of just one girl, and this evening that girl is me. Half-finished, 18 and naively hopeful I just wanna throw down a million moonlit words and make myself seem beautiful and aspirational, but I think by now we all know that would only be halfway truthful. Being brutally honest has never been my forté, but I suppose you could sum me up and say that I'm a little bit broken. A little bit broken and a large bit hopeful but you could say that of anyone. Instead I'll simply state that I am what I am, and what I am is ambiguous, rebellious and androgenous. I am aware of my lack of clarity and decisiveness, but I would imagine that is just the way it's gonna have to be...

So I'm thoroughly enjoying work, but it does leave me a lot of time to think quietly to myself about a whole host of things.  Something I managed to come up with today was this:

My ideal man would have

Jared Padalecki's hair
Robert Pattinson's eyes & nose
Johnny Depp's mouth
Vin Diesel's voice
Jared Padalecki's arms
Atlas from U.K. Gladiator's torso
Jensen Ackles' legs
Billy Martin's (good Charlotte) body art

And a bad boy streak a mile wide

Just stupid musings. It's late and I'm so tired. I find it hard to collect all my thoughts sometimes. I find that being busy all day steals that valuable time I used to have to much of to just muse over various rubbish and turn it into something vaguely interesting.  At the moment I find myself robbed of my eloquence and reduced to dreaming of fantasies of the flesh and wishing I had something more to come home to than just three overly excitable and biased rattie boys...

...such is life, such is me

It's hard to believe it's been just over a year since I've sat here pensively, laptop across my crossed legs, typing into this achingly empty text box, trying to inspire feeling in places that seem consistently numb. A lot has changed in a year, making this one of the most remarkable times of my life.  I've managed to find and lose those things I thought defined me, and have (it would appear) found some form of mental equilibrium that mostly keeps the monsters away.

Being single is not necessarily synonymous with being alone. I have come to terms with listening to the voices in my head, instead of shying away from those thoughts that haunted me at 2am when televised images are burning imprints into my eyes.  I realise that life is as much what you make of it, as it is what you don't. I know that soudns awfully cryptic, but to be honest, I doubt anybody really expects pure clarity from a girl whose head has been fucked with more times than the most popular Singaporean street worker.  It would appear though, that my anecdotal wit has remained, even if other, more vital parts have eluded me all these months.

Life changes at such an alarming rate.  If somebody had told me that I'd go from crying, incomprehensible maniac to the calm, composed little splash of colour I appear to be sitting here inside 12 months, I'd politely tell them to go and jump from the nearest bridge.  I had never really believed that circumstances get better, they simply evolve and become more bearable.  We as a race, humans I mean, are rather terrible at living life smoothly - we merely ignore that which we cannot explain, envision that which we cannot attain and smooth over that which we cannot repair.  Forgive me, I always did type too fast for my brain to keep up, and I realise that that sounded incredibly petulant coming from a 21 year old grad-student just starting her life in the real world.  What could I possibly know of human traits? What could I possibly realise from all my years of walling myself off?

The answer to those questions is, surprisingly, a lot.  I find that an astute sense of understanding imbues me after so long spent crying into the night, staring unseeing into the void that I comprehended as my life.  I realise that all this time spent simply watching the world - refusing to take part out of my own abject fear of feeling something other than utter despair I suppose - has granted me a power of foresight that has nothing to do with the occult religious practices I so frequently indulge in.  Maybe that's what makes me such an excellent sales person, maybe that's what makes me such a contrite pain-in-the-ass.  To be honest, I don't really mind either way. 

What I have managed to realise in the last year - despite the fear, the loneliness and the crippling self loathing - is that people can save you, even if they don't realise that they are doing anything.  People can remove or include themselves in your little personal bubble, and the consequences associated with that have a lot to do with whether or not you sink or swim.  I've left so much behind in the last year, and so many people have turned away, convinced that I can neither save myself or be saved.  But I find myself finally able to tread water and keep my lungs from filling with that choking, burning sensation I always associate with life suddenly denying me air; whether it be through the chances it throws at me, or the opportunities it denys me.  My head has always been chaos: a place where even I feared to tread too heavily for fear of awakening uncontrollable emotions that threaten to cripple the very essence of who I am and who I think I want to be.  After being assailed by pills, therapy and the cold slap of alcohol, I realise that giving in to my condition does not make me weak, it makes me that much stronger.  To deny what we are brings a hardship born of desperation to feel normal, when it is painfully obvious that such a condition or 'normality' does not exist.  I am a mess of entangled emotions, a tumult of screaming emotional baggage that no matter how far I run I cannot escape.  And so, I bow my head in acquiescence, accepting that which until now I could not come to terms with.  I defiantly embrace these obscene difficulties my psyche throws at me, throwing back my head and laughing at the impossibility of it all; of the impossibility of being just another human.  I deliberately nurture my defects, throwing them at my attackers like an assassin would knives, and somehow it all works out.  I toughen my skin, accept the blows and smile when I come out the other side still alive.

I am aware that living on the edge of such a keenly honed knife, so to speak, is possibly not the most practical of solutions for a soul such as mine, but I have to clarify my slightly ridiculous and overtly dramatic lifestyle choices by mouthing once again the phrase that sums up my life...

...my addictions always seem to hurt

And everybody said that Girl Riot was a pretty pretty mess
A figure of tangled purple hair, skewed emo glasses
Smudged kohl eyeliner and glitzy fruit cocktail lipgloss.
Clothes hung off her in a dishevelled and sexy fashion
Creating her own style that knew nothing of co-ordination or 'cool'.
She ran through life at full tilt, punk rock boots skittering round corners
Lungs full of marijuana smoke
Eyes sparkling with surprise and hope
Hair smelling perpetually of incense and late nights with a bottle of vodka
She looked like the rumpled fairy angel of everyone's dreams.
Synthetic hair and fishnet tights are the order of the day
As she careens through education
Learning heartache, disappointment and the comfort in friends.
Everybody said that Girl Riot was a pretty pretty mess
Because she's found her feet
And given the stars reason to shine again.
Because her tears have stopped and the cyanide grin is back
Because the mourning black has been replaced
With rebellious acid green.
She's loveable, adorable, sensual and unforgettable
Because every single day she becomes a little more of her
And a little less of the person you left behind



I'm OK

 

o, I've been finding lately that Harvest Moon DS is quite a time consuming game. I sit down, start tending to my crops and mining for ore and all of a sudden 5 hours appear to have wandered off somewhere and eluded me. Interesting, though highly unproductive. So yeah, I'm off for the summer now and I'm bored as hell. Anyone fancy taking me somewhere nice? I have my DS and have found myself getting strangely into the life of a virtual farmer...and not the banjo twanging kind. I've got 3 chickens, a cow and a horse, a field full of crops and two mines I've discovered on my various adventures in Mineral Town. If I could just work out how to get the miserable old man to give me his fishing rod I'd be made. That, and find the secret to having enough timber and stone to build everything I need without wandering off and hacking down trees like a psycho.

Anywhoo, I find that at the moment my days are filled with Harvest Moon, a strange addiction to buying pineapples (they're alive, they're my friends), a compulsion to play a lot of Bust a Move and watching far too many criminal dramas on Virgin on Demand...I've exhausted all the CSI and criminal minds I've been able to get my mitts on and there's nothing good on telly, and the outside world is just far too scary to venture into, especially with an overdraft the size of the third world debt shackled to my bank card. So in short, I'm bored. Bored of sitting on my bum and doing nothing but counting the calories I'm inserting into my body at various intervals. I want something to do. At least with Uni I was busy-or pretending to be for the sake of not getting kicked out of a seminar- which really is just as time consuming. I could get overtime at work, but the fast paced world of supermarket retail doesn't exactly make my pants warm with joy. ARGH!!! I'm DOOMED!

For Goddess' sake, somebody entertain me? A sock puppet, a magic can of tuna, I'd take anything right about now...

Love and Kisses
Miss Sockington

 I wish:

That my cold would go away
That my sore nose would stop being sore
That my boobs were a little smaller
That my teeth were a little whiter
That I could find a pink hair dye that didn't stain my pillow/skin/face/neck/friends
That my tummy was a little flatter
That my hips were a little smaller
That my eyes were a little sparklier
That I was a little taller
That my skin was a little clearer
That my grades were a little better
That I wasn't so jealous all the time
That I could wipe the sad look off my face
That I could feel confident in myself
That I could have courage in my convictions
That I could stand up for what I want
That I could make a decision every once in a while
That, that, that....

pfft. I dunno, that I could stop wishing stupid things and just be a better fucking person. I'm so stupid

"Happiness is frailty, wrapped in foolish desires and smelling of carnal sin..."

Today I have been sitting in bed, ignoring the world and the phonecalls that seem to come with it. I have been avidly consuming cheap yet priceless contemporary East Asian literature. When faced with a stream of consciousness that is not your own, the mind instinctively draws parallels, it extends tenuous links between yourself and the fictional life of the protagonist. No matter how alien the lifestyle, foolish pride and vanity presumes to understand and empathise with the narrator, causing the conscious to nod condescendingly in mock comprehension. I read that just one simple smell can realise the loss of happiness. But then you would be assuming that one understood the visceral meaning of the word. Happiness is fleeting, like the butterfly caught in a sudden breeze on a summer's afternoon. Its wings flutter in futility against this unwelcome current, but eventually it is swept onto a different course against its own will, and the watcher is left right back where he or she started, soon forgetting they ever saw the frail insect. And so now I find that I have migrated to somewhere less depressing, sat in the living room of this urbanised little flat I can hear the roar of the town below me as it soars upon the breeze. I sit with my back to the urban cityscape, the only stationary being in the swirl of activity around me. It lifts my spirits when I think about their chaos outside and my calm within. I smile secretly to myself, like a child with a stolen trinket, basking in the small pleasure I snatch from the busy hubbub of to-ing and fro-ing outside. I know that in a few small hours I'll be descending from my little cloud of calm and joining the rush to get to a place I don't want to go to. This week has been all about harmony; about peace and tranquility in someone else's personal space. While I find I have been uncomfortable in my own skin these past long months, migrating to live under someone else's roof has been a refreshing and relaxing experience. I would choose this life above all other, if only I could afford to. I say this not with complete conviction, for I suppose I would tire of it should it become the norm, and my happiness would soon ebb as it did before. Thus is happiness a trivial thing, dispensable and soon replaced by a newer, even more pointless pleasure. I suppose you could say that the only thing that brings a slightly more realistic and long-lived smile to my face is the pursuit of the smile itself. People, places and memories are fleeting; chasing the high really is chicken soup for the soul...

crave the domestic life. The security of my own abode, the serenity and calm of my own four walls. My own cat brushing against my little toes as I curl up on my own sofa to type another epic saga based upon my own life. I crave the warmth and knowledge that comes with independence. I want to be a fully fledged part of this dysfunctional, digital and dissonant culture we all traverse. I suppose somewhere, a part of me still kicks out against the system of binaries and codes closing in around me, trying to contain me to a life where my bank balance dictates the way I live and think. But that sliver of my essence is fast adapting, mutating, to fit my domestic wish and purpose. Life isn’t about fitting in, and it certainly isn’t about standing out. Both are too hard, boundaries always shifting just two steps ahead of our every move. Life is about muddling though, about pattering stoically through life with light-hearted footsteps, looking optimistically, if a little naively, into the future.

Things never turn out the way you plan. That is one of the first lessons dealt to you by life as soon as we are old enough to understand and experience defeat. That is no excuse however for failure. Once upon a time, my understanding of defeat was imminent failure. Now I realise that defeat is just one small battle in the war that lasts a lifetime. My dreams of a domestic life may be slightly halted in their tracks by monetary and educational responsibilities, but nevertheless, I shall ‘muddle through’ to the best of my ability and reach some diluted or variegated version of my original objective. Opinions change, opportunities come and go, but resourcefulness is something that trails you through the years, although it may not be instantly realisable. It is just a case of utilising what you have and compensating for what you have not. As the old saying goes; it all works out in the end. That is not to say however that all old sayings hold grains of wisdom or truth. I’ve realised that no matter what anyone tells you, you rarely laugh about it later.

Domesticity, to perhaps coin a new phrase, manifests itself on even the most rebellious of spirits. Whether it be the desire to move into your own place, or just to do the housework, everyone derives a simple pleasure from their own domestic identity. My mother, for example, prides herself on a well-kept house, two (supposedly) beautiful children and the attainment of her dream job. In my (slightly biased) opinion, she is the epitome of the domestic goddess. She effortlessly juggles domestic living and a skilled career path; like a talented child with two hoops and one stick, she somehow rolls the two side by side, never allowing one to fall behind the other. It has always been my secret ambition to be like her, and as each year rolls by the passing comments about our similarities grow considerably in volume. She is my ally and my best friend, but also my domestic teacher. It is through her skill and determination that I have acquired my inexplicable drive for a life of domestic bliss and I am thankful for that small grain of destiny. It makes me feel a little more oriented in my otherwise unmapped life plan.

I suppose we learn as we grow, picking up attributes and traits from those we look up to. Whether it be fears, hopes or habits, we incorporate them into our ever shifting identity, creating a mis-matched aura about our own curious existence. And so I decide that this craving, this nagging fancy for my own domestic haven must be hereditary, a timeless want passed down through aeons of human life. I could try to fight it, to stay a rebellious teenager for the rest of my days, but to be honest, who can really argue with fate? Sitting here, almost 20, I realise that sometimes growing up is all you can really do. However, I sincerely doubt that doing so gracefully will ever be part of my slightly disorganised life plans...it'll all work out...eventually.

 Some days I just feel that I'm repeating myself over and over again.
Saying the same lines and forming the same syllables
Goodbyes and hellos constantly revolving through my head
Complex waltz with a thousand phrases.
I feel like all I do is spit out the same tired old emotions
Drowning the same sorrows in the same tears
That trickle down my little face night after night.
The only thing that changes is me
Little me
Tiny me
Fragile me.
I've changed so much from the invincible superhero I used to be
With my ebony supercape
And my fearless pillarbox red lipstick
Screaming tattered clichés from my faded fairytale books
And believing they were true.
I watch intently, focused on the mirror
Trying to find a scrap of innocence
Behind weary washed out stoney blue eyes.
But the smile lines that reflect back
And the pale milk that washes my cheeks
Mock me,
Reminding me that I lost my Cinderella naivety
Quite a while ago.
I look at smooth skin stretched over lithe bones
And I realise that there's a difference here now.
Not a little girl staring timidly out from the mirrorglass surface
But a wistful eyed woman with flame-touched raven hair
And an ironic, cynical smile.
A willowy woman who grew up so fast
Put her ragdolls and fairytales back in her toychest
And shoved the whole lot in the musty attic
To make room for intrays and inkjets
And bank statements and mortgages.
Putting away riot grrl dress-up costumes
To make room for suits and skirts
Sensible shoes and briefcases.
I guess I don't want to grow up
I don't want to forget the neon coloured
Passionate riot ridden trip
Filled with tears and scars and screaming
And memories so perfect I could re-live them again.
I don't want to push away the black velvet
And bright stripey socks
Or the glitter eyeshadow and chunky dreadlocks
But life moves on
And tomorrow gets closer.
So I'll pack up my teenage years
And start over, fresh and older.
I'll put these beautiful things behind me
In boxes labelled 'The Best Days of My Life'...