we've come a long, long way baby..

i love being here, when you phone a friend from round here at their house, and their parent or sibling or whoever answers the phone, knows straight away who you are, before you've even said all that much.....and cards are made out to everyone in my house, not just me, from people who in theory are only my friends.....and when i will spend this evening, once more, as one of the 'lower sixth', since we'll be in the company of the 'upper', including nick and all his friends...who could ask for more..? and now, we can even take the mick out of my mum for her overactive tear-ducts....who would've thought?

hurrah for home..

manchester is too much for me right now. manchester still has, it would seem, a shelf-life equal to a semester, with me. i cannot seem to convince myself that i want or need to stay there longer than thirteen weeks. this week i was pretty much pissed off with everything. new things and places and people are not so good in my subconcious brain, when it has gone over the thirteen week threshold, into the assumed southward migration of the school holidays. after that point my head expects family, open rows, honest discussion, frank expression of love, thousands of years' worth of mutual understanding, and genuine concern for one another. my house in manchester this week was more or less none of these things, for one reason or another. marie and the scene in the movie of my life that was the most eerily reminiscant of little women than anything anyone could've scripted, was the one oasis. until last night, which involved a lot of laughter. although marie and i did get cooking rage. and i cried because i burnt my finger. thats when you know you're tired.
i feel like i am allowed now to investigate the post-manchester path i shall tread. i have thought that for a week or two now. maybe somewhere that takes a two-week public holiday every thirteen weeks or so?
good one

oh lord..

..the complexities of life in a frequently too-close-for-normality group of 23 year old single people!
holy mother
matt says we should start being more open on these pages of nosiness than we have been to-date. particularly concerning the inner-workings of friendships between boys and girls, the lines around and inside of which have never been more blurred, en masse, than during the last few months. i quite agree. i didn't think it would be me that started it though.
...... .....................
and do you know what? i wrote and i wrote, about a certain situation between two certian people that i love dearly. and some about me. and i chickened out. erased it all.

we can't rewind

the theoretical protester....

see, tomorrow, in mind, spirit, heart, i'm in london
in theory, that is..
however, due to lack of funds i cannot go in person.
in practise, that is..
why? why do i persist in having no money whatsoever?
i realise this is a theme in my life. a motif, if you will, in the poem of my existance..

scrap it, god, think of a new theme. change the record..x

where to re-begin?

after consulting with my younger and infinitely wiser sister as to how and where i should re-begin my regular blogging, she has advised me to commence with talking about a certain song, by a certain band. i have been assured the name of this band is well known among many who would mock the ridiculousness of the church, mostly in america. they are in the slightly-comedy category of all crap music stores across the pond (oh? never used that phrase before..?!) they are definitely early-teen, try-hard ska-punk bacnd, but who i am reliably informed have always been so, even before the recent resurgence in said form of (usually) slightly ghastly music, which has historically drawn the line between me and mr furtado's commonality of taste.
ladies and gentlemen, the band are.....five iron frenzy.
the song (should you still be reading) is dandelions.
the song makes me happier than mr jones has ever managed to. it has toppled return of the space cowboy off its treasured and long-standing number-one spot in the song-that-makes-na-most-inexplicably-happy chart, and has indeed raised my expectations of american (particularly christian) songwriting beyond all possible recounting of votes.
ok, reasons why i like it so much are as follows...
1: it is a christian band, singing a song about love and grace and things like that, that does not attempt in ANY WAY to incorporate bible verses into the lyrics
2: it is punk(ish, esque..) christian music....the two concepts have never been thought of in the same sentence in the christian music industry of this country.
3: it is childish. its primarily about a kid who thinks dandelions are flowers, and brings them, running, to his mum for a present. the angst and philosophy of most music in my collection seems dank, turgid (hope you're reading this phil) and moribund in comparison. its innocent. isn't that what we all secretly want?
4 is has the line "lord search my heart. create in me something clean."
5: its about flowers.
6: its about choosing how to look at things. having grace as a filter on the back of your eyes.
7: its not too long
ok, scraping the barrel now.....
seriously though, whatever way you know how, get it.
over and out..piona, wubboo

una urgencia..

oh gracious..well, its been a while...not really in the mood for this right now, but i have a feeling in me which seems worthy of note. its an urge, i think. perhaps a feeling of being propelled, like things are speeding up.
what things, you may ask? well, healing, i think mainly. the time is coming, and has now come, to open myself to god, as the great lady has it "like a bowl, like a flower, like a wound". i'm pretty sure i haven't been hiding from him. but equally i can admit that i haven't been chasing him. truth is, i can't be arsed. or haven't been, anyway.
i know that i need words of truth. the profound, the searching questions, and the ambiguous notions of grace are no longer adequate. i have lived off these things for so long.
the times they are a-changing.
so,as much as the people i love and respect can give, in the true-word-dispensing category, i am now willing to ask for them, listen up, pay attention and duly act.
so bring it on, truth-speakers. and come on, truth-giver, now's your chance....i'm all ears

finally..

not sure how it has taken me so long to find this song, but these are the words i had feeding into my head on the bus on the way home today - on my favourite bus journey ever, travelled so many times, always after fun....
its creed....

You always reached out to me and
helped me believe
All those memories we share
I will cherish every one of them
The truth of it is there’s a right way to live
And you showed me
So now you live on in the words of a song
You’re a melody

You stand here with me now

Just when fear blinded me
you taught me to dream
I’ll give you everything I am
and still fall short of
What you’ve done for me
In this life that I live
I hope I can give love unselfishly
I’ve learned the world is bigger than me
You’re my daily dose of reality

You stand here with me now

On and on we sing
On and on we sing this song

‘Cause you stand here with me

so yeah..

i talked to one of my very best friends this evening. i told her about my week....and she asks me, only at the point when she's sure i'm thinking it myself anyway - "so where is your god now?"
ouch
see what's happened, now, jesus? see the fear and doubt creeping in? see the path that is now open wide, inviting these enemies in? see where your negligence has got you? or was it? was it your negligence, or your will? the catholics among my family (which is pretty much 85% of them), while shaken, are able to see nothing only your will at work. i, on the other hand know that other forces operate in the world besides you, with less benevolence and good ideas on their minds.......and yet, while they have power, surely, surely, you're meant to be greater.
this is the most honest i can be with you god, and it's taken me most of a bottle of chilean chardonnay and plenty cigarettes to get me to this point.......ok, so, listen up, cos here's the thing..
i do not understand you. i thought that in jesus you had made your good, perfect, kind and gracious will plainly known to all of us. don't get me wrong, i have no reservations about why you want martin o'brien there, with you, wherever the fuck you are. but seriously - now? really? couldn't you just have waited another little while? couldn't you just have stayed awake and kept watch over him?
so, here's the deal. i shall keep on believing that you exist. because the sky, and particularly its sunsets of late, has been too incredible for any cosmic explosion to accidentally design. and the kindness of people around us has been too deep and thoughtful to ever be the product of chemicals and hormones, too sincere to be acted out of duty, and too well-timed to be anything but heavenly-sent. see, its not that i fail to notice you where you are at work. not at all. its that i fail to see how you can jusitfy not working where you are most needed.
thing is i love you. i know i'm pretty much buggared without you. but i refuse to remain stuck to you for anything less than the deepest love - for without that we'd be left with mere religion, and i left that behind me long ago. so come, my lord, show me where you are, where you are working, where your love is awaiting us. show me your hands, you know, the ones that heal, the ones that tell us we are whole.

lately

i found a song about love
i guess its not the kind of jesus-lovin'-love we spend most of our time talking about. but its real. i know i haven't had it before. it entrigues me i think. makes me jealous. excited. scared.
makes me wonder what i'm doing rhe god stuff for. only momentarily. then i realise the guy in the song knows his faults and she knows her faults and they're pretty much relying on eachother to figure it all out. i think that's where i know i might be better off with the one i got.
in the momentary moment, i'm not even scared that i might have the god stuff wrong. or that it might all be a big fat lie. i think what gets to me is that it doesn't make me happy and scared and thrilled and nervous and giddy and needing like the guy in the song is while he's singing about the girl.
so is he missing something? he doesn't think so....
i think what i so often wonder, is, well..did i get a faulty version? of this spirit-filled-life..? the constancy is the missing component. is that a human fault? sin in me? because shit, i mean apparently god is unchanging. unwavering....no shadows of turning.......? ah-ha...!
thanks, brain, that was the one i was looking for..ok, i'm off....over and out....
ooh, here's the song...

Could you whisper in my ear
The things you want to feel
I'll give you anything
To feel it comin'
Do you wake up on your own
And wonder where you are
You live with all your faults

I wanna wake up where you are
I won't say anything at all
So why don't you slide
Yeah we're gonna let is slide

Don't you love the life you killed
The priest is on the phone
Your father hit the wall
Your ma disowned you
Don't suppose I'll ever know
What it means to be a man
Something I can't charge
I'll live around it

I wanna wake up where you are
I won't say anything at all
So why don't you slide
Mmmmm slide

And I'll do anything you ever
Dreamed to be complete
Little pieces of the nothing that, fall
May put your arms around me
What you feel is what you are
And what you are is beautiful
May do you manna get married
Or run away

And I'll do anything you ever
Dreamed to be complete
Little pieces of the nothing that, fall
May put your arms around me
What you feel is what you are
And what you are is beautiful
May do you wanna get married
Or run away

I wanna wake up where you are
I won't say anything at all
Yeah slide

And I'll do anything you ever
Dreamed to be complete
Little pieces of the nothing that, fall
And I'll do anything you ever
Dreamed to be complete
Little pieces of the nothing that, fall

Oh Oh Oh slide
(Just slide between the sheets of all the beds you never knew)
Yeah slide
Why don't you slide into my room
Just slide into my room
Oh, we'll run away, run away, run away

what a shocker..

so i had the shock of my life today...i'm walking out of the bookstore, and what do i see on the new titles rack....a new treat from mr d coupland.....was so unprepared i couild barely get the words out to the guy at the desk to ask when the paperback version would be out.......six months, says he....horrified, i was....so i bought the damn thing. they sucked me in, the bastards - i've never bought a hardback book in my life.....shocking.....

so anyways, i'm off to cornwall now for a few days - via rachel's house in bristol and via the pub with emily and simon and alistair...hurrah...

so yeah, the business is getting pretty exciting...so much to think about..bought a bunch of books today that will help whenever we have a question and can't get through on the phone to either of our dads!! hehehe

ffrw..

so, ok, lets back up to the weekend that just passed.....The last days before September and all its new-ness came. I had been waiting for god to really show me, beyond all reasoning and analysis that which I needed to be sure to leave behind me before the new day began.
On Saturday evening at the festival prayer tent, I had figured out, while watching the fireworks, that that would probably be the last time I smoked a cigarette while watching fireworks. Earlier I had come to understand that I had reached the end of the road that i had carved out for me and god – one problem here being the question of how to extend the road, and one being that I finally knew that I had myself made the road. That it was not formed from divine materials or planned and structured by a heavenly route map. I had pretty much just made it myself.
So, later on Saturday evening in the unplugged gaff at Heaton Park, I finally had the conversation with god that I’d been waiting for for three years. The one where I ask him if I have a particular, single evil spirit attached to me, or at work in my life- and he replies yes, yes you do. I’d pretty much known that for a really long time, but either never waited long enough for the answer, or was not ready to deal with the consequences. I talked briefly to hdc about it and while she was reluctant to talk about it there and then, and didn’t want me jumping to any conclusions based on what she said just then, but I kinda just knew. And she said its quite possible that god did wait, until I was ready to handle it, before he told me. Suddenly it all simply fell into place and in my spirit, going to bed soon after, and waking the next day, I felt no fear, only the anticipation of freedom. My waking on Sunday was a pretty sweet feeling, actually, like I truly knew the reality of having been granted a reprieve – one more day - to right the wrong, forget the past, hatch a dream and well, give up smoking. Sitting here right now, I cannot convey in words, only by telling you how close I am to tears, how much I want a cigarette. But we’re not about today yet.. wait…
So, Sunday, I pottered about, wondering whether or not to smoke….it wasn’t that hard a decision, if I’m honest. Bought some amber leaf - ouch, no cutters’ left in the shop for my last day!! – and went to west didders with Caleb. We sat and read our books – both very excited, and both finished them, satisfied, challenged, different……I look books…..
Oh, so, ok, this is what happened – wrote this part later on that day….
I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book that I so needed to read…as Nouwen moves from talking about the prodigal son, ot the person of the elder son, and finally to talking about the father, I suddenly found myself wanting something that I’ve always wanted, but never known why or to what end and from what source the wanting came. I’m not really talking about some deep spiritual longing to be at home with the Father, but more the restlessness caused in me by the selfish nature of my love and life.
To say that I have become self-absorbed is beyond true and yet surprisingly un-cringe-worthy. Could it be that I don’t even care? Possibly. Could it be that I don’t think it’s my fault but more the fault of the devil and so therefore its not my responsibility to repent for it…? Probably.
“Isn’t there a subtle pressure in both the church and society to remain a dependant child? Hasn’t the church in the past stressed obedience in a fashion that made it hard to claim spiritual fatherhood, and hasn’t our consumer society encouraged us to indulge in childish self-gratification? Who has truly challenged us to liberate ourselves from immature dependencies and to accept the burden of responsible adults? ….. what I am called to make true is that whether I am the younger or the elder son, I am the son of my compassionate Father….Indeed, as son and heir I am to become successor. I am destined to step into my Father’s place and offer to others the same compassion he has offered me. The return to the Father is ultimately the challenge to become the Father. Being back in the Father’s house requires that I make the Father’s life my own and become transformed in his image.”
So I approached the evening of the eve of September with this in mind. It was, is, the most far-reaching and yet deeply personal challenge I have ever been handed. I think I had come to realise that the fulfilment of this challenge is what awaits me on the next section of my road.
I went to pray with everyone at Millie’s house. For the first four hours it was nothing that I needed. I did not raise the subject of what I did need, either, just sat there idly waiting for someone to know.
Finally, I went out for a fag with oria (turned out with was going to be our last) and while we were outside we both allowed ourselves to really feel the urgency that had taken up residence in both our stomachs. We realised that the symptoms of our very different problems were surprisingly similar, so arm-n-arm we went in and told our best friends that we had nothing left. It was so much harder than I thought it would be. But that was nothing compared ti what followed….we lied on the floor, faces in the carpet, and pretty much just cried. I think I must have been a toddler the last time I wailed like that – particularly when Caleb shouted in my ear. I wanted to hit him. God kinda showed me that the sort of noise I’d just heard was not entirely dissimilar to the noise he hears from my heart – that I don’t know my heart is making, let alone know if it is heard. I felt tim rubing my back which reminded me throughout of the replete nature of grace – that something I had once thought would remain broken for good had indeed been remade. I needed it. my head was taken to some severe places with god. Tim prayed that me and Or would be able to walk like Gandalf, in the authority to refuse the enemy passage, to tell him to his face that he shall not pass, and to break up the path behind us in the hope of moving only ever forwards. That was pretty amazing since I’ve always wanted to walk leaving no trace, to know my past was where it belonged, and all that….
And then a while later I was talking to god about the whole inward-looking thing, the self-absorbed thing….well I kinda explained to him that the biggest reason why that’s happened is because he has thus fat given me no or very little direction, as in, I don’t know who I supposed to work with, spend my time with, show the same compassion to that I have been shown. And so he told me, quite plainly and simply, that I am not to wait any longer til I train ot be a counsellor, but I am to do it soon.
Hurrah
Oh the rest was long and tiring, involved a lot of being brave and crying, and allowing god to lead the way.
I awoke yesterday feeling like I should be drinking juices and being wheeled round ain a wheelchair and wearing sunglasses and a blanket over my knees. I felt like a post-operative invalid. And yet very very peaceful, and excited and free. But today still I am so physically tired - like i’m in rehab. I guess I am.

i dreamed of you last night
you had a different face - or maybe just a haircut
you were older, and wiser
yet more like a child
i was amazed to find you still there at the back of my mind
- beth orton

an bus eireann..

well these were thursday's offerings......
they may sound small, but they were pretty cool lessons to learn on a dublin - clonmel bus of a thursday afternoon.......i'm loving being here - having an amazing time - cate drago hdc, all y'all fanx for your messages.....keep praying please......cate - it would seem the whole book of james is my food.....fanx for that..love you x x x x x


When peacemakers plant seeds of peace, they will harvest justice (James 3:18)

When I seek peace, and I pursue it, why do i? most of the time I do not seek it in order that I may plant it elsewhere. I seek it for my own rest, my own contentment.
Jesus help me to want the peace you give me to be only a demonstration of your goodness and power – not something I keep to myself but something I pass onto others or to the land – for you to be seen as beautiful.


The prayer of an innocent person is powerful (James 5:16)

The more I think about it the more I think it not entirely impossible that god may group people together in the assurance that one kind of sin is particularly non-existent in each person – as in, one person who does not struggle with lust will be present in every group within the body – or someone who doesn’t get angry or overly proud…..would it be that god positions his people so that we each have access to one “innocent person” who can pray for us in the given power….was talking to matt about it a bit the other day, and now with this it makes good sense to me.
Jesus please put in me a hunger to always know how to pray – not just when but for who and about what….sounds simple but this would change everything for me and the people I know…..help my mind to start to understand and see the perfect ways in which you strategise and plan…we need to cover one another more in prayer – help us to see who is the absolute best person to pray for who…our prayers are random and kinda haphazard, compared to what I’m starting to think they could be…help us to be more purposeful in this more conscious of each other and yet not wanting to be the first to jump in a pray – but waiting for the person who will pray the prayer most effectively….crap its all very complex….

Man, just read my “utmost..” (still not sorry, resa!{love you})for the evening...he talks about our lack being what gets us to god – not our decisions or our goodness….he says that it is in our unconscious actions that we most influence others – because this is where it is Jesus at work for sure and not us…..he says “if we are conscious of our influence, it ceases to have the genuine loveliness which is characteristic of the touch of jesus”..
Shit are we in trouble….
I know that of late I have balked at the words of others when they tell tales of what they prayed well for someone, or the positive influence they were able to have over a person or in a situation….shit I so do not want to be the person that dos that anymore….god seriously, even for the most basic reason that the more we are so overjoyed at having prayed/prophesied the exact right thing over someone, the more it shows how extraordinary that is to us – this needs to be breath to us, man, the most normal occurrence of everyday life…knowing what god wants and praying or being it into action…..
It should not be something so unheard of that we can then distort it so that it goes down on our score sheet……..Jesus come on man, how low can we go…? Please help us know what to speak aloud for the encouragement of others, and what to store in our hearts like Mary – and what to not even recognize – I jus think mainly our minds need cleaning out , well, ok, let just say mine, cos shit, I’m not meant ot be preaching at anyone right now….this is for me, god, I don’t wanna throw whatever good you do in my life or through me back in your face by owning it and triumphing over it…….
fink that's about it for today...

hola todos..

well i'm on vacaciones now...please pray for me.....i pretty much need it!
keep checking here - i'll be on everyday - am anticipating thinking alot and hopefully figuring out a few things - they'll be on here....be here too or be a square floo....x

ha!!

i used to live right behind this building!
check it out!!
http://www.crtvg.es/camweb/camweb.html

decision made..

well i know i'm going back. i'm pretty sure i have to go back. just unsure still about the wanting to, part.

i think it will come.

i know what went wrong now.

thanks jeremiah

notes from camp..

so i'm living in a field for a week. still have no idea how god did it, but i totally give him credit for getting everyone at work to agree to my fleeing the office for all these lovely days off....i figure its gotta be for a reason, right? as in, (jaded mind-speak) he got me space, but there's gotta be a catch.

or, child-like-mind-speak, hes taken me out into a spacious place - has rescued me because he delighted in me

that bit of that psalm, man, i lived by that for like two years....my whole life, after flicking my god-switch, was like one ma-hoo-sive spacious place. and i knew he delighted in me.
now....i don't know or belive either of those things. now hear me, i don't want sympathy. or even prayer, i feel like this should be hard. something needs to be re-worked. i feel like i've taken something for granted. or like i've made something good into the inverse of what it was, without really knowing what it was supposed to be in the first place.
ok, clearer.....i didn't know until i got the physical spacious place on monday evening, that my spirit, above all things, was cramped and in need of space. those of you who have been paying attention lately may have noticed that i have become entirely void of any decision-making-ability, peace-maintaining-capacity, dream-hatching-inspiration, love-that-knows-netiher-condition-nor-bound, and kindness-driven-intuition.

i'm pretty sure what's happened is this - i began to make plans - for my life, you know......but god vetoed every single one of them. from this, i now believe, my sub-sub-soncious deduced, over time, that god hated me.

i've been hated before. by people. then? i rebelled. in the original sense of the word. i allowed myself to believe i was more than them. better. smarter. kinder. stronger. more beautiful
so, true to the only form i've ever adopted through being hated, my body began to react in that way towards god.
but what i knew, as soon as space was granted me on monday evening, was this.
i will never be more beautiful than god
can you believe it...can you believe i had to learn that?
shit
i used to know that i belonged in a spacious place. where i used to be happy to sit and wait. often with phil. for understanding. for wisdom. for strength. for love. for gifts. for change. for progress. for movement.
i got bored of waiting, god. i stopped waiting for you.
shit
oh whoever's reading this, please forgive me
and i lied before, i do need you to pray

notes from the day that was..

THE ACTUAL DATE OF WRITING IS SUNDAY, JULY 13TH...ALL WILL BECOME NORMAL WHEN I HAVE INTERNET IN MY OWN HOUSE...

A weekend in the life of your average (?) office administrator….

On Friday, after writing on here about my mind-explosion concerning Mr Coupland, unknowing prophet, i went and had a big old cry, feeling so shit about the week I had just lived, and overwhelming concerned that even my weekend would get entrenched in the monotony and boredom I had suffered all week. Got that out of the way, and proceeded to have a very fun evening in the pub with the gang, plus Dan and Ellen and Mark H. Very fun.

Spent Saturday-day painting my new house! I was so giddy I didn’t actually get much work done, mainly just let the others get on with it, while I stood there with a brush in my hand looking, if not being, very useful indeed. I freakin love that house man, pile of rubble it may still, be, I love it. Finding that dreams for it are coming quite readily to my mind. Had a lot a lot of fun hanging out with Matt P. Like him a lot – really hope he comes to stay at ours. He was painting the ceiling in my room, which was a hideous, caleb shade of orange, and is now white. I looked round at one point to see him chuckling heartily. He had written (very impressively, since it was with a roller on a long stick) Jesus on it, which turned into I love (heart) Jesus. It was brilliant. We all just stood there looking at it, and each reacting to the sublime yet cheesy truth of the scene in our very unique ways of laughing, clapping, generally expressing excitement. The camera that we’d each forgotten to bring wasn’t needed. I shan’t forget it ever, when I look at my ceiling..

Last night was flippin amazing too. Went to caleb+claire+sophie’s house for a big old time of prayin with all the girls from our gang. I usually sack the girl stuff off, but when Sue Mitchell was here it changed my mind on the whole thing somewhat. So I went. And I it was brill. Talked and prayed for ages about how we are being called back into openness and honesty and all those things we ditched a couple of years back because of how they had been corrupted and screwed up. We all so know that we need it right now, and that we’re ready to have them back, with a bit more maturity on our side, and just a greater love for each other which will prevent people’s secrets being trampled on, and will allow us to trust more within it. it was so good to be confirmed in what I’d been learning from god this week about the need for it, that its not a luxury or an option anymore, its just essential really. It was hard to hear Sal talk about it all and saying why she thinks it necessary, when I was feeling so heavy in my heart about how it seems she has sacked everything we were praying for her other night. Anyways I got to pray for Helen dc for ages and remembered how much I love her, and man we really worked hard to bash down some shit out of her way. Saw her tonight, and the effects of it are hard but good and slow but gently being worked out. Had big fun staying ot Ozza’s last night. Have missed that house. Feels very much like a home of mine. I have several!

Spent most of today in the park. Really wanted to see the Gribbons but they never showed. Rats. oh and rache asked me to pray at her wedding….i was so thrilled. Yes please…..Went to prayer school. Had a hard time finding joy. As ever. Got there though. Resa prayed for me. What a gem. So much good I want for her. Hard to express it to her though, when she’s so unsupported and her heart is busy reacting to that. Why is it that it can take so long for a person to feel that with us, sometimes? Bothers me. Had some lovely times with jesus tonight, singing songs in Spanish and vividly for the first time seeing his name painted on the sky over the city. Never had that before – that expectation, that much anti-cynicism about revival. Jolly exciting. Cate prayed for my back (gracious, hark at me, whittering away…!) which was b-rill-i-ant. More on that tomorrow, maybe. So need to go to bed.

Man, hands up who loves jesus, hey….?

notes from the week that was..

THE ACTUAL DATE IS FRIDAY JULY 11TH,NOT WHAT YOU SEE ON THE LINE ABOVE HERE...!


Had one of the most surreal moments of my life today. It kinda started two days ago, when I was reading a local newspaper, and saw of one the tiny articles, in the inside column, about a plane crash in the Sudan. It said that 118 people had died in it, leaving a two-year-old boy the only survivor. I immediately thought of Miss Wyoming, the Douglas Coupland book about a girl who is the sole survivor of a plane crash. I also thought shit how do you explain to that boy the horror, and yet the strange responsibility of being the only one to withstand the thing that has parents could not, that so many others could only give in to. The scene the book describes meticulously the feelings of the woman that survives, and narrates her response like this: she goes to the nearest town, not sticking around for the emergency services, just getting away as fast as she can. She goes to a house in the town, choosing it because its occupants are obviously on holiday. She lives there for a while, studies their lives, wearing their clothes, washing in their bath, eating their food. Then she cleans everything and leaves before they arrive home. I guess I could only pray that that boy will find a similar refuge from the attention, the imposition, inquisition and jealousy of others.

Today I read a story about a boy who, at 20 (or thereabouts) went into a coma after being in a car crash. Yesterday he woke up. After 19 years. Karen, in Girlfriend was in hers for 17. Then she woke up to find that time has moved on, she had been sleeping, she had given birth to a daughter, and her friends and families lives had hung in suspension, waiting, barely daring to blink in case they missed something. This boy woke up to find that it was no longer 1984, that he had a baby daughter (of 19), and that Mom, Pepsi and Milk were the first words that made it from his head to his mouth.

Man, if I was Douglas Coupland, I’d be cacking it just now

what's the *&^%? what's the big *&^%?

Had another set-back today. Kinda believed last night when I found that course , that that was going to be the one – my stepping stone….or just my cliff…but I found that even after the set-back I felt no further away from the match results of the end game. The vision, the big idea…I need a new term for this. I can’t use either of those ones now, pete grieg owns them…

Am beginning to think more and more that I don’t actually want to work for a newspaper. Don’t ask my why – when this has been the core of the Big Idea for some time now..but I just can’t picture it – not in a faith-less, really wish I could picture it kind of a way, just in a nah, not sure that’s where the plan leads to, kind of a way. Oh god could I be more inarticulate today..? all I know is that I want to write. For a living. Not sure how or where yet. But hey..the frustration feels eased just now.

So anyways…think I’m gonna be a florist for a while..

Yep

The fun part of today was hanging out with our new-found friend again. I think she’s (while actually finding it quite weird, now she can see it in its reality) reminding us of our need for each other. She is me, anyway. And also she’s allowing me to see, oddly enough, that I have been moved from my former place of total dependency on others. And I know she’s gonna get there too. I have a lot a lot of hope for her.

I miss home at the moment. I miss mum and dad.. and nick, and the little one. The comfort of it all. A room that is actually mine. A computer with more mp3’s than you could shake a marching-band baton at….the bench that I pretty much own in the garden. Photos that chart the lives I know better than any other. People who I share genes and therefore attitudes and ways of thinking with. And yet people I sometimes have so little in common with. I feel like my two different worlds are being merged at the moment though, just with how hard dad’s working to help me get where I want to go.

Not two such different families, after all.

i am anna's slowly numbing brain..

Huh. Thought I’d have loads to say today. Not so convinced now. No wait...Kalee’s having a baby in four day’s time! That was pretty much the funnest part of my whole day – getting an email from her…and also, singing every alanis song I can remember all the words to while in the shower when I got home.

Ok, I know its getting pretty dull, all my talk about how much I hate my job.

I had my very own fight club moment yesterday though…shit, I guess I haven’t been on here in a while……well, I was at work, sorting out a bunch of newspapers……(shit, sorry, suddenly its climbing up the walls….not sure radiohead is the best plan right now, specially considering how long ago it was that phil separated me from them….)….oh well….so I’m at work, handing out the FT, the Sun, the horror of a Daily Mail (the front page headline was enough for me today to induce the instant sick-feeling: “Now They want to make Aborted Babies into Mothers), Way to inform the public.

Lesson one in objectivity: Don’t use the word ‘they’ as your sole pronoun in a title sentence – it implies some kind of automatic, assumed enemy. (Note, UK Press: You’re perfectly capable of creating enemies with your opening paragraphs, lets leave some surprise til then, hey?)


So anyways…
I put the Times down on someone’s desk, and saw a lead headline on the front cover, promising the deepest darkest secrets of those who keep internet diaries…bloggers, as they call themselves.

And here we are. Edward Norton could so easily have been the scrawny, underfed guy in grey=ened shirt and semi-undone tie, in the mid-page photo. He’s up late, in his apartment, all other lights in the building are off. He’s clearly a loser with no family or lover.

And here I was, putting this paper down on the desk of a man who, after five minutes of acquaintance with him, you can happily make the otherwise insufferable presumption that no other person in your world could possibly understand this fictional model in the photo less.

I felt bad for him that he has no such equivalent outlet for his thoughts. Nor (this is the insufferable part..) in all likelihood, that great a number of thoughts, even when gathered, which would require such ventilation.

And I felt sly, like I know some kind of truth, about the depth of the falsehood represented on the double-page feature in this, the daily supplement for those who have slightly longer commuter trains into London that most.

He never read it.

Nor did I. I think perhaps if I had, I wouldn’t be here just now…..

who's it gonna be...?

so today is when i get to see all my favourtite friends from home...i do wish paulo was coming, but the others are brill too. just wanted to come on here before they arrived, in a few hours' time, to register some apprehension and some excitement and some nervousness that i won't be myself around them. that's all, no ranting, just wanted to reigster those three things so that when i come back either late tonight, or tomorrow, i can laugh and praise the lord in heaven..gracias

The day after my birthday..

No more drama in my life….when’s that day, huh..? not sure whether its now that day that I’m chasing after, or god. Never really used to be a problem. But I guess that’s where having dreams gets you – into drama, trouble, shit, whatever….

I know that before I really started dreaming of my future, things weren’t quite right. But now that I’ve begun, I can’t seem to stop. Today, I didn’t want to be a journalist at all. Not even a little bit. I just wanted to be working at home, running our little book company. I dreamt of it last night – well I’m assuming I did, because it was my first thought this morning, and my heart was racing when I woke up. Gracious, how it sank when I sat up and looked at the day ahead of me, stretched out like an eight-hour yawn. Can you imagine what that looks like? Wait though – you have to imagine it coupled with the thought that its not just today, but everyday, or at least everyday until something else happens along.

But today I did begin to feel slightly more like I need to take my life by the scruff of its neck, and shake…or box its ears….or give it a kick up the ass….or scream at it, right in its face….i think, actually, no, I’m about a hundred percent sure of this one thing, so listen up…I know that til today I’ve been doing nothing more than standing, arms folded across chest, staring at my life, a sullen look on my face, waiting…..stroppy, spoiled, cross, selfishly waiting for it to get its fucking act together, stop moaning and do something.

so the first rule is..

Just found myself falling asleep during fight club
Damn this 9 to 5 gig, its left me too tired even for tyler.
For the parts of it that I was awake, though, I saw it totally differently from every other time. I wasn’t oohing and aahhing at the sparks of profundity like before. I guess I was trying to watch it without having heard preachers preach the messages within it, like they confirmed the correctness of their faith.
I mean, after all, the guy with the wisdom, and the mind deep as a well, and the most attractive walk in the world, is fictional. Not only is he a character in a film, but in the film he’s not even real. He is merely the product of years of another man’s insomnia. Nothing more. A figment. Not of someone’s active imagination, but of his subconscious’ desire to be like himself, but more. Like himself, but fitter, happier, more productive.
But I just didn’t find it as clever is I once did. The fact the you never know the dude’s name even annoyed me tonight. I felt robbed. Cheated. Like someone couldn’t be arsed.

I think I feel like that just now, because when my own creativity is limited, and lidded, I find other people’s creations frustrating. I want to adapt them, recreate them. Because with me its always the initial quiz of knowing what to create that scuppers me. Once I’ve got that decided, I’m good to go, but the conception stage is hardest.

I wonder if the use of human fat in the making of the soap was part of the story triggered in the writer’s mind by his having read generation x…?it just reminded me of the dogs in the book, and how they’d go the clinic and root out the bags of rancid ming and feast away.

Bothered.

Today I had a new thought, to do with the Big Plan. I’m going to think about it for another day or two. My new thought is that maybe I can miraculously have the cash I need by September to do the course I actually want to do, now that the door has been firmly shut on the option of doing the second-choice course that I had been planning for the last while to do. I know, I know, I’m ranting now. But imagine…..i say right god, today I apply for this thing. By the day it starts, three months from now, you either provide some fairly serious funds, or I take the hint for good.

Ooh, trof for breakfast tomorrow…some of my favourite people….and finally…Saturday…

.........

People in movies always seem to get to a point when they don’t like their life anymore. When they wake up one day, finding themselves at work for a couple of hours without having even switched on their brain, and find themselves in a job they hate. Its not so much that I hate my job, as I feel outdone by it. I feel like it has won me. Claimed me for its side. I never mean or wanted to be on the side of this job. It’s the typical office job, where people who like their job to a frightening degree squabble over their expenses and have to justify why they spent £30 on lunch - alone, on a trip to the next city east of here. And I do the photocopying that these people could so easily do. They are capable of using the machine. I’ve seen one or two of them do it, too embarrassed to ask me to copy one sheet for them when the machine is by their side once they’ve got to me.

I didn’t grow up with this in mind. I grew up knowing so much about what I did not want to do, I could have written (perhaps should have) a book, listing the laws by which I was and was not going to live. Today I could still write it…..i will not work for the government….i will not make phone calls on behalf of someone who can talk and has a phone…I will not spend my days waiting for Friday afternoon….i particularly will not spend my days waiting for the last Friday afternoon of every month…I will not laminate things that do not need laminating, just for something to do…..i will not ………..whatever.

Today I did not all, but most of the things listed above. Choose as you will which ones you believe to be, or want to be true. I have indeed committed every heinous crime that were so disgusting to my 17-year-old-self. The 17-year-old me would laugh to see what I wore today, how I was demure today. She would hate me.

But hey, you know, a girl’s gotta eat..! How would she propose I got by, for money, instead of sacrificing dream at the altar of HSBC?

I know what she’d say…..lady, sit yourself down. Get some boy to buy you a nice rum and coke, write some shit down, have a cigarette, and talk to god. Didn’t stevie himself preach it like a preacher…when you feel your life’s too hard – just go have a talk with god…….so I pretty much think that’s the plan. Til now I didn’t have a pl