sucked in..!

see how easy it is to get comments around here..!?
the smoking thing, gets em every time...

tea and cigarettes on doorsteps..

in the last week i have smoked on the following doorsteps..
my own
fran's
the saltshaker's
ben and drago's
john and lorna's
denno and rikes'
tim and russell's
its a mug's game, smoking...but i like it...

the oc: 3 x 1

oh..
the mew series.
it started yesterday.
what an episode.
sal scoffed all the way through, and i didn't even care! i maybe should have cared a bit, that she hated it, i mean i was at her house...
thanks sal..
but its just so nice to have some little weekly addiciton back in my life, since i finally seem to have kicked the bingo dream...weekly addicitons are just so much more rewarding..and less demanding, obviously, than all the daily ones i have on the go...
seth, summer, ryan, marissa....not to mention sandy.....hooray!

generally had a rather lovely weekend, actually...for a fuller summary of my saturday, see sally's blog..and yesterday i hung out with john and lorna (after the oc)...which was brilliant.....and last night i prayed....so a winning fin de semaine all round..
can't believe i forgot kirsten...! she's great too..
not so sure about jimmy any more...he did get lectured by sandy though, which was good...high time..
ok i'm going now..x

desiderata..

evening..
i re-read this poem today, and recalled how much i loved it and why
i return to manchester tomorrow
if you are there, i will hope to see you soon
if you are not, no doubt you have some plausible reason, and i hope that whatever ever it is, its going well with you
i am glad to be going back
thank you, the shire, my shire, for my lovely two weeks of you
come on then 2006, what you saying...?!

january sixth..

...is the holy feast of the epiphany
i'm afraid i may have promised too much
i believe now, in the safe, cold light of 2006 that i had no such thing on new years eve...it was merely a beastie boys-fuelled moment of nostalgic rebellion
am currently re-assessing whether rebellion or rather rebelliousness is a necessary or in any way profitable feature of my character
its under review
i'll keep you posted

btw i realise i'm a few minutes ahead of myself
its back-door smoking time, sorry...

treading the path of least resistance..

so i got a call this morning bidding me to reurn to the nbs for another round of eight to ten weeks...followed by a call from louise, giddy at the prospect of eight to ten weeks of na and louise running the show without carol....gotta say i'm not too unhappy about that part myself..!
so i'll be back in manchester at the weekend...ready to rock on down at the blood bank...
you know it makes sense...

bricking it...

so i'm going back to manchester tomorrow. and yet again i find myself feeling like a total loser. i don't want or need or deserve sympathy here, i feel sick, i'm so scared. two weeks ago i was happy enough there. now, i have no real job to speak of to go back to, and i feel shit. i'm sick of this. sick of feeling aimless and directionless. sick of looking around me and seeing plan after plan being successfully or at least gracefully executed by my friends, while i fuck up another one of my half-baked, juvenile plans and end up broke again.
its all rather familiar and tedious, isn't it?
i'm almost ready to tell you about the epiphany of nye
another glass of wine, and we'll see....

fyi..

if you are intrigued about the new profile picture, let me tell you a story..
this is the story i read about three years ago
*story*
and have wanted to go there ever since..
i just came across the picture again today, and thought i would share..
for further reading..

untitled..

i was playing harry potter top trumps just now, with fi, and my mum is standing there, usual position, half-sitting on the radiator, tea in hand...and out of nowhere, she says, na, when i was exactly the age you are now, i had two children.
i had snape on magic 85, fi had mcgonagall on magic 96...
what can you say to that...?

here goes..

and there goes another..
well last night was good. i laughed alot alot, drank aftershock for the first time, got groped by man called kinky ken who wears a lot of pvc and red heels that no woman could wear and live...met fabian the pirate boy, met someone called stretch..,..re-met the dancing boy, from crackers, not while i was in crackers, but after, in the cellar of cafe rene...not dancing...wierd...saw darren neeley, and none of you know who he is, but that was oddly nice, given that it was darren neeley...saw a girl that i used to babysit for..danced the ymca in crackers, along with several other eighties disco numbers, i think even the hokey-cokey....which was even wierder than seeing the neeley boy, since it was crackers, after all..we left town around six, and made a record of stretching the ten-minute walk home to forty-five, yes forty-five minutes...we couldn't find the monopoly car, see, and the giggles were too much for walking...i think one of my favourite parts of the evening was the beastie boys, no alas, not live, just on, in crackers...and as i shouted along, people all around me also shouting along..........fuck you i won't do what you tell me........over and over, i had something of an epiphany....i can't recall it just now, but i will, and i when i do, i'll tell you.
happy new year..x

my favourite things..

i think my emailed top fives of the year should, matt-like, also be recorded here..for prosperity's sake...or something...
ok, my top five moments, memories and well, favourite things of the year that was 2005..just as its about to end..

1...edinburgh on july 2nd, the white bands, the silent marching, the shame of finding oneself on said silent march holding a starbucks frappucino and wondering if the police themselves might turn on me for my traitorship to the cause..hanging out in the big dress, and winding up at the cottage..good times..
2...the cold of this winter...i am loving loving loving the cold. my purpose-made, ridiculously long scarf is doing me proud.
3...the first manchester family holiday in wales, in may, at the house with the scary lady, the barbeques, the beers, the "blast-furnace"(sal, 05/05) tans we earned, bh monday lunch, gettinglost EVERYTIME i tried to find my room, praying for the teachers, the drive there with sal, the drive home with russell, and especially tom's now much-used idea of "see you monday", watching garden state with our duvets, singing on the last morning to mrs p's legendary "let my people go" with more five-syllable words than even ric could get into song lyrics..with fin playing the drum..and emma with her purple ribbons..! all good..
4..my shire summer...lazy afternoons and evenings of heading straight from work to the lovely cafe rene, assured of company, cold beer, sunshine, crosswords and laughs...haven't had the early and best part of summer in the glos since i was 18 and hated the place, so it was a whole new time..
5..learning that loving means something like..being nicer to people than they are to you and not waiting to be liked before i like first.or something similar but with more order. or not...in fact, also learning that love isn't patterned or formluable, but earthy and vital, springy and terribly hard work sometimes. i think it laughs though: that satisfied, at-ease laugh that you only really let out when you're shot of fear. am enjoying seeing it at work in me and in my life and knowing its all straight from jesus and that he'll never run out, so neither will i....wowzers! how amazing is that!!
cheating
..6...claire and george's wedding..never did a girl look so at home inher wedding dress, or a boy look so unashamedly but quietly inlove..the rest of us had big fun on the bridge too..

it really was a good year. nothing spectacular, and not all that much real excitement or change. but god did say at its beginning that i was about to be divested of all my dreams. i can honestly say that it has taken him more or less the full twelve-month to accmmplish that. so now i have none. not a one. except of more snow.....

sitting on the toolbox..

so i am a fan of the jcb song..
i spent the last 24 hours out and about in the countryside of ours and a neighbouring shire..i saw tractors, watched a cat fight with a crazy fox, heard the rooster crow in the wee small hours as we were outside still drinking wine, playing in the snow and sneaking cigarettes..we practised our shire accents (owl: one syllable or two...?!), watched the chickens and listened to the quiet..
i do like it round here..
went out tonight for a bit of a warm-up beverage with my accomplices for tomorrow night.we've placed our bets on who may be found first crying in a corner somewhere, who might get up to no good, and have fully-laid plans for where to proceed to after crackers..
whochester? can't hear ya...

lola..

is my favourite kinks song..
the music-history syllabus is coming along nicely, although i am struggling to see how i can let the 80's in on the act..as ever..this really means that i am struggling to find the ways in which 80's music had an impact or influence on any subsequent music...surely, surely it was just a phase that ended as abruptly as it had begun, and was best quickly forgotten!? surely it was the mid-life crisis in the life of rock music..? surely its welcome termination was evidenced by the warmth with which the world received happy hardcore and take that, in the very early 90''s...?! we were all so tired of the bizarre and exhausting combination of melancholic drama and the intense "we must have fun, even if it kills us" attitude of the hideous 80's, that we had arms wide open waiting for something shit to appear, just so that so we could move on...i mean really, and i know this following quote has been used in part on this blog at least once before, but the 80's even proved the undoing of musicians that were once great...mighty, even...and jack black's barry in high fideilty once more find the words for me, as he asks...
"Top 5 musical crimes perpetutated by Stevie Wonder in the 80s and 90s? Go .... is it in fact fair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins? Is it better to burn out ... or fade away?"
some people should have just slept through the 80's and then they might have been alright. elton john: rocket man, tiny dancer, saturday night's alright...etc etc...then he hits the 80's..nightmare....
aretha franklin: oh my god.........all i need to get by, respect, think........pure anthems of the once-caged bird....and then......duets with george michael and something about who is zooming who.....
who let it happen?!
in fact, duets in general were an ongoing crime of the whole decade..janet jackson and cliff richard....!! please.
...so if anyone has any sensible suggestions that may help me fill an entire decade's worth of musical education, that won't wound my ears in the burning process, they would be much appreciated.
fyi u2 are a given, so don't think you're being smart there..

ride a white swan..

is my favourite t-rex song..
my mum loves t-rex
so things are calmer today. we fetched granny home from gloucester royal..she is well, drinking gin, commandeering and generally back at the helm.
i don't think i've ever been at the helm of anything..
she is well, and thanks for concerned phone calls etc.
i am still at a loss as to what happens on new years eve. i guess i want something vaguely new. so maybe a new place, or new people, or both, but i'm not sure how its gonna happen.
i watched the great escape today, and other than eddie's version, it was actually the first time i'd seen it. i know the comedy version pretty much off by heart, so this was new and exciting. i loved it...especially danny and poor colin.
brilliant
so, ok, i know i don't have that many regular commentors these days, but i am about to spend a day or two making some cds for a friend who is entirely uneducated in music history, and i would like any suggestions of bands or singers who in a collection of music representing somethings of the last forty or fifty years, cannot be overlooked...go crazy..
i also watched goodnight mister tom today, with inspector morse in it, and i was struck by what a bizarre concept the evacuation of children is. i also wept..like, properly cried. its been a while.
i also heard from cate, yesterday..!! she made it to south africa, in case any of you were still left wondering if she remained stranded in seattle....she made it, and got my present...hurrah!!!!!! i'm off to make real irish coffees now, in the fun proper glasses and all...and have a cigarette....its that strange weather round here tonight though, where its almost too cold to smoke...now i know this sounds about as stupid an idea as it being too cold to snow, but believe me, there's no evidence for it but it is scientific fact..sorry once more for a dull post, but being as i am in a house with broadband and a lovely laptop, it would be rude not to..x

none for the usual..

well what a to-do..
we've had a bit more than your average turkey, mince pies and what-not in our house today..my grandmother, not to be outdone by the lord jesus and his birthday, had some sort of bizarre attack of something in the late morning, and later the doctor came round, followed by hospital people, and now she's gone in there for the night..madness i tell you...you don't realise how routined your christmas day has become until things happen that change it and as soon as that happens it doesn't feel like christmas anymore...we're ok now, and the two ronnies are on tv so its all gonna be alright...kind of a wierd scary day though..made me think, as i realised that she had in fact lost a fair amount of counsciousness and had kind of stopped breathing, that i didn't want her to die without us liking each other a bit more than we do, cos we don't really, very much, and that's horrid. an old man collapsed in church this morning too, we thought he had died but he hadn't but i was praying in tongues before i knew it, which isn't easy in a catholic church, and the thought wa crossing my mind of, if it came to it, would i actually walk over there in front of 400 people and command him to live in the name of jesus...!?! the rest would have been ministering the last rights and praying for his safe passage through pergatory, and i figured i may well have been the only person there to march over there and pray the unthinkable. that was odd enough, without the same thoughts then running through my head sitting in the lounge on my second gin and it of the day, wondering which of the parcels for me would have a douglas coupland book in it...
i got my bag though....green corduroy with daisies and weeds on it...its so pretty..so that was good. it has actually been surprisingly fun, given everything..especially hearing from cate, getting a lush new jacket, giving my family presents that made them cry!! (in a good way..i think..!?) getting to pray with my family...listening to the jcb song a lot, and anticipating seeing my friends over the next couple of days who i love and who love me...and the bubble and squeak of tomorrow morning..and my new green earrings from my grandad and perfume and slippers and two yes two radios....what joy...sadie will be fine, we are quite sure of that...poor grandad though, her being in gloucester royal..it means we get to give him all the sweets and whiskeys and chocolates and cake and stuff that he wants though this evening, cos she's not here to tell him off! right the two ronnies have been spurned in favour of blogger, which cannot be right, i'm off to catch the end...its goodnight from me, and well, love you and happy christmas...!

all apologies..

so i guess i could do the sneaky back-dating-blogger thing..
but i think that would give too much undue attention to the last few weeks..
its been good, but not that good...!
went to cardiff...sold some drums, stayed with ben and jules, had some snow, watched harry potter, hung out with my sister, laughed a lot, saw the pienaars, discovered brandy in coffee and got very cold. and was denied a trip to the winter wonderland. loved cardiff.
came back to manchester. loved it. left again, went to lincoln, sold some more drums, worked the longest three days i've ever worked, drank beer and came back again.
loved manchester. going away is good but coming back, as they say, is better.
have been spending a good amount of time at the christmas markets, have been spending a better amount of time in my house, which now although less populated, feels more chilled and more pray-in-able.
and next week i'm going home for christmas. i'm excited about that.
before then, i want to see sal, see t and a, have my last day at my job, find another job, watch the polar express in 3d at the movies, make some fun thing to go on the wall in our kitchen, sing more carols, make tiffin, make more soup, see halen dc, get a massage, laugh, take photos at the christmas market..
i'll check in with you on thursday upon my departure for the holidays to see how many i have achieved
sorry that after such a pause this is such a shit post. i'm tired,
many loves to you all
cate if you're there i miss you!

consecrate

god is good.
see, i think i'd forgotten.
but amazingly, he's been reminding me...more to come, but for now, enough..

the markets are up..

Tonight I am listening to Amsterdam by coldplay.
Just thought you might like to know.
Work was better today, in that I laughed more, and also I got to tell the tractor joke when we were having a bad joke telling time this afternoon, and it turns out it really is still funny. I thought it was just me.
The secret also got out of my now legendary – if not in quantity, but daily consistency – tardiness in the mornings. I let it slip that on non-rainy days I take a turn through the lovely park en route to the office. They found it rather sweet that their very own shire-girl needs her daily fix of trees and leafy walking, so I think from now on they will just smile at me at ten past nine and know that I have arrived happier for my detour than had I walked on the pavement and got there sooner.
So I spent this evening mainly on the terrace at trof with rusty discussing the latest money-making schemes of world tribal and how I might get to spend several of the weeks between now and Christmas working on the stall at various markets round the country freezing my ass off, drinking coffee, wearing mittens and selling drums. It really could work, since there are many weeks in the next two months that my work don’t need me at all, but they don’t want me to leave entirely as there are some weeks when I will be needed and so on and so on.
I love the idea of working outdoors in what is set to be the coldest winter for decades. We’ll see..
I need to spend some time in the castle with jesus and teresa now..coldplay are coming too..
Night x
Ps liv why can’t you comment anymore..?! who will write the essays now..? cate..? no, too busy with volcanoes and the like..the cheek! Miss you girls x

forays..

I have had my five portions of fruit and vegetables today for sure.
I love days when that happens.
Started my day with a kiwi, a banana and apple.
Smug smug smug.
So I went to work and didn’t enjoy most of the day at all as there are now three of us doing the work and its all complex and I am not competitive enough to snatch it as it comes in, so I ended up with pretty much nothing all day. Bizarre woman who has taken over the office must go.
Or I must go, find gainful employment elsewhere. Talking to john last night made me glad again to realise that being overwhelmed by potential ideas for work and hopes and stuff isn’t something I have the monopoly on. Its such a confusing thing to see so many things around you that you would love to see change, and to have no idea where you play your part in it. I should probably also add into that whole scene, the things that I just would love to do, that aren’t at all to do with changing the world but are small wee dreams that I keep in my pocket, like being a make-up artist and a hairdresser. I thought tonight though, what a wonderful thing, to be not tied, not set on a course, yet to have ideas, however castle-in-the-air-like they may seem. Living here, where potential and possibility are two fairly contraband substances, it feels oddly defiant to maintain the pipe dreams, update and review them, and let god in on them. I get in such a pickle when I try and pin down one idea of what to do, it must make him laugh I think, but I know he is building in me one thing at a time, all working towards work that will be in turn working towards the working out of me and him. And the ultimate working out of his own pipe dreams…what a thought heh..the very pipe dreams of god.
Wonderous.
Tim came round this evening, I think he had heard about the bake-off yesterday and wanted to see what remained. His inquisition brought him the last and biggest share of coffee cake and lots of tea. It brought me his tales from the temple, which as I kept asking him to describe it, I got such a picture of it in my head I could almost smell the place. See I know he loves jesus, and I’m glad, but I can kind of see why his field trips to these strange and unknown places are making him wonder..we talked about how other ways of living and expressing faith seem to have a way better concept of and respect for the scared, the holy, the mighty aspects of god. We in living rooms and without much regard for rules have, I’ve been thinking lately, perhaps taken the buddy jesus thing a bit too far and lost the fear somewhat. Maybe just me. Weird though heh..tim told me a book I should read. I love it when conversations with tim end at the point when he’s succeeded in recommending a you a book on the subject in question, and therefore feels he can do no more for you.

the joy of baking..

So the clocks went back and I woke up and got up at seven something in the morning. I just don’t get how it means you’re meant to get more sleep!
Anyway so I decided I’d quite like to go to mass. I know, I know, the obvious comments about reading stuff by one of the greats of catholic mysticism one day then wanting to head off to mass the next are anticipated, I don’t know, I just wanted the familiar routine, mass, in nice clothes and big coat, coming home, coffee, toast, papers, home truths on radio 4, that whole scene. So I walked to church, had the absolute joy of whitworth park all to myself at 8.30 on a lovely autumnly morning, talked to a squirrel and generally enjoyed the fresh air of doing what I wanted and not really needing a reason.
They’d had mass at 7, and the big slackers weren’t having another til 11, so I just went in and prayed among the all too familiar smells and sounds of a church..the organ man was practising his scales, the nuns were praying and some crazy lady was talking out loud to a statue of mary at the back.
I left soon though and had the bizarre experience of being the second customer of the day in caffe nero. The book came out and I moved onto reading of the second mansion. There was a page where she described the transition from the first to the second, and why it is necessary. She described what she was shown to be the state of people in this transition time. I nearly choked on my tepid Americano as I read..
Those who have already begun to practice prayer, and who realise the importance of not remaining in the first mansion, but who are not yet resolute enough to leave..they can understand the lord when he calls them, for as they gradually get nearer to the place where his majesty dwells, he becomes a very good neighbour to them. And such are his his mecy and goodness that, even when we are even when we are engaged in our worldly pastimes and businesses, and pleasures and hagglings, when we are falling into sins and rising from them again, this lord of ours is so anxious that we shoud desire him and strive after his companionship that he calls un ceaselessly, time after time, to approach him, and this voice of his is so sweet that the poor soul is consumed with grief at being unable to do his bidding immediately.
See…?
I really think I’ve started something..
i made lots of cakes, and a crumble, my best ever i think, and generally made the best kind of mess in the kitchen..then went to a gathering for watto prayer time at burdith..was good, everyone had cake and crumble and suddenly i missed being the hostess at maine road with cate..
went to big hands with matt and watto..then john hughes came too..the evening was lovely. generally a good weekend all round, feel as though i am finding feet here..wasn't expecting it would take time, but that was just dumb. i guess i have to find my feet with god though first right, then all else will follow...as the saying goes..x
ps i went to one of our local grocery stores on great western street to buy flour and baking powder. the lady in the shop disappeared out back when i told her i wanted some of the latter, and brought me some of her own from her kitchen, in a small bag that she gave me for free...sometimes m14 really is good to me..

so today I think I started something.

I started off by saying goodbye to Olivia in trof, goodbye for another half a term anyway.
That turned into coffee and rolling lessons with laura gribbon, a rare treat of me and birdie time, hadn’t realised how much I’d been missing that..
Had the shock of perhaps not my life but at least the month when Benjamin o’rourke appeared, one of the most genuinely funny and charming people I know. Bird and I were shortly joined by ben lehmann (sp?) and so we stayed a while longer. The plan of the day was book reading and coffee drinking, but since not one of us had brought our books we instead took a turn about the park, looked at the ducks and went to the secret garden. We eventually ben and I gor our books and repaired to battery park, a different kind of park altogether from the platt fields variety, and began to read. Now, it has been a while, a long while, since I started a book and within minutes have thought, this is ezakly what I need right now, but even without my former prophetic librarian hdc, it turned out I had indeed made that timely choice. The interior castle by teresa of avila is about 400 years old, written while most of her other writings had been confiscated by the inquisitors (wouldn’t that be a good name for a band….!?) and is about a vision she had of a castle of the soul, made up of several mansions, and the passage that the soul must take with god in order to be able to be with him where he dwells….she was asked to write about prayer, for a group of nuns who were kind of struggling..at times its odd because she talks directly to them as a group and one feels slightly like one is intruding..but the idea of charting your course with this specific image in mind kind of appeals to me at the moment, when I feel pretty stuck, neither doing particularly well or badly, just subsisting..so I read, had the best chocolate cake I may have ever had, then I went home. I cooked, had wine, read a bit more, then realised I was a bit in the weeds, and given that I was technically drinking alone, figured then would be a good time to stop and pray. So I did, and it was good.

that i would be good..

So I’m in my room, I’ve got my playlist for my quiet time, starting at lets see..0110 hours..well done na.
I wish this was direct blogging but unfortunately I have no internet to call my own. Problem with blogging then posting at a later time, even if it is only tomorrow morning, is the risk that it will never get as far as the internet café but will stay safe here with me.
Ok so where were we, yes..today’s Things That Are True
I have realised I am a bitch. This lady at my work, I really dislike her, and she me. This scenario has nothing to do with jesus and what he has done for me and who he asks me in response to try with him to be. Its just been about being horrid. I’ve more or less despised her since we met on Tuesday. She has done very little to warrant this other than be dreadfully common, coarse, loud and have awful annunciation. None of these things are, I think, conscious or chosen, its just who she is and that’s fine. But I haven’t let it be fine and I in turn have been snappy with her and not shown her kindness or respect at all really. So I finished my week at work today walking to the pub, ready for a beer and glad that I was beginning a whole weekend of days pottering around and seeing people who do not provoke such unsolicited snobbery and meanness from me. But she will still be there on Monday and since my victorious I-survived-the-week beer at 1605 hours today, I have realised that I would very much like Monday to see a few changes in my attitude towards the lady. Or The Monster as most of the people in the office call her. I want to see her differently…but its hard when she’s one of those people that if she were in a cartoon the flowers would wither as she walked past.
Today, Oswald was basically saying that we’re not saved because we repented, but saved because of what jesus did on the cross. He says we put too much emphasis on the effects of the part we play in our salvation instead of just letting ourselves be affected by what has already been done for us. I was relieved to hear this idea on my cigarette break today, because if it were down to me to, as ms “dale” would say, get my shit together, then with all the shit I’ve figured out this week that needs to be got together, I’d sure be too busy to work…and work is so good for me. I may be finding the dark, early grey mornings rather hard, but I am starting to see that if the narrow gate means the path of most resistance then I guess that’s where we get to learn about how to be more like him, and that means learning to love the lady and learning to concentrate and work hard and still be alive somehow at the same time. Its just a lot to think about isn’t it…?!weekend now though….time to read..

neon..

so i'm having some strange but good moments of realising Things That Are True during my walks to work in the mornings.
a couple of days ago, i realised that nothing that i'm doing these days has, or just doesn't feel like it has, any spirit in it. spirit with a small s or with a big one either (Spirit). its a hard thing to explain but i guess i feel like the opposite of the girl in the song neon by john mayer. which is also the opoosite of this:
- it was as if she had set lighted candles in all the windows of her house of life-
this is my favourite book quote of all time.
it is kind of my not motto but a thing in my head like a standard for living life to the full, in a visible and obvious way, in a way that the fullness of life is coming from inside and not from the light of the people that are around you, or the things that entertain or inspire you, but from god within and his fullness etc etc
the bottom line is that i'm not in a place of devotion with jesus. this is the word watto dropped into a sentence the other day that made me catch my breath and slightly skipped a beat on the inside because it is a concept and a discipline that i gave been aspiring to and thinking about for years and it both intrigues and excites me.
and i have lost the desire for it.
i want it back,
my room is my retreat house. i abdndon it every morning and often spend no time in it until bed, and this is the opposite of what i want and need to be doing,.
same old same old, doing what i don't want to do not doing the things i do want to do. but the options i choose are always fun and somehow easier.
yesterday the Thing I Realised Was True was..
that since barcelona i've stopped asking god for things. i can pray for other people, and on my better days i can spend time praising jesus and telling him how fond i am of him. but i have given up offering petitions for my own part. the root of disappointment is sod a dog still deeper in me than i had any idea. it has slammed the brakes on my increasing faith, and scuppered my desire to dream.
ok rambling now but this is helping so if you don't mind awfully i'll continue..
the things i want have taken second place to just kind of getting by and not getting my heart broken. its kind of like being on prozac. can't feel the bad but can't really feel the good either. i'm in a balanced state where no great weeping ever overcomes me anymore, and no rending of my heart ever happens in order to pray better or love more. and i can't get that excited about anything, or giddy or hopeful.
no buzzing, no neon, no lighted candles.
i thought at one point today like my life is rather ordinary.
and i was kind of ok with it.
scary stuff.

bites you on the ass..

so i've always had this philosophy that home is where your cds are.
last night, i freaked out when i was alone and in my room and felt like...shit, i really do live in manchester now, and where's the going back and how did this happen? and why am i living in a house where my friends all once lived and have all since moved on?
and so i realised that the temporarily stopping somewhere til decisions get made, has turned into actually living somewhere
because all yes all my cds are now in my room. with all my handbags too.
scary stuff

i don't even know where i live now..

i went to stonehenge today
it wasn't solstace, wasn't sunny, wasn't sunset, wasn't beautiful weather or situation or anything
and i flippin loved it
it was cold and grey and not even nice enough to be winterly and it didn't matter
i loved it

so paul got married. and we had so much fun at the wedding.
the furtados sure are a beautiful family.

i also did my favourite all-time round of top-fives..i asked paul during the party in the evening what top five songs he would like to hear during the rest of his wedding reception...they were as follows
sweet child of mine: guns and roses
want you back: jackson five
must be love: madness
friday i'm in love: the cure
he also wanted jenny doesn't like me anymore by less than jake, the only one - not surprisingly - that the disco dj didn't have..

well done me i say

the cheesey cheeses did a wonderful rendition of the sandman song with a paul and jenny wedding-day slant, which was hilarious and finely tuned

and now i am back in manchester with nearly all my things. my room feels more like mine as a result.
which is good