"Ewan, do you love me?"

"Yeah. I love you one million and sixty-five."

Well, that's a lot of love.

“If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?”

Oh Macbeth, you ain't got nothin' on Othello.

Today Lukey and Simon are coming round to dinner so I need to put the book down, pick up the hoover and put the chicken in the oven like a good little woman!

Shakespeare feels my paranoia, man.

'But Heaven in thy creation did decree,
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;
Whate'er thy thoughts of thy heart's working be,
Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell.
How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,
If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.'

“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.”

I have been dreaming about talking to 'turkeys' about Christmas dinner.

I have been working extremely hard and finally feel comfortable enough with 'The Kite Runner' to write about it objectively.

I have finally realised the extent of my own passion for History - it's my best subject.

I have been getting closer to my awesome new friends up here in the drizzly Midlands.

I have been talking to truths and standing up to lies.

I have just begun a new book for Literature - 'A Small Island' by Andrea Levy. I'm on page twenty six and already enjoying the atmosphere of it muchly.

I have not yet gained the ability to stop singing the Hairspray soundtrack at random moments throughout the day.

I have got to stop beginning sentences with 'I have'.

Toodley-poodleys!

Facile credo

My birthday on the fifteenth went rather nicely despite my being in UTTER AGONY!

I have been suffering, dear friends, from Sinusitis. And I mean suffering! It's pretty much all gone now, thanks to the wonders of Amoxycillin. I am now going to share a small extract from the Patient Information Leaflet pertaining to said drug:

'As with other medicines, Amoxicillin can sometimes cause rare and serious reactions. See your doctor straight away if you:
+ Ger severe diarrhoea with bleeding
+Notice your urine becoming darker or *faeces (otherwise known as poo)* becoming paler.
+Notice your skin or the whites of your eyes turning yellow.'

*Thanks, I was wondering what that was. If you don't find this funny, then you can leave now because we're clearly not suited to be friends. And what's wrong with the word excrement? Really.

I am very aware of outside sources coming in at the moment. The only thing I shall say on the matter is this: If they must be sent for your own indulgence then so be it, for they hinder me none.

Well, now we've got all the bits and pieces out of the way! -
I have been predicted good results for my AS Levels but I won't put them here as I worry about jinxing myself and whatnot!

Pete is in Saudi again, and Carrie and I have been giggling aplenty. I feel so close to Ben now, even more than before. So much of his spirit mirrors my own. He had another appointment about his Hemihypertrophy the other day and I went along. Being in Birmingham children's hospital made me realise how much I miss the care industry. Hurry up, CRB! Anyway, there are no changes, all is well. Still no talk of surgery until he is older which, of course, in a way is good, but in a way is bad. He is beginning to become aware of his difference and Carrie worries (and rightly so) that people will begin to assume he has something wrong with him (mentally) and therefore treat him differently because of the way he looks. Which is, of course, the last thing everybody wants. He's a sharp, clever little boy and displaying great musical talent already I've noticed!

Ewan is his gorgeous, well-behaved self as usual, and very excited about Christmas! I'm going to see him play Joseph in his Chrismas play mid-December. Bless 'is cottons.

I have rabbited on for long enough really, haven't I? My writing has become terrible bland and factual of late but that's because I'm deep in a sea of intellectual activity at the moment, not having much time to concentrate on anything artistic inside myself, O my brothers! (Joanna may or may not have just finished reading A Clockwork Orange - which, might I add, is a stunning book and I plan to review it properly when time allows!)

Tschüss! (See, I'm getting there with the German!)

A&E

Why is it so hard for me to concentrate on something I don't give a shit about?

I've just spent about five hours on something that should have taken me half an hour. I never get peace to just sit down and work for a couple of hours. There is always something happening.

If I could have anything from the universe right now it'd be one day (or even five minutes) where I have absolutely no distractions from the work I need to be focusing on.

It's getting silly as I'm neglecting my friends as it is.

Alcohol and a place made of imagination plzkthx.

Watch this because you're a human being.

Unless you're not and are, instead, some sort of animal or Conservative.

Go on, give it a try.

You might even learn something.

'How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young.'

Family business

'Aunti Jo, when I grow up I want to be a vegetarian.'

*gushes with pride*

I wish that, when I was Ewan's age, I'd had someone like me around to show me the ways!

Lurve

I'm not sure what I've done to deserve such a strong-hearted angel of a boy.

I am truly grateful to the powers that guided him toward me.

Spirituality/hobbifications

Everybody must go here and subscribe to everything possible! Do it!

Oh and here's a little treat for all of you.

Quote of the day

'If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism.' - Fidel Castro

America, I am proud of you.

- Insert various other predictable cliches here -

Seriously though. These elections have aided to landmark a major change in the path of the world and all of us lucky enough to live on it. It's great news. And Shelli and I stayed up like geeks all night watching the results come in!

Time to wake myself up and get started on this history essay!

P.S. I'm so lucky to have met my girlies up here. They're both generous, intelligent and interesting people. Thank you Kat and Mandy for keeping me sane in a new, busy and madenning world for me!

'fuck beauty contests'

'life is one big fucking beauty contest after another'.

I am currently constructing a rant which I shall inflict on any readers of this bloggy-wog soon.

I am so busy, so unfocused, so angry (don't worry - nothing personal, just political and religious stuff!), slighty worried, and very frustrated.

Sometimes I don't know how anyone with any ounce of fucking humility or sense can survive in this world.

And sometimes I think my Shelli is the only one who has any clue about the person I am.

I wish she was here.

Hello life, I'm swimming in you now

I have realised that it takes more courage to rely on others than it does to stand alone.

I have faith that you will not let me down.

I never thought I'd say that about anybody.

Emerald eyes

So, what's happening in the life of Jo-spanner?

Here I am. All Wolverhamptony.

Last night Luke and I went to the Gifford Arms (my new favourite pubular), smoked too much, listened to cheesey music and kissed like teenagers all night.

He has such a pure, warm spirit. I shall refrain from too much poeticness for now.

So yeah. College is great. There are some lovely people on my courses and they're not all kids - yay!

I've had about four and a half hours sleep so I'm offskie but don't complain - at least you got a proper update for once!

Pete: 'Give it up. Joanna is a word surgeon and you'll always end up bloody.'
Me: 'But surely that'd mean I'm not very good at it - if there was blood everywhere during surgery?'
Pete: '*sigh* You see? That's exactly what I'm talking about!'




Hey, who knows: I might even post a proper update later!

'I had to get away, nothing for me there.'

' "You know, in German, the verb 'to be' is very similar to the verb 'to dwell'. It comes from the same root. So, 'to be' is literally 'to be in a place'. Heidegger called it 'being-in-the-world'. To be a human being is to be a human being somewhere. So it really matters, the place where you choose to be. It makes you what you are. That's why I left." '

Scottish Fiction

by Edwin Morgan

It isn't in the mirror,

it isn't on the page;

it's a red-hearted vibration

pushing through the walls

of dark imagination

finding no equation.

There's a Red Road rage,

but it's not road rage -

it's asylum seekers engulfed by a grudge.

Scottish friction,

Scottish fiction.

It isn't in the castles,

it isn't in the mist;

it's a calling of the waters

as they break to show

the new black death

with reactors aglow.

Do you think your security

can keep you in purity?

You can not shake us off above or below -

Scottish friction,

Scottish fiction.

Perhaps we'll all find the answers somewhere in time'

Something from the ether just got me thinking about Uncle Peter and then I looked through an old journal of mine back to the date when he died - it was two years ago today.

'You were out there drowning but it never showed.
'til inside a rainswept night you just...let...go.

You've thrown it all away
and now we'll never see the ending to the play:
the grand design, the final line,
and what was meant to be.

In the dark a distant runner
now has disappeared into the night -
leaving us to stand and wonder
Staring from this end into your life'

'I'm in love with the monster of the new wave'

New house.

New routine.

New experiences.

New life.

All in one week. Not bad going, Joanna.

THANK YOU, Marcus Brigstocke

I wasn't allowed to embed this so pls follow ze linkamajig:

Clickery-do!

Use well the days

Yesterday I had one of the best days ever. Today decided to balance things out by stinking of tripe. But you know - life, lemons.

I'm very upset by something/someone but let's not even begin to get into that. I'd either sound bitchy or plain pathetic and I haven't quite figured out how I feel about it yet either.

There was so much I'd planned to write about in this entry but now I feel like I don't want to say anything. *le sigh*

So off I go. Three days 'til I move. And now I wish I was there already.

'she had found the sails for the following night...'

'...this town, for her, was getting way too small.'

Well, bless my boots: it's August already!

The sun - eet ees shining. It's a gorgeous day and the next week and a half are going to be extremely busy. 11 days to go. The mixed emotions! The excitement. The sadness. The anticipation. Quite frankly, I just want to go out and get right royally pissed and slur my final goodbyes to the area in some sort of pathetic stupor. Why is that? I have no idea. Go out with a bang perhaps.

In all seriousness though, I don't like being drunk these days. Tipsy: that's fine. I'm not...I'm not growing up, am I?

In other news -
Last night I spent two and a half hours blowing up an inflatable chair only to find that when I sat on it, it bore a hole - nay, a rip - and my foolish labourings had been wasted. Thanks life. You c***! "But Joanna, why didn't you check to see if there were any holes in it first?" I hear you say. Well...I...I decided it would be best - for undisclosed reasons* - to simply not look for holes in it before blowing it up. How's that? Bastards.

Hey, this non-swearing malarkey doesn't seem to be going too well, does it?

Here's a question for you: What's better than marshmallows?
Marshmallows as a surprise present!

Well, that solves that mystery.

Can you tell I'm slightly over-excited and loopy-lou today? I don't quite know what's going on! Who needs drugs? NOT ME!

I think it may well be best to end this particular blog entry before the computer explodes from frustration at my blatent overall pointlessness. Tada.

*there are no reasons :(

Not the Doctor

That's right. You 'eard.

Do not rely on me for happiness. That's just foolish.

'I don't wanna be your babysitter: you're a very big boy now!'

'With your heart in the future and your head in the past, there's nothing inbetween that's going to last.'

I'm in a period of transition. I am all mentally ready to move and I'm excited about moving but I'm also looking back to the people, places and memories I shall be leaving behind. I'm just sort of existing in the middle of two periods of time, hanging in the air. Hence the freakishly apt title.

I really wish I had enough money to do stuff with people before I leave but I think I might still have a meet-up just to get everyone together and say my goodbyes. Goodbye is such a strange word: it's so final. Too final...maybe I won't actually use that word.

'What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.' - Jack Kerouac 'On the Road'

Dear universe,

Please send me back in time so I can go to a Rolling Stones gig when they were young. Yes, they were young once upon a time.

Thanks in advance,
Joanna
xx

'it's just that demon life has got you in its sway'

I am flabbergasted that on my etymological journeyings I have not yet found the word 'ego' pertaining to the word we now know as 'man'.

I'm sorry to sound so ridiculously feminist but can a woman not make opposite-sex-oriented ponderings? Yes, she can. And here I am. Doing just that.

When a woman says she's not interested - she's not. She's just not. Perhaps this doesn't fit into your plan of self-righteous ego-massaging, wishful thinking and general i'mamanandweruletheworldsoi'llgetwhatiwantevenifitdoesn'twantme misinterpretation on the importance of your own sex. But we really mean that we're. not. interested.

Okay perhaps that last paragraph contained more judgement than ponderments and I'm usually pro-man but I blame history - yes, you! History! I also blame Christianity. And I'm not anti-Christian. I just blame it. For so many reasons I can't even bring myself to write about: I'd end up chewing the fucking keyboard.

On a completely unrelated note: I'm not swearing half as much as I usually do. Perhaps all this time spent around children is doing me good in more ways than one. My nephews and nephette (thanks Shelley's ex-boyfriend) keep me breathing.

I might dye my hair a normal colour next. We'll see.

I should probably eat something. Toodles poodles.

Echoes from the past

While going through my stuff to pack I've found a tape of my sister Caroline at age 15 playing the piano and me aged 7 playing the violin I'd just got. I wanted to make the tape for my eldest sister, Hazel who was away at university at the time. I'm talking/making noises/joking/laughing maniacally inbetween each song. My mother finds that now is the right time to tell me she thought about and was advised by teachers to take me to a child psychologist! Haha! She said she didn't want me 'mucked about with', so she didn't.

I find this all very amusing and it also explains a lot.

EDIT: And now I've started reading her poetry by Ted Hughes. Seven years old! I was destined to be strange; DESTINED, I tell thee!

'A life less ordinary'

Please

The colour of dreams

From a diary entry I made 7th June 2007:

'Perhaps I wasn't born in the wrong time.
Perhaps this is exactly where I'm supposed to be.
Perhaps all I needed was to discover colour in all areas.'

We are not islands

You can live, and be happy, inside your own mind only for a short time.

Fantasies become dreams: and leashed dreams are like a box filled with colour, never opened.

We are not islands.

When you release your heart to flight new opportunities seem born in every star; hopes sparkle and leaves glimmer and laugh with the sun; neon flickers on a rippling river running through a city of magic.

Ecstacy is found on another plane of existence: a plane that, when you arrive there, feels more real and more tangible than any basic human consciousness. It breathes with you.

We are not islands.

'I want so much more than they've got planned'

It's a good feeling when someone tells you that you've 'opened their eyes' to life and how to live it, just by doing what comes naturally to me.

'With your heart in the future and your head in the past: there's nothing in between that's going to last.'

Thank you Beauty and the Beast for the subject of this post. Thank you London for being stunning at night. Thank you Gods for being with me. Thank you music and thank you words...for releasing my heart and letting it fly.


I'm dreaming, seeing, traveling, breathing. I'm living.

'I can feel you getting closer'

I still believe in paradise

'For mine is a generation that circles the globe in search of something we haven't tried before: so never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite, and never outstay your welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience, and if it hurts - you know what? - it's probably worth it.

You hope and you dream, but you never believe that something is going to happen for you. Not like it does in the movies. And when it actually does you expect it to feel different: more visceral, more real.

I was waiting for it to hit me.

I still believe in paradise but now at least I know it's not some place you can look for, 'cause it's not where you go, it's how you feel for a moment in your life...

...and if you find that moment it lasts forever.

It lasts forever.'

Be

'Read more, learn more: change the Globe.'

The West - observing atrocity, drowning in apathy

If life is a radio

TURN UP TO TEN!

Pro-ana is the devil

Srsly.

Anyone who has a desire for anorexia is ignorant, lost and totally, totally stupid.

It is a disease.
It is barbed chains and muffled screams.
It is...well, I'm not in the mood to write poetry about it today.

Just...don't even go there.
Don't.
Do.
It.

Listen to the fucking theme song to your vain obsession and learn from it - 'ana wrecks your life.'

God bless America

'If God made man, they say,
Sam Colt made them equal.'

Take a bow

Yesterday we sat by the rivers of Babylon and drank drinks containing more artificial colourings than alcohol, we bought a canal boat, we adopted a cat (hi Midge, if you're reading this), made ourselves plastic raincaps from Iceland bags, saw an invisible boat, waved at numerous people and talked to midgets (sorry, people who are height impaired). Oh, and laughed the entire day.

I can't wait to get back to Wolverhampton on Wednesday. I can't wait to live there in general, the people up there are smashing.

Work soon so tally ho!

Jo and I have decided:

We're consistently inconsistent.

And that's what makes us losers.

And that's what makes us amazing.

Thanks life.

'Maybe there's a God above
but all I've ever learnt from love
is how to shoot somebody who ourtdrew you'

Ode to Georgina

You are a life's gift.
You are one of my spirit-sisters.

Everything you are and everything you ever have been,
everything you have yet to be
keeps the breath in my lungs and the dreams in my heart;
keeps the words on my tongue and at my fingertips;
and the magic in the hours.


Nothing can replace the happiness in having known you for so many years.
Through bitter memories, through tragedy, through premature and unexpected death, through new lives, through sweetness, through the mud, through the dark, the black, the pure and the gold,
we have swam, surfed and drowned together.

You are one of life's gifts.

All that glitters is my gold

I've had a truly lovely, relaxing and enlightening weekend.

I shall post in more detail when I'm less busy with wine and literature and great company.

Cheerio!

The bitter suite

I love it here. So much that I almost just ate something.

'A life lived in fear is a live half-lived'

Pete and Wendy have donated to me a lovely old bureau. How kind! And today Pete and Pete (yes, isn't life confusing?) have been moving things around in my room up in Wolverhampton in preparation for ME! Also, we're all going on holiday together to the Scottish Highlands next Easter! Gosh, I'm excited. When Carrie and Pete come to stay in July they're taking a lot of my stuff back with them so there will be less hassle when the day of the move arrives.

For those of you who have no idea who I'm talking about and are actually interested:
Carrie and Pete: The middle of us sisters and her husband (my adopted big bro-fo). These two lucky people are who I shall be living with in Wolverhampton.
Pete and Wendy: Carrie and Pete's best friends.

Well, now we've got all of that out the way I'd just like to add a big, fat, giant, voluptuous, gargantuan SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE for the closing-in of my time here in Kent. Joanna is officially excited.

I would say it's about time that I started meeting up with people to say goodbye but that's hard with no moolah to celebrate with. My money problems should be sorted by the middle of next week though so yay me!

Note to self: This entry is beginning to sound like the ramblings of a fluffy teenager. Sort it aaahhht.

Aghem. So, I'm babysitting this weekend (still sounds like the life of an American teen, Joanna) which I'm looking forward to. Ben's gorgeous blue eyes and Ewan's cheeky grin await me and much fun shall ensue. Carrie and Pete are having me my own door key cut this week so I'll be able to take the boys into town on the bus or something on Saturday.

This still sounds fluffy and boring but I don't care. I declare, from hereon forth, that my journal shall consist of whatever drivle and bumble it jolly well feels like containing. And with that in mind I'd like to add that my breasts are increasing rapidly in size for no real reason.

Well, if you made it this far through the jumble and tumble I applaude you. Toodles poodles.

'Sing with me, sing for the years'

I've just been reading through all my old LiveJournals. That's right, journals! It's very strange: I sounded a lot happier three/four years ago but I really wasn't! Also, my use of the English language was completely different to how it is now. Now I'm much more expressive and poetic, but less amusing. Remedies - they must be discovered!


As I don't have to take much furniture with me when I leave, the prospect of hiring a van seems depleted. Which is silly really because my books alone will fill the car to the brim. Let's not even approach the subject of the amount of clothes one owns, whatwhatwhat!

There's a 'scheduled outage at 3:00pm PDT.' - I don't know what a PDT is so I'm going to ignore that.
'You don't know what a Rotten Borough is: do you, George?'

Note to self and all else who cares to listen: Stadium rock is where it's at, mu'fucker.
What 'it' is or where exactly it's 'at' I am unsure. But, by God, it's there.

I am suffering from frustration of a sexual nature. Werewolf killers just don't cut it, I'm afraid. How do lesbians do it?

I could go into muchos spiritual stuff right now but I shan't. IT'S A SECRET!

Somebody buy me this coat plzkthx:

Rebel Girl

Am I too old to be listening to Bikini Kill?

Pfft, who cares!

*dances around like a loon*

It was no surface but all feeling

New beginnings must be made, created, molded.

'What's the point in always looking back when all you see is more and more junk?'

I can't keep looking back. It gets us nowhere, it brings us nothing. Threads of memory tie to people more than anything else and that must be accepted: but to tie your here and now to those threads, refusing to let them go, stubbornly denying oneself the creation of new ones is just foolish.

My life has been incredible, because of myself and because of other people. I won't let it stop being so simply because I have loved and lost.

The beautiful thing about life is that, unless you're going to die in the next minute, there is always more time. Time to change your situations, your perspectives, in order to make you happier. Change and progression (and the acceptance of which) are essential components to happiness.

'It was no surface but all feeling - maybe at the time it felt like dreaming'

You taught me so much, probably more than you or I will ever begin to realise, but it is fundamentally right to now look forward if all the past brings you is the same old ground and the same old fears (thanks Pink Floyd).

Saying goodbye is hard. It's something that I, in particular, find especially difficult for many reasons. To be the person I am, to live the life I want and to achieve my potential not just academically but as a human being, this is what must be done. Perhaps I will always feel this hole in my heart, perhaps nobody else will ever have the personality, the spark, the colour and the will to fill it but I cannot dream of what lays behind me. And what has happened in the last two months just proves, without opposition, that this is not meant to be.

It really was no surface but all feeling. My love for you ruled my working, personal and spiritual life; it ruled my everything - I continue to question this as a good or bad thing - but something inside me has given up. Why? Maybe my soul realised that exhaustive and fruitless energies directed at someone I am plainly not compatible with stunts my growth in every area. Perhaps you are the one I am most compatible with...and that is why it had to end - because it really was the be all and end all (for want of a better cliche). Maybe I met you too early in life and I was supposed to settle down with you later in life when I had already done everything I need to. Maybe we just fucked it all up because we both feel too much, and feel too much in different areas from each other.

There were times when you made me feel stupid, worthless and impossible. There were times when I made you feel the same. Now I have a clarity that tears, destroys and punishes the mist of infatuation I had for you. That life cannot be like this for any longer.

I cannot lie and say that I no longer think about you. I cannot lie and say that I do not feel, at this moment, that nobody will ever compare to you. But I have exhausted this Catch 22, this love/hate, this impossible situation to the end of its existence so that there is nothing left to do but leave it behind as a relic, a cenotaph erected in my heart for the rest of my breathing days and perhaps beyond. I also cannot lie and say that I'm glad it never worked. I wish it had. But it didn't. It just didn't.

I don't just see life as a challenge and a series of lessons, I see it as an experience and, my god, we experienced love and depth that I find hard to express with humble words or tangible phrases because it was so much more than that. We are lucky to have experienced that at all - and to have experienced that with each other, I see as a great gift.

Be lucky, for you are lucky. Learn to appreciate what you have. Learn to love with no walls or even drawbridges. Learn to smile and laugh, and learn to accept the human race as it is. You are full of anger and despair at the world and you feel it as if you were god himself watching your creations destroy themselves. I don't think you ever realised that I have truly been where you are now. Please, please try to come out the other side - when you are ready of course - because it is where life begins. This is full of cliches isn't it? But then you'd say I always was.

Paraphrase - 'Shed some skin for the fear within is starting to hurt me with everything,
be freed from the memories and escape from our history.
And I just hope that you can forgive me but everything must go,
and if you need an explanation then everything must go.
Free us eventually,
just need to be happy..happy.'

I have to stop writing about this as I have to stop thinking about it, living it, drowning in it.

'I'm in love with the future.
I'm in love with the future
...
And there is so much time
and so much space to travel
and I will climb
and I will kiss the gravel.'

'Disco dancing with the rapists'

I worked this weekend. I am a mole for Jo's agency because people in the homes tell me what they think of our agency staff - because I'm white. And because I'm English. This is just....I cannot explain how sick this makes me feel. But I have to shut up and listen to it. I will not tolerate racism but I can shut up and accept most of the other things they say. Not just because I like working there (believe it or not) but because I don't want to fuck up Jo's business for her. It's good that she has feedback about her staff from the nursing homes.

I'll only be there for two months and when I move I'm not doing care work again. I want to start looking after younger people, if anything.

Anyway, I've slept for twelve hours because this weekend exhausted me, and now I'm trying to get my brain on straight! Who am I? Where are we? Huh?

Jo is coming round in a little while which is good. I miss her all the time and she oozes relaxation. Err, perhaps I could have worded that better.

'Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear,
and I can't help but ask myself how much I let the fear
take the wheel and steer:
It's driven me before
and it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal -
But lately I'm beginning to find that I should be the one behind the wheel.

So if I decide to waiver my chance to be one of the hive
will I choose water over wine and hold my own and drive?
It's driven me before
and it seems to be the way that everyone else gets around;
But lately I'm beginning to find that when I drive myself my light is found.'

I want to visit Africa. Maybe when I'm in my thirties I'll go there and patronise the entire race by adopting one of their underprivileged children.

My Chopper in the Stars. That's right, mine.

Johanna's Chopper by Gilby Clarke

Louise Post feels my pain

Disconnected, it's the way that I want it to be,
The Cult Electric is my favorite record of the week
'cause I'm not feeling sweet.

But I can't say that when everyone is so judgmental.
And I can't play back all the times when you were gentle
'cause even you can't be true.

It's astounding what love can do to a city;
Laurel Canyon was the best place for you and me to be.
I closed the curtains and I dreamed a dream of domesticity:
what a freak you made of me.

Now I'm on Zoloft because you told me I was crazy;
and I won't jump cause now I know you'd never catch me;
and I can't leave you because you swore you'd never let me,
but even you talk shit too.

It's January, when I jumped the fence of your backyard;
finish the fairy tale that you weren't drunk enough to start.
It's kind of scary when your lover leaves you for a movie star -
But I'm still in the dark.

But you have trained to watch my back and drop my standards;
and you have shamed me since the first time you were with her;
and you cant make me love your band or buy your records,
'cause you have tainted my respect for your adventures.

And you will never have the chance to trace my features,
and you will never make me feel like such a loser,
and you can have the past 'cause I'm in love with the future,

I'm in love with the future.

lol

'Let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.'
Richard M. Nixon, 1969

Your city lies in dust

I don't deserve this.

I can't believe you're doing this to yourself.

Hold the wheel and drive

So: life, life, life, eh?

I'm going to Wolverhampton tomorrow for my college interview - please wish me luck! Luuuck luckluckluckluck....You don't know what a rotten borough is do you, George?

Aghem...

I cannot wait to see my sister tomorrow, my little knight Ewan and mini-me Benathon. If this change happens (I pray and pray that it does) I shall embrace it. I've been a bit worried about getting excited about the whole thing in case it doesn't happen. But I shall find a way. Even if it means having to travel to central Birmingham every day.

Pete is in Saudi Arabia for ages. He's so lucky to travel but I think his heart is torn between his lust for travel (which his job generously grants) and his family at home. We all understand though and he's really provided the best for his family this way.

I'm just rambling now because I'm not concentrating on writing: I'm singing along to old songs that I shouldn't know of at my age.

Tally ho!

Thank you for the music

And for other stuff.

I will do good. I will honour the universe and the people around me for all are wonderful.

Mr. Kerouac, I pressume?

'and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centrelight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'.'

Roll the Dice

If you’re going to try, go all the
way.
Otherwise, don’t even start.

If you’re going to try, go all the
way.
This could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

Go all the way.
It could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.
It could mean freezing on a
park bench.
It could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
Isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
And you’ll do it
despite rejection and the worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

If you’re going to try,
go all the way.
There is no other feeling like
that.
You will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

Do it, do it, do it.
Do it.

All the way
All the way.

You will ride life straight to
perfect laughter, it's
the only good fight
there is.

Charles Bukowski

I want to work in a bookshop

Edmund Blackadder: Now, listen, Frou Frou/Joanna ... Would you like to earn some money?

Frou Frou/Joanna: No, I wouldn't. I would like other people to earn it and then give it to me, just like in France/Kent in the good old days.

Getting up at six am to dress pensioners sucks.

'Life is a highway'

No more literary or political references in this post, I promise. Have a picture of the wonderful Chelley and me instead.

This sun is just delicious. I'm already sunburned and become loopy and excitable every morning I wake up and those majestic beams glare proudly into my window.

The Sweeps festival in Rochester was fantastic and now I want to do Morris dancing.

A* for my overall English coursework and got an A for the mock exam I did last week. I am worried now because I've set high standards for myself and if I get anything less than an A in my official exams I'm going to be so disappointed in myself. I'm worried the questions will be dull and uninspiring or that my imagination will switch itself off on the day! Oh well, we'll just have t wait and see, I suppose.

Time to go and enjoy the summer afternoon with Jo. I want to make the most of every glorious drop of day I'm gifted with before I leave this place.

The end of 'The Dead' from Joyce's 'Dubliners.'

'So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. He watched her while she slept, as though he and she had never lived together as man and wife. His curious eyes rested long upon her face and on her hair: and, as he thought of what she must have been then, in that time of her first girlish beauty, a strange, friendly pity for her entered his soul. He did not like to say even to himself that her face was no longer beautiful, but he knew that it was no longer the face for which Michael Furey had braved death.
Perhaps she had not told him all the story. His eyes moved to the chair over which she had thrown some of her clothes. A petticoat string dangled to the floor. One boot stood upright, its limp upper fallen down: the fellow if it lay upon its side. He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what had it proceeded? From his aunt's supper, from his own foolish speech, from the wine and dancing, the merry-making when saying goodnight in the hall, the pleasure of the walk along the river in the snow. Poor Aunt Julia! She, too, would soon be a shade with the shade of Patrick Morkan and his horse. He had caught that haggard look upon her face for a moment when she was singing Arrayed for the Bridal. Soon, perhaps, he would be sitting in the same drawing-room, dressed in black, his silk hat on his knees. The blinds would be drawn down and Aunt Kate would be sitting beside him, crying and blowing her nose and telling him how Julia had died. He would cast about in his mind for some words that might console her and would find only lame and useless ones. Yes, yes: that would happen very soon.
The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover's eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.
Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.'

Egads and golly golly gosh!

Cripes! Boris wins the election to be Mayor of London!
1,043,761 first choice votes for the old mucker.

Okay, okay I know what you're saying: why is this a good thing? Well, let's put my obscure tendency for crushes on middle-aged toffs aside for a second and look at why I really do think that he's the best of a bad bunch, or best of a bad two really, as there were only really two parties fighting it out (Labour and Conservative) as we knew would happen.

So with all that aside, I think it will be good to have someone to represent London who has a bloody sense-of-humour! Boris is very ENGLISH. Not your run o'the mill BRI'ISH BULLDOG
but a well-spoken, bright, interesting character. He manages to faff around and talk twaddle all he likes and still convince me he can do his job. Something I wish I could convince people of sometimes!

That said, if I lived in London I may feel entirely different. Not having studied each parties policies and aims very closely I am going almost entirely on face value and what I feel would be a good image for London. Boris, I hope, will bring the face of the real spirit of London to the capital. Seriousness, English spirit, and a bit of well-needed fun and relief all rolled into one.

As a side note I am pleased to see the Green Party in 4th place with 77,374 first choice votes (better than nothing and I think better results than they've had for a long time) although not too pleased to see the BNP in 5th place with 69,710 first choice votes. So it seems that the majority of London loves ol' Borisson, a third of them are ecologically-aware and a fourth of them are racists.

Go figure.

This is apparently me in twenty years :P

'Language is my Mother, my Father, my husband, my brother, my sister, my whore, my mistress, my check-out girl!

Language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or a handy freshen-up wipette, um, language is the breath of God; language is the dew on a fresh apple; it's the soft rain of dust that falls onto a shaft of morning light as you pluck, from an old bookshelf, a half-forgotten book of erotic memoires; um...language is the creak on a stair; it's a spluttering match held to a frosted pane; it's a half-remembered childhood birthday party; it's the warm, wet, trusting touch of a leaking nappy; the hulk of a charred panzer; the underside of a granit boulder; the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl; uh, it's cobwebs long since overrun by an old wellington boot.'

Thank you to Fry and Laurie for this delicious delight of understated utterrances.
Thank you to Chelle for the assumed affection by which she brought this pelthora of perfectly pronounced performances to my attention.

'Time to drag your tongue across the sugarcube and hope you get a taste.'

Faith has returned. A little bruised and shattered, but it's there.

I'm applying to colleges in Wolverhampton and hoping to move up there this Summer.

'Remember:
you’re a wreck, an accident; forget the freak, you’re just nature.
Keep the gun oiled and the temple clean; shit, snort and blaspheme;
Let the heads cool and the engine run.
Because in then end everything we do
Is just everything we've done.'

Your dark heart proves itself once more

Okay my faith in people has actually gone. That's right folks, faith has left the building! But in an ironic and amusing way. Plus, I've realised there really are some people that aren't worthy of my faith in the first place.

I love you, life :)

No poets

I don't really know what to write. Instead of happy, sad, happy, sad it's full, empty, full, empty these days.

I had a good weekend. Ash came to stay. Lots of fun and frollicks and whatnot. Canterbury, Rochester, Chelley-time, walks through nature.

I am finding it increasingly hard to keep a grip and hold on any sort of faith in people. My hands are greased and torn from old labours on the subject, my eyes closed in defeat. There may be no hope for me in this department. Is it me that's empty? Or everybody else?

When everything is sorted in my head, you'll be first to hear about it, Mr. Blogface! That's not true but it sounds nice, doesn't it?

'And all that Memory loves the most
Was once our only Hope to be,
And all that Hope adored and lost
Hath melted into Memory.'

The words of Bukowski

As I near 70
I get letters, cards, little gifts
from strange people.
congratulations, they tell
me,
congratulations

I know what they mean:
the way I have lived
I should have been dead in half
that time

I have piled myself with a mass of
grand abuse, been
careless toward myself
almost to the point of
madness,
I am still here
leaning toward this machine
in this smoke-filled room,
this large blue trashcan to my
left
full of empty
containers

the doctors have no answers
and the gods are
silent

congratulations, death,
on your patience.
I have helped you all that
I can

now one more poem
and a walk out on the balcony,
such a fine night there

I am dressed in shorts and stockings,
gently scratch my old
belly,
look out there
look off there
where dark meets dark

it's been one hell of a crazy
ballgame

from "Third Lung Review" - 1992

Kingdom of Loss - Pain of Salvation

Someone sells us Toys™ in a cheap cartoon
Someone sells us Cars™ in the latest Bond™ that's coming soon
Someone sells us Trends™ through a sitcom star
Someone sells Herself in a docu-soap that goes too far

Life™ on sale!

"Could someone please just tell me what happened?
I mean, first we pay for fast-food that will make us all fat and tired.
So then we pay for elevators, so we won't have to climb the three stairs up to our apartments.
Then we buy freaking stairmaster™ machines
So we can burn away while watching someone make real food on TV.
Now, if that doesn't make us winners I don't know what will.
I bet we would hang ourselves if the world would just cut the slack.
And now you think maybe you should see a shrink,
Help you feel alive again - yeah, that's a plan!
Just tell us who to pay.

Someone sells us Man™ in a White House™ speech
Then women tightly pressed between two bouncing breasts, on a Baywatch™ beach
Someone sells us Us™ everywhere I turn
Then introducing them to earn stock-points on our concern

All for sale,
all for sale,
it's all for sale

Welcome down to planet Earth™
Please don't ask us what it's worth
You will notice that the world you've found
Is slightly tattered and worn down

Someone sold us every stain
Now if you wish to complain
There's an open spot at 6 PM
It's when Caucasia is listening

If you're tearing down my world
Please just try to do it gently
If you're tearing down my world
Please just try to do it gently.
There is love inside
For a dream that has to die

"See, it's really all about time and choice.
The fast food saves us enough time to squeeze lunch in exactly when we want it.
The elevators save us just a little more, the StairMaster™ lets us choose exactly when to walk the stairs.
Time is so important these days, it's becoming a fucking disease, and I guess in a way it is since it's bound to kill us all in the end.
Now with all the time and money we stash away on others' expense,
I can only assume that the tickets to hell are really expensive:
For some reason, it's important to be first in line."

Someone sells us God™ in 2-for-1 with Shame™
Someone sells us War™ and the marketing looks just the same.
Someone sells us Fear™ on TV each day
a shape for every taste; if the flavour's right, we gladly pay

All on sale,
all on sale,
We're all on sale.

Welcome to the only Earth™
Please enjoy your only birth
You will learn to take more than you give
Buying scars you must live with.
Someone sold us every scar
They somehow made us what we are
We all want that spot at 6 PM
But no one is really listening.

No - not anymore
We're all too busy buying Sex™, buying War™
Buying Self-confidence™, Security™, Insurance Plans™
Just buying More & More

As you're tearing down our world
Please just try to do it gently

There's still love inside
For the dream that has to die

As you're tearing down our world
please just try to do it gently

'Here comes a storm in the form of a girl'

Joanna is slightly tipsy. I feel...full. Not bodily. Emotionally. There is one thing missing but I don't mind too much at the moment.

I just feel...I just feel full. 'Now my heart is full' comes to mind. Good old Morrissey.

'This one's for the freaks...'

...For you're so beautiful:
For all the devotion
Written in your soul.'

I'm listening to the Manics' new album. Back on form, boys!

Love, love, love for the Fry, Fry, Fry

'He was always doing that these days. Everything he saw became a symbol of his own existence, from a rabbit caught in headlights to raindrops racing down a window-pane. Perhaps it was a sign that he was going to become a poet or a philosopher: the kind of person who, when stood on the sea-shore, didn't see waves breaking on the beach, but saw the surge of human will or the rhythms of copulation, who didn't hear the sound of the tide but heard the eroding roar of time and the last moaning sigh of humanity fizzing into nothingness. But perhaps it was a sign, he also thought, that he was turning into a pretentious wanker.'

My mum likes Rhapsody

I knew I got my awesomeness from somewhere.



In this song they cover/work in part of Dvorak's 9th Symphony (one of my favourite pieces of Classical music). Thank you Rhapsody. Just...thank you.

CONGRATULATIONS!...

...Dad! You win the award for being the most insecure person I've ever met! What an honour.

"I know more than you'll ever know." - lol

'Light breaks where no sun shines'

Sounds like I'm campaigning for money in that last post. Terribly worded and all that but it had to come out some how.

Shelly's doing my hair today so I don't have long.

Northampton was relaxing, 'twas good to get away. All we did was drink really, and laugh. Jo's family are all cockney-laahhhndoners so I was never anything but entertained!

Oh, and one more thing - Oscar Wilde <3

'I bless the rains down in Africa'

Right this second there's somebody sitting, thinking just as I am, without a roof over their head, without warmth, without food. Without a computer infront of them. Without opportunities and without hope.

Do they deserve their situation any more than we deserve our comforts and privaleges?

How can we justify doing nothing? Human fucking beings are suffering and all we can talk about is alcohol and entertainment.

I feel selfish. We should all feel selfish for not making other people worse off than ourselves the main priority. I worry about exams, I worry and my weight, I worry about whether I'll achieve my goals and the path along the way. In a way it's not selfish to want to follow your own goals and make the most of all the luck you have been born at random into but in another way I hate myself for not devoting my entire life to helping others. What is the right answer?

I'm a vegetarian, some people don't have the choice. Some people don't have anything to eat at all and right this second there are people starving to death. Can you imagine what that feels like? Can you even begin to fucking imagine?

Fuck consumerism, fuck the 2012 games and fuck our politicians. The state of humanity and its shallow desires is disgusting. We should all be ashamed of ourselves.

A Calmer Panorama Drama Llama Farmer - <3 Mum

Today sees:
Exam
Rochester
then JOANNA-time! Well-deserved an' all if you ask me!

I cannot stop listening to 'Africa' by Toto, plus it took me about two days to get 'God Only Knows' by the Beach Boys out of my head last week. This should not be happening at twenty-two.

I love London: pigeons, coffee from cardboard cups, the poor, the rich, buses, black cabs, bustle, the Underground, music, deadly polution. There's something fantastically darkandlight about our Capital and I'm fucking proud to be a part of it when I'm there.

Stop rambling please, it's time to have a shower.

Oh, so it is!

"You are not the usual biscuit, are you?"

'A slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown'

Carrie, Pete and the boys have been visiting this week. many laughs had with ze kiddlies.

I am now slightly more educated in the subject of art thanks to Peter Doig and the Camden Town Group...and Shelly Clarkerson! A good day out was just what I need and just what I got today. We even talked about vultures - I remembered! Vultures! 'Me and my vultures!'. Knew I'd get there in the end....OOOHH IN-JOKE!

Hmm, perhaps there's not much point in adding in-jokes to online journals but this is my journal and if you don't like it you can just.....well, ignore it. Don't leave. I'm a needy person. Don't leave.

I have nothing thoughtful to add: perhaps tomorrow when I'm more awake.

Goodnight cruel, strange and beautiful world.

Blinded no more

Well, today has been awful for several reason but mainly because I was told that Christopher has died. For those of you who don't know who he was, I looked after him in the care home. That might sound like nothing but sometimes I was the only person who worked there that he remembered. He was a charming Irishman, eloquent, witty and interesting. he spoke lots of languages and was always full of tales from the war, always full of tales of Ireland, always full of tales. He was generous and spiritual, always ready with a quote from the bible, his faith ran deep. He always said I had an 'Irish forehead'. I used to call him 'me little leprechaun' and he started calling me his 'little passionflower'. Ridiculous, I know but I felt we were actually friends and understood each other on some level, especially as he was relatively 'with it' when he first came to the home. I shaln't display too much information about him as we are on a public site here but Christopher loved his family and his home Country so much, that was evident in how he spoke of both.

I knew he'd die in the next few years. People don't go to old folks' homes expecting to live for another twenty or so years - especially the one I worked in. He seemed such a positive man, always smiling unless his depression kicked in, at which time he'd just ask to be left alone. Of course I don't know everything about his life, only what his family have told me and what he has told me himself but he was a good man. He was a good man so why did he have to suffer such torment at the end? Where is the fucking justice? He didn't deserve it.

Christopher felt like a friend, not just a resident. I'd look forward to going in to work and seeing him because we could make each other laugh and he'd try teaching me bits of the Irish language.

This is all just babble to everyone else I'm sure, but it has to come out as all I'm doing is sitting here sobbing.

Christopher, thank you for making me smile and being unique. Thank you for helping to make my working life a happier one. Thank you for being kind and for having lovely children who were always so charming to be around. I suppose I never really knew you that well but I still wish you were my grandad! I hope you have found a peace and I hope you can finally now be at rest. Goodbye.

'A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one.'

Just a quickie (ooh err) here, a non-update shall we say because let's face it, there's going to be nothing of substance in this post.

I just woke up with that scene from Strictly Ballroom playing in my head (please read the following in an Australian accent):

"You know whod I want? I'll tell you whod I want! I want Ken Railings to walk in here right now and say 'Pam Short's broken both 'er legs, and I wanna dance with yew'!"

*enter Ken Railings*

"Pam Short's broken both 'er legs, and I wanna dance with yew."

"Well, that was unexpected!"

I haven't thought about that film for about 2 years. Strange.

History lesson in a little while. On a Saturday morning. Educationslut, that's me! (apparently! :P) As it's in Rochester I'm meeting Becca afterwards because she's amazing.

Slán agat!

'You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.'
- Paul Sweeney.

'And for any day that stings, two better days it brings'

'...and nothing is as bad as it seems.'

So how does one do it? How do we save people? When they've fallen into the cadavarous depths of their own mind or their own depression? You can't. You just bloody can't. Everything my friends and family did for me when I was there, lost to my own blackness, it didn't even touch the surface. There I was at the bottom and even if they tried to climb in it only felt as though they were calling softly down to me from way above. Nobody can throw you a ladder, you have to make your own. Because I know the above, I also know that I should not feel guilty for not being able to save her. But that makes it all the more painful. I would die for her. But even that wouldn't help. So what now?

I can try to show her the hope that glimmered to me in corners of that dark, stifling room long ago but everybody finds hope in different things, different music, different words...if any at all. All I can do is offer a shoulder, a hand, a home, a heart but it feels like nothing. I suppose if I was a Christian I would pray to God. Pray for her and feel less guilty about being able to do nothing for her. Or if I believed in the Gods and Goddesses I'd ask for their guidance, not just guidance for me to help her but guidance for her as well. Maybe I'll just throw it out there...'hello?!'...'HelllooOOOOOO!?'....'If you're there, whatever and however you are, soothe her. Please. Make her feel happy. Sweep away the black cloud and murder the black dog for good. Make her happy. Make her happy....

please.'

'Oh, Heaven knows we'll soon be dust'

Last night taught me not to talk to large people about eating disorders. They only end up hating you. Especially if I'm not as large as they are.

It also taught me, or made me realise shall we say, that I don't really trust anybody. Especially good looking men who decide to talk to me. IT'S A TRICK I TELL YOU!

It taught me that there are great people in Medway, especially of the gay variety.

It taught me NOT to wear wedged shoes and drink alcohol at the same time. The result of which has provided me with some gorgeous purple bruises on my thigh and back. Mum lovingly told me it was a good idea I have lots of padding on my legs or I could have broken a bone. Thanks Mum.

And most importantly of all, last night taught me that I'm still young and can have just as much fun as I did when I was a teenager. This time though, I don't need drugs for that fun, which is nothing but reassuring.

'There's far too much blood in my alcohol stream'

I just dreamt that some female Ukrainian shop keeper kept trying to touch my...aghem....you know. And all I wanted to do was buy a second-hand book. I also dreamt that I finally flipped with dad and knocked him out. Looking back on the dream it was fucking funny. But if it actually happened - probably not so funny. Maybe one day we'll find out? I'll be sure to let you know.

I think I'm still drunk.

*stands up* Yep. Still drunk.


What a disgrace. I need to start taking more care of my body. All it had yesterday was a bowl of cereal in the morning and floods of beer for hours.

I am a non-title

'I've such a short time to tell you so much,
words come second best to a kiss or a touch.
far thicker than water this blood we all share,
so please never think that for you I don't care.
Fate may have driven us all separate ways,
but can't sever ancestry - splice D.N.A.
If life seems a road that's uneven and long,
to know where you're going just look who you came from.'

'To know where you're going just look who you came from'

It's been really interesting researching the ol' family members from way back into the 16th and 17th Centuries. There's lots of stories about them but I won't bore you all. So, they weren't all Londoners after all. There's a really interesting mixture: Knights, footmen, Noblemen, Bakers, Barons, Actors, Earls, farmers, Generals, dress-makers and most importantly writers. An Irish playwrite at that! So a nice little collection there, each one of equal importance. Why is it so important? I know blood can't carry talent or charm but I like to pretend it holds some significance over my interests and limited smarts.

After lots of research into Ben's extremely rare condition, Caroline and I think Ben's Hemihypertrophy is probably Crossed Hemifacial Hyperplasia. After last night we know more about his condition than the specialists do which, in a way, is not encouraging. But it's okay because they're conducting the proper tests and everything regularly apart from the dentistry, which will be pushed for if I know my sister and bro'. I feel for Benathon. I don't feel for his mind now but I'm worried about when he gets older. We are very alike and I just pray that he doesn't develop the self-hatred I have. But I know that if he gains that mind-frame no amount of people telling him he's gorgeous (which he genuinely is, I'm not just saying that as a proud Auntie!) is going to make any difference. At least he'll have me there to understand that mind frame, I suppose, even if I can't relate directly to what the cause may be. There's something strange about a bond with children, ones you're close to. Sometimes I sit and feel the need to cry, or just burst because I love them so much. Whatever will I be like when/if I have my own?! To those children I will be loyal, honest and would crawl through broken glass for them. That's not even a conscious decision, it's just inside me. They are more important than myself. Perhaps it's something really primal in me, knowing they're there to carry on the family into the future, who knows?

I'll stop babbling now, awfully sorry guv', sometimes just can't 'elp miself!
BATH TIME!

Doing some family research...

There's an Admiral Von Senden in my family. An Earl of Ilchester and a Lady Susan Fox Strangeways. How cool is my blood?

'All we are....is dust in the wind, duuuuddde.'

Yesterday I FINALLY got new lenses and new glasses. I can actually see! OH HAPPY DAAYYYY! *flings arms towards the sky* (figuratively, of course)

Aghem. Then I met up with Jo and we pubbed, smoked, chatted and during the afternoon went to visit our old workplace. Good ol' Lennox Wood. How strange it was to go back there and to help out with feeding the clients/residents/whateverthecompanyhasdecidedisPCthisweek. The atmosphere there has just sort of...turned off. It used to be like stepping into a family home, a family who loved each other! But yesterday even the staff looked as if they might drop dead from exhaustion. It makes me sad to see some people in there with real potential and ability, not able to move on or improve themselves all because of circumstance.

I really must spend the weekend studying, I have a moc-exam on Monday and one more coursework essay to do which needs to be handed in on Wednesday.

'Dark have been my dreams of late.' The of late means the last bloody year. They're fascinating though so I can't complain.

I'm running out of money.

There's a Home

I've had rather a busy week: cake-making, essay-completions, partying and sight-seeing in Brighton, and drinking cheap wine and playing drinking games to The Mighty Boosh. My friends are fucking awesome.

I'm a bit hung-over and stuffed with food so all the blood has gone to my tummy and liver and there's none left for my brain! Poor little brain! That should excuse the lack of social commentary and psychoanalysis in this post.

There's a spider living in my kitchen. His name is Boris and he wears boots (and there we were thinking it was only fairies). He scares me and we are not friends.

'All that we hope is that when we go
our skin
and our blood
and our bones
don't get in your way, making you ill the way they did when we lived.
There is a place, a place in hell
reserved for me and my friends,
and if ever I wanted to cry then I will
because I can.'

'Pour some sugar on me'

Everyone should read Ask the Dust. Everyone. What a book. What a character. Go on, you know you want to.

I'm listening to cheesey eighties music again.

Porge is coming over in a little while so I suppose I ought to get dressed! We're going to make cakes and be ridiculous all day. That's what we do best.

Ta da...

Joanna went to Wolverhampton and all I got was this lousy title

I'm in Wolverhamptonshireford and Ewan's been sick...again! I think he's allergic to us. Well, not me of course. That's a physical impossibility - nobody can be allergic to pure joy.

The people are different up here. It's strange: there seems to be a different kind of boredom in the eyes of Midlanders when compared to Southerners. It's no more or less. Just different.

I shall enlighten you on more of my observational ponderings later as duty calls and there is afternoon tea to be prepaired.

Toodleypoo!

'Just hear this and then I'll go: you gave me more to live for, more than you'll ever know'

Shall I even go into it? That is perhaps for George's ears only at the moment! Should I care what his friends think? No, they have no idea about who I am or anything regarding the matter.


Well, now we've got the inevitable cryptic angsty part of the online journal over with I shall move on to the shallow, materialistic part...

I got an A on my speech which pleases me. I bought some leopard print hooker shoes to congratulate myself...oh come on, we all know I'd have bought them anyway! Whaaaat a bargain.

And now to the plans that nobody cares about...

I shall be gracing Wolverhampton with my presence tomorrow. Lucky bastards might see sense and give me a fanfair this time. If they know what's good for them. Can't wait to see the kids, my big bro-fo and sissy-poos again. Note to self: Stop changing words into non-words Joanna. Please.

Right now is the first moment I've had to sit down and eat something, hah! So off I go to cook!

'Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cozy, doesn't try it on.'

I did stay awake for my lesson after all, everything is fine and dandy and I'm finally beginning to get to grips with US foreign policy. *yawn* x 300

Saying that, I'm finding it less dull than I thought I would but still...where are the plagues? Where are the Monarchs and the Knights? It's all wrong!

Ireland calls to me. Again. I do not actually think I can ignore it for much longer. There is a reason for me to go there and it's strong and passionate.

No, I can't pick just one subject and write about that! *pokes tongue out*

I realised that, for the last three posts I've made on this here bloggy, I've used Morrissey/Smiths quotes as titles. I shall break the cycle. (Thanks go to Billy Connolly for today's title.)

Mum doesn't like my pink hair. The other day there was an advert on the tv - some woman with deep, Autumn-red hair showing us the unquenchable joys of moisturising hair dye and having the guts to buy herself new shoes because of said fabulous hair. Mum said "Oh, isn't that a lovely colour" in her kind, old woman voice (she has several voices - she's a robot, you see). Then she moved her head slowly towards me, looked at my hair (which at this time could only be described as 'rainbow') and then looked, slowly again, to my face with a look of uneasy disappointment.

...you had to be there.

'You have never been in love until you've seen the stars reflect in the reservoirs...'

Colin Farrell in Miami Vice. Sweet Jehova. I should NOT, at my age, fancy a man with a moustache like that.

This is not a late night for me, it is an early morning. No idea how I'll staw awake during my lesson this-evening. Before I went to sleep I tried watching Dirty Dancing in order to keep me awake but I'm afraid, as with most fillums of that genre, it had the opposite effect. I give up trying to watch films that other women think I'll like simply because I'm the same sex as them.

Stephen Fry, please be my daddy. Or at least my uncle. I'd bring you tea in the mornings and tidy your desk! I'd make you really proud!


I might write something long, sarcastic and phsycho-analytical later when my brain wakes up but until then I'll let you fester in bubbling anticipation.

'It was dark as I drove the point home'

I MUST not put anything before my work. Ever. It is the most important thing. I am not sorry for this.

Last Saturday I took Ma'anit to see Fiddler on the Roof in the West End as a birthday and christmas present. She moaned from the moment I saw her but I managed to get her to enjoy the day and cheer up in the end. Women!

FACT: I have nothing interesting to write as I haven't been awake for long. My brain? Eet ees dead.

'There's a place in hell for me and my friends'

Jo came over last night and we chatted and laughed for hours. The time also involved moderate indulgence (we were good) of take away food and beer. I cleared up both rooms just for her, because she's special. Yesterday was the first time I'd cleared/cleaned the living room in Idon'tevenknowhowlong. Even Wayne and Waynetta would cower at what I found in that festering hovel so it's best I don't tell you any more about that. In fact, forget I said anything. I'm insistent on my surroundings being immaculate and freakishly sanitary at ALL times.

Anyway, we cruised onto the subject of our old work place. A building and environment both detested and loved (in a way that you love something simply because it's been a part of you for so long) by all who are regularly present there. As always happens when we talk about Lennox Wood the conversation begins with laughs but develops into a profound psychoanalysis of the human condition and it's very own cancer - mental illness. And the worst mental illness of all is Dementia. Unforgiving, illimitable and ruthlessly cruel. The elderly people we looked after weren't just the usual young person's perception of oldies: charming, anachronistic glimpses into how the world once was. Sweet and frail. They were like that sometimes (albeit, more often than not, indecipherable at the same time, or painfully vague) but could turn at any moment into something hideous, violent and dreadful. Inhuman. My years spent there will not be forgotten.

My knees are cold.

Mum's going to Spain tomorrow. Let's pretend I'm not going to miss her. I'm looking forward to it in a way though because I feel more independent when I'm not around my mother so time spent apart is good for me. Christ knows it's good for her!

I need to try and get an early night but it's quite clear that ain't 'appening. NIGHT GUYS!

'it's an ORCHESTRA of angeellls'

I'm in love with Eighties music at the moment. Blondie, Kim Carnes, Tom Petty (he was eighties right?), Eurythmics, The Cult, Billy Idol: BRING IT ON! Bring it on? - I talk to George too much.

I've gone into myself (not in a gross, contortionist way: sickos). So you're not going to get anything out of me apart from that right now.

Tarra a bit.

P.S. I wish I had eyes like Betty Davis' so I could pretend this song had been written about me.

I am an unimaginative title

Golly gosh, haven't I been dramatic lately?

Never mind all that malarkey, I feel like it's time to organise some things. Mainly: my brainypoos. In an effort to do this I shall organise the things around me starting my with room. That's right people, the floordrobe's going! (sometimes I think that people - including me - misuse the exclamation mark. For example, I wasn't really exclaiming anything in that last sentence, was I?).

Well offski I goesie for nowsie!

...Shut up Joanna.

“The world is nothing but a great desire to live and a great dissatisfaction with living”

I tried out a new writing style tonight. Usually when I write fiction it's deadly serious and I wanted to try and bring the more whimsical aspect of my personality to it, give it a bit of razzmatazz, make the mundane vernacular shine and sparkle with comic observation and imagination. Clearly I didn't achieve this (lol) but it was my first go so I'm not beating myself up about it; we didn't begin life knowing how to read and write and I don't begin interesting writing by....well, knowing how to do it. Here's a little tip for all you would-be writers out there: Don't show anybody what you're writing. Ever. However much you love them or they love you makes no odds, bruv'. Just don't show 'em. One always want the people one cares about to love everything one creates and, while being perfectly natural, is simply not realistic.

To remain confident in myself I need to keep everything private. For once I think I'm the only person who has real faith in myself where other people don't quite get it (apart from George, as always - She doesn't always get it but continues to hold a pure faith in me which is invaluable). It's usually the other way around!

Also, people (particularly my parents) need to realise that I don't take life as seriously as they do or that they think I do. I do not live in the army, I am not here to serve any of you, I have more important things to worry about than what someone's banal, predictable assumption of life tells them which cupboard to hurriedly stuff things into, or what time of day I complete a promise I made out of the kindness of my POOR, BEATEN heart! *dramatically throws back of hand to forehead*.

Aghem. I'm just having the best day I've ever had. I wish it would last for eternity. I'm also annoyed with myself that I'm debating in my head about whether to post this for fear of people getting unnecessarily offended or not. This is my journal and I can say what i bleedin' well like! :-P

I think it's about time I got my grumpy, bitter little self off to nod-land!

The Tudors didn't eat with forks! WHAT A WORLD!

Good periodoftimeafterthemiddleoftheday to you!

I came home from my English class today and informed my parents of the A* (for those of you who don't know what the asterix stands for, it's an A star, the equivalent - I've used the word equivalent too much today - is an A + if you're an Americano, I think) for my Non-fiction essay. For which I got praise from mother and from Father....well I'll let his words speak for him:

Daddy-dearest: "That's a good mark! Of course, the mark quite possibly would have been lower if somebody else was marking it. Not everybody would give it the same mark. But nevertheless there we are!"

Joanna-piana: "...thanks."

He's so defeatest and negative that it's no wonder he's done nothing with his life.

Another quote for you now then:
'you are too sweet, you know that? really, you are. you're like mother teresa on acid after spending a weekend of debauchery with leper dwarves in a seedy mud hut in the back woods of borneo, kind of sweet.'
So now everybody knows the way in which I am sweet. Thank you to my new friend on MW for bringing this vital atom of my personality to the surface. There it goes floating on the surface. Floaty, floaty! Floooaaaty floaty!

Aghem...

All a girl really needs in life is a lesbian best-friend, a devoted Mother and an extendable robot arm

Is it wrong that I find myself quotable? Arrogant, non?

I'm starting to think that I'm emotionally dead in some areas. How beautifully morbid and poetic that sounds. Please don't get the wrong idea: it's not inspiring. I just want to be left alone today. I'm not sure if I miss things or just want them to disappear completely. It feels as though there's been some sort of shift in the metaphysical atmosphere.

Yesterday we were set the first (and easiest) essay on Macbeth. 'Who is responsible for Duncan's death?'. I already know my answer and reasons for it but I'm going to have to trudge through details and theories before stating my conclusion. 'Hold on, isn't that the point of an essay?'...

English lessons for me are like my own little circus. There's the thirty-something cat-fanatic who thinks she's Joanna Trollope, the young bleach-blonde mother who has that infuriating habit of replacing 'g's with 'k's on the end of words like nothing and something (who was the first person to do that? And how is it even possible to make that unforgivable mistake by accident?) and thinks she's above Shakespeare while asking our teacher if she 'could 'ave that in English plaise?', the bulky young black man who is so shy he barely speaks above ant-volume (yes that is an official volume, didn't you learn about it in school? Fucking thickos) and assumed it'd be fine to write his NON-fiction essay in the genre of 'pornography' and personal favourite: Annabelle - my little entrepreneur. She sits next to me and is somehow both vivacious and deliberate at the same time. She is quite often late for a lesson but only because she's been busy buying stock for her online business or balancing books!

I'm mother-flippin' exhausted. I wish it was 7pm so I could justify going to sleep. 'Must be M.E!'
Toodley-poo!

Images and words

I am currently listening to 'Wait for Sleep' by Dream Theater. I officially take back every uninformed comment previously made about this band. This song is reflective, humble and alluring.

I watched 'Rain Man' earlier. It happens to be the best film I've seen in a long time. Thoughtful, enlightening, educational, and, in its own way, gentle. The acting was superb. Perhaps I am somewhat biased being that I'm obsessed with any mental condition like Autism. It's always reassuring to know that one may be a complete outcast in some ways but at the same time an utter bloody genius!

"Get back to studying" you say! Ahh but you see, my lovelies, I am taking a self-imposed (oh the joys of being my own boss) cigarette break. PLUS, there's no real rush for this work to be done. But that's not actually the point for once: I'm still doing it. I think that maybe, for the first time in my so-far underachieving life, I am focused on something that really matters muchly. However ephemeral my existence winds up to be I at least can be proud that I bloody well tried at something important. Which is more than I can say for a lot of folk in these 'ere parts. I still sometimes feel, however, that I'm disregarding my spiritual purpose by neglecting the side of me that draws towards a need to help others. I also know though that, from my heart, this is something that must be done.

Now where is that postman with my Amazon package?...

'Eels up inside ya! Findin' an entrance where they can!'

I've just fallen up the stairs AGAIN!These slippers seem to have been trying to kill me for a while now and I'm starting to become genuinely suspicious.

I've almost finished this essay about Utilitarianism and then I shall start on one of the America-based essay questions. Oh Ancient history: how I miss thee!

I am becoming increasingly tormented by the little songs that feature in The Mighty Boosh. Don't get me wrong, I love them, but will they leave my head? No they will not! Damn you Julian!

I've discovered that my writing is always more colourful and entertaining when I've been awake for more hours than is humanly healthy. The sacrifices we make, eh?

For the past ten minutes I've been singing a song to and about my dog, Leo, to the tune of 'food glorious food'. Believe it or not though the people around me are less worried about me than they probably ever have been. Which I believe, in turn, says a lot about the people I associate myself with.