Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Ms. Guttridge's LiveJournal:

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Friday, January 2nd, 2004
5:54 pm	The nights are getting lighter 2 minutes per day... I might survive until spring, then. Current Mood: crushed Current Music: Common People- Pulp (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 7th, 2003
12:08 am	last night i choked on a bone last night i cried a river I crawled up my wall into the noose and died. last night i sang a lullaby I hope to say goodbye I wrote a note of explanation and pinned it to my chest, last night, i locked myself in and hoped they'd never come. I learned the meaning of endurance, to never let go. I had fantasised about the slab and the number tied around my toe, I shunned regret and slept for a thousand years on a bed of love letters. Then they cut me down and like a stone I fell. But then I woke up, to another dying dawn the day holding nothing. I am like a bear in its solitary cage, pacing pacing into the trap of madness. No-one thinks for second it can be real, sleeping so as to ignore the daily lives around me, that are filled with something. Checking for life, checking for rhythm, a warm bed and a razor blade fix is all that can comfort, not an embrace. Then there is a scarlet stain on my hands, it browns with every healing minute that passes. It comes out of nowhere and I am craving. It doesnt hurt me a bit, It just doesnt hurt any more. Current Mood: aggravated Current Music: Nico 'Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams' (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 27th, 2003
11:19 am	Probably the most depressing journal entry in the world...ever. For the last few days the world seems to have been beginning without me. I've slept till noon and gone to bed at dawn and my life seems to be losing all semblance of routine again. As I sit here, all too aware of the fact that I didnt get to sleep until 3am and have only just gotten up, a strange sort of anxiety seems to take a hold of me. I'm anxious because once again I feel like I am losing my grip on things. Things have started off so well, top marks in my essays, I have been eating quite well and I've been on top of the housework for a change. I'm taking a retrospective look at things at the moment though, and my attendance at college is getting worse, I can't bring myself to even walk out of the house, my heart palpitates, my hands get clammy and that horrid feeling of being disconnected from everything around you has begun again. I'm anxious because I know I am different from everybody else. I seem to need help every now and then to even know how to live and that makes me feel awful beyond belief. I havent gone to college again, I'm debating whether to go in this afternoon, but I know I wont. I'll just sit here, wringing my hands, devoid of my appetite and desperate to cut. Fuck, I feel so dumb for this entry. I don't know whats happening to me, but I'm powerless to stop it. The house is a mess with 3 days worth of washing up in the sink. Empty beer cans and wine bottles everywhere. I haven't cleaned up at all. Its a sign that I'm getting sick again, everything seems like such a mammoth task and it's taking all of the effort I have to even type this, but I have to vent these feelings somewhere. I really need to get my ass motivated and get the fuck to college. I'm not going to capitulate to this, the consequences will be horrendous. Current Mood: distressed Current Music: Silence (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 20th, 2003
8:37 pm	Well another boring day in the life of Clare Guttridge. Oooh...What have I done today? Let me think? Fuck there was so much to do that Im gonna have trouble fitting in onto this page, you know. And the excitement...Oh the excitement! I just cannot put it into words, it wouldnt do it justice. Right then, overkill with the sarcasm...you get the fuckin' picture. What I actually did was wake up late, get into college late, sit there till 3pm, go shopping and then come home. And now Im sitting here in front of the computer hoping someone will come online that I can talk to. But thats just it, you know? Its not really talking is it? I go days without actually conversing with anyone, and Im sure that isnt healthy. Of course, I have surface level chats with the people who I go to college with, but it doesnt really go any deeper than discussing the lesson that we have just come out of/about to go into and the essays that we have assigned to us. Oh yeah, or class debates. I get to speak then too. Its a good fuckin' job else im sure i would forget how to. I mean, these girls are fine enough, but something about them annoys me. The thing is though, I think its me who is the problem. I very rarely see my peers. I hardly have any peers, and the pinnacle of my social life is going over my folks house almost daily. I dont even get on with my folks that well, its just that there is something nice about being in a house full of people as opposed to you own home, which is rather prison like in the winter. My main source of conversation comes from a three year old boy, and most of the light entertainment I am subjected to comes in the form of psychologically appropriate childrens programmes, with theme tunes that upon hearing 9,000 times become the stuff that nightmares are made of. So there you have it. I dont have hardly any friends, I dont go out of my house unless it's to study or work and people who do talk to me, annoy me. I do think that me becoming annoyed when people try to converse with me is a side effrect of this partly self imposed solitude. Im living without the need to be around people, and it takes so little effort. Being around people takes effort. You have to be polite, funny etc etc. You have to TRY. Im past all that shit and its exhausting, so it becomes annoying to hold even the simplest of conversations. The other week a friend brought some of her friends over to mine and it was weird. One, I dont think I have ever had that many people in my house before, and two, I had my eye on the clock waiting for them to go home whcih is dumb because I was really enjoying myself and it did make a refreshing change to being alone. I really dont know what the deal is with me. I swing from being so lonely that I would probably ring up the talking clock just to hear an adult voice that differed from my own to being almost sociopathic in my approach to other people. I annoy myself, so Im sure to be annoying other people. You may wonder what brought this little rant on. Well it goes like this...it is as simple and as stupid as this. I was walking round Asda, and there was a family behind me. Theyre trolley was laden with fat filled treats for the children, steaks for dad and chocolate for mum. They were all together, happy...you know? Then I looked at my trolley. The trolley of a tragically single person with a fuckin' eating disorder! And thats just how sensitive I am really. Of course I am bothered by being alone, and pretending not to be is nothing more than a feeble defence mechanism. Current Mood: calm Current Music: 'BabyDoll' Hole - 'Pretty On The Inside' (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 18th, 2003
7:21 pm	ATTISHOO! God, I feel old. My cousin, who is 14 just came round to ask me if she could borrow my old new rock boots for this under 18 goth disco on saturday night. I gave her a load of old clothes that i used to wear but could never part with until now, some gothy bags and the holy grail of shoes for a budding greebo...my old new rocks that cost me half a salary when i got my first job at 16. I gave her my copy of 'smells like children' by Marilyn Manson and an assorted bag of make up that consisted of black lipsticks, rouge noir nail varnishes and colours that I wouldnt be seen dead in now...not because I dont like them anymore, because it, for some reason, seems inappropriate to dress anywhere near the extreme marker at my age. Im a mum now for gods sake. As i listened to her adolescent rhetoric which incuded a few phrases like 'I just want to be able to do what I want.' 'I wont let anyone tell me what to do.' etc etc, I was rather emotional, I must confess. She was growing up and embarking on a new journey. It made me wish I was back there myself, for the slate would be clean again and I wouldnt make the mistakes I have. She revelled in the fact that people at school wouldnt have a go with her because 'they think im gonna cast a spell on them', the heavy eyeliner and the way she wore my shoes with her huge tent like flares (which are all the rage amongst the 'alternative' youth) helped me capture a little glimmer of myself. She had an upside down crucifix biro-ed on her hand for everyone to see, a temporary tattoo like marking of her skin, a defiant message to the the rest of the world that it's 'okay to be different'. She started off last year, just before she was 13, wanting to be involved with drama. She was involved in amateur dramatics and that was 'what she wanted to do with her life', in that assertive way that all 13 year old know what they want to be when they grow up. Of course, she treated drama as anathema as she chuntered on about how 'crap' it was as she sat on my settee tonight. Rebuking all of her thespian interests, as they were no longer what was seen to be cool, she now wants a set of drums, because of course, this isnt like the drama interest. This is the real thing, she wants lessons and will be banging away on them for 20 years to come...hell, she might even be in the next platinum selling rock band. She would never give up on becoming an excellent drummer as impulsively as she did with the drama. She is 14, you know. Drrrrr, she is old enough to know what she wants. I guess teenagers are psychotic. I wasnt like that, surely? No fucker will ever get me to admit it if I was. Current Mood: sore Current Music: tv (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, November 14th, 2003
9:41 pm	bleugh. feel like shit. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 11th, 2003
11:16 pm	One way ticket to spinsterhood please! Ive decided that honesty in a relationship is definately NOT the best policy. If being honest means you end up feeling like this, give me good old bullshit anyday. Well, I wouldnt say that I was depressed at being told that a certain someone 'isnt looking for a relationship' right now, despite everything that we have shared. He needs a break. Call me cynical or pessimistic or whatever but I always thought that that was what someone said when they were too spineless to just drop you like a sack of shit. A break? Does that mean Im just gonna have to exist in some sort of relationship no-mans-land in emotional suspension, in anticipation of a fucking reunion? Or do I haul my ass up and out of it and just draw a line under it, put it on the list of 'bad relationship' experiences, and get on with a life sans men? Im not saying that he was like the fuckin' one or anything, but it's the best Ive had yet. Plus, with every little bit of hurt you suffer at the hands of another, you begin to lose faith in ever having anything that isnt going to involve getting hurt at some point. I guess I'm lucky in as much as I enjoy my own company, I like to be alone and Im not too sociable a person anyhow. Its not like I'm scared of being without anyone, so its never too bad when something like this happens. Of course though, no matter how solitary a creature I am, in the words of Saint Morrissey 'I am human and I need to be loved...' !!! Maybe 'need' is a little strong, 'want' is more accurate in my situation. My Constant Collin, where are you?! x (1 Comment |Comment on this)
9:54 pm	Oh yeah, as you might have gathered, they put my internet and phoneline back on, Collin...even though I had to go to my mother, tail between my legs, asking if she would pay it for me. :) (Comment on this)
7:53 pm	God, Im bored. Ive done nothing but work all day and now nothing seems to be making any sense. Its turning into twaddle and Ive lost my thread, so Im gonna quit before I make a pigs ear of it. Ive just realised Im always moaning about the volume of work and reading I have to do. I like being percieved as studious, that I can study and work tirelessly. I like people to think I can just reel it off, effortlessly. Of course I cant, I have to do as much work as all of them fuckers. Im not as dilligent and pedantic as they think. Im a mediocre student who has more motivation than actual academic ability, and I hope that that will be enough to carry me through. If I show willing with a half decent brain, I might just scrape a half decent degree. On the contrary, education may not even figure in my life for much longer should I have to become a slave to the wage once more. The women in my group at college are all living in the textbook ideal of the nuclear families. Kids are at school or in the college nursery, their husbands/partners wage being enough to enable them to not work and just go to college. If it fails for them, they always have the housewife/mother/lover/wife role to fall back into quite happily and to be honest most of them seem to be doing it because it is a cushy alternative to work. It's like the WI in those fucking classrooms. It doesnt seem to be about intellectual development or gaining a qualification with view to enter an occupation. For me it seems to be about making myself brighter and more learned, a good job at the end a much welcomed side effect. A slog, a challenge and quite energy sapping. I take it quite seriously. For them it's just a hobby. One of the women is actually trying for a baby with her partner and states that she wants to stay at home with the kids when her new addition to the family arrives. Why enrol on the course if you know you have no real intention of ever finishing it? They will be looked after by somebody no matter what the outcome which means they dont really care a shit about it anyway. All they fucking talk about is babies and men. I have to listen to their crappy jokes in my gender studies class, ones that mockingly rubbish the men that they are so dependant upon. The same tired old comments about penis size and men being crap in bed when we are discussing media representations of gender. We discuss a text dealing with malestream sociology and suddenly you hear one of them say respond with '...well thats just men for you!' like that is the highest level of understanding they have on the subject. The way the room erupts into raucous laughter at these tired, cliched comments, the female equivalent of the mother-in-law jokes told by fucking Bernard Manning or Les Dawson, makes me want to cringe. This is just another fucking place where I fail to fit in. I have to listen to what colour their kids puke is. What they cooked for their husbands tea the previous night. If the tales that were told at the dinnertable in the canteen at lunchtime were to be translated into a song, it would be 'I Will Survive' by Gloria Gaynor. Enough said. I'm aware that I sound like a bitter old cow, by the way. Im about to talk about my own relationship later on in this entry, but mine is not the centre of my life nor is it the only thing I ever talk about. It would be lovely to be able to be a student for the next few years, just reading and learning and expanding my intellect, but I'm afraid that does not stop the cable company from cutting all your services off. I like the way they said to me yesterday when I called to pay the bill 'Oh yeah. Your phone service has been restricted.' when what they mean is 'You have been cut off cuz you cant pay the fucking bill, you loser.' Neither does it stop credit card companies calling up your house and demanding their payments. However, one thing studying does do is make me unable to work. I havent the time to work. If Im a full-time student, I should be taking it seriously and doing the best I can, not jeopardising it by working all the hours God sends and juggling it with another 5 things that need doing. But I just havent got the money to be able to devote myself to my studies. I wish there was 14 days in a week, then I could spend one in college/private study and the other one out there earning enough cold hard cash to be able to feed myself and Harry at least. I have to make a decision. What is more important? Of course, a graduates salary is better, but can I stick the hardship for the next three years? Do I want to contend with financial worries on top of my studies when I could just quit and make them a thing of the past. There is nothing that can get you down like having no money. I dont know whether I'm prepared to forfeit education just to eradicate that horrid worry from my life. I dont know what would make me happier, a life immersed in books but being stony broke, or having the money to do as I please but compromising on what I would ideally like to be doing with my life. It's so important to me to be happy. I dont know whether I could hack the whole 9-5 thing just for the sake of having a few extra quid....well okay then...a lot of extra quids... I dont know. Im kinda depressed about a lot of things at the moment. Which is dumb because I havent really got anything to be miserable about, only choices that I have to make. Thing is, Im shit at making decisions as I am probably the least assertive person that I know. I like to be certain about the major things that are going on in my life and when things arent certain or become unstable for whatever reason, it fucks with my head. I guess I just want a peaceful, consistant life, which isnt fraught with major drama or ups and downs. I just want things to be as they are and stay the same until I want things to change. I just wish I had a fucking path mapped out that I could stick to, it not mattering what obstacles were placed in my way, it not mattering about people trying to dissuade me. My problem is that Im too easily swayed. If someone tells me Im wrong, or I'm gonna fuck up or whatever, then I will. Inside I may disagree with them, but I always put 2 and 2 together and get 5. If someone tells me that what I am doing is wrong, or stupid, or destined to fail, or bad for harry, or whatever, I feel so fucking ineffectual and inferior, I dont argue. I accept their tirade of abuse and believe it. If someone can say things to you from outside of yourself, if that is what someone sees, then surely they must be right? Thats the thing, Im not strong or confident enough to fight my own corner in defence of myself. I havent enough conviction in my own abilities, thats assuming that I have any that are worth spending three years in near poverty trying to build upon!!! Come to think of it, there are a few things I have to be miserable about...Im broke, have no social life hardly and am in a relationship thats about as certain as the fucking 45 minute WMD claim. I thought it wouldnt be long until I got onto the subject of him. Of course he is lovely and everything, and I do believe that I'm quite possibly in love with the fella, but when you feel like that you dont want it to end, you dont want to be told that in all probability it might end with him fucking somone else. His honesty I admire, but I cant help but think that a little embellishment of the truth would be a lot softer on the heart. I dont know, part of me would prefer living in ignorance, for then i'd be without the tightrope feeling, the 'but-all-good-things-come-to-an-end-and-im-fucking-dreading-that-inevitable-day feeling. It would be shorter and sharper and probably less torturous to just have the bombshell dropped on you one day. 'Sorry Clare, I dont want to be with you anymore, Ive met someone else' rather than every day you spend together being tarnished by what Im going to refer to as the 'commitment' conversation. As long as he continues to be honest, I lose hope that there is any sort of meaning to this whole thing. I suppose this infers that no relationship is meaningful without a promise of permanency, but come on...it's not nice to be told by the person you love that there is quite a large chance that at some point he is going to want to go off and fuck loads of other women. I think the sacchariney, overwrought lies which come in the form of cliched romantic language and phrases like 'I never want to be with anyone else' etc etc, are much nicer to hear, even if they cant be true statements, even though they are promises that even the most faithful and loyal person would find hard to keep. They just sound nicer, they make your heart leap rather than sink, make you hopeful and positive about the relationship rather than cynical and, at times, apathetic. And in the context of a relationship like ours, they would be the icing on a very nice cake. I dont want the man to get down on one knee and promise to love and protect me forever. I dont even want a relationship that makes an acknowldgement of certain objectives. I dont practice doodling what my name would look like should I ever marry him, and I havent imagined what our revolting offspring would look like. I just want to be certain that what I see in his eyes when he looks at me is real. I dont want to fall victim to lovesickness and develop some sort of visual/aural impairment, ramifications being me only seeing and hearing what I want to. It boils down to this, is honesty really the best policy in relationships? I dont know, but what I do know is that when I told him I loved him and I was met with silence rather than a reciprocal 'I love you too.', I know for a fucking FACT that it would have been nicer to hear those three little, but powerful, words at that precise moment (it seemed like an appropriate one, I hasten to add) I dont even think I would have cared if he wasnt completely sure of the importance of it, or even if he was fucking lying. But the deflation I felt upon not hearing it back? Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies any fucking day! If all fails, I shant worry about it too much, there is other things going on in my life. I'll just make a political decision to become a lesbian!!!! Current Mood: confused (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 9th, 2003
8:55 pm	This morning's faux pas... Oops. You know I said something silly this morning. Half asleep and curled up in his arms I snuggled up to him in the darkness, hands were roaming, gentle little kisses being placed all over each others faces...you know...and what do I go and say? I love you. That is what I said. What a dickhead. Whats that song 'blah blah blah and then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like 'l love you.' He didnt say it back. Not that he doesnt feel it, but he thinks it's too heavy a thing for him to say to me, although he says its cool for me to say it to him. A little inequal, a little unrequited maybe? Not good. Maybe I'll elaborate later when Ive stopped dying from shame. Current Mood: anxious Current Music: have a fucking guess...its that thomas the tank engine theme tune...sending me maaaaaaaaaad as a hal (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, November 7th, 2003
6:44 pm	grog fuck. headache. miserable. want to go to bed but cant because Harry insists on watching Thomas The Tank Engine over and over and over and over and over again...till he falls asleep to be precise. Ididnt get to bed til nearly 3, couldnt sleep so now its...like...19.12pm and Im so depressed and tired I just wanna go to bed and let this day end without me. Wish I could be bothered to type something with a little bit of effort put into it, but I cant. Every noise that comes out of Harry's mouth is shaking my brain and I ate samosas, pakora, potato aloo followed by a chocolate eclair and then some doughnuts. Then I ate a tub of spiced onions. Needless to say, that combination has made me feel ready to vomit. Now Im gonna drink some coffee and then lie in bed watching TV till I fall asleep. Ive had quite a good day today. Favourite class, encouraging words about Cambridge, lunch with my friend Emma and then home. Then...KABOOM! Sadness hits me like a train as soon as it starts to get dark. Could do some work, but cant muster up the concentration required to do it. Fuck this, I really cant be bothered... Current Mood: depressed Current Music: the maddening sound of the thomas the tank engine theme tune over and over again (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 6th, 2003
8:21 pm	You're Marc Bolan, the man behind T. Rex. You are a glam machine, original as all hell. You really know how to flaunt your eccentricities, and you write funny nonsensical, mystical lyrics. Sometimes you can seem like a parody of yourself, but hey, no one can do you better than yourself. (?). You have a distinctive style, and you are skilled at combining many influences to create something new and fresh. You are a sensation, a striking phenomenon. Too bad you'll die tragically, and young. Which rad old school 70's glam icon are you? (with pics) brought to you by Quizilla Dammit, I love these fuckin' quizzes, I really do! Dwight Twilley? Is he the hot one on the record sleeve piccy in today's journal, Collin? He's hot...very chiselled. Very, very sexy. Current Mood: okay Current Music: Heart FM. The radio version of VH1...non-descript music for the over 25's... (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 5th, 2003
10:49 pm	p.s ...oh yeah...my aunty had put up Christmas decorations in case her dad wasnt there at Christmas. It touched me, made me cry actually. The man who was dying, My Uncle, Joe Butler, ex-bare-knuckled boxer and foundry man, had been the one to hold my hand all the day on the day we buried my nan. I thought the least I could do was go and tell him how much his support meant to me, when I told him he cried. The Christmas decorations were as garrish and tasteless as the decor. You know, lots of metallic, foily type garlands, gold, fuschia and green in colour hanging from the roof. Talking Santa's and an artificial Christmas tree adorned with coloured lights and frayed tinsel. In the tiny crowded front room of her council house, we all sat together, close knit in the traditional working class way and united in our sadness. It was nice and cosy and added to the paroxysm of working class pride I was feeling at the time. None of us who sat in that room tonight have had or have ever had a thing of any worth, but the atmosphere was rich and electric, us all getting together again, even under the sad circumstances. Linda's words were 'I aint never 'ad nothin'. We've all 'ad it 'ard. I ain't never 'ad loads of money. None of us 'av. But we am all together now, and 'aving the family together again, bein' able to pull togetha and that, means more than a million quid or a big fuckin' 'ouse.' Slighty cheesy, but completely true. It warmed me through and through! Honestly, it did. It served to compound the feelings of pride. I felt welcome there, part of the family. No upper middle class family could have created that sort of atmosphere. I dont know why, but it just isnt the same. It isnt the same as it is with my dad's wacky and wonderful family. There isnt any need for pomp or ostentatious conversation that aim is to make you appear cultured and educated. There isnt any worries about feelings of inferiority, or trying to impress people. You havent got to know about 'high-brow' culture and be able to wax lyrical about what broadsheet you prefer or what type of wine you like to drink. You dont feel a fool for not having travelled extensively or being relatively un-educated. Although it's nice to be able to exercise your brain now and then, and it's nice to have a certain level of discourse over a nice meal and a good bottle of red, it's also just as nice, in a very, very different way to go back to my roots and have a roll-up and a cup of tea in a chipped mug with my rough, ready, uncultured, loveable paternal family. I find them amazingly interesting, because they differ so much from me. Maybe thats why they evoke intense thoughts and feelings in me. I dont know where the fuck I came from. I'm sure Im the result of my mother's one night stand with the milkman or something... (Comment on this)
8:49 pm	[Bad username: <lj comm=]</font>">"> what is this semagic thing that was recommended to me by a friend? I cant use it. Im going to fuck about with it till I understand it. (Comment on this)
8:49 pm	It was 400 years ago now. Do we really have to continue celebrate the foiling of the gunpowder plot? Bonfire night. I fucking hate it. You cant go outside for 10 seconds without going back in stinking of burning pallets. You cant get to sleep because idgits are letting of fireworks, that arent even pleasing to the eye, till 2am in the morning. Now this I can half put up with, what I cant put up with is the almighty din of them plus my son screaming because he's scared shitless of them. I want to talk about the statement I made about the fireworks round here not being pleasing to the eye. Its unusual because juvenile delinquents on estate's such as this one, seem to find some sort of joy in letting off fireworks that dont erupt into a cascade of sparkling beautiful colours, they just let off ones that are hardly visible but make a sound similar to being hit by tank shell. Blink and you will miss them, but FUCKING HELL DO THEY MAKE A RACKET OR WHAT! They are just rocket type ones that screech and them....BOOOOOOOM! You cant even see them go up in the air! When they climax in that Blitz-like din, they feebly flash...for a fucking nano-second! What is the fucking point in that?! They are annoying and pointless. But kids round here, usually teenage boys who look like they should be (or have just escaped from a young offenders institution) love them. They are cheap for one, so kids can afford them. They annoy people, that makes the boot boys want to buy them more. They noises they make are as aggressive as they are and they relish the menacing effect that it has on the old biddies. They like to throw them at each other, lit and ready to explode, and then run away as quickly as possible so they dont have their faces blown off, in a very dangerous version of the game referred to by them as 'chicken'. You can see the euphoria, the anticipation, the thrill that they get running away from a cardboard tube full of gunpowder thats about to explode. They are bored and that is their idea of fun. I despair, I really do. If they want to play 'chicken' with a lit firework whilst their mothers are getting pissed in the pub, then that is fine by me, but the type of kids who enjoy this foolish activity are also the kids that find it amusing to put them through your letterbox. Quite scary, really. Im going off on a tangent here, I was meant to be talking about how shit fireworks are, but now Ive digressed onto the type of people who purposely misuse them. Its turning into a bit of a social observation. I hate to generalise, I really do, but most of the fuckwits I see on this estate are of my age. They are spiritually dead people stagnating on the dole. I believe the welfare state is here to help people in need, but you would have thought that after having to raise one child on the state, they would have opted not to bring another 4 into the world, wouldnt you? Stagnating on the dole is fine, it's harmless (if a little annoying for people like me who are trying so desperately to get out of the hole I dug for myself) but they are also agressive, rude and quite scary people who have no respect for anything. If you look a bit different, they are after you. If you speak a little more eloquently and articulately than them, they think your and arsehole and will want to beat you up. This estate is well known for it's National Front activity and heroin problem. They drink carling black label and then fight in the streets. People get mugged outside the shops. Young girls addicted to heroin come in the chippie asking for free food and trying to get the woman behind the counter to buy the clothes off her own back. The one black family who dared to live here got a paving slab chucked through the window whilst their baby was asleep on the settee it landed on just seconds before. All the men are making a living from being thieves, all the women are mouthy and vulgar with 5 unruly kids by 5 different men. It makes me sad that I havent actually met someone on here that I like. I mean I come from what you would call a rough family. Just tonight I visited relatives who live in a notoriously rough part of town. I was greeted at the door by a short, overweight woman with hair that had been bleached so much it had broken off and gone like straw. She had homemade tattoos, the names of 4 ex-partners etched into her skin that had faded to that manky green colour and spread over time. She had no front teeth and no bra on, her tits just sagging in a flimsy stained vest, a hand rolled cigarette hanging from her mouth. But she's a good woman. She isnt rude. She isnt aggressive. She is welcoming and warm and friendly. She is what you could call a 'salt of the earth' woman. She has had a hard life. Worked hard, loved hard, had a few tales to tell, and it showed on her aged face. In the front room, I sat with her chatting about me going to university and she cackled, baring her toothless gums and said 'You'll be the first one in our family to go to fuckin' university! Whats the difference between that and college?' I just explained and she said she was proud of me, gave me a roll up and we carried on watching Emmerdale Farm. As I watched her tending to her dying father (its the reason I went in the first place) there was such tenderness in the way she tended to his needs, she was stoical in her approach to her fathers impending death. Almost in denial about it. An attitude that gave an impression of strength and composure, a true working class matriarch caring for the man who brought her up. She had that true, tough working class spirit that is hard to break. In the garrishly decorated front room I suddenly had a thought. The working class have changed so much, she seemed to belong to the old school of the working classes. The class that I had always been proud to be associated with and part of. A class which would never let anything bring them down no matter how poor they were, who still knew the meaning of community spirit and helped others out when they hit skid row, who had a work ethic instilled within them and who at least had respect for some people. I know this is an old fashioned view to have but I see the contrast in the 'old' and 'new' school, and boy is it a big one. The people with whom I mixed with and who were involved in my childhood instilled some good values in me and they werent like the workshy lot that inhabit this estate. Of course, I dont want to tar every council estate inhabitant with the same generalising brush, but Im just saying what I see a lot of nowadays compared to what I used to see. And what happened at the end of the evening with my stereo-typically rough-as-ten-bears aunty? She made me tea and then gave me a huge hug and kiss when I left to go home, asking me to make sure I went round again. As she did so, I actually felt my connection with the class of people into which I was born and bred being revitalised. Of course though, the regional and class pride which I felt soon dissipated upon return to the estate. Out of all the things at that particular moment which could have shattered the illusion that there was still some nobility left in being at the bottom of the pile, that there was still something honourable and respectable about poverty, and the wonderful humility of it all that I had been witness to for many years, what of all things do you think greeted me upon my return to the estate? Naughty, horrible, excluded-from-school-7-times type kids throwing lit fireworks, their mothers standing smoking duty-free ciggies outside of the social club on the estate, drinking halves of lager and canting, obliviously disinterested in what mischief their hideous offspring making, that's what. Current Mood: contemplative Current Music: Floetry 'Say Yes' (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 2nd, 2003
10:18 pm	Impressionistic Snapshot # 1 : L'amour Why are people so disillusioned with love and intimacy? You know who you are you people. There are people on the radio recording messages that are being transmitted across the waves...'I love you' 'I miss you'. Its so sweet. You know, I didnt understand it before. I never could differentiate being fucked from love-making, missing someone because you crave their company rather than because you couldn't bear to be alone, holding someone in your arms because you want to feel them near to you rather because you are frightened. Tenderness, stolen moments and breathless kisses are essential nurturance for your sense of self-worth, and after having a bite of a very sweet cherry, I dont know how anyone, knowing what they are without, could continue to exist in the chasm of loneliness and longing that is being without a significant other. There is nothing to beat the euphoria of that first kiss after a week of being apart, the long telephone conversations talking about everything and nothing, the cheeky text messages. This may sound like I'm a dependant, love sick, obsessive. That I am not content enough with my own company, that I am somehow an incomplete woman desperately searching for someone to complete the unfinished jigsaw puzzle that is myself. It isnt that. The right person compliments you, and the exquisite feelings that bolster self-esteem like nothing else, is not something to be sniffed at. Of course, Im talking from the point of view of someone with diminished self-esteem here. For years I have wanted to like myself. To feel worthy of another's affections. I have longed to look in the mirror and see a woman who is deserving of a partner who wants to envelop her body in a paroxym of desperate kisses, kisses that brand her skin with the hallmarks of genuine, uncontrollable desire. That give her affirmation of her status as a desirable and loveable person. This seemed unattainable for a long time. How could anyone want a wretch like me, I thought. How could anyone want to take this scrawny body up in their arms and make it feel safe against the brutality and terror of the human mind? I was losing faith. I thought I knew what love was in the past. But it was a fallacy. I though love was about sticking by a brute who would beat me until my skin was bruised, and attack my person with a tongue poisoned by hatred and scorn. I gave and gave in vain, believing that someday he would give back to me. Love was about the endurance of suffering, lying in bed at night in tears, not being able to understand what I had done wrong. It was being overpowered by a boy whose breath stunk of foul liquor. It was about being passive, irrelevant, faceless and subservient. In my life, there has been a lot of suffering in the name of love, or what my fucked up perception of it might have been at the time. Love was seeing my parents stagnating in the domestic hell that was their marriage. It was about 'putting up with it' and keeping quiet whenever you wasn't happy. It has been about being punched and kicked and thrown about like a rag-doll. It has been bruises and bleeding and shouting and screaming. In the name of 'love' I have put up with things for years that usually I wouldnt have stood for a second. But this is the thing. That wasnt love. It was hating myself and not having the confidence or the assertiveness to get out of self-destructive relationships. It was being sick and vulnerable and simply not having the strength to run away. It was being so consumed by apathy and being at rock bottom that I struggling to get back on the ladder. I didnt believe that I was worth anything more than a slap in the face or a personal insult. It was believing that I wasnt even worthy of a kind word in favour of myself. It was not having met the person who would change my perception of myself. Nowadays, I wake in the morning next to my lover and as he opens his eyes and mutters 'Morning, you...', a smile broadening across his mouth, a warmth passes through me that melts even my stony heart! I creep naked across his room and open the curtains, eager and pleased to meet a brand-new day, optimism becomes a word that is no longer foreign. The sun seems to rise like a spark, instilling effervescence within me. The silence is golden and I become aware that the noises of my over-active and cynical mind are lessened in this halcyon moment. I pitter patter back to the bed where I have slept without demons, unkempt and ready for heavy lidded morning love making, climb back in and I relax in my own skin, liberated and free from the shackles of bad experience. The summer just gone, we drank Evian and tea on his bench and made friends with the sun. I was in awe of the view and in awe of him. Im trying to paint a picture with these words, it might be too saccharine for some, but these feelings are new and wonderful and Im rolling in them like a pig in shit. This boy deserves more than some pseudo-intellectual nerd trying, not very successfully, to eulogise about him. I dont even know if I love him. But something has happened inside of me that has washed away 10 years of dirt and crap. You can be at the point of losing faith in human nature. You can be ready to give up on ever finding a human being who will kiss the sleep from your eyes in the morning and hold you close like they don't want you to leave, but you must hold on. Everyone deserves the bittersweet agony of missing someone and counting done the hours till a next meeting. Every despairing and disillusioned soul, every person who looks in the mirror and sees something that they dont think anyone would ever want to touch with willing hands, should try to take a step outside of themselves and re-evaluate their own worth. Solitude is nice, but it's even nicer knowing that it will be interjected by a weekend rendevous, or mid-week date with a person whom you feel completely connected to and comfortable with. Solitude is nice when it is not connotated with loneliness. This is all bollocks I know. Im just writing what comes in my head right now. Of course, this is a personal account and maybe some people wont agree with me at all. :) This journal entry is written with someone in mind. Two people in mind, actually. The first person is someone whom I encourage to love himself so that he can love another, one who is possession of both a brilliant mind and a huge heart that is desperate to sing twee pop songs about holding hands and the innocence of courting, whilst being able to truly understand the words that come with his melodies. He is a diamond in a mountain of rocks, a rare gem that needs to be treated as precious, and nothing less. The second person is the man who gave me back to myself. He is in possession of a virtue called honesty, a virtue which I was starting to believe men didnt have. He has eyes that see the world in terms of a pretty coloured rainbow which he needs to chase in order to find the pot of gold at the end, and ears that listen to me mindfully and selflessly, as if nothing else in the world matters at the time of me baring my soul to him. He has a mouth that utters the kindest of words, and offers advice that serves me well. He considers me and that is good enough. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 31st, 2003
5:09 am	Insomnia Its 5.09am and I cant fucking sleep. Damn these nightmares and damn my mind. Just spend the past hour watching HardTalk on BBC News 24 with one of the likely sucessors to John Paul II. A guy who thinks that contraception wouldn't ease poverty and that there is no such thing as child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The mind boggles. Keep having nightmares about being followed and stalked. In these dreams my mobile fone is bugged and I keep getting offensive text messages which are rhymes about how 'they' are going to put dagger's in my belly. They are scary and make the temptation to go back on mirtazapine very hard to resist. You never dream on tranqs, they sedate your brain so heavily. I hate nightmares, they fuck me up. I wake in paranoia, part of me questioning the reality of my lucidity when I wake from this mind terror. I wanted to get out of bed to switch the TV on, as the silence was just fuelling this irrational paranoia, but it was one of those dreams that paralyzes you with fear. You wake with the covers around your neck and try hard to not even breathe. You dont want to move incase the sound of the sheets being crumpled underneath your body disturbs someone/something that might be lurking in the darkness of your room. It's like someone is there. If you think hard enough, they are behind you. You have to check that they aren't. I wanted to put the TV on so there was some noise in the background. So it didnt feel like I was alone. The buzz of the television is like an adult pacifier, a comfort aid that helps you back into sleep. It's times like this when living alone isnt so fun. How nice it would be to have had someone asleep next to me, whom I could have rolled over to and held, assuading my fears, lulling me back into security. For a hazy few seconds after I awoke, I wondered whether the people who are 'after' me might have infiltrated my television, and for a moment before I flicked the switch to the 'on' position, I hesitated, expecting some death threat to be emblazoned upon the screen. I was frightened to death for 10 mins, unable to do much, worried that the flat was bugged or rigged, even that my mind was being purposely twisted by the perpetraitor of this nightmare induced paranoia. As I write this the fear comes back a little. The whirring of the hard drive and the chunterings of my little boy in his sleep chill me. Even the sound of my stiff fingers hitting the keys in my conscious, lucid and generally more rational state seems to be assaulting my eardrums. The glare of this screen, the Hardtalk programme with the anachronistic brachiosaur that was the Catholic Cardinal of some diocese in Honduras, the chocolate and crisps that I have just wolfed down like my last fucking meal and the calming cigarette that I sucked long and hard on in a effort to calm my nerves have all combined and served me as a lullaby would a baby. Good morning... (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 28th, 2003
11:43 pm	Something else... Germaine has done it again. She is becoming scathing of us women. I have picked out a few gems for your reading pleasure. From brand new book entitled 'The Boy':- '[Women] are programmed for failure in their duty of attraction...' Other dotty ideas include a sort of Freud in reverse idea about men sending their sons off to war to be killed because they fear that their son will replace him as the focus of female attention, risking a defence of sex tourism and contesting the legal outlawry of what she calls 'boy sex'. She wants to know why our society criminalised 'intimacy between individuals of disparate ages'. The craziness contines. She changes her views as often as her clothes. I'm confused. She's a cranky old boot. (Comment on this)
11:29 pm	All Art Is Useless I wanna go to the Tate Modern and check out Jake and Dinos Chapmans entry for the Turner prize. Yes, kids...Its shocking. The traditionalists are up in arms. The bronze work is entitled 'Death' and depicts a naked couple engaged in oral sex whilst incorporating a vibrator. Whilst families are flooding through the doors, hoping that their brattish offsprings will absorb some culture whilst viewing traditional fare such as Turner himself or something Pre-Raphelite, there will be a big warning, telling them to take the kiddies to McDonalds ( or something) so as to avert their innocent eyes from the pornographic spread that has made the Turner shortlist. Ironically enough, the next of their work to be unveiled is entitled 'Sex' and is an extension of an earlier, and already grotesque piece of art. Fake blood, victims bound to a tree, their body parts decomposed and rotten down to the skeleton, whilst maggots and flies and rats feast on their flesh. Curiously enough, childrens toys are visible. They are going for the shock horror jugular, according to some chap in The Observer. But my question is, what does it mean? Quote to take into account...'If this is the best British artists can produce, then British art is lost. It is cold, mechanical, conceptual bullshit.' Kim Howells (former Culture Minister) Auf Wiedersehen. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
4:17 pm	Umming and Aahing Im still undecided as to whether I'm in love or not. I'm going to err on the side of caution and decide that I'm not. I'm just infatuated. Bloody hell, this is sounding like that fucking 10cc song. Some pathetic, dejected soul, trying to deny their feelings. Oh well, I had a jolly nice time last night at his house. Starter was 2 glasses of Dom Perignon, then I ate some lettuce that, although was swimming in a lovely home-made dressing, was a 'winter lettuce' apparently, hence why it tasted so bitter. The home-made shepherd's pie was nice though. Washed that down with a couple of glasses of claret, and headed off home. It was nice evening. I shall endeavour to enjoy myself less when I'm with him, I think. Damn him and his Dom Perignon in lead crystal champagne flutes. Damn his interesting family and his magnetic personality. Why the FUCK did I even have to meet this person. Shit like this aint supposed to happen to girls like me. I shouldn't be drinking 300 quid bottles of champagne. I should be at home getting anaethatised by white cider and being like Waynetta Slob. (Comment on this)