1) I have a scholarship interview at Kent!!

2) Today I went running.  I woke up really late and decided the only way to balance out the negative vibe was to run.  And it was sunny.  So I dragged my feet along to Hackney Marshes, picked up the pace along the canals, got a bit lost, turned back, did a little turn in Vicky park and came home to my Gran's.  Sometimes the shower after the run is the best part; washing all the thoughts off and starting the day again.  Haven't eaten, though- not in a diety way or a feeling-sad way.  I'm just not all that hungry lately.

The run wasn't too hard. 12/13 K (8 miles?)  People were out and about looking smiley in the sun.  Cyclists and runners can be a bit of a vampire-and-werewolves situation but today even they were fairly considerate.  My fear of dogs was less of a hinderance than usual, although I did cut out bits because I was scared of having my neck gnawed viciously into.  Yes, it's irrational... but a lot of people are scared of spiders, aren't they?

I thought about Her along Orient Way.  And realised part of it is that at least half the relationship was more unhappy than happy.  So now that I'm not burning up with love and heartbreak, there's a dim sense of failure that only sharpens when we talk about our very separate lives.  Which is why we don't speak often and why we shouldn't speak often.  I cling to the remnants of the pain because they prove I am capable of long-term feelings (even if they are regret, pain and longing.)  But...  I' m stopping it now.  Like the cutting, like the starving, like the endless check-ups on her Facebook page.I want her to be happy but I want to be happy as well.

In Vicky Park I thought about JW's theory that all the cool people should live in one place and decided that this is the case.  But also, that having good friends is a good think wherever they are.  Mousekiller and September are getting married soon; I want to be there.  Weird how the relationships people formed in Amsteram all that time ago are mostly still going, after all that time  Maybe I should have found myself a girl there (maybe my attempts are a whole other story)

And on the way home my thoughts came full circle and I wondered what it will take to be very happy.  Concluded that I am mostly doing the right things and the right things don't hurt so much anymore.  Though already I was burning for a drink.  And I thought about this constant question of what to "do with my life" and came up short but luckily I had hit the turning into my Gran's street and I was saved from answering until next time.

God I love London.

Please excuse any horrendous typos- this is potentially the slowest cmputer I have encountered since my brief usuccessful foray into the hi-tech world of laptops.

Oh! And I am going to have a baby when I am 27.  Even if I have to buy some spunk and pop it out myself.  I have decided.

I think "glum" is the best description of me today.  Kind of an old-fashioned word, not too dramatic, not too much of a play-down either.  Glum.

One day a kilo won't throw me into a panic.
One day not every song will have a line about her.
One day I won't read texts like they were poems, and meant more than they said.
One day misplacing an I-pod won't make me unreasonable and furious.
One day I won't be stupid enough to mess about with meds for a few days.

And I won't cry at Britain's Got Talent.
And I won't get so angry.
And I will have something interesting to say.

I wiped an entire music collection, more or less, so that I wouldn't get those stupid little jolts of memory.  But it was fairly futile.  Even Jeff Buckley messes me up now and she doesn't even like him. "Maybe I'm too young... to keep good love from going wrong..."  Exceptexceptexcept I am not that young any more.  It was hard to even watch The Apprentice the other day and see Edinburgh (right next to our bloody flat!)  I will never go there again, even if that is cutting off my face to spite my heart.  What the hell is this?  Why can't I just get rid of it? If all feelings had a physical reality too them, I could sick it out.

We texted today- I wanted to let her know about the baby because, well.  And I don't want to know more detail about her life than is necessary.  I don't want to feel concern or anything at all.  So I tell her little about mine.  Probably also because I am ashamed of being a bit of a nothing.

My sis is back for a month, so I am going to be staying at my Gran's a lot.  Maybe limited internet access will be good for me, who knows.


Happy thoughts: we are seeing the baby tomorrow evening.  Names are being picked and I am so excited.  One thing I do know: It will begin with K.

My cousin is a tiny, perfect human.
She hasn't a name yet, because Hindu naming is based on various things that need to be worked out and she is going to have a Hindu name.
I love her.

"Soon I'll grow up and I won't even flinch at your name."
-Alanis Morrissette, Flinch

Owl

I met with H and S at The Oxford in Kentish Town before the Ambit magazine launch.  We caught up over pints and then headed over to the bookshop.  Once we had sat down I remembered it was where one of my favourite teachers launched her first novel.  There were poets reading, both of them were good.  The first was a neat greyish-white-haired man who had a Welsh accent (although, I always think people are Welsh and it is quite possible that I am wrong).  He had one poem about political non-shoe wearing in Ethopia that made me laugh.  And think.  http://www.chrisbeckettpoems.com/chrisbeckett/page2505 

The second was a woman with a lullaby voice.  There were some lines from one of her poems that I wanted to remember better but I can't.  *Brainwave*- oh how I love Google:

Were you a bird I’d eat the skin, bone, feathers of you.
 
Though I would save one bone, one feather,
not as a keepsake for that would be within me,
– having gorged your strength, your gentleness –
but to make a mark on clay or cuneiform, papyrus
or paper, use your bone to press keys, your iridescent
feather for a quill to form letters in the old way. 
- Ruth O'Callaghan, While Waiting For Bad News

Afterwards, we received a glass of complimentary red wine and bought books.  I am trying to save the local libraries by quelling my book-buying compulsion but The Owl is an independent and truly lovely bookshop, so it wasn't so much a purchase as a moral action.  H, S and I went to Pizza Express and continued chatting over dinner and more wine.  It was so nice to catch up.  We also devised a theory of broke-ness, whereby if you don't smoke or drive, you can consider yourself better off than your alternative self who does both.  It makes you feel full-pocketed when you think about it like that.  S is moving with T (her boyfriend) to Willesden in two weeks, so she will be closer-by.  It's nice- I always love London more when there is somebody to convince.  I have promised the sights of Epping Forest, the Hornbeam and Walthamstow Village.

It's odd; sometimes I have a strange perspective shift and I look at myself and other people as if I didn't know any of us.  I am the small, dark one with the common name (H and S both have unusual ones).  I am the unemployed one with the half-realistic ambitions.  H and S have long-term partners and "proper" jobs and realistic goals and very nice skin. So when the perspective shifts I feel as if I've been walking backwards since we all met.  For a few moments I feel disorientated... not jealous and not even sad, I don't think.  Just a bit bemused, like when you miss the Tube but your friend gets on and you blink in shock as they pull away... you know you'll probably meet them on the platform at the next station but it's still a weird feeling.

Keep building skywards.

I cannot wait to meet my tiny cousin.  It feels odd now, calling her "she" instead of "he-or-she."  Before she was born we all called her Bambino, so now I guess it's Bambina, until she has a name.  I'm so excited.  I can feel the bit of me her tiny head will rest on :-)  I already love her very much. 

My cousin C was on c5 news yesterday talking about contraception.  Proud of the family all round at the moment.

Mum, Dad and Bee (little sis) are back today.  It's been kind of nice just me and Bro in the house but it will be so lovely to have them back, too.  I can't wait to hear Bee's tales about Spain.

This week (starting today) I must:

• Meet my cousin.
• Stop listening to KH "Dear" so obsessively.  Seriously.
• Go to the Hornbeam and work tomorrow, not forgetting to bring: M's jacket; some writing on our project, as promised; some vague idea of the date so I don't commit to shifts I can't actually do.

"Please forget me, you were right dear,
I am cold and self-involved,
And though I'll miss you, recent lover
I am weak and therefore fold

Get distracted by my music,
think of nothing else but art
I'll write my loneliness in poems,
If I can just think how to start

Dot my i's with eyebrow pencils,
Close my eyelids, hide my eyes,
I'll be idle in my ideals,
think of nothing else but I."

- Keaton Henson, Small Hands

Baby cousin born yesterday.  A little girl, 6lb 9oz.

carpentry

In the morning I went for a run in the rain.  I didn't feel like it but I forced it.  Keaton Henson again.  It rained quite hard and it didn't start to feel fun, so I made do with satisfaction in burning thighs.  When I first started running it was another weight-loss campaign.  Now I do it so I don't have to bully myself so badly when I put anything to my lips.  Just a little bit.

Afterwards I came home, bathed, had wine and rocket leaves and went to M's to begin the project.  When I got there I was drenched from hailstones that had hit me in the eyes and puddles up to my ankles.  I borrowed some clothes, holding the trousers up with a shoelace.  The actual carving was really good. M showed me a piece he had done.  It was made from a wooden table but it didn't look like one.  It looked like a wooden bed-head with holes and figures carved into it.  It was in night time shades, purplish red and bluish purple.  He pointed out a dragon on top and, whether they were meant to be there or not, my eyes picked out sprites and stars and other ragged myths.  It had wings on hinges.  It was weird and beautiful and reminded me of a fairlytale- original version, darkness included. It was like something I'd picture Briar Rose under: punctured with bad dreams but hinged with protective wings. I went a bit quiet because something about it caught in my throat and "cool" wasn't quite enough.

M told me that the mahogany I was going to use had come from Honduras in 1945.  I looked up Honduran myths and found one about the cadejo, a dog that appears in both white and black.  The white comes to protect travellers, while the black comes to kill them.  In some traditions, the colours are reversed.  They have varying forms of power.  In its strongest incarnation, the evil cadejo is likened to the devil.  So, I sketched and began to carve out two heads on one neck, the good and the bad face pointing in different directions.  On one, I cut a diamond shape, later to be filled red like blood.  M showed me to use a chisel and I began chiselling away the background so that the dual head will eventually stand in the foreground.  I also used a drill!  I had been pretty nervous about that side of things, as I'm stupid-clumsy, but it was fine.  I drank cider and beer while I worked.  Absolute radio blasted.  I should have eaten, probably, but beer sat better.  Always.

I can't be bothered with mood stabilisers any more.  Why not go for gold, stick with the a-ds and hope for sunshine?

Wisdom From The "Employability" Course

Q: A dog is tied to a tree.  100m away there is a pond.  The dog is thirsty but the rope he is tied with is only 50m long.  He cannot reach the water.  What does the dog do?

A: Nothing.  The dog dies.

It has been about 6 weeks since I had to do that course and I still cannot fathom what kind of a lesson that was meant to be.  Still it's more intriguing than the other things we learned.  Did you know, for example, that it is very important to put your name on your CV?

And according to their assessment I was deemed as "needing further assessment to help understand what skills for life are required."  Uh-huh.

My little sister is hilarious.  I was inspired to write this after tripping over a love-worn copy of Harry Potter 5, one of three books on the small bathroom floor.  In the morning, she sometimes holds everyone up by reading on the stairs, blocking the way to the front door.  Or getting engrossed in a book in the bathroom and forgetting where she is.  Or (my favourite) trying to do up her shirt buttons and tie while holding a book open to the right page with her small, skilled toes.

half-done.

We smash our words to keep the silence.
They fill our mouths- sharp edges violent,
turning sighs into hazards and kisses to myth. I miss
hearing anything but the glassy crunch
of the things you won’t say on your fillings,
of the thoughts drumming beats in your eyes.
I’ve tried shaping my own lips round “Listen“ and “Love”
but my traitor-tongue twists ’til I’m spitting out blood.

Carving by Imtiaz Dharker

I keep seeing this on the Tube.  I love it too much.

Others can carve out 

their space

in tombs and pyramids.

Our time cannot be trapped

in cages.

Nor hope, nor laughter.

We let the moment rise

like birds and planes and angels

to the sky.

Eternity is this.

Your breath on the window pane,

living walls with shining eyes.

The surprise of spires,

uncompromising verticals. Knowing

we have been spared

to lift our faces up

for one more day,

into one more sunrise.

Theft, Oil Paints, Pubs

On Friday, I narrowly avoided having my phone stolen.  Entering the gym changing rooms, I caught a woman mid-act, standing by my jacket.  I checked my pockets.  She said, "What are you looking for?" and I said "my phone."  She flashed a phone -mine- at me and said, "well this one is mine."  I went out and breathed a moment to make sure it wasn't just paranoia.  Then I went back in and it was there on the bench beside her.  I grabbed it, said that is my phone.  She said "I'm glad you found it."  Basically, that sums up Friday.

Until, several missed buses and a missed train later, I sat on Platform 8 at Stratford in the interesting weather and felt awash with peace.  I realised, it doesn't matter that much.  It's all just for fun.  So I had a really good night with A and K, the last for a while as A goes back to Durham tomorrow (today, now.)  We were quite civilised.  We ate at Cosmo before giving ourselves over to the joys of wine and A and I left early after promising ourselves we wouldn't get caught up and hammered like last time.  On the train home I felt a tiny bit blue and began to wonder why on earth NC is avoiding me.  What with being me and being tipsy, I inadvisably called her but (un)fortunately, she did not answer the phone.  The 4-month mystery stays unsolved.

Today at "work" happiness made me clumsy.  I volunteer at a small vegan cafe, Walthamstow's finest and only, with a very interesting collection of people.  M offered to pay me £10 an hour to help with an artistic project that involves chisels, hammers, wood and good oil paints.  He also said I can take as many vegetables as I like if I help.  He is quite intense.  Once I let him read a story I had written and it made him cry.  Sometimes I feel awkward because the third time we met he was drunk and I was getting there and he declared that he was in love with me.  An awkward situation.  It isn't right to lead somebody on- but I do really like wood and hammers and paint-spatter.  He smiles a lot and sometimes looks as though he sees a picture I don't. 

I was working with Kt.  I like working with her.  She has funny stories about her flatmates, which must sometimes be less than funny to live through. I don't know that being woken at 4 a.m. to the sound of someone pretending to do a strenuous poo, or talking to himself loudly.  But it's all in the telling and she tells it so well.

After work I went over to SM's house.  We watched The Voice and BGT and then the new Wuthering Heights with Kaya Scodelario.  (I had to buy it, as a Blockbuster Leyton- which utterly, utterly reeks of sewage- did not have a copy.  So much for embracing optimism!)  It was interesting.  A few too many shots of desolate moors, even considering that that is the setting.  And some very uncomfortable moments.  It was a fun, relaxing night.  Really needed it.  And SM, being a trainee physio, had a look at my weird shoulder- result!  Last 86 and 257 and short walk home.

Spurs lost again.

I am currently reading 3 books.  Half-poems get half-written.  I'm a bit wired in the moments between epiphanies on train platforms.  And in the moments between epiphanies and scrawled poems, I feel very quiet and I want to drink very much, or sit very still.

"There's no...modern romance"

When you first open a bottle of (good) whiskey, it smells like the taste of that stuff dentists put in your mouth with their gloves.  This is not what I intended to write about.

This is:

Everyone tells you that it's not going to be easy, that it isn't just love you will have to think about.  The daily rub of bills and dishes and rows will all play their part.  They will all take their toll.  It won't always be hearts and flowers.  It isn't all about feelings.  Anybody who pleads ignorance on that score is a liar.  Everybody tells you that.

What they don't tell you (or didn't tell me) is that the love itself isn't easily sustained.  The actual feeling.  It doesn't just thrum away quietly beneath your struggles.  You can't expect it to still be there when you find it underneath the real life stuff.  Actually it's a bit like an Oyster card.  Until you leave the city and trade it in, it will always have a basic worth but it needs constant input to keep it working.  When you don't have anything to sustain it, you can leave it there, doing nothing, waiting.  But for all intents and purposes it is empty in that state.  One day, you will pick it up.  For a while, you imagine you are holding the key to a whole city in your palm.  Then you find you can't open a single gate.

That's a dismal comparison, and I know it.

Sometimes I wish I had a girlfriend.  It's been nearly 8 months since N and I split up.  I came back here feeling collapsed and worn out.  Loud noises made me flinch and quiet ones made me bristle.  I needed time to get past that.  Then there was the up-crash and all the inadvisable stunts that that entailed.  This is me.  There have been temporary others.  Of course there have.

I think I am mainly doing okay now.  Blips and false starts are standard- ask anyone who has been through it.  I have levelled out a lot and the meds help better now that I eat.  Sometimes, though, when I look at things I feel a bit lost.  I am 25 and I live with my parents.  I don't have a job, or a clue what kind of job I might be good at.  I have a place on an MA.  I volunteer.  I run.  But last year I took so many steps backwards I'm not really sure where I am.

I have stopped crying at reminders of N.  Food doesn't make me sick and laughter doesn't make me jump.  The guilt is fading, the hurt is quieter, the anger has subsided and the sadness isn't constant.  I'm okay.  We don't speak much these days and it's better this way.

So... sometimes I wish I had a girlfriend.  But despite the betterness, I don't know if I'm capable.  I was going to write ready.  But that's not what I mean.  I am unfaithful, unreliable, intense or disconnected, clingy or non-commital. A little vain: maybe all I want is for someone to size me up and say I'll do.  And maybe lazy: too lazy to do the work to top up the card to open the gates and have the world in my hands or whatever.  Poor metaphor.  And of course, my attitude to booze is not really conducive to an adult romance.  So, even though I sometimes wish for permanence, I feel safer in a life of temporary fixes.

The Pieces i'm Building

Some poems I wrote last year.  I will try later, tomorrow, to write something newer.  I have been using a missing fountain pen as a reason for my writer's block... truth is, though, I only lost the pen last week :)

18/4

Today on the ground, I found a heart: a huge, bruised petal in the shadow of a discarded crisp packet.  It was an artist's heart, pale pink and shapely.  Not a biologist's mangled potato.  It looked delicate.  An afternoon of rain and footsteps would have pressed it closer to the pavement, making it look like a chalk sketch.  It would colour all over; the blanket bruising would make it seem as though it hadn't bruised at all.

Hearts are so good at perception-tricks.

I took a photo of it.  It came out wrong, yellowish in tone, the heart looking host-thin and ghost-pale.  I was getting some strange looks, so I didn't try again.  I kept it, though.