How self indulgent

Hey you guys. I’ve been meaning to blog for ages, and I tell you what, my typing speed has really slowed! Anyway, I think the last blog was 10th June – was it? No, 10th July. OK so here is a run down of what has happened since then:

OK, Mel started working at The Northern on the 18th, and now works alongside me there. We went to Leeds to celebrate Nick’s birthday and had tapas which was alright. Luckily this time I didn’t offend anyone (that I know of!) so it was definitely more successful than the last trip there. I always feel a bit… I don’t know. Hard to explain really. I want Jonny’s friends to really like me, but I don’t think there’s anything I could do to bring that about. They’ve all known each other for so long, it’s sort of like starting school way after everyone else has made firm friendship circles. Doesn’t mean you aren’t accepted or included… it’s just not the same is it. I don’t know. I enjoy spending time with them, seeing them all happy together, that’s enough. There’s always some drama between the couples too.

Isn’t it strange how when you first meet someone or you don’t know them that well, you’re far more prepared to suffer them – put up with shit that you’d never let your boyfriend, siblings or best mate get away with? I bet some people would say that they treat everyone the same, but actually that’s bollocks. For example, Jonny behaves really childishly sometimes, and I’m always very quick to give him grief about it. But if someone was introduced to me and did baby voices and jumped around like a five year old I *probably* wouldn’t say anything.

It was LOADS of people’s birthdays – Geek’s, Ryan’s, Wendy’s and Emma M’s. I mostly bailed and was crap – due to working and also not having any money. It’s not really like me – I like to make a big deal out of birthdays – but it just hasn’t been much cop lately. We went to Alton Towers for Ryan’s birthday, which is becoming something of a tradition now.

Phil did his driving test on the 12th of August, and passed. It wasn’t without a LARGE portion of Watson drama, OF COURSE, things never run smoothly. Luckily it’s all been sorted now… getting a little sick of it myself to be honest.

WENT ON HOLIDAY on the 13th of August, unlucky 13. Holiday got off to a very bad start, to the point where I seriously felt like turning around, coming back home, and never speaking to anyone ever again. On top of that, I’m not very beautiful when I’m upset. My already fat round face goes all puffy and blotchy, red and white, like some terrible disease. People looking on (and there were lots of them) must have thought someone had died. Jonny was reasonably supportive to begin with and then he got pissed off and we fell out (a theme of the holiday). In the end, stuff was sorted out and we had some serious fun. I do love going on holiday. I’d travel all around if I could – when I have lots of disposable income that’s what I’ll do.

So, you can view the photos on facebook for a fairly detailed illustration of what went on. Highlights included eating fish, Tivoli World, and poolside games, seeing little Indi and pastries from Opencor.

So I got back, worked that weekend, and basically went back into the routine of the past few months. I’ve been working at the Northern now for 3 months, it’s still all good there. Love everyone there in their own way, which is ace. I’ve got a terrible cold at the moment which is pretty disgusting.

I feel like I need to say something about the date today – of course it’s the anniversary of the destruction of the world trade center by terrorists. I watched that programme about it a few days ago, 102 minutes that changed america. Well really it changed the world, let’s not fuck around here. The way I see it, atrocities have been going on since, well, forever. People in positions of power have abused them, done unspeakable, horrific things – all throughout history. But distant history doesn’t affect us, yeah it’s terrible but y’know. What happened happened.

But this is really some other kind of shit. If someone shoots someone in a far away country somewhere, it’s sad. If someone shoots someone in the same country as you, it’s deplorable. But for all of America, and ‘The West’, this felt like someone shooting our cousin in our own backyard. It got personal, you know? I think that’s why it pissed everyone off so much.

It was shockingly awful… watching people panicking, bodies flying out of the buildings. Upset me really. It’s right that we should remember it. It was really incredible. Sometimes I have idle thoughts, like, what would happen if….? If there was a massive earthquake or something. It’s like that… but, it actually happened.

I think about things too much sometimes… death, life, people. I’d bore you with the details. I get overemotional about little things. I can’t abide cruelty or thoughtlessness, that’s why I try to be mindful of what I say and do.

Over the past few weeks the question of THE FUTURE has been cropping up. And by this of course we mean The Plan, the 1 year, 5 year, 10 year and would you believe it even The Rest Of Your Life plan. The question being: what am I going to do? Where am I going to live? Who am I going to be with?

In December I’ll be 25. And right now, what do I have? I have nothing. I’m not settled, I’m not unsettled. Sort of still in student limbo a bit.

In the short term I’m going to graduate, and probably look for a Real Job, ie career. I’ve been thinking about going back to Sheffield… but I’m really unsure.

Right now I can’t really even discuss it here because it might affect how things turn out. I need to talk to Jonny, see how I can manage my time, and assess what outcomes I would like.

So since I’ve nothing more constructive to say, I will leave it at that. I’m fairly content generally… and to put it in perspective, I’m not making a final phonecall or jumping out of the 100th floor of a burning building, am I?

ᵔᴥᵔ

Mes rêves…(amha)

When I say I’ve got loads more to blog about, what I usually mean is that I have had lots of thoughts that I wanted to share. Mostly dreams, which I don’t think I will ever cease to find totally fascinating – I dream so vividly and some dreams leave such a lasting impression on me. Jonny says he can never remember his dreams, but I know that he does dream, because he twitches about and murmurs in his sleep, especially in REM just before he wakes up.

I remember my dreams as I wake up, and usually want to tell them to someone/write them down straightaway. Unfortunately Jonny is rarely interested, friends like my best friend Sammy are the best to sleep near because she at least pretends to be interested. Sometimes I wake up early, like at 6am or something, having had a really good dream, wanting to remember it for later, and when I finally get up I can never remember it. Sometimes I can wake up, and then fall back to sleep and ‘re-enter’ the same dream.

I have loads of theories about stuff to do with dreams; some from reading on the subject and other people’s opinions that I agree with. I think that in your everyday conscious life, you collect images, sounds and smells, and even experiences, and your brain uses this as a language so that when you sleep you can express things. They reckon that you can actually remember everything that has ever happened to you, but that you can only recall some stuff, most recent stuff and then very significant things that have happened to you. This is because when you associate a memory with an emotion it becomes really strong and more important to you – I suppose this is because you can then seek out good stuff again (love/happiness/exhiliration), and avoid the bad stuff (anger/conflict/sadness). It’s also long-forgotten memories that prompt feelings of deja vu too. When you get in your car for the zillionth time, or see a face that you encounter every day, you don’t get a sense of deja vu then – because you expect things to be the same as you remember them. It’s when it’s a series of events occur that are very similar to a series of events that have occured in the past that you get that uncanny feeling that you’ve been here before. I think this is because we lose the ability to distinguish between extremely similar things; places, faces, even turns of phrase, when we are very young. So when you meet someone new and you feel like you’ve already met them, in that place and saying those things, it’s because you have probably been in a very similar situation long ago that you forgot about but is still imprinted there somewhere. And you make instant connections with this new experience and the almost identical old memory. That explains the feeling, I think. It’s not hard to imagine, we see so many things and go through so many things every day – and so much goes in subconsciously. Sometimes I try to take things in consciously: to note the colour of things or patterns or how things feel, things I see every day. You have to keep refreshing it or it loses vividity. A recurring complaint that I’ve noticed of people who have lost a close friend or relative is that the face of the person lost begins to fade in their memory, which I bet is distressing.

I think it’s these memories, their associations and then recent experiences that shape our dreams. I also agree with the concept of that repressing things can make them come out in your dreams, too. I think it’s because we need to feel certain things, go through them, learn from them, emotionally. This is why you will dream of disgusting or replusive stuff, immoral stuff, and downright STRANGE stuff. It’s like your mind saying ‘what do you think of this..?’ and ‘how would you react to this…?’. I often dream of my dad’s death, and it’s completely disturbing, I hate it. But I understand it to mean that 1) it’s on my mind, 2) I can’t/won’t/don’t need to deal with it in my waking life, and 3) I am ‘training’ and ‘testing’ my emotional responses to it in my safe place.

I also often dream of flying, or it features in my dreams as part of something bigger anyway. I have to swim through the air, and concentrate really hard. I use it to escape from situations, mostly. I can fly so high, right above the clouds and very fast sometimes. Other times I find I am trying to fly and can’t, or can’t get very far.

One of my most recent dreams was about me being in the 50s, and WW2 was on (I know it ended in 1945, shh), and I was in this unique position to change things, because I was from the present and I sort of knew what would happen. However, no matter what I did, who I killed, what events I changed, all they did was spur on a new set of events which led to the same eventual outcome. In other words, I couldn’t stop the war, or people from dying, no matter how much I tried or whatever I did. In the end, the dream concluded with the realisation that no matter what I do, things will end up the same anyway. And I can have a good guess at the ‘mental material’ used for this dream. Well I’ve been looking at vintage clothing with Mel, I read a book called ‘The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets’ by Eva Rice, I went to the Imperial War Museum. I also read ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ by John Boyle; then watched it with Jonny when I found the DVD in ASDA.

I’m not sure I completely agree with fatalist ideas. I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve finished thinking about it. Same with time travel, as marvellous as it sounds. I’m generally open-minded. I think I would be more inclined to believe in fantastical things if something fantastical had ever happened to me before, but nothing miraculous has ever happened to me. I live in hope.

So…. that’s what I think anyway.

Back to the land of the living, so to speak, it’s 41 days til holiday and I currently have £0 in the holiday fund. I am working from 9 til 5am tonight. I’ve still got to tidy up the flat as my things are still everywhere and it all needs sorting out, but I really can’t be bothered. I went to see Transformers 2 with Jonny, Mel, Harry, Rochelle and Jordan on Wednesday – it was in the IMAX, which is always awesome, and I really enjoyed it, having accepted it for what it was. Plus I have a crush on Shia – he’s just one of those people who you can tell you’d like to have in your life.

what a lovely young man...

Also, was in the northern quarter yesterday with Mel and went past a ‘games’ shop, can’t remember what it was called, but I was sucked in by a poster of Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen. I wonder if I am too old to have this poster on my wall.

Edward, so troubled <3

 

I think that’s all I have time for now. Maybe time for more over the weekend.

ᵔᴥᵔ