"He always made me feel like he was going to walk away from me."
Mum

My mum said that about my dad today. But she said it as though it were a positive thing. She voiced it as a beloved quality rather than a flaw. It lured me into thinking about our priorities and our perspectives. About how the flaws we try to conceal can occasionally be the things people find most attractive. It's the relationship equivalent of one man's trash/another man's treasure. But it also triggered this minute, squirming part of my brain that's obsessed with the idea of escape. That feeling's coming up a lot in this new story I'm writing. All it is is a boy who escapes, and disconnects, and adores it. But then reconnects on a different path. Like these flowers I remember reading about, the ones you can pull up by the roots and place somewhere else and they'll just set up home there instead. Hook their selves into the Earth. Because they need the nutrients. The survival instinct.

A lot of that seems to apply to relationships in general.

Take some of my favourite things of the evening.

The photography of flashtaste



( 'There is more than one kind of freedom...Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it.' - The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. )

( It's sadly true. )



( This woman's confidence inspires me [NSFW] )

Every body is individually a piece of art work. Every scar, every bump, every curve, every line, everything. I'm so glad I have access to figures such as the photographer above that show that bodies ARE different, and that it's not the perfect cliche of a stereotypical body that's sexy - it's the confidence that is sexy. It's the alluring way in which a strong woman can hold herself.

This appears to be a topic I'm obsessed with :|

More importantly, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE read THIS. You know it's major if I use caps. If you've ever been swimming, if you ever want to go swimming, if you know someone who has, if you know someone who does, if you live by a pool, by the sea, if you give a little kid a bath, please just read it. Dry drowning is the process by which a small amount of water entering the lungs can prove to be fatal, even if normal function appears to be undertaken.

"Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed."
Wayne Dyer

Visit Finland



I need to see a concert in Helsinki. I need to sip vodka from a bar deep in the heart of Turku. I need to practice rolling my R's. I need to sauna for unhealthy hours only to throw myself into the snow, naked as the day I was born. I need to work as a porter at Ruisrock. I need to see the Aurora Borealis from Lapland. I need to smell leather in the grind of an underground nightclub. Even if it's for a weekend, I need to be there.

Camp Counseling



Being on summer camps as a kid are some of the most exquisite memories of my entire fucking life, and I'd love to be a part of making those memories for someone else.

Work In Australia



Teach English In China



As young Chinese nannies come to England to teach children in Kensington the complexities of Mandarin, young British students are going to China to teach children in Beijing the warm tones and furls of English. I like that synchrony.

Visit Utah



I want to see my missionaries. I want to experience a Utahn Mormon church service on a Sunday.
I want to climb the mountains. I want to camp in the greenery. I want to drive through the deserts for miles. I want to see the Hare Krishna temple, and the Latter-Day Saint temple, and I want to hear The Tabernacle sing.


The more I think about what I want out of my life, the more I realise there are two contrasting paths that eliminate each other, and to follow one I would have to obliterate the other. There's the insecure side of me that longs to be a doctor. The side that needs to leave an imprint while wrapped in the security of a job that defies recession; a job that will provide consistency, a beautiful big house, a flashy car, and above all that, some form of meaning. I will have achieved, and in that achievement I would be saving lives.

Then there's the other side of me. The side that can't take the workload, the stress, the pressure and the hours. Signing up to medicine is an absolute lifetime commitment. Doctors in this country work anything from a 48 hour week to a 58 hour week. There is no respite. There would be a minute window of opportunity for me to have children. And even if I did, would I be able to dedicate the necessary time to them? To be the parent I want to be? Would I have the space to do what I to do with my life? I want to stay at home for some point. I want to create the stability I have never had. I want to orchestrate my children's sleepovers and be the embarrassing mother. I want to be the floaty old lady with the long hair and the longer skirts who wears dungarees while traveling the world; smelling of cake and spice and lime water.

I want adventure. I want to love and I want to experience. Will I get that in a clinical, disciplined world of certificates and instruments? Sure, there is inevitable satisfaction, but is it satisfaction that compliments me or satisfaction that compliments the 'idea' of what I am expected to be?

I don't know what I want anymore. And my first university applications are in 8 months. In 8 months I must decide which path to follow, and which to ignore forever. Because if I choose medicine it will last me forever; and if I don't, my youth is the only chance I will have to execute it.

"The soul at its highest is found like God, but an angel gives a closer idea of Him. That is all an angel is: an idea of God."
Meister Eckhart







I have an obsession with angels as representations of concepts or ideas. As the physical embodiment of the message of God, is it not plausible that other personages or personifications exist as the epitome of ideas, concepts and emotions? Because there are some intangible things in life that are so pure, so condensed, so perfectly rounded, that they have distinctive substance; a specific flavour, like a primary colour. Impossible to fabricate from anything else, existing in its own entity - an element of specific atoms, not to be broken down, not to be constructed, but to construct.

Surely for the pure ideas, the stories that unfold with their scents and sights and sounds attached, the feelings that arrive with their own colours and powerful pulls of the gut, surely they are strong enough to become a concentrated personification?

Which raises the question, what if that is all humanity is? Every being is a personification of a personality. A perfectly rounded, evolving entity with its own self, its own scent, its own taste, its own features. Unique, beautiful, impossible to infect, because its past, present and future are mapped and any influence can not to be an influence as it's already a part of the overall picture, the dimension, by default.

What if we are all representations of pure ideologies?

I think this means I need a nap. I'm very ill today. I didn't go into school to be told whether I'm a prefect or not, and I didn't go to an Oxbridge conference I signed up for. Instead I tossed and turned and hacked and ached with an itch beneath my skin. Only then I got a phonecall.

I'm not head girl; I'm Deputy Head Girl. Second in command. I'm the first student ever to enter at Yr 12 and become a Senior Prefect. In 37 years of existence I'm the only one to break that boundary. My tutor called me 'groundbreaking'. Bit of an exaggeration :/ I'm just pushy! My duties are the Yearbook, the prom, the speaking roles and the formation of a debate society within the borough. I couldn't be more satisfied. So much so that when I put down the phone, I felt physically healthier.

I'm not going to offer 'what if's. I'm not going to wonder whether giving a little bit extra would've earned the highest position. Because in my grand fate, it wasn't meant to be. I wasn't supposed to be Head Girl. That was already mapped out, that branch already broken, that path already detailed. For a reason. Everything to happen to me will make me the person I'm supposed to be, and more than anything I'm delighted for the opportunity to learn further.

Now, I'm going to scamper off and write David Bowie/Brian Molko fic.

"So it's sort of social. Demented and sad, but social, right?"
John Bender



Best movie ever. Effortlessly. Hands down.

I had my interview today. I never want to think about it ever again. I want it erased from my mind. I've never screwed up so badly. I will never discuss it. I will never mention it. It will simply fester in a darkened corner of my conscience until I'm ready, willing and able to handle it in a satisfactory and non-volatile manner. If I do not write about it, if I do not tell anyone else about it, then the moment will exist purely between myself and four teachers. And if it exists between us five, then it shall die with us five. And if it dies with us five, it shall have never technically existed. This something with no record, no trace and no memory has technically never occurred.

Now, to find their notes and a gallon of kerosene...

"The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines."
Charles Kuralt

I'm not talking about passionate, romantic love, either. I'm talking about simple, human empathy. Placing yourself in someone's shoes and loving them with an unjudgmental understanding in abject association, tenderness and affection. Loving someone because they're human. Because they have cried the way you have cried. Because everyone deserves a moment that touches them.

Today I ran out of credit on my phone. My school is a good few miles away. I could walk it, yes. In a few hours. In my high heels. Through the ghetto. Or I could walk a mile to the nearest bus stop. All my friends were gone, so I couldn't borrow credit. I could go to reception and ask for a call, but I decided to make my life difficult, and walk. I walked half a mile, decided I didn't like it, and turned around to use that reception call after all.

Two minutes away from school, beeeeeeeeeeeep. 'JOAAAAAAAAN!'

I shat myself. For I had just seen a boy get into his car with his girlfriend. A boy I know, whom hassles me. One I'm comfortable with in a class setting surrounded by others, yet a) wouldn't want to be left alone with, and b) wouldn't want to be near in the same vicinity as his girlfriend. His girlfriend does not like me. After the day I had, the stress ingrained into the marrow of my bones, bleeding from the blisters on my feet, I did not want a torrent of abuse screamed from a speeding vehicle.

I turn around, and it's Gary.

A boy from my church. Instead of driving past with a wave, he pulls over. Instead of saying hi and moving off, he asks me where I'm going. Instead of nodding and telling me he'll see me later, he offers me a lift. Instead of dropping me at the bus stop, he drove me home. A few miles out of his way. He made his little brother sit in the back.

I could have cried.

I don't think anyone's ever done something for me that touched me so much. Up until that moment my day had been abysmal. My hope in humanity had been lost. And this one boy, this one boy who is stern and blunt and honest yet the only true gentleman I have ever met in my life (he doesn't even hug girls because he doesn't wish to invade their personal space) turns up. And he calls me a damsel in distress, and drives me home, and I want to invade the crap out of his personal space and hug him and cry on his shoulder, because when people are there for you when you need them with utter selflessness it brings you closer without words, without petty verbal bonding.

As I write this, I'm crying, and I'm not sure why. It was just a lift. It was a five minute drive wherein we chattered and bickered about insignificant things - life, church, driving lessons, missions, family, whatever. Just throwing comments back and forth. It was fifty pence of petrol. A moment of his day. And yet it affected me. It got to me. It made me feel worth something in a moment I felt like nothing. It made me feel human and considered and worthy of saving. He looked after me because I was in a bad way, and I let him.

And I don't mean this in an OMG WHAT A MAN HE MUST HAVE MY BABIES way. I don't feel for him like that. It's just a gratitude to another being who was there when I needed someone.

People underestimate the meaning of just stopping for a moment, looking at someone, seeing there's something wrong and doing something tiny to make them feel better. It doesn't even have to be a lift.

Today I had to do tutoring. I was struggling. My face was burning. I learned this stuff last year and eliminated it from my cortex as soon as the exam results fell into my lap. I couldn't form a relationship with this goddamn kid. He was awkward, I was awkward, he didn't really understand me, I didn't much understand him. This boy walks by to pick up a textbook. We'd only spoken a little in the past, but we got along well. He smiled at me, I smiled back, and as he passed me he touched my back. And just knowing someone was there who could see that I was bricking it and offered the simplest sympathy made those last few minutes easier to swallow.

It doesn't take much to touch someone and let them know you're experiencing the same rough deal.

Today I had no lunchtime, because I had to go to a senior prefect meeting. Being made a prefect was a surprising honour enough as it was - I'm new, I don't deserve something that awesome. But then I got a letter offering me senior prefect. This means that, by default, I am at least Deputy Head Girl, and that after the interview with the Headmistress and her board of Assistants and Governors, I could be Head Girl.

I won't be, blatantly. I am brand new and shiny. And a bit useless.

We met with the current senior prefects to discuss what it's like, what we should expect, the interview process and the stress involved, and this one boy, the Deputy Head, took me aside afterwards and told me it didn't matter I was new - it just made me a dark horse. That the Deputy Heads have organisational roles, hence the two other girls being chosen (they organise two youth groups in school) whereas the Head Girl is the face of the school; the public speaker, hence someone with debate and public speaking experience being chosen.

I'm not going to get it, but it was beautiful of him to give me hope. To simply say that everyone is on a level playing field no matter what.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is. Just to say that love doesn't have to be a song and dance with butterflies and sex attached. Sometimes it can be a moment of overwhelming emotion you feel for someone when they notice and care enough to offer the tiniest extension of humanity; just enough rope to pull you from over the edge.

So next time someone looks lost, I will ask them where they need to go. The next time someone looks broken, I'll do my best just to let them know I've been there too. The next time someone needs something to let them know that the world is not against them, I hope I can persuade them in the same way others persuaded me today.

"Only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built."
Bertrand Russell



MAN. MAAAN. That's what that image made me shriek. MAAAAN. I have those moments sometimes. When all beliefs of blurred gender lines and the insignificance of sex melt into nothingness. When every thought of feminism and equality vanishes. And I just want to be a little, helpless woman slung over a big, beefy man's shoulder, trembling against his rippling, solid muscle, horrified by the devouring that's about to unfold from his strong and weathered hands.

Yes. In my heart of hearts, beneath my dreams of womanly strength, all I want in my life is brutalising testosterone. I want someone strong enough to carry me. I want to be grasped. I want bulging motherfucking biceps, thank you.

That is my admittance for the day.

In other news, yesterday was a horrific day for me for some reason. Some days I just crumble and fail at everything known in the universe. Yesterday was such a day. Where all the flaws, the uselessness, the forgetfulness, the scattiness, they all take over and I'm not sure why I'm allowed to exist or why people put up with picking up after the broken remnants of my wake.

But that was yesterday.

( Today I'm plotting my final meal. )

In other news...
Read: Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe
Listen to: Only - Nine Inch Nails
Watch: The Lakehouse
Surf: Vertical vegetation

I have so much work to do, but I'm not going to do it. I'm going to have a drink, a nap, and read a book. I'm going to sit down and eat chocolate. I'm going to not pick up a pen for the first evening in seventeen thousand years. This is my life, and for once, just for once, I'm going to ignore the consequences, refuse to think of my teacher's desires and instead breathe. Relax. Bath. Enjoy.

"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."
Albert Einstein



She is, frankly, a beautiful woman. And I feel so awful that her team was disqualified when she had worked so hard purely because of that dick on her team. I aspire to be more like her. Answering questions on University Challenge adequately means more than a degree in England.

She also has lovely hair.

'I have never encountered problems with being [a clever woman].' That, however, was quite an intriguing comment. I'm not a 'clever' woman, not by any means, but I'm sure every girl who's achieved something academically has received some sort of negativity? There's a large Mormon base of men within my Chemistry class, meaning I'm often degraded (at least, they attempt to degrade me) because I'm a girl who can discuss ionisation energies with them. My friends have experienced the same - a lot of them are in the top twenty in school, and they receive quite a bit of flack for being knowledgeable. I'm nowhere near as bright as they are, but on the odd moment I remember something, I have experienced it first hand.

People in mainstream mixed comprehensive education in a dodgy part of South East London, even at A Level, do not appreciate people who want to learn. There's a group of kids in my school who actively bitch about me because I speak in classes, sometimes get the answers right, ask questions, attempt to word things clearly and use all of my test time to write down the answers instead of packing it in early so the class can leave. Wanting to learn is perceived to be negative in that particular sector. Today we were asked why we wanted to attend university. Cheap alcohol, student privileges, freedom and degree = high salary were all answers that came up - yet I was the only one who said I want to go to university because I enjoy learning. Because living in a place where academia and experimentation are core actually excites me.

I just wish people would be more accepting of that. My life philosophy is that knowledge and experience are the meaning of existence. It's not politically correct to mock someone's religious philosophy yet it's okay - indeed, encouraged by peers and mainstream media alike - to mock those who focus on feeding their minds?

I taught myself in solitary confinement for sixteen years. And I'll be damned if I'll let whiny retards with no perspective, no thought of the future, and no investment in the only thing they will always have - their minds - ruin my opportunities to learn in classes, with teachers. People there actually want to help me pass, and while many may take that for granted, for me it's a miracle. And I'll milk it for all it's bloody well worth.

My only hope is that one day no one receives that prejudice. That the idea of schooling can change. That people can see how blessed they are to have access to a fountain of knowledge. It's simply distressing that the government don't appear to be aiding these objectives. My mother said the one thing she learned in watching me learn is that children only focus on what they care about. How is elongating the list of required subjects and increasing the legal age requirement for formal education going to improve that for kids who don't WANT to limit the number of humanities they do, or don't CARE about food technology? Kids who would rather leave the class room and adopt a practical apprenticeship?

People should be allowed to learn what they desire to learn. And when a person reaches the age of fifteen, sixteen or so, they have a firm taste, after a decade of formal institutionalisation, for what they can not focus on.

In other news, this is one of the most beautiful versions ever. In a case of blasphemy, however, I prefer the original Robin Gibb version. Watch the video. Especially if you watch a lot of British television =D Look out for faces from The Office and Doctor Who. It entertained me to see them there.

“There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with the color, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.”
Oscar Wilde

My gosh, that quote is appropriate in so many ways for this post. Sometimes I wonder whether Oscar Wilde was a time traveler, or is a time traveler (if someone is a time traveler, can they ever be spoken of in the past tense? If the concept of 'the end' relies upon the linear passage of time, does that mean there's never an end to one who exists within flexible, fluid curves of time?) and just wandered throughout the universe peering into moments of people's lives and carving perfect little sentences to sum them up. So that one day that person would be trawling google and suddenly feel as if they're not quite so alone, if someone so long ago can emphasise with their situation.

Hum. I want a tattoo. I think they're like storybooks. This relates to my last post, too. We were always told in church that our bodies are temples that shouldn't be violated or dirtied. But what is a temple but a symbol? And if so, shouldn't it symbolise everything it is? To me, by body's like a vehicle. I've always been horribly disconnected from it. I can't dance, or do sport, or care about my spare tire, because my body isn't me. It's like I'm looking out of two windows and using a microphone to speak out of my throat and flapping controls around in order to move my fingers. So I think if I need to work around in this vehicle, it deserves to be pimped. Like a suitcase covered in stickers, or a notebook covered in doodles. It should symbolise what's contained within it, right?

That's what I like about tattoos. They're symbols that mean something, but only to the person behind them. I mean, other people can understand, yes. But like all ideas they can't be translated or transfered entirely. There'll still be little elements, breaths, smells, fluttering, peripheral things that can only be conjured by the original holder of the idea, or memory. Tattoos are storybooks and mysteries and enigmas and ideas and concepts and philosophies. They can represent a thousand different things and their meaning can evolve over the years. What means one thing can absorb and adopt something else. That's why I like tattoos.

That's why I want to carry art with me, always. That's why I want to write stories about amnesiacs who have no license, no ID, no passport, no name, no nothing. Except everything they could ever need to know wrapped in ink around their skin.

( Maybe I should get my social security number on my ass. )