Green Tartan Dippy Skirt

That is what Next called the skirt I bought today in the sales.

I don't know what to make of that.

Also, also, also! I bought so many books. I was skipping around Waterstones picking up anything I fancied because I had vouchers. Vouchers! If you don't hear from me in a while it is because I will have overdosed on literature. It's the best kind of overdose.

Later for you drugs.

But sadly while they had so many Joyce books (at least 4 different publications of Ulysses-not needed!) they had no Finnegans Wake and I've been wanting to read that ever since I found out that the first line really is that crazy and wasn't just Sylvia Plath being mad. Fret not as I still have vouchers remaining. Vouchers!

Shopping reduces me to my most basic state. This is Catherine, girlified. It is not pretty.

Unlike my skirt!

Mais j'etais trop jeune pour savoir l'aimer

I'm dreaming away the days. I have to keep reminding myself that it will be January soon and after the Old Firm match on Wednesday I have no more holiday plans. I'll have to start dragging myself to the West End again and study. On the plus side I only have two exams, both in the same week but spaced apart. The bad news is the first is the 14th and I have done nothing. I haven't even looked at my notes and suddenly I've forgotten what it was I actually studied this semester. Something about old dead guys. I'm not panicking, I know I can pass them but I want to do really well. Prove to myself that I made the right decision to add another year to my education.

It's hard to care too much at the moment. I'm only dimly aware that it is now the weekend and if it wasn't for Emma texting me a couple of days ago with a countdown or my gran asking me what I had planned I wouldn't be remembering my birthday is in 2 days. But that might be because I'm not looking forward to it. I prefer other people's birthdays to my own. Not that I'm saying I don't like the attention, I love it. Everyone should worship me every day of my life if they knew what was good for them. But neh there's something about my birthday I don't like.

You would think since I'm refusing to acknowledge time I might have got some stuff written like I keep threatening. And I have but none of it is very, well readable for lack of a better word. I have snippets of pieces of stories I could write and I jot them down for later but there's something bigger waiting. Fluttering away at the edges of me is a story I wrote last year on the back of some particularly pointless English Lit notes. A dark piece about the literal delivery of an aborted child to the father. I don't know why I wrote it. I'm not sure if I should have written it, it disturbs me. I'm not even sure I kept the draft but I know it word for word, burned in my mind. So many times I have sat with my book before me and a pen staining my fingers as I fidget and turn every attempt into an abstract portrait of beautiful girl. Or I'll start waxing lyrically on how trumpets can turn me on. My latest try resulted in an all-time low when I drew BatPope instead. He can give mass upside down! I will write it one day, I know I will but damn if it isn't determined on driving me crazy first.

In other news Santa also brought me Regina Spektor in the form of an album called "Mary Ann Meets the Gravediggers and Other Short Stories" and dear god do I ever love this girl. I mean I am actually in love with her and I don't care if you call me a lesbian for saying so. It's that New York accent of hers and the fact she's Russian. When you throw in the huge amount of talent she possesses (and those lips), bout near drives me insane. It's a really sweet album even though I already had a couple of the songs. Most songs are really stripped down with most of them just her and a piano and it has been the soundtrack of my past few days. You need her in your lives.

Poor little rich boy, you don't love your girlfriend

I managed to misplace my journal a week or so ago and after searching frantically for ages I found it again amongst a hefty pile of notepaper. I've been pouring just about everything that pops in my head these past few days into the thick pages of this journal. While I'm ridiculously glad to have it back I now spend more time writing in it than I do writing out my backlog of bed ideas. But I'm not going to push it. I don't work well under that kind of pressure. I need other deadlines staring me in the face to write productively. So I'm going to share a few of my musings with you, the internet audience.

I'm different, so men feel the urge to tell me. "Cat," they laugh. Or Kitty, Kittycat, Kitten, Cath (never Cathy). Catherine if I'm lucky or they've known me longer than 3 years. "Cat," they shake their heads. "You're mad."

"Oh, I am not," I protest.

Bail out. Salvage what you can. "Nooo you're not mad. I didn't mean that. You're...eccentric?" Weird? Unusual? Curious was a good one. Very Alice. 'Why Catherine, you mean to say you answer the sort of questions that men immediately follow with "of course you don't have to answer that if it makes you uncomfortable" instead of resorting to standard female response C: Blush, hit, 'oh I couldn't possibly tell you that!' Curiouser and curiouser.

One guy and one guy only has backtracked on the "you're not like other girls" as if he disliked using the cliché but I'm not sure what that meant or if he was just too drunk to make sense.

It all ends in the same conclusion: well you're not normal. I'm thinking about getting tshirts done. Catherine: Not Normal.


The water was fading from its initial burn as the last remaining drops of the hot water caressed her aching flesh. Carrie flinched at the sudden blast of cold. She should give up, trudge downstairs and turn on the heating advance. She had nothing else to do today after all but she did not move. Instead she let the stream bore an icy path down her back and wake her up from the dozy dream of denial. Carrie slumped against the blue tiles and let grief shake her body. She didn't hear the phone buzz angrily in the hall or her neighbour bang the wall before letting her visitor in with the spare key. She didn't even know John was there until her face was buried in his shirt and he held her despite the relentless shower which drenched them both.

"I came as soon as I heard."

"She's not coming back is she, John?" He shook his head and ran a large hand through her dark, matted hair. "She's gone."

Carrie pulled him down with her as the full extent of her loss hit home.


Not featured is a long complaint about Tokyo Mew Mew being a catgirl too far and a page devoted to Lord Byron. I love having my journal back. These are the things nobody else really wants to hear.

Here's looking at you, kid

Boxing Day. That sort of listless hangover from the excitement of Christmas. Mealtimes mean leftovers and there's little incentive to drag myself into town and face the madness of the first day of sales. I thought about seeing the Golden Compass but I haven't the energy and I doubt anybody would want to sit next to me sneezing over Daniel Craig for 2 hours. That's right, I got the cold for Christmas. blergh.

It was a good day though. I ate too much food and watched Casablanca with Julie curled up uncomfortably in my side. She spent the first half hour repeating "Frankly my dear, I love you lets remarry" before she crashed only to wake up at the credits and huff that I didn't wake her to hear the line. The fact that she was quoting a parody of Clark Gable and not Humphrey Bogart escaped her. Shortly before she did sleep our street exploded in a barrage of flashing orange and gunshot bangs. It wouldn't be a holiday period without somebody setting the park on fire.

Despite some worries that nothing we ordered has arrived from America I received a fair stack of books I will try and read before next year and the shiny new Bladerunner dvd which came with an awesome holographic thing with Deckard pointing his gun and looking worried like only Harrison Ford can. My mum gave me a bottle of Coco Chanel since she knows I love it and she even hid it under a bowler hat which has since remained firmly on my head. It's gorgeous, smelling like my childhood and reminding me of too many things to try and list but damn if I don't have to put it on in the most awkward way possible to avoid my face. Nobody's gonna care what I smell like if I look like some sort of Pikachu girl. Not attractive.

So, it's over and for a week at least all I have to do is lie around in my pjs, socks and hat, read novels by Russian romantics and maybe get some writing done. Ah, the simple joys of the unemployed.

Suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall

I know I said I had written my last post before Christmas but I had to share.

About a month ago I submitted a short story to a teeny wee magazine which was my first time sending off one of my pieces into the unknown. I agonised over the send button. What if they hated it? What if they sent it back outlining everything that's wrong with it and laughed at me for thinking I could ever write anything decent. Or worse. What if they sent it back with a standard "Thanks but no thanks." I shut my eyes, clicked the mouse and tried my damnedest not to get my hopes up every time I checked my mail and heard that 'plink' that tells me there are no new messages. All of this for a tiny magazine that won't pay me for my submission and I won't win fame from it. God knows the wreck I'll be when I try sending to the bigger publications. I'll probably have to post them drunk with several people helping me part with the envelope.

So imagine my surprise when I checked my mail this morning before heading out to mop and nestled between more Borders discounts I'll never use and a We Are Scientists update (I don't much care about their music but they make me giggle and I love the name) was a reply.

It was a rejection. But a good rejection. A rejection full of no criticisms, constructive or otherwise. It was a rejection based on word length. In the scary cult-like plurality I was told that "We felt it was well written, that the main character was believable, and the story of the “other woman” told from her own perspective was an interesting angle." And that they want to read more of my work. So I sent off another one with slightly less nerves (just slightly mind) and now it begins again.

My face actually hurts from smiling. People read my work and they liked it. Can you believe it?

Un, deux, trois! Dis miroir noir

This will probably be my last post before that big celebration bout that bearded guy. I am rather exhausted having slept through 2 phonecalls and waking up a couple of hours later hugely confused and having to be sympathetic yet uplifting through text rather than calling since my family would not be pleased. I'm not entirely sure of everything I actually said but I do remember talking about hiding sweets in my bra to lure men. I don't know how that was supposed to be comforting.

Anyway here is Miss Kitty's top 5 albums of the year that she actually listened to before December.

5. Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist Myspace Link

Yes it's only half of the band and yes it's no Mellon Collie but it's a good comeback album and I'm always happy to listen to more Smashing Pumpkins. They were one of the few decent bands I listened to when I was young and easily amused by girlbands. Had I bought more albums that were released this year this would have slipped down the list and I was actually going to write about Charlotte Gainsbourg's 5:55 but it came out this year in America and 2006 here and thus didn't qualify. That's The Way My Love Is and Doomsday Clock were the tracks that stood out for me and the last track has the word Pomp in it. Solid but could have been more.


4. Lavender Diamond - Imagine Our Love Myspace Link

I have to have at least one band here that nobody's probably heard of. I found them through a webcomic artist's blog. He saw them live and raved about how every man there fell in love with the singer, who is quite cute. Her voice is just as cute. These are songs to cuddle up warm to. Favourites are I'll Never Lie Again for it's sleepy piano, whispered lyrics (simple though they are) and the hints of a bigger sweeping string section that is never fully fleshed out. Open Your Heart granted is made up of a lot of "oh oh ohs" but the strings are gorgeous. It's a swayer.

3. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible Myspace Link

What can I say about Arcade Fire that hasn't already been said by more eloquent music journalists? They turn me on. Neon Bible is not better than Funeral but still it's fantastic. It's frantic, sweeping and a little bit epic. Intervention is perfection, especially good to shout along to dramatically while Antichrist Television Blues contains my absolute favourite lines: "I'm through being cute now I'm through being nice tell me oh Lord am I the antichrist?" The new version of No Cars Go is bigger and bolder. Neon Bible is an album to believe in. Their live set was almost religious so if you haven't listened to this band yet for the love of Win hurry up and convert!

2. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank Myspace Link

I've always been aware of Modest Mouse but never actively sought them out. Round about the time their latest album was coming out I amused myself with reading the online indie community repeat those dreaded words "sold out". I read rant after rant about how the band had lost its way with Good News for People Who Love Bad News and the news that Johnny Marr had joined the lineup split them in two. After finding the same fuss on more than one forum and hearing that James Mercer was also involved I had to check them out. Boy am I glad I did. Favourite tracks are Spitting Venom for "you were talking soda pop" and We've Got Everything for James Mercer and "Tony got all messed up spilt his lip chasing cheap perfume." Awesome album but not as awesome as James Mercer's own work which is my number

1. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away Myspace Link

Since I watched Garden State and Natalie Portman promised New Slang would change my life I have adored this band. It didn't but it helped. Wincing the Night Away is simply fantastic. I could say more but I would only rave like a squeeing fangirl and nobody wants that. Favourite tracks Australiawhich never fails to get me dancing and A Comet Appears.

So yeah, that's me done. Now that it's holiday time I might have a chance to write up the three or so stories I've got lying around my bedroom floor, see how that goes. Ideally I want to finish at least 25 good stories so I can start sending them off places in the new year, you know take an active role in my life for once instead of staying still and dreaming.

I want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd

I don't really have to much to say so there is no point in this post but it gives me an excuse to keep my laptop on and thus keep my lap warm. Oh yeah, this is coming live to you from my crotch, doncha all feel special.

I do love wearing skirts in winter despite the fact that it does actually freeze my ass off. There's something so blatantly feminine about stalking the city streets in my little swishy skirt and a long coat, clip clipping in my ridiculously broken heels. I have not fallen completely but I've yet to learn how to walk, talk and not skid to my potential death at the same time. Dangerous business being a girl. It's daft really because if I wore skirts in summer I wouldn't have to wear tights and I could wear my converse with them instead of tottering around like a fool. I don't do New Year's Resolutions but if I did at the very top would be stop being so gorram foolish. And shy. I used to be absolutely dreadful and while I'm much better at speaking to people I still forget to say half the things that run through my head that I should say (and quite often I say the thoughts I should keep to myself) and I'm still too quiet. I'm louder than I was a few years ago when nobody ever heard me but I keep befriending tall people and I forget that I have to speak even louder for them. I get easily tongue tied which results in a lot of my answers being noises because it's quicker and easier to respond with than focussing on my mouth making the right shapes. But you know s'not really proper communication with human beings now is it.

I smell funny. Not like me. It's kinda a mixture of cold air, strange soap, sweets and somebody else but I can't place who.

Ugh it's cold. My radiator is broken so I'm swaddled up in my bed, thinking warm thoughts and wishing I had retrieved my tshirt from the other room before I got less cold because now I only have the choice of sleeping in my jumper or Team Joe and neither is terribly practical. But I'll be damned if I'm getting up again. I may not be suitably dressed for bed but tis my bed and I'm not sharing it with anyone anyway. I've got The Postal Service, Angel and a scrawling page of my handwriting to decipher. If I manage it there just might be a new story uploaded tomorrow. I bet you're all just wetting yourselves with excitement but don't get your hopes up, quotes from the charming little paper The Digger are interspersed between the imagery of snow and sex. Quotes such as "the question The Digger is asking this week is WHO IS THE HITMAN?" and "who got in touch with friends who knew people...who killed people".

Also there's a little kitten chasing the letters which while it sounds cute actually renders a lot of the words incomprehensible. Sometimes I wonder if this is how other people write but then I abandon that idea and picture a world where I have a tiny little garret somewhere in Paris and I can sit with my typewriter facing the window. I shall have a whirlwind romance with a Byronic hero which will end in bitter tragedy. Heartbroken, I will chain myself to my typewriter, drink copious amounts of red wine and chain smoke like an old movie star until my masterpiece is completed. And when the manuscript arrives on your desk you will wish you had written it yourself and that you had known me. But I'll be dead and buried under six feet of dirt, roses and a tearful lover before you ever read it.

Okay okay enough dreaming. Time for some sleep.

There's a girl in my flat?

"Alright guys, it's time to decide who gets Cat for the night."

Rob makes the announcement and four guys play to win. Or more likely they play because it's 4am, everyone's drunk (some more than others), there is only one girl around and Rob made an announcement.

Count of three and a look round to see what everybody's chosen. Tense moment here.

Scissors

Scissors

Rock (Rob declares himself the winner here)

but wait there's still one more and it's

Rock but of the rocking out kind.

Rock beats Rock and thus a winner is declared. The prize stays in her chair, too tired to be indignant and reacts in the only way she thinks appropriate: a half-hearted yay and an obligatory arm wiggle.

Oh you guys. You sure do know how to show a girl a good time.

Making love with her indie rock playing on her stereo

I love the end of the year. Never mind all that raaa christmas so much to do raa stuff. There's the sense of wrapping up the year, looking back on it and being all nostalgic even though it maybe wasn't that exciting but best of all it's the time for definitive lists. Top ten albums of the year, best songs, best films, best performances, best moments. I love all that shit. I read them all every year and look at all the stuff I missed and catch up in the last couple of weeks in December. It's a flurry of checking out bands with a pile of blank cds by my side and my trusty but leaky CD-R pen. So here are Miss Kitty's top five albums of 2007 that she just got round to listening to:

5. Bat For Lashes - Fur and Gold Myspace Link

I was watching Gonzo's definitive lists on MTV2 (I know man, so mainstream!) and the video for What's a girl to do? was one of their top 5 videos or something. The singer seems to be some sort of crazy hippie and slightly more attractive version of Lily Allen in looks only. She speaks like Charlotte Gainsbourg and sings very dreamy. Had the album on while I printed off some things and fiddled around amateurly with Photoshop and her songs were very pretty. Aside from the aforementioned single I recommend Prescilla.

4. New Pornographers - Challengers Myspace Link

Another band I'd noticed before but never done anything about. Listened to their album when my internet broke down and I had to spend half an hour prodding the wireless pod thing until it behaved again. Good tunes, sort of poppy folk indie. With the band name such as it is and one of their tracks called "Entering White Cecilia" it's a right old laugh looking them up but definitely worth having a listen. Challengers and Myriad Harbour were the tracks that stood out for me while I prodded but I need to give it a few more listens with my full attention to appreciate their pretty sounds some more.

3. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Myspace Link

Having heard much fuss about the band by indie people on the internet I thought I'd check them out. And I was not disappointed despite their rubbish band name. Nothing that'll stop you in your tracks but good to tidy up to, gets your hips moving. Julie enjoyed Don't You Evar and had a little boogie with me. Don't Make Me A Target and You Got Yr Cherry Bomb very good too.

2. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! - Some Loud Thunder Myspace Link

I've had mixed feelings about CYHSY! I remember when everybody was raving about them and they blurred into Godspeed You Black Emperor! or wherever they're putting their exclamation mark these days, in my mind purely because of the punctuation. So upon hearing they had a new album (almost a year late) I thought I'd try again with them. A few of their songs are a bit incomprehensible. Lots of nice tunes, shame about the whiney voice who seems to be trying to cram too many words into the music and the first track is dire. However, they are one of the few albums I had a chance to listen to more than once and I was impressed. Highlights include Goodbye to Mother and the Cove with it's almost Pokemon in some sort of a cave tune twinkling and Mama Won't You Keep Them Castles In The Air And Burning Bit weird, bit mad but overall very funky.

1. The White Stripes - Icky Thump Myspace Link

Everytime The White Stripes release a new album I go ooh I like the White Stripes and I think about buying their album and I listen to each new single and get excited and then I lose interest and forget. I have yet to buy an album of theirs. So while I was bored and MTV was blah blah blahing away in the background I looked up to see Jack White flirting with a bull before it gouged him to death. And the song was fantastic. So for once I checked out the whole new album I didn't know they had released. It is pure rock. Great guitar work and songs that instantly stuck themselves firmly in my head and this is the one I've listened to all day and sung along to while I dried my hair. I love it all. Absolute favourites are You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do What You're Told), A Martyr For My Love Is You and Icky Thump.

A special mention goes to A Fine Frenzy Myspace Link because she is ginger, beautiful and sings like an angel but I've only heard a few of her songs. Her myspace has a cover of Let It Snow which borders on the cheesy but she's pretty so we'll let her off. Definitely listen to Almost Lover, tis divine! And thus concludes Miss Kitty's albums she almost didn't listen to in the year 2007. Will I do one for the albums I actually knew about and bought at the time they came out? That will depend on whether anybody wants to read my opinions on The Shins, Modest Mouse and that French chick I have a bit of a crush on but her music was iffy.

God I miss Mac's crotch

Bleargh I sound like a whiner on this page. I'm not even feeling that down. If I was I wouldn't be blogging about it. So because I'm not one for encouraging whining on the internet enjoy this picture of a kitten:



That's much better!

Trust your instincts and let me in

It's three in the afternoon. I'm not dressed. I've moved from my bed to my couch but not much further in all the hours I've been up. I am on holiday and man am I ever fucking bored. I'm sick of this dull existence. I'm tired of floating along. I want more. I tried so hard this year to make things go well and in a way I succeeded. I haven't failed anything like I did the first year I tried Uni. But after my first week of smiling at everybody I met and doing the whole rigmarole of where I'm from, what I'm studying and acting as Glasgow guide as best I could to these new people I gave up. With the exception of the girls I already knew either from school or Italian last year I met maybe 2 other people I didn't hate instantly. It is my own fault. I am appallingly bad at small talk. And I am starved of affection. I mean the bus driver gave me a wink yesterday and it made me grin instead of triggering my usual femme rage. I am fast approaching nineteen and I still think like a fifteen year old half the time, all muddled up and confused. I tell myself I do not need anybody. I've got friends I adore and family who support me. I need no romance. And still the first person to even indicate they might be interested (and I'm not talking bus driver winking here) and I obsess for a week just until I'm half in love with my ideas and thoroughly depressed that nothing is happening and then I come to the conclusion that no sane person would want me. It doesn't help that I do attract a right load of freaks and men who want to use me but I will admit I can be a right pathetic little girl at times. Ack we all got our issues and my insecurities are nothing ground-breaking so I'm going to try and hush up about them. The internet is angst-ridden enough as it is.

I was having a bit of an online tidy-up. Deleted my wordpress because I never used it and wordpress is a bit rubbish really. Lotta spambots and creeps. And Julie. I also deleted my very first online journal from when I was around fourteen or fifteen and I'd just got my laptop and discovered the internet. It was on this Lord of the Rings site and I used it mostly to upload my novel that I was writing at the time (which I will never ever show you if you haven't seen it already but you can find parts of it if you know where to look) because it dealt with elves and I had a fair wee following of fans. It was the first piece of writing I ever followed through to some kind of ending though. I can't tell you how many words it was, only that my first draft had some thirty chapters and my redraft that I never completed stops at chapter 24 and was 2/3rds of the way through. It was therapeutic writing. I attempted to get all my ideas about suicide, self-destruction and elves down but I avoided tackling them head on and I wrote about such depressingly lofty ideals to avoid the real issues I was faced with; namely the death of two of my grandparents a year after each other, and my first boyfriend who, after giving me my first kiss at fourteen, tried to give me a lot more than I was willing to accept.

I had a laugh though rereading all my posts since there was no button to delete them all. I had such a sweet lil internet persona. None of it was real. Some of the events I related were true, I can remember them clear enough, but so many details were blatant lies. I was safe behind a fake name, I could say what I wanted, pretend to be whoever I liked and nobody could pull me up for doing so. I was reluctant to start another blog. I had a blogger account a year ago and I deleted it after a month. I have a tendency to either share far too much when I should remember that people are actually reading this or I lie in the hopes that you will read this and be wonderfully fascinated with the person I could be. It's a funny old place this internet.

The real issue is having gone six hours without getting dressed should I do so now or give up on the day and stay wrapped up in my Mario shirt. Tough call.

I'll never be the shine in your spit

The French musical about threesomes that I wanted to see? Yeah it's out now. Know where it's showing? Edinburgh. And France I guess. Sucks! I wanted to hear French people sing their feelings about sex. It's a sad day for multicultural porn.

So, last day of term for me and I turned up to all my classes. Few made it to Archaeology which is a shame, the lecturer is lovely and the actual lecture was pretty good since it was about digging instead of politics. Mouse Face was there and I sat next to him unintentionally. Not right next to him but near enough. Everytime the lecturer made a joke and we laughed MF turned to me like we were sharing something. He walked down the stairs right next to me afterwards and I thought he'd say something but he just looked at me and didn't follow me out the door. Classics was dull, dull, dull like always and the place was full of people I've never seen before. MF was there too (I sat a couple of rows behind him) and he turned round a good few times, caught my eye and said nothing. Missed your last chance Mouse Face! All that creepy looking for nothing. Silly boy.

One of the girls I hung out with for the first month of Classics turned up today after many months of not being around. She's great and we had a giggle at RobeMan's complete utter bafflement when faced with technology. Her friend Jo wasn't there though. Jo was the first (and only) person I met at Glasgow who had heard of where I live since she lives like up the hill and went to the rival school in the area. We had laughs about how we should be stabbing each other up. Good times.

And so I trundled home in the bus with a screaming redhead in my ears and blood in my mouth and as we turned into Renfield Street I recalled a mild argument Julie had with me last night about something I did (or rather didn't do) three years ago. It wasn't the argument on my mind though it was the time. Three years ago I was fifteen years old and I spent nights like this shivering on dark streets in my black miniskirt and stripy tights with a boy enthralled. It would be another month before love reared its ugly head and I was just learning what power my hips held. If I had just held on to that naive sexuality maybe I would have had a better time but sadly it didn't last. But for those two months I had the confidence to wear that skirt in winter and I found out what it was to flirt and tease and have a guy around who was more into me than I was into him. Three years. Seems an age and nothing.

When Cary Grant fails to hold my attention it's a sign that nothing will get done today

Oh love is fun, care to dance? My biggest accomplishment of the day has been putting a pair of jeans on since my ass got cold round about 12ish. It's not through lack of trying. I've got a pile of stuff to do and I attempted to do them all at some point. I tidied my couch so you can actually sit on it now, I typed up a story, I got distracted when I found my Auf der Maur CD under a lot of junk and I fell in love with her again.You love me more than you love yourself I mean how could I not, she's a red headed bassist who sings the dirtiest things to great music. But falling in love with another woman is hardly an achievement, or something I should be sharing since it makes the 'honest I like men' argument fall through slightly. You're finished with your woman because she is not me

I also found all my notes that I scribbled down a couple of weeks ago in a possibly drunken state. There's about six or seven ideas but God knows what they mean. If I could be arsed I'd scan them in so you can see them but I can't so I'll just tell you. In a series of boxes I have the following key words: "BABY" "boob check!" "silly girl, you're no dancer" "hoovering aorund you, delirious, why is she cleaning now?" "museum of lovers" "bed is the enemy" "I DROWN IN HER" "speaks in riddles, my Snow White, my Cherry Red, my Goddess" "the good times are killing me" "rigid with disgust more like" and my favourite "Pixie Syphilis" which I know was because Julie was watching a Bratz thing to piss me off but I don't remember how that lead to STDs. Suffice to say I didn't get much writing done today.

I did find an intro which I'm also gonna share cause I decided to plan it out as well whilst half asleep and it amuses me:

Mary's feet were buzzing. Each step sent a fresh wave of pain searing up her legs. She poured all the bags into one hand and rubbed her ankle where her shoe had torn the skin away. Aching back slumped against the wall. Three more blocks to go. She toyed with the idea of calling Peter but her phone was too far away. With a grunt Mary heaved herself straight and focused on the road ahead.

Peter didn't hear her come in. He was a little preoccupied. The blonde girl beneath him was new. He'd met her last week in a crowded club. Her name was Lisa or Linda or Lindsey. Whatever it was she had a great ass.

"I'm home! Don't bother getting up. Not like my hands are breaking or anything." Mary threw the shopping down in the hall and kicked off her shoes with a sigh.

"Hide," Peter hissed over his shoulders as he pulled on his jeans and scrambled down to his wife...

And then the girl will like just throw the covers over her head. How fucking dumb is she! Wait do I know any blondes that would huff if I write a bimbo? Not very feminist of me but then I know lots of girls who are stupid. Wife will be totally bored of it like man another slut in my bed, and I'll have to clean up after them SIGH. This stuff writes itself, oh crap need sleep...

I should tidy my room more often. I'll be an published author in no time. Old Jay Kay Rowling has nought on me.

O, swear not by th' inconstant moon lest that thy love prove likewise variable

I woke up feeling a little dizzy and I realised that, other than junk, I haven't eaten a decent meal in longer than I care to remember. So not wanting to waste away (pfft) I made myself some toast and went on the hunt for honey. It wasn't until a big glob had slided out of the tub onto my unsuspecting bread that I found out the honey was hard. So I topped the mess off with some marmalade I found in the back of the fridge (no doubt hidden there so my dad wouldn't find it and sulk because it's too sugary for him) and shoved the lot in my mouth and hoped for the best. I would not recommend this. It's like I ate citric bees.

I was going to do the obligatory it's nearly Christmas, bleeehh post but really I haven't felt much this year. The only thrill I got was this morning when I picked up the post and there was the card from Igor, my dad's Russian friend. His card always comes in a wintry envelope all covered in Cyrillic letters and his ridiculously neat English print. I want to open it up and see the predictable St Petersburg scene covered in snow and remember when he told us that some years the river freezes over and everybody skates across to the other side instead of bothering with the bridge. But it's not addressed to me and Dad's still in London so I must wait.

I was talking to Emma yesterday about the proximity of the holiday season and when I indicated that I probably wouldn't do anything for my birthday she pouted and told me she wanted a Miss Kitty New Year. Then she made a weird birthday noise much like her 'there is someone behind me' noise. So maybe I will do something. Even if it is just having a couple of people round and getting quite drunk. I'll have to see who's around.

A guy I know keeps trying to win me over with overblown romantic promises of gestures which thankfully he'll never actually perform. Men make me laugh. The way they think they're being original and while ok I've never claimed to be experienced; I haven't had many relationships and the ones I've had have been ridiculously bad; I feel like I've heard it all before. I want something real, honest and quite possibly incredibly casual. I don't want to fall in love. I'm tired of lovesick boys going through the motions. If I say this and this maybe she'll let me do this. So for your amusement and my own I'm gonna share with you some of my favourites.

I love you more than pizza.
I love you more than cookie dough ice cream.
I love you more than Star Wars (but not Yoda).
I love you more than vodka shots.
I don't love you more than my cat but you're a close second.

Puñeta cabrona

Lies pour forth from my tainted lips.

I have stared for two hours at this sentence and in this time I've written several pieces to follow it. I had a girl tell her fiance she wasn't who he thought she was. I had the daughter of a compulsive liar trying to find herself. Really I don't have an idea behind the sentence. Or I do have an idea but I can't express it yet. I want to tell you what it's like pretending to be someone you're not. And I don't mean in a denying who I am, not staying true to myself Barbie film moral kinda way. I mean when someone asks me a question, something simple like what I did at the weekend and a million lies lie waiting on my tongue. I actually have to concentrate to tell the plain truth. I've been a fake all my life and as much as I wish I could, I can't ever tell you the truth.

I wonder what you see when you look at me. I haven't worried about what people think of me for years. Not since my best friend changed her mind about me and tossed me aside when I stopped pretending quite so much and she didn't like me anymore. But I have always wondered how I come across. I remember sitting in the room a group of us had lunch in every day and everyone deciding to tell me they always thought I was a condescending snob. I've been called a lot of things. I've been a frigid cow for two years, a condescending snob to those who didn't want to get to know me and a surprising number of people throughout my life have called me a variation on a heater or a hot bottle. I guess I'd be handy in case of a snowstorm.

These days I'd like to think I'm more open, at least with the people I know and love. I clamp down on the lies that threaten to consume me. But I still exaggerate wildly, lose track of my stories. I hide behind sarcasm and my own writing. Distorting reality is all I have ever been good at (other than warming the cold) but I have been trying my hardest to actually experience what's happening now. I've been sleepwalking through life, dreaming up a better girl to be. In those rare moments I lay myself bare before you I can see the fear in the edges of your eyes, hear the worry in your voice and I change my tale and still I have never told you the whole truth.

And in the end I wonder if maybe I should have just written out the tale of Pigeon Detective VS Dapper Owl instead. Two high flying vigilantes flapping for justice. Can they set aside their differences to solve the tragic mystery of the peacock's plumage in time for the May ball and who will win the heart of fair Miss Sparrow?

Taste You

At the best of times one might say I had a casual interest in my life. At the worst one could describe me as pretty fucked in the head. Something sapped away my energy, dulled my brain. To call the feeling numb would be an understatement; I felt nothing. The girl nattering in my ear beside me, the boy promising in my bed, I told myself daily that I loved them. I cared about them. But I didn't know why. I guess it was better than being alone. Alone my sensations retracted, leaving only a dull thump in my chest.

Apathy is lying on my beat-up couch all day watching the clouds drift on by and the world bustle down below me. How I envy them. They rush and dawdle and laugh and cry and live. They have a purpose, a reason to get out of bed every morning. Numb is being still for days until my hair sticks to the cushion and I drag my body to the shower, leaving slick stains behind me. I felt nothing. I was nothing. Until there was you.

You were the white-hot poker that stirred my embers and coaxed my body to life and I met you in the grey rain outside my therapist's office. He had failed for three years to move me to any emotion besides boredom and I still clung to reality hard enough to stay a free and regular nuisance to him. It was a Thursday and I had ducked out of my group session for a fag. I asked you for a light. Arrogant prick, you didn't answer but looked through my flimsy show of togetherness. And you stubbed your own cigarette out on my arm.

You knew from the minute I parted my indifferent lips what I needed; what I craved. I had felt nothing because I did not know there were men like you in the world. You melted me. You taught me to feel. None of that psychobabble about expressing myself, telling strangers if I felt happy or sad this morning. None of those bullshit lies about my relationship with my mother. You were more real than that little man behind his oak desk. More real than the swarming crowds around me. You taught me to truly feel. I feel ecstasy when you tear me open. I feel bliss when you sink your teeth into my skin. And when you throw me around I feel simply happy.

That first night after you left I returned to my couch but I could not watch the people anymore, not now I knew what life tasted like. Instead I ran a bath. Steaming water met freezing skin and I was close to recapturing the moment. The scissors hung languidly in my hand. Elegant silver with deadly little points. When I had soaked for long enough I carved your name across my yielding flesh. Crimson swirls in the dirty bathwater. I only wish your name was longer.

Bite me, scratch me, pull me, break me. I am yours for the taking but whatever you do take me hard, please. Mark me as your property. The lines on my hip, the bruises on my thighs, the welts on my arms; you made me a heart of burns. Don't ever quit. Fill our lungs with black treacle tar. Your smoke strangles, lingering forever in my hair, on my clothes, in my bed. The shape of your mouth blooms bright on my marble breast. Each new scar awakens a new part of me.

Thank you for my resurrection.

Then Sakura appeared and did nothing of any importance

Sometimes, and it pains me to admit this, but sometimes I write fanfiction. This is only ever done as either bribery or thanks for my ever-amazing lil sis. I have to say it's disturbingly easy to write. I'm not talking full on slash yaoi crazy internet stuff here. I'm talking "Hey smelly Catherine, write me a fic involving Aeris, Zack and Kadaj living in the lifestream and the hilarious yet heart-warming adventures of them all." And so I go on msn and write up a storm to post in little snippets and watch her laugh next to me. It's a fun way to brutally murder time. The worrying thing is she asked me to compile one of them into a word document. A friend of hers upon reading the tiny quote from previously mentioned fic in Julie's sig on devart had asked to read the whole thing. Apparently she loves it and demands that I set up an account with fanfic.net to share my talent with the (online)world. I don't know whether to be disturbed or flattered.

I'm going with mildly creeped-out indifference.


I ache all over. I think I mopped myself to death today. So many coffee stains and chewing gum to scrape off the floors and newsprint smeared just about everywhere you could imagine. The only way I got through today at all was by playing my sexy Mexican (sexican!) music real loud and wriggling my way to great justice. I'm lucky the windows end above my hips or I'd be making friends with the workers across the road in no time.

Big atonement for big sins. Small atonement for small sins

I do not like shopping at Christmas time. Dear god I dragged my sorry ass up and down the length of town. You know that stereotypical woman thing of finding exactly what they want in the first shop they go to but they trail around shops all day only to return to the first one? Well I did that today. The highlight of the day was muttering Bill Bailey quotes in Argos and the pushy old woman next to me hearing it. Oh the pushy old women. They are everywhere! On the plus side I got practically everything I wanted and the guy in topshop couldn't work out that 10% of £6 is 60p and not a fiver. I did not complain!

I found the soundtrack of Sympathy for Lady Vengeance online, free and legal. Oh it is awesome. Such a gorgeous film although I was so wary when I watched it the first time considering it's about a girl accused with murdering a 6 year old boy. It's all fine until she finds videos of kidnapped children which was so heartbreaking and horrible. It's fantastic though go watch it if you haven't seen it.




I'm off to catch up on stuff I haven't finished reading. I've got Shirley, Paradise Lost and Dr Zhivago and not enough time to read them all.

I am Joe's complete lack of surprise

I slept in this morning. Julie's goodbye woke me up briefly and I managed to get up, pee and reply to a text before crashing back into bed until sometime around 11. My next class is about to start in 15 minutes. I am currently a good 40 mins away from the lecture hall. I planned on doing my tutorial work for tomorrow in the 2 hours I had to kill before Classics so I got my book and notepad all ready and ventured into my dad's office to steal a piece of gum. His pile of books he hasn't read yet caught my eye. Fight Club was between A Beginner's Guide to Russian (now with helpful CD!) and the Antony Bourdain book I'd given him for his birthday. He'd ordered Fight Club the day after I had actually walked to the cash desk in Borders with it in my hand only to turn back when I realised I was two pounds short because I'd bought a coffee that morning. He said I could read it after him since he was actually going to read it and it was only short after all. This was around September.

I haven't read a book I didn't need to read since I was in Spain in the summer and that was Ovid. Not really leisure reading unless women dressing up as cows to fuck a bull is your thing. I've been battling with Charlotte Brontë's Shirley for two months but it needs my full attention and I can't give it even half of that these days. So I picked up Fight Club and thought what the hell I'll have a flick through, kill half an hour before I make lunch. My gran turned up at the door at 2.20 to give me some sort of salmon parcel thing my mum wanted or something and that's when I realised it was too late to go to uni today. I finished the book 10 minutes later.

Last time I did that with a book it was 5th year, Girl, Interrupted and I had to write my French essay at lunch the next day instead of the night before like I'd planned. Despite the fact that my subjects are nearly all literary based I haven't read many books these past two years. I buy them, shelve them and don't open them. I'm turning into my father.

I'm still doing better than him though. The corner of page 21 was folded down where he gave up reading months ago. I've also hurt my neck more since I was curled up too much in my seat. and I'm hungry and uneducated. I'd like to say it's all worth it because it was a fantastic story but some would say I have my priorities all wrong.

Phah.

Turn into the whole wide world I made up

Neck is absolutely killing me. I slept (although when I say slept I mean I blacked out for a couple of hours, woke up confused then repeated a couple of times) in a weird position. Hurts when I lean too far each way, which sucks. What if I wanted to watch a really enthusiastic tennis match?

I finished my last piece of writing yesterday before the writer's group but I will admit it is godawful and will not be seen until I can be arsed fixing it. The idea behind it ain't too bad but jeez my execution, like I was 15 again. I've been toying with an idea for a few weeks but hadn't quite found the time to commit it to paper. Then I started thinking about it a lot more last night but still I dithered. If I didn't get it just right it would end up pretty darn pretentious. Since I'd done enough studying for the day (I opened the document, stared at it for a minute or so before closing it with a contemptuous phah!) I thought I'd stare stupidly at a blank piece of paper instead and see what Lil' Miss Inspiration brought to the table today. While I waited I stuck on my recently purchased cds from Fopp. I went in to kill time, came out poorer, hurrah for commercialism! The Yeah Yeah Yeahs ep I'd already heard before (only £3!) and it's rather rawry so instead I sampled the Pixies (bought for a fiver since I lost the cd a friend of mine made yonks ago that had a couple of their tracks on it and was most upset). So, first song, first line I pay attention to and bam! there's the piece I wanted to write and a lovely title too. I tell you my life in the past wee while, bar the bleh depression dip, has been pretty damn synchronised. I'd go into that but you'd think I was crazy and I am actually lazy so pfft to that. Gonna try and finish it off tomorrow between classes.

In other news I fell half-asleep on my damp hair today and it dried pretty damn nice. Good to know I was wasting my time by being awake and trying to make it look socially acceptable.

Vote now for your favourite thing and you too could win a thing

Sometimes I think I'm going mad. There's the endless conversations I conduct in my head which, combined with my habit of muttering to myself and my fucking lip that's driving me crazy, I attract a lot of odd looks and nobody ever wants to sit next to me on the bus. Which is fine, I don't want them sitting next to me. But to have three people in one bus journey actually begin to plank their ass on the seat next to me before pulling up and moving on is a bit much. There's also the hair. I have Dylan Moran hair today. I woke up and it was shorter and bigger somehow. It's also thicker, all over the place and has changed shape several times during the course of the day. Honestly I don't know what it's doing. And I still don't have the money or strength of mind to face a hairdresser. I didn't pay to hear about your wacky cousin's wedding or the tattoo of Dad you have on your shoulder. Put it away and cut my hair for the love of all that is good. I never like it when I come out anyway. It grows so fast and then it gets to that awkward stage where it does mad things like recently. I don't know why I got it cut this length anyway. That's an outright lie. I got it cut this length because some creepy junkie started talking to me at the station and sat next to me on the train and kept touching me and telling me I was perfect just the way I was. My outfit was perfect, my hair was the perfect length, I was a lovely girl. Soon as I could I went to the hairdresser and put up with her tales of her friend who used her for her car and gone was my easy-to-deal-with hair. I really should stop doing that. But then everytime I spend time on my appearance and I can look in the mirror and say 'yeah you look pretty alright today' I attract a freak. Actually I attract them anyway. Today, looking like the mad Irishman that I did, a man nearly fell out the open window of his white van as he gave me a dirty look. I don't get it. I'm not that much to look at. I'm awkward and my face does screwy things when I'm thinking and I wasn't even dressed remotely up. I have freak radar. Like a socially inept bat.

I've been trying to write something all day. Something I had to get down. One of those niggling ideas that wake you up in the night because you haven't written it yet but when you sit there, pen in hand, nothing happens. I've spent three days on this and written five drafts, none of which are finished and one of which is in my own wondrous tense of not making sense. I got more than a little pissed off this afternoon. My room looks like a stationary shop exploded.

Gah I'm just fed up. I shouldn't have relaxed. I've fended off the depression for about three months and stupidly thought I could make it through the rest of the year without moping. I need someone to give me a good shake, tell me I'm being daft and then whisk me off on a whirlwind romance where I don't need to pretend I'm in love and I can be as filthy and sarcastic as I wanna be.

For now, I'm gonna go play Star Wars Lego on my Gameboy. It won't cheer me up but I get to shoot things with lego lasers. It is enough.

Ménage à trois

It's wrong that dancing my ass off while I mop is enough to cheer me up but it's the sad truth. Where drink, good company and comedians failed, Bowie and a mop triumphed. It won't last but better than nothing.

I saw Carl Barât guy again today. Gave him a wee bit of the eye and earned a smile. He looks so like Carl it's crazy. Now if only he was carrying a guitar and smoking, then I'd take him home...


My dad thrust a magazine in my hands when I got home from work with a grunt of "this isn't mine." Too right it isn't yours dad, you opened my gorram mail! So I missed the thrill of opening Total Film before it's in shops. I'm sad I know, but still it's exciting. Ruined for this month thanks to the fact my father can't notice the capitalised MISS followed by my name and not his on the address. Silly man.

So what films are coming out you ask because you're too lazy to look for yourself? Have to say there's not much grabbing me. I'm already seeing the Golden Compass soon even though they're too chickenshit to outright attack the church, have moved the fantastic ending to the beginning of the Subtle Knife if it even gets made and refuse to call the Alethiometer by its name. I'll let the fact that the title is wrong slip, but it's not a freakin compass. It's just compass-like! It's gonna bother me but I shall see it anyway and judge after. I adore the story and I just hope that even with the changes it works as a good fantasy film. Still, I was in love with Lee Scoresby and I don't see me falling for Sam Elliot somehow.

There's only one new film in the whole magazine that I would actively try and see. It's a musical. And it's in French. Oh yeah, bet it's showing in tons of cinemas and I bet I'll convince so many people to see it with me. Oh wait maybe I will:

The Boosh is loose and a little bit raw

I woke up yesterday feeling more than a little crap but it was Emma's party night and it was only 7am so I tried to stay positive. Apart from the aforementioned soul crushing first bus of the day the morning went well. Buses were on time so I was on time for Classics for once. I even managed to blag my way through the class despite neglecting to do any of the work on the Siphnian Treasury. Later for studying, man. Got dolled up and met the loveliest lady. We missed a train, the bus didn't come, we got harassed by a drooling old man and finally made it on another train. We talked girl stuff. The crazy sizing of women's clothing these days, hips, how hard it is to find boots that fit right in all areas. I told her she missed Toady from Neighbours. She got so excited. She's the only person I know that still watches the show. Then it was pizza time and Emma had a cloak and she liked my presents.

I was running on no energy even by the time we got to the union. But smile wide, flash those teeth, wiggle your girl around to songs that aren't Bowie but will do. Make it through the night because it isn't yours. Fake it til it's real and remember at least you're surrounded by people you actually like unlike all those other nights when you felt crap and had to go out. Emma swishes her way through us all, moving from person to person, introductions all round and I don't remember whose name goes with whose face. I get a chance to rest my feet and just when I relax a little there's the tap on the shoulder from the next creep who wants to freak me out. I attract them like flies. He doesn't creep me out, nothing really does anymore. I'm more surprised when a guy is nice to me and then I convince myself that there must be something wrong with them and run away. But it kills the tiny high I'd built up to carry me through the remainder of the night.

So I get out, rant at Joe, my dad manages to be omnipresent and I feel a little better. Emma's drunk and giggly and kinda gay. Lotsa kisses and "you're my favourite". Makes me smile. I love my little witch girl. By the time we leave my feet are dead. Who invented heels and why did I have to fall in love with these boots? I've got an arm to drag me and the promise of bed to encourage me. Emma's still excitable, she tells me off for made up affairs. She's fun to wind up when drunk. Taxi rejects us and my dad rages through text. I tried to crawl to bed as quietly as I can when he appears on the stair. Long interrogations before he storms downstairs to complain to the black cab people. Making his little girl come home in a gasp! private hire taxi instead.

I wake up still bleh this morning. I had a day off from everything but I couldn't face studying, couldn't write anything and didn't feel like watching the football (good thing too since we gave away a penalty in the 93rd minute). I gave up on the day around 3 (although considering I was still in the tshirt I slept in I never gave the day much of a chance) having decided that watching my hair slowly fall down from its sleeping state to its normal position in intervals of 20 mins was not a decent pastime. I retired to my cosy little room, put my fairy lights on and chose the ridiculousness of the Mighty Boosh over the brooding of a certain vampire with a soul. Things always look a little brighter with Noel and Julian <3