le temps de l'amour, c'est long et c'est court, ca dure toujours

The front cover is folded down slightly in the top right corner. Not entirely like The Blind Assassin was but half so the photo and the cover have separated. Other than very vague bashing on the spine it is perfect. A fraction of the price I always buy through the marketplace because although I ideally want to make a living writing my own I don't want to pay for the ones I read. Hypocrite! But even when I wasn't budgeting myself I never liked to spend so much money on books and I could do it so easily. I haven't been reading in a while, I'm reading a new book every two days now it's wonderful. I don't care for this technological age (though I write this on the internet but like I said hypocrite) because there is nothing better than holding a book and finishing somebody's thoughts. Working them into my own. And I have been writing too. I glanced down at my idle document, half wondering if I can make it long enough to send anywhere, if it's 'different' enough this time and I've written 3,000 words. It's too bloody long and I've barely begun. Oh well.

This morning post brings me Kerouac. The pages are white and I can't remember if it was new or used. Must have been new but I flick through and I smell tobacco, a cloudlike waft like a new packet tore into and now it's faded into the spine after its release. He has his own introduction in the style of a form or a resume. There's his name, date of birth, education, married: Nah. So I read this but really I have to go dry my hair before it curls. Well maybe just the first paragraph, see what it's like.

HERE DOWN ON DARK EARTH
before we all go to Heaven
VISIONS OF AMERICA
All that hitchhikin
All that railroadin
All that comin back
to America
Via Mexican & Canadian borders . . .

and I'm lost, gone into the page and my hair springs upward. I'll have to sit bored before the mirror now, flatten myself into doll-like acceptability. The funny thing is I bought this book on a recommendation from a character in another book. And I trusted her judgement because I liked her.

There are

thirteen Smiths on the fiction shelves in Borders.

Thirteen.

I need me a new name.

We were talking about names the other day, my family and I. I think it was Julie who was considering the tradition of passing on names and asked why Dad wasn't named after his mum's dad. I can't really remember how she came to that slightly contorted conclusion. Anyway point is if he had been named for his maternal grandfather, my father would be John Smith.

I mean I have nothing against my surname, it's easy to spell and pronounce and balances out my long first name so I can usually just about fit it on a line but damn it isn't very exciting.

More exciting I got the cutest top, and I mean the cutest top, and a skirt from my local designer charity shop. Got them both for a tenner I did which is fantastic considering the top was more than that originally on its own. I do love secondhand shopping. There are so many ugly things that I want to own and make pretty but I'm not that talented and often they are too expensive. I still long for them though. Terrible dresses haunt my sewing machine. One of my biggest regrets clothing wise was this huge tshirt with the Doors on it. It was too expensive so I had to leave it on a hanger but dammit I had a plan. There was this perfect design in my tshirt book and oh sometimes it's painful to think about.

I told my mum to read Fight Club because she wanted to read a book while she watched Julie swim and she owns like no books. I know this because I stole one of them and she was so pissed off and was all I have no things stop stealing mine. Anyway this was her response to what she read so far.

"You told me to read a book about giant erections. I was sitting in the cafe with children and mothers and wholesome people reading about penises. What if somebody saw?"

She has not seen the film. She's gonna get to read the book and not know the twist. Now I've made myself angry because I had the film spoiled halfway through watching the goddamn thing.

I stayed up last night and watched Factotum, though I'll have to rewatch most of it because I was writing and you know that way when you get caught up doing something and you realise the tv's been on for hours and you barely noticed a damn thing. I've probably caused the death of a fair few polar bears that way. Anyway I remember the first half hour pretty well and the problem with it is the source material. It's Bukowski. Reading Bukowski isn't so much depressing as deadening. Nothing I've read of his has shocked me but I sort of figured everyone's a cunt and crazy to boot so I'm more surprised when people are nice. Desensitisation!

It's deadening though reading page after page of such a loser and watching him is just sad. There were good bits though like when he and this girl tried cars until they found one that was unlocked so they could steal cigarettes. Or he talks about how when he doubts his ability to write he reads other writers and feels better. I always feel worse when I do that. It's like look at all these terrible writers lining shelves of terrible bookshops and they're better than I am because they finished something and they had the guts to sell themselves and terrible people will buy them. It's the selling myself I'm concerned about which is not the best thing to think about going into a job interview. I can fake it though if I really try and by god I'm gonna try my ass off.

I started reading Women by Bukowski ages ago and then misplaced the book. I think it's under my bed, haven't checked. It's about when he's become successful and he goes on an awful lot of how he tried to be better at sex. Reading books by old men about how to satisfy young women is odd to say the least. I suppose you'd think it would be more disgusting but I always get this smug feeling. Haha I can satisfy women and you can't. Sucks to be you. Anyway I haven't read Women in months and months but there's this scene when he's staying in the female dorm of a college he was invited to do a reading at and he gets drunk one night and wanders up and down the halls knocking on every door shouting that he's this big time author and didn't anybody wanna fuck him. Nobody opens up and he goes back to bed and laughs and drinks some more. I dunno why but it's stuck in my head.

The fairytale was climbing up a mountain far too steep

I like reading other people's books, especially my dad's. He goes through reading periods and then never finishes any of the books he starts. There's about six or seven books next to his bed that he's reading at the moment. My mum complains, he explains that he feels like reading different things at different times which I totally relate to and she whines that he isn't the one having to lift them up to clean underneath. I say clean around then but apparently this is not the attitude of a cleaner who wants to keep her job.

Sometimes I read my dad's books and tell him what they're like. I did that with FIght Club since he read a third of the way in and then piled other books on top and forgot about it. I'm tempted just to claim it as mine but I figure if he ever reads it and likes it he will buy more Chuck Palahniuk and I will reap the rewards. I'm holding his copy of Breakfast at Tiffany's hostage until he finally gets around to reading The Motorcycle Diaries since he finally watched it, not my dvd that I lent him for a year and then took back but on tv. At the moment I'm still trying to find the time to finish On the Road. I'm in the middle of the last journey down to Mexico now and by god is it crazy. He picked it up from the pile next to my couch and thumbed through it to work where I was. Hugely excited he asks if I've read the bit about Jazz yet. I argued the whole book was about Jazz and he shook his head.

"I mean the crazy bit where they're in the Jazz club and they're all mad on amphetamines."

I was not aware there were amphetamines to be honest. Lot of marijuana and having to remember that tea is slang for marijuana and not laughing at the idea of them getting excited over actual tea. Then again I read far too fast, means I can read something several times over and I never get bored but I forget little details. Somehow this lead to a conversation with my mum about drugs that end in zepam and how they make me think of marzipan and so then whenever I'm reading about crazy or depressed people or what have you I get hungry. Hungry for cakes.

The Last Shadow Puppets that I talked about earlier are awesome, I decided this yesterday on the bus. I didn't want to like them much but dammit if they don't sound like a more polished version of the Libertines which is funny because so many bands came out trying to sound like the Libertines and I hated them. Like the View. Oh how awesome you've worn the same jeans for four days now. This is not even anything worth mentioning. It's not that long a time.

Girlie so groovy

I'm sure I've talked about how I pick my literature before. I look at the first and last lines. Usually it works pretty well. I had £10 worth of vouchers left for Waterstones and I thought I'd see if they had more of the same notebook I've been using as a journal. They did not. I wandered around in the poetry section instead. Wanted to buy Don Juan but the cover was ripped. Rubbish! It's like when you find that book you've been searching for and somebody has broken the spine. Bastards!

Anyway I was about to give up and go home when I remember about Joyce. And lo! They had Finnegans Wake. I already knew I wanted it. I'd wanted it ever since I realised Sylvia Plath wasn't just being mad and she was quoting real literature. Problem is I'm finding it impossible to read it without reading aloud. And yes, I do read it in an Irish accent.

So first line: riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howlth Castle and Environs.

Last line: A way a lone a last a loved a long the

Best thing is it's the same line!

I'm in love you guys.

Also Julie made me this a while ago. I forget why but I found it yesterday and giggled.

How I learnt not to set my dick on fire. An essay by Miss Kitty.

I do love Autumn. As I trudged home, sick as a very sick dog having managed to locate the book I needed from the library (who puts a history book in the theology section just cause it's about nuns? HISTORIC NUNS!) and not slept through classics (no sign of hotman, good thing too considering the icky cold), my heart lifted a little as I crunched through the leaves. And maybe kicked them up a little just for fun. And maybe by little I mean quite a lot.

A squirrel decided to try to paw its way into our sitting room not once but twice and just casually walked off when I approached the window all 'what the hell ya doing? crazy rodent thing' waving my hands about. It was mad. He's not been back but I suspect he's off to find a rock or something to steal my TV when I'm not looking.

I'm pretty much over the cold now *touch wood* I defeated it with positive thinking and drugs! Just dying of exhaustion now, so many things I had to clean today, some of them more than once thank you very much faulty bin bag. So now I anticipate good things. Like essay writing and a 9am start on Friday...it's a big week for me this one. A big, sucky one full of Things To Do.

On the good side I'm writing again. I spent the last three hours or so writing a short story. It had swords and hints of Greek mythology. Very happy I did something with ease. I've been in a funk for too long. Might post it if anyone's interested/I can be bothered.

On the Greek mythology thing for Classics I had to read Hesiod's Works and Days or as Julie decided to rename it "How I learned not to set my dick on fire". No joke. Halfway through this short poem thing about when to do your harvest and what way to drink your wine Hesiod starts giving instructions on how to pee. Guys just to inform you, you can't pee standing towards the sun, and at night don't pee on the road or uncovered. The best advice ever comes swiftly after with the classic (and I stress I have not changed a single thing here) "And when your private parts are stained with semen indoors, do not let them be seen as you go near the hearth-fire, but avoid it." Don't let your lady-friend see you set your spunk on fire? Don't go near fire in case you burn your penis cause that would be sore? Semen is highly flammable? I'm not sure quite what he is telling us here. But whatever it is, take heed men.

Shake your head it's empty.

Today I had a job interview and normally I'd be all 'yay interview that's pretty good!' and while there's a pretty high chance I could actually get the job I'm just not excited. Could be that I spent a good 15 mins at least staring at a mug while I waited for the manager to come get me. Man, that mug just wasn't doing much for me at all. Then it turned out it was some sort of pre-interview instead and I was talked at for 10 mins about how shifts work. I don't even think I said more than a dozen words before I was being shown out the door.

So I went to Borders and bought a book. It's funny, I picked up Beowulf but ended up buying a book of Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell. I've done this before, walk into a bookshop in a daze and come home with something I didn't intend to buy. Luckily this time it was actually a book I did want, just not the one I planned on purchasing unlike last time when I came home with some Chinese taoist book. (Mum had to take that one back I was just too embarrassed). Gothic Tales looks pretty good and hopefully the name won't disappoint.

I did perk up when I passed the fearsome American preahing on a stool round the corner. I only heard snippets of his speech but he had a fair crowd. I was fairly impressed until I heard something about the sin of 'fornication' and the crowd giggle at him. There went his credibility.

In other news, I have man hair today.