Why don't you tell it like it really is

I had a flurry of writing earlier this week. Every moment I had to spare I was curled up with a notebook and several pens sticking out of me. I lose most of them in my hair to be honest. They make for good chopsticks. While I was out the other day, after I had successfully burnt myself, my mother took pity on what was the floor of my room and hoovered it for me. In doing so she recovered at least six bics which is awesome because now I have a choice of pen. Anyway I've been writing. I've not touched my only finished piece because blehh I have too many issues with it, I can't progress with my French one until well I go to France and I'm just polishing up the pieces I can write with absolute confidence. It's a rather cheery piece though and I'm not consistently cheerful enough to really dig in and get all of it out of my head. It's there though and there's a lot of notes and stuff so it won't fade like a lot of stories do if I neglect them for too long.

My third one is the one that's consuming me. It's not helped by the fact that I've been reading Bukowski and Palahniuk. I want to write male. See all my best pieces, the ones I am truly proud of and other people have read, all those ones are from a male perspective and I'm always really scared about doing that. I want a voice obviously, because an author without a voice is just a story teller, but I want to be able to write something different everytime and be recognisable without being easy to identify if you follow. Like oh that's by the same author but what in the hell is that person like. I guess it stems from the fact that when I think of a writer I think of something masculine. I started this third thing as a experimental piece. I was a little bored, sick of looking at my old stuff and thought fuck it. I'm on holiday, I'm unemployed, I just sorted out what I want university wise (though I can't make it happen until August but at least I know what I want now and yes it is pointless but hey), I'm more or less on top of this thing called life because I essentially tried a month or so of just not giving a damn. But this thing I'm writing, it's ridiculous and it was really just a filler until I came up with something good. Somehow I've objectified my only female character and if she isn't nagging, she's giving my narrator a hard on. I swear I did not intend this. I was going to write it from her point of view, instead I'm some sarcastic drunk guy in his thirties hanging around with kids and God waiting to ride out the apocalypse in relative safety. And it is backwards. And it's like I'm proud of it but I don't want anyone to read it because it is ridiculous and I can't tell if it's just pretentious nonsense or if it's a goddamn masterpiece. I'm either fantastic or I'm insane or I'm rather dull. We'll see how it goes. I know it's daft to aim so low as to want to be a writer but that is all I want. It's not what I'm going for, I need a job and a career and a life since I cannot picture a marriage or kids. But you know I've wanted it since I was about six years old so why shouldn't I hope to achieve it? If I don't hold on to it I'm left with not a lot after all.

Tiramisu is awesome

I wrote a lot last night. I kept starting with a fresh idea and falling asleep half way through. As a result my sentences begin neat and legible and end in CATHERINE WHEN YOU WAKE UP REMEMBER THAT YOU WANTED TO WRITE ABOUT ENGLISH TOURISTS AND THEIR DAIRY COMPULSION.

Least that's what I can make out.

I also seem to have written over my last paragraph at least three times making the words really dark and swirly.

On the plus side I am actually writing again after a period of nothing?

I swear we were infinite

I forgot how ridiculous wordpress is. I mean it has graphs to show you page views and stats and Best Day Evers. It can tell you what people searched for to get to your blog, or what link somebody clicked to get to your blog and what they clicked once they got there. It makes me feel like I'm spying on my readers to be honest. Although I get a kick out of it, it's more information than I ever needed. And graphs are always pretty.

I have this huge desire to do something bold, fictionally speaking I mean. I've got an idea but I can't do it until I get my essay done. See when you're writing about a philosophy where pleasure is the path to ease suffering it is all too easy to just not bother writing anything at all.

Also: this philosophy decides to talk about everything is made up of atoms and then throw in some advice about relationships. Namely, if she ain't there to fuck, go fuck someone else! It's almost as good as the rules of when to pee. Oh Classical Civilisation I love you so.

I've been secretly falling apart

Every night I stay up too late with whatever tv series I'm wanting to watch all of/is closest to me at the time and I write. Usually I'll put a hat on to write. This is because I love my hats and I never wear them out. I'm justifying the cost. So I'll write and write and write and feel goddamn wonderful doing so, although mostly I keep that to myself out of politeness. I start on my laptop creating file after file. Some are merely titles and an introductory sentence. Some are thousands and thousands of cascading words. Once the battery dies I trail onto notebooks with doodles and notes and any words that pop into my head. Then I fall asleep and scrawl all over my skin and my sheets and wake up the next morning ready to access the damages. Mostly everything I write can be scrapped. Maybe I'll salvage a sentence or two or an image I was particularly proud of. Even if what I've written is good there's still the endless rewrites. I can't progress if something previous needs work. I often think that if I could just get it right the first time I could get a lot more written.

Today is my last day of the holidays which fucking sucks really. I'd take a week less if it meant I was actually off at the same time as everyone else. I'm going to have 2 weeks of Julie laughing at me from her bed when I drag myself to classes I don't care about. But that's a different rant. Today is redraft day. I'm going to go through everything I've written since September (plus the two pieces I wrote between my awful stage and my present stage) and rewrite the ones I still like. It's a chance to see what I do right and what I do wrong and fix it all til I'm damn near perfect and then I'll rewrite it some more.

It's just a damn shame I didn't have the motivation to do this like a week ago.

Can't you see I'm trying?

The wind brings me whispers of revolution. There are rumours of atrocities, outbursts of violence all over the city. Passion burns away the grey. I move out of the centre. Too many people, so many oblivious to the burning words in my mind. I want to shake them, wake them up. Shout and scream and laugh and cry but it's enough just to walk and know that I am right and they are wrong.

Glass crunches underfoot as I step around dirty puddles and trip over stones. Students thrust leaflets in my face or want just a minute of my time, not my money. One of them skips backwards as I stalk past, singing Baby please don't go and I smile despite myself. But I don't have a second to spare.

The road I'm heading for is lined with trees and since it's still the holiday I have the street to myself. I pause for a moment on the bridge, nodding to the skull by the feet of a man I can't identify. I forgot my glasses so I have to strain to see the ducks dive and sway. The stone is crumbling beneath my fingers and I wonder what it would be like to pull my weight onto the curved edge. To swing my legs dangerously above the swirling yellow water. I take a detour behind the museum, closer to the river. The spire peeks out above trees. I perch on the edge of a bench to execute my plan. The bench is dedicated to a woman named Joan. It's my gran's name. My earliest memory is of her. We walked down a path with huge imposing green trees and the whole place smelled of pinecones. There were red squirrels like my favourite toy and I sat on a stone wall with my feet miles away from the ground, eating cherry tomatoes and making up stories.

I fold the paper carefully, hoping I remember how to do this right. I ruin two sheets before I have a satisfactory boat in my hands and I fold it down flat again to paint my dreams on the prow. Pink blossoms fall on my lap and I place them on the deck. Once the coast is clear I lean out and push my craft into the sea. I ask the ducks to make sure it reaches its destination safely and I fancy one of them nods. In my story you'll find it, like you've found all of my messages scrawled on desks and walls and pieces of paper left lying between the pages of books for rent. I want to switch all these squares screaming deals of cheap booze with words that make your heart soar. That encapsulate that perfect moment in a film when everything is quiet and dimly bright and there's a sense of peace and sadness.

And I want you to find me on a wall with my feet not quite reaching the ground, waiting for you and making up stories.

Rainbows and pots of gold

I'm practicing being female is what I think I declared to Joe and Mike last night as I muttered a sad ow with every step. Since I had not intended drinking very much and thus staying out any length of time I wore my ankle boots. It's that teeny extra height and the clomp they make and the fact that they are gorgeous and I found them at a ridiculously low price. I love them but I can't understand why someone had to invent shoes that hurt to walk in. As soon as I was safe in my own street I pulled them off and shuffled home in my socks like I did when I was wee and would dash round to my friend's house 2 doors down in bare feet. No time for shoes we're gonna climb up on the roof and make a den.

It was a weary walk home. There's the annoyance of having to get off the bus because the conversation always starts getting interesting as we move far too quickly into burnside and everything that was in my head floats off when I lose the curved roof above me. There's always something odd about walking down that road. It was part of an old route home from school so I could walk with people who lived further over this way. Distant memories of snow ball fights and secrets shared and secrets made up to have something to share and it's all airy fairy and blows away with a shake of my head.

I get home to read the pen that scrawls over the back of my neat rows of fanciful imagery just happy that somebody other than my mother took the time to break my words down. Julie does too, of course but in the past when I forced her to read my melodramatic tales she'd giggle and snort and draw comma sperm with smiley faces or U FANCY DEAD KIRA FACE LOLOLOL because that's the kinda awesome she is. This morning my email brought me another crit on a piece I've never been happy with but I was too cowardly to send in a piece I liked. This was by the same woman who gave me the positive rejection but this is not an acceptance, it's just letting me know that she liked it and she'd pass it on to someone else. The crit itself is encouraging. It's minor tense issues, a clumsy sentence and a suggestion of rewriting the whole thing in 3rd person but on the whole my work is untouched. And I'm happy just knowing somebody I don't know read something I wrote and didn't discard it. It's never been about bestseller lists and film adaptations, those dreams are distant. It's about reaching someone and worming my way into their subconscious.

And having my work studied alongside Salinger and Shakespeare naturally.

A letter in your writing doesn't mean you're not dead

I wrote a letter last night. My best friend of old and I used to write each other letters all the time despite the fact that I practically lived in her house. It's the thrill of getting mail that isn't junk. I wrote a letter to my pregnant cousin but I'll never send it. She's a complete stranger. It's only blood that links us across the ocean and I know nothing about her other than she's pretty and silly and is going to have a baby at eighteen. But I wrote it anyway and tucked it inside an envelope before dropping it into my bin.

We should start a letter writing revolution. Whenever someone I knew was feeling really down I'd stuff an envelope full of things I had lying around and note down any thoughts I had about them floating around. But email killed the thrill of scribbling down all the things that sound stupid when I open my mouth. I need something tangible. Everything I write on this laptop I need to clean is fleeting. I click submit or send or publish and it's gone. You can read it unless I delete it but I forget what's here and if you bring it up there's a panic before I realise it's just overlap from my diary you're quoting, not it itself.

But these days there's no point in writing letters. I don't know most people's addresses and with the internet and mobile phones I can tell you what I'm thinking faster.

Plus the post office stole my package and I'm never getting my rock o'clock tshirt which sucks and I hiss at the postie now.

Bastards.

Combat baby

We, daughters of educated men, are between the devil and the deep blue sea. Behind us lies the patriarchal system; the private house, with its nullity, its immortality, its hypocrisy, its servility. Before us lies the public world, the professional system, with its possessiveness, its jealousy, its pugnacity, its greed. The one shuts us up like slaves in a harem; the other forces us to circle like caterpillars head to tail, round and round the mulberry tree, the sacred tree of property. It is a choice of evils. Each is bad. Had we better not plunge off the bridge into the river; give up the game; declare that the whole of human life is a mistake and so end it?

And 3 years later Virginia filled her pockets with rocks and walked into the river.

There's no way out, the only way out is to give in.

I prefer reading the literature of the dead. I read arrogant men and suicidal women. I love them more than I could love you.

I want to be wrong but
No one here wants to fight me like you do

I'm little red riding hood, gotta fight the big bad wolf. I've seen through his disguise. There's two pistols in my basket, I'm gonna shoot his big nose off. I don't need no woodsman to rescue me. Some romantic addition to tradition. His value declined when he offered his name. Round of metal between the eyes and the forest is mine.

Happily ever after ends with the ring on my finger. Commitment lasts too long. Your arm is heavy on my shoulders, holding me down. Lips on my mouth steal my words. You tell me how to dress, how to wear my hair, who I should see, what I should like. My body slumps in your bed. I'm your toy; I won't say no. Have your cake and eat her too. You don't know me. Ain't that funny. You don't know me at all. I curl in the corner with the knife in my hand. I've got to cut you out of my flesh. Spit on the floor, I want rid of your taste. Too dark for you? Come back, you can't leave me. I'm waiting for my moment. Blame it all on me. It's ok baby, I understand. It can all be my fault. I should have loved you more. But stay a little longer, until I work this out. I'm nearly there. Almost perfected this art of the living dead. Don't you dare ruin it.

We all got our problems. By the time I'm through I will make you cry. I'll make you question everything you believed in. Silly little boy, you just want everybody to love you. Stupid girl, one day you will learn that none of this actually matters. It isn't real, it's a game we lost before it began. Prey off those who play to win, they'll carry you far. Look for the cheaters, they're the way, the truth and the light. You're a fake, a fraud, a phony if you want to get all Caulfield about it. We'll get drunk, get high. Turn it up louder, hit me again. Let go, sweetheart. Stop pretending. Let's have a night of something real.

And then I'll make it easy for you to leave me.

All your lives unled, reading in bed

There's a cold on the horizon. I'm hoping with enough willpower I can stave it off like last time. Let's all hope so since next week begins the oh crap get essay done time.

You know that restless way when you can't do anything else until you get something down on paper. It's a nightmare, one that wakes me up and consumes my thoughts and the worst part of it is that I am simply not good enough yet to realise all that I can imagine. I'm vain. Incredibly so, although I try not to show it and when I do I use sarcasm to protect myself from contradictions. Because, like all vain people, I'm a mass of insecurities. I wrote my first novel when I was fourteen, although it was not my first attempt. There was that one I started when I was nine about orphaned twins, very melodramatic and ridiculous. But this was my first completed novel. I typed it all up in chapters and let anybody who asked read it. That was the great thing about our high school, few people read let alone wrote their own stories so I was smothered in praise. Of course it was absolute rubbish. Then came the Elfwood period. Considering how picky I am when it comes to clichés my little page on that site is a veritable mess of overused plot holes. Again, it was the perfect place for quick and easy praise. It's why I've never bothered posting anywhere else, except for blogs of course but that's a different matter.

Nobody has ever told me I could write. Nobody ever really encouraged me to write either. I never entered competitions and so I never won anything. I just remember being in the front seat of my dad's car, driving to the BBC building and passing the university. He pointed the imposing building out to me and said that's where I might be when I grew up. I told him it would be pointless because I was going to be a writer.

I didn't quite imagine I'd be stuffy nosed and thumbing through my worn French dictionary to find out how to spell the sentences that play out in my head. I handed the first page to my mother who merely told me that clack would be a better onomatopoeia than tack for a typewriter and ignored all french like phrases. I fear it's become one of those pieces that nobody else will want to read. But one must persevere, if only because I'd fidget myself to a broken finger otherwise.

Julie provided a brief summary of what I've written so far and if it became a published work I'd love it to be the blurb:

I AM WALKING DOWN THE STREET
THERE A STRANGE MAN I DO MEET
I TOUCH HIM INAPPROPRIATELY
AND THEN I PRANCE AWAY WITH GLEE

Now have a picture of the best part of La Dolce Vita. Because it makes me happy.

On ne peut pas fabriquer la vérité

Marie-Jacques peered round my rain-soaked inexplicably curled mop of hair and once she pursed her lips and spouted nonsensical poetry in broken french I knew she wasn't going to leave me alone. Cicero was lost, I jotted down absolute rubbish about Chalcolithic pottery in the hopes that my writing would be so small they'd just give me the points anyway and I begged her to hold still.

"Why are you here?"

She shrugs bony shoulders. "Pourquoi pas."

"Mais pourquoi maintenant? I was writing last night, you could have come then."

"Il faut commencer 'il était une fois...'"

"You're taking the piss."

"Tais-toi!"

"Tais your own toi."

I scribble notes about the French Revolution from lectures I've missed.

"Et il faut finir 'ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants'"

"Shh I'm very busy and important."

I started writing about enlightenment. Which was just lists and lists of philosophers and thinkers under various headings. David Hume was one of the Scottish Enlightened ones and with a spasm my hand creeps to the top of the page and writes she's searching for the missing shade of blue.

"Oh come on. You want me to write a philosophical fairy tale in french? Where were you in sixth year when these things were fresh in my mind. I'll be stuck on wikipedia with foreign dictionaries on my lap. You know I'm lazy with the grammar."

"Je t'aime." She knew ideas were planted in my head and need say no more. Needless to say it was difficult to pay attention in class despite such discussions as "But Catherine is a girl" (nice of them to notice) and bluffing my way through things I barely read the night before.

And my little Parisienne tortures me with something too perfect for me to recreate on paper. And I'm left trapped in my own limitations.

In the beginning

Either I got too tired, had a lecture to go to or I just wasn't wearing the right hat and so these never developed. Abstract modern literature or a chance to organise my thoughts. These may never be anything so I thought I'd give some of them a little hope by putting them up here.

Holly had everything; smarts, beauty, a fair degree of independence and a comfortable home shared with a wonderful man. But she had two problems. First while she was passionately in love with her roommate, he had a girlfriend and second she was a cat. Despite these hindrances Holly felt she had a pretty good chance.

George figured himself a romantic, a real Byronic hero. Take Michelle for instance. She was young, inexperienced, more than a little naive. Almost too perfect a candidate really. He noticed her in History first. She was regularly late and sat alone by the window. The morning sun shone through her bedhead scruff and glittered along the blackrimmed squares that hung snugly on her nose.

The dirty plates pile upon the floor marking the breaks in the day. She hadn't moved in weeks, not since Luke left. She was in mourning for a living man.

It's raining. The red sandstone houses fade to mud. My ceiling fades to yellow. And the sky glows twilight. Tired and worn, my eyes blur. I'm sick of this world of greys.

Everyone agreed his work was beautiful. Nobody painted portraits quite like he could but his bold use of colours split the critics. It was garish, borderline obscene but some believed it made sweeping statements about the rigidity of the modern art scene. Others found it fascinating in an LSD laced interpretation. Whatever they believed, his latest technicolour piece rocketed Percy to stardom.
People asked him over the years which followed what his secret was. He would smile enigmatically and mutter nonsensically about the Muses.
He couldn't tell them the truth.
He couldn't tell his adoring fans that he had ruined his masterpiece by mixing up his paints.
He couldn't give his detractors the satisfaction of being right. He was nothing but a hack.
For Perceval T Jones was terribly colour blind.

Rick winced as he gingerly lifted the glass to his swollen lips. A swirl of rust red tinted the clear liquid. He spat out a molar with a clink in the sink. It hadn't been his day.

I'm a slut without the sex. A flirt, a tease, a whore but it's not deliberate, I just want your attention. I want to captivate you. I want you to sit by yourself and wonder what I'm doing. I want you to fall for me and fall hard and ungainly. Do I interrupt your self-conscious? Do you lie awake and think of me? Do you want me because, for the love of God I don't care one whit about your reasons, just take me if you do. I wish you gave a damn. Fuck your indifference.

Cassandra wore her favourite pink pants the day she disappeared. They were her dance when no one is watching pants and her snuggle up on the couch with her girlfriend pants. Jack remembered how cute she looked standing in his tiny kitchen making tea in her underwear. He remembered watching from the door wishing every morning could start this way. Her hips swayed to the distant tune from the crackling radio as the kettle boiled and though he dearly wanted to, Jack restrained himself from dancing with her. The kettle clicked, Cassandra sashayed to the fridge for milk and Jack went back to bed and waited like she had told him to the night before.
"Happy Birthday!" Cassandra chirped close to Jack's face as he woke up startled. "Morning, sleepyhead. I almost didn't wake you but I already made you tea twice and you didn't even stir so you're enjoying breakfast now. Oh and your milk was off so I borrowed from next-door. You should pay more attention to these things."
"Or find myself a girl to pay attention for me. She could make me breakfast and wash my socks too. Oh wait," he smirked and Cassandra flicked his nose.
"Well it won't become a habit. I'm not your mother. I just couldn't stand the stench." She ducked his hand and stole a piece of his birthday toast, dropping crumbs all over her big blue jumper. Her favourite pink pants were hidden but he knew they were there, soft and unpretentious.
"Way to miss your mouth, dumbass." Cassandra stuck her tongue out at him and brushed the crumbs into his bed."Enjoy. Your party is at six, don't be late. I gotta go do some stuff so you do whatever you want until tonight." She kissed Jack on his unshaven cheek and had she left like she'd intended Jack might have seen her that night and every day after but instead his hand was on her waist and he was imploring her to stay.

I'm good for inspiration aren't I

I didn't get much sleep last night. I was pretty excited because I'd written something I was proud of and then I got the loveliest comment from Carol about it (made me grin so wide in the library, worried a couple of people) and then my mother approved. She's put up with a lot of my terrible scribbles but here was one she actually enjoyed. I might even let my Dad read it and he hasn't read anything I wrote since primary school. It's not perfect, I found at least three clunky sentences just this morning when I attacked myself with my leaky pen but I can look at it and think fuck yeah I can write. And then just to counter all of that and so my ego didn't dare show its face for too long (its an ugly thing, leads to brazenness and bragging) I found the princess story I think I mentioned earlier. I feel you should see what happens when my mind switches off. I tried to work it into something I dunno acceptable for the world but it got to the point where I just couldn't be bothered and I watched Firefly instead. Julie does not appreciate me singing he's the hero of canton the man they call...me! in her face but she will just have to learn to deal. Also my speakers are broken again and no amount of sellotape will fix them. So very pissed off.

Princess Katy sat in her tower and dropped sugared almonds into her pink, greedy mouth. From outside came the faint sounds of her hero battling through the maze to her window. She winced a little as he caught his leg on a thick root and the dragon snapped at his heels. A pastel pink sweet hung above her lips as she watched him fall and flounder for his sword. Her heart skipped as the beast roared and went for the kill. His blade pierced through the roof of its mouth and dulled its great eyes. Katy grinned and snapped up the almond. It had been a while since one had made it so far. Fired by the adrenaline of his kill her hero hacked through the remaining thorns that barred his way. Triumphant he marched to the great stone walls and tried to hide his limp. The princess watched with curiosity. She forgot how exciting this part was. She just hoped he could survive this last test. He stalked closer and she could make out his features: the yellow of his hair, the red of his cloak, the broadness of his shoulders. Her hero threw down his weapon and with outstretched arms spoke thusly:

"Oh, virtuous princess. From the mountains to the sea they speak of your beauty and I have swam the great moat of leeches and answered the riddles of the doors. I have solved the puzzle of the labyrinth and defeated the monstrous reptile that has plagued your sight for many years. Now I stand humbly before you, my love and offer you the freedom you deserve." His voice boomed with a rehearsed cadence. He swept his cloak over his shoulder with a flourish and sank to one knee.

"Captive Princess Katia of Scotia, I set thee free." The princess and her hero spoke in unison. She lay back in the window and propped her feet up as she rummaged in the bowl for more pink coloured almonds. A black kitten leapt onto her lap and watched her fingers chase the sweets around the bowl. Katy sighed and the cat perked up its ears of the sound. Her hero knelt awkward and anxious below her. She hesitated for a moment before snatching up an almond and nodding to the animal.

"He's all yours, Sophie," she muttered. The creature launched itself out of the window, changing as it did so from cat to bird to girl as she was close enough to twist the hero's neck and change back to bird before he could slump lifeless to the ground. She landed back on Katy's knees as the last gasp wracked the unfortunate man's limp body. Katy buried her fingers in the kitten's soft fur and marked a cross in her journal against the date. She didn't know where these men were coming from but someone was telling them to say that same speech. The first one had spoken so softly she couldn't make out half of the words. She'd asked him to speak up and he hadn't taken it well, complaining that he had just battled a dragon and she could make some allowances. Sophie had clawed his eyes out.

She wrote a summary of the hero's short adventure and watched the scene outside. The dragon shook itself like a wet dog and lazily flew back to the centre of the maze. The maze itself formed new roots and the hedges twisted and turned into new shapes. It took a matter of minutes for her prison to right itself for a new contender and soon the only sounds were the steady crunch of the almonds between her teeth and the purring from her final protector. With one last glance at the never-changing world outside, Katy went to bed and hoped for a more exciting morning.

"Uhh," said the man to the lady

The screech of feedback distorts the conversations that had threatened to engulf me. I turn the volume up higher and higher until I can feel the squeals of the guitar vibrating my nose. The pause between songs brings the sea of voices washing in. "E's a fat bastard. A fat speccy bastard." "Aye, aye I get that, but what's he doing there?" A child shrieks and I shut my eyes and wait.

There must be a devil between us
Or whores in my head
Whores at the door
Whore in my bed
But hey, where have you been?

If you go I will surely die...

The leather of my jacket is soft against my cheek as I slouch down further in the bus seat. I had my legs tucked up comfortably for half of the journey but this angry woman in front of me ruined things. She's eating salt and vinegar crisps and the smell takes me back to school. Thoughts of the skinny girl who always took charge. She organised the games, in which I was nearly always the evil witch although I also got to be Belle and Jasmine and Mildred Hubble when we attempted to recreate rather than invent our own. She would sit next to me eating salt and vinegar crisps and press two pence coins into my legs in preparation of my big death scene. I had to wear long socks that week. She'd ask me for advice. I was the go-to girl for solving all of life's mysteries. I was more than a little in love with her. We would giggle under cardigans and rub noses like eskimos. We'd link arms and gossip about boys. She had a bay window in her bedroom with a sofa. We sat in the porch of her old friend while we waited for her to get dressed and her little brothers ran out naked and pressed themselves against the glass door. We hid each others eyes and agreed that boys were icky.

The woman in front has finished eating by now and memories of the skinny girl float away. The blue of my plaster peeks from my sleeve and I wince just a little as I stretch my hand out. Only I could cut myself with a mop. The pen in my pocket rubs along the inside of my hip reminding me I have so much to write. Of course, it would be my right hand the mop attacked. There's a man in his bedroom spying on his neighbour.

The sirens sang so sweet
And watched the sailors going down
You talk to me in siren song
Yeah, anyone would drown

There's a child delirious in her bed. Things moving in the dull light. Ever had a poster that looked like the faces were moving at night? There's a girl. She's mostly me. She keeps walking down this road, tripping over tree roots and she gets to the bridge on Kelvin Way and she puts on her favourite song and looks down into the grey water and

The music stops. I'm out of battery. Which is bullshit because I just charged it but my ipod is pretty old now. Everybody is talking too fast and too loud and the woman's hood has that stupid fur around it and my eyes are heavy and the bus is too warm. My head spins and I'm losing track of my thoughts. I miss my stop and I have to trudge along East Kilbride Road but it isn't raining so I don't mind too much. My jaw is clicking again. I clack it down my road and don't care how obscene I look.

And then I shut the door on my Sunday. I hope yours was more entertaining.

You shouldn't let poets lie to you

With the slightest of twitches I snagged my stocking on a splinter of wood and scored a line around my thigh. Wincing, I rearranged my legs carefully on the edge of the pier. Behind me the crowd screamed in delight as the bonfire flared into existence, but even though I had sat here to wait for that very event I did not join in the merriment. The lake was a vast expanse of black, broken only by the blue glow of the fairy lights strung along the planks and the occasional flash of a passing car on the other side. Once or twice I thought I saw something flicker across the water but my searching eyes found nothing substantial in the murk.

One by one I had dropped each stick of my woefully inadequate firewood contribution into the water instead of the flames. The uppermost arc of the ripples shone in the bluish light and gave me something to stare at while I sipped my drink. It was my third, or maybe fourth of the night. I couldn't remember pouring this latest one. My cigarette smoldered away in its long black holder and I let it burn away to ash. It was mostly decorative anyway and I'd promised Jonathan to cut down. I took a last, long drag and watched the tiny flecks of amber spiral down below me.

"Can I tempt you with a marshmallow on a stick?" Olivia's silky voice dragged me back to the party. Two men towered over her with expectant faces. She pulled a pink gooey ball off the wood with sharp pearls and flashed me a sticky grin. "Dance with me, Sara-Star."

I began to protest but the tallest of the two stole my offer and spun her round fast as the music grew louder. Two marshmallow tipped twigs were pushed into my hands as Olivia seized her chance and sashayed back to the fire, her black skirt billowing out with every swing of her hips. The other boy smiled sheepishly and took a stick from me. Gracefully he swung his legs over the edge beside me. He had a strong nose, a boyish grin and a certain Slavic romance in his dark eyes that melted away my frosty indifference with a glance. He childishly tried to steal my marshmallow after devouring his own and after a struggle I found myself eating from his fingers, and leaning dangerously close to his curling lips.

"You are beautiful," he whispered, sounding almost surprised. I was glad of the mask that hid half of my face from view as I flustered my words, not quite knowing how to respond. I was very aware that the curve of the molded plastic left my own lips exposed. I was an anonymous mouth and once I directed my attention to them, my lips seemed to take a life of their own. My tongue darted over them ever so slightly, tasting the night air and the proximity of his breath. Without any hesitation his mouth met mine and took my breath away as his tongue danced over my molars. "You taste of starlight," he murmured against my mouth before stealing another kiss. My wandering hands found his own disguise tucked in a pocket. It was a mere strip of black voile and I tied it over his lustful gaze. We were united in our anonymity.

The party had simmered down by the time he laid his heavy head on my shoulder and murmured nonsensical romantic notions while his fingers idly buried themselves in the edge of my skirt. It wasn't Olivia's idea to go skinnydipping but she was the first to break the calm surface of the lake with her lithe body. There was the longest pause while we waited for her to break it again. She threw back her head like a mermaid and taunted us until she was joined by at least a dozen shining bodies.

"You will regret it if you stay here." He raised an eyebrow at my wavering expression and won me over with further compliments. Embarrassment checked by hidden identities we dived in hand in hand and stark naked. The shock of the cold took my breath away and I struggled against the inky darkness. When my head was clear of the water I sucked in a lungful of air and noticed that I had lost both my mask and his hand. Laughing I splashed around and called out to the others. With a sickening tightness in my chest I realised there was nobody else around. I scrambled back onto the pier and clutched my shivering body. The fire had burned low and I could just make out the piles of clothing dotted around the beach. Each pile was topped by the discarded smiling mask of the wearer. I called out every name I could remember but the silence was deafening. Shaking from fear and the cold as the water dripped off my limbs I half-ran back to the pier. My outfit was folded neatly where I'd left it and the mask I had been wearing when I jumped in was nestling in the folds of my dress. I picked it up with trembling fingers and the fire went out in a cloud of smoke. Something damp wound its way around my ankles and my scream was cut short as I faced the dark eyes of my captor. Without hesitation its mouth met mine and stole the very life from me. Before I fell into darkness, rough lips confirmed my fears with hushed words:

"You taste of starlight."

I'm so bored of cowards

He refuses to walk you home, says it's too late, too dark and too dangerous. He suggests waking up his mother but she already hates you for what you're doing to her precious little boy and you shake your head. He walks you through the carpark and boys on wheels whirl around you making comments and blaming you for keeping their friend away. He gives you what he imagines is a lingering, romantic kiss and shuffles off wringing a promise of a text once you get home safe. Spin on your heel once he's out of view. He didn't even look back. You're alone now. Step into the night.

Your outfit was barely appropriate during the day. Under the streetlights you feel exposed. Your heart pounds as you pass each waiting car. Your limbs shake in the oversized coat that offers little protection against the cold and leering eyes. When you threw on your clothes you didn't get it quite right. You feel thoroughly rummaged and you don't want to use the word violated but it sits there mocking you anyway. Once you pass the train station and the last point of real danger, you relax and pull your ipod out of your pocket. Play anything to fight the darkness but turn it up until it hurts.

I want to go on a mountain-top
With a radio and good batteries
And play a joyous tune and
Free the human race
From suffering

Your lips still hold the traces of your lipstick. The sticker called it Red Passion. The French alongside seemed even tackier: Passion Rouge. Like a clichéd whore. You pull your hair out of their bunches, so tired of being cute and you stalk across the last road. It doesn't scare me at all. Someone moves by the church where the lights don't work but don't you look. You're safe if you don't look. One more corner baby and now you're under that patch of sky you know so well. The only patch of sky where you feel like the world is round and you mean something on it. I'm no fucking buddhist but this is enlightenment

You feel like singing, like dancing or shouting. You feel free for just a moment with the stars in your hair and the night curling around your legs. Hang back just a moment sweetheart, enjoy the silence. In ten minutes your parents will go mental, you know without looking that you're an hour late. By tomorrow morning he will be furious too, remember to turn that phone off tonight. Enjoy the silence, it's all I can give you.

It doesn't scare me at all

Nine times out of ten our hearts just get dissolved

Things you should never mix with rum

At the top of the list we have sherbet.
Followed swiftly with flying saucers because technically they fall under the sherbet category but with added hilariousness due to the dissolving of the saucer itself.
Then there's maoam (although it should be noted that those round ones you get in the multipacks are lovely in vodka)
And finally we have lemonade. Why I chose to mix the two I don't know because I have made this mistake before. The first time at least had been as part of a dare since I had made everyone try my mistake of adding sherbet, the second I can only say I'm a fool who doesn't learn from her mistakes.

Blehh


Blehh

On the plus side it helped me finish writing the story I was working on (which you can read on my other blog, conveniently located in the links bar). On the bad side Psyduck?

I don't even know.

Blehhhh

Anyone who ever had a heart wouldn't turn around and break it

I was sitting yesterday with my notebook taunting me with its blank pages. I was covered in ink as is usual when I attempt to write. I fidget. In the shower this morning I was still finding marks in unexpected places. But no ink on the paper. So I dawdled from the goals I set myself and I went online where Emma's third chapter was awaiting me. So I spent my evening listening to my dad's music and typing up my comments as I read. It helps wake my dozy mind up and focus on issues of an English sort. I didn't do much thinking in English Lit true but what do you expect when I was surrounded by girls who claimed Rochester didn't really love Jane. Just stamp all over my first love why don't you. But I couldn't be lazy in my critiquing. This year I could get away with half-assed arguments because I know my mythologies and I got away with waffling. There's something so satisfying in reading a piece of writing and figuring out why it works and why it doesn't.

I finished chapter three this morning with only a few brief digressions pondering both Ryan North's recent take on Hamlet and curly haired men. My notebook still sat in front of me with nothing but some doodles from weeks ago. I flicked through my diary instead, just in case any of the notes I'd taken in the middle of the night sparked anything and while I had written some two paragraphs and written out the vaguest outline of a plan I couldn't write a damn thing. Although I am covered in pen once more, making my morning shower almost pointless. So I thought well maybe I could try typing it up and skip the handwritten stage; something I really can't stand doing since my fingers become dyslexic the minute they're faced with a keyboard. But once in a while they behave, and tonight they did. So hurray I wrote something! Just in time for me to start studying for my exams. I always have the worst timing.

And if you know where my title comes from you know the song I grew up listening to since it's always the first thing my dad plays when he picks up his guitar. You can listen to my childhood.

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.

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?