apolutrosis, or redemption

Topic: Creepy Lesbo
Reading and watching and listening and thinking has me, well, thinking.
You'll forgive a rambling, disconnected hiatus while I try to work out what to do with my life. It won't make sense to you. No apologies for that. The point has ceased to be intelligibility. Stop reading it.



I play this game.
It's pointless and annoys me, yet I'm compelled to play on

Searching for reasons isn't the point
The process is the answer
The journey, not the destination
We're all seeking redemption in some way

looking to forget our past

am I just here to be haunting the place?
depressed, trapped, helpless?
wandering about, unable to change

unable to change the situation

And what aobut my soul - do I even have one?

But redemption is a recovery
of something

something sold, or lost
deliverance
rescue

"(Theol.) The procuring of God's favor by the sufferings and death of Christ; the ransom or deliverance of sinners from the bondage of sin and the penalties of God's violated law.
In whom we have redemption through his blood. --Eph. i. 7."

salvation from sin? What sin?

"the purchase back of something that had been lost, by the payment of a ransom.
The Greek word so rendered is _apolutrosis_, a word occurring nine times in Scripture, and always with the idea of a ransom or price paid"

A price paid.
A recovery
of what's been lost.
Yes, I can see that one.
But through blood?

Where do I have to bleed?
Where do I have to go?
How hard will it be to
move myself
to pay the future's ransom
to purchase my freedom from all this?

And if it can be done, then why can it be done?
And what does permanent mean?
What do I do?
How do I forget the things I did
but make room for the things I wish to do
How do I forget the things I am
and make room for the person I will be

And is it possible?
To change that much?
What is redemption, is it a bribe?
A serendipitous, spiritual bribe?
Blood money to shut your soul up for another ten years?
How is that possible?
Why is it possible? how is that fair?

Do I stay in this hole, hiding
haunting myself

Do I assume inviolability
That the past doesn't matter?

Do I plague myself
with questions
in the hope
the assurance
the inevitability
the hope of stasis?

What do I do / what did I do / what shall I do.
Here / there / maybe nowhere.

Redemption. Buying it back.




If nothing we do matters, then . . .

all that matters . . .


is what . . .


we do.

Erm. Who said that? I'm not bigheaded really.
MONKEYS took over my COMPUTER #NEIN

Now Playing: Lemonpillows: Yesterday's Tomorrow
Topic: Creepy Lesbo

Vanessa: Would you love the opportunity to tell me to shut the hell up about my damn blog?

Harv: Not really. Everyone needs a reality check every so often. Very hard to get though. For example, this survey will have response biases. (In an ideal world you would make it anonymous so that people had more freedom to write without fear you'd be offended - not my situation since I haven't read the blog)
Rose Madder: no, keep going, it's extremely entertaining!
fmc: Cliched ? but whose reality. Come to the Gower.
Vic: I could do, in those comment boxes filled with gushing good-will. I don't want to though. I must point out though, if somebody is annoyed with your blog getting them to do a k-length questionnaire may not improve matters.
jatb: No, never.
Vic: Perhaps the non-respondents will speak volumes. You can always ring me up if you want a reality check ;)
Looby: Yes, you're right, I'm getting a bit bored with this now :)

## END INTROSPECTION ##

Anyway, FINALLY, can we just stop all this talk about ME and really FOCUS on the ISSUE of ME for a second, here? #8

Now Playing: Lemonpillows: Push It Over
Topic: Creepy Lesbo

Vanessa: What do you think of the comments that are on there? Do you find their effusiveness embarrassing, or do you think it's our cultural discomfort with compliments that makes your toes curl when you read the comments?

Vic: I'm jealous of your comments. I want comments filled with hate and venom but those readers never comment, bastards. It's not often I read your comments, but then they are YOUR comments, not mine. It's just noseyness if I do.
fmc: I don?t think that you have blog-imented me so can?t say my toes curled in discomfort at the effusive comments.
Looby: No, I think when people pay you compliments, most of the time they are genuinely meant. I realise you're after a bit of helpful criticism though.
Rose Madder: sorry, haven't read the comments (but the admiration is justified, I think)
jatb: I like reading the comments, they rarely pick up the aspects of the post upon which I would comment and it can be instructive to see other people's perspective. (And the poems were fantastic.)
Looby: The only thing about comments boxes is that they can sound a bit show-offy sometimes. I don't know if people feel they have to make a witty one-liner. I know I do. I find myself thinking "how can I make this funny"? Stupid habit. Must stop it. Also if loads of people have commented I often don't bother, because it feels as though your comment's just going to be lost.

Vanessa: Do you think my blog makes too much of my sexuality? Do I go too far, ever? Is it a sad-fuck pity party? An ego boost? Do I need to get out more?

Rose Madder: nah, I like those bits (but I'm most certainly biased) No comment on the ego trip, though...
fmc: It is part of who you are ? or part of what you want to be seen as ? it?s up to you. I make too much of the size of my arse and people tell me to shut up ? so if people don?t like you harping on and on and on about your sexuality I suggest they read elsewhere.
Vic: You can't get away fom your 'sensible shoe' wearing ways, it's your blog, so of course it's going to be filled with lesbianistic mentionings. I wouldn't say you go too far, you could call the blog Lesbo-Vee's-Same-Sex-Relationship-Blog. Is it a sad-fuck pity party?
fmc: Oh yes. Oh boy oh yes. SOOOOO much. But aren?t all writers after some justification for their existence as we all are so what?s wrong with that?
Vic: An ego boost? Do you need to get out more?
jatb: No. Yes (and why else would one have a blog?). Yes, you definitely need to get out more - are you free tomorrow?
Vic: I dunno, that doesn't seem to me to be the case, but all those comments have to make you happy otherwise why link-whore so much?
Looby: No. As a voyeur (visual + literary) no-one can ever go too far for me. You have to work that one out for yourself - I know I post utter bollocks when I'm pissed (which is all the time) and am often hurriedly deleting stuff at 7am. It's great having your own words to gaze upon. Yes, it is a Narcissistic activity - great!
fmc: Get out of London, out of the South East. The rest of the world is different and less oppressive and introspective and navel gazing. Peoples eyes get short sighted from navel gazing and after a while all you can see is the blue fluff. You might find it interesting to meet the rest of them and find that they don?t give a damn about the micro details and are actually out looking at the sun and trees and sky and quite happily empty headed enjoying themselves. Or you might prefer the bountiful nature of the shops?ah, the shops?

to be continued ...

They LOVE it! We all LOVE it! We can ANALYSE our every move till the arse end of FOREVER! #7

Now Playing: Lemonpillows: Losing You
Topic: Creepy Lesbo

Vanessa: Do you ever write? When do you write? What medium do you write in? Who reads what you write? Has your writing style changed to fit your audience ever?

Vic: Hehehehe. I blog madness that's really intended to offend more than anything else due to my general displeasure at the world in general (see my non-commented on 9-11 post that I really liked a lot), I get at least five visitors a day. I write films, television series (-ish), books and short novels, all in Word, and all in 10 point to save space, but you know all this. Who reads it? Although you should, you don't, but then neither does anyone else so I'm not bitter ;) I don't change my style for readers, only for literary experimentation purposes. I am beginning to see why I only get five visitors a day.
Looby: Only blogging. Oh, and I do a guide to the town's pubs. I'm aware that left to my own devices I'd have quite a formal, stilted, and pretentious style, which I'm forever revising to make it more chatty and colloquial.
jatb: I write: a diary, send text messages, write postcards and informal letters to my friends, and compose formal letters, legal documents, academic articles and secondary legislation for work. I prefer to use pen and ink, or pencil, but I also type and text. Who reads what I write depends on what I am writing, and yes, my writing style always changes to fit my audience. Insofar as I have a writing style only my diary reflects it, everything else conforms (to a greater or lesser extent) to the style I think my audience desires.
Harv: I write as part of my job - marketing concepts, copy writing for brand related publications, etc. for these, my style varies depending on audience.
Rose Madder: I write academic stuff for books and journals, articles, book reviews, a diary and the extremely occasional poem. And yeah, the style always changes depending on the audience (or the absence thereof).
fmc: I use to. I got old and busy and ? rather less introspective. Diary?s and post cards and emails. On holiday. Read by the people I write to. And me.

to be continued ...

What, you think they're blogging with a GUN to their heads? Someone's FORCING them not to be DIFFIDENT about NAVEL GAZING?
Now Playing: Lemonpillows: Heartbeat
Topic: Creepy Lesbo

Vanessa: Do you think I've treated any of our friends in common badly via the blog? Did you say anything at the time? By email, in person, on the phone, or in a public comment? Do you think I give enough right of reply?

jatb: You were hard on Tybalt sometimes. (Does she count as a friend in common?) And I commented to that effect once. Right of reply? Well, there are comments but no one would ever come across well using that as a right of reply - imagine Tybalt trying to put her point of view...
Vic: No ill-treatment yet, but you have plenty of time. If you did I'd just spam your comments box until I achieved satisfaction, that does me for a R-t-R.
jatb: But anyway, doesn't this depend on what your blog is? A diary? A lightly fictionalised diary? Fiction? Commentary? It doesn't strike me as the kind of fora (for want of a better description) where a right of reply is necessarily going to be appropriate.

Vanessa: When we meet up or socialise, does having read my blog inhibit your conversation ever? Do you feel like you know me better for having read my blog? Do you ever refer to things I've written?

Looby: No. On the contrary actually. It's helpful as it gives you a few things to ask about to get the conversation going. A bit, not much.
fmc: I have known you since before you had pubic hair ? like I?m gonna be inhibited!
Looby: I still count actually face-to-face meetings as the source material for how you get to know someone. I would refer to things you've written, 1) when it's particularly well-written and other people to see it, and 2) occasionally when you've raised an interesting subject. I feel I ought to find my own ideas, though, so I try not to do this.
Rose Madder: Oh yeah, just a glance at the blog and one knows you better - even if it's all made up.
jatb: Knowing about the blog doesn't inhibit conversation, and yes, I do sometimes refer to things you've written when we meet and even to things other people have written. I don't feel as though I know you better for having read your blog but I do feel I know more about things which have happened in your life. Events, not feelings.
fmc: I might do, I don?t get to see you much these days and it would be good to see you more and so I should use the blog to contact you and care about you from the distant dragon lands that I now inhabit.
Vic: Is it bad to treat peoples' blogs with a pinch of salt? I don't consider it real, like a diary, because a blog is a public forum. I would probably learn more about you by inspecting your stool than reading your blog, am I wrong?

to be continued ...

This page graced by sarsparilla at 12:43 PM BST
Updated: Saturday, 22 May 2004 4:25 PM BST
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Leastways I'm HONEST about it... #5

Now Playing: Lemonpillows: Could you Love Me
Topic: Creepy Lesbo

Vanessa: Did you have any say in what pseudonym I gave you online? Do you wish you had a different one? Do you worry that I gave you that pseudonym for some unfathomable reason that reflects badly on you or me? Way back when I started, I used to whack up photos of my friends on there, without asking. They're still in the archives, actually. Did you object to that?

fmc: Photos ? of me. Where!!
Looby: I think some of these questions relate less to me than people you know better.
jatb: I had no say in the moniker; I don't mind; and if I did I'd have fmc to blame, not you, as she came up with it. (And if I'm not going to hold it against her, I'm hardly going to hold it against you.)
Vic: I didn't even have any say in the address Jaynair in the first place, and I always thought I was Vic, that'll just confuse the Wrights even further.
fmc: I am getting bored of the questions now ? short attention span.
Vic: I don't think you have ever put a pic up of me. You hate me, obviously, and it is that which I would object to, were I that objectionable.
Vanessa: I have put up a picture of you. It's your fault I didn't repeatedly do it, stop looking like an older, dishier Gareth Gates, and grow a manly beard, and you'll be plastered all over the net.

to be continued ...

Politics? Pffft. Culture? Oh, please. It's all about ME ME ME ME ME with blogs. ESPECIALLY when they pretend it isn't. #
Now Playing: Lemonpillows: Forever 14
Topic: Creepy Lesbo

Vanessa: Do you mind being featured in my blog, as if you're an imaginary character? Do you object publicly? Do you *like* it when you come across references to yourself, or are you tolerating my intrusion? Does the information about you on the 'profile' page upset you, or don't you mind? Do you hate it if I repeat a conversation we've had? Are you one of the people who asks when we meet up if I'm going to blog it?

fmc: Am I am imaginary character? In whose imagination and why were they not more imaginative ? this is the Thatcher education for you. Please imagine me a perter arse and bigger boobs.
Looby: No, not at all - I trust your sense of discretion.
jatb: Oooooh, I had no idea I was in the profile section.
Vic: This has so many subquestions it's like a Physics exam question.
fmc: I think I need to read your blog more.
Vic: I love being mentioned.
fmc: I guess it would depend on the conversation ? I trust you to use your planet sized brain and not deliberately offend me.
Vic: Especially when it means a link to my blog as I invariably get visitors from it. I'm a whore for fame, no matter how meagre. Is it bad to only just now be aware of the profiles page?
Looby: Didn't know there was any! Oh, there it is! No, not at all.
jatb: I don't mind the information in the profile, though I do tend to the view that the jatb who appears in your blog is a fictional person and not me at all, so there isn't anything to mind about.
fmc: I just looked myself up?I am NOT always on about how shit London is?am I? [...] Now that I am in Swampy Swansea I miss the shops ? I will concede that point in London?s favour. I pine for the shops.
Vic: Either way, you wrote niceness about me and tess, that's always good. Repeat what you want, if you dare. My latest annoyance is Gabrielle and the shame she has for her own boz-eye that requires her to wear sunglasses no matter where she is. Are you going to blog about it now? ;)
Rose Madder: Crikey, don't suppose this is relevant - but coming across someone else's description of oneself / perception of events would inevitably be a touch disturbing... And do note, I didn't ask if you'd blog it last week!
jatb: Honestly? I hold my breath and read it very quickly in case it isn't very nice. And then I re-read it more slowly when I know it's safe to breathe again. (Please don't ever write a really long entry, I might suffocate.) And that's despite knowing it's not about me, it's about jatb, the fictional character. Just as well I don't mind, eh?
fmc: No. Never imagined that anyone else would be interested ? god, do I have to read this thing everyday? It feels like a lot of commitment ? are you a cult and should I be afraid, very afraid? Heavens, apparently on the 22nd of July it will die and I hardly had the chance to get to know it ? I am grieving and may need time off work for the stress.
Looby: I like coming across references to myself, because I'm an egotist. But I always check your blog specially carefully after a meet-up, because I'm interested in seeing if you've written anything about it. I realise that there's no necessary connection between an event's importance for you and the likelihood of it appearing, but it's interesting to get the other person's perspective if it is blogged about.

to be continued ...

This page graced by sarsparilla at 2:07 AM BST
Updated: Saturday, 22 May 2004 4:31 PM BST
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I mean WHAT THE HELL do you think all those OTHER BLOGGERS are chatting about at such length, anyway?? #3

Now Playing: Lemonpillows: Doesn't Matter
Topic: Creepy Lesbo

Vanessa: What do you read? Books, papers, the sides of buses, magazines, messageboards, letters, cereal packets, blogs, other people's mail?

Harv: Books, papers, occasionally magazines
jatb: I read every scrap of text I catch sight of: packaging, adverts, road signs, books, legislation, websites, text messages, newspapers, the small print.
fmc: Books yes, papers not much any more ? I don?t commute anymore (hahahaahaha, just had to get that in for you saddo Londoners), the sides of buses the backs of buses, magazines I thought they were only there for the pictures ? at least that what the boyfriend tells me about Pammie?, messageboards what are they?, letters from the bank, cereal packets only in the supermarket to look for the GM ingredients label (I had a job interview once and told them that I was an avid reader of cereal packets ? I didn?t get the job), blogs duh, other people's mail NEVER.
Looby: Modern and classic fiction, (lately: Tristram Shandy and Don Quixote), books about modern European history and politics, (a history of contemporary Italy, a book about Russia since the fall of communism) memoirs (Norman Manea's autobiography about life in Romania from 1935 to the present day); The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, Private Eye, Good Beer Guide, Eurovision Song Contest Handbook, What's Brewing (CAMRA newspaper), the dictionary.
Rose Madder: I read all sorts of stray text, papers etc, and books when I have to (and occasionally for pleasure).
Vic: Booooooks, and lots of them, and the occasional message board that pertains to my activities (xdcuk.net, dogging.com and the like)

to be continued ...

Whaddaya mean it's too POMPOUS and SELF CONGRATULATORY? I'm only FOCUSSING, on ME, all the time?! #2

Now Playing: Lemonpillows: Change
Topic: Creepy Lesbo

Vanessa: Do you read any of the other blogs that I've linked to? Is there a difference in how you feel about reading about someone you know compared to someone you don't?

Rose Madder: no, but it would be very different to read about someone I don't know.
Vic: I occasionally skim select ones, but with so many you link to I've only seen a small fraction. With respect to me knowing the blogger, of course it makes a difference, but only in the quantity I read as opposed to considering it a secret view into the mind of the blogger etc...
fmc: I had no real interest in reading about someone I have never met (and never even heard of ? it isn?t like reading a biography of Pepys, who at least you have heard of ? these people have no connection at all with my life). I was interested in reading about you ? it felt like a way of finding out what is going on in my friend?s life (who I rarely see and should call more often).
Looby: Yes - Lemonpillows, Another Sarah, Tess's blog. I suppose there's a bit of added interest in that you can compare the online persona with the real one. I see blogs as simply another type of meeting or interaction really - pub, cinema, lunch, read blog.
jatb: I read some of the other blogs, far fewer than I used to when I was blogging. And now almost entirely restricted to the ones which are work safe. There is a slight difference because I know more about you and feel I can perceive a subtext to your blog which I can't have the remotest idea about in others. But that only applies when your blog handles absolute reality, and anyway it's only my feeling about my perception. How far removed that might be from your perception of reality is anyone's guess.

to be continued ...

Can we just stop all this talk about ME and really FOCUS on the ISSUE of ME for a second, here? #1

Now Playing: Lemonpillows: Angel
Topic: Creepy Lesbo

The atmosphere was tense, crackling with expectation and sexual electricity as we made our way across the hotel lobby.
A blog convention with a difference, and not just in the smouldering intensity of the attendees' long lashed limpid eyes. No, this room, this gilt edged bejewelled velveteen palace was to hold a select panel for the next few hours.
The anticipation was already unnerving us all, and introductions proved somewhat hurried and flirtatious. All eyed and sized and appreciated the intellectual and physical prowess on display. This was no mere blog meet. This was to be a Convention on the Future of Vanessa's Blog.

First, the attendees: Harv, a six foot darkly intense young executive of a mid European marketing firm, known for his artistic dilletantism, and his culinary skill. Debonairely dressed from head to toe in discreet armani, travelling businessman Harv felt very much at home in the expensive hotel surrounding. Harv was first to arrive, and, noticing the youthful yet stooped, serious professorial figure entering after him, Harv registered an interest with a flash of his mahogany eyes, and was quick to order drinks for the party gradually gathering. His smoothly delivered choice of mojito cocktails all round was approved of by all, save he of the defiantly radical tastes, cutting a pose reminsicent of early Kerouac as he slouched against an ottoman, scuffing it carelessly against his artfully distressed footwear, Vic.
Vic had travelled down from his academic pursuits in the frozen wastes of the north, where he had tensely allowed his underlings to pursue the guarded secrets of the universe, of extreme physics. His intelligence and learning shone through his blue-gray hooded eyes, and his hunched, Beat poet manner, as he crouched edgily over a cigarette. Vic's attention wavered from his pursuit of a more manly aperitif as six foot swedish intellectual and artiste Rose Madder made her accustomed dramatic entrance to the lobby. Rose Madder's faded dark clothing lent her a boho chic, while her long sinuous blonde limbs were given vitality by a sharpness of gesture, a directness that revealed itself as she sat, brusquely greeting first the sophisticate, Harv, then the saturnine Vic, and crossed her legs beneath her.
Rose Madder's entrance was quickly and loudly followed by a bright energetic explosion of a woman, bursting into the lobby in a hurricane of wide full lipped smiles, breathless apologies, as she leant in close to allow her widely set and strikingly brilliant aquamarine eyes to make her introduction for her. This was fmc, and her sudden, insistent familiarity broke the tension briefly. She busied herself darting about the group, between long folded legs, and insouciantly crossed ankles with an ease and near arrogance - if arrogance can be drawn as a form of perfection, a perfect confidence that invites a trust - which instantly set the group at ease. An illusory trust, perhaps, as she reveals in her perceptible distaste for th mojitos the keen eye and I turned to the little band of artists, radicals and the sharp tongue of the engineer.
It was time for me to reveal myself, and establish why we were gathered. I turned to the company from the lobby desk where I sat, calling gently to the company of five to focus their assembled incisive wit upon the gleaming flat screen inlaid into the low carrera marble occasional table nestled tastefully by fmc's perfectly contoured knee.
Five, you say? Yes, five. The deep, dark chesterfield recliner creaked steadily about to face us and the strong silent presence it contained (which had hitherto gone unnoticed as we fluttered and jabbered our suburban introductions) made himself known with an imperceptible truculent nod from his craggy manly features, cast into shadow by his sinewy taut frame. Looby was among us.
Looby's deep set, inscrutably masculine visage eyed the two other men warily. Harv's elegantly manicured hands, his dashing long legs were noted, as was the contrast of Vic's rugged furrowed complexity, his rough hewn yet simple clothing belied by the affectedness of the Gitanes in his hand.

A clicking sound on the onyx tiled floor of the PomPom Hotel Lobby distracted Vic from his nicotine crutch, as a latecomer arrived; jatb, renowned pentathlete, tapped in her choos across the icily reflective inlaid stone flags. Wordlessly she took a seat on the arm of Looby's chair, the gold flecks in her clear, deep indigo eyes acknowledging us with the briefest of nods.
Rose Madder's attention snapped towards the screen, eager to interrogate the mystery placed before us. fmc paused from her effusive, intensely physical greetings, and Looby restrained the impulse to suck meditatively on his cuban cigar, as Harv's discreet cough directed all attention on me.

Vanessa: Do you read my blog at all? A lot? A little? You just skim? Why/not? Does my blog embarrass you?

Looby: Every entry, entirely.
Vic: I skim unless I hit across a post that grips me, like when you get livejournal to say your cat got run over, I almost prepared another "my rabbit has died" reply :-/ I'm not embarrassed by it though, it's only a blog.
Rose Madder: I read it a little.
jatb: I read almost every entry because I enjoy reading it. It doesn't embarrass me at all.
Looby: 1) Curiosity to see how you're doing, 2) for the pleasure I derive from reading, because you write well (oops, sorry - that was a bit supportive, wasn't it :) 3) curiosity at how someone else negotiates the privacy/revelation balance. I look to you and other bloggers for some examples about how to do this and 4) to see who'll be the first amongst us to find a point for the bloody thing. Oh yeah, and to click randomly on your blogroll to find interesting blogs.
fmc: I don?t read it much ? in fact, today is the first time that I have successfully managed to get onto the site (last time I looked was admittedly around 6 months ago because you threatened me with publishing my supersonic squeals). I skimmed a little. There were a lot of words ? now don?t laugh ? if you are a wordy person and have time to sit at home, on your own computer and read a blog in the same way as you would read a letter or a book then you will be fine. If however you are at the other end of the spectrum ? only use the web for speed dialing for flights, get bored if a connection is made in less than a millisecond, and get interrupted by your boyfriend every time you try and read a book, and keep finding washing and ironing and lawn cutting and STUFF to do instead - then reading reams and reams of pages about someone elses life, whilst sitting in the office ? is a bit unlikely. No your blog doesn?t embarrass me ? should it? Should I be embarrassed that my friend pours her heart out on the page or should I be worried about what she says about me?
Harv: Don't read the blog because I keep forgetting to. What's the web address again?

to be continued . . .

Guest Blog: Cunty-Minty-but-still-a-sweetie-guest-bloggy

Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: Eva Cassidy - Songbird
Topic: Creepy Lesbo
Cuntymint. Odd word, that. C-U-N-T-Y-M-I-N-T. But I like it. I don't know what it means, though I could hazard a guess, but I won't. Just, well, CUNTYMINT, innit?

I'm having an attack of the "Fuck You"s today. *twitch* Not enough sleep, too much caffeine, and the prospect of a weekend without my slippers. It's just too much. *drapes hand across forehead in dramatic pose*

But anyway. I think. Sometimes. (Really, I do - you can see the pain on my face and hear the whirring) So, well, in that vein, I present:

Ode to a Cow

I am Cow hear me Moo
I weigh twice as much as you
And I look good on a barbecue
Yoghurt curd cream cheese and butter's
Made from liquid from my udders
I am cow, I am cow, Hear me Moo

I am cow, eating grass
Methane gas comes out my ass
And out my muzzle when I belch
Oh the ozone layer is thinner
From the outcome of my dinner
I am cow, I am cow, I've got gas

I am cow here I stand
Far and wide upon this land
And I am living everywhere
From DC to NewFoundland you can squeeze my teats by hand
I am cow I am cow I am cow
I am cow I am cow I am cow

(I am cow: The Arrogant Worms)

*ahem*

I've been wandering around singing that song all day and, well, getting some odd looks. Of course, it could have been the pink tutu, but, well, personally, I think it was the song.

*taps fingers on desk in a really annoying rhythm while trying to think of something else to write*

My trainers smell.... They got wet the other day when I took them for a walk in the rain. They're dry now, but, well, they still smell. I smelled this morning too. I stayed up all night to do some work and, well, sitting in one place for too long and getting all hot with genius creativity kinda makes you smell. And I did. Smell, that is. So I had a shower. Why is it, that after a shower, despite getting out of the bath and rinsing down the tub, there are still bits of fluff left? Why can I never catch every bit of fluff in the bath? And you know, those last bits of fluff always look like something sinister when you're sharing a house with people you don't really know. Like, er, well, things that live, anyway.

Oooh - and I've had a *STALKER*. *nods head in conspirational manner*. Yes, a stalker, and a psycho one at that. She stalked me in a chat room, and then by text, and now she knows where I live. (Ok, so yes, I told her, but, well, she didn't seem psycho then!)

See, well, your esteemed author here didn't give me any particular topic to 'blog' on, and, well, I live a very boring life, so I'll make something up.. I'm supposed to be offensive, so, well, I'll be nice instead. Right. So, as I'm having a 'fuck you' moment right now, I'll list by name, all those I would gladly kiss on the cuntymint:

S, who is just so wonderful I'm starting to worry very much that she can't possibly exist in real life. Yummy.

S2, who is a 'thinking woman's crumpet'. Yummee.. Funny and wise, a definite tasty one.

C, who I just want because I know I can't have her. She tells me all about her love life, and always seems to have the whole of the lesbian population falling at her door. Apart from me. Or maybe I should start doing that....

NS, who is funny, gorgeous, brill to go on a night out with, but, unfortunately not interested. Just my type, too *sigh*

T. Utterly gorgeous, femme, curvy, sensual, but utterly utterly attached. :o(

N. Very attractive, but I only want her because I strangely like the idea of playing the Big Bad Lesbian and taking her 'innocence', then dumping her.

Hmmm... Right. Ok. Ya think that's enough to count as a post on the esteemed Vanessa's blog? Well, if it isn't, then fuck you, coz I'm falling asleep and have really really squeezed out the last of any inspiration I might have had just so I can blog this before collapsing, snoring and drooling, onto my bed. I've not slept for two whole days. And the bank, (the wankpots that they are) have taken money off me that they shouldn't have. So I have no cash. I'm living off my cheque book until next week. And then the ex rang me in an evil mood and shouted at me for ten minutes before hanging up. I listened. I really am too soft.

Ok... So I'll leave you with the following thought for the day:

Tough cookies crumble pretty easily. Cookies that are nice and soft in the middle are more flexible and harder to break.

Use that one next time someone tells you to 'toughen up'. (And I made it up all by myself - aren't ya proud?)

Oh - and suggestions are needed as to what topic to blog on tomorrow. As I'm a total comment-whore, I expect lots and lots of ideas. In the comments. To which I will reply to make it look like I'm more popular than I really am. Natch. :o)

i have not written anything good

Topic: Creepy Lesbo

I have not written anything good.
I have not looked at anything with a different eye.
I have not been anywhere and woken from my daydream to notice the world around me.

I have not spoken to someone who made me want, need, laugh, cry, or recoil.
I have not curled into my knees, wishing that something were over.
I have not stood gaping at a half chopped potato, realising something about myself - something simple but true, something that's always been true.

I have not avoided a mirror, not wanting to meet my own eye.
I have not reminisced.

I have sung the same lyric over and over and over and over, trying to make the words hurt enough to stop.
I have not measured my success by this or that or the other.
I have not been your sounding board.

I have not telephoned you.
I have not done that brave thing that still waits for me to catch up to it.
I have not hidden from myself inside a habit that dulls me.
I have not tried something new.

I have not travelled, and if I did, I did not arrive.
I have not blogged for you.

I have a task that will take me twelve hours of each day this week and sixteen of Thursday so the blog, the stories, the tales of piteous woe, and -snif- the mad random dating, will retire until Friday sets me free.

Till then, I advise you to close your eyes, think of something pretty, something you feel obligated to keep or to possess, examine it, turn it, let your mind touch it, hold it slightly too tightly, turn it this way and that, see how it looks back at you, look for fear in its eyes, feel how your touch warms it, wonder if you'll be able to let go.

She Wants My Hot Beef Injection

Topic: Creepy Lesbo

Been having a very emotional week - always embarrassing when you cry snuffily and pink nosedly for an hour in public at work. I should have been able to tell it was coming, if from the frequency of occasions when I caught myself loudly referring to both colleagues and clients as "bastards".
One single scart lead had broken you see, and somehow shorted all the sockets on that side of the building. Well it seemed a disaster at the time - to the degree that I blurted out my resignation. Not just from genericjob, oh no, that would never match my mood, from the profession as a whole.
Ah well, I only threatened to throw the telephone "through the bloody window", I didn't actually do it. And when they asked if the resignation I'd tendered had been official, I hastily admitted it had been a mere tantrum.

I blame Creepy Lesbo.
I had really vivid dreams about her last night. Notable not for being blog dreams - I had one dream last summer about writing a blog post, and though this is the first dream about another blogger I've had, it's not surprising it was about Creepy, as her blog is possibly the most honest, emotionally truthful, somehow internalised blog you can read.
No, the real weirdness about this dream was that it kept rewinding like an old and very creaky video player, and resetting itself.
Creepy was very small and little, and boyish (and cute), and we were lunching in a Borough Market cafe full of unbearable leftie yuppies. She had extremely small bony bird-hands, but despite this, I fancied her. As we chatted, my mind kept drifting off towards this attraction, our eyes met, and she returned my gaze with raw fascination, our body language mirroring each other, both skipping a breath.
Then a squealing noise would begin, and the dream would rewind ten seconds. Like a Groundhog Day character, I would sit listening to Creepy chatter on, allowing my mind to drift off into wondering if she fancied me once again.
This time, Creepy's gaze was very clearly fixed upon the short annoying straight woman with the kids at the next table, her frank, broad smile was redirected to the snotty ugly kid mewling and puking on the annoying brunette's lap, and she looked back only to enquire of me animatedly what salt beef sandwiches tasted like.
Repeatedly. All night.
No wonder I'm an emotional shipwreck today.

I'll never recover from your cruel rejection, Creepy.

Turn Off TV Week ~ I'm spending a week living an imaginary life as a couch potato, to see if it's any more fulfilling.

Daily Selection: I might have watched ~

1. 7.30pm, BBC1, Top of the Pops ~ This week's best-selling singles, featuring live performances and pre-chart exclusives. You've got to, really, haven't you? These days, if only to laugh at the parade of scantily clad drama school ingenues flaunting themselves as if they'd never heard of a closet. Actually, I like turning on the subtitles, and laughing at the sudden revelation of unimaginably crap lyrics scrolling over the screen.
2. 8.30pm, ITV1, Inspector Morse ~ Morse takes on the case of a missing schoolgirl, revealing disturbing facts about her family along the way. I once moved to Oxford, but came back after a fortnight because the populace were so insipid I wanted to smash their heads in. The only area I could stand to be in was Burberry-Lite (the Cowley Road).
Still, not having to physically be there and put up with people ruining great atmosphere, great learning, great architecture by being so bloody uninteresting means that the place is visually rather lovely. Reading Philip Pullman's trilogies also makes you miss the dreaming spires feel of the city centre. So all said, I quite like a dash of Morse. Imagine, a genteel police inspector who solves his crimes by popping on a spot of Rachmaninov and asking the well heeled polite questions. What would Mr Conan Doyle have said?
3. 10.30pm, BBC1, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross ~ A mix of music and celebrity chat. Jonathan meets Terry Wogan, John McEnroe, Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen and Melinda Messenger. Plus music from Supergrass. Gwowing up in the eighties, I'm old enough to wemember how dully obsequious all chat shows were before the great Wossy wevolutionised them. Parky was on the verge of hard hitting in those days, but Wossy burst on the scene by laughing at the stars' sad attempts to plug their latest mediocre offewing. His taste in films is gweat, and by fwiends' accounts, he's a thowoughly lovely bloke, unlike that bitchy wife with the weally huge knockers. So to see him wip the piss out of Wogan, the pwevious holder of the chat show cwown, will be intewesting.
And then there's the battle of the forty something bouffant hairstyles when Wossy meets the equally self wegarding pweener, Llewellyn Bowen. Dammit, I'm wather tempted.

Verdict: Not bad, in a trivial, inconsequential sort of a way - but bliminy, man, this is Friday night! This is supposed to be the best night for programming all week. Sheesh (shakes head sadly).

Act Your Shoe Size

Topic: Creepy Lesbo

Tonight I was initiated into a secret corporate society of older Irish scary women. It was scary and hilarious, all wrapped up. The average age was 52, and they were more ribald and dangerous than most women a quarter of their age. And getting away with it. If I were passing out cold with my face in the curry at any of my local restaurants, I'd not live it down as fast, for sure.

I'm hoping if I hang around them long enough, I'll find out where the bodies are buried at work (taken me damn near a decade to infiltrate this far), and learn to be utterly dominating like they are.

When a taxi driver turned up, all scarlet too tight tracksuit, spiky blond hairdo and blaring ragga at a million decibels from his boy racer, speeding his tits off and giggling fit to bust, he was no match for them, no match at all.

"Are you Australian?" they grilled him as he took a corner on two wheels.

"I'm from Mile End, love." Giggle giggle. "Why do you think I'm Australian?"

"Ah, well, near enough," colleague spits, "you're all convicts."

It wasn't enough of a warning shot across the bows, though, for a nuthead cab driver quite this ripped off his tits, and the poor fool continued his manic banter, unaware of just how few strips had been torn off him.

"Final tip, love: you're a cab driver. Try shutting your trap."

Under a bloody armchair, I tell you

Topic: Creepy Lesbo

Wednesday's agenda was: into work early to plan failsafe Plan B's for if colleagues fuck up while I'm out, four hour intense brain-draining meeting in Forest Hill this morning, same old crap back in Catford this afternoon, verbal warning from Hippie Boss at three o 'clock, run around feeding underlings who are doing shit tasks because I mis-scheduled their day for an hour, then two hour serious big sensible meetings with a billion customers.

The sort of day that calls for a pinstripe suit, in other words.

The sort of day where being unable to get out of your flat because you've locked yourself in and lost the key till around ten o'clock may cause some minor inconveniences to you, and may make you so damn stressed you have to sit down and do some breathing exercises quick before you start gouging strips out of your arms with stubby desperate fingernails.

The sort of day where the key has rolled under a nasty pink armchair in the bedroom. You know, that room where I never ever take keys. Of course I'd look under never moved furniture in there.

The sort of day where it will seem like elegantly symmetrical retribution that all of Hippie Boss's plans and work turn out to be useless at the morning meeting, and you can demand that this incompetence be officially noted, and warnings given.
And offer to be the person who delivers the dressing down to Hippie Boss.
Even though you know you've drunk too much coffee and everyone else is gulping and trying not to say anything that might be repeated.

The sort of day where you might embarrass yourself when you reach for four chocolate eclairs in a row, decide your pinstripe suit is warmer if you huddle under your dad's old oversized duvet style coat at the conference table, then sneeze coffee explosively over the official papers.

The sort of day, where, hatchet job completed, you will return to site to receive your expected dressing down, but protected by the knowledge of the morning's public Hippie Boss humiliation - only Hippie Boss confounds you utterly by not giving you any warning at all, and professing that the meeting was merely to have a chance to catch up** and make sure you were all right.

The sort of day the fickle finger of fate decides this is exactly the moment that you should lose your voice entirely, and be reduced to a guttural croaking sound.

**Shyah, sure it was. Suuuuuuuuuuuure. That's exactly the sort of meeting that gets cc'ed in triplicate to all your line managers.
Paranoid? Moi? Twenty points to me, I think.

Now I'm Warning You

Now Playing: Muse
Topic: Creepy Lesbo

I have loads to blog, but no time to do it properly.
I've been waylaid by work.
Trapped and taunted by stress.
Fingered by the requirement that somebody do all the overtime that's been mounting up round here. (Aargh, just reminded myself of the twelve hour shift tomorrow.)
It's verbal warning time of year again, and, as I get one every bloody year - a meaningless one, as they really don't want to jeopardise my loyalty to them - I'm counting not only the minutes, but the ways; will it be the skiving, the insurrection, the bunking, the tardiness, the lying, the lack of organisation, the sickies, or the deceit? Who knows?
Senior manglement have been found publicly wanting, again, as they have every year in the last ten, and so they need to tug the strings , to rustle the red curtain, to jostle the scenery and prove that 'it's not them without imagination, drive, or dedication, it's these bloody underlings' (which is where I come in).
'Nobody could work with them'.
Who cares, really, you learn not to expect feedback in public service jobs (well, I suppose getting kicked in the face by a customer today was some sort of feedback, but still, the corporate ethos is to pretend that *that thing*, *then*, did not happen) but my internal dialogues continue in heavy preparation - it's irritating to keep rehearsing these blatantly insouciant rebuttals.

Can one be actively apathetic?
It seems an ambition I might effectively strive for.

Today I saw a raven trapped inside Sainsbury's. It was quietly hopping above the cigarette kiosk, hoping not to be noticed.
It looked too powerful and real-worldish to be inside a consumerist disneyland in miniature like that.
Made me think of Creepy's foxes.
And of the ravens in 'The Human Stain', a book full of gigantically meaningful random quotations:

"I will go to America and be the author of my life, she says: I will construct myself outside of the orthodoxy of my family's given, I will fight against the given, impassioned subjectivity carried to the limit, individualism at its best -- and she winds up instead in a drama beyond her control. She winds up as the author of nothing. There is the drive to master things, and the thing that is mastered is oneself."

I suppose everybody feels out of place sometimes, like that raven trapped in an airless, airconditioned supermarket, trying to avoid being pointed out, and therefore noticed. Hounded, perhaps. In fact, I know they do.

Oopsy

Topic: Creepy Lesbo
Umm, sorry. I missed a day. I was working (for variety) and mostly sleeping too much.

Is it wrong to wake up at one in the morning and make yourself pancakes?