How quick is too quick with regards to answering emails, texts, and facebook posts? If you're alone as much as me and sit as close to the computer as me, the internet becomes my life line and the ding of an incoming makes something light up inside. But how quick is too quick? Everyone does it when you meet someone new, like a friend or a potential, you don't want them to think you haven't got a life concurrently as having a phone. But right now I don't have much of a life, I have consigned myslef to being alone with my research at a time when all I really need is humanity.

So it's been difficult. Researching is fun, facts to tell people, ideas to fit in, but it occurred to me that wouldn't it be so much more rewarding to write a piece for Elle on How to Have A Break Up Not A Break Down. Or some recipe writing including experimental pancakes, putting rosewater in the batter and lavender sugar, for instance. Or making a trip to the National Railway Museum to write about the restoration of the Flying Scotsman. Or any other amount of ideas which are just steps, rather than this great heavy monolith I'm trying to create, and am inevitably going to fail.

I have barely seen anyone for 3 days. I mean I've been out, I've been bodies, but not people. I have had several jilted phone conversations, where I've almost wanted to say, I'm sorry I haven't had a conversation with a person in the room for 2 days, I'm finding this a little weird. I nearly called the Escape Editor, but I'm glad I didn't, as I still don't really know what I'm supposed to say. Hi, you don't know me, but I'm doing a project on trains and I need to know if your think it fits a gap. That's it. I think there's a gap though, so why should I have to get someone of worth to prove it?

I haven't interviewed anyone. It will come to it that I am just ringing up press offices for quotes next week, but I'm still not really sure what I'm supposed to say. I'm writing this feature on ... and I need you to say ... so I can back it up. I just don't feel liek the course has covered this too well. The jargon side of things. the calling is all about knowing the lexicon of obtaining quotes from people. I know if I could just follow someone round for a few hours and listen to them do it I'd go, ah yes, as that's the tyoe of learner I am, you tell me what I have to do and I will run with it. If you don't tell me, I just don't know, and I can't seem to craft it for myself.

I am rather enjoying the secondary research. It's intrinsic to who I am to pick up on interesting things, I just like different stuff, but the primary bit is where I fall. How am I supposed to ask someone to say something if I don't know what I want them to say. it's calling someone up and saying, I'm pressing record now, you're going to be a genius now, right. And you're having this conversation where they know you are waiting for them to say something amazing. They can probably hear the yes! moment in your tone of 'riiight'. Anyway I wouldn't say this is the sole problem, seeing as I am missing tutorials all over the place and keep putting my In Design documents in the trash. But it was a problem before all the other stupid problems, so I need to work on it.

Perhaps about now is long enough to make that reply.

I am doing travel writing!

I think I want to be a travel writer. I am listening to the programme on Excess Baggage about the Travellers' Tales course, and it sounds really good. He says it's about mixing a journalistic style with a novelistic style, which is what I like to do. He does say that a big mistake is to write for yourself, which I understand to an extent, but I think I write best when I am tapping into something, as though putting a needle in a vein and watching the bloody seep through the clear plastic tube. IT's a bit gross, and I wouldn't have thought o f it if I hadn't seen that film.

They are reading out their work. I remember when I read out my writing about the saucepans. I might try and find it. Everyone sat back and respected me. I was embarrassed and spoke badly. I wasn't asking for acceptance, I was laying my head on the desk, and the thoughts jumped out, and ran around the room. They probably ran out of my ears. And I felt so excited. It wasn't a cliche, not like a lot of stuff in general, which doesn't really say anything, and badly. I think at least write well, or have a good idea, but to be devoid of both, just why bother? If you're not There, just make a good meal or do some ironing.

I'm going to apply for the internship. I think I would really really like it actually. Someone just finished reading their work and everyone clapped! Clapped is a horrible word, applauded is better. I am practically salivating at the idea of getting a DB sleeper from Brussels to Berlin. That company is HOT. Starting at only £75 for a single trip, but you know there is an epiphany included. I want.

Sorry I am not wholly on this page clearly, Firefox is getting some serious multi-tab action, keeps freezing. I want to go on a trip RIGHT NOW. Imagine all that time to read books, not having to work, to meet people, see amazing things, eat lots of beige and play on bunk beds! Imagine! A lot more excited about the work now. Not sure how-why, what happened. I do remember this morning, lying in bed, thinking, this is rock bottom. Not the worst you could imagine, not awful, a pretty manageable rock-bottom in my little cosseted existence. But still the bottom scrapings of the pan. And tomorrow the pan scrapings will inevitably be the same, so why waste time waiting for the hate to go, just get on with ignoring it a bit more efficiently.

Nice things

I am going to find someone to adore me. It shouldn't be difficult. I am not a pain, I don't moan, I am grateful and friendly, I cook nice food and I want you to be having a nice time. I like fun things, I like nice things, and I like sharing intelligence. It shouldn't be hard. Maybe I should stop mourning and start looking.

I felt fine before the news, and then before the accident. I feel like a stomach on legs right now. I think it's about as big as a honeydew melon. Heavy and achy. Before this I had a relatively good week. My tutorial brought things together a little bit, even though I've yet to act. I will start In Designing later on! Yes! I WILL. I enjoyed My Hair At Work, I enjoyed it a lot. I've been robbed of first hair week fun really, I love floating around with a new air. Funny how appearance makes a difference.

It all started rather grandly with the ridiculous day of indulgence last Sunday. What started as a yoga class rolled onto a dance class and into prawns and peonies and then shiatsu. Really really indulgent. Oh and an Bramley and blackcurrant yogurt. I felt expensive and over doused, but happy with what she used to call 'throwing money at a problem'. I even bought paints and canvas, which I've yet to use, as it's never quite right. Maybe tomorrow.

The shiatsu was bizarre, it felt strange to have to pay to be touched, when it used to be free, and I kept drifting into sleeps and then something would hurt and I would jolt. I'm glad I bought the peonies. I enjoyed carrying them romantically around town, next to my face and offset by a blue-violet outfit. They are a short season and I will indulge until they pass. It is always sad when they start to die however. The tissue petals melt onto each other and you realise you can't stop them evolving. I wonder if the person who adores me will buy me peonies. It can't be that all boys don't care about flowers, surely some of them care about beauty and truth.

Little lights

I feel like a candle taper of minimal width, perhaps 3mm, and the candle is long and spindly and the flame is small like a pointed make-up brush. A small gust of wind blows it and it flickers and grows again. He tells me he's going to New York to meet the Girl and the candle is stabbed out on a dotty concrete paving stone, the wrong side. My little flame is stumped out and the candle is bent, and it's ridiculous anyway, what a stupid small flimsy flame. Almost pointless.

It comes in waves. How could someone be so unemotional about a situation? How can it be black and white, this day and that, cut, off, different, new, old. I wrote a lyrical email and got five-word-sentence replies. Not even capital letters. No warmth and no love. Perhaps there wasn't any for a while, I just didn't see it. How can a person be so disillusioned for so long? I want to delete that part of my life, but it is part of me. I want to feel that my case is special but it's completely ordinary. Perhaps I though I was superhuman? I am above your relationship fripperies, I am in control of everything that happens to me. Maybe that's the wake-up call, to this you are in control of life is futile, you are a tool and that is all. An object.

I'm glad I'm not seriously hurt. It would be rubbish to know that no-one cares if my ribs are smashed in, but thankfully they're not. No-one is a grand unfair statement, I really mean no One. The person that cares above all other people. One person. (The) One. Now I don't know if I feel sick because I have been in a road traffic accident, or because I have been punched. You think you did better by moving to London, well I get to follow some girl to New York. Look how pedestrian my choice was. Look how dull and staid and regular, yes I'll meet some gorgeous people in a city of seven million, but look, no, apparently not. And not like I'm ready to, perhaps I am screwed and should be ready right away. I've been playing it by ear, trusting myself, which I suppose is the most important thing. Follow your little lights.

Ice Cream

She piled up the ice cream like it was a test. The more I tried to hide with it, the more I noticed work men and people in cars watching me eating it, or not eating it, dripping all over my hands, my dress, the pavement, everywhere. There's a problem with laughing by yourself, people think you're a bit gone.

Thinking about thinking

This feels like the point where I'm going to grab it by the neck and go, no, you're not dragging me down, I'm going to change and get better. Somehow. I can't quite picture it right now. IT involves a new haircut. It involves being slightly more lithe. I don't know how I shall achieve lithe, but I shall. At the moment I have lost weight and become an under-worked shape of limbs and ligaments, bits of body hung off other bits, wanting to be strong and whole.

I am going to start climbing, I am going to continue ballet, I am going to start swimming in a bikini and get some vitamin D. I am going to go to lindy hop at the 100 club. I am going to wear hats. I want to become a strong whole thing, with a strong brain to top it off. I want to look good and feel good. I don't know how to do this right now, I can't really picture the new. I can't imagine what I can be like. It was like when I was young and got asked, what do I want to be when I grow up, and I answered 'I don't know what there is'. If I only have my own frame of reference, I don't really know what there is.

I remember when the other girls went to dancing on a Saturday, and I went to Brownies on a Monday. I remember being jealous but just accepting that some people have some things and others have others. It never occurred to me to beg my parents to let me go dancing on a Saturday. I just didn't realise I had options. Or maybe I just wasn't an eight year old cow, and was just a bit too fair. I remember it was about this time that my dad told me 'you think too much'. How much is too much? If I want to know what there would be if there wasn't life, that's not really too much. It made me think that certain amounts of thought are no-go areas, for sure.

So when I was asking her about Deluze and Baudrillard, and she just rattled it off, I just started thinking, I want to be that intelligent. I want to think that much. Not poppy musings like this stuff, but proper hard difficult intelligence. But then to make it sensical, you have to be around people where philosophy is its own language. We're communicating about communicating kinda thing. My intelligence has dropped off lately. I would love to be so clever and active and deep and destructive. Powerful. How will I be it? What will I be next? Can I still wear shorts and t-shirts with dirty legs? If I get an internship what the hell will I wear??

Wasting Time?

Just starting to feel like intellectualising things is a bit much. I do feel feral. Like, I need to eat, do, love and be loved, sleep and all these other base, un-evolved things. I could have just slept on the beach for a week. Not out of lazyness, just out of pure enjoyment, like an animal basking in the sun. I am on the hunt for fun, for engagament, for things to connect with people on. Guards are dropped, importance is shifting. I want reality. It was interesting that thing he said about ability, and ability being hampered. It wasn't a negative connotation, more like, this is my potential, this is the point where I am, on like 40% of my potential, so in a way I am dis abled. It's not bad, it's just I'm not as good as I can be.

You should know that I started this post almost twelve hours ago. I am switched off. I am floating and I don't feel connected to anything, like I'm almost just existing. Whilst last week I felt like a hardback book with the pages all blank, this week I feel like an unraveled thing, like the centre of a pass the parcel, as though I am new and small and don't have any context. Unraveled. Those two feelings are quite polar in a way. One is me as a shell with my insides missing, the other is a strong little thing without its resistance to the world, yet. Like a small dinosaur out of it's egg. The middle of a kinder egg. lots of egg analogies.

My memory has gone terrible. Where before I really was aware of its fleeting nature, but didn't have to deal with it, I am finding myself in conversations saying, 'I'm sorry, I can't remember right now'. What did I just pick up from the car boot sale, just now? Well, a skirt that needs adjusting and, and...er I can't remember right now because I am making a cup of tea and I can't seem to multitask. So understandably writing is difficult. I have to think of what to say and what to type AT THE SAME TIME. This is normally a subconscious act, but so is memory recall. I am a bit ill.

I think the programme about mental health at work was very interesting. I like that woman that offered her staff 'duvet days', as if you know they are available, you'll probably want to be strong. Just like if I knew I had someone to hug me in the house, I could just get on with working, but because there isn't anyone, I really want for it. Anyway I think all the health labels are very interesting. They are modern tags for symptoms that are evolving and no-one really gets the brain so we have to label things to make sense of them. Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps there are actual chemical, as opposed to physical, definitions of all the brain's afflictions. But it's harder to make it real as it's not something you can point to and prove.

So I spent all day getting rid of stuff, so I have places and money for new stuff. My gut instinct on the visual is a bit off, kind of nothing looks, right, nothing really matters outside of my coping. That's worrying in a way, but it happend before a few years ago when I stopped buying things, stopped caring about how I looked quite so much, because if my course was going wrong what did it matter if I was tonally perfect? I probably didn't look too bad but it didn't sing. It was about the point where I started making whole cakes for one, freezing them, and eating portions night by night, microwaved with cream. I mention this as I found myself in Iceland today thinking frozen food is ok. It's very not ok. Ironic fish fingers are one thing but chicken dippers are quite another.