'still feels frigging sick'

I was candid, but I'm clearly not happy about it. It's not the only thing, but a thing, on this sad long Saturday night. I also want to go to the parties, but I'm not entirely sure I can keep food in, my muscles hurt, and my face shows these Things a million times over. You look lovely. Lovely is an excuse for the blunt. Perhaps.

They told me I glowed today, my skin was great and I looked peaceful, rested. I agreed, it was I am, I wondered if this was due to the abundance of rest, or the lack of work. I also wonder the significance of me wanting to cry tonight, after the first shift I worked in six days. Is that a coincidence. Or did the frustration go raw. I saw her again today, recognised her lips. You still in school, I accused, I'm so scared about what I'm going to do when it stops, she offered without apology. I looked inward for a moment, remembering a warm time when This Wasn't All That I Was Doing.

So I want to go to the parties, but I don't want to drink, the street proved I had no rhythm, I'm tired, I feel like I might be sick, I want to cry, and I want to watch a chemistry documentary. My dark side nags at removing oneself, an old trait I no longer choose, feeling scared by this. But I'm not choosing it tonight? I have real reasons for abdication? Why am I questioning myself? I don't know? An immaturity I don't quite trust.

If you never go to the parties you will never design yourself a character, never set and gel, never meet these people that will change you. But is this person tonight the one they should meet. No. There will be other parties, other gigs, and other eves not quite so melancholic. I don't know where it crept from. I pictured two tiles placed back ajar, out of dusty cobwebbed storage, smudged together with some grouting called London. The lines blurred, the sharp edges made smooth, a ravine filled and reimagined. Not entirely satisfied with this. It niggles like lactic acid in a muscle you can't touch.

There comes point where one must make a decision about something. I just looked up the point of no return. This is a physical point in itself, a decision can be more fluid and reactionary. But once made, the limbo is neutralised, things are no longer up in the air but prone on the ground. A quietness. I am not going to the parties. I am not happy about this. I am spending the rest of the evening watching a chemistry documentary and trying to keep my dinner down. I'm still not happy.

'is inbetween ill and not'

I just made it to the fridge for the first time in a day. I opened the door without seeing it as an obstacle. I ate a banana! I had a cup of tea! I couldn't quite manage the crusts on the one slice of beans on toast, my stomach knew by way of my eyes that it wasn't up for that just yet. I started to think about the caramelisation of crusts, that chemical reaction, which I can't recall now, but I think I must buy that McGee book on kitchen science.

Oh I hurt. I had a laugh and I've been sitting in only a chair since the top of the page and I hurt. My spine is throwing rings of pain round each intercostal muscle, the length of my spine, I feel like I've been eating swords. I'm not sure I will be able to make it out of the house at all today. I want to lie down. I will probably do that next. And fall asleep to another film.

I had the best day possible after the blurriest one yesterday. I paid tax bills and did accounts and booked appointments. I will hand wash. These things are boring and leave you with less than nothing. Perhaps being empty also emptied my mind. I thought I could go vegetarian. I might. I could. Virgin stomach. I have never been sick so many times, I think I quadrupled my entire life's record in under 12 hours. I didn't cry once, perhaps because I didn't quite understand. Or my solar plexus was rather busy.

I want to book my train tickets. I want to spend more invisible money. Again, I have not yet sat down 'to write' and think about it all, again, but sometimes I just want things to be a bit more organic than that. I talked to numerous people last night about the internship, about the writing. I decided that however irresponsible it might be to live for today, tomorrow, just about next week, with a small eye on the biannual undercurrent, what the hell if it's fun and I'm alive and I'm not being sick. I know I'm not well when I'm not writing or dancing or eating or laughing. Good barometers.

'didn't think I ate that many carrots'

I liked to think that I was the only person in London at that moment who was going to the trouble of halving a egg. Crack, half'n'half poured dribbled white, bin the rest, split into the yolk with a shell shard, dripped out into the mixing bowl, creepy connotations, another waste but what's a waste now won't be a ruined cake later, an infinitely larger and frustrating waste all by itself.

What do I do on my days off? Well, let's just say I had a very full day of contentedly not spinning out today. Which, I report, is very very gratefully(sp) received, and not taken for granted in the slightest. What did you do today? Oh I slept for 10 hours, did some reading, took hair out of my body, planned my train trip a little, made a confrontational phone call, did a bit of eBaying, made a chocolate cake, (a blog post)...a pork roast and then went for a run. Then potentially jumped into the ether. We'll see about that.

I am still frustrated with what I'm aiming for. I had my amazing oyster excursion on Sunday, and came away with a hallowed notebook I've not yet broken into, thinking, fuck yes, this is a story here, a fictionalised-now. Observations and indulgent images, spliced onto the page between moments of glee and taste, will I see them flailing and weak days later. What is their context.

I almost cried at the talk. The artist was communicating her truth, and I just wanted to join her, on that level, intellectually, emotionally wholly. I did cry actually, I blinked it away between words, tapping the inside corners with small fingers. He plainly asked me where I wanted to be, and I was shocked and on stage. I felt sad and glad I wasn't conventional, that I couldn't be explained away in a sentence. I was honest, abrupt, staring into deep-set wrinkles for such a young one, wondering if he had any passion. I couldn't see it.

It should be noted that I not only ruined the above cake with too much bicarb, I may have also poisoned myself with the roast dinner. I have spent a day, a night, a day-night in sick and sleep. Some things make you feel small and very glad.

'waiting for crumpet dough to rise'

Just read a really harsh review of the new Beach House album, built on the concept of blogosphere indie, and how BH are just falling in old tracks laid down by the likes of Arcade Fire, Beirut and Vampire Weekend. Yucky. Is it really clever to know that you're being generous with your Balkan or African influence, isn't it just cleverer to go off and listen to the genuine article? I have music by all of those three, listed in my category of not-quite-unique, which literally means they may as well be mainstream. I read the reviews, understood the angles, but, on listening, it's just not blow me away stuff.

I like Beach House. There is a relaxed-ness where you feel you know that they know that they don't quite care about being hot in Kitty Empire's books. I know a critique is all about just that, but where's the soul, the life, the movement, the belief, the personal, the transformation. It's as I was thinking, watching her being a journalist in my kitchen, I can't do this. I can't generally like everything, when I strive to genuinely like merely some things. I actively Don't Like A Lot Of Things. To group Books&Music together, to 'know' about them so so much, but to really burn for them? Is it true passion? Or is it the way I just know a hell of a lot about coffee? I'm a tea girl.

I used to think it was issue that I was picky. Not having a mass of friends, not having a job a like, being grumpy at gigs, being grumpy at home, hanging at houses where time slowed down and outside got colder and I just wanted to be in bed. Now I embrace the unique. I am in a place where enough people are striving, mostly subconsciously, towards things that are just that bit curved. And when we come togther, it's like a secret society. With humour and lightness. Without Judgement or Criticism. I did a bit of autogenics last night, after I told them to move the party out back. I fell asleep immediately, felt bad but unbothered.

A work blur the last few days, both enjoying and tolerating it. An interesting food week, eating well whilst only cooking one day in nine. Boef stir fries fish messes. I am still waiting for crumpet dough to rise. I do have anger in my arms. There is still a path which connects the act of cooking with this frustration and disparate air. An amazing week of exercise, three bikes one run one lindy lots of skates and stretches. I feel thoroughly back on the wagon. Excited about writing and train trips and new environments. Now just to focus on the next three days and keep c a l m .

'is happy?'

You should get to know me because I'm fun and interesting. I mean, come on, I don't think you are, surely. I am taking them by their words, literally, surveying their spelling, grammar, tone, humour; content, outlook and lyricism. I was doing it in the class today, reading strangers' words, sitting there thinking myself bigger than the room, judging them on their paragraphs, images, cliches. I came out after two hours, not glad it was over, but thinking it might be nice to scrawl some shit and get my ego stroked once a week on a Thursday afternoon. But a project about windows?

Next comes the photographs. I'm doing it in real life too, a chum-scan as it were. A quick flick up and down, or more likely, down to up. How are those shoes? If they're Vans, you can go back to the skate park yeah. You're either going to be as utilitarian as my one side, or as shiny as my other. I want beat-up old-faithfuls you trust with city showers, or shiny impractical beasts grand enough to build a rapport with that scary-cool shop assistant. A branded rain-saver of a coat, or something heavy and imposing with a nod to Joseph Beuys. Whatever it is, you mean it, and it does it.

I'm happy? I'm not laying that in stone. Maybe I fucking am. I'm happy(er). I had an amazing chat at The School of Life, felt like I just wanted to be there, like the feeling I get when I'm in Monmouth, a warmth of correctness and wholly appropriate-ness. I am right here. I am right, here. I'm not questioning why you won't give me the job, because you are letting me into your world, because we fit and I'm not faking. And I don't have to worry about my old pink converse being really really wrong for this interview, or why you won't give me a second chance, why I have to get a job in Jigsaw in Manchester because I can't frigging get one in Liverpool. No-one should have to question themselves as much as I did then.

I left the School trying not to skip to my Genius playlist. I'm glad you liked it enough to come back, said the seriously hot lindy hopper later on. I was so happy on the way home last week I was skipping down the street, I enthused. At least you're allowed to do that, he said hotly and I just couldn't really communicate what I was thinking. I didn't dance with him, but I watched him, almost as equally as everyone else, melting at their joy. A girl got a Send Off to America solo twirl, it was just joyous. A throng of men switching their way through the dance, her face pure pleasure, her shapes wide and wild.

What more can you do than really throw yourself into things you believe in, make you burn with belief. Everything else can fall into place. I'm wearing the perfect brogues, my monochrome matches the room. The new-old rollerblades I bought eight years ago, 1 1/2 sizes too big, now not only fit, but match my outfit and I live in a house I can skate in. I love these moments, sometimes accrued over many years, things you can't predict where things just shock and fit. He unlocked his bike at the same time as mine. I'd spied him lock up hours before, taken his money, wanting some Condor connection, and it came along. It meant nothing and everything at the same time. I burned a little.

'is having that same day again'

I liked helpful people, I like them A LOT. I just had the pointless stress that I do, where I don't realise how much I want something till I can't. I get completely knotted, imagining letting a new object into my life, picturing it, weighing it, to and fro, worthy and weak, and once something has an absolute NO on it, I suddenly go, ah, these are the reasons that it was amazing. What knot is it in me that does that, sees good in things when the potential is expired? Not to mention them taking both desks within days of me seeing the only possible displacement in months. The chances.

I have just done my accounts. I am near as dammit £sailing over-budget. It is an exact example of going beyond my means. My means are a blue plastic net, and it's fluid, and bobs in the water, snags a bit but never changes volume, and it's very very finite. This depresses me. I tried putting too much shit in the net, and you know what, it won't frigging fit. And it's not desperate, at all, as I (over)carefully run this weird Fahrenheit pound scale to everyone else's Celsius, but to me, this is low. It's not panic for the bank, but panic for the brain.

I am about to insure my bike and pay my tax bill, and if I do these things, I think I may end up having to go back to bed under a cloud of heavy heaviness. I might also have to treat myself to that piece of overpriced(?) furniture in order to reward myself for the invisible bills. I was a lot happier after speaking to Clare in Habitat White City just now, I need a frigging piece of furniture because there is stuff all over my floor, and what the hell is money anyway. He was saying the other day, I didn't get it, that most money is fake, a kind of projection, and that the good stuff is pure gold. The rest is just symbols? I didn't get it but either way I don't like it.

I'm here again on my day off, not making sense of anything, not doing a plan, not doing. I have a week full of fun, dancing and dinners, but am aware I need to hang something a little extra from these bones. I want to go on a pre-ballet cafe tour, but this again in itself is another activity which is non-conducive to the production of something. The something being, story ideas, thinking about work, etc. Which was already hard but has been made harder by the disappearance of a desk. I think we are back to the furniture conundrum.

'is sad'

There are people that cry like they're bawling out their guts, all faces and noise, shapes of ugliness. And there are people who cry with such beautiful melancholy, a stillness, a truth. True despair is disturbingly quiet. It's a minor chord, a moment. A frozen stab, melting all over you. Submission. I noticed myself and did the second, partly acting, partly just being, so I'm sure it wasn't at all fake.

I called the admissions lady, for the story it's a lady, she was really a girl. Get your application in, she said, even though it's late, yes, they really just want top quality people on the course. The problem is though, I don't have evidence of my greatness, I waffled, I haven't made work for five years, I think I'm good enough to be there, if I agree with my self that I can be as good as I want to be. Oh, you're still there, and I'm lost.

Why am I having this conversation, I thought, why did I just ring you, to discount the option, when really it opened up the option and showed I was already discounted by default. I never knew ceasing would be a nail. I didn't choose to stop. I didn't want to give art workshops to scouse kids, didn't want to be part of a studio group which so wasn't what art was to me that I chose to delete the whole thing, shelve it for a better place.

The better place is now, but, didn't anyone tell you, conventions apply here, you have to earn it, wait, accumulate, grow exponentially. Didn't you think about that? You must be a faker all along, it's not crochet, you can't just pick it up whenever you feel like it. There's plenty of other try-hards and if you're trying less harder, well then you may as well just fuck off and ignore this whole want.

I knew I was write. That was a mistake, for real, but I severely like it. I am in my pyjamas at three o'clock. I am alone in a bedroom in a warehouse, where if I wanted to get back on the wagon I'd be at my desk like some sort of artbot, getting the fuck on with it in my amazing art-bubble-vacuum-of-one. I got so far, fell off the edge, didn't jump the gap to the next level, and now I'm truly doubting whether I can get back to it. Surely no-one else would be bothering.

I can sit there 'making a painting', 'making a story', but these actions seem just like an allegory of what they're supposed to be. I think I may have just understood allegory for the first time there, if that's what I mean, not sure. It's an image like an applique, an appliqued bit over an original template. The added action is a metaphor for something underneath, which is weak and unoriginal, the action is stronger and meaningful, but at the same time, an excess. It knows too much.