'Never start a sentence with "because"'

Because I work at night, I have a lot of free time during the day. I never seem to appreciate this, and instead waste it sitting around being boring and basically waiting for it to get dark so I can go to work. Doing nothing in this way drains me of almost all my energy and spirit. But today I have loved every second of pottering about my flat, doing the dishes, eating, hanging my washing up, talking on the phone, listening to the Manics, reading and watching tv. Even on the days I hate (when I just plod along until I leave for work)I might do everything I just mentioned, but there's so much to be said for ENJOYING these things. I suppose we can't force enjoyment, but when it comes it's definitely worth the wait. I've been reading The Angel's Game in the living room without any tv or music in the background. I have a vanilla candle burning and the lamp is on.

The simple things are good. Like joining the library in town, borrowing a book, and reading it. I was happily surprised by how busy the library was. I had expected it to be unpleasantly silent and dreary, but instead I saw people scouring the shelves and stuffing books into their bags. It actually made me feel guilty for living in Hull since 2006 without joining, but now I'm a member. A childless adult member who intends to use their library card to mainly borrow Roald Dahl books.

Playlist

I never want to forget this playlist, so I'm putting it here.

Dear Mother- Cake Bake Betty
Baobabs- Regina Spektor
Grow Grow Grow- PJ Harvey
'81- Joanna Newsom
Today, Tuesday- Frida Hyvonen
Film III- Jorane
A Coral Room- Kate Bush
I Speak Because I Can- Laura Marling
Now At Last- Feist
Your Armor- Charlotte Martin
Metal Heart (Jukebox version)- Cat Power
Down The Road And Up The Hill- Regina Spektor
Graveyard- Tori Amos
The Apocalypse Song- St. Vincent
December- Regina Spektor
A Cannon- Regina Spektor


I didn't realise I had so much Regina on there, actually. Especially as I was trying to only have one song by each artist, but her stories are perfect in bad weather. Begin To Hope is summer for me, albeit an odd one, but songs like A Cannon followed by Just Like The Movies remind me of a rainy Sunday when I lived in Pontefract. I love music's power to transport us to the place we first truly clicked with it. Father Lucifer is the purple bedroom, Cornflake Girl is Anstruther street at six years old, Lifeblood by the Manics is a cold winter, Know Your Enemy is new year, We Walk is being scared on Thursdays when I was little in Scotland. There's so much. Leonard Cohen is sleeping and thinking he was telling us a story, Midwinter Graces is feeling giddy, Bad Religion is candy sticks. I love that all of these memories are so vivid that I can taste and smell and feel them, but almost nobody will ever have a clue what I mean. And I like that.

The Slap

I want to write about The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. There has been a lot of controversy about this book which was longlisted for the Man Booker this year. I was drawn to this novel because of the discussion it triggered on BBC’s Review Show which I both enjoy and dislike in almost equal measures depending on who is making up the panel that week. Anyway, as I remember, everyone moaned about The Slap. They didn’t like the swearing, they didn’t like the characters, there were too many characters, it was too crudely written, blah blah blah. Tsiolkas is Australian, and what really irritates me is that this novel has been both praised and criticised for its representation and portrayal of contemporary Australia. Who says? I really hate the notion that any given novel has to be seen to be making an important social statement, or acting as a fictional documentation of what is actually going on. Why can’t a novel just be a product of the imagination of its author? Anyway, I think there’s a problem with how people have approached the book. I think it’s brilliantly written because it includes the actions by its characters that other writers would undoubtedly omit.

The novel’s chapters focus primarily on one character at a time, but their lives bleed into one another, as does the impact of the one episode which ricochets through the entire novel- when one character slaps a three year old child at a barbecue. ‘The boy is not his son’. Anyway, I think the novel is brave in its style as it reflects real people and real thought, which is hard for some people, notably the book’s critics, to admit. Human beings aren’t nice. Human beings don’t think nice or pure or politically correct or positive thoughts all the time, and this, for me, is exactly what this book is about. Halfway down the first page reads ‘[Hector] himself would have no problem falling asleep in a girl’s locker room surrounded by the moist, heady fragrance of sweet young cunt’, and is probably where the critics and prudes decided they were NOT going to enjoy this novel. And actually, when I was reading this myself I smiled and imaged the scrunched up faces of the people who still think that cunt is a dirty and negative word.

There is definitely something about being as silent as a person can be. Breathing is admired when nobody is talking; breathing becomes rhythmic and musical and is noticed. Heartbeats are ignored when it’s loud. We expect our hearts to beat and if someone’s decides to suddenly stop we are shocked and saddened. How could that just happen? I find breathing irritating and heartbeats make me cringe. At night, I wish I could be completely silent. I wish the world could be completely silent. I want sleep to mimic death every single night. Last night I took some strong painkillers for a horrible headache and I slept for 11 hours. It was very quiet and cosy in my codeine blanket eventually, but before I slept I was restless and my thoughts in my head which always form a sort of narration were being spoken aloud in slow motion. None of the words made sense, which reminded me of what happens when you’re little and you say the same word over and over until it means nothing and sounds completely alien. Wonder wonder wonder wonder wonder wonder wonder wonder. Wonder? If you say so.

I feel like I should update this blog, but I don't really have a great deal to say. I think that's the problem with me lately. Passion. I am lacking. Not for everything, of course, because my favourite girl in the world still makes me happy every day. I still feel happy speaking to my parents, and I very recently attended one of the most mindblowing concerts of my whole life. Friends are a touchy subject, really. I probably have one person in this city that I could go to if I really really needed someone. I just feel very unsatisfied with myself and I need to fix it. The sentence 'I thought you would [insert expectation] by now', which has been said to me twice this week by two different people about two very important things, has really got to me. My expectations of myself are unrealistically high, which I can't understand when my self-belief is relatively low at times, but it is nice to know that other people are disappointed in me too.

This year has been a good one for music. I have seen Imogen Heap, Hole, Emma Pollock, Patti Smith, Peter Gabriel, Sia and Tori Amos. I’m not sure if that’s all so far. I have the Manic Street Preachers, Tori again, Imogen again, Laura Marling for the first time and Melissa Auf der Maur still to go. I have travelled to Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Ireland, France, Holland, Finland and Russia for Tori, stopping off in Germany along the way to walk through a park and play by the windmill, then catch a flight to the smallest airport I‘ve ever been to, Tampere. I’ve never had such a prolific music year, because up until I got together with my girlfriend a year ago, I had pretty much given up on seeing other artists apart from Tori Amos. I used to go to gigs all the time when I was younger, but then I started being more selective and narrow. During university, the good part of it, the number of poetry readings I went to far outweighed the gigs I saw, but then everything changed and wonderful writers like Alice Oswald were replaced with fuck knows who, and it wasn’t worth going anymore. Anyway, I’m not writing this to show off or anything, I’m writing it so that I can look back and remember exactly how good 2010 was. I’m talking like the year is over. I think it’s the cold weather and all the talk about Christmas.

Victoria Pier

I got back to my flat at midnight after being in Leeds with Chris. Now I'm propped up on top of my bed, warmish, leaning on a soft headboard that stops me from concussing myself. The curtains are slightly open and I'm listening to one of my favourite songs in the world, I Speak Because I Can, on my headphones. It's on repeat. I'm researching portable heaters and working on a poem I started last week. I'm thinking about how I want to visit my parents next week and brush my teeth for a long time. There's something very therapeutic about tooth brushing. That and automatic writing calm me when I'm not calm. I'm calm tonight. I have that eye-sting that used to only happen after a nightshift, but it's only 1am and it's happening. I've been sleeping a lot lately. Ready to hibernate, probably. I hated last winter. Most of my MA seminars were from 4-6 when it was dark. I used to find the darkness really comfortable and welcoming, but I just couldn't feel like that last year.

I'm not dreading the winter so much this year because I'm looking forward to seeing the river Humber in all different seasons. On Saturday I stood at the end of the pier and just watched the sky. To the left it was pale blue mixed with grey and some clouds which were just hovering and whisping- not really sure why they were there, I suppose. Straight ahead of me was a different blue mixed with a different grey, and a different set of clouds which were drifting there for a different reason. Then it became more and more windy. To the right was my favourite. Dark dark grey clouds which just looked on the verge of bursting. They were magnificent. I was saying to my dad that they looked so real that they looked like they were fake and made on a computer. Too polished, perfect and cloud-like. Then the wind carried on and the dark clouds to my right were suddenly almost in front of me.

Night.

Sometimes I like finishing work at midnight. I used to like it when I finished at five, but now I don’t think I could do that to myself again. But really, it’s always been the same things that I like. I like the quiet roads, the stars and the dark and the cold. I like coming home, making something to eat and not remembering that it’s the middle of the night. It’s very quiet, I know I’m near the water, there is nobody outside and it’s a very clear and still night. I want it to rain and pour and soak the ground. I like the sleepy kind of awake I feel at this time- like I don’t know what time it is, so I don’t know what I should be doing. But I do what I feel like. I forget about the time. It’s dark. It’s 00:34. But maybe it’s just a dark day.


...


I need to read more. Books. But I feel a bit lost when it comes to books. I think the main thing that stops me from reading as much as I used to is that awful feeling of guilt. I should be writing and if I don't feel like writing I should be reading but not this book, I should be reading something to do with my work. I should be researching and reading around and reading theory and making notes. There's no point reading this. I have actually thought that before: that there is no point reading a book because I'm not going to use it. What a horrible way to think, but I don't think there's any clearer way to prove how university sucks the enjoyment and the point out of the subject. No reading is wasted or pointless. So after posting this blog I'm going to find a book on my shelf that I haven't read before, or I'll go to bed and read another ghost story by Charles Dickens. Or I'll read one of my favourite books, which is a collection, or a selection, of Anne Sexton's letters. I will find something. I never finished Jacob's Room.

In a few days I'm moving out of the shared house I've been in since September and into a flat of my own. I moved out of my parents' house in 2006 and even though I still get homesick sometimes, I've enjoyed going it alone. A bit. As much as I'm looking forward to getting away from all the foreign strangers I've lived with over the years, and the people I have lived with but have never met, I'm wondering what kind of weird habits I'll develop from living completely on my own. It'll be nice, actually MORE than nice, to not smell like a Chinese/Bangladeshi take away anymore, or have the smell of meat or fish through the whole house. I'll definitely cook more. I don't enjoy cooking where others are hovering around, because others aren't clean and I'm not prepared to clean up other people's crap for them. So at least I can be very selfish, and Rachel and I can finally have some privacy that extends beyond one room.

Okay. I'm looking forward to it.

Very soon.

Here are a couple of (mostly) Rachel's pictures to try and describe how happy I am right now.

This is my summer.

Jul 09, 2010 Montreux Jazz Festival (Miles Davis Hall)
Jul 11, 2010 Brugge Cactusfestival (Minnewaterpark)
Jul 13, 2010 Milan Villa Arconati
Jul 14, 2010 Zürich Live at Sunset
Jul 16, 2010 Dublin Iveagh Gardens
Jul 18, 2010 London Apollo Victoria Theatre
Jul 19, 2010 Paris L'Olympia
Jul 21, 2010 Bloemendaal Caprera
Jul 23, 2010 Pori Jazz Festival (Kirjurinluoto Arena)
Sep 03, 2010 Moscow Crocus City Hall

Coloured sticks of chalk are passed around.

This is my view for now. Well, from yesterday but it's much the same today. Dull then bright then dull then bright. It feels good to write again and it's always good to be surrounded by books.

Missing.

I think Diet Cherry Coke fizzes louder than normal Diet Coke. I feel very switched on and focused lately. Happy. But tonight I would do anything for a cuddle and a long sleep together.

Today.

Automatic #5

A funny sort of having it all and aching and then not really growing fruit properly but still dying to eat it. And never really worrying about dying but thinking about people and what they do when they get home then crying and walking down the path drinking juice and playing with really big balloons that are so big they carry cars and rocks and never burst because they are so strong and bright.

My Head Sounds Like That

All I want to do is sleep. Usually I don't particularly enjoy sleeping because I see it as a bit of a waste of time, because I can get so much done through the night if I choose work over sleep. But these days I fall asleep so easily and comfortably. So much so that when I'm awake I just wish I could go back to sleep. I've had a busy couple of weeks which isn't normal for me. I think it's catching up on me because I'm starting to feel quite rundown.

Zzzz.

So far I've spent today finding 1GB of music to put on my iPod when I go home tomorrow. I have 86GB free, so I have no problem adding to it every time I go back, which isn't often anyway. I found some old live Gabriel era Genesis performances of the Lamb, some Patti Smith, Bracket, CocoRosie and lots of others. I love spending the day listening to bits of things, even if it means never really finishing a song.

This week has been fantastic. On Saturday I went to York with my friend to see Emma Pollock at the Duchess. We spent the day eating and playing on musical instruments in shops. On Sunday I got up early and got the train to London to see my Rachel and Holly. We went for lunch and then saw Patti smith at the Union Chapel at night. Patrick Wolf played violin for her, which was a nice surprise. Both gigs I saw were brilliant. Yesterday I spent the day with my longest and closest Hull friend Heather. Tomorrow I am going back to my parents' house in the morning. I get to spend the whole day with my mum, so we're going to go for lunch :) Then on Saturday, fuck me, we're going to see Peter Gabriel in London. This will be the first time I have seen him live and I can't even begin to explain my excitement. He's like Tori in the way that he has always been in my life because my parents listened to him a lot when I was young.

There is a gap when it comes to art. A big gap, and it almost makes me with that I didn't rely on it so much sometimes. Think of a song- it is complete and it feels like a moment and it sounds like the person singing the song is feeling that moment too, and the musicians are playing with their eyes closed. It sounds like they are feeling as lost in the music as you are, but they're not. And it bugs me, but there isn't really any way round it, not even performing live, really. The writer will experience something, they will feel it and they will write it, then the music will happen however that happens, whether they write it or whether their band does it. Then they will decide to record it, they will do it layer by layer, take after take, and spend hours mixing and editing until it sounds like the song you end up hearing. The romance is taken out of it, and so is the impulse, the moment and the spark that made the artist write the song in the first place. Just like with a poem- it is edited, proof read, approved, published blah blah blah. The whole process of recording and publication takes away any initial drama and turns the work into something completely different. Processed. Not natural. This is a very pessimistic way of looking at it because it means that when we 'go' to music to share its power, we aren't anywhere near to the root of what it actually means.

Original Sinsuality- Tori Amos
Signal To Noise- Peter Gabriel
My Body Is A Cage- Peter Gabriel
I Can't See New York- Tori Amos
Another Girl's Paradise- Tori Amos
Apres Moi- Regina Spektor
The Drop- Peter Gabriel
After The Ordeal- Genesis
Here Comes The Flood- Peter Gabriel
In Your Eyes- Peter Gabriel
Mercy Street- Peter Gabriel
Sky Blue- Peter Gabriel
Red Rain- Peter Gabriel

I can't see myself getting sick of this list in the near future. When I make playlists I completely hammer them until I have exhausted every possible combination on shuffle, every time of day to listen, every way to listen, every emotion to feel. This playlist would fit anything. Two of the songs, I Can't See New York and Signal To Noise, are major disappearing songs. I used to love lying on the floor with Heather in my Washington Street bedroom in the dark listening to I Can't See New York as loud as we could before the speakers would start to crackle with all the bass. That impact is beautiful. I get that with the Gabriel song too- from the strings and the despair that pours from it.

It's 1am and I am tired. I am eating parma violets and drinking cherryade like a child. I'm not homesick or wishing to be anywhere different because I feel wrapped up and loved and content. I have been reading A Flame in the Mearns: Lewis Grassic Gibbon A Centenary Celebration which was given to me by Margery Palmer McCulloch who actually edited the book. She signed it too but I forgot to photograph it for the signed book entry. I am ready to get completely absorbed in LGG and his work because, if all goes to plan, I will be writing a hell of a lot about him over the next few years.

I was going to write a blog based on this earlier but my computer died and I lost all my thoughts on the matter:

'In the Republic Plato famously complained that one reason why poetry often has such a bad moral influence on people is that it appeals to their emotions rather to their reason, the 'highest' part of the soul.'

I can't even remember the last poem I wrote.

Get sick,

When I was young I used to love being at home. I always made excuses to go home early when I was supposed to be out playing with my friends. I just wanted to get my dinner, have my bath and get my pyjamas on and cuddle Splash (my seal) until I fell asleep. I didn’t really want friends; I just wanted to be on my own or with my parents. Whenever I would go and stay at a friend’s house I would probably make an excuse to go home early, regardless of whether this was in the middle of the night or not, I just had to go. I had to have my own bed and be around my mum and dad so that I felt safe. When we moved to England it got worse because I didn’t know who my friends were, apart from one, because everyone took the piss out of my accent. I didn’t know who I could talk to properly without being laughed at- so I didn’t talk to many people at all. I hid away at home and read books, drew pictures and wrote poems.

Now things aren’t so different, to be honest. Apart from the bit about not wanting to have friends, because there are a few amazing people in my life and I feel truly grateful to have them there. Anyway, I moved out when I had just turned 18, and now I’m almost 22. I don’t really know what I’m talking about anymore, so I’ll leave it there.

Being a literature student, I’m a bit of an emotional fag. I worry about everything, read too much into everything, overlook obvious things and spend hours trying to disappear into books to where I can see what other people feel, but can’t really get to grips with myself. Thank God the people around me are either: a) the same or b) very patient. But sometimes I wish I used the other half of my brain more than this wishy-washy confusingly indulgent side. It would be comforting, but maybe a bit cold, to live by facts and logic and rationality. I know people with interests in science are still people who feel and fuck up. But literature is a very vicarious discipline, in the way that we live through all the shit the characters go through, as well as all the shit we go through ourselves. This is why I read New Scientist and National Geographic when I get the chance; because sometimes it’s refreshing to NOT try to explain life through ifs and buts, but to read a lot of jargon you don’t understand and feel somewhat amazed that there are people who devote their lives to studying viruses and chemicals and don’t stop until they have a real answer that is tangible to them and doesn’t change depending on how much sleep they’ve had or whether they’ve had an argument with their wife or not.

For Heather, best wishes.

I should explain. I know Zadie Smith didn't write Bleak House (even though she told me that she did), but it was the only book I had in my school bag. I haven't met Ted Hughes and I didn't buy that signed book. I just have it. And I haven't met Margaret Atwood- the book was a present.

Automatic #4

Wrapped up like the ugliest present ever given for Easter but with no way to take it back just smash it up instead because it is so fucking horrible it turns your stomach. It was small once, when it wasn't fully made, but then it kept growing and the ugliness jutted out and everyone thought it was a monster and everyone started to hate it even though you loved it but now you hate it too.

Shuffle.

Mrs Bartolozzi- Kate Bush
The Moon- Cat Power
Morning Bell/ Amnesiac- Radiohead
Sad Professor- R.E.M.
Yes, Anastasia- Tori Amos
Virginia- Tori Amos
Straight Thin Line- Frida Hyvönen
If The World Ends- Guillemots
See How I Came Into Town- Frida Hyvönen
This Woman's Work- Kate Bush
The Kick Inside- Kate Bush
Frozen- Madonna
First Orgasm- Dresden Dolls



You're not the type they can capture
you flit like a fly catcher
they can't pin you down
can't pin you down

...


Your heart is way beyond capture
flitting like a fly catcher
they can't pin you down
they can't pin you down

Idiot, slow down, slow down.

I drove home slowly last night. Usually when I drive late at night I drive according to my mood, which is usually fairly upbeat because I'm not at work anymore, so that means that I drive fast(ish) with my music loud. For the past week I've been listening to Emma Pollock's Law of Large Numbers when I'm driving both to and from work. The album has now been reduced to just one song, The Child In Me, which is, for now, my favourite. It's also the first song she plays in the video I posted a few days ago. Anyway, I was relaxed last night. Maybe sluggish, slow and definitely more aware of everything around me. Sometimes it's nice to look. Driving the same back and forth journey all week becomes repetitive and blurry. Nothing is ever different, so auto-pilot kicks in. But last night I strolled and watched and went a different way home. Mainly because I needed petrol, which I also took my time over but didn't necessarily enjoy. £32.88. Argh. I wanted to keep driving. I wanted to go down to the river Humber and watch it for a while, but sadly I've heard that it's a bit of a 'hot spot' for various reasons other than midnight river-watching.

I've been driving for almost three years, but I don't think I've ever just gone 'for a drive'.

Automatic #3

Checking checking it's all about the all sorts and getting them all back safe by the fire and turning it right up so their clothes start to melt. We're all made of plastic and the tin cans will always be tin cans. Funny how everything changes in the evenings when the grass can grow in secret and the owls don't have to flap their wings for anyone.

Automatic #2

Deep breaths with music and coastliners taking people far away then bringing them back to where they wanted to get away from in the first place. They were chased away. bright and bushy once but ground down like pea beans in the farms and bowls of cereal the French people say the hate. There is far far far too much grass here, get a fucking grip and stop worrying. Where do you think she's gone? I can't believe everyone left and took the flower pots with them, what am I going to water now when the stars aren't out the the delete button falls off the wall?

Emma Pollock

This woman is one of my favourites. She was one of the singers, alongside Alun Woodward (Lord Cut-Glass), in The Delgados. They split up after a few incredible albums. Luckily I got to see them live twice in Leeds and Sheffield.

Automatic.

Nothing is outside so maybe we could all go outside and be the only things moving and not concrete. Maybe there will be puddles we can play in, but it's likely that the ladders will be in the way and the dragons will be drinking the world down by the gallon. I want to mean the world to you. I think being higher up is the way and then maybe we could be the sky and see the rivers as being pointless and we'd understand why it matters so much when it rains and doesn't matter so much when it stops raining. They'd tell us the weather and from our balloon and we would be the weather.

2010

Imogen Heap- Manchester
Hole- London
Emma Pollock- York
Patti Smith- London
Peter Gabriel- London
Melissa Auf der Maur- London- Cancelled.
Hole- Manchester + Birmingham
Sia- London
Tori Amos- Bruges, Zurich, Dublin, Finland, Moscow.
Imogen Heap- London


:)

'Those only are happy... who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness... Aiming this at something else, they find happiness by the way... The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life'

John Stuart Mill

'You're so lucky'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/feb/22/weight-gain-diet

I read the above article on the Guardian website the other day. When I saw the title I was pleased that the paper, or rather Lucy Glennon, had written about something that appears preposterous to most. The vast majority of writing about weight involves scrutinising people for being overweight, or just being of an average weight. The rest of the tripe obsesses over weight loss diets and ways to be thin etc. People who are underweight, for whatever reason, are often considered to be 'lucky' as many others, whether they are actually overweight or just believe themselves to be, see thinness as a goal which, if reached, can be the solution to some of life's problems- and I believe it can be, in terms of confidence etc. The point is that we often want to be what we are not, and when we see people who are what we think we want to be, we are jealous, envious and often disrespectful of what they have been through to achieve their own goals. Personally, I take it as an insult when people who don't know me call me 'thin', 'skinny' or 'lucky'. Maybe, for example, I have had a long-term illness, maybe I have a problem, maybe I dislike being the size that I am- they have no idea. Being underweight can affect someone's life negatively just as being overweight can, but it is not seen this way because our society's ideal is to be thin, but that can bring as many health problems as the opposite. It was just nice to see an article which doesn't see weight loss as a solution, but as a problem.