'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.