This is the first Hogmanay I've spent alone. I hope it's the last. I miss spending it in Scotland with my gran, mum and dad. I even miss it years ago when my uncle would be there, but then he started inviting my brother to his house and not me, so I never saw him at new year. We'd get everything tidy, lie out a table of drinks and make loads of food and sweets. Then there'd be Chewin' The Fat and Still Game on tv, which we always looked forward to. Last year I spent it with my parents and our neighbours drinking Moscow mules. I just heard a firework.

So, in 2009 I graduated, went to some wonderful poetry readings, read at some myself, put together a zine with Chris, lived in four different houses, painted a bookshelf, made a wish at the Trevi Fountain, fell in love, saw Tori Amos a few times, started a postgraduate degree, read about 23 novels, wrote a few poems, felt happier than I ever though I could, did my last ever nightshift, found my favourite painting and realised who I am and what I want.

Did anyone see
as you were pushed
from being high up
and ignored and
thrown down by
weather to where
Man walks
where you now
stand, much more
interestingly, like
an eagle who
settles for
life without
height.

This anxiety has been ridiculous and this blog is turning teenage. I was going to write about hunger. I was going to write about how I lay in my bed and stared at the ceiling and let myself feel it. I can't write about these things without sounding like I'm whining.

Now I'm reading food poems.

It's been six years.
Please just stop.

Right now I am listening to Pink and Glitter. I am topless, wearing a hat and pyjama bottoms. I look ridiculous but my door is locked, there is some light from outside plus lamplight and I have chocolate soya milk. It's Saturday afternoon and I am feeling half healthy after a sleepless week. One of the best of my life. I saw Tori Amos in a tiny venue in London after sleeping on the street to get a wristband. I walked hand in hand with Rachel along Oxford Street to look at the Christmas lights. I laughed and ate onion rings. I was kissed. Warm. It was all so fucking magical and I can't describe it at all. And the SHOW. That will never ever be forgotten by anyone.
This morning I have been flicking through Anne Sexton's letters and gradually tidying my room. I need to hoover, but I have done most of the work and I'm happy with it. I would love to write a poem today. I would love to read a lot and listen to Tori all day, with the exception of one Steve Hackett song. I am going to have the kind of day I love to have.

I've been thinking. After watching What Is Beauty? on the BBC it's finally dawned on me the pointlessness of art and the actual beauty of real life. A lot of the time I prefer art to life, but art fails completely when it comes to trying to create life. We can't write people because we are people. So then art only succeeds when we're trying to get away from life, but can't truly achieve that either. We are us. We are here. We are all I and no matter what we're reading or what we're staring at that never changes.

Hands of the Priestess (Part One)

I've been meaning to write here for a while. Now I am here but I don't really have anything to say. I suppose today I should apply for more jobs because it looks like we'll lose our nightshift tomorrow. I want to do lots of press ups and sit ups and listen to music loud. I want to finish reading Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. I want to edit my poem. I want to sit next to my bookcase and gaze up at the top shelf which is full of poetry. I have a dissertation idea: Nabokov, Fowles and Dahl. Odd. I want to read some Walt Whitman. I feel like going Christmas shopping because I have given myself some money to play with. This year I have it all. There is no confusion in my family. No ambiguity over whether to buy for certain people. Mainly because we despise them for certain and they completely feel the same. I want to buy a present for little Mary. I have a beautiful girlfriend to buy for. I have people who aren't greedy.

Purple People

Tonight is one of those nights I wish I could write about but can never justify using words. I have never felt so loved and encouraged in so many ways. I feel engaged with my work and capable. Just capable. I am listening to Midwinter Graces on my headphones. I love it. I can't explain how much I love it. I feel up. These words don't know what I mean.

This year.

1. Lolly Willowes- Sylvia Townsend Warner

2. A Handful of Dust- Evelyn Waugh

3. A Scots Quair- Lewis Grassic Gibbon (A trilogy)

4. The Unbearable Lightness of Being- Milan Kundera

5. Coming Up For Air- George Orwell

6. The Hours- Michael Cunningham

7. Life is Elsewhere- Milan Kundera

8. The Collector- John Fowles

9. Lanark- Alasdair Gray

10. Wilderness Tips- Margaret Atwood

11. Boy Meets Girl- Ali Smith

12. Oryx and Crake- Margaret Atwood

13. A Million Little Pieces- James Frey

14. Speak of the Mearns- Lewis Grassic Gibbon

15. Lolita- Vladimir Nabokov

16. A History of the World in 10½ Chapters- Julian Barnes

17. Switch Bitch- Roald Dahl

18. Possession- A. S. Byatt

19. The Buddha of Suburbia- Hanif Kureishi

20. The Road Home- Rose Tremain

21. Blood on the Dining-Room Floor- Gertrude Stein

I just want him to sing me to sleep.

Things are very different these days.
I have nothing to do today but pack a few things for Italy. I think I know what I want to wear, so it shouldn't take long to get ready. So I have the whole day empty. I don't know what to do. I don't think there is anyone I can see. I don't know if I want to see anyone anyway.
I just want the day to fly by so I can eat dinner and go to bed. Then tomorrow I get up, go back to my parents' and go to Italy in the morning.
This is going to be amazing :)

I've spent most of tonight on the phone to my mum, dad and gran :) It's made me feel really happy after a horrible and painful day. My mum is at my gran's house and my dad's in a hotel in Aberdeen. He's flying to Norway tomorrow morning. My football team have realised they still know how to score :)

3. Painting

I live in a box of paints.

It's fascinating that how you live your life depends on the place you were born. I know that's a bit of a stupid thing to say because it's so obvious, but thinking about it convinces me again and again how diverse this world is. I was watching Rick Stein earlier today. Despite being a little bit creepy he's a really passionate and interesting man. Anyway, he was in Bali and was describing the Balinese lifestyle. Obviously any attempt to summarise anything about any country or group of people is completely generalised and simplified, but he told how the people there do not worry. They just don't. They see positives in everything. They accept foreigners and are excited to introduce their culture to them. They never move from the community they were born in. They have a respect for each other and a positivity which is almost alien to this side of the planet. We are so demanding and self obsessed, but maybe that isn't such a bad thing. For me life is about surrounding yourself with the things that make you happy. In another life I would possibly have made a modest living from grinding coffee beans or peppercorns, but in this life I spend my afternoons listening to Pink Floyd, drinking sugar free fizz and writing uninteresting pieces of rubbish.

2. Painting

1. Painting.

I bought a new bookcase from work. I paid £8 for it, but on the website the RRP is £87. I'm going to paint it myself using tester pots of all my favourite colours. I'm also going to post photos here of its progress.

Such a lovely tree.

:)