Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in starsoakednites' LiveJournal:

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Friday, April 7th, 2006
11:06 am	Party... tonite at my house from 8.30/9pm ish. don't really wanna put my address here but presumably anybody in the area who's on LJ and who i'm friends with knows anyway... but if not and you want to come text me for my address, 07886771336 bring nice people, nice alcohol and any other nice party prescriptions and we'll all have an, um, nice time..! (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 29th, 2006
12:25 pm	Ladyfest We're looking for people to do workshops at Ladyfest - anything really but i guess probably along the lines of feminism / DIY culture / lady-related topics etc... If anyone is interested, leave a comment, or e-mail ladyfestcardiff@riseup.net We probably won't be able to pay you as it's all very low-budget but we *might* be able to pay petrol costs if you let us know how much you require etc. It's all for a good cause anyway! And we'll prob be able to put you up for the weekend if you so wish... Ladyfest is happening in Cardiff from June 30th - July 2nd. Thanks! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 28th, 2006
10:47 am	ill grr, i'm all ill :( well i'm probably being a bit melodramatic but just feeling pretty rough generally. been taking vitamins and stuff though, just have to sleep lots i think. rubbish. so, the last week's been pretty quiet i guess... been writing and reading a lot but not much else. which suits me fine to be honest..! haven't been to uni all that much but actually sat down one day last week and wrote my entire dissertation, except for the conclusion, so i'm in less deep shit than before. now i just have to write my essays. there's not much point even going to uni at all seeing as i have the questions. i can just sit in the house and read and write for a few weeks , et voila, i should have a degree. woo! in other news... had quite a good weekend. friday my friend anne-marie and a couple of friends i haven't seen in fucking aaaages came over and we drank lots of wine. it's so scary, everyone's getting engaged and stuff... what the fuck?! oh well. then went to a Crystal Maze theme party, although to be honest i can't really remember much about that. i know i had a good time i just can't remember specifics... but i'd better not get into that or i'll have the drugs police on my back..! (why is it ok to drink so much alcohol that you make a tit of yourself/don't know what you're doing/annoy everyone/get yourself into stupid situations, but not to take something that makes you very aware of everything around you/in control/more open minded/feel empathetic and loved-up with your friends?!) ahem. sorry. walked back in daylight. wow. summer is soon :) saturday slothed around on the sofas with N and Myf and K. watched videos, ate pizza, same old really, it was quite nice but felt pretty rough. Sal came over in the night. i was a bit socially inept though (Sorry!) Read a bit, made a mother's day card and wrote my mum a poem (i know, i'm disgusting), went to bed... Sunday went to Deadend for the joy that is Mothering Sunday. it was ok. my sister's a twat. talking about the black leather 3 piece suite they can't afford now that her boyfriend's lost his job. and their 40-year mortgage. etc etc. well on the slippery slope to 2.4 kids and a boring life... Got a bit tipsy with mum, usual relationships talk, saw my dad, usual frustration, came home again. mum liked the poem. she said she was going to show it to all her friends - i think she thinks i'm about 5. anyway. went to a gig for Women's Aid sunday nite but didnt stay long as i felt like writing, so i came home and did that instead. had a weird couple of days, not sure why really. i'm okay though. just a bit moodswingy recently. plus i've been in the house too much, but due to the skintness etc can't really afford to go out and have lots of fun, which is a bit shit. i'm all right with reading and writing for now though, at least in the week. easily amused, you see... so. gonna do a bit of work and apply for a job and listen to the Cardigans. this was a really boring entry. i don't know why i bother with LJ except that i have a shite memory. but then i write stuff anyway so that would help me remember things that happened. hmmmm. Current Mood: weird (Comment on this)
Monday, March 20th, 2006
12:35 pm	hm... procrastinating Your Five Factor Personality Profile Extroversion: You have high extroversion. You are outgoing and engaging, with both strangers and friends. You truly enjoy being with people and bring energy into any situation. Enthusiastic and fun, you're the first to say "let's go!" Conscientiousness: You have low conscientiousness. Impulsive and off the wall, you don't take life too seriously. Unfortunately, you sometimes end up regretting your snap decisions. Overall, you tend to lack focus, and it's difficult for you to get important things done. Agreeableness: You have medium agreeableness. You're generally a friendly and trusting person. But you also have a healthy dose of cynicism. You get along well with others, as long as they play fair. Neuroticism: You have medium neuroticism. You're generally cool and collected, but sometimes you do panic. Little worries or problems can consume you, draining your energy. Your life is pretty smooth, but there's a few emotional bumps you'd like to get rid of. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is high. In life, you tend to be an early adopter of all new things and ideas. You'll try almost anything interesting, and you're constantly pushing your own limits. A great connoisseir of art and beauty, you can find the positive side of almost anything. The Five Factor Personality Test (Comment on this)
12:10 pm	things are looking up... had a really cool weekend, AND today's been really productive so far, woo! the Psytrance night on Friday was fucking amazing. best nite out i've had in ages and ages. although there's lots i can't really remember but that prob just means it was really good, i guess... drank a bit in the house first, then went to the Mackintosh for a pint, then had a coupla lines and a drink in the house again and got a taxi into town. the place was a bit dead when we got there but it was still cool as fuck. they'd decked it out in lots of UV stuff and that army netting stuff, and there were loads of hippies doing UV poi and dancing around. we sneaked some vodka in so all i bought from the bar all night was a diet Coke, mwahaha! so pretty much just got very fucked and had a wicked time. befriended the people selling nitrous in balloons for £1 a go, and the guy kept giving me free balloons all night, which was pretty sweet too. saw Charlie, which was a bit weird cuz i kinda ignored her for a while when she asked me to go on the pill so i could give them to her for her hormones or something. but she was okay with everything, phew... also saw a few people from uni which was actually quite nice,[one of them told me she always wanted to talk to me but was scared cuz she thought i was a punk rock rebel - ha, why the fuck would anyone think that?!!] and lots of the hippie crowd. a few people tried to give me free acid but thought that might be a bit weird so didn't bother. at one point we made a den behind a bit of army netting, and me and N and katie and a couple of others squeezed in and were all loved up, it was lush. also there was face-painting but we decided it would be better to paint each other with the proper UV paint instead. unfortunately i managed to lose a lot of money, about £40, so i felt bad enough to draw ALL my money out of the bank, which was a bit stupid, and spend it on MDMA. whoops. but i don't care cuz i had an amazing time. except for one bit, when i had to stop a girl in the toilets from cutting herself. but she seemed a bit better afterwards and shared her coke with me. which is always nice i guess. so mostly i was just wandering around skanking cigarettes off people [once again, i lost my tobacco almost as soon as we got in there]and met lots of cool new people and talked a lot of shit, i expect. it ruled. there need to be loads more nights like that. it was sooooo good, ahhh! i used to know the guy who organised it when i was a kid, so it was quite cool to see him again too. we were meant to go to some after party but i think we got the wrong address, and it was so cold that we couldn't be fucked to walk to the right address, so we went to jay's, where everyone was quite fucked too. then came back to the house with huw and sarah for a smoke, and went to bed. woke up feeling quite floaty, with a coked up nose, purple UV hearts on my face and paint in my hair. last time i got facepaint in my hair it didn't actually come out, i think it's still there,a bit of yellow lurking underneath the black somewhere... oh well..! we did fuck all on Saturday, it was lush. stayed in bed, put some videos on but didn't really watch them, smoked a bit, floated between my room, where N was in bed, and the living room, where Huw, Jay, Sarah and my housemates were. Myf made apple crumble with custard too, from scratch. i heart my housemates! so we had some of that and watched crap on TV and went to bed again. Saturday went really quickly, but it was lovely anyway... Yesterday wasn't so good. Day 2 in the ComeDown House never is, i guess. got a bit of work done but felt quite stressy and depressed, having realised that spending the last of my money on drugs was a pretty shit idea, in retrospect. had to pay for tobacco in 2p's and 5p's. humiliating. went to N's and she cheered me up a bit, then came home, made a card (it's our 6 month anniversary, ahh!) and did some more work. Then N came over again and we looked at my old diary from 6 months ago, with me being all gushy and teenagey over her. i don't know why i show her these things, it's quite embarrassing really. so today i went to the bank.... put on my skankiest clothes, put my hood up, tried to look wide-eyed and childlike, and managed to get an extra £300 from the nice lady, woo! So i bought some food from Lidl's, which is my new favourite place. and then came home and sorted some ladyfest stuff. and had a massive coffee. and then wrote this. 6 month anniversary! it's gone really fucking fast and it's been really fucking amazing. i feel all syrupy and loved-up like when you're 13 and get a crush on someone in school... yay! quite happy today. gonna do some dissertation i reckon. [i know, empty threats...] Current Mood: rejuvenated (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 17th, 2006
1:54 pm	busy busy... ...Ladyfest is going a bit tits-up. We'll sort it out but the number of organisers is sort of dwindling. And one of the main ones has dropped out with a fucking lame excuse. And there's lots of people who seem to like sitting around, drinking, and talking about the concept of Ladyfest... but not doing fuck-all in their own time. Which is somewhat annoying. But no worries, we're having an SOS meeting on Monday, it'll get done. It's just a bit crap that it coincides with some of our final years at Uni. Humph! Oh well. It'll get done. In other news, I've done most of the reading for my dissertation. Yay! It's really interesting, but that's not as good as it sounds, cuz it just makes me wanna read interviews with bands, look at zines and listen to Huggy Bear, rather than actually do any writing. Could be worse I guess. They played Huggy Bear on Radio 6 earlier! Yay! Today, been flyering around Cathays for Rose Kemp and Aesthetica magazine. Popped into Jay's for some tea (which I had to make - huh! Rubbish host), and to get my essay questions - all of which look quite okay, except for music and nation. i might try to wangle it so i can write about New York punk versus London punk, but i might have to bite the bullet and actually read some books about opera or some shit like that... Also sorted out and posted all my Masters applications, so now i'm just waiting for them to get back to me, which is a bit of a relief. Yesterday went to London. it was cold and snowed a bit. had my hair cut. they didn't' have any particularly cool colours though so stuck with the blue and purple. although was tempted by day-glo yellow, but the comedy value prob wouldn't last 6 weeks really. lastnight got quite drunk and stoned in the house with housemates and N. tonight we're all going out to the Owain Glyndwr, which is a bit of a weird venue to have a psytrance night, but hey-ho. should be fun. nice to let off steam anyway after feeling a bit stressy of late. so. it's so cold! but it's okay, the clocks go forward in a week, aaaaahhh! :) Current Mood: okay Current Music: horrible australian drawl from Neighbours (Comment on this)
Monday, March 13th, 2006
7:13 pm	plan i'm capitulating to my Virgoan anal side and doing a plan to make it seem like there's some sort of structure going on, and make me feel less rubbish. i doubt anyone particularly wants to read this but at the end of the day no one's forcing you to..! tonite either - do more reading for dissertation or - go to the pub with k and m. tomorrow get up early work work work work work work work try to get some sort of dissertation plan rather than aimless dykey reading try to get in touch with lucinda again go to uni - get MA forms from Jean - drop off essay wednesday more work open mic thing in night? thursday london...argh. night - if back in time - book launch thing in millenium centre. friday day - work nite - psy-trance thing [aaaand relax.] that'll do, to be getting along with. feel ... bit better actually. weird. (Comment on this)
7:02 pm	rubbish today has officially been rubbish. i woke up with period pains. so at least my period's decided to arrive, albeit about two years late, but... i want a hysterectomy. been feeling weird and depressed all day. wrote an essay about gender and sexuality. did some reading for my dissertation. there's no fucking way i'm gonna get it to under 6000 words. i've only left the house to buy tobacco and orange juice. this is not good. i can't decide whether to plow on through the reams of books on fucking everything - feminism, queer theory, music, subcultures, blah blah - or just give it up and go drinking. also feel guilty about feeling crap because obviously other people are worse off. and i don't want my mood to rub off on anyone and it's rubbish. argh! maybe it's just hormones. here's to tomorrow. Current Mood: numb (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 12th, 2006
2:41 pm	procrastination really should be doing some work. my dissertation supervisor seems to have twigged that i haven't done fuck all all year, and now he wants to see some work fast. humph. it's okay, i have fuck all money and lots of books so i can just sit home and read, theoretically. in practise, there's lots of distractions which are much better than reading Judith sodding Butler for the 50 millionth time, or trying to formulate a definition of third wave feminism. I can't believe it's nearly 3pm! all i've done today is buy sugar, milk, coffee, tea and bread. i'm just a bit sick of uni i guess. maybe i need a break. but the summer will be a break, i suppose. i'm not sure if i want to go and do a masters straight away but we'll jump off that bridge when we come to it. Friday, went to Bridgend for dinner with my dad, his gf and my sister. it was okay, we went for an indian and i felt a bit like the people in Goodness Gracious Me in the episode "going for an indian".... "i'll have the blandest thing on the menu, and 25 portions of chips!". Actually i didn't have anything too lame so i was quite proud. my sister started crying about her boyfriend at one point which was a bit crap, but she was ok. she gave me a lift back to Cardiff and had a vent about it so i think she's feeling better. might give her a ring to check actually. then came back, went to a gig but missed the band i wanted to see (VEG club) and wasn't too fussed on the other band. plus wasn't really in the mood to go out afterwards, so carys, chris, chris's friend and me came back to mine for a smoke. it was okay, wasn't feeling majorly sociable but prob would've got depressed on my own so... Chris's friend was really cool, he seemed to know everything about everything, which was quite interesting..! Then N came over and everyone left after a bit. Did some writing but most of it is too smug to post here. although maybe i will anyway just to annoy everyone. you love it. Yesterday was lush...stayed in bed til about 5pm... :) Then got up and went to Jay's, played a fucking nasty drinking game involving lots of vodka, got a bit trashed and then went to the Rummer with N and Sal and some guy who Sal met. It was okay, we were gonna go to Gretzky's for an electro night but didn't because we were waiting around for a drop-off for ages and it never materialised, and by that point i'd pretty much sobered up and i think we'd got a bit bored of waiting. So Sal fucked off and we came home instead. My financial situation is pretty dire at the moment so prob for the best. I think i like LiveJournal cuz it's a tool to help me remember things..! i never remember what i've been doing so it's sort of like a reference point, i suppose. and i can't be fucked to keep a diary cuz inevitably you end up putting really personal stuff in it and then someone bloody reads it. whereas here it's fine cuz you know people are gonna read it so you're more careful, i suppose. i like it anyway. so today i'm gonna do some work and stuff and then maybe go to a comedy night in the Hawaiian tonight. my life over the next few weeks is going to be quite boring, what with the no money/lots of work scenario. oh well, shit happens i guess. i've had a pretty cushy 3 years so maybe panic SHOULD be setting in now. There's a few good things coming up to puncture the crapness anyway, like this psytrance night next Friday, and some gigs in Chapter which i'll be able to go to for free, so it's all good. right. work! :-( Current Mood: complacent (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 9th, 2006
11:33 am	"i'm feeling fine, i'll never lose you..." has anyone heard of Grandadbob? i need their album quite badly. so. reading week has been good, although i've only read 2 articles. it took me all day yesterday to read "Sexualities Without Genders, and other Queer Utopias". my degree is a joke. what's been happening, then...?! (in a bridgend accent). Tuesday was cool - got quite drunk on lager and Goldschlager in the house with N, Katy and Huw, then went to see the Go! Team. They were cool but to be honest not as good as i thought they were gonna be. They're playing a festival in May which looks good, might try to see them if i have any money (doubtful). Yesterday was on a bit of a comedown. but had a nice day anyway, smoked most of it away and slothed around with N and stuff... yeah... it was good :) Had pizza and watched About A Boy on telly and went to bed. Been doing lots of Ladyfest-y stuff. it's cool, keep getting emails off people all over the country / world just wishing us luck and offering their services. riot grrls are still lovely, it seems...yay! quite excited, although i wish i could get a paid job like this, and i'm not sure how i would go about doing that. also got a really good mix CD yesterday. and have been emailing this sweet 18 year old from Cwmbran who's really into ladyfest stuff too. basically i've been quite impressed with humanity this week, for once. people are all right really. today i'm going to read a bit for uni, maybe. and write about sex, maybe. firstly i am going to have a shower and just leave the coffee alone for five... Current Mood: content Current Music: Matisyahu - king without a crown (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, March 6th, 2006
12:01 pm	sleep deprivation... i've become so lame. used to be able to survive on fuck-all sleep and now i'm moaning because i only slept for 6 hours lastnight! what the fuck?! Had quite a good weekend. Friday night drank some vodka with Huw and Jay and then went to Swansea with Chris, Carys and Omar. Swansea is still a shitpit, funnily enough. Had an embarrassing moment running into a gay bar cuz i really needed to pee and then marching into the staff-only area instead of the toilets. oops. But the Monkey Bar was quite cool, haven't been there before but heard lots about it. Only caught the last part of the Physicists set, but saw the Hot Puppies too. The sound in there wasn't very good but it was okay. Was quite drunk. Tried to chat up the Tank Girl-esque barmaid for Carys but she had a girlfriend. She was nice about it though. (i can't believe i did the whole "my friend fancies you!" thing...duh!) Saw Joan and Chris too which was a bit weird. Wales is about the size of a postage stamp. Came back to Cardiff, Sal was in my house, so we had some chips and a spliff and went to bed. (not with Sal, obviously...) Saturday was odd. My friend had some bad news and had to go to New York so N & i gave her a lift to the train station. Hope she's ok. Phones don't work in NYC do they? i think i'll email her instead. i can't really talk about that anyway at the moment. So... we came back to the house and just slothed around, ate oranges and drank coffee and talked for ages. and... i don't know if i should say this here but i think it's okay (??!)... decided to move in together when our contracts are up in June..aahhhh! :) :) :) quite excited! i think it'll be good anyway. hm, i'm also very aware of what i'm saying incase N is reading this! fuck it. i think it'll be lush. and there'll be room for decks and lots of fun stuff. she can be a superstar DJ / musician and i can be a superstar writer and it'll be amazing. admittedly i said i'd never do it again but it's completely different. "no it's not like any other love, this one is different because it's us..." and there'll be NO CATS involved (gemma!) ahem. ramble ramble. i'm just quite excited about the whole prospect! quite fancy a change of house anyway though. and not sure who else is going to live here in the summer time, but there's time to sort all that stuff out. i want to move into a flat with nice 70s wallpaper like something out of a Pulp video... Anyway. Yes. Saturday night went to N's house and drank with her friends and played board games, which was funny. i don't know why groups of lesbians scare me but i got over it and it was actually really good. then had a smoke with two of her housemates and came back to mine, had a few hours sleep, got up early and got the coach to London at 9am yesterday. It was a good day, mostly..! the bus was not conducive to comfort/sleep but hey ho. also i made the schoolboy error (perhaps the wrong turn of phrase) of reading some hardcore lesbian-feminist political stuff on a bus full of boys / female groupies. and encountered some minor homophobia which wouldn't have pissed me off half so much if i hadn't read all this right-on-sister stuff... but hey, it's good to be pissed off sometimes... the venue was really lush, and the graffiti in the toilets was cool in a sort of pretentious way, and the sound was amazing, and i NEED to move to london at some point in my life! the other bands were okay, obviously the Physicists were the best though... It was strange cuz we drank all day but i didn't feel drunk at any point. Interspersed the Leffe/Carlsberg with cups of coffee and tea, and ate lots of Welsh Cakes and had a Burger King pretty much for breakfast.... i NEED my period to start, i keep craving cakes and shit like that, argh! so i was feeling a bit queasy but it was still good. Didn't see much of London. (saw a nice looking cake shop though...!!) Everything was shut because it was a Sunday so mostly we just drank in the bar downstairs and hung around in the green room. lots of moodswings were involved but it was a good day and even better to get out of Cardiff. Robbed a service station on the way back (nothing big, just a baguette and some sort of flapjack.... come on, it would've cost about £50 otherwise), met a funny guy from one of the bands who was obsessed with boys wearing make up (and who may actually be Sal's male equivalent) (as if she needs a male equivalent..!), listened to Crystal and Sal discussing each other's physical deformities... just another Saturday night really?! i'm babbling so much. caffeinated. really tired, got in at 4am. had a lush sleep though. N had to go to school :( i must've been dead to the world... so today. yes. need to get on the phone to magazines about Ladyfest advertising again, compile a list of the bands who've been in touch with me, get the CDs together, and am meeting a girl called Eli from Brecon at 6pm in town, don't know what she looks like but she's going to wear a red skirt so it's all good..! Then Ladyfest meeting at Chris and Carys's at 8pm. It's all go... Have a nice day! it's sunny again, yay... Current Mood: sleepy (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 3rd, 2006
10:33 am	little update... why, when Radio 6 is so fucking good, do they have to play Kanye sodding West every 5 minutes? hm. in other news, i went to university yesterday. for FOUR HOURS! It was actually quite good. i might do it more often. got my results. got a 74 for contemporary women's fiction, and 65 for C20th lesbian literature. [i'm the only lesbian in my class !! how could i just get a fucking 2:1?! hmph.] so... english lit sucks arse, i should've just done cultural criticism really, but nevermind. got a 1st for my feminist interpretations of Freud essay which made me feel a bit better. enough gloating... yesterday was Chris's b'day. i'm trying to watch my money so i made him a card and gave him a CD of the bands that played Ladyfest UK 2003, and a couple of books. we had some wine and a smoke yesterday but i didn't make it out in the end. [if yr reading this i hope you had a good nite!] Stayed in with N and had talks about important things and it was lush [if YOU'RE reading this, you're lush as fuck! hng hng!] ahem. so tonight the Physicists are playing Monkey Bar in swansea. gonna try to go if car space allows. Hot Puppies are playing too. you should blatantly go. even if you don't live here. trains are there for a reason. my landlady's coming round so should prob tidy up a bit or something. and need to call lots of mags to sort out Ladyfest advertising. and email mags to try to get them to let me write articles about it. and write a bit, and wash my hair, and phone my parents, and and and... argh! overload. so i guess i should get off my arse and get on with it. Queens of the Stone Age?! i'm going off radio 6 rapidly... Current Mood: giddy Current Music: ughhh josh hommosexual [how mature] (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006
10:55 am	stolen from someone who stole it from someone else... “IT DOESN’T INTEREST ME WHAT YOU DO FOR A LIVING. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver moon, “Yes!” It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away." Current Mood: caffeinated (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 28th, 2006
12:44 pm	broken glass Alice and Jo didn’t mean to break anything. They just wanted to get into the derelict house. They are sick of the city’s false promises of glamour, its drab grey reality. They are sick of filthy neon clubs, of poseurs and fakers, of plunging into their twenties. They want to feel like teenagers again, rebellious and shiny and new. So Jo ripped off graffitied corkboard to reveal a cracked window, and smashed it with her gloved fist. Alice felt her heart swell with pride as a million glass jewels dripped down the walls. They clambered through the window’s jaws and felt time falling away. Jo lit the fire. The gutted room glows womb-like, and they are in utero together. When they kiss, the air around them crackles, electric. From aeons away, screaming blue sirens. Alice is not nervous. She admires the moon’s spilt silver across the blanket of shattered glass. In every shard, she sees Jo’s face. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, February 27th, 2006
11:38 am	it wasn't always this way It wasn’t always this way. That’s all I can think as you slam the front door on me again and I watch you deflated from the window of our ground-floor flat. You stop to light a furious cigarette with defiant fingers stained from nicotine, stained from me. You slam your other fist into your jeans pocket, and flick your dirty blonde hair out of your eyes, and stalk off into the hung over city morning. The slam of the front door reverberates through the flat. And all I feel is numb. I negotiate the debris of the living room. The crumpled green cans littering the floor; the pile of CDs by the hi-fi knocked over in a glorious mess of silvered discs and cracked plastic; the rolled up twenty-pound note and specks of powder and coke-choked credit card on the glass coffee table from another night of making white lines go away. How you think we can still afford coke when we can barely even afford to keep a roof over our heads, I don’t fucking know. In the bathroom I splash cold water on my face from the groaning taps. That’s what they do in the movies, isn’t it, to pull themselves together? I don’t know why. It just makes the frozen white smack of another lost October morning even colder. I stare into my water-logged reflection. I look pale. Withering. Emaciated. All these chemical nights are taking their toll and I’m looking pretty haggard. I used to fancy girls who were really skinny, that whole heroin chic thing that everyone went crazy for in the height of the grunge years. The razor-sharp cheek bones, hollowed cheeks, vacant gaze. Girls a bit like you, really. But I can’t pull it off. I just look a mess. My pupils are tiny, shrinking away into tired green, stained around the edges with last night’s make up. My hair is all wax-ratted and black and in my face. My whole body throbs with a dull leaden ache. And I look like nuclear fucking winter. Last night’s excesses are written all over my face and my empty eyes look like piss-holes in the snow. I make tea and take it into the living room. I press play on the hi-fi but there’s a psytrance CD in the drawer, party music from last night. So I press stop because I don’t think I can be arsed to find a suitable CD from the carnage on the floor. And I don’t think there’s a suitable CD to fit this mood, really. The silence yawns emptily in my stomach. I light a cigarette from a packet on the table. I vaguely wonder whether the remnants of coke on the table would be enough to give me a scratchy little high. Probably not. I lick my finger, dab it in the powder and rub it into my gums anyway. Nothing happens. It wasn’t always this way. * * * It’s Halloween. Three years ago today I met you at a punk show. I thought you were the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. We got talking at the bar because we had the same shade of green hair. We were twenty-one, and we had no responsibilities, and we knew that the dirty neon cityscape had been erected solely for us. You bought me tequila, and I drank it until the butterflies in my stomach the colour of your eyes stopped fluttering and I could talk to you and laugh with you without feeling like a jittering bag of nerves. And we hit the town where the sirens screamed our names down dog-shit alleys and the sprawling metropolis swallowed us whole, spitting us back out again into the star-soaked night where we stumbled back into my flat. Into my bed. I felt like a voyager discovering the smooth landscape of your perfect body, kissed the starry tattoos across your collarbones and felt like they were exploding in my mouth, and we fucked for hours but it felt like more than just fucking, because in the morning you were still here. And here you stayed. * * * I stub out my cigarette and light another. I never smoked until I got together with you. You were my one way ticket into the subterranean guts of this seedy urban underbelly, this glamorous hell. I had just moved to London to study and I didn’t know anyone, I hadn’t seen anything, hadn’t seen the sun rise with my pupils vibrating lying on a rooftop surveying the skyline feeling above all this mess and a part of it, the way I did with you after you bought heart-shaped pills and introduced me to ecstasy. Who said romance was dead? You had an excuse for all this excess, I guess. You were determined to live out your glory days in a hedonistic blur of rock star cliché. You played guitar in a punk band and your singer sold Class A’s on the side, mostly to finance her own habit but also financing yours. Your band were going places and I was happy to go with your flow, your sleep-all-day party-all-night attitude, I liked being with the band and getting fucked up with you all after shows and I held your hand and felt a bright orange glow of warmth and pride just like they talk about books. With you I realised that maybe there was more to life than books. With you it was intense and real and a life lived in Technicolor, not observed beigely from the sidelines. It couldn’t last. Your singer was doing coke all day every day, cutting up white lines before even getting out of bed in the mornings. She stopped turning up for shows. Living the dream before it was really hers to live. Your record label put up with it for a while, put up with her turning up late for gigs and then running off stage to be sick during gigs and then not even bothering to show up to gigs. But that could only last so long. You weren’t fucking Guns ‘n’ Roses, as your manager said. We would have laughed at that comparison in happier times than these. You got dropped, and you had nothing to fall back onto. You left school after your GCSEs while I was slogging away in the suburbs to get straight A’s. You had nothing to fall back on except for me. And of course I let you, even though our relationship was turning sour already. You’d moved in with me but I barely saw you, you would fall into bed next to me as my alarm clock rang into the empty expanse of dawn. I was in my final year and trying to hold down a job even though you had money from gigs and record sales, because I didn’t like depending on you. You thought that was stupid; you thought it was okay because you’re a girl so it’s not like I was relying on a man. Not like I was betraying the sisterhood, or whatever. I’d leave you to sleep; go to uni; go to work at the bar; get home lager-stained and exhausted in the night’s blackest hours to an empty house. When your band were dropped my drab routine continued and I think you wondered how things could carry on so routinely for me when your whole life had been thrown off orbit. But what choice did I have? I carried on going to college and working, and then uni finished but I carried on at the bar through the summer, putting off finding a real job, and returning not to an empty house but to your empty shell of a body slumped on the sofa feeling sorry for yourself, stoned and red-eyed, with ribbons of smoke hanging over the room and the ashtrays full of spliff ends and the air stale and heavy. You got jobs occasionally when I forced you to, but they’d last a week tops, and then you’d quit and it would be back to the same old shit. I got sick of the sight of you sprawled out over my dog-eared sofa. We never had any money, you rolled it all into spliffs and smoked it away, cut it into lines and snorted it up. We never went out anywhere together. Our life was these four walls, your drugs, my failed efforts to keep it all together. And somewhere along the line in all that mess I kept trying to love you. Kept trying to remember the good times, trying to remind myself that this wasn’t really you, trying to tell myself that I couldn’t give up on you when you were sunk this low down. I kept trying to love you but somewhere among the debris of wasted days and thick black nights I think I must have stopped. * * * But I can’t stop thinking about those autumn nights, when after your gigs, coke-fuelled, alcohol-blurred, you held my hand and cradled me into the scarlet womb of dawn. You were my pulse through the winter, scalding me when we kissed in the snow under pregnant grey skies. Your icy fingers burned your name into my spine over and over. That winter we sweltered in each other's heat. We were reborn in the spring, you were my Easter resurrection and I my own sacrifice, we worshipped at our altar and watched unsurprised as the swollen pink buds of our love re-opened, swathing us in their scent. Under cold blue skies I kissed you and tasted everything I needed to know of what I wanted. And summer. Summer... I melted into you like the butterscotch sun, our sweaty bodies clashed together to reclaim each other, to find what we had lost, your skin was hot and salty and your eyes were an ocean that cooled me through the heat wave. Endless star-splashed nights and your sun-warmed skin on mine. We have lain in fields where the grass is green and I smelled summer thick in the air and felt what it was to be truly happy. I wrote you a letter telling you you were hotter than August, and it's still true. * * * * It wasn’t always this way. I have loved you through every season, all year round, in different cities and different countries and a hundred different beds. I can't remember myself before you were a part of me. Today I feel torn asunder and I know I need to find a way to plumb the black depths of looming winter without you by my side. I have run to you too many times; the fragile bonds of our love are breaking and tangled. There's a noose around my neck and your head's in your hands and we're both wondering how all those years of perfect love could have turned into this ruined mess. * * * I don’t know where you’ve gone or what demons are in your head sending you storming away from me when I dared to wake you up, but I know I can’t do this with you any more. Can’t run circles with you anymore. I don’t have the energy to keep chasing after you when things go wrong, when you’re coming down hard and storming out and leaving me to clear up your mess. I can’t stay here with your drugs and your empty bottles living your life. I cant be the mirror reflecting your flame. I can’t stay around to watch your life plummeting into the gutters. Because I know you would take me with you. You wouldn’t want to, but you would. And I would let you. I’m not sure whether that’s my fault or yours, or if it even matters, since the outcome is the same. I think about packing but I’m not sure I want to take any of this with me. I don’t know where I’m going to go but I can’t be here any more with you and all this mess, all these reminders of our youth slipping away, all this bitterness and stale air. I grab a bag and shove some clothes into it. I don’t know if they’re mine or yours. I don’t think that matters either, now. I grab my wallet, my phone. Take a last look in the mirror and wish I hadn’t. After all this time and all this mess, whenever I look in the mirror all I can see is your fucking face. It wasn’t always this way. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
11:12 am	weekend haven't had an immensely productive week, really. i've deciced i may need a change of lifestyle. if only because my writing is getting a bit predictable and boring, as are my nights out. and it's just...not as good as it used to be. got quite pissed on thursday - went to kX with N, carys, chris and osian, and some quite scary quite emo lesbians. got quite drunk, we were meant to be going to the electronica nite, Terminal, in welsh clwb but we didn't bother cuz we were too late. so went to the City Arms instead where i was reminded that most people are actually arseholes and most men get off on lesbians. knobs. somehow managed to stay up til 6am for no apparent reason. had to kick carys several times to make her wake up from where she'd crashed out on my bedroom floor. finally fell asleep and woke up hungover to fuck.... so then mum took me for lunch in the Funky Buddha which was quite lush, although i had to keep running off to the toilet cuz i felt sick. but i had to eat cuz otherwise she would've thought i'd been doing drugs the night before. she probably thought i was doing lines in the toilet anyway... spent the rest of the day mooching about feeling ill and depressed. then had a picking-up disaster where i was nearly pressured into buying £70 worth of pills, which was a bit shit, but managed to avoid it. saw huw and jay briefly, and N and Sal were here when i got back. just had a smoke and stuff, were gonna go to Holadeck but everyone was feeling a bit weird so we didn't. Got a text off Huw at about 1am saying thanks and that he was "in tesco, buzzing my twat off, buying a kettle"... which kept me amused for long enough. Saturday felt looooads better and went to the beach with N. She is my fave driver ever. especially parking. we inadvertently parked on someone's front garden at the beach. this woman was crazy, she had really long frizzy bunches and looked quite angry but we parked somewhere else and she skuttled off. [i just got the word "skuttled" into a sentence!] the tide was in and it was freezing but we bought a coffee and sat in the gardens by the castle for a bit. then stole some of those big long feathery plant things and took them back in the car. it was weird being back where i grew up. but nice to get out of Cardiff for a bit and to see the sea and stuff. so Saturday night we got quite pissed in the house. Adam came over and some of Myf's friends. Then got a taxi into town and went out on the gay, which was fucking awful. Exit's always been quite a crap club but it was rammed full of tossers, even more so than usual. the original idea was to go out drinking with N's housemates but although they were there we didn't really seem to talk to them much. so we all left at about 1am - me, N, Myf and Kirsten - and came back to the house. We were all quite fucked so decided we had to snuggle up on the sofas in a big loved-up mess...rearranged the living room so the sofas were facing each other which was quite cool. had a play fight with the feathery sticks that we stole from the beach [you see, they DO come in handy] and wrecked the living room. turned out Kirsten was allergic to them so felt quite bad when she started sneezing. N wasn't having a great time. think the pills might've had K in them or something because she was having nasty hallucinations when she closed her eyes. So she went to bed. It was really strange. Felt very high for a while, then every 10 minutes my mood kept changing. Didn't know where my head was at, it was too weird to really describe. But at one point everyone decided to go to bed and i was quite spun out in the living room, trying to smoke a rollie, listening to Royksopp, surrounded by feathers and mess, with an overwhelming urge to cut myself. [i didn't.] which wasn't the idea i had in mind when taking Ecstasy. which is one of the reasons why i'm thinking "i'm bored of this". i just don't know how many more drugs conversations i can handle. all my friends seem to have turned into druggies. it's boring. it's all anyone cares about/talks about. i'm thinking i may give reality a try for a while. maybe get some stuff done rather than just getting mashed every weekend and coming down all week. i may just be pre-menstrual and angsty. feel like my womb may erupt today. [sorry!] Went to bed at about 6.30am, then woke up and chilled all day with N and Kirsten. Smoked a few spliffs, ate pizza, watched crap TV. [the comedowns are also getting predictable]. Then went to watch N play a gig in Pencoed. The other bands were shockingly bad (except for one i think, but we didn't stay to watch them). The crowd was just emo/metal boys, and one of the bands were like the bastard offspring of Bon Jovi and Rod Stewart. [we actually saw one of them poncing around with fucking hair straighteners before the show]. if you actually LIKE music, why would you start a cock rock band?! it was horrible. but the Physicists were good and the band who put on the show really liked them, so that was cool. Crystal was really pissed too which was quite funny. [to be fair, she had a bottle of that nasty 20/20 stuff and a gutful of whisky]. We came back after that [loving the M4 this weekend], and had a smoke, and made fishfinger sandwiches with ketchup, and went to bed. so today i'm gonna write write write all day. Friday i tried to write a story but it was a bit shit. still, i'll post some of it on here for a laugh. Ladyfest meeting tonight at 8pm in Cafe Europa. [i have no real excuse not to go to this one; it's not in Canton!] You should come too. Current Mood: blah Current Music: washing machine (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 20th, 2006
6:24 pm	ill bit ill today. think i overdid it on the weekend, just got a bit of a cold and achey and stuff. my immune system used to be unknockable but it seems that it's getting a bit crap. been doing work all today - feminist interpretations of Freud. Very stimulating... Am supposed to be going for a drink with Jay now but not really feeling like drinking. Although the pub has got to be warmer than my house, it's about -50 degrees in here. Brrr. Today's also mine and N's 5 month anniversary. Ain't that sweet..! I'm very ready for the summertime now. Sick of getting colds, and of being cold, and I like my big stripey jumper but I'm looking a bit peaky too, could do with some sort of tan or something vaguely resembling a healthy complexion. Prob gonna miss the Ladyfest meeting AGAIN tonight. surely the sisterhood will expel me. But if anyone else wants to go, it's at 8pm in Chapter Arts Centre. [Canton's such a trek... you see my point!] Can't believe how fast the day has gone though. If i can get my Freud essay done though, I'll have the rest of the week to do sweet F.A. and that means i can get round to doing some proper writing... Boring update i'm afraid. Think i'll go back to my endless cups of coffee and penis envy. Adios... Current Mood: cold (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 19th, 2006
8:19 pm	...some time later been a while since i updated this hasn't it?! feeling somewhat rough. had a bit of a hedonistic few days. this week got my Cultural Criticism results, the highest in the year ha!, so decided to celebrate a bit. [ok that's just an excuse really, it's not that much to celebrate, i just wanted to get wrecked..] have been productive too, a bit. decided what MA courses to apply for and have done all the application stuff now pretty much. feel like a weight's been lifted, to some extent at least. although i've applied for quite a few courses [MScEcon Political Theory, MA Critical & Cultural Theory and MA Ethics & Social Philosophy in Cardiff; MA Gender & Culture in Swansea; MA Gender, Sexuality & Culture in Manchester]. Thought I'd keep my options open. will prob also apply for some jobs and stuff and try to sort my life out a bit in the summer. at the moment i'm just considering what i could do, and avoiding making any drastic decisions... so. the last week's been ok. been a bit moodswing-y, not sure if that's a lifestyle thing or if i'm pre-menstrual or if i'm just a moody bitch and need to stop making excuses. Valentine's Day was good. realised that i'm actually a bit of a cheese-fiend so made N a card and got her some little presents, and she bought all the Love Hearts in Spar and Co-op and put them all in a basket with the sweetest note ever. stayed in bed all day and just lounged around eating jam donuts, drinking white chocolate milkshakes, etc. then Crystal and Sal came round in the nite with a crate... true romance..! haven't really been to uni this week, except for Queer Theory. oh well. there's always next week... The Physicists (N and Sal's band] have been in the studio recording a single this week. So i've been down there a couple of times, but it seemed like quite an arduous process really. although the recordings sound ace. they're on the Adam Walton show on BBC Radio Wales tonight. Listen! Thursday went out, £1 a pint in Kings Cross, but full of gay ruffians, ick. Then went to Tantra to see Nicki Charles's band, who were ace, as always. Got a bit mashed with Carys and Chris, then they came back here, lay in bed, chatted for ages. That was a pretty cool night. Friday was feeling rough but met an old friend [ish] in town with Carys, had some food in the Gatekeeper, laughed dumbstruckly at the astounding number of emo twats in Cardiff, then felt like i might be getting old cuz it's the first real youth subculture that i've seen that i full on DO NOT GET! what the fuck is Emo all about?! Lastnight caught up with Jay a bit. Went into town drinking with a pack of boys which was quite nice, have had lots of female company recently. Went to Central Bar, Buffalo, O'Neills, ended up rat-arsed and paying £15 to get into the union for a drum'n'bass night. Got pretty fucked and it was amazing. The music and lights and visuals were amazing and met lots of cool people. Then came back here with Jay and Andre, had a smoke, listened to music etc... then Katherine and her nice gay friend came over with a little delivery for us and stayed til about 5.30am. Was incredibly spaced by this point, took me about half an hour to text N and roll a spliff... Finally fell asleep about 6.30am. Been feeling pretty rough today but a bit better now. Did a bit of work earlier, Debi and Sam popped in for a cup of tea, then forced myself to walk into town in the rain to meet N from band practise. Had a couple of drinks in Icon, got a taxi back... et voila, here I am. Need to cut back on the excesses i think. Moodswings aren't good. Days after the night before aren't good. And getting worse, possibly. Still haven't started my dissertation. Oh well. So yeah. Things are ok. Feel like i haven't seen N in a while, even though that's obviously bollocks. But was lush to have a few drinks with her earlier and she'll be round later on too, so it's all good. She's had stuff to do - recording, PhD etc - and basically i'm just a slacker, don't really have to apply myself at uni, and am not in a really good band. So. I feel a bit inadequate but also have very few real responsibilities at the moment. should be writing more. haven't written in a while and have some deadlines looming. just can't seem to find the inspiration. there's only so much you can write about wasted nights really. ho-hum. gonna go and eat biscuits and drink big fat mugs of coffee. and relax. how are you?! Current Mood: weird (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 5th, 2006
11:27 pm	bog-standard update, really... been a pretty good week. Uni started back but didn't interfere with my life too much. Queer Theory looks good. Unfortunately i have to do 2 presentations in front of lots of people. i'm not shy but that doesn't necessarily mean i want to stand up in front of a bunch of twats and talk about my favourite music/post-colonial gay feminist shit.. humph. Wednesday, went to see Goldfrapp. They were brilliant, fair play. Although prior to that i bumped into N's ex on our dealer's doorstep. but she was quite nice to me so it was okay. i suppose..! We managed to time it somehow (ok it was a fluke) so that we got to the front (thanks Adam!) AND i started to come up just as they started to play a coupla songs of Felt Mountain. they really fucked up Black Cherry though, but i suppose you can't expect miracles. (well, you can. but i'm being generous.maybe they were tired, or something.) then went into town, ended up at a rubbish reggae nite in Molokos, so came back and all sat around til late in my housemate's room. twas nice. Actually made it to uni on Thurs morning (but not Thurs afternoon - the trick, i feel, is to keep doing things and put off the comedown). Had a pretty chilled out day, as you can imagine. went to London on Friday. had my hair cut. it's a bit too short though - my hairdresser was banging on about his first acid trip and getting a bit animated and scissor-happy. but it's ok, i quite like robert smith [although admittedly probably wouldn't've chosen his hairstyle if i'd had the choice...!] it's not that bad really...and anyway it's only hair, why am i even writing about it?! hm. fri night stayed in with N and had a lush night...saturday did some uni work [!!] and in the nite drank too much vodka and went to Melissa's house party, which was a bit mental. got quite fucked but nicely and went to bed about 5am i think. there were some scary crackhead types there and a few pervy men but apart from that it was good. lots of hippies, decks, elaborate decorations, drugs...police showed up twice but for some reason didn't do fuck all... same old i suppose. but it was cool to go to a big party, hadn't been to one in a while. today N has gone to Leicester til Weds to learn how to pick up rats for her PhD..! well i'm sure it's more complex than that but yeah. i miss her lots and lots. lame! don't wanna go to bed. double beds on your own are shit. hmph hmph hmph... went for sunday dinner with housemates, which was quite lush, then popped to mel's where she was still quite fucked. had a smoke, came back here, watched a DVD about the Dandy Warhols. been writing quite a lot. and drinking lots of tea. hence jitteriness i expect. babble babble...think i should prob give up the ghost. nite kids. [PS Ladyfest meeting tomorrow Chapter Arts Centre 7pm] (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 31st, 2006
12:16 pm	Lady Aid The fundraiser went really well lastnight, we raised over £100 for Ladyfest, yay! And Buffalo was full of punky homo's so not as up its arse as usual [pardon the pun...ha..!] Feel a bit bad cuz the headliner, Lianne Hall, stayed on my sofa but must've been kept up all night by the sub-zero climate of the house and lots of noise, mostly by my housemate bringing back about a million wankered French people at about 4am. She had to get the Megabus back to Brighton today, feel kinda sorry for her. You should check out her music anyway, she rules. Been filling out boring Masters application forms, mostly talking shit about punk-rock queer feminism and not saying anything about academic stuff at all. Oh well. Gotta go to uni in a bit for the first time this year. Can't really be arsed. I'm so tired and all shakey from too much caffeine and not enough sleep. But quite content nonetheless. N said she might look for my LiveJournal so i think i'll leave musings about lastnight at that... hmmmm! :) :) ahem. have a nice day! zzz Current Mood: exhausted (1 Comment |Comment on this)