No More.

Not having any self control is starting to be a real drag.

A list of things currently wrong with me:

1. I have dyed my hair ginger.

2. I feel like I have swallowed two golf balls.

3. I can't make a run for it out of the country until July.

4. I'm broke.

5. I'm still jealous/bitter.

6. I am running out of clean knickers.

7. My scanner is just not big enough.

8. I have to walk around town like a guilty 14 year old because I lost all forms of ID.

9. I have misplaced my Ipod and I am having DoodleJump withdrawal symptoms.

10. I spend 80% of my days whining about whining.

On the flip side:

1. I love my mum.

2. I have cold leftover chow mein in the fridge.

3. I have found a last.fm app for my Ipod Touch.

4. Kiah gave me the gift of paracetamol.

5. Winter is over. The sun has got his hat on.

6. I have a newly rearranged and tidy room.

7. I have quit all of my addictions.

8. I have 4 unread novels to look forward to.

9. 'All About Eve' is on Film4 this afternoon.

10. Sony have dropped Jedward.

I’m tired of being in the middle of things

I'm taking a gigantic leap out of the circle and instead becoming a square.

It's 4.30am...

and I’m still awake. Guess I might as well strike off any hopes of doing anything productive today.

Up The Creek Without A Paddle

Monday last week, in a moment of extreme boredom/brain damage I bought 32 disks/90 hours/6 seasons worth of angsty pre-teen nostalgia known as ‘Dawson’s Creek’ and I have been been watching it obsessively compulsively for an entire week.

20 hours in and I’m starting to think when there are no more episodes I’m either going to:

A) Fall apart.

B) Spontaneously combust.

C) Go into therapy.

At the very least I think my Imac will explode out of confusion when I finally manage to shutdown and at this rate I’m going to be done and dusted by wednesday.

The only thing to do is distract myself with something else impeccably 90’s - ‘Six Feet Under’ maybe? But for now I can remained fathomed by the sheer amount of video tapes watched, gigantic mobile phones and old style blueberry macs used and mules worn.

P.s. Michelle Williams, I love you.

Right Before Bedtime...

I get all these profound thoughts enter my head about how I feel and what I could blog about. I organise, I plan, I make sense, I catalogue, I formulate paragraphs and create artworks all in my mind. But then I wake up, productivity levels rise but my mind is blocked, my ideas are dust and I can’t remember a thing. I’m not entirely satisfied about my reflection in these internet blogging thingys at the moment.

I think it’s about time I invest in an under pillow notebook.

What's Worse?

1. The fact that I don’t think you’re attracted to me.

3. The fact that I still wish you were.

Small.

I’m tired of allowing some the right to make me feel like it. Especially when so many make me feel the opposite. Lately I have felt the need to be a little too apologetic and a little too eager to please. My friend once told me how bizarre it was that I give little regard to most people’s opinions but every 1 in 50 there will be someone I will seek approval from, and that persons judgement can have the power to make or break me, even if it goes against the other 49 people’s views. Some kind of magnetic pull to another. Some form of warped admiration that takes hold.

That is something that needs to be stopped. I don’t like the strained feeling of discomfort that comes with having such a reliance. It’s starting to unsettle me, make me weaker and more awkward.

I have two personalities constantly in a struggle with each other. The person I am and the person I want to promote in order to be that bit more magnetic. That pretense will always dissipate into someone else entirely and explode to form a whole new being. A third person. A hybrid. Someone strange and something odd.

The girl who craves your attention.

My friend also told me that everyone would like to be just that little more magnetic but the reality of being so is likely to be superficial and therefore lonely.

I don’t want to risk becoming either of those things.

This is Your Wake Up Call

Is the word ‘alarm’ actually spelt like that? Is it even a word? It just doesn’t look right to me after 3 sleepless nights… I have noticed that all these words pop up on my Ipod when my ‘alarm’ goes off (not sure if it’s purely because I am always only partly conscious when this happens) and I’m pretty sure none of them are part of the english language… for some reason “alarm”, “snooze” and “slide” are just confounding to me when strung together.

Last minute artistic rush ins are really becoming a joke now. I hate looking like a dumbo cause I have unfinished shit and decided to write about my project at 4am the night before… IF I even manage to get that done. Third lazy spell round and I’m pretty sure this time I have humiliated myself into never doing this again.

Behold my caffeine shaking, blood shot eyed, sleep deprived, stress induced epiphany. No more.

So I will hand in my meagre excuse for a portfolio, cross my fingers, vow to never go out again, eat my leftover pizza and then “snooze”… Schnooz, snoooose? Sleep.

New Years Resolutions

1. Say yes to caffeine.

2. Say no to alcohol induced vomiting.

3. Be less embarrassing.

John Hughes Wrote That Too?

Writer/Producer/Director John Hughes died on the 6th of August this year and it's just hit me like a tonne of bricks. I always knew he was the creator of 'The Breakfast Club' which on its own is worth a fair amount of hero worship. I got forced to sit down and watch it with a friend about 2 years ago, and didn't quite get it at the time, but after the second watch it went from a zero straight into my mental top 20 'movies that will change your life' list. The moral: stay young. Youth knows when it's elders have forgotten how to see things. Youth knows how to use that against them, all tied up in an angst ridden entertaining package. Genius.

Then a few months later I read this blog after it appeared on my twitter feed a dozen times and felt sorry that the industry has probably lost one of the few nice blokes left in it.

And finally during my weekly rape of Wikipedia I found out that he wrote 'Uncle Buck' too and I can only imagine that the world has lost a messiah of cult cinema!

Should I not want to sound like a pretentious git and reel off a lists of arty/french/low budget titles as the answers to what my favorite movie is I would instead tell you that 'Uncle Buck' is probably it. Crude, crass and loutish uncle bonds with arrogant, spoilt and insolent teenage niece over the threat of drilling her sex-obsessed and ridiculously stupid boyfriends teeth out whilst he is tied up in the boot of the car. Inspired. Throw the Macaulay Culkin "aww" factor and a few golf balls to the head into the mix and you've got yourself another hit.

My dad and I sit down once a year and laugh hysterically at it, most of the time that day is christmas eve but ITV let us down this year and scheduled it about 3 days late.

John Hughes also wrote these beauties:

• Sixteen Candles
• The Great Outdoors
• Weird Science
• Pretty In Pink
• Planes, Trains & Automobiles
• Home Alone 1, 2 & 3
• Curly Sue
• Baby's Day Out
• Miracle on 34th Street
• 101 Dalmations
• Flubber

(On the downside he was also responsible for the 'Maid in Manhattan' script... but as Jennifer Lopez starring movies go you have to give it to him it was one of the more bearable ones...)

It took me almost 5 months to realise but the world has lost a hero of pop culture and I am going to wear black, eat a lot of carbohydrates and overload in the best of these 80's/90's classics for the rest of the week in mourning... I am seriously starting to worry if I will ever laugh whilst simultaneously gain some self awareness during a film again.

Methodically Speaking

The only way to assess ones own happiness is by measuring the amount of things that could be better by the amount of things that could go wrong. The way I see it, if the number of things that could go wrong outweigh the things that could be better, then you are a pretty lucky person as you’d have far more to lose than if you were already at the bottom. Making those few things you wish could be better more important than what you already have just makes them disappear further out of reach.

Just stood on a mirror...

… and it smashed. Does that mean I have to endure another 7 years of bad luck? The time limit isn’t even up yet from that time I walked over 3 drains, and that time I walked under a ladder, and that time a black cat crossed my path… and all those crisp packets I opened upside down…

"In Creeps the Morning and Another Day is Lost."

We humans as a species spend most of our time wishing our lives away. Mourning the events of the week behind and losing days in bed in the present, looking forward to the next birthday, christmas, holiday or big event - “when this happens it’ll be better…” Or worse we get drunk to have a good night, to not feel, to forget and to not care, which makes tomorrow yet another day to ignore when your stomach burns and you have sick in your hair.

We are always looking far into the future or glamorizing what lays in the past. We have a tendency to not recognise the present, to always be wanting, and even in the future when we realize we were content in a moment behind us, you can bet we didn’t register it at the time.

The saddest thing is we will get to a certain age and realise we had everything we ever wanted even when we had sick in our hair, they will be our “glory days” and we will be resentful of being aged, having health problems, mortgages, we will flirt with our co workers and develop a distaste to how normal our lives have become. The rigmarole of the 9-5.

We’ll soon get even older, too old, our whole lives will feel like a dream and we’ll love every moment of our existence as it slowly ebbs over us in flashbacks, that our regrets made us, that we loved, that we lost, that we lived. But as soon as we understand it the days remaining will be too close to being over.

My God It's Cold!

IT'S FUCKING WINTER AGAIN! Winter, the cold season. Winter, the dark season. Winter, the lonely season. Winter, the "everyone has someone to spoon but me" season. Winter, the "I wish I had two coins to rub together! I would buy port, heat it on the stove and get pissed." season. The "I'm practically Tiny Tim staring at the turkey he can't have" season... and to top it off I live in a 3 storey igloo.

There is only so much feet warming you can do with a hairdryer, nose heating to do with a laptop charger...I had a lot pinning on my newfound red hair bringing me some insulation... it didn't.

So bare with me while I channel my inner black eyed pea and ask: where is the love? It seems like everyone I know is getting together, and although I spend 99.9% of my life craving freedom and a good book, it's just not keeping me warm this winter.

So... If you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain. If you're not into yoga, if you have half a brain, if you'd like making love... Oh no wait... those were Jimmy Buffet's requirements...

Personally right now I am willing to settle for the first person armed with a cider and black, a packet of crisps and a penchant for spooning. Desperate times call for desperate measures, no one wants to sit around and wait until they are pissing icicles.

Consider this a casting call.

"The fated love turns out to be a human fantasy" according to Eugenides. I seem to be constantly yearning for a paradise that is receding endlessly before me.

But for now I won't let go of the dream...(for the sake of body heat).

I'll never let go Jack! I'll never let go!

Facebook

The mothership of my internet addiction. You have been deactivated. Deactivated because Charlene Batchelor dared me to. And what do you know? I have rediscovered sunlight, books, disposable cameras, felt tip pens, fresh air, and peace of mind.

If I keep it down until deadline I’m hoping I will at least get bought a cookie.

Question:

After you get your hair coloured is it normal for every subsequent bath/shower you take to be bright orange?

Here's Looking At You, Kid!

I don’t know why I was getting stared at so much in the street today… Was it the fact my flies were undone all afternoon? Or that I was talking to myself whilst simultaneously burping/heaving (because I attempted to drink a bottle of Dr. Pepper in motion)?

The Human Zoo

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

George Orwell, 1984.

CCTV produces a whole field of the visual that isn't "made". The framework is wholly empty, noone is filming, anyone or noone might be watching, it just happens, reel after reel, as easy as breathing in an out, and you are caught.

Photo still of the surveillance camera players

Could CCTV just be a modern interpretation of the god-like presence? Western civilisation has largely all but dismantled every pure ideal of religion so is this new omnipresence the replacement? The all knowing, all seeing eye of the camera lens?

"Big Brother" as a T.V. show domesticates the idea of privacy invasion thus making the whole idea a cosy piece of popular entertainment that has been inbuilt in us to feel comfortable with.

If we as a society are not comfortable with our role the watching/watched are we paranoid? Is that idea more unacceptable? Are we then deemed as people with something to hide? But then what could be more paranoid than having cameras everywhere in the first place?

We are caught on a surveillance camera approximately 300 times per day.

In chaos there will always be an opportunity to enforce control but since when did feeling protected come from a world that is always exposed?

Communication Breakdown

I returned home from London with 427 unread emails, 207 unread facebook messages and a dead phone with 12 texts (not including missed calls) I can only read by pressing a button I can no longer click on.

I don’t think I could feel more technophobic/out of touch.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing though, at least I can avoid the texts I have saved that I care no longer to read and the ones that I still get that I don’t desire to pay attention to. At least now I have the chance to really think about what I want to say before I am able to get hold of someone.

It’s crazy how much emphasis is on one piece of equipment for any communication with the outside world. You would be surprised how strange it is to go meet for coffee without the option of being able to check up on the other person.

The modern world has become too impatient and too thoughtless. Our lives are constantly a toss up over whether we have too much time or not enough, too much contact or not enough contact. I think with social networking and mobile phones we are collectively treading the borders of whether we can suffice without checking up on everyone else’s plans… at what point do we make decisions of our own? It’s nice to be able to breathe without feeling obligated to reply back or get in touch… even if I could be missing out on something.

I wonder what Jane Austen did with herself in the 17th century when it was all letters and wax stamps?