Smashed to Shades

I have grand designs for my new house. Well, when I say “grand designs” basically I mean making it as tacky, overblown and as kitsch as my meagre budget and facilities will allow. Of course I would love to be able to draw all over the walls and plaster every surface with a layer of glitter, paint the well pink and blow up the shed but unfortunately this is an ambition of mine that will surely have to wait.
My intention is eventually to maybe do some more painting. Well, when I say “painting” I mean throwing paint all over two pages on an art book, usually picking the colours red yellow and black, chucking glitter all over the top (one may notice a trend here), shutting the page and sitting on top of it for half an hour listening to tapes of Radiohead which I agrovatingly have to rewind, fastforward and turn over anytime I want to listen to anything particular. This would often be hindered by the fact I had painted the tapeplayer with glitter (…) and thus I would listen to the refrain from “Just” and it would be time to open the book again, where I would meet with a explosion of acrylic and tiny little bits of silver foil. THAT is how I got my Art GCSE, and I don’t regret a moment of it.
Although I don’t want to do that anymore. Likewise I don’t want to paint any more pictures of boats, shells, I don’t want to emulate the style of Turner and I most certainly do not want to copy any more Frieda fucking Kahlo’s. I envisage myself now, cigarette in one hand, can of coke in the other, pen in mouth doodling basically enlessly all summer taking brief breaks to write more ridiclous blogs and to go to work, where I will write more blogs. I might turn the shed into my studio seeing as I can’t blow it up. Who was that guy who blew up the shed? I saw it at the Tate Modern. Oh well.
So anyway yes I am full of great big fat huge ideas and, as is always the way, I don’t currently have the means to undertake any of them. Just you wait though- I am getting passionate again.

Well, perhaps not.

God.
Today my schedule letter came today re: finance for next year, and owing to some round-a-bout fuck-up involving my dad’s accountant, some Scottish people and the LEA I have been denied my grant for next year. Why? Who knows. Apparently it needs to be reassessed and then we will see.
Will we now? So until then I frantically wait by the postbox in anticipation of the news that has the casting stone whether I bother to finish my degree?
As much as I like my job I can’t help get angry at people who get angry with me regarding other people’s short-fallings. This is why today when I called the SLC I didnt shout at Hamish because ultimately it isnt his fault, the same way that none of this is mine, although I dont think this is particually good for my blood pressure. I need to calm down and not get so mad all of the time.

It’s only 15 days until I move into my new house. Which means that it is 13 days until my birthday and until I get paid. And I have the weekend off.
Nothing else can excite me more

It’s raining. As usual I am procrastinating.
Isn’t it funny that when I read an angst-wridden blog I screw up my eyes and get angry about it but then I just do it myself?
I didn’t have the best time last night. It was generally ok, but I felt like I barely knew anyone. I didnt know what to say or how to act so I ended up getting slightly drunk. And what on earth is the good in that?
It’s still raining. It’s been raining for a long time now.
I still have done hardly any work, still, it’s a short piece of writing.. I might just get on with it and stop thinking about what I am thinking about.

Usually I might write about how fed I am about certain things or people or really anything at all. A petal that slightly obscured my vision, a spot of rain that ruined the curve of my hair and so on.
Today, no.
Today I am less morose than I have been at other points in the week but still terribly.. well lost at sea is perhaps the phrase that is best suited. Of course not physically, that would be impossible, but in my mind. Oh what a barren wasteland that is. Sometimes I feel full to the brim of life and excitement and hope and possibility. I argue with myself, “you’re too young! you have time to catch up!”, “you’re still young” whilst all around me things are starting to wither away, getting so old. There is grace and dignity in the old but there is the sense of time melting away; you should be married by now, thinking about a family, a career. And still everyone is flying backwards and forwards after one thing or another and surviving on pipe dream after pipe dream. But the same thing that repells me I am hopelessly and unforgivingly enraptured with.

I’d like to think I was somehow different, how I haven’t got myself lost in this constant turning on time and the bitching and the gaudy faces. I’d like to think I am not a lot of things, and I am often wrong.
As is common of me at these periods I look back on past times. I remember this time last year I was a hideous wreck. I rarely went to school, I spent day after day clambering from friend to friend, home to bed and out to the beach again. That’s all we did. And god it feels like an age ago now. I honestly felt like I was living in a black hole, thoughts and memories of Gene came hurtling towards me getting sucked in the rush and forgotten, spinning through days like there was no stopping. Of course it did.
Early June. I thought, as do those in the idiocy of a broken heart, that I could sit around playing Ludo and deciding I was alright really and that would be the end of it, like a light switch I could turn off and on as I wished, a bathroom tap. The most amazing thing for me is thinking back on this time and how I waited and I waited and I waited to move out of Thanet as if some miracle might occur overnight! Like moving me and all my things to somewhere slightly different might make it all go away. And the older I get and the more I think about it I begin to know
It was less about them and more about me
My agony is rarely the cause of anyone else! My life doesn’t feel like it is falling apart because of anyone else’s wrongs! Of course there are times when I find it a lot easier to blame others, its like a rotting plague to me- people, the talking, the snarling, the in-jokes, the smell of alcohol on another. It sickens me. But most of all I sicken myself. How, at my age, I would rather lock myself away in the top of my room surrounded by clothes and books and pieces of paper because I wake up in the morning and know they will never deceive me. They won’t leave for anything else, they belong to me. And if I must be selfish then selfish I shall be.
All in all I am not ashamed of who I am. The way I approach things is that it is fine for me to be disappointed with myself but if many feel this resentment towards me then frankly I find it difficult to care. Of course I live with exceptions, there are some (who surely know exactly who they are) who’s opinions are sacred to me and I would never want to argue with this view. Oh I am going on so awfully much..

…I think I have Sylvia Plath effect

- As much as I quite like you, your forced arrogance and superiority really yanks my chain sometimes
- Oh to be as misunderstood and miserable and yet so completely adored like you would be such a lovely thing.
- I’ve been waiting years for you to come home and to grow up and I know now that this is very unlikely.
- Cancer chic makes me sick
- Really, please now, get over your fucking self. We aren’t kids anymore..
- By god, I didn’t realise how old you are looking. And old people look so ridiculous pretending to be young. I now know that so much was fabrication. What a waste of time.
- There is nothing I can say that will change the way you are acting. But you look silly. Time will show that.
- You are a vindictive, manipulative cow and I swear if you cross the line then I will too despite holding my tongue so far.

Some of you I can’t fault though. I like you.

On my expeditions through Facebook and TheStudentBar I often encounter a list of “things UCAS didn’t tell you” or “You know you’ve been at uni too long when..”. Anyway I am going to write my own because my opinion is more valid and rounded.

• //I would rather make some elaborate excuse about dragons stampeeding through my house, noses ablaze, torching through my vital organs that admitting to myself and the seminar leader that I just couldn’t be bothered to go (save when I was actually ill, although I seem a bit boy who cried wolf now)
• //My books are always late back to the library. Peroid.
• //It is rather amusing to get lost in one of the colleges
• //I tidy my room, mess it up again, tidy it, mess it up again constantly
• //Laundry day is the worst day of my life.
• //Being able to watch clips of TV episodes on the internet becomes the greatest invention of all time and it doesn’t seem to matter that one has to get up every five minutes in order to load the next section.
• //I will find anything to do which will distract me from an essay or just general boredness. I will take unecessary trips to the library, organize my pencil case, go to Woodies for a pint of Diet Coke, journey to the vending machines on campus and so on.
• //Powercuts and Lunar Eclipses become social events.
• //90% of the uni will be a significant player in some society and will wear a hoodie demonstrating this 99% of the time.
• //I am becoming increasingly jealous of the above demograph.

I was going to start with a politically-fuelled debate of the state of the British Isles, how the classes still very much rule the masses and the horrible realisation that to bring a child into the world in which ours is becoming could be seen as a heresy. However, I am really stupid so instead I won’t. Instead I will write about how annoying people can be.
In my opinion a lot of people can be classified into certain stereotypes. This is wrong of me I know, but it makes things easier in justifying their actions in my mind and making snide comments about them in pubs. So here we go;-

The Interferer:

This type of person will cast judgements of elements of your life mainly when you least want them to. They will see themselves wise and able to empathise with every situation that life throws at you. However this is all a mere fabrication because it’s most likely that this person has a limited knowledge of social interaction and instead has acquired all their knowledge through their faux-philosophical ponderings in-between refreshing livejournal and stroking the dog.

The Boaster:

The boaster is easily spotted, or rather isn’t. This is because you will rarely see this person because they are too busy on safari/going to theme parks when everyone else is working/writing a blog about their experience. So if they are not doing something “amazing” they are writing about it or worse telling you about it. Often they will provide props; a set of photographs from Tenerife, a list of the presents they got for their birthday, and the worst, a glorious suntan/ornate donkey. They will try to drop in their astounding good fortune in every conversation regardless of its theme. “Oh yes I know the third world is suffering a terrible plight but when I was out in Malaga last week…” (See also The Only Child)

The Only Child (or those with fairly rich parents, often of non- British origin):

Not all only-children are bigheaded, pompous spoilt brats but a majority seem to be. They will always be on some life changing trip with their other privileged friends on their parent’s money because it has been assumed that the child has been denied some kind of upbringing by the absence of a sibling and thus should be treated as one who a deity. Sometimes they will like to include you by asking you to come out to dinner with them or something like that but this will always be somewhere really expensive as so they can be certain that you won’t actually accept the offer but are able to save face at the same time. This is when they do go out, however as usually they are in Africa or in the library trying to swot up in order to win in an ongoing battle with their peers to gain the highest score in the science quiz. If they don’t get an A on the paper they will cry in the toilet. This has been witnessed at least half a dozen times in as many years.

The Guilt Bearer:

This person will make you feel guilty for everything. A common scenario is when they have written a 3000 word essay and keep reminding you of this then casually asking you how many you have done. When the reply is something like “about 4” they will usually say something like “oh don’t worry you have another night to do it” when really inside they are ecstatic that they have able to have this small victory. If you go on to get a better mark they will purse their lips, say well done but then return home to fashion a voodoo doll and begin the next essay before it is even set. If they do better they will extend their commiserations and their head will grow to something comparable to the size of a hot air balloon.

The Highly Opinionated:

Whatever conversation you have with this person, be it about an observation you have made, a book you have read, a flower you like, anything, they will have an opinion on it. If they didn’t have one before then they will surely make one up on the spot and it is very likely to differ from yours in order to start some ridiculous debate which will be resolved in three ways (always favouring them);
a) you will instantly tire of their attitude and resign yourself to agreeing with them in the hope they might go away
b) If they are of a lower intellect but particularly tenacious they will often use the following comebacks: “what can’t hear you!”, “yeah but no”, “you’re wrong” or “no” repeated to infinity and “shut up, you’re gay”. This will then be followed by part a).
c) They will throw religion into the mix.

The Under Opinionated

*Song on radio*
You: “Oh wow I love this song”
Them: “Yeah I think I’ve heard it, what’s it called again?”
You: “fucking bitchtits”
Them: “Oh yeah I’ve heard of them, I have their album silly me! I listen to it every day”
You: “Please go away. It is unlikely I will approve of you more if you try to emulate my every move, and by the way I hate this song I was only pretending”
Them: “Me too”

Worse than this is when someone tries to either:
1.Get into an argument they don’t understand and then end up looking foolish
2.Try to appear overly opinionated on the things everyone is opinionated about like they thought of it first.

or

How Morellis bored me to insanity

“I really hate Morellis today. I think it is just because I was shouted at by some idiot who things that because he is about 20 years older than me by age, that means he is far mentally superior. Bullshit. Today I rung in two sundaes, because thats what the guy had. Then Jimmy the uphisownarse foreign guy pushed down on my looming finger and rung in a third which then had to be taken off again. I was right he was wrong. Tosser. After that he got an attitude with me all day when I told him off jokingly. Seems it is OK to joke on his terms. £3.30 an hour is rubbish too for the amout of work. The boss has mild fits, the other is far too stingy. Lots of people have remarked how they would like a job there..no, no you don’t. All of a sudden I love my school. I miss it so much. “

Later: Ok, so a few weeks have passed since then and things at work are a little better but only due to the fact I only work one day a week now. Also myself and my childhood friend Paul, along with Martin, have found amusing ways to pass the time.1) Collecting the paper decorations that are put in the big ice creams, and in the cause of Martin, putting them on your death trap of a bike with no brakes. At least he dies with monkey coverted,
2) Throwing things at customers and seeing if they notice
3) Whipping each other with the tea-towels in a perverted way
4) Laughing at Will
5) Laughing at the boss and the stupid things he said like “don’t lean”, ” That’s it”, ” Ummm…*looks around, tumble-weed goes by* Martin, can you get me half a turn of good mix?”. Then after lauging mocking these 365 days a year
6) Calling each other “a ————- (descriptive word) mofo”, i.e sexy, stupid, ugly, monkey etc.
7) Calling the boss immature for having a water pistol and conkers
Making catapults out of elastic bands
9) Daring tricks of throwing spoons into the container in interesting and death defying ways. Double back flip a favourite ( the spoon does this not us)
10) Reminising about the people at Primary school with Paul
11) Eating the leftovers and stealing “illegal” drinks from the dispenser.
12) Using the plunger (a kirsty favourite)
13) Watching the clock
14) Squashing paninis
15) Forgetting who the food is for
16) Being the “scubber”
17) Pretending to dry up
18) Acctually doing any work (0.1% of the time)

Unfortunately such merriment is only available when I manage to stay in the kitchen for more that 10 seconds when I am stuffing Flake in my mouth. Chris, my boss, seems to think that Kirstylyn does infact love scooping ice cream so much that he puts me “down the window end” all day from 11 to 6. This place is the furthest away from kitchen fun and the only communication I get with Paul and Martin is when they say “Hullo” when putting a cup back. Martin is eternally scared of the ice cream end when one day under my apprenticeship he managed to know other a whole rack of about 30 cones, which smashed into a million pieces. He has not been back since. This week I was a “lucky mofo”. I got to be on big ice creams which is quite a cushy job, but not as bitchin as the kitchen. Its quite hard to memorise all the ice cream things but I got the hang of it. The trick is to chuck as much shit in as possible without getting into trouble. On the whippy machine I am allowed to do two rounds and then off, and we charge £1:60. Bare coinage geez. Mr Morellis must take baths in gold, expecially when he pays us hard working souls 3 30. the gay.more laterps: coffee-o-phobia is caused by third degree burns from the coffee machine, it makes you go pretty insane. I have the scars.

There is a thing I get some evenings, and it’s called night sickness. As my closest friends know, I like stuff. I like clothes and shoes, bags, hats. I like food, I like cities and mountains. I could even go as far as to say I like this horrid unfair world.
But it gets to a certain time, usually after I have spent all my money on something or other and I start to think “What’s the bloody point?”. My head runs through with all these thoughts, mostly saying something along the lines of ” I am going to die, this is a temporary existence, I will mean nothing, I might as well wear crap clothes and live in a caravan like that women from the anthology. I don’t need to work my whole life for money, I don’t need food, I might as well just die now”. And the only way to cure these thoughts is by hitting myself on the head and declaring I am stupid.
But ultimately, I’m not. I am right. Why am I sitting here writing this when I could be busy dead? I suppose humans have it built into their heads clear definitions on what makes us happy and what makes us sad. Humans also feel they have the right to always be happy and when bad things happen then it isn’t fair. Yet who said that? No-one ever said that life was meant to be easy. It’s like the whole concept of pain. Pain is just a human emotion that we choose to compute. If we pretend it is something else, it could be something else.
Sometimes I feel like having a child and keeping it away from all other people and contact with the outside world and changing the rules. I will teach it that red is now green (as far as the child is concerned, the colour green has always been what we would call red) and tell it nothing of pain. I will call a table a telephone and say odd words. This is, however, a very cruel thing to do, and I certainly would be in deep trouble if I did this, but it is easy to see how all these things, these emotions, were just hearsay, passed on from generation to generation. We invented money. We invented war. And we also invented religion.
This is less of the revolutionary statement it used to be. Now this is my own opinion, and we could argue for a bloody long time about the existence of God or some other magician, but inventing God was a brilliant way of explaining the unexplainable. Now say you broke a cup, and shards of glass shattered all over the floor, and someone asks you who did that, and you make someone up. No-one has ever seen this person, no-one ever will. Let us call him Boo. Now Boo isn’t seen but everyone believes it was him who broke the cup, and you have got yourself out of a big hole and don’t have to explain yourself to your scary wife, mother etc. But now your wife and/or mother would be pretty stupid in believing in something that they have never seen and have to rely on what you say. In real life, if your husband or son etc said that to you, you’d tell him he was a jackass and make him pay. This is similar to a belief in God. Yet this is a normal “rational” belief in modern society. Insanity is everywhere I say.