Two Posts!?!

Hello world! Here she is; blinking and emerging into the light after a sustained period of hibernation. Good.God. Two posts in the whole of 2011. What is that about? I would have to blame it on a general lack of inclination to write about myself. I've only written about 20 or so statuses on facebook. My phone broke two months ago and I've only just got round to replacing it. Don't physically have it yet though...

It's been a bit tricky to dredge up any enthusiasm for my formerly favourite subject (i.e. ME). I don't really know why that is.

It's been a funny old year. I really found it difficult to have or maintain any sort of emotional equilibrium. I've been up and down like a yo-yo, feeling much and understanding very little. Which is quite unpleasant when you're a bit of a control freak like me.

I mainly kept busy. And other people helpfully gave me a lot of opportunities to do so. This year I have done an awful lot of acting with more groups of people than I would normally do. After a fairly full seven months (on average, a show a month, not including Instant SOOP or the fact that we did several flits around the South of England touring), I took August off.

I sort of wish I hadn't as it was the time of year that I found hardest in terms of the aforementioned equilibrium. I spent several days where I just became a panicky weepy mess. Exhausted and too scared to ask for help. And, in all honesty, unsure of whom to ask. I realised a lot of things about myself. That I am unbendingly stiff and proud in ways that are really detrimental to my general wellbeing. That I am scared to let people in but that when I do I become altogether far too dependent on them. That I am too quick to make judgements or to be negative, and that I really need to question why I do this when I do. In all honesty, it was quite a brutal learning curve.

I've been trying to adjust my own behaviour. It's really tough. It's also not very nice admitting that things are your fault and that, in some ways, you are kind of a shitty person. I mean, it's not like I'm evil or anything but some of the things I do are a bit shit. I think that can be said of anyone and I doubt I will ever be perfect, and how boring it would be if I was, but it is just hard to admit fault with stuff. It is also hard to realise that some of that stuff is unfixable. I say sorry almost compulsively but sometimes it's just a plaster over a seismic crack, isn't it?

Anyway, this particularly fun episode also taught me that I really needed to take it a bit easier for the rest of the year, which I have. Far fewer Sundays spent all day at rehearsal, for a start. It was mentioned at my actual job that I seemed to come in to have a rest, which was a comment that I balked at on first hearing it but with hindsight realised was fairly accurate. I've managed to get much better at balance since and I am hugely grateful for how lenient people at work have been.

I am still single. Shocker, right? I mean, it's all gone so well for me so far, how am I still single? It's a mystery for the ages. Well, I've got better at knowing what I'm doing wrong and I have at least "put myself out there" as a phrase that I promise to not use again goes. Again, introspection has helped me realise that I do have some unwieldy baggage. Oh, do I. Someone that I went on a date with at the beginning of June is now engaged (we're friends on facebook - he's a very nice man) and it is quite sobering to realise that this does happen. People meet, fall in love, make a life together. In another universe that could be me. So I guess I need to find a way to not predict the end of something before it's begun. And not start things that I know won't go anywhere.

New years are funny things. They're the time when we take stock, try to work out who we are and what we need to do to become more like the person we want to be. This may not last very long but I do think it's necessary. Therefore:

1) Lose weight. I've done so well in that I lost two stone two years ago and have not gained any of it back. That said, I've also been planning to lose more since. I need to get that done. And I'm looking forward to it in a funny sort of way. It's a mark of getting older that I actually enjoy not eating junk food and exercising regularly.

2) Be better. Never stop being myself but just try and reinforce those things that I've learnt. I'm allowed to be imperfect but I should try and stop sabotaging myself. That's just idiotic.

3) Do exciting things. I need to get better at organising things for myself. I've been given a bit of financial freedom and I should take advantage of that. I need to see a bit more of the world, take some risks. Learn how to ride a horse. Oh no! I've been specific. Now I have to do it.

4) Tidy up after myself. I've had a few days to sort things out and the worst thing is that everything I do seems to lead me to a huge pile of things to tidy and an almost unending supply of new things to sort. I need to try to keep on top of things a bit better.

5) Don't freak out about change. There is the potential for a great deal of things to change, welcome and unwelcome. I need to embrace it all equally and roll with it. Given that I am actually fairly good at rolling with the punches, if I do just calm down a bit it would make the whole process far easier.

6) Blog more often. I'm aiming for once a week. I don't know what it'll be like. Hopefully honest. Possibly funny, although I think that it's a bit embarrassing if I try too hard. And it doesn't really matter, I suppose. It is entirely up to you if you choose to read this. But writing it seems, for me, like a really good idea.

Go on then, 2012. Bring it on.

In the Land of Ingary...

Sitting at my desk this morning at work, I found myself with the rather overwhelming need to sob. Not really sure how to handle it other than bursting into tears in the office, I went to my boss and confessed all: How this was incredibly silly and stemmed mainly from the fact that I'd been naughtily looking at facebook, sorry, and all that had happened was I'd found out my favourite author had died.

I have a history of over-attachment to authors. I went through an extended and unfortunate Enid Blyton phase as a pre-teen and remember crying when Roald Dahl (deservedly) won a best-loved children's author award instead of her. But unlike Blyton, whose books I long ago shipped off to a charity shop, Diana Wynne Jones has been a part of my life since I picked Witch Week up for the first time aged about 10.

As a young girl with an old-fashioned perspective and a lack of understanding about what many of my contemporaries were even talking about, as well as a fairly insistent belief that there had to be a more magical world on offer than the one I could see (I had a tendency to double-check wardrobes and I was forever picking up keys in the hope that I would find the door and it would lead somewhere exciting), there was a real identification with the fantasies that she offered. Rooted in a peculiarly English sensibility and with a surprising lack of sentimentality, I fell in love with her flawed heroes and heroines and their way of looking quite practically at the incredibly unlikely and difficult, generally magically-influenced, situations they found themselves in. Her plots were fun and convoluted, and the resolutions were these breathless whirlwinds of strangeness where everything would be tied up but often in a way where you felt like you'd been dreaming and woken up thinking that everything was in order but not in a way that you could ever explain to someone else. Often, re-reading her books, I'd get so excited about reaching the resolution that I would make sure to stop reading several chapters beforehand if I didn't have time to finish, in order to be able to revel in it.

It's difficult to pinpoint the book that I love the most as there are so many of them. Aunt Maria remains the most accurate depiction of the matriarchal control that I experienced from my maternal grandmother growing up. The real love of English that informs her books with multiple references to Shakespeare (such as the feuding families in The Magicians of Caprona), folk ballads (Fire and Hemlock makes reference to and updates The Tale of Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer) and brilliant names like Market Chipping (I had no idea until a recent episode of University Challenge that the name Chipping comes from a word meaning market. I love how darned silly yet clever this is) show her playfulness and knowledge of the roots of the language. Witch Week is a precursor to Harry Potter; a boarding school for witch-children set in an England where witches are regularly burned in bone-fires mean that the setting is much darker than Rowling's even though the tone is lighter.

Then there are the characters. I've already mentioned that they are flawed and in some ways they remind me of Jane Austen's characters where they tend to obfuscate their true intentions due to shame or embarrassment or pride. There are some agonising moments as they realise their own feelings or that they've trapped themselves in something that they have no control over, often as a result of their own cleverness. The phrase "bleached with misery" is one of my favourites from Fire and Hemlock and the subsequent depiction of the protagonist Polly trying to suppress this misery with feigned jollity and feeling all the time as if she were trying to hold down a jet of sadness with her hands is one of the most visually and emotionally vivid sections of the book. Jones' men, who become even more interesting as the books grow more adult and they become love interests instead of father figures, are powerful men who, often as a result of their responsibilities, are interestingly imperfect. The most fun is Christopher Chant, most often seen as the vain Chrestomanci who becomes more distant and apparently distracted as he gets more stressed, and the most heart-rending is Mordion of Hexwood.

However, if I'm honest, although I am fond of many, my favourite is Howl's Moving Castle. More people are probably aware of it than most due to the Miyazaki film of the same name made about five or six years ago as a follow-up to the Oscar-winning Spirited Away (the only other adaptation of her work that I know of is Archer's Goon made by the BBC in the 90s, which should be on Youtube somewhere, have a look. It is pretty faithful to the book and appropriately mental). The film doesn't work for me and that's probably because I don't recognise the world or the people it shows and a lot of that is because it loses all sight of Jones' peculiarities and her characters become perfect versions of themselves. Although Howl still sulks through the medium of green slime, it isn't quite the same. He is noble in the film, which is so weird. Talking about Jones' flawed men doesn't even begin to describe Howl. To paraphrase Sophie, he is vain, shallow, mindblowingly arrogant, manipulative, terrible with money, a coward and those are his good points. He's also Welsh, confusingly, given that the book is set in another world to this one. Then there's Sophie, the book's narrator and the character that I relate to the most. She sounds like me and although she has some quite bizarre things happen to her, especially spending most of the book as a woman in her 70s, she reacts to most things in the same way I feel I would: Mainly by being amused at her own stupidity; talking to herself; adjusting to bad things surprisingly quickly; getting irritable and grouchy; and by having an endearing lack of common sense despite being fairly logical. Howl and Sophie are people that I feel I know. Their world is fantastic and their actions are often over-the-top but they themselves are completely believable human beings.

I think that is key to why I love Diana Wynne Jones so much. It's the ability to make fantasy real and joyous. Her books have made me laugh and cry, populated by characters that feel like friends, and are full of invention, fun and darkness. Although a writer for children, she never shied away from complicated, sad, deep ideas and I think she's been a big influence on the way that I view other people. I have grown up with her characters and I am grateful for the way in which she has touched my life with her wonderful, beautiful stories. "Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a strange, true, fact in it, you know, which you can find if you look". Fire and Hemlock

New Year, New...Something

Ah, well. I'm glad that's over. 2010 officially claimed the title of "Worst Year Of My Life". Well done; 2007 is now relegated to the number 2 spot.

Not that there weren't good things. In amongst the steaming crap heap that constituted the rest of it there were some sparkles of loveliness from new and exciting things that have happened. I have decided to list them in a counting-my-blessings kind of way:




Elowyn. My niece is possibly the most perfect thing I've ever seen. I love her little face, particularly when she is smiling, or sticking her lower lip out (I know it's a precursor to a proper cry but it is still hi-larious), or staring at me as I dance or sing for her amusement. I'm taking her bemused expression as amusement anyway.




Revenger's Tragedy. I took three weeks off work in order to pretend to be a proper actress. The routine of rehearsing during the day; flinging myself about, experimenting and generally being creative was amazing. I got frustrated with myself at times: I'm still not as good physically as I wish I was and got a bit stuck and embarrassed playing about with voices when I didn't get it immediately but the things I enjoy doing the most are the ones that I find difficult. And because of the scale of it (i.e.; small) the performers had to do everything, so props, set and costume were all made by us. Although the amazing puppets and masks are all the creation of the incredibly talented Frankie. The best part was the run in London (including three days when I had to go back to my day job(!)) travelling up on the train, trying to get some sleep and being looked after by the boys before cranking up the energy to perform. By the end of the week I was bruised, exhausted and stupidly happy. I wish it was my life. We've got some performances coming up (check it out at http://www.soop.org.uk/) so it's not yet over and I can't wait to do it again.


My house. I love living in my house. Friends and family turn up, stay over, eat fajitas. Steven miaows endlessly, Meatball snores, Splash Gordon the goldfish has had to be moved to Finchy's room as his life was in danger in the kitchen. But it's strange how much a friendship shifts and moves over time. I've always got on really well with Finchy but he's become one of my closest friends. There have been some really bad times when he's unfailingly been there with cups of tea and big hugs, we have quiet times when we just sit about and get on with sketching (him), reading or writing, and then extremely silly times when we are loud and stupid and I end up scrunched up from giggles. And in the morning, there's a cheery "alright?" that always makes me smile, even if, on some days, it's a smaller smile than on others.

Endings and Beginnings

I've been reluctant to write about my life recently, which is mainly because I've been reluctant to think about it. This blog tends to be a place where I am emotionally honest and I haven't really been that recently. Friends have asked me how I've been and I've replied that I'm fine or that I'm coping because typically, when they've asked me, I have been. But when I've had my dark moments, I haven't felt able to do anything or say anything to reach out. I have rediscovered my inability to ask for help. All I can think about is not being a burden on other people. I hate showing my vulnerability, which begs the question, why am I writing about it now? I don't know, actually. I will readily admit to being something of an emotional mess.

My Dad died. This is the strangest and most horrible fact of my life. It's simultaneously real and unreal. I can't believe it happened but can't forget it: The howling gale in his hospital room, feeling his pulse stop, hearing his final breath. I miss him so much but any way that I have of explaining it makes it sound so mundane. I miss his voice, his face, miss kissing him on his forehead and ambushing him with hugs, I miss talking to him about acting and about life, miss him being in the audience, especially his laugh. I miss running my life through the filter of his love, expectance and critique. I miss the version of myself that he saw; a fearless, honest, extraordinary woman.

But life goes on. Sometimes relentlessly, sometimes joyfully. There have been bad days and good days, occasionally they have been the same day. I continue to be the same person I was but have changed beyond recognition - nothing makes sense in quite the way that it did before.

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Edna St Vincent Millay

I'm fine.

A phrase which is fast becoming a reflex response to anything that anyone asks me. Sometimes I totally mean it, sometimes it's just easier to say than "oh dear God, what the fuck is happening?" before running away and crying.

I keep getting lost in my own head. It's like being underwater - colour and sound and touch are still there but they're slower and make less impact. Every so often, a look or a note of concern will pick me up with the current and I'll be swept along in the sea of it but I'm trying not to let this happen. It isn't about me.

So, for now, I'm fine. Sometimes I'm lying, sometimes I'm not.

I am a rubbish heroine

For a while I was thinking that I'd act as some kind of heroine in a chicklit book for you. I thought that I'd describe my antics in the wacky world of dating and flirtation, including my misadventures, and oh, the laughs we'd have. Unfortunately I have come to the conclusion, yet again, that I am a rubbish heroine. Have I spoken to Max (also known, in some circles, as photocopier man)? Yes, obviously, we work at the same place. Have I had any meaningful conversation beyond work-related things? No. Of course not. To be honest I'm surprised that anyone expects me to have initiated such a thing. I just spoke to him on the phone. He dictated an email - what saucy fun, eh? Did I flirt? Did I say anything of interest? No. Apart from "oh crap, I missed that. Can you go back a bit?" He comes in, fails to notice me, flirts with Sophie (damn her eyes), leaves. And that's kind of it.

And let's not forget the fact that I am atrocious at posting even. Even on facebook, I am so disinterested in writing about myself that there is barely anything going on on my profile page. This is how rubbish I am. I am boring myself.

The thing is, I have lots going on, I'm just disinclined to write about it. I think, as last year, I've been inhabiting an onstage persona too firmly. Elizabeth Proctor would find the status updates and soul-sharing all too invasive, I feel. There's also the fact that she was a Puritan in 1692 and would, therefore, be more than a little confused by the whole technology thing. On the plus side, since playing both Anna and Elizabeth, my general posture and way of holding myself has improved. So I'm a bit mentally messed up but I walk straighter. Oh, and the reviewer called me "strikingly pre-Raphaelite". As with every description of me that has to do with the way I look, I take it with a pinch of salt. I am only too ready to accept that my acting was good but I struggle with people complimenting my looks. I just assume they're blind or being nice and move on. I say "move on" but that's only if you don't count the number of times I returned to the review to check that's what it actually said. I am so needy.

Anyways, stuff is moving on apace as always. Some good, some bad. Unfortunately none of it to do with either Max or a career but I trust that I'll work it all out eventually. Ish.

On holding and being held

I don't consider myself a particularly tactile person. I'm always a bit nervous of what a hug says and what it means and what I'm opening myself up to when I open my arms. I don't read other people very well and I never really know what is being said by a hug. My natural wariness steps in and I hold myself back, never sure whether a hug is welcome or appropriate. I find it so hard to truly relax around people that I can't just accept or give hugs randomly.

The truth is that I am an extremely tactile person who ends up limiting her need for physical contact to just three people: I envelop my Mum; hang from my Dad's shoulders; cling to my Big Sis. There is no way that they will ever construe my need for physical contact as anything other than innocent and affectionate.

Of course, it isn't just affection that motivates me. Touch is necessary to my mental wellbeing. The crazy day that I describe in my previous post (which developed into a full-blown crazy week) is something that comes from a need for sensation. I get so bored and so frustrated that I start reconfiguring everything as a physical experience: I feel the need to cling/touch/throw/hit/climb/push. And most of all I feel the need to be suppressed. To be clamped down until I've calmed down.

But it's a difficult thing to ask of people. Sometimes I just wish for a hug machine because being suppressed is pretty much all I need and then you don't have the tricky having-to-ask-people-to-hold-you-until-the-craziness-goes-away problem.

The problem remains that I both want and need human contact (for a start, there must be a certain amount of peril involved in using a mechanical hug; you wouldn't want to get too squished, for example). But I can't rely purely on friends and family to provide that. I guess that this, like so much else at the moment, leads back tediously to the fact that I am lonely.

Crazy Day

I am feeling insane. Like, properly barking. I keep having this feeling like I want to scream and my mouth kind of is in this state of scream-readiness and I'm not entirely sure how I'm managing to not do it. I'm having kind of a violent reaction to everything; I want to throw things about or hurl myself against walls or bearhug everyone I see. I'm expecting it to subside but I've been feeling like this for hours now. So far I've only taken my frustration out on some plastic cups which I've hurled across the office. I've also yelled a bit. This hasn't worked.

I want to dance. I want to jump around on the furniture. I want to climb into the ceiling. I want to sing songs very loudly. I want to run around the building and laugh in people's faces. I want to cry. I want to run up and down the metal stairs and make them clang. I want to be sick. I want to be held until I stop needing to be crazy any more.

"So talk to him"

You’ll be glad to know that my resolutions have, so far, come to naught. I’ve got excuses, oh yes! We’ve all got excuses. But mine are a bit rubbish in context. It’s a little bit like the time I asked why my sister hadn’t charged her mobile and she started to list all of the reasons why she hadn’t: She got married, went on honeymoon, someone died, she was on her period, ya da, ya da, ya da. All good excuses but not so much in context. And that’s what I’m like at the moment. Apparently, my move has stymied several things including why I haven’t spoken to the nice man at work and why I have not significantly cut down on my cheese intake. This is bollocks. I haven’t spoken to the nice man at work because I’m a coward and I’m still eating cheese because it’s easy and I’m lazy.

Incidentally, I’ve kind of given up with the nicknames recently because it is a faff and, let’s face it, I don’t really have that many readers and as I’m assuming the majority of them know who I am anyway the anonymity thing seemed more than a little pointless. However, as a way of protecting my dignity and providing a shorthand to “cute/nice guy I like at work”, he does need a nickname. I am concerned that this will add an air of import to what is, after all, very likely to turn into nothing but this is turning into something of a series so I may as well make it easier on myself. So from here on in he shall be known as Max*.

The odds have been raised. I confessed in an email to Finch that I have, as yet, failed to talk to Max since stating the intention to do so on here almost a month ago. At that point I was given the ultimatum of talking to him by tomorrow (Wednesday 10th March 2010) or Finchy will not talk to me for the first month that we live together (if we ever find anywhere to live, she wails). At which point I expressed my terror at the possibility of talking to him and got this as a response:

“Just talk to him you massive gayer. You're brilliant. He will see this and then kiss your face with this noise "Mmmmmmmmmmmwwwwwaaaaaahhhhhhh. Mmmmmmmmwwaaaaaahhhhh." And then say something like "Wowzers in my trousers, you are one hootchy kootchy mama!" before his eyebrows wiggle up and down suggestively. Don't you want that? Of course you do. So talk to him”

I do live to be called a hootchy kootchy mama, it’s true, but “so talk to him” is a command devastating in its simplicity. What the frick do I say and how do I create a situation within which I say it? So far, our conversations have consisted of me butting in:

Max (to Sophie): When’s the end of term?
Sophie: July, I think
Me: No, it’s June

Or of me talking to someone else in a bid to sound interesting/funny/clever but probably sounding a little bit manic and like I have multiple-personalities instead. I know, how can he resist? And the other day, I got a little bit distracted and maintained eye contact for a bit too long. He has really nice eyes. At this point, you’re all a little worried for me, aren’t you? It’s just, we work in different ends of the same building, doing different jobs and my job does not overlap with his so he never needs to talk to me about work stuff. When he’s in his office, there is absolutely no reason for me to go there or to see him and he’s rarely in there anyway because he has an actual fun job where he isn’t tied to a computer all day. And there’s no real socialising between academics and admin. Not because it’s forbidden or anything, it just doesn’t happen. Unfortunately for me. I am just stuck and getting to the point where I am going to have to ask for help. And maybe an extension from Finchy otherwise it is going to be a very quiet month.

*No real reason. Other than it isn’t his name. Unless it’s a double bluff.

Moving

Oh good grief. I never want to move again. Unfortunately this is inevitable as my parents, and Margaret who lives next door, will probably want their garage back at some point. I have so much stuff. I have thrown away so much stuff. And taken an awful lot to charity shops. How does it all accumulate? I am far too good at clinging on to things, thinking they're vitally important. I put it down to Father Dougal-like inability to remember things without a physical clue:



Father Ted: Ah, Sister Assumpta!

Sister Assumpta: Hello Father!

Father Ted: Dougal, Dougal, do you remember Sister Assumpta?

Father Dougal: Er, no.

Father Ted: She was here last year! And then we stayed with her in the convent, back in Kildare. Do you remember it? Ah, you do! And then you were hit by the car when you went down to the shops for the paper. You must remember all that? And then you won a hundred pounds with your lottery card? Ah, you must remember it, Dougal! [Dougal shakes his head]

Sister Assumpta: And weren't you accidentally arrested for shoplifting? I remember we had to go down to the police station to get you!... And the police station went on fire? And you had to be rescued by helicopter?

Father Ted: Do you remember? You can't remember any of that? The helicopter! When you fell out of the helicopter! Over the zoo! Do you remember the tigers? [Dougal shakes his head some more] You don't remember? You were wearing your blue jumper.

Father Dougal: Ah, Sister Assumpta!



Despite my extraordinary memory for actors, lines and plots, I fail to remember actual information about my own life so I have had numerous, marginally less surreal conversations with my Mum or my sister when they try to remind me of stuff that has happened in the past and I eventually link it to an insignificant detail. I think, like Dougal, I must spend an awful lot of time just staring into space.

Valentine's Day

For all that we can all be cynical about today as a day to celebrate - it's all about the card companies/chocolate manufacturers/florists, ya da ya da - the fact of the matter is that this is still a day to celebrate. You may choose not to dive in to the over-hyped side of it and just not buy anything in order not to give those pesky financially-minded bastards any of your well-earned cash. But, honestly, I kind of think that it's a good thing that there is a day on which we celebrate romantic love. We can mark it how we choose. But don't shout about it if you went to M&S for an "Eat in for £20", at least not if Kathryn knows where you live.

I'm marking it, currently, by sitting on the sofa in my PJs. I don't have anything particularly pressing to be doing (except getting in the shower but it's okay, Lorraine's out and the cats don't seem too offended so I'm good for the minute) so I took a moment to read a Guardian guide to Love and Relationships that my Mum gave me as a response to my last post about how I'm struggling to be pro-active in terms of love and such-like. I'm a bit embarrassed to say how brilliant it is. It also means that I'm considering therapy a little bit. I do have real problems with being too afraid to do anything for fear of embarrassment. For all that I really like myself, there are things in my life that I just can't do because I'm too scared to do them. And these are the things, love, a career, planning ahead, that I'm really going to have to face up to before I'm too old and I wonder where my life went.

I've thought about therapy before. It's been mentioned as a way to get me to address certain things that I can't deal with by myself. I don't have a stigma about it and actually really respect people for going to therapy. The reason I've avoided it is because I'm scared (that word again) to lose myself. So much of who I am is defined by these little idiosyncrasies and patches of crazy that if I were to sort them out, I wouldn't be me any more. Again, this goes back to what I was talking about before, that I think people only like me because they think I'm interesting and unusual and that if they find out that I'm just a very normal and boring person hiding behind a twitching mass of imperfections nobody will like me any more.

I'm marking St Valentine's Day today by making some resolutions. I know that there are things about me that I kind of want to make better before diving headlong into a relationship. But that doesn't mean that I should wait endlessly for me to make my life better before I even start to look. So, my plan is to just be more open to possibilities. And maybe engage that guy I like in a conversation about something other than photocopying and post-its.

Struggling

I've got my single head on again. I hate this. It's my frame of mind that weighs up single men that I meet and starts wondering whether they'll do, whether they're someone I could meet, have a connection with, be someone of potential interest. Despite logical head saying "you're not ready, it won't work", there's still a part of me that wants something. I think it's the part of me that really feels the loneliness. I set up a dating website profile again before Christmas. I deleted it after Christmas. I'm in constant war with myself.


It's difficult to explain. Part of it is being choosy, part of it is lack of confidence. I don't want just anyone. I don't think that anyone I would want would actually want me. My life has been full of crushes on people who were unattainable, not because they were actually unattainable but because I didn't feel I was good enough.


There's a man at work I actually quite like. He's cute, he's funny, he's interesting. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm an idiot. And there's also this whole thing whereby I am only a version of myself at work. I tend to separate myself - work me, home me, family me. I am different with different people, in different places. I think I do it not because I am interesting but to maintain the myth that I'm interesting. Then if people think I'm weird, or boring, or don't like me as much as they like other people then I can think to myself, "oh, it's okay, they don't know the real me".


So I hide. Especially at work. And I think of myself like a female Clark Kent, hiding my superself behind my glasses. I think of my talent like validation. It's okay that I'm socially awkward because I can sing. It's okay that I build walls between myself and other people because I can act.


But it isn't okay. Not in the long-term. My personality ends up compartmentalised to the point where I don't know where I begin and end any more. The reason I'm boring on dates is because I shut off all of the bits that I think will alienate people but those are probably the best bits of me. The part that feels the need to run because the wind picks up, the part that laughs too hard and too loud, the part that mimics the way other people talk and move (does anyone else obsessively try to copy Cheryl Cole when the L'Oreal advert comes on? I just can't get "worth" right), the part that is annoyingly curious and wants to ask questions all the time, the part that obsesses over crap TV, the part that wants to sit quietly and listen, the part that wants to argue for the sake of it, the part that starts crying when passionate about something even if it's just a moment of perfect contentment.


Over Christmas I spent a lot of time with my parents who never expect me to be anything other than myself. They are used to the whirlwinds and eddies of my temper and tolerate my sudden passions and enthusiasms with amusement and collusion. It was so restful to not have any walls up at all and, as I double-checked with my Mum on Sunday, they like me despite, and because of, my faults. It made me realise how much of the time I am guarded and hold myself back, not just on dates but in real life as well.


I don't really have a conclusion, which infuriates me as I have been writing this, on and off, for several days and I would prefer to have some sort of shape for the sake of tidiness. I guess I need a tidier mental life in order for that to happen.

Night Walk

I suffer from periodic restlessness. An itch in my feet. A need to follow the path until it leads back to my front door again. I try to curb it by walking as much as possible at acceptable times. This often works and I don’t stray too far. My own natural laziness contributes too – “don’t go”, it coos, “it’s warm here, play a game, watch a DVD, read a book” – and I find myself seduced into staying. But sometimes there is nothing I can do but grab my coat, pull on a stout pair of boots and stride into the wind.

Tonight, I had something to think about and needed space in which to think it. The confines of the flat were pressing in on me and I needed to get out. I hadn’t even realised it had started snowing. No sooner had I stepped outside than I was transported, forgetting what was brewing inside my stupid head. It was so beautiful. Feathers of snow were falling, gatherings of flakes. I walked for two hours, finally coming back when Re: Stacks had come around again for the third time, my hat was soaked through and my forehead was starting to ache. I had walked in a circular fashion, starting at an empty park and then arriving back at it after following some kids on their way to a snowball fight. The only time I refused to go the way I wanted to was at the gates of a graveyard, I stopped myself when a car turned down the road towards me. I just walked. I paused occasionally; under streetlights so I could watch the patterns in the air, to place my gloved hands in mounds of snow, not to break it up, just to get some sense of the feel of it, to distinguish the shapes beneath the snow and remember what they were before. I felt the hurry and annoyance of the people around me; wrapped-up people tired by the effort of walking home, car drivers agitated at being forced to go no faster than really slowly, passengers on the train urging it on and would-be passengers at the station urging it to stop. I didn’t have anywhere to be and I felt the luxury of being able to just enjoy it. Tomorrow it will be something else – maybe a threat, probably a hassle – but tonight it was special. I walked through it, part of it, vicariously experiencing the joy of someone else’s well-aimed snowball. I threw my arms out for balance as I teetered and laughed as I fell. I recognised my own, solitary, footsteps as I crossed my own path. I lay down in the park and made a snow angel.

As I returned home, I realised that my decision was made. I had turned my thoughts over and over as I walked, not knowing how to arrive at a conclusion or whether I even should. But at some point, between stepping off one bridge and arriving at another, my mind made itself up. I lose myself when I walk at night, only to return feeling like I'm filling my own outlines again.

Hackneyed Post About Resolutions

On the basis that it has been several weeks since I last posted, I feel that it is time to do another one. And because my brain has been temporarily stunted by the consumption of far too much food and drink I am choosing to post about New Year's resolutions. Bear with me (or not. I am certainly not forcing you to read this. I definitely do not have, say, a sniper's rifle aimed at the back of your head whilst I am observing your reading habits through the view thingie. Ignore that dot of red light, honest). Anyways, here we go:

1) Do more stuff. This looks a bit stupid when written down and it's difficult to explain as I haven't really thought about how to do this without money. I just want to go on more adventures and have experiences. I think the thing I regret about my twenties is that I was far too easily content not doing that much. I'm finding it easier as I get older to care less about comfort and I want to carry on doing stuff because it's fun or interesting. This is another positive thing about being single - I don't have to get someone's permission or argue for what I want or drag anyone along with me unwillingly.

2) Eat less cheese and run more. I've lost about two stone this year and am very, very happy with the amount of weight I've lost. I would really like to lose some more but hate dieting. Therefore, instead of instilling any kind of complicated diet regime I'm going to go back to eating what I like in moderation, listening to my body and trying to limit the amount of cheese I eat. I really bloody love cheese and it tends to be my shortcut when I'm tired and can't be bothered to cook. This is a bad thing. On the plus side, I found out how much I really like running this year and, as a result, would like to get better at it. I'm also planning to do more dancing, mainly because I'm scarily uncoordinated and it helps a little bit.

It is so weird being at the end of a decade, isn't it? I just had lunch with Kathryn and we were talking about the way our lives had changed in that time. My life has changed a lot and probably in small, indiscernible ways that I could never have predicted or even understood ten years ago. I spent so much time in my teens thinking about my future and trying to get some sense, through books and films, of what this future would be like. I thought I'd know how I would react to any number of things that I've been confronted with over the last ten years and it's never been the case. I am far less melodramatic and excitable in real life than I am inside my head. I am fairly sure that the books I've read would have been really dull had the heroine, after being cheated on five weeks before her wedding, coped with it primarily by sleeping a lot - the summer of 2007 is still something of a confusing, hazy blur in my memory. Interestingly, I spend almost no time at all thinking about the future beyond the next week or so now. It feels like a waste. There is absolutely no point in my thinking about it because I can't predict it. I've never been that bothered about fitting in and will not die unfulfilled without marriage or children or property to my name. Which is good because it means I won't waste my time searching for those things or settling for something less than I deserve in order to get them. I would prefer to be surprised than disappointed, I think.

So, there you go. My aim for the year is to do more stuff and my aim for the decade is to be surprised. Never let it be said that I set unrealistic goals for myself.

My Romantic Life

I don't know why I've decided to do a blog on this subject. Maybe it's because I've been thinking a lot about it lately. Maybe it's because I've been sleeping badly. Maybe it's because I am reaching 30 and am starting to worry.


When I think about the fact that I am nearly 30 - less than a week for the curious - it feels unreal. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that, my entire life, I've always been several years behind my peers. I remember feeling lost my whole time at secondary school. I just didn't get it: Couldn't keep up with jokes, music, fashion. My little group that I spent time with were similarly lost and we were bonded through our confusion and the fact that we were just out of step with everyone else. Boys were like another species. I didn't understand them and they certainly couldn't understand me. When I went to sixth form college, it became less of an issue to fit in and I discovered two things: That I could be myself and that that wasn't necessarily a bad thing to be. But still, boys. Couldn't talk to them and they didn't seem particularly interested in talking to me. And to be honest, that's the continuing pattern. Don't get me wrong, I don't not talk to half the population in the world. I can actually talk to my friends who are men. Male colleagues hold no fear for me. But I really struggle with the romantic thing. I don’t get approached by men when out. I did internet dating for a bit last year – had one guy bail pre-date, had a date with one guy who was very, very dull and had three dates with someone who I got on with but didn’t really fancy and who felt the same way about me. After that, I gave up on it because it was kind of soul-destroying. I’m not the most interesting version of me on dates. I hate small-talk with a fiery passion and, conversely, I’m overly eager to please so tend to try and keep conversations going and ask questions even though I’m bored. I want them to like me even when I’m not that bothered about them. This is ridiculous. And most of the time, I just want a script because the effort of knowing what to say is exhausting. I’m never more than a yogic stretch away from having my foot inserted into my mouth at the best of times.

The problem is that I am starting to feel the pangs of loneliness so know that at some stage I am going to have to get back into the game but, at the same time, really don’t want to. I lose so much of myself when I’m in a relationship. I’m so grateful that someone has chosen to be with me that I stop caring about what I need from a relationship, which is an entirely different matter from what I want. I’ve made some really bad choices out of some sort of need to fix something that’s broken. Coming out of the relationship, I realise that I haven’t actually fixed anything; I’ve just papered over the cracks. People do change but not if someone else is doing all the work for them.

I’ve been indulging my need for romance by reading chick-lit and watching romantic comedies. I still have Anna Karenina staring at me from my pile of unread books, raising an eyebrow at my embarrassing need for happy endings. I find chick-lit oddly fascinating, though, mainly because of how reassuring they are. The fact that you know that, despite the trials and tribulations of the heroine, she will get together with the man that, from the beginning, has practically had a big sign over his head saying “he’s perfect”. Then, on top of that, regardless of the story itself, you know from page one what’s going to happen. I have had to stop reading Isabel Wolff though. There’s knowing what’s going to happen and then there’s finding the heroine so dense that you’re nearly screaming at the book in frustration at her stupidity.

I get that it's unrealistic, though. That whole notion that I'm going to meet someone who will be charming and funny and JUST RIGHT seems like a load of bollocks. I've never had a meet-cute. An obvious point given that I've already mentioned that I don't get approached by random men while out in the world. I've never been asked for my number or had a non-sarcastic chat-up line, never been bought a drink by a stranger. I don't think it's got very much to do with attractiveness but I think it goes back to me being out of step. I have no idea how to give out signals or what sort of signals I'm sending. It's like when I tried horse-riding on a camping holiday in France. Every five minutes or so my horse would bound into a trot or a gallop and I had no idea what I'd done to make it do so. Evidently something about the way I was sitting was saying "run, for the love of God, run" but I have no idea what it was. The people leading the ride probably could have told me but we hadn't covered equestrianism in French. So yeah, I'm giving out the wrong signals but I have no idea what these are (probably still saying "run, for the love of God, run" just, you know, away as opposed to t'ward) and the instruction manual is one about horse-riding. In French.

But I seem to be surrounded by people who've got it right. Who sent the right signals, met, fell in love, stayed together. I don't know what they did or how they knew. I don't want to trust in luck or fate but I don't want to botch it either. But in terms of being pro-active, there's no-one at the moment that I would choose to pursue (famous people don't count but if it was feasible for me to pursue Jeffrey Dean Morgan then I would). And my whole unable-to-read-signals thing means that I would be terrified of approaching someone I don't know. I'm kind of stuck really. I guess I just have to be patient, which I'm good at. My romantic life stays where it is and where it probably should be for the time being.

Too Much Stuff

I don't know, things actually happen to me and I struggle to write about them. When there's nothing going on I obviously have more time for meditative thoughts about such important things as ANTM and my hair. Exciting things that have happened to me recently:

The Fake Aunts visited a folk club which was a little slice of heaven. Really clever and talented people singing and playing instruments, some of which I have no idea what they were even called. When we weren't singing ourselves, we were given freedom to join in and every so often I will have a happy memory of staring at the carpet and trying to work out a harmony. One of our songs, a Kate Rusby cover, was just a joy to sing as everyone started picking up their instruments and joined in, with one guy on a penny whistle improvising a hornpipe over the top. Lovely loveliness.

I won an award. Yes, people, you are reading the blog of The Portsmouth News Guide Award Best Amateur Actress Runner-Up. Okay, so I'm not the best but I'm pretty close and I have an actual physical object stating this with my name on it. I also looked good. This is still something of a surprise to me.

My Dad had to go to hospital. This was not nice. As I said to him and Mum when Big Sis and I popped in to see them in QA last Wednesday "seriously, can we get through a year where one of you isn't hospitalised, please?" This meant that he missed the first week of "What The Butler Saw", which was upsetting for him and terrifying for the rest of the cast, especially for Zombie as director who had to step in. Dad's started back in there now so I'll be watching it on Saturday.

I have done a lot of baking. I had a moment on Thursday last week where I didn't even know who I was any more and started thinking I was Big Sis. Then I thought something mean and remembered who I was. Having said that, she's been swearing a lot lately. My favourite is when she's driving and the lights change to amber as we're going through and she goes "shit shit shit shit". Cracks me up every time.

More Fake Aunts News: We recorded a song and now have a MySpace page and a facebook Fans page. This is all done by Mrs DA really as I could never be called the driving force for anything. Good for her but I get a little bit freaked out by it sometimes. People are listening to my songs, you say. Hmm. This is perturbing.

I have taken to listening to Radio 6 even when Adam and Joe aren't on there. It's ideal for sewing along to and it helps me feel like less of a musical retard. Everytime something comes up that I like, I make a note of it and then look it up. When this happens every five minutes, my potential iTunes bill starts looking rather expensive.

So yes, it's been a busy week (obviously, I have barely skimmed the surface of my activities. I also turned into a werewolf, ate Chinese takeaway and met the man of my dreams (well, the last one is clearly fictional. That dude don't exist. I am a picky be-yotch) so I've really been cramming it in, timewise).

Scattered

I'm somewhat unfocussed. I think it's fair to say that this is a pretty accurate description of me throughout all of my life. I read instructions but only of short-term stuff, stuff that can be done quickly and filed away. Like flat-pack furniture. Which I both enjoy assembling and am reasonably good at. I should advertise this ability for the people, like Mrs DA, who loathe assembling flatpack furniture with a fiery passion and for whom I can provide a service. I'm helping! However, I have a whole heap of paperwork for things that are actually quite flipping important that I never read. Ever. This is stuff like my pension, insurance (life and pet), savings, loans etc etc. And it contains a whole heap of stuff that is probably either costing or at least potentially saving me money that I never bother with. I never do research on anything, I just go with the easiest option. I'm very much of the opinion that life is short. Way, way too short for me to go through life in a sensible manner. I think of myself as a spontaneous girl and being a spontaneous girl is, in many ways, a good thing. I'm quite a lot more relaxed than people who are organised and plan things. Any stress that I have is short-lived and essentially goes like this: argh, stuff to do, very little time to do it, get it done, end of argh. But as I am reaching a milestone birthday, should I start planning for stuff a little bit more? And it occasionally worries me that my lack of focus, if allowed to continue, will lead to idiocy and poverty in the future. Well, idiocy is something of a given anyway (I always, always want to say gibbon but worry that people will think I don't get it if I do. Promise that if I ever slip and say gibbon instead of given you will be amused at my whimsy rather than correct me). But then I forget about it because not worrying is so much more fun than worrying.

Also, when I have reached 30, is it weird if I still think of myself as a girl? Should I change the language with which I refer to myself? I still feel like a girl. I strongly suspect that I will still feel like a girl for a long time yet, probably my whole life. I get a bit of a jolt when other people refer to me as a lady, like ""Small Child", watch out for the lady" rather than Lady Alice, although that would be all kinds of awesome. I like my name better when it's preceded by a title. Note to self; marry a Lord. Actually, is it possible to get knighted to be a Lady so that marriage is unnecessary or can you only ever be a Dame? Because being made a Dame is rubbish. I think of pantomimes and South Pacific and old ladies when I think of Dames - none of these are good. So peerage and knighting experts, help me out: How do I officially become a Lady?. But how do other people refer to themselves in their head? Like my Mum, do you think of yourself as a woman, a lady or a girl? It's funny, isn't it, does anyone else have these thoughts?

I kind of need a focus though. It helps having The Fake Aunts to think about - I sat down and wrote the lyrics for two more songs last Tuesday and as I was falling asleep the other night had a great idea for a song and had to switch the light on and scribble it before I forgot it. I haven't worked on it any more so it's still an eccentrically written four or five lines but it's a start. I'm also planning to do a bit more sewing as I haven't done it for a while - I do like making things even if I approach it, as I do everything, with more enthusiasm than skill. But what I need and want is the remarkable sort of tunnel vision that I only ever get when doing a play. I am so jealous of the actors in the current Bench show - they get to turn up and rehearse for hours and then go home exhausted and not have any time for anything else except learning lines and work and sleep. It's the only sort of focus I can cope with - short-term and all-encompassing. Heaven.

The Fake Aunts

Despite heads full of mucus and general cold- and swine flu-related malaise, The Fake Aunts performed for their first professional gig last night. And oh, but that it was fun. We rushed down to Southsea thinking ourselves late at about 7.30 only to be met by a very relaxed Bob who wasn't entirely sure when he'd asked us to start (it was 8.30) and then asked if we wouldn't mind waiting until the end of the readings to do our first set (so, looking at 9.30 at this point) and then we'd go pretty much straight through into our next one. So we sat around in Rosie's for a couple of hours trying to warm up with a background of quite random jazz. I tried to run through one song but ended up matching the beat and key of the song playing from the speaker behind me, it's all good and well having an ear for those things but it got a bit silly. Even though it was a very long wait (at about twenty to ten we were starting to get a bit frantic as with the whole illness thing, this was basically eating into our bedtime. Bedtime!) I did have a good time. Jaaams is down from Liverpool and was there as moral support and watching him and Mrs DA together is very entertaining. He ordered a bottle of wine to himself, and we watched him have his dinner, while nicking mange touts from his plate, I was very virtuous and drank tea and room temperature water, the latter request got a huge amount of scorn from Mrs DA who was on Diet Coke and ice but I'd spent hours drinking warm drinks and as good as the Diet Coke looked, it wasn't going to help me very much.
We eventually went in to the Writers' Workshop that we were playing for. Part of me would have liked to have listened to the stories being told but I would have struggled to concentrate, I think. They seemed quite keen to have us back though so, next time. But we ran through our set list and the response was really pleasantly positive. It was odd singing but not sounding like myself and I did struggle at points, although I like to kid myself that that adds character. The thing that really made me extremely happy was the overwhelming response to the song that we wrote. Originally called the Magic Song on the basis that we actually made it from scratch ourselves, we decided that we had to give it an actual name otherwise we'd keep writing songs and they would all be Magic Songs and it would get a bit confusing, it's called What We've Not Got. Dude, even the title got an appreciative giggle and we got, like, an actual laugh on "I'm stupid, I'm silly, I'm possibly mad", which means that writers are obviously our perfect audience. Then, after we'd finished our second set, we were asked for an encore and they requested that we do that song again. Then a group of guys who'd been quite vocal throughout, Jaaams had even heard them commenting on goosebumps, yay, came up to us at the end, two of them even volunteering to play with us if we had need of a bassist and drummer and the overwhelming opinion is that we're good when we play other people's songs but we're really good when we play our own. I just keep having little happy moments when I think of it. We wrote a song and people really like it! Anyway, the journey home was me snuggled up in Big Sis's scarf and a feeling of achievement in Mrs DA's car while she and Jaaams belted out showtunes and I just giggled and occasionally joined in. Better get writing me some more lyrics.

Little Bits of Random

Well, this is a turn up for the books, isn't it? Two posts in a week; it's like when I first started blogging and the whole world was just a series of events to encapsulate in an anonymous anecdotal form. Now I'm old and jaded and much less interesting - sad state of affairs, aint it?

I have been noticing a trend in myself recently, namely that I tend to use social network-y type sites to indulge the part of me that, when drunk, bored or hyper, wants to poke other people and jump up and down while shrieking "entertain me, entertain me!" I think this is slightly more bearable in written form so when I feel this mood strike, will turn to the t'interweb. Yesterday, I ate two cupcakes (there was a cake sale for the impoverished students and I'm having an off-week, and, hey, I don't need to justify myself to you) and drank too much Diet Coke and was essentially pinging off the walls. My colleagues had begun to bore me, even my game of gurning at Jan had started to wear thin, and they were all in the post-3pm zombie stage of the day. Dull, dull, dull. No-one was on facebook and then *ping* I remembered Mrs DA's recommendation of Omegle.com, a very random chat-site where you have an anonymous conversation with anyone from around the globe. After a couple of non-starters: the phrase "I'm feeling horny" leads to an immediate disconnect from me and, bearing in mind that I have the attention span of a gnat, I don't care to have conversations entirely in initials and acronyms. I eventually lucked upon someone who let me ramble on and here's my conversation for your delectation:

Stranger: hey hey ;)
You: Hello
Stranger: how are you?
You: I'm extremely hyper, you?
Stranger: great to hear that =D well, soso... but the holidays are about to start, so that's a good thing. right? ^^where are you from?
You: Somewhere where holidays don't exist, tragic but true.
Stranger: rly? where would that be? oO
You: The land of No Money and Busy Work. Believe me, you do NOT want to go there
Stranger: so no holidays? not even for students?
You: Oh, well, other people may be able to go on holiday but I can't. It's a principality of one but I'm feeling very bitter about it currently
Stranger: seems understandable... and I thought the situation in my country was bad, just after those recent elections... but that sounds even worse oO
You: Go on then, where are you from?
Stranger: Oh, I think with "recent elections", that should be quite guessable ;) germany, actually
You: Guessable for people who actually read/watch the news. I'm a really well-educated moron essentially
Stranger: haha ^^ touché ;) I'm not too thrilled, though. I've got to work during my holidays, to be able to afford the gasoline for my car ^^
You: So are you a student? And what work do you have to do?
Stranger: Yes, I'm in the senior year. So basically the last year of school. The 13th. Don't know the school system in your country of no money and busy work ;) I deliver pizzas ^^ It's not as bad as it sounds. It's basically gaining money for driving around in a smart car
You: Oh okay, so that'd make you, what, 18? And are you about to go to University, which would start when? And I would totally do that job, especially if it involved free pizza (it does, right?)
You: And in my land, school is a distant, distant memory. Like the dinosaurs
Stranger: it includes 50% off pizzas ;) yeah, I'm 18... I'm going to have a one-year-brake after school, actually. Don't have to do any military or social service, so that's quite reasonable ^^ mmmmh... sounds like you're older than 18?
You: Oh cool, will the one-year-off be purely spent delivering pizzas and saving or will you be travelling to interesting places or something? Yep, I'm oooold - nearly 30, for frick's sake. I'm freaking out a little bit.
Stranger: I'm planning on going to Japan for 6 months =D Well, it's not THAT old, you know? It's 10 years from now for me >_>
You: Japan, nice! Are you going to tour or do you have some kind of placement or something? I know it isn't that old but get in touch when you're my age now and tell me you're not completely freaked out as well.
Stranger: I actually have some contacts in japan, after I've been working in the video game industry for 2 years now ;) and how would I get in touch then? Let's say we logon to omegle on 10/08/2019 again ;)
You: Ma ha ha, sounds like a plan. I have to go now as I have a car waiting for me (not glamorous, really), good luck in Japan and I'll talk to you in ten years, yeah?
Stranger: alright, see you in ten years ;) thanks for the nice chat =D

I woke myself up by shouting "run!" in the middle of the night, last night. I tend to have very epic dreams with insane storylines and I was shouting at someone to run away from me because I knew that if they touched me they would die. Exciting stuff, this was preceded by the destruction of an evil nunnery by the head of a statue of a horse - it was a really big statue but I think it would have had to have, like, some kind of guided-missile-type properties in order to kill everyone there.

I'm currently making a list called Little Bits of Random. It's filled with one-line images, really. It's sort of like going back to my University days when I did little performances like wobbling an orange pencil, sitting on the banks of the canal making paper and interviewing passersby, or being wrapped up in brown paper and getting drawn on. I really liked doing that sort of thing and it would be nice to do it now where it doesn't necessarily have to be contextualised or annotated unless I want to do it. I like making odd little impacts on other people - we did the Ghost Walks last week and, for me, the best bit is crossing paths with people who have no idea what's going on. I think it's got to do with my obsession for there to be something going on beneath the surface of the obvious world that we know and understand and I like the idea that you can make that happen for other people. The one I really want to try is someone riding around on buses with an invisible friend. I'd love to see that.