Charolastra No.1 Has No Hope..

..Yet refuses to be called a pessimist.

Had a slightly surreal conversation with Charolastra No.1 today about how her mind works. And about how mine works in such a different way so as to not entirely understand hers.

Essentially I was right in not knowing where she places her hope - because she doesn't have any. Or claims not to. I still don't fully believe/understand someone not having even the slightest hope/aspiration in regards to their life and what they want from it. Her argument, however, was that she isn't aiming to be happy - her ultimate goal isn't happiness. Her goal is only ever purely experience, in whatever form that may take. I don't fully believe her - well I do, obviously - but a part of me is evidently so innately hedonistic that it refuses to understand the core underlying agenda for everything not stemming from wanting to be happy, from wanting whatever it is that you think will make you happy.

But the quest/search/want for happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction, elation, whatever breed of joy - is this not, right down at the very core, the reason for all human behaviour, from the big life choices down to the very minutiae of daily life?

Maybe once she has all the world's experience that she wants (or doesn't want as such, rather just knows that she is going to get) under her belt, she will find herself wanting some things. But maybe, as somebody who has spent their whole life wanting more, I just can't quite understand contentment.

Or maybe, even after so many years, I still can't quite understand Charolastra No.1.

A Jumper Can Never Be A Scarf.

Talked things over for an abnormal amount of time with Pickled Lily tonight, for whatever reason, and one resounding conclusion emerged - I'm going to go with the scarf.

I'm an eternal optimist, and in the end I'm better with making mistakes than dealing with regret, and I have to do what is right for me, not what makes sense in everyone elses eyes. I've fallen into relationships and things before, just because I could, and you end up living an emotional facade - it's very lonely, and I'd never do it again. Not that that is on the cards, but the point being that I may have my moments of gloom, but I'm actually perfectly happy on my own. I'm certainly more happy on my own than with someone I don't completely want to be with - when I think back to my loneliest times, there was usually someone sitting right beside me.

I might not be sure about the scarf, and it might end up leaving me cold and uncomfortable and regretting not just wearing the jumper, but.. I really wanted it when I saw it. And it brings out the colour of my eyes. And maybe if I gave it a chance, it would become comfortable.

And fuck it, it made me feel special. Just once, when I tried it on, but if something makes you feel special and new even just once, isn't it worth really going for?

Sickness Makes Me Feel Homesick.

Spent the day in bed being ill. Which is fine, I think my body needed it - I slept 16 hours last night, and am still exhausted today.

But now it's 1am and I'm in bed feeling ill and crap, and for some reason can't stop thinking about all the people who ever treated me badly my entire life, and missing them. I dont dare think about what the fuck that says about me - but I just can't seem to stop myself! Just was dropping off to sleep and for some reason Looney Toon came into my head, and I felt myself really missing her.

Was remembering the little close things, like how her room felt like mine, and how we spent months sharing a bed because neither of us minded enough to be bothered to sort her room out, and how we'd have stupid conversations in the supermarket about why baked beans were in a different section to kidney beans, and why kidney beans were that shape - why would a bean be named after an internal part of the body, and which one was the liver and which one was the kidney anyway? And then there was all those times I'm pick her up from the local pub where she worked, and we'd pick up dinner and walk home discussing which film we were going to watch, always knowing we'd get home and just watch Family Guy until stupid o clock in the morning. Then we'd wake up the next day just in time for Neighbours and Jeremy Kyle, with just enough time in the breaks to make a half-arsed breakfast of tea and toast and some sort of microwaveable meat. And all those nights of ridiculous drinking and laughing and playing cards and meeting people, and all those mornings of going through our combined wardrobe for an hour to try and look different today, only to end up in the exact same outfits we always wore, but not giving a shit because we would have found some hilarious new joke of the day (or we'd made ourselves laugh by discovering a stupid advert on telly and making every sentence into a joke about it).

Fuck, it's weird, it seems so normal these days for her to not be in my life, in fact I barely even think of her, but when I think about it properly, I can't believe she's not in my life any more. But then my brain suddenly reminds me of all the other things, how our relationship deformed into something unrecognisable, how she became a stranger to me, her gradually spending more time in her room and not ever coming out with me and our friends, and then the big one - where her boyfriend hit on me and when I told her she rejected my words and refused to discuss it, and then for weeks and weeks there grew unease and this weird atmosphere developed, and I tried my very hardest to address it, and to clear it, and to fix it, but she just clammed up and denied anything was wrong, and just shut me out and made me feel like I was being paranoid and over-sensitive and needy - all the time she was moving her stuff out and mulling over things without telling me, then one day she was just gone.

..Fucking bitch! 8 years of being the closest of friends, then one day she just ups and leaves, and refuses to accept my attempts to rectify things. Then, when finally after months of confusion and hurt and wanting to fix things, I see that I've been screwed around and get angry about it, she acts as if I'm overreacting and that there was nothing ever wrong.

Man, I can't believe I'm going over this in my head right now. I think so little of it because it hurt too much to deal with, and I was partly in disbelief at the time, but I really can't be bothered with this in my head right now. Can't it just go away?

At the risk of sounding like a moany teenager - it's just not fair! It's not fucking fair that people like Looney Toon come into my life and make me love them, then they fuck off or treat me shitty and then fuck off, and it's not enough that I have to go through it - but I then have to deal with missing them. And it's never that I've played the victim, they're just bastards! That's just it though - theyre the bastards, they're the ones that fucked everything up, but somehow I'm the one thats suffering, that's lying awake at stupid o clock in the morning wondering where it all went wrong, and reminiscing about when it used to be good, and wishing it could go back to that. I even find myself considering calling her - then hate myself for it because why would I put myself through that - I would be some sort of masochistic fool to be missing somebody who hurt me so much.

Why is it always like that after they're gone though? When someone hurts you, you should just be left with that hurt - just purely remember the fact that they hurt you, and that they're a bastard. Not the good stuff - the makeup of the human brain should have at least a little compassion and have some sort of auto-erase system whereby you forget the good times where you loved them and they loved you and trips to the supermarket became the most fun you've ever had, so that when you find yourself thinking about them at stupid o clock in the morning, your brain doesn't think I wish you were in my life, rather your brain thinks you were a bastard, good riddance. Stupid brain isn't protecting me properly, after all these years.

I think this is all because I'm ill and slightly delirious - I always get emotional when I'm ill. I don't know what it is, but it's only when I'm ill that I get so massively self-pitying and weepy and needy (I hope!)

Maybe it's that I don't have the energy to hold back my deepest hurts and heartaches when I'm ill. I'm pretty sure when I wake up tomorrow or the next day fully recovered and feeling spritely, I won't miss Looney Toon in the slightest, and won't connect with this feeling at all, if even remember it. And calling her will seem a laughable thing to have thought to do, and the good times won't even cross my mind let alone affect me like this.

But in my current state of ailment, I miss her. And I feel pretty sad about it. And that sadness is just opening the floodgates for everyone else that I sometimes secretly long for.. Looney Toon.. Ash.. Rocket Boy (bit surprised at that one).. my cat..

Why can't it just go away? I'm so sick of missing people. Seriously, nobody has to miss people as bloody often as I do. And when I miss people like Looney Toon, and Ash, it feels more than just nostalgia, its like.. homesickness. That's it. Most people get that feeling when they're ill, when they long to be at home being taken care of by their mum, in bed eating soup. But I never had that, the only real home I've ever had has been certain people in my life. So when I'm ill and I want comfort and warmth, I long for the people that felt like home. It just so happens that the people that feel like home fucked off long ago.

For Christ's sake. I just reread that whole self-indulgent adolescent rant and had a flash of self-awareness - I really am going to stop using this blog for exorcising emotional demons, and instead write things that are clever and witty and insightful, that might pass for genuine urban subcultural commentary. Maybe I'll blog some more poetry, or put my gig reviews up here, maybe some thoughts on psychology books I've been reading..

Not right now though. Right now I'm going to chain smoke and listen to Ricky Gervais podcasts, while feeling homesick and glugging Night Nurse, until I fall asleep.

Comfort vs. Excitement

So November. It's kind of flown past. Every day of it has been dense and concentrated, but somehow as a month it's escaped me. It's nearly Pickled Lily's birthday - which always seems to just creep up and smack me in the face. Every year, Pickled Lily's birthday is a surprise to me. Much as the early months of the year drag on forever and you feel as if icy spring will never pass, the last months of the year seem to speed up making you feel if you don't hold on quick, they'll run away without you.

I had a bit of a crazy weekend actually. Work has been my entire focus for weeks now, and this week I could feel it settling, feel myself able to not have to be on 100% all the time and just let loose my grip on the wheel a bit. So went out Friday night for drinks with the girls, which turned into quite a crazy one in which I ended up having an intense night with an American boy (singer in a rock band. Will I ever shake musicians..?) resulting in a mild personal dilemma - comfort vs excitement.

I love talking to people about music, and even more so I love talking to attractive guys about music - if someone I'm speaking to/flirting with says "oh you know who I love - Athlete", I get uncontainably excited and kid-in-a-candy-store giddy, and feel my heart just reach out to them and cuddle them. And I feel a tangible bond and a sort of heart-racing warmth in a way that nothing else makes me feel towards another person. Not like it happens a lot, but it's happened a few times (I think I attract boys who know how to get under my skin) and to me, there is nothing like it. I think maybe I chat to randomers often enough just in case I happen upon one of those "shit, you know that band? that album changed my life!" moments.. Because the after-moment, when you both look at each other, chuffed to have something that excites and inflames you, in common with another person - honestly, it's the biggest rush. And, to me, the biggest turn-on, in every way.

So once I've had that with someone, it's like a drug - I want more. I love it, and it feels like nothing will feel as good. And whatever I can do to continue feeling it, or to feel it again, I will do - happily. And when I connect someone with that feeling, it's hard to shake being drawn to them. The connection, even if fleeting, lingers on in my memory. And me, I'm a very singular person, there's very little I want that I can't get from/within myself - but that feeling is what keeps me from a life of seclusion.

But that bond, that rush is still just that - a rush. It isn't ever really more than that. It can't really grow into anything, all it can do is exist in that particular moment, and if you're lucky, ever so slightly bond you with someone else.

But is it a fake bond? Is it some way that humans have evolved socially to find a mate/procreate - by creating a momentary closeness. Oh, I like this, you like this, we must be soulmates. Oh wait, no, now we've shagged and actually it no longer matters that you love Athlete - because sitting across from the breakfast table from you in the morning is awkward, and in the cold light of day, you're still a stranger to me. Much as you may love Athlete. And much as last night we may have been soulmates and when you knew that lyric that I love I then subsequently directed that love your way, this morning I find no comfort in that. And you made me feel alive, and roused into life, and awakened, and aroused. But this morning I'm tired, and don't want to feel roused and excited, I want to feel comfortable and cosy and cared for. And I feel a little duped that you don't make me feel that way, because you love Athlete, thus I felt close to you because you love something that is close to me. What more honest connection is there? But am I confusing a spiritual connection with just assosciative memory. The warmth and familiarity I have with something I have warmth and familiarity with something that my brain has now connected with you, thus wrongly made the connection that I must share that warmth and familiarity with you also.

Somehow, I'm left uneasy.

Now picture an alternative scene. I'm sitting with a guy, we've been to the cinema, or dinner, and now we're having a drink. And he's nice, and cute, and we're finding ourselves with things to talk about - he's really cool, and has lots of really interesting qualities, and thinks that I do too. And we smile at each other occasionally, and we're both slightly conscious of being on a date. But we converse, we debate things, we swap stories about upbringing and friends and family, and it's all perfectly.. nice. I feel at ease, and I go with it.

And in the morning, in the cold light of day, nothing has changed. I don't feel a void, a come-down, a retraction of warmth on either side. I'm comfortable at breakfast, and I don't feel like I'm somebody else, I've still got a grip on who I am - he hasn't gotten under my skin and shaken me up inside, even remotely, not leaving me feeling unstrung in the morning. But.. he hasn't shaken me up inside.

Somehow, I'm left unsatisfied.

Uneasy or unsatisfied - when did those become the options?

The thing that runs through my head when I think of the latter is that there's just no heat in the air. But what am I, 16 - do I still need the heat in the air? We don't actually have that much in common. We're not hugely dissimilar, and we get along, and we've probably got a lot of common ground - we're both Londoners, for example. But there's never been even one of those "oh my god, that's my favourite film too! Have you read the book??" moments. I've always lazily thought that it's what you like that counts, not what you are like. And if any man ever got that that was a High Fidelity reference, I may well marry him on the spot.

But maybe that's just what I'm like - for someone to really get me, they have to get what I'm into. But isn't everyone like that? Oh, I'm so confused.

I don't think I'm ever going to not be, at least a little bit, sex drugs and rock 'n roll. And the excitement that comes with that comes so very naturally to me. Will I ever find comfort? How will I ever find comfort? And when I do, will I ever stop wanting inflamement?

And how will I know which is the more worthy? The thing with the momentary (music-based in my case) connection is that somehow it feels more tangible at the time. Like it's a proper, real connection. How can something that doesn't really count for anything feel so much more real than what is actually real. Maybe brushing it aside isn't giving it its dues though, as well - fuck it, maybe the moment is real, the connection - but what we do with it is what fucks it up. God I bet its as simple as sex fucks it up.

Or maybe it's so real that it feels like intimacy. That's it - bonding with someone in that way is a type of intimacy and it makes you forget that they're essentially a stranger, so once the excitement dies down you're left with the fact that that particular intimacy isn't really applicable in life really, you can't really do anything with it but feel it. And move on.

or.. build something on it?

But that sort of intimacy is exciting and heart-racing, but it doesn't make you comfortable with someone at the breakfast table. Then again being comfortable with someone at the breakfast table isn't ever going to make your heart race or invoke that passion. So which one is the more tangible, the more worth attaining..? Dammit!

Meow

I really, really miss my cat..!

Respect And Esteem And All The Unfamiliarity Therein.

Right now Bluebelle, the Sales Manager who trained me, whom I've become fast friends with, and who promoted and trusted me so very quickly, has gone away on holiday - and everyone was freaking out. The GM's, Head Office, our Area Manager - all freaking out that Bluebelle's going away for the most important 3 booking weeks in the year for any bar/restaurant/club.. Christmas.

Bluebelle, however, appointed me her replacement and told everyone that even though I was the new girl, I was perfectly capable, they weren't to worry. But they did, I could tell. Gradually though, over the next few weeks, I won the respect of both the general managers, and managed to get my name mentioned at Head Office (a relatively big deal for a reservationist)

Had a big day at work today - first meeting with the area manager, me being in the sales manager role. I felt a bit like a little girl playing at being a grownup in the actual meeting, but everyone took me seriously and I think I got away with it. It's not even that I got away with it, it's that I was prepared. I had been worried about it all week, so I prepared -and when asked questions about figures/bookings/minimum spends, I knew the answers. And it felt good - I'm getting lots of respect from everyone at work, it's a novel new feeling. And I won't stop to think too hard about why it feels so unfamiliar, being respected and thought well of.

In the 2 months I've been there, starting as a minor reservationist, I've been made Christmas Co-ordinator, then Head Reservationist, then Sales Manager replacement, then Sales Manager in training. And it's not an easy place to move up - the two General Managers in particular are hard to impress and tough cookies to crack, but it would appear I've done so. But what gets me is that I keep wondering 'how'? How are they respecting me? And I feel a bit like maybe I'm getting away with something, or that I'm riding some sort of luck - when actually, it's because I've been working fucking hard, and putting my arse into it, and genuinely care about doing my job well, even if it is just a stupid reservationist job.

Absolute Peter, the big boss who commands the highest levels of respect in the office (and who looks a lot like Aragorn, if Aragorn were bald and wore a suit and jeans), gave me a raise yesterday - we were interviewing a new girl for the reservations team on Monday, and we were discussing what pay she would get - £7 an hour, and Absolute Peter said to me on the side "How much do you get?" and I told him, £7. He nodded, and I assumed he was checking how much reservationists get paid. The next day he came in and wrote me a little note during our morning meeting - "You're now on £7.50 an hour". I tried to thank him silently, but he wouldn't look at me. When I broached the subject later he scoffed and said "Well it's not right that you'd make the same amount as her", nodding at the new reservationist.

It's not much, but coming from Absolute Peter it is - he would never offer someone a raise if he didn't think they deserved it, he's not that kind of guy. He would never directly tell somebody that they were doing a good job, but he would make sure they were rewarded for it. He's a good boss like that. Still makes me nervous being around him though, he just commands so much respect, and I've got to a level of piss-taking and playing around with everyone else at the office - the other 2 managers are fantastically flirty-bantery French guys who, while still being in command, play around a bit. Earning their affection was easy, then earning their professional respect was worthwhile, and I still revel in the fact that they take me and my opinion seriously and see me on a level now at work. But winning Absolute Peter's unspoken ever-so-slight acknowledgement makes me genuinely pleased with myself. Like I just got an A+ at school, and my headteacher has patted me on the head.

Anyway, I'm ranting about work like a bit of a weirdo, and I know it sounds stupid for me to make such a big deal out of it but - I dunno, it may not be a big deal to other people, but it's been such a long time since anyone has taken me seriously in a professional capacity, and I've always had this thing where for some reason people think the worst of me and think me incapable. And it's so rarely acknowledged how much I put my heart into things, that when its suddenly acknowledged and praised so freely, I don't think I know what to do with it. It's so unfamiliar.

But I like it, and I want to get used to it. Because it scares me a bit, how pleased I am by essentially being treated with a normal level of respect and esteem, when others just expect it, don't even give it a second thought. It's not that I'm hugely insecure, because I'm not, I just.. it's probably residual secondary school roleplay but when it comes to a work or education related hierarchy I still expect to be treated like I always have been - bottom of the rung. Smart but lazy. Or funny but dumb. Whatever it is that people seem to see, I've never played up to it but I've never been surprised by it. I'm aware that I'm a female, and that I can be pretty, and that I can be funny, and that I can have a personality. For some reason any given one of these things make people assume me to be incapable. People never see the package.

Somehow, they do now. And, it sounds stupid, but they're fond of me here. They're fond of me, but this doesn't make them take me any less seriously. It's like I'm finally being seen the way I've tried to be seen for years in the workplace, and I don't understand it! And it's not that I'm particularly good at this - well I am, but not any better than I was at psychology research for example, or at charity work, or even at bloody gcses. Just for whatever reason, these people can see it. Or I'm just in the right industry. Where looking good and being fun is just as important as knowing your shit, it's not a hindrance.

Anyway, the point being - I'm enjoying being respected and taken seriously at work, and I want to get used to it. And damn it, I will.

It Goes To Show You Never Can Tell

So there's a new guy on the scene.

I met him properly a few weeks ago at the Halloween party, and we've been on 2 dates since - I'm still getting to grips with the 'dating' thing. Anyway, I like him. Quite a bit, actually. It's all been pretty easy with him, in a good way - no Rocket Boy esque mind games, no Darcy esque pretending, just two people spending some time together getting to know each other. And chatting a lot about music. It did occur to me actually at Halloween, that I had promised myself I would stop talking to cute boys about music, because it gets me into trouble. But this one ain't trouble.

We went on our first date last week, which was perfect - just went to a local bar and chatted all night about, well mainly about music and London and how important/amazing they are. He was the perfect gentleman, paid for everything, opened doors for me, but not in a show-off or try-hard way, just because he's nice like that. It was a little awkward at first, in a sweet first-date way, but once we got to chatting he impressed me by being so easy to be with, and I impressed him by proclaiming my preference for analog sound over digital. I'm not sure how that came about, but we were talking about vinyl and Stevie Wonder's Superstition and Pulp Fiction, both the film and the soundtrack, and much nerding out about sound later (he's a dj and sound technician, and may just love music more than I do - and he has the bollocks to actually persue it properly) I found myself slightly tipsy, sitting at the table listening to him talk, and wanting to just grab him and kiss him. But he was mid-sentence so that would have been rude (though as Charolastra No.1 pointed out, I'm sure he wouldn't have minded).

We were in this cocktail bar opposite my flat, and as he went up to get some drinks, You Never Can Tell by Chuck Berry came on. When he got back, I joked about him missing the perfect opportunity for a very cool first-date Pulp Fiction kiss, to which he agreed but replied he would kiss me anyway, regardless of the song (good answer). I started to launch into a jokey rant about how, as a music man, he should agree that that's the sort of thing that can make or break a good kiss, when Stevie Wonder's Superstition came on. We smiled at each other, knowing that would be the perfect song to kiss to, but we were bothly strangely too shy to make the move. I'm pretty sure talking about kissing on a first date is a sure-fire way to make any kiss-appropriate moment immensely awkward! See, I'm learning about dating..

There's something quite internal about him. He's strong-minded, and quietly ambitious, and it's charmingly unobtrusive.

I'm not sure how sexual he is though. Not that I'm some sort of nymphomaniac, but I'm a pretty tactile person and on some base level I gage my personal relationships with people by how comfortable they are to the touch. And though he is receptive, as in if I go to kiss him he'll kiss back, and when I nestle into him he'll put his arms around me and nestle back, but he hasn't initiated anything. Yesterday I spent the majority of the night in his arms but he never tried to kiss me. And as such, I can't quite gage how attracted to me he is.

But still, this feels like one to look out for..

Young Hearts Run Free.. While Some Of Us Have To Go To Work.

Ok so this is depressing.

It is quarter to 8 in the morning, and I am already depressed. Mainly because I am, and have been for the last half an hour, sitting in my bedroom waiting for my new flatmate and his lovely girlfriend to stop having hot shower sex so that I can have a shower before I go to work. They've been in there for nearly 45 bloody minutes (the shower, by the way, is right next to my room) and I can hear the stifled giggles.

I've been up for an hour - should never have had that morning cigarette in bed, should have gone straight into the bathroom.. then I would have been able to jump in and out before they woke up, and right now would be putting on eyeliner and making breakfast, rather than staring into space and feeling old for being annoyed at selfish young people shagging willy nilly all over the place, when some of us have to go to work dammit! I bet they'll have used up all the hot water.

Ugh god, I've just realised.. they're not gonna clean up. I'm going to be washing my hair, knowing minutes ago it was a dirty sex-shower. Except that they're not dirty. And it would have been beautiful, romantic sweet couple sex. Great, I'm going to feel so boring and inferior in there now. Sorry shower, it's only me again, just shaving my legs today, nothin to see here. Oh, must remember not to touch the showerhead..

God, this is depressing. I could not feel more old. Or single. Or tragic.

..I can't remember the last time I had sex in a shower.

Crimes Against Fair Flirting.

Well this is just fucking ridiculous. Obviously.

So I spend weeks (lets pretend it's not months) waiting for Rocket Boy to ask me out. And he doesn't because - well first because he has a girlfriend, and then because he's just broken up with his girlfriend, and then because he's just really shit, and then because he's scared of me or whatever, and then because he's out finding a new girlfriend. And a while passes, and when I next see him he somehow makes me ask him out, which obviously never materialises because, surprise surprise - he's as shit as ever.

Then I decide actually I can't be bothered with drama and confusion and all the stuff that goes with having shitty people in your life/head, so I forget about it and start an amazing job, and move to a brilliant flat, and after a month or so of settling in and being a social hermit for the benefit of my sanity, I emerge from my cocoon to go to a party and (courtesy of a beautiful, wonderful girl I know through Charolastra No.1) spend the night chatting to a cute, nice guy. Who is so interesting that I find myself having such a good time that I forget to leave the party, and find myself kissing him at the bus stop. And I'm pleasantly reminded of what it's like to be attracted to a guy who isn't completely fucking useless. So I spend the next few days casually wondering if he might call, and if he was serious about going for that drink.. Then guess who I get a text from?

Yeah, you got it. Stupid useless even-shittier-this-time Rocket Boy.. 'Hello poppet. How are you? What are you doing tonight? x'

So I text him back, then realise that because I've accidentally left my phone off I've gotten his text 2 days late - so the moment has passed. He finally nearly, sort of, almost asks me out, and I miss it. And now I'm going to spend the next week (lets pretend it's not a month) waiting for him to text me. Which he won't. Because he's shit. And even though I know this, I'll still be annoyed that he hasn't texted. And if by some miracle he does text me, I'll be so relieved that I'll forget that I was so annoyed and I'll text him straight back, and he won't reply because he's so shit.. and the whole thing will just never end until either he finally grows some bollocks and asks me out, or I finally crack and execute him for crimes against fair flirting.

For fucks sake.