Merry Christmas!

i hope you've all had a great Christmas and are looking forward to an even better New Year. i've been having a pretty bad cold for the past week, so i spent most of the days before Christmas in bed, and plan to spend most of the days after Christmas in bed too. i got up Christmas day though - for a day of food, food and more food with Becky's family. i had a lovely Christmas lunch followed by lovely pudding, although my cold meant that i could only taste about 70% of it. and yesterday, instead of fighting off crowds at the Boxing Day sale, i had to drag my sniffly self off to work. so today, it's going to be me and the couch and microwaved food, with my best therapeutic friend, the TV.

because this is what i do at 5:30 in the morning

i got tagged with this meme by Suki, and since i like memes, here you go:

the rules
Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom spot.

1. Welcome to the Monkeyhouse
2. a little bliss
3. moonbatty
4. 23 Seconds to Circulate
5. deep intellectual philosophical ramblings

Then you select five people to pass the love on to.
Nadz
surwira
Kaki Cucuk Langit
and whoever else wants to play... the more the merrier!

Now, on to the questions!

What were you doing ten years ago?
ten years ago i had just turned 14, probably on end-of-year holidays before starting Form 3 (year three of Secondary School). ten years ago today it would've been Christmas Eve, so i'm guessing that i was probably at church, falling asleep during midnight mass.

What were you doing one year ago?
a year ago i was with my parents and my sister in Prague, having Christmas Eve dinner at a Czech restaurant near Betramka, a house where Mozart stayed during his visits to Prague.

Five snacks you enjoy
cheese Doritos
Lucky Bin Bin rice crackers
Snickers
a banana-Nutella-peanut butter-cheese sandwich
green apples (after all that junk-food you bet i'm adding fruit to this list)

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics
off my head right now:
the national anthem (yeah-huh!)
Caravan, Van Morrison (actually i don't know the lyrics as much as yell out the "na na na na na na na" bits)
that Counting Crows song that starts with "Mary-Ann, you're better than the world"
Breathe, Anna Nalick
my state anthem (okay, not totally... but i know the tune by heart)

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire
skip! skip with extreme joy
moan at all the bills that i'd still have to pay
complain about tax deductions
sew me a skirt made entirely of £5 notes
take sewing classes

Five bad habits
i am the queen of procrastination
and time-wasting
and impulse-shopping
and frivolous spending
and bull-crapping
i reign over much.

Five things you like doing
playing along with memes
photographing
lying on the couch watching DVDs
wrapping presents
writing novelistically-long e-mails to people who appreciate them

Five things you would never wear, buy, or get new again
like Suki, i too have a pair of shoes that i bought although they were too big for me, thinking i would grow into them
school uniform. hated them.
i once made the mistake of wearing an LFC shirt to Old Trafford. won't be doing that again. although i have to say, Manchester people were nice about it... no one threw rotten fruit at me or anything; just lots of dirty looks.
i'd like to add my pink sandals on this list, because when i did wear them that one time they left laceration marks on my feet that stayed on for months, but i think they're too pretty to be dissed.
i can't think of a fifth.

Five favorite toys
George, my guitar
Shelly, my iPod
my (nameless) camera
my computer
and of course, my PS2

too lazy to even think up a title

the average rate of posting at this site has dwindled to one a week - if the internet should be so lucky. i'd love to say that the lack of posting has been because i have found myself so deeply immersed in the tonne of work sitting on my desks (yes, i need more than one desk to contain them all); or, even, Christmas shopping - buying gifts nice and early and well before the Christmas Eve rush; or, finishing up my quarter-done painting - it's sat on the easel, all dried up and there's a thick cake of hardened, dried-up paint on my make-shift palette. He whose legs poke the sky would call it a writer's block. sadly, it isn't even that.

the past week or so of my life, if you could call it that, has been spent either lying, or sitting (mostly lying) on the couch, watching DVDs and making full use of the PS2. in fact, the only reason i'm sitting here at my desk instead of being horizontal is that i got stuck on a GTA mission and wanted to look it up on one of those internet guides. i've also been watching The West Wing DVDs - this year's Christmas present, which, because i live alone and bought my own present i decide that it's okay to open and use it well before Christmas day. (that last sentence sounded less pathetic in my head) anyway. John Spencer - i am crushed. Leo McGarry is my favourite character (next to Josh Lyman) and the thing i can be kind of relieved about is the fact that i'm well behind of everyone else... because i stopped watching The West Wing a few years ago (you know how it is, you miss one episode, you lose the entire trail) i'm still playing catch-up on Season 3, so i still have... what... 4 more seasons to go?

so, unless it's news about the Simpsons episode that was on last night, or what i thought about today's DVD (Summer School, starring a very young Mark Harmon and skinnier Kirstie Alley & Patrick Labyorteaux) there's nothing very much to say. but just in case you were curious, Summer School - what can i say. they just don't make teen movies like they used to.

oh, and also, my gym is closing down this week. by this Friday, actually. no more gym, cold weather, staying horizontal all day with Doritos... it's looking like a lazy Christmas, folks.

tempus fugit indeed

it's that time of the year again - Christmas. also known as the end of the year. also known as the time to sit down, review the past 12 months that have gone by, look over the resolutions that were made this time last year, wonder at how time has flown - as i do, every year.

i can safely say that where i am right now is nowhere near where i had, this time last year, planned to be. if you understood that last sentence, down a shot of Absolut now. oh, did i mention that this reviewing of the past year would include vodka? it just makes things more fun.

this time last year, according to my journal / notebook / sketchbook / scrapbook, i had a list of goals that i'd wanted to achieve by now. now, all those goals mean just about as much as the paper they were hastily scribbled on. which is rather disappointing. it has been, in some aspects, an awful year. but also, a year in which i have come to learn quite a bit of things about myself. some things, i had always known; and some, i had no idea of. if you also own a journal / notebook / sketchbook / scrapbook, down a shot of Absolut now.

despite all the shit i have gone through this year, i am thankful for some things; namely:
1. the wonders of anti-depressants
2. the comfort of therapy
3. the magical buzz that i get from caffeine
4. my dad, my perpetual life-saver
5. my friends; as few as they come, each one of them is worth much more than their weight in gold
6. novellistically long e-mails, and Ben who humours me in them
7. Ikea
8. retail therapy; it will be the death of me, yet i can't live without
down a shot of Absolut for each thing on my list of thankfulness that coincides with something on your list of thankfulness.

if you don't have a list of thankfulness, down two shots of Absolut now.

i haven't come up with a list of goals and resolutions for 2006 yet. if you have, down two shots of Absolut now.

if your fingers are as cold as mine, down a shot of Absolut now.

if it is taking you 3 minutes to type out each sentence because your fingers are frozen, down a shot of Absolut now.

if you are living in a part of the world where the temperature is almost always above 30°C, and you spend most of the time complaining about the heat, down two shots of Absolut now.

if you have naturally red hair, down a shot of Absolut now.

if you find a typo in this post, down another shot of Absolut now.

if you think you found a typo in this post, but actually haven't, because instead of seeing the letters as they should be, you are seeing blurry black horizontal lines across your screen, down another shot of Absolut now.

if, because of religion or dietary reasons, you haven't been downing vodka when i tell you to, i say to you: i won't tell if you don't.

all that jazz

mmm... don't you just love that warm post-bath buzz?

i'm so broke it's not even funny. and i didn't even realise it until about five hours ago. suspecting my broke-ness, i've been avoiding checking my bank balance for weeks now. and this evening, i thought it's about time i find out how fucked i am, logged on to my bank website and saw that i have £93.18 in my current account. wait - scratch that. my only account. i wrote a cheque to the university for my fees last week - £104. and it hasn't been cashed in yet. and my bank balance is £93.18 - not even taking into account yet what i spent over the weekend. i saw this coming, so i made the "help me!" call to Dad last week. my pride told him that i would be okay for the next few weeks though, so my lifeline money won't be in for a while. i get paid this Friday, but it's an amount so meagre it won't even cover, well, anything.

i'm looking around my room now, picking out things to sell. skimming my bookshelves for novels i don't like enough to hold on to. my two printers - one i keep because i like the way it looks, the other because i need it. my extra PS2 memory card. maybe i'll finish my painting and try selling that. hah. when i moved in here i found a 17" Apple monitor and a microphone stand in the store room. time i find out what i can get for those.

tonight, though, i'm keeping all this at the back of my mind. i bought Chicago yesterday - along with Garden State, which i watched, and loved; it's like Catcher in the Rye (which i read, and loved, thanks to Nadz!), movie-style. so tonight i'm watching Chicago, with a big mug of coffee and a bowl of strawberry trifle.

tomorrow morning after unloading a whole load of shit at therapy i'll traipse through town with my resumé (which is basically a sign that says "Will work for anything resembling money"). somebody's bound to hire me eventually.

it's getting harder to keep passing the open windows

she walks.
it's the same road, but everything is different.
it's dark.
the leaves on the ground are so wet they look like mulch.
it's still raining though.
if her life were a movie, this would be the scene where the lead character stands alone in the rain - the rain representing the tumult going on in his / her life.
or some other metaphorical shit like that.

she walks.
quicker now.
"it's today's cardio." she laughs.
but not quite.
the quicker her steps, the farther she moves from it all.
but not quite.
because it's all inside - she takes it with her.

she walks.
quicker still.
her breath quickens.
her heart beats harder.
her breath quickens.
and quickens.
until she's gasping.
no - sobbing.

please bleed - so i know that you are real.
tonight, it seems, she's bleeding all over the place.

it's still raining.
the water streams down her face.
she knows it isn't all rain.

she walks.
her steps slow - her legs are aching.
from the strain, from the wind, from the cold.
the wind blows her face dry.
when she's home, it's as if the walk never was.

plain drivel

the trees in the front yard are bare. and it's cold. today it is sunny. sunny but cloudy. so it won't be sunny for much longer.

on Monday, on my way to therapy, it snowed. it snowed all Monday morning. very little, though. by the afternoon, the snow had melted and you wouldn't know that it had snowed unless you were out, like i was, at 9 in the morning. it was the first (and only) time i had been up so early this entire week, and right now, i wonder if i had woken up today at 7am would i have seen some snow too? on Monday, at therapy, i talked about expectations and relationships. and expectations; my expectations of myself. and today, reading a Cuttheshit post about Rent, the last line leaped out at me : "Just by living, you're doing more than is ever expected of you." and i thought that was pretty cool.

i bought a new phone on Monday too. and i got a bluetooth headset for free too. i am loving the handsfree-ness that comes with a bluetooth headset. yesterday i made calls to Vodafone, United Utilities, and the Council Tax place to settle stuff about my bills and why are you charging me £85.13 for water when i've already set up a monthly direct debit arrangement? and i made all these calls handsfree-less, with my headset tucked behind my ear, and "look Ma, no wires!" i carried on with my filing, and hole-punching, and organising, whilst talking on the phone, without having to hold the phone! i love technology.

the phone was an impulse purchase (although i didn't have to pay anything cos i get the phone free when i sign on to the contract with the phone company) and it is also the end of All The Things That I Want. the absolute end. now i have Everything I Want, i have no more need to spend any more money. also, because i am broke, i have no choice. now, i have my big-ass TV, broadband connected, PlayStation, plus a phone that i didn't really need, and a pretty pink iPod. so i'm all set. nothing more.

except, maybe, a new pair of boots. cos it's winter and my shins are feeling chilly.