Just So You Know

I thought (some day) that we’d be simple together. I thought it would work. But apparently not right now. You’re not in the right place, nor am I. Before we can even think about being there for anyone else, we have to be able to be ourselves, sorted, and right now we just can’t do that. I really miss you, but I understand, and the only way, now, is up.

Chicken Soup; Tidy Home, Tidy Mind; Man Up.

Woke up hideously early in the morning; read for a while, then tidied the kitchen until it gleamed. Sadly we don’t own a mop or a broom so shoes are still de rigeur, and there’s no recycling or glass bins yet so there are bottles, boxes and assorted plastic items in a heap by the back door, mixed in with pegs and shopping bags. But it’s not unhygienic, and it’s not impossible to work in, and that’s something.

Now I’m going to tidy my room and it’s going to be beautiful. Not a wire or a greying pair of knickers drying over a drawer handle to be seen, promise. There will be a box of things to go home, and space for a load of new things to come up. Then I’m going to fill in a few more forms, and I’m going to go to the post, and I’m going to go into town, and I’m going to buy a finally-I-got-my-loan treat for under a tenner (I’m thinking new knickers, always fun), and I’m going to get on a train and listen to something mellow and knit. Then I’m going to get off the train and have a wonderful weekend.

You see, I’ve decided that the best way to be OK is to make myself be OK. I am pretty and worthwhile and I can do the washing up, see? I am intelligent and interesting and I can break hearts if I want to. I can impress parents, sometimes. I can befriend random strangers at pubs and parties and on buses. I can knit. I am going to garden things. I go to lectures and I read books and I live and I’m trying to get a job. And the people in my life are there because they want to be, and because I want them to be, because if they didn’t want to be, they wouldn’t be. That is how the world works.

The doctor prescribed me a book.

Fresher’s Flu

Yes, already. Just when I want to be going to lectures and searching for a job and auditioning for choirs and making a really good decent new start to the year, and here I am stuck at home with a brain shrunk to the size of a pea and my head all stuffed up and dopey and my throat killing me. I am not impressed.

Meanwhile the last few days – since this is my first entry in ‘real’ time for a while – have been fun. All jobhunting and organising and box-ticking and form-filling, and last Saturday our first ever night out as a house, which was great fun. But all of this has obviously been stressful, that, and settling back into an old town, in a new house, with people I haven’t seen in months and not the people with whom I spent the summer. Change and things, and unsurety, and not being able to move into my room for a few days because for a few days we didn’t know which room it was going to be. So yes, stress and unsureness and change and new things. You can see what’s coming. A total crash in confidence which had me eating even less than I had been all summer and somehow my eating became (has become?) a big deal. And now I’m aware just how illogical I’m being, I’m trying to be more sensible, it’s working. And I’m all signed up for counselling and I’m going to the doctor’s regularly and it’s all going to be fine.

Meanwhile I’m watching something called The Real Housewives of New Jersey which is a hilarious show about all these insanely rich housewives who dress and act and wear their hair like they’re still seventeen. It shocks me. All shopping and ‘I’m going to get breast implants even though my hubby is more of an ass man…’ – their husbands clearly being the ones controlling the purse strings. And their relationships with their children – they seem like children themselves, these super-rich housewives, and selfish with it. Every relationship they have is all about them, until it’s all about how their children are hurting them by being a bit unthinking in their manners, the whole thing is about image, and about themselves as central characters, not as mothers overseeing the growth of whole new adults. Protected, selfish, insulated from a world that is changing and in which they cannot responsibly continue to live the lives they are living, buying their children cars in exchange for good grades, but then denying them those self-same cars because they get a little tetchy at a mother-and-daughter photoshoot. Women with perfect limbs and perfect boobs and completely vapid brains, still gossiping about the tedious ins and outs of some completely adolescent relationship of one of their single friends and I can’t believe that at the age of, what, forty at the outside? they can still be happy with this life in which they are honestly still seemingly about seventeen albeit with a lot more ready cash.

More than that I can’t believe I’m still watching this. Goodnight all.

I Never Really Borrowed Her Dresses or Make-Up But I Did Once Wear Her Gold Earrings…

…and as I remember, I got in a lot of trouble for it too mainly because I’d only just got my ears pierced and could easily have got a horrible ear infection. Probably did, in fact. I don’t recall.

Anyway, my mother. When I was younger – in fact, no, even now – I always wanted to be like her when I was older. I do still want to be like her when I am older. Strong, independent, interesting, practical, not fussy or pernickety. The kind of parent who tells you off by explaining why you shouldn’t do this or that, or why you ought to have said that not the other. Understand why something is wrong and you never do it again, partly because you’re wracked by guilt (perhaps) but mainly because it makes sense and you’re being treated with a degree of respect, trusted with the understanding to judge for yourself what is right and what is wrong.

She’s a strong woman and a role model, exactly the right degree of feminist, a woman whose home is where her toothbrush is and around whom everyone feels at home. Kind and friendly and interesting, the kind of mother my friends always have liked and got on with (almost better than they have with me on occasion!). A friend as well as being a parent, not instead of being a parent, who understands me, supports me,  and sometimes gets it wrong – and isn’t afraid to say so if she does.

I told her all this at the bus stop the other day and she said afterwards how flattered she was. In our reserved way, though, it was just another chat, another silly conversation, and we joked about it as much as we were serious. And apparently I’m not necessarily a million miles away from some time being like that – I just have to live, first. And isn’t that exciting?

By No Means Alone

This is a conundrum. I am as you know looking for a job (well, this is going up a few days after it’s been written so finger’s crossed, perhaps I’m already employed). And (sorry if you’re not a woman/someday-medic/reasonably unsqueamish man) as you know when Aunt Penelope comes to call (sorry, that phrase still gives me an unreasonable amount of joy) I tend to end up in an unreasonable amount of pain (P half-seriously (I believe) offered to carry me into the house last time he dropped me home as I clenched my teeth and prepared to hobble from the car up my (very short) front path). A has been known to laugh hysterically seeing me practically crawl around last year’s flat. This is no laughing matter (well, maybe it is, but not if you’re me).

(Today I like brackets).

Anyway, the point of all this rambling is as follows.I’ve yet to find a decent prescription or non-prescription painkiller, and I am slightly loth to go on the Pill, not because I’m not the world’s biggest supporter of legal and pharmaceutically necessary drugs – I throw back paracetamol, mefenamic acid and ibuprofen like some people breathe – but because I’m worried that it’ll somehow make me infertile (yeah, I know, it’s vanishingly likely). So, yes, pain. And then I go and interview for a job, and, let’s hope, I get that job, and the likelihood is, I’ll be taking one if not two sick days every month because I simply won’t be able to so much as leave my house, let alone get to work and do my job. Who the hell takes two sick days every month? Who the hell takes 1/15th of the time off work – which is like a half day in every seven, or perhaps as much as three hours a week – and still expects to keep their job and get decent references? And what if on top of that I were to contract some other kind of illness/migraine/other which prevented me from going in? It’s a serious worry. But what can you do?

(I’m getting bored of brackets. But have one more, next paragraph).

(As you’ll have noticed I’m posting less often at the moment, basically because it’s probably high time I got a life and spent less time writing here and thinking about what to write here and checking my readership and so on. And possibly it might mean that more of what I do write is actually worth reading, perhaps? And anyway, I’m a busy woman and a grown-up, didn’t you know?)

You Lot Are Ridiculous

Facebook is getting ridiculous. I know I have a lot of applications; I use about three of them, if you count ‘Video’ as an application rather than just another aspect of Facebook Proper these days. I also use Lexulous and have just got Farmville just to see what all the hype is about. I’m not sure yet why it’s so popular, to be honest. Perhaps if I were, what, eight? We’ll see.

Other applications are just downright annoying. ‘What kind of character from history would you be?’ ‘What DC Superhero would you be?’. Stupid questions with no relevance to the ideas and descriptions they come out with defining you for utterly spurious reasons as this or that. What Disney Princess would you be? What Psychological Disorder Should You Have? Yes, that’s a real one. IQ tests, grammar tests, the whole lot. Yes, I do them, with the same healthy dose of scepticism as I expect most people who answer these quizzes actually have. Or rather, I did. I’m getting bored of large swathes of the internet, I really am. It’s a pretty stupid addiction. I read fewer comics these days, keep up with fewer blogs. Although you should definitely read The Daily Kitten. Everyone needs a regular dose of Insanely Cute.

Anyway I just wanted to drop by and say, I really hate Causes. Yes, we all don’t like Child Abuse, Animal Neglect, Rape, or Torture. Most people don’t approve of these things. But there’s no point in standing up and saying so by joining whatever Cause it is. Don’t go thinking you’re doing something about Saving The Donkeys just because you’ve joined a cause. Don’t think it’s an active step saying I Don’t Support Child Abuse. It’s not helpful to think of joining a Cause as an active step, as a way of Doing Something About whatever-it-is because then whatever you could really do to help – which probably involves a little more effort, or money, or signing a petition, or whatever – will seem like just a bridge too far, and does, to many people. If you really want to do something about something in this world, don’t just meekly sit and be counted with all the other six million twenty-somethings, think what you could actively do. Joining a Cause doesn’t make you a better person, it doesn’t make you look like a better person, not to anyone with half a brain. If you have no money, give time. If you have no time, give money. If you have no time or money, feel guilty, like me, or find some time or money (I know I’m no saint). But don’t just sit about telling us what a giving, sharing and kind person you are, because you’re not, seriously.

There we go. Rant over.

It’s Me, Monster.

Hello you. I know you’re going to read this soon, at least, so you say, so hello. I’m terrified you won’t like what you say, you’ll think I say too much, that I’m too outspoken, I don’t know. I’ve just re-read a few of my more recent entries, and actually, it’s not as if I talk about you or us all that much, so actually that’s fine. I just panicked when you said you were planning on getting around to reading it one of these days and I suddenly thought, but I talk about you practically every other entry. And actually that isn’t true, as such. You may get mentioned, like anyone I regularly encounter, but I’m not crazy, and I don’t go splashing things around the internet which are about us and no-one else, it’s neither right nor fair.

So, welcome to my blog. Wanting you to respect my intelligence and awareness and interestingness and individuality and such, it suddenly strikes me that nothing I say here is that interesting, partly because out loud I’ve said so much of it before and partly because I’m just not the most original of people (I know that partly bewrays my surprisingly low self-esteem, and I hope that lack of self-esteem never seems like an insult to you, it makes all the difference in the world that you see in me the things I don’t necessarily see myself. Just thought I’d throw that in now just for a scary moment of visceral honesty, and yes, I do mean ‘visceral’. And anyway, sometimes I believe I am all the things I sometimes believe I’m not. I think I just devised a sort of verbal pseudo-Mobius strip there). Anyway clearly I have some confidence in myself otherwise this blog would never have been set up, and ditto many things in my life. The other thing I wanted to say out loud was that no, you’re right, you’re not like other guys, and I love that. I love the respect you show me and our relationship, I love that you stand up for me, I love your strong and decent sense of what is right and what is proper. All that and intelligent and funny and interesting and good-looking too. So, since I’m usually pretty honest with you and on here, of course I wonder, why me. But I also learnt today that, well, most people wonder why their partner chose them of all people.

And hell, I’m interesting and funny and clever and gorgeous too. Shame that I’m just a bit more articulate on screen than I am to your face, because if I haven’t said all or most of this before I probably meant to do so. I particularly like the phrase ‘verbal pseudo-Mobius strip’ but that’s not usually relevant.

So Now We Wait

CVs have been sent out everywhere. The Great CV Spamming Mission continues when I go back to Uni Town. And then I merely wait, and hope, and pray. Without a job to occupy me and support me in all manner of ways, this year will be truly awful, because I simply won’t have the money to do all the things which, right now, seem crucial to my happiness and such. And I would like to work. I’ll enjoy it. And, I think, I’m good at it. I’ll be more organised and more responsible and more grown-up and this year could be just what the doctor ordered if it all turns out OK. Let’s hope.

Promise – soon I’ll write something genuinely worth reading, rather than all this angsty drivel and planning and such. This currently reads like a cross between my Filofax and my journal; you’ll know it’s bad when my packing list appears up here cross-referenced with What I Have Eaten Today And How I Feel in another parallel itemised list. Look forward to it.

Oh, yes, and talking of eating, well, apparently I am Completely Mad and perfectly slender, but I just feel guilty for eating, for not eating, for drinking, for worrying you all, for hating the body people tell me I should love, but that’s just how it is. I shouldn’t still be thinking like this at the grand old age of 20.

Now for that packing list… .

I…

…don’t know where I stand on anything today.

…have a million things to get done.

…really don’t know how I’m going to get everything sorted in time for the year to start.

…haven’t a clue how all my belongings are getting to Uni-Town.

…have just discovered that my father reads my blog.

…don’t know how I feel about this.

…am kind of complimented by him on my writing style, ‘but you shouldn’t write so often or get so angry about the university, Jenny, someone will see’.

…think he could be right.

…have been encouraged to wonder about going into some kind of scientific journalism.

…simply no longer have the time left in my life to become a wife, mother and doctor.

…have to sacrifice the doctor dream once and for all, probably.

…don’t know how I feel about this yet.

…am confused by my own moral compass.

…am confusing my moral compass.

…am utterly unsure of myself and my body and my mind and my soul sometimes.

…am in a really peculiar mood today.

I am.

Today…

…I am visiting my grandmother. I am probably redrafting my CV. I am hoping the weather stays good and that we get out in it. I am hoping for damsons. I want to make jam at some point. I am hoping to see P. I am hopeful in general. I am planning on drinking lots of tea, and having a wonderful, relaxing time, possibly doing some knitting. I am enjoying the autumn, and the freedom, and ignoring the fact that if I get a job I won’t be able to take much in the way of holiday, so Christmas could get interesting. I want to be home to see people, but I don’t want to take too much of my holiday so that I still have plenty to take in the summer, so that I can still come home for weekends and odd days and the occasional edition of the pub quiz whenever I want to. I am hoping. I am planning. I am enjoying, I am relaxing, and I am waiting. I am wondering. I am praying. And I am moving on. I am not stopping, because if I stop I might forget how to breathe.