Category: General

…I’ve finally got around to seeing Serenity. My god, it’s fantastic. They need to make the prequel (ideally as another series) though, I *need* to know how they get to where they are at the start of the film, from where they are at the end of the series.

And watching it having seen the series makes it so much more painful; I suspect. Because you *know* characters…

But I shan’t say any more…

Also, I’ve downloaded the American Edit album (David Gray), it’s fucking excellent. Go, fetch it now, ignore that cease and desist and listen to another fantastic album. Incidentally, ccc have put up 18 tracks, I’m not sure which ones are old and new, but I need to go looksie :-)

I’ve also been very good, I’ve been reading papers (dissertation work) – organised my dissertation meeting (well, he rang me, but anyway), eaten salad and grapefruit for lunch, and managed to contact the person who arranged a lecture whilst I was away so I get sent the stuff that I need for my next placement. *shiny*.

The entire house now smells of burning hair(drier); combined with the fresh and lovely scent of 3 week old cocktail sausages/spinnach/cucumber (that was the most revolting thing in the fridge, cuccumber that was so soft I had to get a bag to pick it up with).

I’ve got breakfast in front of me. Ciccone is playing music to bring me up to a more hopeful mood, breakfast, shopping, make appointments, do stuff. Yay.

As a welcome home gift my hairdrier (6 years old) attempted to catch fire. I’m not sure if it would have, but I turned it on and the motor which before I left was getting iffy and needing a bit of encouragement limped round a few times, the heater elements glowed red… I clouted it, the normal approach to making it run (‘cos it’s too cheap to fix, really). They continued to glow red. If anything got redder as the fan continued it’s uneven struggle against moving. I switched it off, realising that I’d rather be in control of switching it off than launching a flaming hairdrier out the window. It sat for a second or two and then smoke started to come out. Having cooled down it went in the bin outside.

I’ve unpacked.

*sigh*

I found strips of paper from ‘Things’. Bizzarely they’re not all from one round, so I’ve got *no* idea what they’re doing in my suitcase. Fucking weird. Reminds me of Alaska (which helps loads at the moment). My mum’s had upsetting news (she wanted to become a buddhist nun, and can’t ‘cos there’s an age-cap in the UK).

Let me share with you some pearls of wisdom
– Getting locked outside your house naked
– Goblins
– One skinny panther, free to good home
– Your dildo
– Wanted: Dominatrix who also washes windows
– Absolute happiness

Yeah. So here I am. I’ve found my dissertation stuff, cunningly I’d put it in an folder marked ‘dissertation’. I’m so sneaky sometimes. I guess I really should eat breakfast and head to the supermarket. Put clothes away. Fashion an e-mail to the people I said I’d e-mail. Not curl up and hide under a rock. Open my post. Blah.

So, this was my post. Started when I was in Alaska. Gone now, rewritten, reworded, replaced. I feel rough still.

I made it part way through my case before stopping. I needed to stop. I’m surrounded by reminders of a failed relationship. A friendship formed, it doesn’t make up for that loss… That loss of feeling loved. Of feeling… like I was with someone. I feel so alone.

I don’t know if it’s me? Is it me? Am I the problem?

Am I just incapable of maintaining whatever it is you need to have a decent long term relationship?

Am I just too messy? Too different? Is there anyone who will ever love me for who I am? I felt, feel, so comfortable with Trey that she saw all of me. My dichotomous character exposed for her to see, I don’t know. I’m very lost. Very very lost.

I was okay. I am, I will be okay. I am not… at the moment… okay. I just… I don’t… I hurt.

Okay, I’m home.

Nikki (very kindly) drove to London and picked me up from my flight, which touched down at 11pm. We didn’t get back until 2am. My watch is still on Palmer time, I think it’s midnight there…roughly.

I’ve now been home about 8 hours. I’ve rung Alaska to let people know I’ve got home. Oooh, this keyboard feels oddly clunky after using a Mac one for three weeks (I did *choose* this one to feel clunky, but it’s also ancient). I’ve got a list as long as my arm of things I need to do. People to ring, work to do, shopping to do, laundry, people I promised I’d e-mail when I got back, unpacking, clearing (some) of Trey’s stuff out of my room.

That was hard. Coming back to the room we shared. Her starfish sat on the tallboy… reminders of us everywhere. No friends, no Alaskan mountains or pusscat to keep me from thinking. It took about 20 minutes for me to get to sleep despite the fact I’d not slept for 31ish hours (ooh, no wonder I feel rough this morning (I’ve had about 6 hours of sleep)). Just kept cycling through thoughts…

Lauren did something really sweet though, the house is decorated for xmas and has a big WELCOME HOME KATE banner across the lounge. I really feel like just snuggling up in a heap of myself today, but I’ve got too much to do. Bah. And if I do that it’d be all to easy for me to slide into the depression I’ve felt since I got on the plane home. That’s the problem with coming home. I’ve got to deal with my life.

I’ve got a draft post that’s been sat here waiting for me to finish it, one of the more personal posts, but I think starting that now would also be a bad idea. I need to settle back into my life a bit. Although I can’t hide behind a relationship and whatever, oh, too much to explain here. ANyway, I should shower and eat.

I want the mountains back.

So…

Okay, I’m not a christian, right? I don’t believe in God (upper or lowercase G); indeed I firmly believe there is no god of any sort.

Xnas for me is just a time to get together and celebrate friends and family – and pretty much since my childhood it’s been that way. My secondary school was extremely secular – and I didn’t do RE (it was taught by a born again Christian and me and my mum didn’t feel they were giving an adequate balance). I didn’t do RE at primary school for the same reason, and really was so young that hanging around while they sang the odd carol was not too much torment, I was never asked to sing hymns or carols…

But what I did get was the stories of decimation of my mum’s family by ‘Christian Pilgrims’; it’s why I have such utter distaste for any religous sponsored aid effort. If you can’t do it because it’s a good and worthwhile thing to do, then don’t. And if you’re going to dress up your aid with requirements in belief then you can stick that aid somewhere else.

Anyway, so we were looking round the Colony Christmas stuff, and Kara’s Grandmother happened to spot us and suggest we should look round the restored colony house and come and sing some carols… So we looked round the house, entertained by her Grandmother’s descriptions of what her childhood was like there, in a house almost exactly the same.

Reminiscing about the furniture and products…

And then they started to sing Carols… now, I quietly wandered off back to look round the rest of the house. I’m, as I’ve said, not a Christian. If people want to praise god, that’s up to them, they have every right to believe in what they believe, but perhaps because of the stories of what organised religion does? I couldn’t really deal with being there. But looking around was fine… Only it wasn’t.

I felt increasingly uncomfortable. I’ve always noticed that about overt displays of religiousity outside of churches, I just find them uncomfortable.

But after a few carols it went beyond uncomfortable. It went into down right feeling like I needed to get the hell out of there. As it started heading towards what felt like my first panic attack (a new tomy product, I’m sure); I decided I needed to get out of there. Having wandered around aimlessly for a bit I gave up and headed back to the house. I had no idea it (religion) could make me so uncomfortable. I’m still shocked at my reaction. I guess the stories my mum told had stuck in my head rather more than maybe I’d realised.

Next you’ll be expecting Chocolate I suppose?

At any rate; I’m not really feeling a whole bundle better than my last post. Being around Trey is like… well, it hurts, let’s put it that way.

Even just in the same room as her is hard. It makes me want to go and lurk somewhere other; so hell, here I am, wasting time on the Computer – same old same old.

(more…)

Love is the thing.

It’s the thing that makes you feel like you’re flying higher than anything else in the world; like you’re the best person on the entire planet. Like you’re the best fucking thing ever.

But it’s also the thing that can leave you shattered and raw worse than any accident, that can cut you and leave you bleeding worse than any knife.

I’m 4 and a half thousand miles from home, and my partner doesn’t love me anymore. For all my stuff about feeling like home and being welcomed by her friends I feel completely alone and lost. I don’t know what to do. I just feel shattered. I love her still, but I look into her face and I know she doesn’t love me.

So, I’ve just turned on my laptop for the first time since I got here; the wonders of the Universal Powersupply meaning that despite having no battery the laptop works over here on the 110volt supply.

Yeah.

Being over here.

It’s very odd.

I guess a factor of my childhood and the bullying and the ‘aloneness’ is that I am generally at home anywhere; I can envisage myself living virtually anywhere (once I’m there). I had this feeling that Trey wanted me to come here not just to see her friends and be with her, but also to fall in love with the place and want to move here.

(more…)

So, yeah. Here. It’s snowy. Really snowy, or should I say ‘real snowy’.

I’ve been ‘good’ today, got down to some work, reading through the UWE stuff; it’s hard though, Trey’s friends are really cool, and it just feels like 3 weeks is piddly-small, I want more time damnit!

To make it extra-special fun, Trey and Rachel and Kaisa (and, in fact, everyone bar Kara) organised and kept secret Rachels visit, so that suddenly at some horrendous time two nights ago, Rachel ‘appeared’ at the window thus totally freaking out Kara. Which was very yay :)

Anyway, yesterday, for the non-Americans among us, was Thanksgiving. (more…)