For the record
I have asked to do something career changing at school.
If I am allowed then I find out tomorrow.
I yam scared and excited.
Woo.
On another note - if you have dedicated something to someone (like a trophy, or a work of art, or a book) can you take it away if you don't like them anymore?
Something from nothing
I've been meaning to blog for ages because I used to find it a really good way of organising my muddled thoughts.
But so much has happened that it's almost impossible to know where to start... and if I'm not careful I'll just end up making lists of good things and bad things, a poor bloggers trick (and one I to often use).
So I sit here in my school, waiting for the bell. I have to get the bus tonight because my new car broke. Rubbish! I have a girlie evening with my uni mates next week, I'm being enveloped back into their fold and it feels lovely. I tried too hard to be friends with the unpleasable for the majority of my twenties and its taking me a while to remember how to be myself. It's fun though.
Tomorrow is Australia day and my antipodean friends and I are heading to my local walkabout to tie kangaroos down and drink schooners of VB.
Anyway...
Blue plaques - I love them and read everyone I see, but I must be a bad historian because I rarely know who anyone is:
Thomas Tree: Philosopher, philanthropist and inventor of time visited the dentist here in 1921.
Karl Marcheti: Revolutionary. His sister lived here 1919-1923.
All I know is that they invariably conjure up images of red wine, long nights and leather chairs... there would be cigar smoke surrounding the blue plaque owner at all times. These are the rules.
Perhaps I should start smoking cigars, because I would like my own blue plaque one day. But as this rambling sod of a diary attests to - I never do anything worth writing down.
Things: Nice/Not Nice
Nice things
1. My best friend from uni is coming to live with the boy and me following a break up with her boyfriend.
2. It should be really fun – we used to get on stupidly well as students – drunk, eating crap, sleeping in the same bed (the boy has special hopes for that one I think!). Better still is the fact that she has volunteered to pay rent – which I hadn’t asked for, but now means that
3. I can buy the shiny new wardrobes that I have had my eyes on! Plus my parents gave me a car for Christmas (although I can’t drive), so the boy sold his skanky excuse for a car for a few hundred and so we can go on a fun weekend in February.
4. I’m thinking… Budapest. Anyone been there?
5. Also, my tutor says my first draft of my first Masters essay is OK. Which is good because I now just have to tweak it, waffle through a few more lines of the conclusion and it’s done, rather than having to rewrite it.
6. Also, I went to my new course yesterday and it was fantastic. 17th century politics are yummy.
7. It looks increasingly likely that I will be able to set up a classics department in my school next year, and be head of it. How much fun is that?
8. I am going to dinner with my friend for his birthday on Friday and there will be two celebrity comedians present. I’m already laughing!
Not so nice things
1. I am shattered from marking, and have to take on a girls geography class because the teacher has gone on maternity leave. Very inconsiderate pregnant lady. When they told me I cried, because I hate geography – a subject which requires you to copy and colour in maps as far as I can remember.
2. The crying may have been due to exhaustion (see first point).
3. At college yesterday I accidentally volunteered to do a presentation on the imagery of Charles I next week, which means I have to spend the weekend in the library AGAIN. Still, at least it’s fairly close to the shops.
4. Last night, the condom broke.
On balance, not so bad!
Better?
I’ve been desperately trying to think of something to talk about between being back to school, attending half a dozen weddings and trying to grapple with the idea of Elizabeth I as a feminist icon for my masters essay.
And I wonder if that might be the problem – that I am too busy to have anything to really say. I can remember being bored out of my brain, lonely and wanting a boyfriend penning 5 entries a day – all of them saying ME ME ME! Notice me world – even if I barely seem to exist. SEE me NOTICE me.
I exist too much at the moment… being pulled apart from pillar to post and beyond. The marking is piling up, the essay is (frankly)crap, the rounds are being gotten in and there is SingStar. Waiting.
I’ve been sad for a few days now, and the boy is frustrated about how long this will go on for. “Will you be better by the weekend?” he asked this morning as I painted an airhostess smile across my face with a melon juicy tube.
Better by the weekend? I can’t be any better than this, I’m barely staying afloat!
Actually...
This year has been a strange one, and quite uppy-downy in a way that befits the final part of my 20’s.
I saw the last New Year in with my then boyfriend, watching my parents celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. I will end it with a (different) live in partner who is soon to ask me to marry him (or so I am led to believe).
Between this there has been some upheaval, some soul searching and a fair portion of hurt… but really more than anything there has been a feeling that everything is finally just right.
I wish that somebody could have told me the end of this tale when I was younger… not because it would have changed anything, but because I think I would have enjoyed the reality TV, the Vegas wedding and the white powdered Champagne nights a little more knowing where I would finally land.
I saw Love Actually last night, with the third boyfriend I have had since it was released. And I realised something important, as the cat curled up on my knee. I realised that I have been on a journey over those three years. An epic journey.
When I first watched the movie I was compared often to the naughty PA who gets an expensive necklace for Christmas, but ultimately spends it alone. This time I was the Portuguese girl… happy, in love and with the world (and Colin Firth) laid out before her wrapped in fairy lights.
I envied my parents last year for their obvious love and devotion. Now I finally know that I have the potential for all of that myself. The only person who can fuck it up is me…
Sadly, on past form…
Eating curry after 9pm fucks with your head!
Last night I dreamed my whole family were lined up and shot
In a theme park
By my ex boyfriend
...and
Suddenly you’re 30.
You’re a little bit more hurt.
Winters seem more frequent than summers and it’s Christmas again.
And you don’t know if you’ve made the right choices because there have been too many and you can’t remember them all.
The Christmas tree looks the same as last year.
Your parents aren’t 'doing' presents this year. But you’re a bridesmaid in a sparkly red dress for someone who has loved you for a long time. And the boy will be there to dance with you.
Your very own perfect Ken doll. Just like you always wanted for Christmas.
But daddy looks tired because he’s been very ill. You worry but your life is far away. Should you move back home maybe? Not home-home but near? Would the boy like it?
Would you?
In the mornings there are cuddles and the boy dances with you in his arms to radio 2. They are strong arms.
And the cat licks your nose.
Your knees feel 30, and you remember your nana telling you that she felt 21. You feel 21. Tired 21. And your hangovers hurt too much to bear. They aren’t funny. MacDonalds doesn’t taste good.
But it’s summer in New Zealand.
It’s always summer somewhere.