"Heaven is whenever..."

"...We can get together."


So I've had a particularly rubbish week. I've been coming down with a cold, so after struggling through Monday at work I sacked off the pub quiz that evening and called in sick on Tuesday. Turns out, being off work is brilliant but only when you're not actually ill... Obviously I appreciated the chance to watch some terrible TV (ANTM anyone? Nope, just me then...) but generally it's just killing time until someone comes along to entertain you. 

Wednesday saw me back in work, but being repeatedly told how ill I looked and how I should go home... A big confidence booster, I can tell you. But I had to be in to prepare for my mammoth Thursday - anyone fancy 4 hours of back-to-back meetings, being filmed and no lunch? So when Friday rolled around (with a sneaky pub lunch served by what could be the IDENTICAL TWIN of Theon Greyjoy from Game of Thrones) I was ready to crawl into my Spiderman onesie and stick my snotty nose in a good book. 

My Filofax , though, had other plans (yes, I said Filofax. Deal with it). Dinner at my (gorgeously hyperactive) friend's flat in Sawbo to spend the night with some of my oldest and best friends. 

And I could not be more grateful I dragged myself there. 

I know everyone thinks they have the best mates, but they really really don't. Because I do. It doesn't matter how often I see C., HSnr. and HJnr., they always have something interesting to talk about, some new perspective on my problems, and some horrific but hilarious anecdote. 

Us in Prague, August 2011

After about a million menthol rollies, a few bottles of wine, rum and gin, and 4 hours of Trivial Pursuit, we had covered most of the basics: life, love, mental health, dreams, sex, music, and drugs. I had also had a couple of epiphanies about myself, the main one being that I can answer a goodly amount of Trivial Pursuit questions but only when it's someone else's go. 

What I admire most about my friends is their unflinching honesty. Things are rarely perfect or even pretty but that just doesn't matter. We take whatever people have/who they are and we embrace, relate to, and accept it all. Who could ask for more?

The best end to a shitty week. (Not including the drunk guy who sat next to me on the train home. Nor me having to pick up his can of cider when he tipped it over. Nor the looks of others when I then smelt of cider. Sigh.)


*Quote from The Hold Steady.

"This is no declaration, I just thought I'd let you know goodbye..."

"...Said the hero in the story"

Hello Easter Monday! 

You join me on my bed in my pyjamas, hair scraped back, surrounded by chocolates (and choco wrappers) with a treasured cup of tea (containing the last of the milk). Perfect setting to do some Facebook Culling. (Please accept the use of 'unfriend' and 'defriend' as actually words for this bloglet. Also the word 'bloglet'.) 

*Dips tiny chocolate egg in tea*

I have just unfriended about 20 people. These people are (mostly) lovely, but I asked myself two questions:
1. Would I want to meet up for a cup of coffee with this person? (I would meet for a cup of tea with almost anyone so we have to specify coffee here)
2. If I saw this person on the street/on a train, would I go up and say hello, or would I keep my head down and hope they don't see me? 

*Slurps tea*

If NO to #1, I seriously consider whether I want to actively share my digital life with them. Sometimes this is a clear cut decision but sometimes it's a little more complicated. Say they were someone I used to know, or worked with, who I really liked but haven't seen in a year or so. Therefore no to coffee but not necessary a removal. 

*Unwraps and nibbles egg*

Move on to question #2. If this is AVOID, I unfriend them. Why am I classing myself as a digital friend to someone I wouldn't want to acknowledge in public? Sometimes this is awkward. Sometimes it's the friend of someone you like, or someone you used to be close with but just don't have need for in your life anymore. Sometimes you get a message from them days later asking how they are and saying how weird it is that you're not Facebook friends when they "swear we used to be! LOL!"

Though it's nice they're trying to resurrect the friendship, I find it creepy when someone I don't speak to often notices when I unfriend - I don't post a lot so if you notice we're not friends it means you are Facebook Stalking me. Reinforces the decision to defriend. Sorted. 

*Checks empty mug for more tea*

*Sadface*

If someone defriended me (and I actually noticed) I might be hurt (depending on who they were) but I would ask myself the last time we actually had any contact more than a 'like' on a status or something. If I want to keep people in my life I need to make the effort to keep them, and I hope that my Facebook friends do the same. 

If not, next time I'm too lazy to get dressed and go out they'll be for the chop - mwahahahaha! 


*Quote from Belle & Sebastian 

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead..."

"...I lift my lids and all is born again."

Today on the way to work I finished “Mad Girl’s Love Song”, a biography of Sylvia Plath.

I loved it; I found it very insightful, very gripping and very thought provoking. However, as it ended with her meeting Ted Hughes (as the latter part of her life has been well documented elsewhere) I have been left hungry for more.

It feels very odd to be hungry for a person. I wish to devour them, mind and soul. I want her letters, her words, her thoughts inside me, in my stomach to churn and digest.

I’ve always loved Sylvia Plath, and the more I read of her work and about the woman herself the more I feel an affinity to the ill-fated poet. She looked for doubles and I see her as mine. In the grip of a depression her words resonate with me, in exhilaration only mania brings I see her fevered soul in my eyes.

Is this dangerous? To identify so closely to a woman who took her own life, who indeed seemed destined to do so? My Mother once told me she foresaw and dreaded the day I would abscond from my life, disappear without a goodbye, unable to continue to try and solve the problems I saw with living. Well, she didn’t say it anywhere near as prosaically or as pretentiously as that, but you catch my meaning.

I don’t want to give up on life, but I don’t want to bury that side of me; sometimes at my most broken I feel like my most authentic self. How twisted is that?


*Quote from Sylvia Plath