*an infinite star*

Hello, Journal! 3:54pm

Well, 'ello there buddy, I've missed you loads. The truth is I haven't been that busy being off uni and all but I just have been lazy with updates and the like. It looks like I'm taking a break from writing too. It is not quite writer's block but it just isn't flowing. The days are starting to get longer. I don't care what people say. I think England is lovely and its food is amazing. I wish people were a bit more outgoing because no one will talk to you in queues and the like but I guess if that's the largest extent of my culture shock then I am doing pretty well.

Getting used to Geordies speaking is hard! They all speak very differently. Like, the travel agent will speak with an accent that's a lot thicker from that lady at the shop or something like that, which makes very little sense to me and sometimes it takes me a couple of minutes to shift from one accent deciphering mode to another so I think people think I'm retarded. I do like it here though, as expensive and cold as it is.

I applied for a job at Uni. I use the term job here quite loosely as it is more going on Uni's facebook and letting people know about events and the like. I don't really go out that much... If I'm going to drink, I'd rather stay in and drink, or go to a pub or something, although my friend Alex and I went to Powerhouse and had a gay and girls night out and it was wonderful. Clubs are fun when no one is hitting on you! More reason to go back to the gay district.

So James had an exam today even though it's early saturday, bless him. He had to get up super early and he left home after having some toast. Now he's rehearsing for his band's last uni project, some 45 minute jazz piece. I wish I could sing but I just can't seem to get the breathing right.

Might go bowling later if friends are up for it. Having it large tonight, hehe. Maybe not though, James might be too tired. I wouldn't be against a night in with a book. I'm rereading the time traveler's wife after a failed experiment to put a very long audiobook in my ebook reader replacing the hundreds of books I had in there and since I formatted my computer now I have to go trekking for them if I wanna get them back. At least this book is nice.

Love you kiddos!

7:18pm

period cramps are BOGUS, dude.

I like Bill and Ted.

yeah. life. 5:31pm

am taking a break in the usual programming of producing draft after draft after draft to use this as a plain, out of the mill, more than extremely regular blog. I feel the need to ask myself some questions and they are better on paper, they somehow seem - a bit more real. Do you ever find yourself feeling depressed for no real reason, but just because you think your partner has at some point cuddled with an ex and enjoyed it or because you think you can’t put up christmas lights or because your ear is buzzing and it makes you want to cry? Do you ever feel anxious over things you shouldn’t take seriously, like when people say you are harsh when you read their work and critique them or when, even though you can easily make friends, you start to distance yourself for the people you know for no other reason than other people make you uncomfortable? Do you ever find yourself wailing because you cannot peel a potato right or because you didn’t throughouly cook that pizza, cannot spell throughouly and thus you’re an awful human being? Do you find that it only happens a few times a month (most of the time you are quite content) but when it happens it is absolutely unbearable? Has your GP suggested antidepressents if they remedy you are taking doesn’t work? Are you seriously considering it? Do you need behavioural therapy but don’t have the guts or motivation or time to go get it? Would you rather watch television and eat ice cream?

If so, welcome to my life. I know I’ll feel better soon, just… damn.yeah

10:28am

The view from my house. It's the first time I've seen proper snow so I'm extremely excited.

( Snowy! )

All I got 5:43pm

Newton Faulkner is so in my mind. All I got to do is make myself relax All I gotta do is keep my brain on track

The Good Story 11:26pm

I looked down at my hand. It was still swollen and had now begun to bruise. It was clear that it had been quite mangled as the cuts were just beginning to close and they still hurt when anything brushed past them. The cuts had been deep. They probably needed stitches but I couldn't be bothered to go to a hospital and things like that had been happening for so long that I figured it really wasn't that big of a deal.
I know now that there is nothing I could've done to stop what was happening to me. I realise that back then I didn't even know what was happening to me and that I was very happy to keep it that way. Denial goes a long way, says my shrink. If I had gotten help for it, it might've stopped. Now I’m just waiting in limbo, basically waiting to die. I have wondered off from my original topic, it’s one of my bad habits to do that. It’s just that, down here, I’ve got all the time in the world. There are no due times or places to go. I can never be late for work or university because this small cave is my home. I don’t mind it, to be honest. It’s very nice and warm. It’s just what my eyes need, somewhere dark and narrow.
So, anyway, I looked at my hands and there it was, swollen and nasty. The skin had turned a dark magenta colour, the middle a soft prairie green and the heart of my hand a yolk yellow. The cuts were no longer fresh but the blood in them didn’t really seem to change. It was slightly darker but only a bit and although it didn’t bleed anymore anyone that looked at all thought I’d just been hurt. I kept it covered with a thick winter glove until I got in my room. I hadn’t noticed it being so bad. I didn’t pay that much attention to it and started to undress. It was a Saturday and I was taking a lovely girl out for drinks. She was beautiful, long blonde hair and big, bright black eyes. I looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was sticking to the sides of my head and I was sweating profusely. I felt a stab of pain in my chest. Oh, please, not now, I’m going to be late, I told my body, but it rarely listens. I couldn’t breathe much, I started to pant and hold the edge of my bed so I wouldn’t fall. There was a low pitched ringing in my ears and I suddenly could smell coal in my nose. It felt like it was burning the hairs inside my nose, going all the way into my sinuses, my ears and my eyes. The overwhelming smell became a burning sensation. My eyes were watering as I fell to the floor. I heard my head hit and bounce of the wooden floor but I didn’t feel anything. Struggling to keep my eyes open and crawl up in bed so that at least my fortnightly demise would be comfortable I crawled for about two steps before the sharp chest pain stopped me. I gasped, throwing my hands about, looking for air wherever I could find it. After this, it gets kind of blurry and disorganised. I placed my hands on the wooden floor that was my bedroom and I felt bits of glass shatter my hands on the perfectly clean floor. My mind was racing. Stuff like that had happened before but it was never that bad. I was trying to contain the spit that was coming out of my mouth but it felt like I had to spit out, it felt like I was about to choke on my own saliva. I glanced quickly at the floor and barely noticed the prints my feet were leaving behind, a lot wider and bigger than my usual prints. I felt a sharp pain in my mouth again, this time in the roots of my teeth. I gasped with pain, putting a hand over my mouth, feeling wet blood drip between my fingers, infiltrating the unhealed old paper cuts. There was nothing I could do then but put my head against the floor and wait for the worst to happen. I was sure I was going to die then and I wanted to do it as peacefully as possible. Your Woman by White Town was playing on repeat on my computer and the house was quiet except for the screams and yelps of agony coming from me. My willingness to find a phone and call for help had been yanked from me. I closed my eyes, tears of pain and frustration streaming down my face and waited for it to end. I waited for the feeling everyone described, the warm feeling where everything seems to go out of focus and it’s just like you’re falling asleep but the pain just kept getting progressively worse. Steady, steady... that’s what I kept telling myself as I tried to get up again, but nothing happened. The pain shot all the way to my legs and suddenly I felt small paper cuts all over them. They didn’t hurt much but the made the trying to get up a lot more uncomfortable than I had hoped for. Finally as I kneeled up I looked at my hands. I have always been a hairy person but this was just scary. There was hair growing all over my hands. It was short but it was thick and dark. I felt like I was looking out. I couldn’t be looking at myself. I was having an out of body experience. Hallucinations. Anything. This was just not happening to me.
When the pain finally became slightly milder I got up on my feet. I noticed the ripped clothes on the floor, the blood spatters on the wood. I needed to get out of there, I knew, by then, that I needed professional help. I reached out for the phone but my hand was too big and it couldn’t grip it. It was also hairy and sweaty and the receiver kept falling onto the floor. I backed away from it, horrified, afraid. What is this really was me? What would they do to me then? I had no idea who they might be, but I knew they’d be after me. I pushed the door out with surprising strength, breaking it from its frame. I daren’t look in the mirror. I daren’t look back. I daren’t call my parents. All I could do was sprint downstairs but soon I noticed that I was in all fours and it was a terribly effective way to move. Suddenly I had an urge to laugh. Had that really happened to me? Was I that unlucky? There was nothing I could do then but sit and laugh because when you realize you’ve turned into a mythological creature there’s not much you can do. When my laughter came out it was a good humoured howl. I was startled for a few minutes but then it just made me laugh more and more. Of course it made me laugh. I just had to wait until the morning to become a normal person again. This was also when I decided that I’d be a vegetarian werewolf which didn’t really turn out so well. I noticed I was extremely hungry, my stomach was growling and I smelled meat close by. I tried to tell myself that regardless of what I had turned into I was still a human, a good human at that, and I would never eat an entire person. Well, that’s what I kept telling myself as I tried to knock the doors of the house off. It wasn’t working; however, they seemed to be metal and extremely heavy. It was the first time in my entire life since I lived in that house that I took notice of how thick the doors were. The walls were out of the question, brick and stone all around. My mother came up from the basement, looking shaken and pale. It was easy to tell she had just been crying.
“We knew this day would come,” she said. She has a weird habit of talking like my dad is still alive. “We knew how we were going to handle it.”
“What?” I said, but my voice came out a whistle. I approached her. I could smell the sweat, the meat, the blood flowing through her veins. I could hear her heart. I could taste her in my mouth. I wanted to eat her and I knew it as I took small steps toward her, circled her in the warm, cosy living room I’d grown up in.
“We knew you’d end up like this.” It was the first time I noticed she was holding an automatic gun in her hands. “We bought you a dog when you were a kid. It was a fucking stupid idea. I told your father not to do it.”
I heard this story a million times and I failed to see its relevance then. I started to approach her but she pointed the gun at me and I recoiled. I was scared. I didn’t think my own mother was going to shoot me but I never thought I was going to want to consume her, either. The rules had changed and I was just a pupil of them.
“That stupid dog bit you. That’s when you started getting them cuts and whatnot. Your hands were always bruised. Your hair got thicker, darker. You got thicker and darker.” She shook her head, glaring at me. “It’s a shame, really. You’re a nice lad. Now go downstairs.”
“What?” I said, again, forgetting I wasn’t able to talk.
“I said, get in the fucking basement. We’ll feed you. We’ll take care of you. We love you, Alex, you just, well, you are special. You need some special care. Get in the basement.”
So here I am and that’s my story. I write in my spare time. I study loads, especially about mythology. I am a vegetarian for most of the month. My mom visits sometimes but she is a bit stand-offish. She brings me lots of books, though. That always brightens up my day. There is no light in here but there is a little television. It only gets the Christian channel but that’s alright. I find I’m surprisingly interested in rites. I get hungry sometimes. I smell her up there but I can’t get out, so I howl and howl and howl. I like howling. I find it’s surprisingly stress reliving.

8:39pm

So, let's see... going to Paris the day after tomorrow with the love of my life, enjoying england more than ever... the weather is a bit shit and I've started saying tomaTO instead of tomatoe but oh well, things happen. I start uni the 29th but I have to go to some crap introduction thing for study abroad students. I tried writing a bit today but I'm feeling all bleh. Stupid hormones don't let me enjoy being on top of the world. Isn't that the silliest thing? I know I need to see a doctor soon, but I can't right now with no insurance and my student visa will only be stamped on our way back in the country so for now I'm pretty much uncovered. I don't know what I want, I just want the downs to stop being so down, the ups I don't mind, really. Well, except when I get really angry for no reason. The apartment is lovely. This is a wall of text. I shall take pictures in France and fulfill the promise of photographical evidence that is still undelivered. I love all my friends. That includes you guys.

4:19pm

making pointless entry for posterity.
I will probably write more about England and stuff later today.

12:47am

So I was with the boy, finally. The ones of you who've been reading my journal for a long time know who James is: my first love, my first real, actual obsession, my first incredibly dysfunctional relationship.  We never met in real life, blah blah blah, moved on, had a bunch of shitty and good relationships and we started talking about when my relationship with Brian was crumbling and his was already dead. So funnily enough (because we're both serial monogamists) we discovered that we actually did enjoy talking to each other a lot and that we had changed... but not that much. We still loved talking to each other and all that good stuff. So finally, after everything was over with Brian, things evolved and we started dating again. I told him I was in love with him and he said he loved me back. Then he said he'd come see me this March and finally, after a lot small let downs, he came through. And let me tell you something: there is nothing more amazing than being with him. Seriously, it's like a fairytale. It was like we'd been together for years, everything was natural, fun, funny - everything was excellent. The moment we first saw each other was so beautiful it still makes me sort of teary-eyed whenever I think of it. I was nervous as fuck and wearing this brown dress and had spent an insane amount of time on my hair/make-up (so I looked like I wasn't wearing any), and of course it was sunny as hell and I had to drive three hours to the airport. The international gate was just that, a gate, wasn't even a place to sit down for the ones of us waiting for people. A really nice British couple was sitting next to me trying to make conversation and I just smiled and I think I looked like I didn't speak English, but I was too nervous to speak. And then he came out - I'm pretty sure I didn't see him behind the glass doors but by this time I was pacing around aimlessly.... Then I saw him and we locked eyes from across the street and my feet were stuck on the cement. I was speechless. Seriously, he was everything I was expecting (actually a little shorter, which made it easier to kiss him.) Then I sort of started walking to him, and he made a "wtf bitch why aren't you running" face, and I half-trotted the rest of the way and then I just put my arms around his neck without even thinking about it. I think I was trembling. I was so nervous and he smelled so good. Then one of us - I don't remember who it was - kissed the other one a few times, and I was speechless and he was babbling. And then we had the most two perfect weeks anyone could have together, ever.
Anyway, more adventures to come, but I just had to share that moment.
:)
And yes, that's him. So other than incredibly handsome... did I mention he has a hot as hell English accent? Rights!

10:19pm

oh i nearly forgot
if you want to read some of my work go to this address
http://linad-a.blogspot.com

Right so 10:12pm

Yesterday was a very, very enjoyable day. I thought it was going to be a terrible birthday because the people I love are nowhere near 'round and James wasn't going to be here and it just sucked. Well, I was wrong. First thing that woke me up in the morning (12 exactly, five in the morning by his clock) was his voice, wishing me a happy birthday. It was so sweet it made me want to cry. Then I went back to bed, my parents woke me up at like 9 to wish me a happy birthday, closely followed by my aunt. Then I woke up, had some scrambled eggs, took a shower and talked to James while at the same time I got his present (Flower arrangement + awesome teddy bear named winston) and eions present (69 love songs + book + cd player) then i went to red lobster with my aunt and got some moneys. Anyway, I was never lonely at all and James waited until he could literally not be up anymore because he hated "leaving me alone" on my birthday. It was sweet. I want to do it again!

6:27am

My friends are awesome and it looks like I'm going to get to contribute and probably manage a big website for Colombian writers. Big update coming when I have the will to wake up so more.
Also, my boyfriend gave me a teddy. His name is Winston. He is made of win.

8:01pm

so i wrote something for the boy but i don't know if it's too corny and i shouldn't give it to him... opinions?


“I love you more.” He said, and crossed his arms, announcing silently the end of their nightly ritual. His tussled brown hair fell carelessly on the pillow as he blinked, his dark green eyes bright and full of love for the woman he planned - he knew was going to make his wife. She stuck her tongue out at him and shrugged, smiling, in playful defeat. “Now give that here!”
He reached for the remote control, surely looking for a playful fight that would eventually lead into sex, but she was suddenly tired and decided to just give it to him. She took a notebook from her nightstand and started to write a line to a future poem, but gave in midway - sometimes she didn’t realize what she was writing, and the words on paper surprised her. The only thing I love more than him - She wondered if she should continue writing as she gave him a long, thoughtful look. He had grasped the remote control tightly and he was distractedly watching a documentary about - about antelopes? She chuckled quietly. He shot her a questioning look and she responded by shrugging. The room they were in was the essence of their lives, her notebooks and his guitars scattered around on what could be a spacious floor, but they never saw the bottom of. The TV was only on at the wee hours of the morning, when they went to bed together. Her clothes and his clothes were scattered around on a pile of dirty laundry, clothes that he wore during the day and she wore at night because they had the lingering smell of him - the cologne, the metallic smell, the tea he had tried to get her to drink millions of times and she still couldn’t stand - and they made her feel safe, warm and protected, the way he did when he was around. Books were piled up in corners with stuffed animals and trip mementos. They had a hard time walking every time they got out of bed - and each one had their fair share of fits about it, usually blaming one another for the mess, but she realized she found it sweet, familiar and - she looked down at the paper and sighed. He reached out with his left hand, placed it on her neck and distractedly started to give her a massage. She smiled. The only thing she loved more than him was having him as her home.

6:33pm

IM IN A MANIC MOOD
IM IN LOVE WITH MY BOYFRIEND
LIKE
THIS MUCH


























its ridiculously unfair

4:20pm

Vanilla and chocolate soaked in red wine. That’s the kind of cake I want for my wedding. What else do I want for my wedding? Maybe a guy. My family shouldn’t be there. There should be lots of alcohol I wouldn’t have had to pay for while my exorbitant amount of gay friends mingle with each other and wonder if my wedding is not actually a gay bar. The linen should be off-white mixed with laced, delicate pink knitting patterns on top that are carelessly covered by lucky bamboos. There needn’t be chairs, everyone should take a cushion and sit on the floor where hookahs abound and the air smells like tobacco, fruit and perfume. A big Dali painting should cover the brick walls and small mirrors should hang from the ceiling making the already psychotic atmosphere tacky and disgusting so that everyone will leave when I feel like they shouldn’t be there.

12:47am

I just read all my entries in the journal. HOLY SHIT I'M EMO.

11:34am

"so we should take a break..." said Brian. "...for a year."
I saw it coming, but man.

7:05pm

dislocated my right wrist.
much pain.

7:59pm

Holy crap, I can't wait to watch this movie.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/acrosstheuniverse/large.html

You think I'm an ignorant savage 5:03pm

Today's been better than yesterday. Last night I had an emotional breakdown. I told Brian everything I hadn't told him - those things I have done and promised to keep to myself for ever after months and months of agony over them. When I tried to thing of more things that I had done my mind went blank, except for this one incident but it's so blurry. Like part of a movie or something. I was crying for about three hours, shaking in his arms. He was making perfect sense as he walked me through the whole thing, kissing me, wiping away my tears and holding me and it was the sweetest and most bitter moment of my life. I thought I'd bring it with me to the grave. I thought that I might lose him if I ever told him. But he was sweet and beautiful and graceful and understanding. That made me cry even more. And the way he looked at me, so admiring! He said "It just happened once. After what happened to you, the fact that you did that only once is not an awful thing. It's an awful mistake, I can't say it isn't. But the fact that you did it only once after all the years you endured of it... That makes it heroic". And I was just shaking and crying. Today I feel free and beautiful and ready to punch in the face anyone who disrespects me. I feel liberated and it's all because of him. Yet I feel sick, tired. I feel lucky to have someone like Brian in my life. That moment made me so certain of us, of me wanting to spend the rest of my life with him. My eyes are watery now just thinking about it.
Other than that, my day has been fairly boring. I read Little Children and have come to the conclusion that living in the suburbs would make me infinitely unhappy. Maybe when I'm like 30 and I have already been published and I actually want to have a child I'll allow him and me to go to the suburbs. I have to have a novel or something published first because I will feel like a total failure if I dedicate my life to raise a child and start writing after I'm retired. Plus, I'd resent the child. And Brian. The last thing I want to do is resent Brian.
In other news, I'm thinking of just walking three walks away to avoid the guard. We became friends I guess and when he greets me he kisses me on the cheek, which i find completely normal. But lately hes been grabbing me and actually giving me a kiss on the cheek and it creeps me the hell out. It makes me feel like he fantasizes about me when we greet each other and he's just some old man. I want to punch him in the face but he's the guard so I'd get into a shitload of trouble. I'm just going to wait downstairs until I see the metromover coming and then go up the escalator so I don't have to run into him. If anything, I'll just say I'm in a hurry. And if he tries that shit again, I'll just tell him I don't like it. I'll tell him very politely that I don't want to be rude but it makes me feel uncomfortable. Yeah, that's what I'll do.
Work has been so slow today it's not even funny.
I've gotten to pleasant surprises: A phone call from a guy with a deep voice in a beautiful southern British accent asking for some random person and a hot math teacher. Who could ever think that one up? What was funny was that he looked like the voice belonged to him. Also, I need to ship my camera to the repair shop so I can get it back at least for when we go apartment hunting. I'm here until seven and it's already five. I guess that's a good thing.
I've been giving serious thought to becoming actively involved in feminism in Colombia but all the things I've written about it (that time the maid's friend came home with a black eye and blood dripping down her legs, the way people look at you like you're a piece of meat waiting to be consumed, the guy that grabbed my ass when I was jogging in the park and had me chase him down for three blocks before he vanished from sight, the boyfriend who thought I wanted to get pregnant to keep him from "leaving" me, the boyfriend's mother who thought that if I didn't make food with her and went to do the dishes after I was done having dinner at her house I was unworthy of her little son, the dozens of men who have told me of all their escapades) seem to be either too silly or too mighty. Trying to educate thousands of people seems unlikely. All those times I was published in the paper back home, all of those times, I was writing of something pleasant, something everyone liked. Girls are going through university but they are still as chauvinistic as fifty years ago and I honestly don't understand it. I'm not defenseless because I've got a vagina and breasts.
What really pisses me off isn't that: it's the fake feminist. The ones that say that feminism is not about choice, it's about having to go and pursue a career and all that stuff. Feminist telling Muslims not to wear a jihad. When they have consciously made the decision themselves. Feminism is about choices! If I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom feeding my sextuplets (let's really, really hope not) then I should be allowed to be without all this feminist wannabes looking down on me. After all, feminism is about choices and equality for both genders. I don't want sexual politics or the right to take advantage over men prisoners or the fact that I'm a woman interfere with the law. I use it right now, to be honest. It's the closest we can get to an equal society, isn't it? To use sexual politics as a way to escape all the crap we do have to put up with.
I so wish there was a bit I could do. Those times I've tried speaking my mind I've been booed at, looked down on, stared at, given indulgent smiles and a bunch of middle aged people nodding their head yes and thinking I'll grow out of it. Well, I've got fucking news for them. I'll never grow out of what's right.
That's why I love the US. At least they pretend not to look at you like you're a piece of meat.

Keeping a blog for creative writing 6:13pm

so I'm going to xpost everything here:

I'm having an awful day. First, I forgot what day it was today. Consequently, I forgot that today was my mom's birthday so I forgot to call her. I didn't even realize it was her birthday until she called me and she was like "Do you know what day it is today?"
And I was like "No, why?"
And she goes "... it's my birthday"
and of course I had forgotten that it was the 20th of May so I just go like... uh, sorry... Happy birthday!
But then she's already sad and I feel like a total bitch so I'm just thinking of how bad of a daughter I am. I tell her I feel awful and so she goes like"aww, no, don't feel bad" so then I hung up and felt really bad and wanted to cry.
But I didn't, instead I almost lit the kitchen on fire because I turned the arepa I was making over and it had cheese on it. Because I was making three, the kitchen started to get full of smoke because I was talking to some dude at the same time. Anyway, dude is from home and we were talking about all the wonderful types of arepas we've had. While he was telling me about this mouth-watering recipe that his aunt makes for him, which has cheese in the middle and everything. All the cookies we made on saturday are gone.
I think I'm too much of a sweets lover to be a health junkie, but I still feel like I should go to the gym more.
In other news, I'm a big fat blob waiting for my period to arrive. Ugh. Tomorrow I have the 1-7 shift at work and that's when everyone gets bitchy, plus my boss is coming back from vacation and she'll be like "oh, did Dr. Ken say this about you? What about this? What about this?" and because I'm so paranoid I'll believe everything he's ever said it's about me and my performance will go to shit. Seriously, how hard can it possibly be to answer the phone?
I like my job but I'm glad I'm leaving soon. I think I'm not meant to have a job. I think I'm just meant to write and bake cookies. Maybe have some children to neglect. I'd be an awful housewife, I can't even put cheese on the freaking stove.
In better news, Lourdes is getting rid of her books so... I'm happy about that. Some are really corny middle aged women kindda crap, but I've found that some of them are actually... well, they kill time. We watched 28 Weeks Later yesterday. I liked 28 Days Later much, much better. This didn't really have a plot, but it did have people eating each other's eyes. There was one scene where the guy with the virus grabs his wife and gags her eyes out as he eats her. It was so wonderful. Made me happy.
Ugh, I need to charge my cellphone. I always forget to charge my cellphone. Grrr.
I think we're eating chicken tonight. I'm tired, I need to go to sleep.

4:27pm

No burlesque clubs in Miami, huh?
*cry*

la ra ra.... 11:15pm

so, um, finals. Yay?

10:01am

8:14pm

New hairdo! Edited because microblast told me to. lol. Ta-da!