stars and rivers

Hello, hello.

Along with all my other lovely presents, this year for Christmas I got a big dose of winter blues.

It's regrettable, but otherwise I had a nice Christmas. I wish I could've come back with a happy post, but I just can't as I am more blue than I've been in a while.

Speaking of blue, in my quest to buy all those albums I've always been meaning to buy, a few weeks ago I bought Blue by Joni Mitchell, which insured that my favourite Christmas song this year was her song 'River'. Not strictly a Christmas song, but it mentions that season several times so it's close enough for me. These lyrics have been the refrain circling my head (helped perhaps by the fact I've learnt the song on the piano) :

I wish I had a river / I could skate away on...

I have not been blogging lately, because I have been busy with work. Ha! I've never been able to say that before. Since the end of November, I've been working long hours. More than I've ever worked before. The work as a cleaner I mentioned last post has morphed into work as an angel of mercy. (Not in the serial killer sense. :P) This is due to the fact my dear employer has fallen and hurt her neck very badly, which I am told she does sporadically.

So along with the regular cleaning and laundry &c., I grocery shop and make food and drive Mrs. D wherever she needs to go, which usually ends in me sitting in the waiting room of some medical building.

I've had the past week off and I'm not exactly sure when I'm going back or how many hours a week I'll be working. It's great to make money, yes, but I am miserable. I enjoy it, but I also find myself hating it and wanting to just go home. I've been forced to have a lot of first-time experiences, such as grocery shopping. Did you know I was afraid of grocery shopping and had never done it by myself? Now I've done it many times. Still don't like it, but it doesn't terrify me. All this has been a good experience, but I'm tired of personal growth for now, thank you.

(The FitzOsbornes At War by Michelle Cooper)

Because I've been working, I haven't felt like writing. My days off from work I just want to laze. I am trying to be better about this. Today I sat in the midst of my family who were playing a game and I wrote. I had on my brother's noise-blocking headphones and I listened to the beautiful album Stars by Janis Ian (pictured at top) and wrote more in a certain story than I have in a while. Which was still a scarily small amount, but it's progress... right?

I'm trying to feel that I will find something in life that I am content doing, but the feeling that I don't want to be living anymore has been haunting me again.

Don't worry about me. I'll be sticking around. If only to listen to the Phineas and Ferb album my mother got my father for Christmas. (Seriously. So far I've listened to it more times than all the rest of my new music.)

I do so hope you, my dear friends, all had happy Christmases! Ta for now.

tea and misery?

{photo by anna morosini}

The Past has started to shine with such a bright haze it is painful to look upon. These Autumn and Almost-Winter months have brought a haunting nostalgia upon me. More than anything, I want to go to my grandparent's house. But it was sold a year and a half ago, and while I am happy that its occupants are still with us and close by, I still mourn the house that was a second home. (It's because we're nearing the holiday season, I think. Holidays, autumn leaves, winter coats, certain books - all these things seem to make me want to go to my grandparent's. And perhaps to be a child again. I'm going to stop before I start crying.)

Since I've last updated I got my hair cut (finally) to about shoulder-length; I finished the 18th and last (sigh) series of Byker Grove; and I (somehow) got work twice a week cleaning someone's house. Huzzah for earning money for something I enjoy doing, which also involves minimum interaction with people!

I've been well and content, for the most part. Now that I am not obsessively trying to finish Byker Grove, I will (hopefully) be devoting more time to writing. I've not felt like writing the past couple months, but I feel more open to it these days. November I shall hopefully be working on my 1960s story and another story which I've never mentioned before.

Ugh, I am freezing cold today. I'm already wondering how I'll make it through the winter. All I want to do is hide under the covers and eat, which is bad. Really bad. I'm seeing a long winter full of tea and misery ahead. :P


Would anyone care to come hibernate with me?

-EDIT-

I don't know if anyone else cares, but Jenica does and that's all that matters. So here are two pictures of my hair, as it looks today. It's grown a bit since I got it cut, and it's not this curly every day.

The first picture is just my hair hanging loose, but in the second picture I pulled back the less-curly front part to display the glorious curls that live under them. :P Okay, so it really doesn't look that much different. I don't think my hair photographs well. (Also, the bathroom lights really bring out my highlights in the first one...)

In the Hot Summer

My summer in a picture? Well, almost. (Pictured: the '97 cast of Byker Grove; me and my stupid long, dirty hair which still hasn't been cut; a stack of books [not from the library though - but bought on vacation]; and Freddie Mercury. ♥)

My Summer in Fragments:

Long hair always crowding me. Vegetating on a couch of apathy.

(When I'm left alone, I sing; but I'm not left alone very often.)

Staying up til 2 AM doing nothing: such bleary-eyed decadence.

A vacation, most of which I want to erase from my memory.

Listening to Queen: Freddie woos me with his voice and I let myself become utterly seduced.

Byker Grove: watched alone at first, then in marathons with my brother.

(He's an amused witness my squeals and frustrations. Yes, I am crazy.)

Letters and other correspondences: my spotty communication skills becoming more threadbare by the second.

A stack of library books that eventually becomes an Everest I've lost my vim to climb.

Clean Cups; Rowan and Martin's Laugh In; getting lost in my car; Bunheads; gif-making; Fleetwood Mac; emotional breakdowns; Ant and Dec (always).

Inspiration that leads nowhere; despairing at my ineptitude; feeling empty as I chatter to those I love.

But... perhaps overall... a lazy contentment?

-------------------------------------------

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO MOTIVATE MYSELF, PLEASE?

In our house, summer has been over for about two weeks and I can't accomplish anything. I still have no further direction for my life, so again I'm not furthering my education except by continuing my copyediting course.

I really need to write because that's the only thing I can do, but I can't concentrate. I can't discipline myself.

I'm not suffering from writer's block. What is the problem?

Oh, life is so terribly unappealing.

(I hope someday that I will be glad I was born.)

ANYHOW.

My post title came from the song 'In the Hot Summer' by Catherine Howe. It just seemed appropriate, as the first line is: "In the hot summer / I lost my way..." Not sure she meant it the way I'm applying it, but it's a lovely song, at any rate.

How was your summer? I hope it was groovy and all that. :)