Flicking the rubber band

What if, instead of everything being bad, it was actually the start of something really great?
Instead of that sludgy taste in the mouth that means you've been inside too long, that inspriration was about to hit?
Instead of a low-level despair and lack of motivation, suddenly the path was about to beome clear?
I probably could take all that and turn it around. One flick at at time.

Puddles of sadness

I feel like there's a puddle in my brain and no matter which way I tip my head, the poison flows to the lowest point and start eating away. Nastiness.

A revelation yesterday: it's not about me. A relief, but somehow not enough.

Rain falling outside, everything damp, dim and sticky. Rainforest atmosphere in my head but nothing is growing. Nuclear rainforest.

Spring

Petals on the ground like confetti
Pink, white and each one tiny and discrete
Heaping in the gutters like a pastel snowdrift

Rain falling from the sky
And a smell like Melbourne school mornings
The feeling of 'change', 'change'... excitement stirs

The sun like a revelation
It's warm and the light drawn out for ages
We can stay up late now and do something. Finally!

Wretched

Wretched with longing... not supposed to feel this way. How many times does it have to happen? Only once, I guess. How often do you see the word wretched these days? It seems so Victorian.

So I'm in the throes of an anachronisticly vocabularised state. Somehow that's OK.

Birds of my dreams

I had a dream that was like a cool fairytale - mixed up from a book I'm reading and two films I half watched yesterday (Book: set in middle ages about Katherine about Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Movies: Flash Gordon and The Man in the Iron Mask).

Three people were lost in a forest. The hero, the heroine and the wise 'professor' character. They wandered around, it was an old-fashioned futuristic place with crazy trees and plants that had the look of slightly cheap, 70s movie sets. Eventually they came to a huge dome, underneath which it was clearer and lighter than the rest of the forest.

They managed to get inside the dome but almost before they could think about what was happening, some huge birds descended upon them and wrought a strange enchantment...

The trio awoke to find they had been 'rescued' by a group of local people, who took them in and nursed their wounds. It appeared the strangers had been unconscious for several days or weeks even but slowly they recovered and started to integrate themselves with the lives of the kindly people of the dome.

The girl fell in love with the Dome King's son and all was going well until the night of their wedding. That evening, the birds once more descended and the three strangers were told that their enchantment meant they changed into bird people every night after the sun went down.
The three were not aware that this had been happening but all could sense it was true because they had each dreamt strange visions of flying through darkness on swift wings.

The girl was devastated. She knew the king's son would not wish to marry her once he knew of her terrible affliction. And, even if he did, how could she impose her bird-girl heredity upon his future heirs? So she made a bargain.

If the bird people would give her ten years in which to live, love and bear children with the Prince, she would give them her humanity. After the 10 years were up, she would become a fully fledged, full-time bird girl. It was agreed, with one clause - if she had four children who all survived, she would be released from her pledge... the doctor and the hero, meanwhile, would remain on nightly bird duty.

I don't know how it ends

Shoes

I bought those shoes by the way

Small things

I hate this tiny house
I hate this tiny life
I hate my tiny mind
I'm wasted as a wife

I love my little scribbles
But they never get me far
I start, then stop, then start
It's like I'm in a war

A war against myself
I don't really want to try
Cos what if I am shit?
I just think I'd die

Nearly thirty

I am about to turn 30 and what have I achieved? A stunning level of mediocrity.

I hate average, and yet that is what I am.

I am not happy today.

I don't ever want to feel this way.

FITS AND STARTS

It’s all about follow-through I’ve decided. And I don’t really have it. That’s OK. Millions don’t. And millions just fumble along in their lives with moments of frenzied inspiration that then gradually dissipate. If you could just hold one idea for long enough Commit to it, it almost wouldn’t matter what it was. I think you’d be successful. This is what I’ll try to do with my latest venture onstage and into the public eye. Not worry about the details of each tiny act, but keep the dream alive. Keep doing it. Get it regular. Then you can hone the performance. Once the commitment feels ‘normal’.

Pearl snake

I had a dream about a little black snake with pearly teeth. Well, actual tiny round pearls for teeth. It was a bit scary. I suppose it’s suggesting I’m paranoid about money at the moment, because I am. It’s a tough city to have even a moderate income in. And I’m probably working in one of the worst places for it too! Have to keep opening my eyes wider to see how gumpy Primrose Hill really is. All those funny little shops that are charging huge prices for their slightly dusty tat. TwentySevenTwelve – the new label by Sienna Miller and her sister (Savannah? Who cares) is available in the shop up the street. It doesn’t seem all that.

Every day I see this one woman at the Russian tea house up the street. I always look at her shoes, which are always very high-heeled. She must live close by because you couldn’t walk far in them. In fact the first time I saw her she was staggering out of a side-street at 10am. Not drunk, just wearing untenable footwear! Now I always see her in the evenings, on her laptop, outside the café. Yesterday I recognised the pumps because I’d been admiring them in the window of that shop that sells the Sienna gear. A cartoon cashregister behind my eyes went: £87.50! Had been considering them myself but somehow once you see them on somebody they do not seem as special. And that IS rather a lot for a pair of uncomfortable heels. Although they do look pretty – black satin with ever so slight rouching around the top.

I’ve seen a few other pairs that I admire round there too but I don’t even want to ask prices.