English girl reporting from France (Paris on election weekend, and Starcraft obsessed boyfriend)

Dear dear, it has been a while since I've written and all manner of things have happened.
Here is a letter i have written to a good friend who hails from the north east of england, which recounts all my recent news:

Dear Mr K.

I hope this letter reaches you well. Unfortunately, I have been caught short without my usual array of rainbow gel-pens, so i shall have to write to you entirely in diorreah-brown.

So here I am, the sun in my face, sat outside my favourite cafe in Auray. Next to the port. The water which flows under the old stone bridge is subject to violent humours. Sometimes it is scarse and you can see the polluted, muddy estury-bed. Sometimes, it is deep and drifts along calmly. It changes depth and direction depending on the tide. We're near the sea, but not within walking distance.

There's your background info. Next to me on a neighbouring table four good-looking boys, perhaps in their late teens, are joking about in the sort of manner which crosses language barriers. What's funny is that they've each got a big milkshake with fancy glass, and to eat: some sort of big dry-sausage covered in seeds. I just don't think you would see such charming taste among the English youth.

Anyway: things are going generally alright here. After some miserable rainy days the sun is showing it's face. Last weekend, I went to gay Paris to see my Spanish au-pair friend Marta. It ended up being a hell of an expensive trip, and I had some moments of getting thoroughly riled up and questioning whether it had been worth the train fare.
At times, Marta seemed snappy with me and kept dealing me minor criticisms. I take criticism very poorly. Her short temper was perhaps explained when we had to go on a tampon-buying mission. In the next couple of days she seemed calmer, but kept whinging about stomach cramps. Girl stuff. You are quite lucky to be exempt from it all.

Marta is living on the top floor of a big fancy building in a posh neighbourhood of Paris, near to the Eiffle tower. These old houses are constructed to have a cramped little attic where the servants used to live, which can only be accessed by a cramped dirty little staircase to the rear of the building. This is where Marta lives. Her room is tiny, but she has made it cosy. There are other occupants in the other cell-like rooms on the corridor, but they sneak about and only say bonjour reluctantly if you happen to cross them on the stairs.

On the first day, we went to pick up the girls Marta looks after from their school. The school gates are a veritable fashion parade, with the hight society parisien ladies gathered to wait for their children. There were a notable number of twenty-something girls- black girls and latin girls who couldn't possibly be the mothers of the pink cheeked little bundles they were collecting, and hearing their foreign accents it was clear they were also au-pairs.
Marta's girls were very polite and advanced for their age. (they even get sent to an english-speaking school on their day off!!) They seemed to take a while to warm to me, but when they did we ended up having a good time playing some sort of card game featuring witches and faries.

I took lots of photos throughout the weekend and did all the usual touristy stuff. Riding in the metro was surprisingly far less chlaustrophobia enducing than the London one.
We picniced by the river Seine with the Eiffle Tower within sight, and even went on a mission to find the largest flea market in Paris. It turned out to be a grim out of town area where we got threatened by an aggressive man whom we accidentally bumped into. He hissed at us and bared his fangs in a serpentine Hannibal Lector way.

And of course: the french elections. The results were not known until I was on the train home. Someone on the train must have had phone internet, and announced "On a un nouveau president". Everyone where I was didn't react with much emotion, although TV footage of the Paris i had just left showed much celebration and wild open-air drinking.

More news: I'm seeing this french boy called Stephane F.... (his grandfather was Polish). This has certainly helped to allieviate my boredom, and most nights I'm round at his house in his messy little bedroom. It's particulaly pleasant when the weather is raging and stormy outside and you can have a warm and manly body to hold on to under the blankets, slipping in and out of dreams together.
However, his lack of motivation is starting to annoy me now the weather is fine.
He gets in from work at 11:30pm and stays up until about 4:30am (more often then not I'll fall asleep before)
Then the next day he won't get up and moving til at least 3pm and never leaves the house until he has to go to work again at 5:30pm.
I want fun, excitement, windswept beaches, scooter-rides, delicious food, dog-walks, bars in the evening, nighttime walks by the harbour... the simple joys of living. Stephane just wants to play Starcraft on his computer while I want to sleep. It's getting annoying!

I do have another friend who is more up for daytime pleasures. The au pair who has replaced Marta. A chatty overly-joyful Italian called Diana. Although most days, as today, she is occupied with the child.

(the rest of the letter was me nattering on giving my opinions on my correspondant's own personal problems which I shaln't divulge here)

I hope you are well, if indeed these lines to reach human eyes.

Bisous, your english girl reporting from France.

What's this life thing all about then? If it's so great why are we so sad?

Those were the questions I ended up posing and maybe not answering in the following letter (to my friend M) which I shall divulge here in censored form:

About conformity:

Friends with benefits does seem a good idea in theory. Society puts too much pressure on people to get into relationships, get married, live a standard cardboard-cut-out little life and behave like a herd of sheep- anguished if you find yourself not following the flock and eager not to become ostracised from the group- but WHY?
Why not rejoice in being an individual? In being the one sheep who looks up from mindlessly chewing and starts asking "who am I? What is this life all about?" rather than just passively accepting everything without a thought.

The differences between animals and humans:

The difference between animals and humans is that we ask questions and are not just programmed to survive. A sheep would never have a panic-crisis thinking about it's future as a lamb-chop, or get depressed about the limitations of it's existence, or even really acknowledge it's individuality.
That's why life is so difficult. Humans have that animal brutality- the killing instinct is still there I think, as are all the other animal desires which we have become ashamed of- but combined with this is our awareness of cause and effect, our human intelligence. I think that's why humans are the most evil and destructive creatures on earth.
I read a quotation once which says "of all the creatures made, man is the most detestable, he is the only one that posesses malice, the only once who inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain"
Still, I know you are already a misanthrope, so I shouldn't encourage you.

On the pitfalls of being promiscuous:

Being a slag is all well and good, but really, I've been there and it doesn't make you feel happy at all. It makes me feel disgusted with myself in a sort of subtle way. You tell yourself it doesn't matter, it's just guilt-free pleasure, why the hell not, but even when you feel at your lowest it's good to know that you have your self-control, and giving up control of your body to various people without a care in the world strips you of that in a way.
I don't really care for my body that much, it's just the case which carries "me" or "my soul" but that's exactly the reason why it's important- it's your armour, your protection, what separates you from the cruelties of the outside world.
If you treat yourself as if you're worthless, you're only going to feel even more worthless.

On Hedonism

Another part of me is tempted to say- well, why not be a hedonist and squeeze as much pleasure out of life as possible? If one could live on a blissful tropical island where none of the rules of this society applied, one could put this into practice. Why not just lie in a hammok in the sun and enjoy life. Eat fruit off trees when you're hungry, indulge in pleasure when the desire takes you, just truly live in the moment and never do anything you don't truly want to do? Be guided by your desires?
The problem with putting this into practice in our world is that pleasure is destructive. And eventually you have to go to work to earn the money to finance your pleasure-filled life, which may end up being unpleasant, and an obligation which goes against your desires.
And even if you lived a life where your sole aim was to attain pleasure, drink, drugs and sex say, all the ecstacies, eventually the futility of this would become depressing and the excess destructive. Perhaps pleasure alone is not enough in it's purest form. One needs to feel a sense of achievement, of personal meaning and value.

Stop being unhappy about your life!!!!!

Everyone's afraid that their life doesn't mean anything and when they die it won't make a blind bit of difference. By becoming famous people hope to achieve immortality and to defy death, by going down in history and becoming timeless.
People also immortalise themselves by creating Gods. It seems ingrained in human nature to do this since we've being doing it for millions of years. Right back to the Aztecs even sacrificing human life to please their Gods in the hope of living forever.

So what's to be done?

Nothing really, other than being joyful about life rather than getting distressed about it. Realising that life doesn't have any meaning liberates you, the world is so vast and there's so much to learn. By some astonishing co-incidence you are a consciousness occupying a body with senses with which to experience this vast world. It may just be one little planet among millions, but all the same, realise the miracle of having this consciousness, right now, of having a window into the world- it's so fucking bizarre when you really think about it

You say you would rather "be someone else" but it's all pretty much the same thing whoever you are, and it's kind of a privilidge to even be "being" that it seems kind of unappreciative to want a different body/mind.
And when you think you've got nothing but "not-being" after this life, suicide seems illogical too- like not seeing a film to the end, walking out of the cinema and falling into the abyss

How religious people probably see it

I guess religious people are hoping to walk out of the cinema (life) and find the real world there and waiting (the afterlife/heaven). A part of me still believes that I will walk out of the cinema and blink my eyes in the daylight and find myself in the "spirit" world. Atheism seems so lacking in hope and resigned.

An update on how I am actually doing now:

I had a two or three day mega depression after Marta left. Just felt so alone and trapped and DOWN, and that feeling of absolute sorrow when the slightest thing or self-pitying thought sets you off crying again. It was such an extreme anguish it was unusual. Cried almost all the way through a film while sat on my own in the dark.
Am glad am out of "it" now. I feel bad for you if you feel like that all the time. It is just a chemical i think though, a brain fuck-up, so keep taking your anti sad pills and smile. Sorry for weirdness of this letter, much love and thinking about you and vibes of joy,
S xxx

(That's just my personal opinion anyway, do tell me yours if you care to)

hitch-hiking at Carnac plage

So, it's been a fair long time since i've updated you about my little life

My current personal kitty cat which belongs to my landlady is sat on a table in my room. The sweet little thing came to scratch at my door. It's nearly one o clock in the morning here, but i'm not feeling so sleepy, so here we are, vaguely communicating with the outside world.

Today was one of those gorgeous sunny days- one of the first of the new year, a bright warm fresh opening up of the blue heavens,zassssssssssssssxxx (moustache my kitty just padded across the keyboard without a care in the world)
One of those gorgeous days which you know are going to imprint themselves in your memory when you look back and reflect on your year, on your past, on your brief collection of joys.
The sweet strange retired teacher who i told you about in previous posts, who is always so eager to invite me to things and make me a part of her life, phoned me today and asked me if i would like to go on a little drive to the beach.

The nearest coast is the pretty little town of Carnac. We met at the town hall in the centre of Auray, and she drove me out to the beach. The sun was all resplendant and glorious and the beach was grey in the heat and sparkly as if with sprinkles of precious stones.
There were many cheerful, good natured french people going about their business, enjoying the sunshine. People sat on the beach leaning against the far wall up where the sand dunes are, lazily bronzing themselves and reading books. There was a man on a bicycle who shouted as we were taking a photo "it will be even more beautiful with me in it!" before zooming off cheerfully.
Day of sweet snippets of conversation with strangers. Marie asked about three or four different groups of people if we were heading in the right direction to find a bar or cafe. We were assured it was just ten minutes down the road, along the seafront.
Just as we were beginning to wonder if this mystical bar was but a sandy desert mirage, it came into view. Red chairs and wooden tables glistening in the sunlight, a terrace completely empty. The bar was shut.
This was somewhat inconvenient because both of us were starting to need the toilet. The closest public ones were locked, and the town centre was a fair walk away, a good fourty five minutes treck.
Marie is still quite young despite being retired from teaching, but all the same walks very slowly, more out of a desire to enjoy life at a relaxed pace, as one who has ample time to spare would do, rather than for any physical reasons.
She seems to be one of those people who is not ashamed to ask other people for help. Me on the other hand, only resort of seeking out others' charity when all other options have been exhausted. Her lack of embarassment is quite charming.
We stood in the sand dusted road, the sun glaring down on us, sticking our thumb out and waving frantically at any car heading in the direction of town. Marie's sense of direction is abysmal, and this is why we went on to get lost another few times, and had to go on another hitch hiking adventure to find the car.
Lots of people with empty cars were insensitive to our plight, or perhaps, unlike Marie, they did not have time to spare (or had convinced themselves they didn't)
Eventually a woman in her thirties with a little modest car pulled up for us and rearranged a whole load of junk inside the car to allow us to sit down comfortably. She had a sweet brown eyed little toddler in the back of the car, a sweet little boy.
After a little awkward small talk- Marie excitedly and childishly recounting every detail of our adventure thus far and our inability to find a toilet- I learned that the woman works in the same secondary school as me in Auray! Our paths have never yet crossed because she always does her classes in another part of the building, and never comes to the staff room. What coincidence! I love hitchhiking because of the way it throws you into contact with a person as if by complete chance. One would say it is the universe which desides, some weird quirk of destiny.
Hitchhiking is a great way to travel because it brings together people who would never othewise have met- sometimes one person is in dire need of help, and is as a result put in that position of weakenss- reliance on others, reliance on charity. I have never picked up a hitchhiker, but i would love to do so- so long as they would show me the due courtesy of one who is a guest in your house would. I would love to make them tea and a bacon and egg butty and do the whole hostess thing to the max. Not sure how i would go about cooking that up in a car, but this is my little fantasy.
Is interesting how people react to the extreme kindness of others, of being indebted to others. I watched the amusing french film Hors de Prix which stars the well known actress Audrey Tatou. It is the story of a golddigger woman, played by Tatou, who uses her charms and wit to attract rich men, and lives her life thus, in a joyful whirlwind of guiltless take take take. In the end she realises the errors of her ways and gets with the less well off waiter-hero.
So the whole giving and taking thing is really interesting to me. Also etiquette. How you must follow a pattern of behaviour and stick within certain boundries. It seems with a good knowledge of how to behave correctly and avoid making a socially unacceptable faux pas, one can get away with murder.
Of course different social groups and communities have different etiquette, one mustn't forget that, and the ability to blend and pass from one group to another without being treated with distain and marked out as an alien, is a real skill to have.
Me, i couldn't care less. I'm still going to be the same Susie no matter who i'm with, and am not prepared to bow down to anyone. Some people get the abridged polite version, such as sweet Marie, others get me in full flow, vociferating loudly.
My sweet kitten has installed itself at the foot of my bed. The house is silent. I imagine my landlady and her husband to be sleeping in their bedroom on the ground floor. The only sound is the click clack of my fingers glancing over the keys.
After finally finding the toilets in Carnac, in a simple but friendly brasserie, Marie and I felt much relieved, although I couldn't help coughing up my guts in a most ungainly manner, I was wretching and hacking like a tuburculosis sufferer.
The bar was cool and shady compared to the outside atomosphere. In the corner a group of elderly ladies were grouped around a table. I've noticed that the elderly in France seem far more sociable with one another than the elderly in England. Perhaps our old people will pass the time of day with the neighbour, or get a weekly visit from a son or daughter, but you don't really see old people supporting one another in quite the same way as in France.
A few days ago I passed in the street two elderly ladies linking arms with each other, not to prevent one another from falling, but simply because they were friends and wanted to be close to one another. They were laughing together at what seemed to be a very good joke. It's those sort of sights that cheer me up more than little scampy children running around, since it is good to know that even in those twilight years of life, there is still good company, good conversation and general joy to be enjoyed.
The owner of the bar, a big robust looking blonde man of perhaps fourty five years old smiled at us, and humoured Marie's childish and very direct demand that he take a photo of us posing on the bar stools. He obliged her demand that he bring me a little jug of milk, and loudly told the whole bar with pride of my Englishness.
The barman, usually the bar owner, welcomed my Englishness with a cheerful smile and genuine beaming eyes. He told me that it is usually only in summer that the English start coming to his bar. He said that he liked English people. There you go. Approved.
In order to find the car to go home, we had to follow a rather serious dogwalking couple who were perhaps in their sixties. They were rich Paris folk who spend half the year in the big city, half the year enjoying the fresh Breton air and the beaches of Carnac. The directions they gave us when the left us turned out to be quite dubious.
Eventually we resorted to sticking our thumb out frantically and got a rather eccentric man (he didn't say much, perhaps it was his weird accent that gave me the impression of oddness. Friendly oddness. Or perhaps the look in his eyes, or that he asked me if i could hold a clear plastic bag filled with water and knotted at the top that contained a little silver fish. When I got out of the car I swear he took a nice long look at my bare legs.)
There you go. That's your lot for now. Night for now and later I shall update you on the half term that i spent in Sheffield, certain cheeky love flirtations which I've been having (still forbidding myself from engaging in anything more than lusty glances. Feel like I am once again in the victorian era, cheekily training my spyglass on handsome young people who take my fancy at the opera, a corseted and repressed voyeur, watching others act out what I dare not act upon to get for myself)
Haha I just thought that was a sweet metaphor. I'm not at all unhappy. On the contrary. Pressure feels off...
Jeez just read that back, what an insane RAMBLE. Been speaking french too much today, got my french brain on which makes my english all jerky and unnatural. Also can't find the fucking full stop and comma on this new keyboard which is french.
Marta my darling Spanish friend leaves on Friday morning. *cries*

philosophical ramblings in my letters to friends

Mi amiga,

Was really interested to read your letter! I don't think that it's so terrible that love is what motivates you to continue to live, better than chasing money and accumulating it needlessly as some people do. This life is but transient, and sometimes it's hard to convince yourself that anything really matters in the grand scheme of things.(someone lent me Nausea by Sartre over the Christmas period,which momentarily convinced me of the utter futility of everything)- but it is those strong feelings and emotional connections- love in a word- that make life beautiful and worthwhile.

I enjoyed reading what you told me about Berdyaer's theory! It's very true that people re-create feelings, instead of allowing what is within them to express itself. That's why it makes me want to run away from romantic relationships when the guy starts with all these displays and declarations of love- it all just seems so phony to me. Can one not love quietly and truly without the need to use insincere words?

You say that you have always known that all the friends, even the ones in your heart, will vanish. It's true that memory is a brilliant thing, but are memories, faded and distorted with nostalgia, enough  to keep your heart beating? I guess that's why old people, whose friends have all passed away, plunge themselves into memory, nostalgia and anecdotes so much- we find it boring to listen to, but they need it to keep living.

So... what have I been up to? Nothing too special really, but I've been enjoying it here, I enjoy interacting with the college students on a teacher-student level and being able to help them progress in English, but also just chatting to them and finding out about their opinions and lives is a pleasure.

The young ones at the primary school are also dead sweet, and have a bizarre affection for me. It seems they have a certain love for their teacher, as if she were a secondary mother. Children are great because their feelings are so raw and sincere, and they'll often just say exactly what they think without the need or even ability to conceal who they really are.

The other Sunday, I was wandering in a little park and sat in a tree on my lonesome, smoking a cigarette, when another wanderer passed by and said hello. He introduced himself and we ended up having a stroll alongside the river together. He's about fourty, lives in a camper van and survives from giving drum lessons, and nomadically wandering around France, working on farms.

We mostly chatted about how he keeps healthy and tries to live in harmony with nature. I do love these old hippies. He had well long hair was giving me advice about how to avoid split ends- lol!

Well I'll finish up here, take care, love from......

getting all teary over that War Horse film

Here's another update- not sure what to write about. I've been wasting a lot of time watching films and tv series, perhaps i should do a review of a few of them?

War Horse film- or Cheval de Guerre in French

I was quite chuffed to get to see this at an avant-premier, before the rest of France. Had to pay fifteen euros and half of that went to charity. It was dubbed into French, but i don't think it lost any of the original charm because of that.
The film begins by introducing us to a poor farming family in Devon who are struggling to make ends meet. The father has a bit of a drink problem, and the mother is all worn out with hard-work. The father recklessly bids on a handsome brown horse and ends up blowing all their money. So far, so fairy-tale formulaic.
 The horse is somewhat uselsess because it is young and completely untrained. It will take a lot of work to make it ready for ploughing the fields. The mother is angry and tries to get her husband to take the horse back and get their money back, but alas, their startlingly good looking and sensitive son has already fallen in love with it, and sets about breaking it in, with firmness and compassion for the animal.
It is clear that they have a special bond, but alas, we see all this swept aside by the destructive inevitability of war which comes to wreak havoc on the best laid plans.
We follow the horse as it is sold and taken to France, to fight in the first world war as a War Horse. It's owners change, and it is cast about from place to place in the turmoil of war- being owned by the British cavalry division, a couple of deserting German brothers, a little French girl and her grandfather, and so on.
You'll have to watch it if you want to find out if the horse ever gets re-united with it's original owner- the farmer's son who has never been able to forget his horse, and who signed up to become a soldier partly motivated by the desire to find his equine friend.
I would say it's definitely worth a watch, and is interesting from a historical point of view, as well as for the story which is gripping and epic, as grand and sweeping as the beautiful Devon countryside. You might end up sobbing as well, I've heard that the film had this effect on some people. Not me though, I don't cry over no films.

how to stop being obsessed with a crush?

Here's your weekly update.
The only page in my blog that ever gets any pageviews is my very brief and disparaging review of that french film intouchables. Perhaps I should do more film reviews in that case?
So the other week i wrote shitloads of letters and got no replies from family or friends. Lazy lazy people I say. I'm trying to avoid resorting to facebook for superficial contact with my dear humans, but it seems that there's no other option since everyone is rejecting the old fashioned methods as a viable form of communication.

Sorry for rambling, I'm hysterically tired.
So I had a brief depression the other week, perhaps prompted by receiving no attention in my mailbox... only kidding... Saturday and Sunday forced me out of it though. But I'll tell you about that later. Today is Sunday, and after having had a nice stroll around the town with Marta I'm now sat on my red comfy beanbag in my room listening to a youtube playist I've made of songs that i've recently discovered or liked for a while.

So I think I'm going to talk about the roots and solution to my depression, as well as throwing in any news I have that people have given me. I might have to dash off in a bit because the Emili whom i spoke so highly of in one of my previous posts, is going to talk to me on skype after she's finished eating. I like the thought of her doing totally ordinary things, like eating.

Well, I think the roots of my problem is probably a crippling insecurity, which developed for various reasons- although I always think that victims of abuse and bullying allow themselves to become victims by taking on a victim mentality. But how to be assertive without being forcing your will onto others and becoming hateful and domineering?
I have realised that my behaviour is really doing me no good. By which I mean my tendency to jump directly from one relationship to another, which seems to have been the pattern recently- at least for the past couple of years- and before that I think i behaved too outrageously for anyone to even want to have a relationship with me.
It's clear to me that I use sex to make myself feel better about myself- to feel desirable and wanted, and just for a general kick- to shake up the everyday pattern of things.
And yet, women can never be so casual about these things as men are- it's perfectly understandable that after having spent a night of intimacy with someone- perhaps delicate conversation and sharing of feelings as well as delicious physical delights- that we should want this to continue. It makes no sense if after those sweet and tender beginnings your messages go unanswered and he doesn't invite you to further the friendship and develop the closeness that you thought you'd forged.
And yet, it's completely naieve and stupid to think that he would. The lesson from this is not to have casual encounters with anyone that you're actually fussed about.
Of course, I'm talking about a specific experience but trying to cloak it in anonymity.
I really don't take rejection so well, and I am prone to outrageous obsessions. Here I am starting to accredit this boy lots of character traits and values that he probably doesn't really have. I even fucking DREAMED about him. And i started to google things like "how to stop being obsessed with a crush" in the middle of the night.
Of course, I need to calm the fuck down and take a calm and measured look at the situation from a distance. There's no need to feel like I'm crap cos he doesn't want me. He probably doesn't want any girlfriend- and if he did want one, he could do a lot worse than me. So, we shared a sweet moment and that's all it was. I need to bury the natural feelings of rejection and humiliation which threaten to strangle me, and accept that what I thought was the beginnings of an exciting adventure was infact a mistaken dead-end wrong-turn.
The last thing I want to be doing now, if losing my dignity is my greatest fear, is be sending him pointless messages and begging for another rendez-vous. I shall return the book he allowed me to borrow, and not offer myself to him again. Two can play at being aloof.
(this is someone English by the way, since I really haven't managed to find anything resembling love or romance over here. I had broken up with the ex-boyfriend a couple of days before, and after having got each others numbers at at the pub, I accepted his invitation to go to his house a couple of days later. I was full of nervous anticipation and excitement before I went round, like a teenager with a crush, fantasising about him and the delights to come while sat in the dark cinema.
I have always liked this boy, and every time we crossed in the street by chance, felt a strange complicity with him and an almost painful stab of attraction, like Juliette when she foresees that her romance with Romeo will only lead to death and doom. I knew from the look in his eyes that he felt the same, and in such a relatively small city as mine and with us having acquaintances in common, knew that eventually we would end up seeing this attraction through to it's logical conclusion.
I'm not sure what he thinks of me. Probably doesn't preoccupy his mind as much as he has been preoccupying mine. He told me he feels "overwhelmingly depressed" and also told me that i should be warned he is a "directionless loser". But, naturally, this just endears me to him more- since he is so sweet and attractive and sarcastically aggressively shy.
Besides which, when at his house, we drank lambrini out of wine glasses and talked about our feelings, what we believe, our lives up til now, and a whole host of general topics. It would have been better not to allow him to start kissing me, but my willpower is so weak, and it's hard not to do something that you actually do really want to do.
So- in order to get a love which is genuine, or rather, in order to trick boys into falling in love with me, I'm attempting a year of celibacy. You can come and suck on my soul cos my body is out of bounds. I really should be doing this for myself, not for any gainful ends. Because, the way I treat myself is really no good for my self esteem. It's as though I think i'm good enough to be used, but not good enough to be loved, and thus behave accordingly.
What do you think of my experiment? How long do you think it will last for? If this boy- who we shall have to give a psydemym (how the fuck do you spell that word?) let's call him Kev, since that's his actual real name, well, if he asks me to hang out, what should I say? Would I be letting a good opportunity pass? If he doesn't call me I know I shall be upset. But I won't have my holidays and my precious days back home ruined by my mental obsessions.
I should probably see a shrink about them or something- giving another person so much importance and value in your life that they don't merit- perhaps this is caused by thinking you yourself are not worth very much. I don't think I need a shrink cos I can psychoanalyse myself with my pop-psychology.

Advice to my dilemmas in the comments section below. I know no one will, but might as well ask.

ode to Emili / Rumination on friendship

Good evening- for the first time in a while i felt the need for indulgent self expression and sharing. Couldn't sleep so got up and switched on the laptop. After a whirling few days of hopeless blues and directionless depression, finally seem to have hopped right out of my lethargy and confusion and onto the road of purpose and excited questioning.
Had a good skype session with my little best uni friend after not having spoke to her for ages.
She is currently doing night shifts in the library, hiding her confused little frowny face behind piles of philosophy books and alternating between drawn out periods of hesitation and inertia one minute to scurrying outpoarings of spontaneous ideas the next. Or so i like to imagine. It is nice when you feel that you know someone so well that you can picture how they would react and behave under certain conditions.
 I often find myself captivated by mannerisms and expressions that are particular to an individual and find myself unconsciously copying them. When I am pretending to be Emily, I tend to put a certain amount of absurd focus into what I am doing, say, making a cup of tea, but with an equal balance of carelessness, but as though the very carelessness were part of the ritual, perhaps flinging the teabag away with a practised disdain. We often used to throw them out of the window when we lived in halls. Her room overlooked a secluded little overgrown garden, and there must have been a veritable compost heap underneath her first floor window by the time we moved out- although i like to imagine little birds coming and feeding as an extension of the ritual- nourishing themselves during the harsh north east winter from the litter of indian leaf cigarette butts and camomile teabags, chirpily accepting their little offering.
I really feel that we are both as chaotic as the other, but help each other to bring a certain equilibrium to one another's lives. And that even though we are apart, physical distance and even time makes little difference to the hum of connection, like a radio station tuned in, be it from the other side of the world or from the next room- although that is not to say that I don't feel the occasional sickening nausea brought on by living in this state of being without. Perhaps it is just a normal friendship? There are many anecdotes I could recount, but they are just tales of ordinary things. I think when someone reveals dulldrum everyday life to have a hidden almost spiritual dimension, then that is something particular. But really, it is just yourself who is creating this magic and these changes, only perhaps sometimes we need another person to act as a trigger. Lonesomeness is far overrated.

formula for success/ being an outsider

I'm cheating again. I'm typing up an abridged version of a letter I wrote before i put it in the post box. It's an interesting one though cos it's to a friend that i can't help being pretty much completely honest with (Can one be completely honest- even with oneself, since the human psyche has a tendency to squirrel things away into your subconscious in order to protect you?)

Hey M,

I really appreciate your letter and I don't mind that it's in various parts cos that way I get a broader view of what you've been up to and your changeable moods!

I know how you feel when you say you start thinking that you might have too little in common for a relationship to work. Whenever I meet a boyfriend's circle of friends, it usually gives me all sorts of weird feelings, because it's an already established clique and in order to become part of it you feel like you're gonna be forced to change or to pretend. For example, meeting all B's up-their-own-arse friends made me feel full of doubts, because for it to work in the long run, I would have been forced to integrate myself with them, and I wasn't sure I was prepared to do that.
I think that the important thing is to be strong in who you are. You don't have to change or act differently for anyone.
When I was friends with Becky, it always involved hanging out with all those chav-kids from her neighbourhood. I was never gonna fit in with them at all, but after a bit of time they seemed to decide that I was alright, and accept me as a bit of an oddity attached to the group. (but I really didn't care what they thought at all, since I only wanted to be friends with Becky, who despite being all heavily mixed up with them and their drug-taking, drunk-and-disorderly antics, to me was an entirely separate and special individual)

I know what you mean when you say you prefer the company of fellow "freaks and weirdos", although it's hard to define exactly what makes someone a freak. I suppose someone who doesn't easily fit in with the group- be the group a bunch of chavs or a bunch of snobby Newcastle-Uni-private-school girls.
I guess i can associate with such "misfits" better because i feel like one myself, and I've always found people who stand out from the group have more imagination.
There's a bunch of language assistants in the next town, about thirty minutes by train from here. Right at the beginning- perhaps in October? I went on a really horrible night out with them, and decided that i'd just really rather not make the effort with them. (shrieky, cliquey posh girls who never bother to text you back) In the group I automatically searched for other "outsiders"- and thought that in the frizzy-haired Christian girl called Grace I'd found one, but the friendship I tried to start with her never really took off. Perhaps she saw that I wasn't to be converted? (only joking, she always kept her religion to herself)

Sorry I didn't help you with your film-project. I'll definitely be up for doing filming-projects and stuff like that in the summer when we have more time. Maybe we could do a documentary about B's (ex boyfriend's) "rise to fame?" which in fact reveals him and his friends to be completely self-absorbed and vacuous?
He says he's met some girl that he may be "falling in love with" that he found on New Year's Eve, but who lives in Manchester. She's 29 and is doing a doctorate in philosophy, and he described this as a "really exciting meeting of minds". Not so much a meeting of bodies though, since she already has a boyfriend.
I pointed out that he used to get annoyed with my vaguely philosophical chit-chat (B: I love you ME: "but what IS love?") and complain that I over-analysed everything. He replied "Yes but you used to go round in circles. I don't mind philosophy chit-chat when it actually makes sense"
I can't believe he's actually found someone full stop, never mind that she's some intelligent bitch who can therefore be "better than me" in some way (aside: I think i have an inferiority complex) I never exactly thought he was the sharpest knife in the draw, so I'm surprised their minds can even meet on the same level.
Aparantly, she believes in faeries though, so she can't be that clever. She's writing her doctorate on charisma or something, and has told B some "formula for being a successful performer" and the secret behind creating an impression on someone. (Sounds a bit Derren Brown to me. I would have thought he would have wanted to leave all that witchcraft shit behind)
Perhaps it's her advice, or perhaps it's his coping-mechanism after the "break-up" but now he's going around putting on airs of being self important and arrogant. He says performers are rarely themselves on stage and he must develop this mask in order to trick people into believing it's the truth.
He claimed not to be doing the "act" to me, but he still seemed stupidly arrogant. He told me he's been texting Brian Molko almost every day. He added that their new material is crap compared to their old stuff and that he was "going to remind Brian how to write a good trashy pop song, since he seems to have forgotten"
I don't know why I took offence at this, but it just riled me up the wrong way- what arrogance! (Placebo's last album was actually pretty good- give "Bright Lights" and "Ashtray Heart" a YouTube.
He's even given up being friends with R. because on his quest for success he doesn't have time for these "parasites" describing her as selfish and malovelant and saying he was fed up with her attention seeking phony suicide attempts (the last one comically saw her threatening to throw herself into the canal in Manchster) I guess he can't have anyone else stealing the limelight, or trying to read poems while he's playing his out of tune guitar.
It's two o clock and got to get up at seven am. AAAAAHHH! Got nowt prepared for class either. The cat is asleep on my bed and the town is covered in that freezing fog. It's so unbelievably silent here- so far from home.....
Ps. I saw a dead cat today at the side of the road, a big grey stripey one. It had a stream of blood running from it's head.
Lol, sorry to end on such a downer. Well, the cat in my room is alive and furry, if that balances things out.

NANTES trip, and a night out with a FRENCH SINGER

This is a letter which i wrote to a very good friend who also reads this blog. I hope he doesn't mind me reproducing it here. It's just that I described all my recent activity in it, and I don't want to have to repeat myself. There's nothing too personal in it about him.

Dear Mr K,

Why do you not reply to me?
Do you even receive these letters? You are a vague but essential source of hope and communication to the outside world. I sit here, on my barren desert island, and cast these messages, rolled up and pushed into an old bottle, into the ocean, hoping that the waves will carry my words to you.
Only joking. The situation isn't that extreme, but every day I do run to my metal mailbox only to find it full of letters which arn't addressed to me.

I've only been back here a week and it feels like forever. My Spanish au-pair friend has yet to surface. She was due to arrive back yesterday, but her phone has been going direct to answerphone.

The other day, I mooched to the little primary school to face three hours of hovering around awkwardly next to the teacher (who is the one really leading the lesson) occasionally being used to demonstrate the "proper English pronunciation) and then have her get confused because my accent doesn't correspond with the crisp newsreader pronunciation she learned from "Teach yourself english" CDs
Sometimes I feel quite superfluous in the classes, but hey, I'm getting payed for it.
The cute children always cheer me up though. I always leave school at the end of the day feeling bouncy and happy. I don't know how they do it. I guess you can't stay unhappy when surrounded by such sweet innocent cheeky little people who ask the cutest questions.

At the weekend, I was determined not to just spend all my free time in grubby chain smoking isolation, so I called up a sweet boy called Renan who I met on the train one time. He's twenty on, has a certain playful innocence, very blonde hair and very brown eyes, and lots of muscles, which contrast with his baby-face.
He wants to join the French air force, but must do lots of rigourous exams and training if he wants to get selected.
At the moment, he's unemployed, and so has lots of free time to show foreign girls around his city- which is Nantes.

Unfortunately, as he lives with his parents, I couldn't stay over, so it was there and back in the same day. Nantes is almost two hours from my dull little town. It has a magnificent castle, and a big, but not exceptional cathedral.
We ate at a fast-food, "pasta in a cardboard carton" type restaurant, and he showed me all the perfumes he owns in a cosmetics shop. I've never known a boy who owns so many fragrances, and all the expensive ones too.
He didn't try anything with me, was I was grateful for, since I didn't really fancy him. He kept getting phone calls from an irate sounding female, so I assumed that was probably his girlfriend.

On the train home, two guys came and started playing cards next to me. We were sat on one of those "four seats and a table" places.
After repeating the sentence anxiously in my head, I asked them "What are you playing?" I hoped it would be blackjack, I remember I had a bit of talent for that, when we gambled together on that machine. But it was poker. I tried to join in anyway, and did indeed have beginners' luck, beating them several times in a row.
One of them told me they were headed to Quimper, (a fairly big town on the end of the railway line) He was a rapper/singer and had a gig in a club.
The other guy was a childhood friend, who was coming to see his mate perform for the first time.
They invited me to accompany them. The rapper dude had that air of superiority and self-assured confidence tempered with a vague hint of aggression. I didn't think he was a bad person as such, but someone who might fly off the handle if provoked and challenged. He had that look in his eyes.
I thought, why not? So I agreed to go with them. I got off the train in my town, dolled myself up, and then got on the next train to join them.

And so followed a night of only half understanding the rapid and very slangy conversation (in French). The rapper said his producer paid for him to stay in a hotel, and for him and his entourage to eat out in a fine restaurant. I now formed part of this entourage, which was an interesting situation to suddenly find myself in.

(I have to go and teach an eleven year old boy in a private lesson now- so see this as a little interval, like they used to have at the cinema)

I'm back. Now it's the evening, and I'm sat in my attic. I'm going to make some "slop" as Miss James always used to refer to her slapdash cooking. Rice, vegetables and curry sauce out of a jar all mixed together. I know, I know, it's not very French.
I wish you were here and we could eat together. Drag my desk into the centre of the room. Sit on unmatching chairs, and position tea-lights seductively around the room.

Anyway, I was telling you about my weekend. This rapper called himself Tj (Tee-Gee) Soundz and I've never met anyone so pretentious (aside- ok maybe that's a bit unfair. I hope he doesn't come across this piece of slander after treating me to dinner and all). Since I had no idea of his vague fame, I treated him like anyone else. The club was in the middle of the dark countryside, and we had to drive twenty minutes down dark country roads to get there.
Our driver was a gorgeous french woman of albanian origin (I only found this out later by facebook)
She had dark blonde hair and fake tan (or maybe real?), impeccable make up (I later found out she works in Sephora on the make up counter. Which is the shop where my friend in Nantes was going mental with all the perfumes- we left that shop stinking.) and stylish clothes (dressed all in black in jeans and a tight-fitting jumper)
I overheard and half-understood a conversation in which I think , but am not sure, she said that she was safe from the tainted batch of "toxic" implants which have been causing such a stir on the french news, because she had hers done in Tunisia. Boobs, that is. She looked older than her apparant thirty years though, probably because of her unfortunate hairstyle and tan, which made her look like a "Desperate Housewife".
I'm always shy of older women, and often I'm right, they do scowl at me. But she was brilliant. Driving to the club TeeGee and she sang to whichever song came to mind, often in French so I couldn't join  in, but there was a sweet rendition of "Let it be" as we swerved along country roads.
She told me she neither drinks nor smokes, because she "doesn't like the way drink changes people", but despite her sobriety, when we got to the club we had fun together, although we didn't really chat at all.
We either danced, or slumped in the corner re-gaining our energy. She was right, drink does change people, and soon enough we were being harassed by a Turkish dude, who kept saying "I love you" to me, in heavily accented English.
TeeGee himself tried to persuade me to kiss him "just for a laugh, between friends" but I refused. Then this horrible little teenager who he was sat with turned her malicious little face to me and declared that she wanted to kiss me too, in an almost bullying way.
I ran away to dance, and did an obscene little performance on the pole. The night ended at half seven a.m. and I was glad.
So there you go. There's always more to write but I'll save it til next time. Now i want to hear all your news. How are you my precious, unique and sparkling Paul-cake? How is your health doing these days? What have you been reading? What have you been writing? Does your brother have a date for the wedding? Do you have a crush on anyone? Are you still going to university? How do you feel?
Please write back, whenever you find the time,
Here's sending you good vibes, and ducks

Susie (I might as well admit that that's my name since it's in the blog address which i can't change now)

bitching about my ex/ cinema trip in Sheffield

I'm really not doing very well at updating this diary- for that is what it seems to have developed into. I get a couple of pageviews per day. I wonder who these people could be? Perhaps it's people who stumble upon it by mistake after typing in a particular combination of words. It's probably mostly women called susie who like cats. These views are probably solely down to a friend who i gave the blog address to. Maybe I should give him a psydeuym. (I can't spell that word). Let's call him.... J.....Ok I give up, we'll just call him J.

We met up a few times in the holiday, J and I which was really nice. It's good to see other people who are also sort of in the same situation as me- drifting off in term time, but being pulled back to Sheffield every holiday like a meteor being kept in orbit ( in orbit around Sheffield)
We went to a nice little tearoom, and I drank coffee. We chatted about a film which I have STILL yet to see. And it makes two people who have recommended it to me and highly commended it. (that's a very french way of constructing a sentence).
 It is called "Another Earth". I'll tell you what it's about when i've seen it, cos otherwise it's second hand information and probably some of the details will have been lost or forgotten in the re-telling. Maybe it wasn't called Another Earth after all? Maybe it was "two worlds" ? Who can say. So much gets degraded by memory. Who can say what really happened? That's probably why i have such a mania for taking photos, although it's really cooled down recently. Even though i've got a new camera for Christmas, so far I've barely used it.
We saw an amazing film at the cinema. Actually, I'm not sure if it was amazing or not. But it did have an anthropomorphic cat in, which is ALWAYS a bonus. (The Future)
I was somewhat on edge after a bizarre night the night before, and my heart kept going really fast, particulaly when emotive music invaded the auditorium, I felt like it was invading me, but i managed to keep a grip on all this. Added to this, I was hobbling around as the previous night I had raced down a dark garden path and gone flying, landing with my foot on one side in ankle-breaking fashion. (It is not broken but is still swelled up today).


And so I broke up with my boyfriend too. I question whether i was ever really in love with him (I don't think I was). 
This is not entirely due to me being cold-hearted, it's also the fact that he seems a person already very fixed in his ideas and opinions, and closed off in a certain way. (Although he would probably deny that)


In the summer, we fooled around and it was all idle conversation, cups of tea and walks in the sunshine, all karaoke and mischievous fur-coat-and-nothing-underneath nightime woodland wanders. 


Then the separation, which made us emotionally drift apart, although he insisted on continuing to tell me he loved me, in a way which i frankly didn't believe, or couldn't believe. 
The silence between us now (despite the fact that we're supposed to still be amicable) suggests to me that his love for me didn't run too deep after all, or was made of very dissolvable stuff.
 I think he wanted someone who would truly care about him and love him. I feel sorry that i didn't end up being that person. Maybe for a bit he thought that in me he had found that thing that we're all searching for, poor romantic soul that he is/was (I have a habit of destroying people's belief in the true-love myth.)
Maybe for a time I believed it too. I fooled myself. All this talk of buying a little houseboat together and living in canal-bound matrimonial idyll. Him being a musician, me being a teacher, life rolling on joyfully, mutual friends, all seemed very unlikely to me. (Except the part with me being a teacher)
He has all these wild delusions, and although conversation always rolled along nicely, we really are/were never on the same wavelength. I'm a down to earth realist (honest) and he seems to me completely deluded. For a bit I shared in his delusions, but the separation only pushed us further apart and made the void between us more of a crevasse.
At the moment, he is bent on chasing his musical dreams, and spent New Year and a few days after in London, hanging around with "all these rock star types" who he really venerates, claiming that famous people, or "people obviously on the cusp of becoming famous" (isn't that how all these creative types want to be seen in London?) have something special about them, that differentiates them from normal people. He says he felt happy that they seemed to accept him as one of them. Everything he says these days seem to be, if not gloating, heavy with a swollen self esteem. He seems convinced that success will be his. I surely hope that it will be, cos otherwise he's going to have a heavy fall.
His mother, at least, will always be his number one fan, and in their typical saccharine "love you!!!" manner, she has filled her facebook profile with links to his songs, and pass-the-bucket "so proud of my darling" comments (that is whenever she isn't heaping self-congratulations on herself in promoting her e-book and gloating about sales figures.)
Is this getting a bit bitchy? I should probably stop. 
I haven't really finished but i'm tired. Time to sleep. I shall update you more soon, and hopefully bring you up to date.

Manchester

So the first part of my few weeks of english-bliss started in Manchester. I met my (ex)boyfriend, in the train station at Picadilly. (Grr.. my landlady is on the phone next door and is nattering away really loudly in her irritating voice, i can't concentrate like this!)
We met on the windswept platform, like in a Tolstoy novel. I think windswept freezing train platforms are a good place for dramatic happenings and significant meetings.
He was wearing a silly furry hat with earflaps, furry coat and glasses with useless plastic frames in. It was pleasant to see him, and i had to quickly shove away niggling doubts:
"where is the spark of heart-pumping, butterfly-churning excitement one should feel at seeing one's lover from whom one has been separated?" I asked myself.
 Does it die after a certain period of relationship security and monotony? I began to doubt it ever existed. Except perhaps on our initial date which was a spontaneous midnight rendez-vous. I sneaked out of my house into the dark, lamplit streets, unbeknownst to my sleeping parents. I didn't know a thing about the boy who i was off to meet, not even his real name, and my heart pumped with anxiety and an eagerness to impress while appearing calm and natural. I remember it was raining and puddles glittered on the pavement like black ice. We had a cigarette in a bus stop and under the yellow light stole glances at each others faces shyly. His was pretty and made up like a girl's. I never really felt that intense stab of attraction, but i thought he was a beautiful thing- like a fine cat, a snow leopard perhaps. Just as one should never kill as snow leopard to make a luxurious coat, one should never seek to possess another person- and yet it seems to be human nature to want to do so.
That evening in Manchester, however, stumbling under the weight of my heavy backpack, we walked to Salford, a simple hop over a bridge to cross a slow-moving river and you're in a different city. We ate a delicious indian takeaway while sat cross-legged opposite one another on the bed in quiet contemplation and silly chatter, but my eagerness to go for a midnight wander was swiftly quashed by his steadfast reluctance.
His room smelled of damp washing, since he had just returned to the house that night, after an exhausting early-morning schedule of setting up christmas market stalls in various cities' shopping centres.
The following afternoon, we strolled around the city centre of Manchester, myself shivering and drenched in the rain, him quite gleeful albeit a little stressed, taking multiple phone calls from his boss (his best friend's father)
We sampled the delights of the German market, sipping mulled wine in a draughty shed, and then went to dry off in the local Wetherspoons. The clientele was an interesting mixed-bunch, but upon leaving we found a middleaged man with what i might describe as "serial killer eyes" standing in the doorway muttering to himself. Since my boyfriend passes his days smoking endless cigarettes and chatting with people he doesn't know (utterly convinced that he's doing them a favour with the gift of his company), he broke into conversation with the man.
It turned out that he had been on a date with a rent boy, who, when sent to the bar with a crisp twenty pound note, had taken it and scarpered. I didn't blame him. My (ex)boyfriend then went on to ask the man whether it was easy to find  that sort of paid company in Manchester, and he assured us, with a sort of misplaced pride, that indeed it was a piece of piss, but only if one knew of the right places to go. Cigarette lit, we stepped back out into the freezing lashing rain.
But at least Manchester, for all it's puddles, was sparkly and embracing. We were embraced by a shisha bar on the curry mile, and by a cute little cubby-hole of a bar that sold hot lemonade with whisky in it.
That night, i arrived back in Sheffield to find all the fairy lights at the Peace Gardens completely extinguished, and the city centre almost devoid of life. Manchester, I suppose has bustle and hustle- whatever those things are, it is the bright lights towards which i am perhaps headed- who knows? The rest of my holidays however, reinforced my adoration for my beloved Sheffield. But that chronicle shall follow.