a gentle kind of cruelty...

 

i've been feeling. 

i was reading. 

my general day-to-day has been empty. i've no desire to do anything or see anyone. my depression has reached an ugly, hideous place that is not all too welcome. it's slumped me with the burden of pain, paranoia and discontent. 

primarily, i move on auto-pilot. my actions are those that i know should be taking place, ones that make me look normal and sane and "okay." i do the laundry, cook, blog and smile wearing a mask that helps people to believe that i'm okay, just slightly sad. in this fantasy world i have created i am FINE. there's no problems to talk about and at the end of every day, i am FINE (a word that treatment trained me to associate almost nearly as a curse word purely because it is typically used by individuals only to placate any possible concerned passers-by. a word who's acronym tends to explain that the said "FINE" individual is actually one of four not actually FINE things: Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic or Emotional)

in reality, i hurt. god i hurt. but only on good days do i hurt, most days, i don't feel. i seem to have lost the ability to feel mostly anything. it's almost as though someone came and took everything out of me. my thoughts, hopes, dreams and desires. i just feel like an empty husk of nothing.

i went through all this same crappy-crap when i moved to england... no friends, no family, no job, nothing. i literally feel like i have nothing anymore. nothing to aspire to, nothing to push for, nothing to get excited about. alone and finding myself writing ideas for blogs but not actually finding the energy to sit down and write them.

the other night i was reading an article about an artist by the name of Ray Caesar in a magazine called Hi Fructose. there was one single piece of his art that took my breath away and in the middle of reading his words i had to stop because it hurt. his words touched me a little too hard in a place just far too sensitive for me to cope with. i have to admit that it felt nice to feel, but the feelings, they virtually murdered my tiny, fragile emotions. he discussed his psychological disorders, some of which i also have and he discussed the way that he feels when forced to deal with his past and emotions by way of creating art, which very boldly paralleled with myself and my writing.

and i relay his words... 

"a disorder helps you through childhood but can cause great difficulty as an adult. i must say that making pictures is one thing that has helped me cope and brings all aspects of my personality into play. 

making art is so difficult as well as healing and joyful that we/i need all of us in order to make it. the very act of making pictures for me is a form of compartmentalization that allows me to deal with overwhelming emotions and memories. i create a window into a peaceful world where the 'emotion' or the fragile part of me is protected... i make something gentle but also something that shows a dark side to it and strength. think of my pictures as a sanctuary where one can take out a small piece of pain and allow it to be free -  a place to confront that pain and even care for it. a protected place of color and happiness much like a christmas morning  for a child who is allowed to open the difficult gifts he or she has been given in life. 

it's a double edged sword for me that my pictures are so public as there is a part of me that would rather deal with all this in privacy but my pictures are also who i am in so many ways that i have to wear my life on the walls of a gallery or in the internet...i suppose art for me is that process in which we bear our inner most feelings, trouble and pain; happiness and joy... it's an important form of communication and that is more important than my need for privacy.

(in discussing the above painting, "Revelation") the Sailor is my own kind of metaphor for a traveler or one that explores... she is in a fog; something i have been in for most of my adult life. the light is that sudden knowledge... that overwhelming piece of the pizzle that explains so much, that confrontation with the astonishment that takes you to a new level of understanding. 

most astonishing about these periods of foggy missing time or periods of wasted time is that it felt as if some other thing had taken me over. a realization of having not one but several personalities so i could see and feel them when they appeared, usually in a moment of stress. 

i am then more effectively able to use these diferent parts of myself and that to me is a "Revelation," like living in a fog for many years and suddenly finding you are more than the sum of your parts. 

i think everyone has aspects of what we call "disorders." we all get depressed or manic or compulsive but some of us have such things magnified, sometimes to the power of 10 and others to the power of 100. i think we all have some parts of ourselves we know better than other parts of ourselves. all i do know is art is a great way to sail the seas of the subconscious mind and make a map of that strange world. my work is the map of my mind."

and now, i am here today, feeling raw and emotionless. reading his words helped me to at least find the direction that i need to be going in, but i have no idea how to get there. i have no idea how to turn the lights on and i'm mortified to do it alone. 

i feel as though i've no choice though, seeing as my stupid emotions and mood swings have shunted everyone else out of my way, leaving me feeling like a child who's thrown a giant tantrum and was left alone to deal with it on their own as a means of self-soothing. 

right now, i just want to be held. i am so terrified that all of my pieces are falling apart and i just want someone to hold me and make sure i don't lose myself. 

last night i held Muffin and was terrified to let him go. i held him and he kept attempting to escape but i just pushed my face into his chest harder to stop him from leaving me and seeing my tears. i don't want to lose him, i don't want to lose myself. i am so terrified that he will see me as this broken thing and not want to wait around until i put myself back together again. i just want someone to hold me. make me feel okay. i don't want words, i don't want eye contact, just a cuddle.

eh. i don't know why i've posted this. consume it how you will.

blargh. parp. tuesday.

my fingers are weary from feverishly crocheting an amazing creation for a beast that is very, very deserving. i rarely create on demand, but i am at the moment and it is slowly taking the shape of something i can possibly see myself loving (if you know me, you know i absolutely hate every single thing i make until the very last stitch is sewn into place. i'm my own worst critic. i know)

i thought a quick interlude was on call for me to take some ibuprofen and drink a cola whilst listening to my favourite song about a queen of the caribbean variety. and also to write a list.

i have a blog quest that i SHOULD be starting tomorrow... MAYBE later tonight, depending on how boring Muffin decides to be tonight. it'll be fun and hopefully helpful for me, what with all this emotional crap i have going on, to process things and put them all in the correct place.

so, i shall get on with the list, as this creature needs to be finished for sending-off on thursday. also, i need a fag.

billy ocean

my new mobile phone... it was totally unexpected. Muffin got a new mobile and he had promised me his old one, as the one i purchased when i arrived here was not and never could have possibly been my bff. it is a crappy little tracfone that made me want to die every single time i used it. anyways. Muffin arrived home from work and told me to get ready so we could go to the shop and get a new SIM card and battery and get me onto his contract. we arrived at the shop and i oogled all the other mobiles, the shiny, beautiful display mobiles that were exponentially better than mine. Muffin then asked me which one i would get if i could have my pick of any in the shop. i chose the myTouch. when the store clerk (and Muffin's friend) came to help us he suggested that that particular mobile is NOTGOOD and he wouldn't recommend me getting it. he instead suggested to us the G2, the mobile Muffin had gotten in the mail no less than five hours prior. suddenly, forty minutes had passed and Muffin and i had matching "his and hers" mobile phones. since it's procurement it has become nearly my bff. i never knew what a smartphone was and never really cared until thursday night. i perhaps can never go back now.
saucy postcards
felting brushes
tiny crochet hooks

getting a haircut i'm actually pleased with... i'm not fussy, we all know that. i tend to cut my own hairs and have done since i can remember, but upon my arrival here, i have been the recipient of for realsies salon haircuts. the cutters of my hairs are a group of korean ladies that have a little barber's down the road who specialize in doing military haircuts. since i've been going there i've asked them to give me a medium fade, but they seem to  have been very, VERY terrified to cut me, a girl's hairs THAT short, so finally, yesterday, i walked in and told them to be ruthless and cut the fuck out of my hair. they did and everyone was pleased. i can now look in the mirror with glee as i have a haircut i heart more than most things. she did a perfect job and, fingers crossed, she can do it again in four weeks when i return to her. we'll see!
OK GO!
amazing music videos

the Space Needle... oh yes. i was a spoiled girl on the day after hearting day. Muffin whisked me away to the Seattle Space Needle where we had a very extravagantly priced and flavoured meal. it was the perfect night of kisses, candlelight and skylines. i'd never actually been awarded a night of such romantic indulgence and love, which made it so much more special. seriously, everyone, go to the Space Needle at least once in  your life. it's incredible.
skylines
better cheddars
johnny cash's voice
how genuinely retarded Booger is
fake tattoos
not having to ask directions whilst i'm driving... because hey, I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING!
sleepy, sleepy kisses and cuddles
being the tiniest big spoon ever... it's no secret that i am significantly tinier than the burly love of my life. everyone knows it and that fact is so much more lovely when it comes to sleepy cuddletime and Muffin wants to be the "little spoon." i nestle my tiny body up behind him and reach my arm across the massive extent of his chest, twirling my fingers in the forest of hairs that grow just above his sternum. i tangle my legs with his and wonder how the fact that i can barely cuddle him up can make him feel so safe, but it does, so that's all that matters to me.
the eels
primordial dwarves
NOT having sarah's luck with cars
sexy dinners
when Muffin cooks something i can eat and actually, honestly say is good

the trees outside my house... which are astoundingly beautiful and i love to stare at for long stretches in the morning with my cup of tea and a fag.
losing weight a healthier-ish way
when Booger goes absolutely nuts for about ten minutes every few hours
bbq's
lemon lip balm
geometric patterns
Hi Fructose magazine
incredibly random phone calls... much like the one i had on saturday in which i answered the phone to have a woman ask me if i am okay. i confirmed i was, unsure of who this woman was or why exactly she was concerned for my health. she said she was sorry she'd not called sooner, but apparently she had had dave, linda and julie over and she'd just been far too busy to call until just then. i explained that that was perfectly fine to which she replied that she had to leave, but that she wanted to make absolutely sure i was okay and closed the call by telling me to go to the doctor and email her once i'd done so. and that, that is what i call the joy of new mobile numbers!
wood-fired pizza
cheese
the fact that we are the cutest ever, in the world... please see below:

 well, have a delightful tuesday all



Post-Post Edit: seeing as there is some sort of vulgar, offensive anonymous party, it should be known that since this was posted (like, an hour after posting it) i called the said woman back and explained that the call was most likely not directed at me and she laughed, advising that she had immediately realized she made a mistake, as the intended recipient's new phone number had been given to her three days prior. she thanked me for ringing her back. but yes, i am "scum," tar.

ouchies...

lately.

hrm. lately i feel very much like i'm learning about everything again.

that's to be expected given the state of my life in the last seventeen months. i've been on a road of constant change since even before Christopher and i split up. mental changes, physical changes, address changes, hair colour changes. the list of changes i've seen take place in my life is vast. sometimes i think about it and become so tired that i need to take a break from even just listing the ways my life has altered in the last year and a half... it's astronomical.

right now though. well, in the last two or three weeks; i feel very much like i really lost who i was, or more like... hrm. it's hard to describe. it's like, you know when you go to your iTunes playlist, the one you use for everything... cleaning, sleeping, driving, working out? the playlist that you (if you're like me) spent HOURS tailoring around your life... painstakingly picking out every single song that will light up your activities so you don't have to accidentally stumble across any ugly memories that you just don't want to have to deal with mid-push of the hoover or halfway through your ten-mile hike on the treadmill.

i've got one of those. my epic playlist that i had originally made back in october 2009. the playlist that i had very, VERY stringently created over a series of days. the playlist that, at the time, i created to be both uplifting, but also remind me of some of the less hideous memories i had had with my then-estranged husband. the playlist that, after i was finished compiling it, became a constant source of emotional strength for me, with songs that made me feel like a stronger woman (i still find it weird to call myself a "woman," but i guess at twenty-six i really have no choice, hey?), allowed me to be silly and slowly eased me into the fact that i was now being forced to forge a life on my own and without the boy i had been planning a forever with for nearly seven years prior, all of which could be carried around on a tiny four-square-inch ipod with ease. it's fairly magical, really, to know that i could so easily toss the very core of all my emotional everything into my pocket.

anyways, that playlist was my everything. it really helped me through a lot of dark times. it supported me and never treated me wrong. it was always there when i needed it and occasionally prodded me to feel or re-live things that i didn't, at the time, know i needed, but was very grateful for in the end. in a way, that playlist and those songs, they were ME. they defined me in all my emotional, quirky, dancy glory...

i'm aware all this sounds like the ramblings of a fucking mentalist. i get that, but i'm slowly making my way to an excellent point, i promise.

so, back to the third or fourth paragraph... i feel like i've lost myself. the reason the playlist makes sense is because the way that i feel, in a metaphor, is like my computer got some sort of horrific virus that deleted all my favourite things, including, but not limited to my playlist.

i can imagine not everyone is as neurotic as me and when they lose their playlists it doesn't ruin their lives, but for me, danie, the girl who is overly dramatic about every single tiny thing in the world, when a playlist is lost, i completely lose it. that means that i have to spend another goddamn eight or so hours individually picking out the songs that will be housed in my ipod again.

so. all of this, this losing of myself, it feels like that. like i had this amazing playlist that defined me and helped me get through my days that was very suddenly ripped from me and now, i am here today (and have been for the last several weeks) attempting to FIND that playlist again before i am forced to buckle down and create an entirely new one.

now, i know that just making a new one would be good for me. a lot of people do it and it's cleansing and healthy and blah, blah, fucking blah, but i LIKED my playlist. i LIKED my life and now that it's lost, i just really don't know what the fuck i'm doing every day.

i wake up and don't want to move, i lull around the house until i can muster enough oomph to throw some clothes on for a fag and then come in and look around the room wondering what the hell i'm doing with my life. the excitement i had for baking, crocheting and doing laundry has dulled to a low roar and the things i used to find myself doing every day are now only done when i absolutely can't stand hearing Muffin complain about it anymore (well, that's not entirely true. it's actually more dramatic than anything. i do stuff, just not every day now.)

i've mostly stopped eating and i can't sleep without the aid of a cocktail of melatonin, valium and some other off-brand sleeping medication. i go through short phases occasionally where i literally just don't care about anything. i would take my pills at night hoping that perhaps they would just stop me from having to wake in the morning, only to have them offer me more and more upsetting dreams to wake up and reel back from.

i know, that sounds horrible and ohEMgee dramatic and like a call for help. i don't want anyone to worry, which is why i haven't brought it up before now. i never actually planned-out any suicide attempts or anything, i just really, honestly don't want to have to exist anymore sometimes.

i feel like right now i'm not me. i'm just some person who is completely dependent on Muffin (which completely devastates my confidence) and who nobody wants to hire (despite the five to ten resumes i send out a day, every single day). i feel like i have few friends, a strong but very small support system that's decreasing in mass by the day and just not enough strength sometimes to do anything but sit and snuggle the dog. i don't feel like i benefit anyone's life and only exist to make Muffin annoyed and... well, that's it. my self-confidence is completely non-existent. i've not taken "face" photos in about two weeks because i can't bare the sight of it and i'm just... i don't know. i don't feel like dressing up or putting makeup on or anything.

all of this, this heavy, horrible came to a head a week or so ago when i just completely lost it with Muffin. there were tears, raised voices and a lot of honest realities expressed that worried him. since then he's tried, bless him. he's really making the effort to hold me tighter and for longer. he's really showing me that i have at least one person that loves the shit out of me and wants to see this over so i can resume normal activity.

and can i just say? all those stupid goddamn films that try to make it look like it's a fucking relief to have these little outbursts are lies. i felt worse. i felt like i had laid yet another burden on Muffin, which is why i hadn't said anything to begin with, to him or anyone. i've just kept my silence and hoped this storm would pass or something magical would happen that would pull me out of this stupid, ugly slump.

alas, no. i'm just eating less and waking up later as a result of the extra tablets i'm taking at night, leaving me sluggish and blah throughout the day.

wow, now that that depressing shite is over, i can say that i'm trying. i'm honest-to-goodness trying to make this hurt stop. if Christopher taught me anything, it's that i can't count on anyone else to make this hurt that i have less... the only person i can count on is me. the thing is, how am i meant to count on me when i just don't feel strong enough to do this? i get up and force myself to maintain a routine, i coloured my hairs, i've been putting makeup on and trying to put on a brave face, "faking it to make it" as we used to say in treatment... all of this is doing something, but i don't know what. i'm attempting to re-build that "playlist" in hopes that this new one will make the days easier and will make me slightly stronger if anything, which is all i can hope for, that i will come out of this at the other end with a thicker skin and better head on my shoulders.

we'll see.

parp. i need a fag.

sorry.

a kind of "BWEEEE" tuesday...

hrm. never posted that other blog, did i? well i WILL, in time. perhaps today? but also perhaps not. there's a lot on this little girl's dinner plate today and i need to get them done before i can sit and go on more than i should about my life in a blog that, more often than not, is not being read and therefore is fairly useless.

alas, i have a list! a glorious list! please enjoy!

french toast and bacon cupcakes... so, for "research" purposes i went to a new bakery that opened up down the road from our house. we went in and i immediately fell in love with the idea of french toast and bacon cakes (complete with a piece of candied bacon on top!). my pout came into effect almost straight away as i began pawing at Muffin's collar, making sure that there was NO DOUBT that i would want a cake and OMGCOULDIPLEASEHAVEITRIGHTNOW?! anyways. i got my cake and good freaking jesus in a handbasket it was beautiful. it was like a tiny bit of heaven was cut from the skies and churned around in a mixer with bacon bits, sugar and maple syrup. it was the most perfect store-bought cake i'd ever had. ever. PHWOAR!
daytime drinking
talking to Carmen... my other sister and i are not too terribly close. we rarely speak and typically when we do it's just not overall very nice. it's usually very mechanical and painful. like pulling teeth, but friday... friday i had an amazing conversation with her that left me heaped in a little ball of weepy in a too-hot-for-me bath. it was a conversation that made me feel like we actually had a connection and that she really, honest-to-goodness cared for me, which i've never really felt before. it was nice. it made me feel nice.
new jewelery
photo collages
valentine's day... which was unbelievably magical this year. this has been the first valentine's day that i feel like i've been really, absolutely in love. i spent the entire day in complete awe of how much i love Muffin... i stared at his hands and feet and nose and literally couldn't believe how much i love him. it hurts, how much i love him. he made it a perfect day and i can't seem to find enough words to thank him for giving that to me.
the fact that i'm fairly spoiled... mmm, i really am. i pretty much get anything i want. mostly. my wants aren't huge, but Muffin tends to oblige... he takes care of me by way of cupcakes, baking trays, shoes, hamburgers... he's magical.
pine nuts
random phone calls
my hairs
oh my LORD sex
tandem showers
the johnny cash project
finding an awesome bargain
mary j blige
julia roberts

completely, absolutely unexpected surprises... after receiving many, many magical gifts on valentine's day i felt relaxed and pleased. i occasionally prodded Muffin, saying that he SHOULD have gotten me flowers, as EVERY girl likes getting flowers. it wasn't until i was about to begin cooking our amazingdindins when he asked if i needed anything from the supermarket. i grinned at him, knowing that he was going to go get me some flowers and used my need for prosciutto to be able to away himself to a local florist to find me some sort of lily. whilst he was out i readied the supplies for the chicken parmigiana. i laid out the breasts, cheese, basil, bay leaves and olive oil when booger went nuts, signaling the return of his father. Muffin walked into the kitchen with one hand behind his back and the other holding a supermarket bag with my ham. he mumbled about flowers and how he hadn't gotten me anything huge and then pulled me close and handed me a cutesy ceramic cupcake with five carnations and a heart in it. i was immediately delighted with the glitter, cupcake and flowers and sat the gift down to kiss his face off for being a good listener when he pulled away and said, "oh dear, it looks as though this came with a ring." it was at that moment that i forgot how to speak and how to not weep. i just smiled and saw the tiny glittering ring being held in place by the heart. he proceeded to explain to me that this ring meant that he was mine. that he would be mine and nobody else's and that one day we will, when the time is right, become engaged and wed. he then removed the ring from it's flowery bed and placed it on my tiny finger (which seems to have become even tinier since it was measured last, as a spacer had to be purchased today so as to avoid the loss of said promise of foreverlove). literally, receiving a ring from Muffin was the last thing in the entire world i expected and i have spent the last twenty-four hours in a state of excitement that cannot be contained, staring at my hand, but doing so in secret so as to not look like a goddamn weirdo. just, SQUEEE!
mozzarella cheese
bill murray
valium
honesty
cardigans
clearing out the garage
cooking magazines
william elliot whitmore
love songs
marvin gaye
coming out of dark places... i'm going through dark places. places i've kept secret because i don't want people to worry. even Muffin has been mostly kept out of the loop. i've wanted to travel them alone and came dangerously close to losing myself, but i feel like slowly, right now, i am making it through. it feels like, but still slightly unstable.
inappropriate post cards
taxidermy
finding dead animals on the side of the road
blueberry cakes
angel hair pasta
how tiny my hands are
cleavage
chewing plastic
how sexy a simple pair of underwear can make me feel
cupcakes that are so beautiful it makes my head hurt... like these:

mmm, that's good enough. i have a romantic dinner to prepare for. have a lovely week. <3

the laziest of tuesdays

good GOD i am having a lazy tuesday.

i've been in the middle of writing a fairly epic and emotional blog for the last two days, so i needed to literally pull myself away from the computer last night and just give myself a break. i am sure i'll post it sometime tonight or tomorrow, so expect THAT... it might be a trainwreck, it might not. we'll see.

so, today has just literally consisted of me sitting on the sofa and doing things just for me. no tidying, no laundry, just danie, booger, cookbooks, magazines, this week's coupons and season two of desperate housewives. all of this lazy has only been interrupted three times to allow breaks for me to have a fag and grab some better cheddars and nail varnish. it's been glorious to just take a day for myself. a day to reel back all of the energy that i've been exerting on every other aspect of my life and pour it all on myself. to just take care of danie.

now though, i thought i would list.

figs
the parcel of glee from LaDonna... and the fact that no matter what "phases" i go through (when i was a teenager, i was TOTALLY into rubber ducks, a few years later i couldn't get enough of henry rollins), LaDonna ALWAYS, without fail, finds me the greatest gifts. she hadn't sent me my christmas present yet, due to her having had surgery and then her husband having surgery almost a week after her. she finally sent it out last week and it arrived today, completely filled with amazingly cutesy and perfect cupcake-themed decorations and nick-nacks (a fucking SEXY apron, recipe/photo holders, magnets, stained-glass window ornaments, a manicure kit, a magazine filled with cupcake recipes and some cupcake-scented hand sanitizer.) she's just wonderful at picking out all the best things and i just love her so much for that.
better cheddars
chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream
prism nailpolish
aprons
scissors... it's pow's fault. i never really gave them much notice until i started working with him on Johnny. now though, i tend to go all gushy when i see a particularly sexy pair of scissors or a picture of a pair of vintage scissors. PHWOAR! that's all i can say.
frozen blueberries
lip balm
tom waits
the boys at the tattoo shop... at THIS tattoo shop, here. crispy, sailor cam, grover and maxwell. they're all just the loveliest boys. they're lovely in a different way than the boys back in derby in that they're not so confrontational with their vulgarities. they are incredibly polite and kind and i love all of their tiny faces. this can be seen with every batch of cupcakes i lovingly bake and bring in to them each time i go to the shop. i'll look forward to getting many, many more pieces of work from them and baking them no less than five hundred more batches of cakes.
the new tattoo... she's beautiful. planning for her began over a year ago. i had asked jaacqy what he wanted me to get tattoo'd on me for him and he said he wanted a mermaid. i told him i'd get one but was stumped, as i didn't want just any ORDINARY mermaid. i wanted a special mermaid. one that would go with the rest of my tattoos (well, as much as the rest of them go with one another) and that would look like something i would get on my body. it was within a week that janey (jane hallam) presented me with the sushi mermaid. i immediately asked if i could have her and put her on my body. and the story's history from there, as i finally, after nearly a year, got her inked onto my skin for forevers. she's perfect and everything i hoped she'd be. she plays very nicely with her tattoo brothers and sisters and will eventually have a sexy background to go along with her.
reading crochet pattern books
the smell of our laundry detergent
meatballs
tinned pineapple
grilled chicken
japanese zombies
coupon day
ice water
bright lights
early mornings
christopher titus
the eels


merp! not a very long list this week. sorry. i thought there was more going on in my head than this. in any event, at least i made SOME kind of list. have a glorious week.

over and out.

<3

face

occasionally, i find it difficult to associate with my face.

i will take photos of myself. raw photos with no makeup, no glitter, no hair product. just my face. i take photos from different angles so i can remember what my nose looks like, the colours that exist in my eyes and the way my mouth turns down ever so slightly in the corners.

i take photos to see if i can remember who i am.

i take these photos and tend to post them on the Book of Face, not telling anyone of the hours i spend agonizing over every tiny detail that can be seen. the spots, wrinkles, colours... i spend so long trying to memorize these details.

i do this because so often i become caught up in the many, MANY emotions, dramas and whatever else is going on in my life that i forget that i am actually a real life human being who has lived. i live so often between all the whims of my existence that i relate myself more to my actions rather than to the minuscule, special physical aspects of my being. mostly, my face. i often forget i have a face.

that sounds stupid, doesn't it?

during the course of my days i find i rarely look at my face.

i will wake up every single morning and walk past my mirror, looking at my tummy and arse, checking to see if they might have magically gotten smaller or more attractive in my sleep. i'll go about my day from there without ever glancing at my face. i'll look at the reflections of my legs in the oven window, my hands as i type my blogs and my thighs as i bathe... but never, ever my face. often times i will go days without actually looking at my face.

this has been my general way of living since i can remember. i never noticed it until about a year ago. i had left for work one morning the same way i always did... toss my clothes on, look in the full-length mirror to make sure my body looked relatively presentable and then left. no attention to my hair and more often than not, no makeup. i just left my face to the elements of the world. the only help i had in realizing what i had been doing for who knows how many months prior to this particular day came from several awkward glances from the other passengers on the bus and then a quick glance at my reflection in the window. what was presented to me was literally a mess of hair. i actually looked like i had escaped from the mental asylum i was about to go start my day where i was employed.

it was about then that i started taking photos of my face. taking them and then looking back at them. comparing them to photos of myself from my childhood or early adolescence. picking out the details that were similar, how i'd changed and what things i liked or didn't like.

this became a ritual for me. i'd take photos about once a week. all of them became a very literal window into how i was feeling that particular moment. furrowed brows, wide eyes, smiles, moist eyeballs... so many details that opened my eyes to the face of me.

this ritual became something i almost needed every week. i needed to be able to look at my face and remember who i was. see what other people see. 

i soon learned the things that i loved most about my face (my nose. my eyeballs. my upper lip. my jawline) and the things i liked least (my eyebrows. my forehead.).

looking over the photos from the last year i can see so many things. i can see how my face has changed. i can see how i was feeling a particular day, depending on how much of my face i would photograph (some days just my lips, eyes or nose. some days my whole face). i could see ways that i would hide certain things using lights or hair to my advantage.

it was only today that it really hit me what i've been doing for the last year-ish. i don't know if it's healthy or not. i don't know if i am happy that i do this or not.

i know i love the photos because i so often am terrified that i might forget things. that's why i take so many photos, to stop me from forgetting. in a way, that's my version of hoarding. photos. memories. images. i need them for fear that i might forget what something or someone looks like.

the photos from today made me sad. my eyes look so  sad. my face so much thinner than i can remember it ever being. i look ill and tired. this comes from a hard week. a hard and emotional week. i'm trudging through a lot of heavy things. i'm hurting. and these photos. they really do show the hurt.

parp. anyway. sorry. that was that.

tuesday. right.

hm. another tuesday. has another week actually passed? jesus crisps!

it's been a quick one. i didn't even realize seven days had passed. time seems to be a foreign concept to me currently, as my period just started and i am almost completely certain that i had it like, a week ago (obviously, after checking my diary, i can confirm that it is only three days early, but goddamnit, ANY days early for a period is TOO early!). everything just seems to be gelling into one at the moment. it's difficult for me to discern where one days begins and another ends. i'm finding myself having to write even the most tiny details in my diary so i am able to identify which days are which.

i don't know if i'm just tired or depressed or what, but i just can't find the energy to do anything with any kind of zest. i'm just running on autopilot whilst doing the chores and drawing and crocheting.

anyways. despite the weird my week's been made of, i HAVE been planning things to put on my list. let's have a go at this so's i can prance with sarah when she arrives!

STEPHANIE'S NEW BABY BOY!
the futureheads
working out
malteasers
cleaning 
painting my nails
working on my newest crochet projects
popping blisters
rice
spearmint mouthwash
working out with Muffin
the way Booger sneezes when he gets excited
better cheddars
serial killers
netflix
clean bathrooms
when my womb doesn't hurt
photos of me from my childhood
ramen
homemade chocolate chip cookies
cardigans
Flight of the Conchords
when shit gets done
ibuprofen
playdates with Sarah 
fisheye lenses
being able to hear Muffin's car coming home from about half a mile away
embroidering




no blurbs, just the list.

have a good week. 

Day 24 - A photo of a night you loved.

a controversial entry, no doubt. but it's my gut response to a night i loved. i've been thinking about this for weeks and this night had to be it. it started as a film night for me and pow that ended at five-thirty in the morning as a drinking fest with graham and liam. one of the nights that i can remember having to stop and catch my breath to remember how special my life is.