Anna

Does falling for someone become scarier every time you do it?

I feel like my life is ridiculous. First my Dad's possible child, then Liam's death, then Michael moving to Australia, now this weekend, getting caught in a house fire. Honestly now, cannot I not have a little normality please Life? A boring few weeks in which I work and go to class and see my friends and celebrate Easter without anyone getting pregnant or dying or catching on fire? 



What's strange is that any sensible knowledge as to how to act in a fire completely left me. I just panicked, held onto my friends hand and gasped and swallowed a stupid amount of smoke. I wasn't afraid, just bewildered, until the moment that I lost Richards hand and it fully dawned on me that I couldn't see anything. That there was smoke everywhere, and I didn't know how many more flights of stairs there were to go. I lost all sense of time, I have no idea for how long I was stumbling through the smoke for, it was just darkness, chemical smell and taste, can't breathe, sight of fire, someone helping me out, and then lights, cold, people, coughing, sky, broken glass under my feet. I think I must of been one of the last people out, the paramedics and fire brigade had already arrived. No one was killed. We all made it out. If it wasn't for the fact that a man on the bottom floor had been up working late, and had seen the men throw the fire bomb through the letter box and had alerted the other flats, I don't know what would have happened. We were on the top floor, there was no other exit apart from the door that was on fire. Not a single fire alarm. I can't move on from this point. The terrifying possibility of a different outcome. The thought of being trapped at the top of a flat, the stairs on fire, no way out. the random luck that someone was able to prevent that from happening.

I, maybe naively, didn't think that such racial attacks still occured in London. Not since the 1980's surely. But no, the sight of an Asian boy passing you on the street at 5am is still reason enough to attempt to kill a flat block of people. The mentality that accompanies this is bewildering to me. Yet, I know it is ultimately the most extreme example of a racist attitude that is apparent in different forms within all aspects of society. Their thoughts and actions are not in isolation of London, or western society as whole. This is what frightens me, to experiance the ultimate manifestation of an ideology that is not unheard of, inconcievable or rare, but the logical final step within the veiled racism that permeate all levels of society. It exists along the same line as 'skin coloured' plasters all being pink. No one wanting to sit next to the muslim man on the train. My mum grabbing her bag to herself when we pass some black kids on the street. It seems inevitable that such tension will result in acts of seemingly random brutality.

I'm starting to think, maybe I should stop trusting men who tell me they love me

I have realised recently that I am incapable of expressing anger without the aid of alcohol. What does this make me?
I have been conditioned to believe that anger, and the expression of it, is immoral. That to be morally pure, is to be eternally forgiving, gentle, empathetic. Accomidating. I am coming to think that such behaviour, such a misinformed idealism about the human condition,  only does a disservice to my own life, and to those of others. I know exactly where it has originated from, the wide eyed reactionary caution I had to assume at all times with my father, to forgive, forgive, forgive.

To be continually aware of the tiniest flecks of change in his demeanour, to softly observe, and bend myself  to ensure the avoidance of any irrational, paranoid fits of rage.

Yet it has lead to my father re-enacting the same behaviour over and over, with people around him fearfully supressing their own emotions to ensure peace. Just a little peace, for a little while..

Then he drinks. He takes the pills he is addicted too. His paranoia has free reign to dominate the lives of all those who must love him. His self loathing, anger, frustration, despair, has permeated my life, it is poison.

Now the affects of the great creaking pattern my father enacts over and over are being felt by my brother and I cannot tolerate that. I put myself in the line of responsibility when my parents were together, so Tom never had to. He cannot have the burden too. He is the one that managed to get out alive.

Carol, my Fathers off and on again partner has told him that she is pregnant. My father is convinced she is lying to manipulate him. This is my Father at full force irrationality, nothing can touch him, nothing can bring him down from the state of fearful mistrust has has wound himself into. He is such a fearful man.  The phrases he has used to describe the situation, they are exact, word for word renditions of statements he made to me and my brother as children, against my Mother. "She's trying to manipulate you... to take you from me... to make you believe I am the Bad Guy..." We are all too old for this. I am trying to complete my degree. I'm starting to not even care about it anymore.

I am furious because, my brother and I are our own people now. We are not huddled children, we have our own lives, problems, responsibilities. Yet I must go back to my Father again, and be the one that carries him. That understands, that helps, that makes sacrifices. What else can I do? It's me or my brother. I cannot even express my anger because, I don't know how. All I can do is turn the feelings in upon myself, and continue my Fathers legacy of self loathing and repressed emotion. To think as well, another child may be born into this.

I am a harlot with a heart.

David keeps telling me 'You're a heart breaker, Cat"

I don't mean to be, I don't seek out people or men for my life. But they arrive anyway. But there always seems to be someone waiting for me at night. David's right, I am never truly alone for longer than a few weeks before I get swirled up in the emotions of someone else.

I don't know why it is. I'm just a girl amongst another thousand London girls with a bob and pale, pale skin and the clothes of my Grandma.

My ultimate fear is to be alone. For all my coy flirtations, perhaps this is apparent. But these people... It's not as if they prevent the ever present background noise of loneliness. The static buzz.

Sometimes I think I will always be lonely.

My reasons for wanting to shave my head were not ones born of impulse. I have always wondered what it would be like to be a woman without hair, and admired images of Sinead O'Connor or Natalie Portman when their beauty was left bare to the world, vulnerable. A shaved head is ultimately paradoxical in nature, for it leaves the bearer physically open to the world, there is literally no where left to hide, yet also gives the impression of strength. Of course, for women, it is also largely connected to the idea of loss of control, that evokative term 'madness' springs to mind, you need only look at Britney to see that. Yet the composure and self assuredness of a woman who has deliberately removed one of the ultimate symbols of feminity cannot be ignored either. The construction of my own identity has, as for so many women, always been caught up in the responses recieved to my appearance. Even now, when I am acutely aware of the flawed and constrictive nature of being first and foremost a body to be consumed and judged, I seek to please. I am contained within the idea that my success as a person, is intrinsically linked to my appearance as a woman. I hate it. Yet every morning I still look at myself and despair.

The reactions i have had to stating that I wanted to shave my head have been incredibly varied, from horror and disbelief to encouragement and support, even pressure. Ultimately however, I had to examine my own desires for wanting to do it. I have been accused of painting my own self destructive tendencies with a thin veneer of political feminism, but this is not true. I AM politically feminist, all my actions are permeated with the thread of feminist thought. There is no separating the two, in my eyes. I do not wish to desexualise myself, or 'look like a boy', I don't believe my appearance has the slightest impact on my sexuality or self identification as being female. I love being a woman. It's the societal and cultural repercussions of being this sex that I find problematic. If you believe that the removal of my hair would some how make me less of a woman, that is a problem of your perception, not my actions.

I want some freedom. I want to be seen as more than the sum of my parts.

Will a shaved head deliver this however? Ultimately I came to the conclusion that no, it wouldn't. Not for me at least. The attention I would recieve for being female would only be displaced in to attention for being a different kind of female. I would still be seen first and foremost as a body. The possibilty of having people percieve me as being public property, with the right to touch my head or ask me questions on the street, makes me shudder. I already feel that I am public property, that my appearance can be juged and commented upon as if it has anything to do with anyone but myself. To exasperate this further would probably drive me into being even more of a hermit than I already am.

My fascination with the particular beauty of a womans shaved head has not faltered, but I know that it is an action that will always be read in a wider context, the possibility of changing your appearance purely for your own pleasure seems to be an incomprehensible concept to many. Does this make me a coward? Perhaps. But I have to live in the world, and navigate its many demands and assumptions. The culture of my time is inescapable, and I would rather try to face it than take actions that symbolically cut myself away from it.

My thoughts are convaluted and messy as always, but they have lead me to this choice. For now, at least. I am very good at changing my mind.

I went to a party and only creepy old men appeared to know who i was supposed to be.
My generation is a disappointment to me.



I miss my real camera that isn't on my phone :(
I also miss my ex boyfriend who was the love of my so far life, but that's another story entirely.

Fuck you, RAF
Fuck you for seducing my boyfriend, with your promises of flight and rescue work.
Fuck you for stopping me from sleeping.
Fuck you for making me worry, constantly, for making me have to hide it.
Fuck you for threatening my long sought happiness, my love.
What am I supposed to do if they accept him? Smile and say, it's ok dear, you may kill or be killed, you may be changed beyond all recognition due to the horrors you'll encounter, you may sign 12 years of your life away and curse it at every moment, but I will still be here, in a long distance relationship, that will never return to normality? But of course I bite my tongue, he knows how i feel, knows also that I want to support him in any endeavour that will make him happy.

The problem is of course, I want to make myself happy also. I don't want to pine away for a man who I will barely see, who will be away 6 months at a time, with only email as a form of communication. But the alternative is to break it off, which i know i would regret for the rest of my life. So I will try, and suffer, for the sake of the man i love. That's a rubbish prospect. But I am screwed, either way.


I hate that I am praying that they will not accept him.

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
22 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
21 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Seinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alic Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On the Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jone's Diary
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


60 out of a 100s not bad I think. But jesus, do i hate Dickens

i love pokemon.

What do you think it would be like to be immortal? that is, to start off life as a mortal human, but for something to happen that would make you live forever, impervious to attack or illness, and physically never changing?
I've been thinking about this a lot.
I'm inclined to think it would leave you feeling utterly disinterested in the behaviour of humans, as you watch history, and human actions, repeat again and again. Maybe you would start off wanting to help people, improve their lives. But then you would realize that man is never really happy. Maybe you would feel utterly alien from humanity anyway. What is it to live without the knowledge, somewhere in your mind, that you will die? I'm not sure if the average person is particuarlly aware of their mortal status anyway.
I think time would take on an entirely different meaning. Your visceral experiancing of it would have to be radically altered. Perhaps, after a while, years would flit by like hours. Or maybe it would just drag on and on.

Is life better because we know it will end?

I think it is only recently i have come to see how precious my time is. How projects i have put off again and again deserve my immediate attention.

Longevity does seem to be imbued within my genetics however, on the female side at least. My two grandmas are both approaching 90, and my Great Grandma died when she was 102.

I wonder if there time felt long, or fleeting.

I haven't had a cigarette now for just over a week, and it feels absolutely brilliant.

This is due not only to the pleasing sensation of my lungs coming back to life, but the knowledge that i finally made myself do something i have wanted but put off for a long time. I can't describe how good that feels

heh, i'm going to become such a sanctimonious ex-smoker.

Things i have learnt from burning my face

1. I shall never again complain about the attention i recieve for being young and attractive. It is far, far worse to feel that you do not even look normal. I am ashamed that i ever entertained such stupid thoughts.

2. No matter how tempted you are to stare at a facially disfigured person you pass on the street, resist. To experaince, en masse, people reacting with disgust, or fear, or just thinly veiled grotesque fascination as to your appearance, when it's hard enough to leave your house as it is, is horrible. It's dehumanising. I myself am always curious as to other peoples appearance, but my god am i going to try harder in future to control this impulse.

3. I am upset with having first and second degree burns on my face, but they will heal, and this time next year it is unlikely i will be still be seriously marked by them. They mental and physical pain i have experianced is hard enough, but i can only start to imagine life with permanant scars and disfigurment. People have called me brave. This is nothing. People such as Jacquline Saburido, who was beautiful,


and after recieving 2nd and 3rd degree bruns across 60% of her body, after being hit by a drunk driver, now looks like this


humble me beyond belief. My eyesight has not been affected. I can still talk. I am lucky.

Wednesday night i was boiling a can of condensed milk in my kitchen, and when i tried to lift it out of the pan it exploded. I have burns across my face and neck and arms and chest, and well, it's pretty hideous to behold. My face is covered in blisters and large raw, scabby flesh and my right eye has swollen so i can barely see out of it. I've been doing nothing but make fun of it, and myself and well, really i'm scared. I'm scared to be looked at, and i'm scared it will scar me (although the doctor has reassured me it shouldn't) and i'm too scared to leave my house .How am i going to do my work and get through this year at university? i feel grotesque, and people seem to feel the right to stare at me, eiter with disgust or fear. Even at the bloody hospital where you would think this would phase no one. What am i going to do? i dont know what to do

Well at least my Dad is going to be ok. It may sound macabre, but i am starting to see the age in my parents, that old age is lazily taking its grip upon there minds and bodies. My mum is chronically forgetful, more so than i have ever seen here. My father has to go for a cat scan to confirm that it was a stress induced seizure, but he's going to have to cut down on his work load, and generally slow down in life. Even my lovely cat Caspian wakes at 8am too eat his breakfast, sleeps in his radiator-hanging-bed-thing until 6, has dinner, cuddles with my brother, and then retires too his chair to sleep around 8pm. Everyone is getting older, showing the signs of their falibility. Tom is about to go on a 5 month man-making trip around the world. He's not my spritely, carefree little brother anymore, but a bearded young man, who keenly wants to prove his integrity and sense of responsibility.

But I... I should be an adult now surely. I feel i have been on the brink for 5 years or so. I don't really know what i want to do with my life, my interests change on a weekly basis. I want to write, then i want to conduct social research, then i want to be a critic, then i want to draw... then all i want to do is look after animals and not have to interact or deal with any of the aspects of human life

i think i saw my future on the bus yesterday, a 60 year old women with jam jar glasses, making desperate conversation with the bus driver, and smelling of cat food. There will be a point where i shall be in hole filled cardigans smelling of cat food, i can see it.

Maybe i'm just feeling overly lonesome today. I miss him. I always end up missing him.

My dad had to go to hospital. He had some kind of seizure. No one can really tell me what's going on, and i'm far away in London, and it's worrying.
My imagination is trying to run away with me, and i'm trying not to let it.

He's been discharged, waiting for more tests... i'm just hoping the fact he's been discharged means its going to be ok.

I don't know what i would do if it wasn't ok.

My mum. She has been so near impossible this holiday.
I swear there's some part of her that will always have poisonous emotions towards me, i don't know what it stems from exactly, but it is wearing me down so much i'm thinking i might have to go and spend the rest of my time in colchester at my dads.
Maybe we can't live together. She kept putting me down today in front of my family and it just made me want to cry. For example, she called me over to a private conversation between her and my grandma and in front of everybody, including friends of the family, made my embaressed grandma recall what she had just mentioned - that i was apparently "no longer beautiful" due to being too thin. My mum then went on to illuminate the room on how sunken eyed and ill looking i had become, and that it wasn't "just her who had noticed it". I am not even underweight.
I don't mnd that my grandma might say that, but why share views of my apparent ugly appearance with everyone? i wouldn't bring up her being overweight in company.

I just wanted one day without this. One day where her behaviour did not bring back my own frustrating teenage reactions.

Today has been kind of shit.

Ok. Ok. i found a new internet site love http://squid.us/

how cute and brilliant is the squid nativity scene?

i love Cephalopods. Kind of want to get a colossal squid tattoo... maybe fighting a sperm whale... is this a very wrong idea?
I also am craving a poke ball tattoo and apple tattoo on my wrist much like the photo here
whatdoyouthink?