Ishmael Dreaming

 So I'm waiting for US election news. Polls will start to close in about 6 hours. I think Obama will win, and obviously I desperately hope he will, but I am concerned. It's a concerning time. We're all a bit anxious. I'm going to stay up all night to watch it unfold, like I did last time. Four years ago. Four years ago, a brief while, so long ago and yet really not at all. I had my first drink in a pub to celebrate Obama's election. I had just turned 18, I had just started receiving uni offers. 

Now I'm 22, and I'm back at uni. Hmmm.

***

I'm doing Nano, and I am attempting to finish The Misfit Witch. Good girl. Finish haha that's a scary word. I doubt it, I'm already rather behind. But I'm trying, I'm totally trying. I am definitely definitely going to finish Part 1, that's my real vow. And then have a decent crack at Part 2. Mert Mert Mert mostly. But today, a bit of Tawn and Burg, because I couldn't focus and could only write tiny flighty fragments. Tchuh.

***

I keep going to London at the weekends. I went the Sunday before my birthday, to see Jay Brannan with hanelissar. That was really fun - obviously Jay is one of my absolute favs, and Han hadn't been to see him live before, and beforehand we had plenty of lovely drinks and a jolly good time. Er, the next morning wasn't brilliant though. I have never been so concerned that I might actually be sick on a train. Not my finest moment. Stay classy self. On the plus side, the universe gave me a free (ie abandoned on the train, so I kept) copy of The Casual Vacancy which is cool because I was curious about it but not enough to actually buy it. Haven't read much of it yet, but bear with. Oh and that morning I had a woman taxi driver, and her taxi was really comfortable, and she was really nice, and I felt so awful but she was so nice, it really struck me.

The week after that I went back for the day on Saturday to see my brother and my dad and celebrate my birthday. We all had various travels issues but we eventually found each other and had a really good meal and some fucking amazing cake and it was a lovely day.

And this last weekend I went to see my friends A and A, to celebrate the birthday of one of the A at the other A's house. They both brought their boyfriends, and we had dinner, and then when to a goth club. All night. Now, when the idea of an "all night goth rave" was first mentioned to me, I had assumed this was hyperbole. It was not. The last tube, people who don't know London, is just before midnight generally. We set off at midnight. We got a bus at quarter to one. We got to the club a bit before 2am. And we stayed until kicking out time at 7.45am. oh my god. It took a few hours to grow on me, because I was kinda tired and cold and a bit grumpy at first, but then (morning person ahoy) about 5am I suddenly woke up and started really enjoying myself. So that was good fun.

When we left the club, it was raining heavily, and none of us had umbrellas, and I didn't have a proper coat, or even proper clothes really because hello clubbing, and we walked for about 15 minutes through this rain and omg November morning, cold cold cold wet wet wet. That was not pleasant. But! Once we had got finally made it back to A's house, looking like a collection of tired, drowned goth rats, I got to dry off and put on warm clothes, and then one of A's flatmates turned out to be an incredible angel of a flatmates because he didn't even know us and, I can't overstate how amazing this was, he made us bacon and egg sandwiches, and proper coffee. You may have read that, but you don't fully understand: he went out to the shops to buy us food, and then he cooked it for us, and he kept bringing us more, and seriously, I almost started crying because I'd been awake for about 30 hours and it was so amazing.

Then I crawled back here and slept through a lot of day and woke up in the middle of the night and completely through off my sleeping pattern but it doesn't matter because there's always tumblr isn't there.

***

I just started watching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries! They're good so far, definitely enjoying and would recommend. I'm not doing all that well at fandom otherwise. But that's ok. I'm still around online more than I thought I would be tbh, and frankly it will probably go down because hello essays, but yeah. I was worried I'd just drop away entirely. 

I still haven't seen Skyfall. I might just go by myself. 

 I met antistar_e on Saturday! She was, of course, utterly lovely :D I was a tiny bit worried to start with, because neither of us knew what each other looked like which makes picking someone out at a train station a touch daunting - after surreptitiously glancing at a few people, she approached me - of course she was the first person I had considered! We spent the day casually, just walking around town and talking with occasional breaks for cake and alcohol. It was nice :)

*

This low level but relentless stress is difficult to deal with. I feel like I hardly have any space or time for myself, which makes me tired and grumpy and aggressive. I also have a particular nagging irritation that comes from not writing when I really want to. I need to write. But for that I need time and space and to be basically happy, at least a bit. I can't function long term like this. Every time I can get a couple of hours to myself its feels like a victory I need to guard jealously. But I won't be able to feel like a proper person again until I can breathe, until I can have a few days to myself. 

*

Still loving the Olympics. It's so inspiring, even events I had no idea about before. People giving their everything to really try to be the best at something, to better their own best. It's brilliant. And yes, it helps that Team GB is doing quite well :D The BBC coverage is seriously brilliant though, I hope they keep the internet streams up after it is all finished so I can watch more things I haven't had time to catch up on yet! 

*

I finally listened to One Direction's album, which I downloaded ages ago but then was too ashamed to actually listen to. It's OK, probably B+ IMO, better than I was expecting. My favourite songs are Tell Me A Lie, Taken, I Want and Na Na Na I think. Mostly I can only hear three sounds though; I hear a) Harry Styles' voice b) a voice which isn't Harry Styles' which I am guessing is Liam's, but who knows tbh, it could be more than one of the others, allI know is that it isn't Harry and c) general One Direction chorus. So most of the time my brain goes "Harry! Not Harry! Oh there's Harry again!" It's cool though.

 Oh my goodness, he really, really is.

So I went to see his gig yesterday, and was left a wreck of a human being but insanely happy and completely unable to properly express all the emotions he made me feel omg. This morning... I still feel kinda wrecked actually. But I'm gonna give coherent sentences a shot.

( I witnessed perfection )

Christ but he's perfect. 

 ~ you want to tell everyone, including the internet, about it

~ you are unclear whether you have been drinking singles or doubles but either way, you are more impaired than you had expected

~ after six weeks of basically not talking about politics you finally relax a little, enough to talk vaguely about your confused political background

~ you give holiday tips to your (former) (senior) colleague

~ the idea of getting home in time for church is freaking laughable, not just something to make you feel vaguely guilty

~ you have to restrain yourself going up to a politician from a different party and gushing about how someone you kinda know met him a few weeks back and also you think he is a legend

~ every song on your mp3 player makes you sway happily

~ if was definitely a good idea not to have that last drink your friend bought you

~ you feel like the girl at the bus stop who smiled at you briefly might be some amazing kindred spirit and you really want to know whether she's canadian

~ you try to snuggle into your alcohol blanket

 Politics is back. That means more flooding my twitter feed with sarcastic and inappropriate comments about UK politics and politicians (um... sorry? XD) and also, more trying my darndest for an internship. Still no luck/not good enough. *sigh* But I remain hopeful. There was one day I came home and I had two invitations to interview by email and another by phone. Clearly it had been the first day back after the holidays for going through the non urgent emails.

****

The march of time also means that most of my friends have either already gone, or are about to go back to uni. Sad. Saw three, H, A and C for coffee on Wednesday - which turned into a bit less than two hours of coffee with three of them, followed by another two and a half hours of walking around streets in the dark and sitting at bus stops having very deep conversations. At one point, my friend A and I tried to go to our favourite pub, but it wasn't there. It was just, gone. The outside was still there, but I dunno, they must be refurbishing? All the interior just wasn't there. It was the weirdest thing. I took it as a sign not to drink.

There will probably be drinking of cocktails tonight though, seeing H, L, S and C, and possibly some of their friends too later. Mmmm, cocktails.

****

I have hurt my right index finger, and possibly my right hand generally. Not badly, but I think it's strained, because some motions hurt, but other functions are totally fine - typing this with two hands is fine, for example. It might be RSI, I'm really not sure. What I am sure about is that that is my go to finger for all my point, click, and scrolling needs, and I want it to be better. The scrolling suddenly hurting was a big alarm bell though. You guys, I scroll so much. I cannot have this hurt me. So I'm trying to rest it and use my left hand, or my right ring finger which seems the most cool. It's not too bad - I am left handed, my left hand is more than adequate. It's just slightly weird realising exactly how instinctive some of the motions I make regarding this computer really are. It's trickier than not biting my nails.

****

I really need to get back to the writing - definitely looking at the end of Feb now, because progress has just dropped off. Oops. It's getting trickier. I think I'll put another extract up here, because I never share most of the time, but it does help motivate me somehow.

****

The Glee tickets are somewhere in the postal system! I think. Hope I'll have them soon. And then, that I don't lose them sometime in the next 5 and a half months.

****

There are actually loads of castles in the UK and Ireland. Way more than I thought. Hope I get to see one up close sometime...

This always happens to me.

( Moaning about my #middleclassproblems )

God. I just want this all to be sorted. And I haven't even got to clutches and fascinators yet...

+++

The awesome weather has become steady, rubbish rain. Apparently it might become torrential later. Great, thanks.

+++

Today my friend N is going back to Montreal. I'll see her when I go over to visit in August but that seems such a long time away now. We and two Js had lunch together yesterday, and it's just been so so great to see her these few times recently.

After lunch yesterday, had dinner at a small but lovely Gavin and Stacey get together at C's house. Much fun, and far too much Indian food, was had by all.

+++

MARMFISH: There was at some point discussion of some people meeting up in London on Sunday 4th July for sightseeing and good times. Was that just an idea or is it definitely happening? Is there any wiggle room on the date if it is still a "maybe, could be fun" thing? Only, I really wanted to, it sounded awesome - but I may now be going to Wireless festival that day... 

+++

Small amount of angst over G not replying to my request to sleep on her floor. I'd feel slightly rejected if she said no, but even that, and the irritation of having to ask someone else/consider a B&B maybe, would be better than not knowing what I'm doing just a couple of days from now.

 +++

There's going to be another series of Torchwood, with Captain Jack and Gwen, written by RTD, set "internationally" ie probably in the USA, jointly produced by a company called Starz which very much isn't Fox. I'm surprised by how I'm actually kinda optimistic about this, considering everything. Thoughts?

 OK, so this post might seem a bit odd, but whatever. Bare with me.

I read fandom secrets every day, and one thing comes up again and again. Several times I have thought about making a secret to express this to the comm, but a) I can't be bothered, b) it wouldn't change anything, c) its not that important, just something that bothers me and makes me sad to see, and most of all d) its hardly a secret. It's not even something I'd want to keep secret.

So, here I am, not keeping this opinion secret.

Over and over again, often several times each day, people confess secrets - and tame, silly secrets, about shipping B/C instead of A/B, or about not liking a certain kind of music, or about secretly liking a show, or book, or secretly hating a show or book, and ok some of the secrets are trolling, but I think many are probably real. And over and over again, I see people saying something like "Secret because my flist would hate me" or "secret because my flist would stop talking to me".

And I think, seriously? Your entire flist? Surely you are exaggerating just a tad?

And then I think, ok, that person really needs a better flist, because seriously? They would all turn on you? Especially when the opinion or whatever they are hiding (liking Twilight! hating Twilight! shipping a slightly different pairing! today, liking Mika!) are really not all that weird and there are plenty of people out there that share it. 

And then I think, I am so happy and relaxed with my flist. I know some of you better than others, and I comment back and forth on posts more with some of you than others, but I genuinely like all you guys, and I'm pretty sure most of you do actually like me. Some of you I've known for years, some of you I haven't, some of you I've met, some of you I haven't, some of you I talk to almost every day, some of you I don't know nearly as well. Some of you are my brain twins, and some of you are my best friends. And I'm utterly confident that I can express myself, about important things, not just who I ship or what music I'm listening to or even, yes, my thoughts on Twilight, or on Rose, or on Harmony shippers, and that you guys wouldn't just randomly start flaming me or turn on me or whatever.

And, y'know what? That's precious, and special, and I really appreciate it. So thanks guys :) You rock.

and other bits of randomness.

[In fact, she did several weird things. As did I. As did we all, I expect. ]

( My life. IDEK. )