Christmas Ramble

Ok, so it's technically a couple of days after Christmas. But I'm sure (what with it being the season of Christmas) you can forgive my belated seasons greetings.

Ahh Christmas. Rowing families. Too much food. Too much TV. High expectations. Yada yada yada.

It's the same every year so why do we put so much effort into a tradition that has now lost all meaning? Anyone remember that small child that was born some 2000 years ago so that we could have this feast? Love being a Christian at Christmas time, makes you feel all good inside. Unlike at Easter, when the guilt erodes your soul.

However, during church the other day, while singing Happy Birthday to Jesus, I was thinking about the whole Christmas charade. Technically we are celebrating the Winter Solstice, the bleak midwinter pagan festival necessary to try and chirp ourselves up during the long cold winter months. Which doesn't really have anything to do with some small child who created an entire new branch of religion.

Far too stressful to think about when tired.

Regardless of my ramblings, we do celebrate Christmas as a family holiday and although the reason behind Christmas has been warped over the years, it is comforting to know that we travel far and wide to be with out loved ones over the longest, hardest, coldest days of the year.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Ciao Bellas Xx

A Beautiful Ramble (That I can't claim to have written)

In my Victorian literature module we are about to start studying Elizabeth Barret Browning (1806-1861).

She was a poet who wrote some incredible love poems, one of which has completely captured my heart and all I want to do is share it with you.

This is number 43 from a collection of sonnets called Sonnets from the Portuguese.

So here goes.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath, 

Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after death.

There is no way in hell that you can not feel the passion behind that poem. I just hope that it brightens up your day. I will write something new soon.

Far too much work on at the moment, hence I'm actually doing work in the middle of the afternoon! (ok, with slight procrastination).



Anyway love you all.

Ciao Bellas Xx

 

Rambled Baudrillard

Evening,
So this is going to be a little different to the usual posts that I do... I'm not going to cut out the self-indulgence but this also isn't about my life. Much.

In one of my Sociology lectures on Thursday we discussed Jean Baudrillard, the French Philosopher and Sociologist. We read an obituary from the Guardian on Baudrillard and then proceeded to attempt a civilised deliberation.

You might need a little bit of background knowledge about this Seminar I have. It is taken by a middle-aged, female, Communist who spends her life in black. Someone who I would never want to get on the wrong side of!

Anyway, of the 15 or so people that turn up to this Seminar, I'd say that easily 1/3 are mature students. Mature students who have an extra couple of decades' worth of life experience to add to their knowledge and opinions compared to the green Undergraduates who have just come out of college for the standard University life.

We are all supposed to read the obituary, and answer two questions ready for discussion:
1.) Consider what has been the main contribution of Baudrillard to Social Theory.
2.) What are the advantages and disadvantages of Baudrillard's theory?

Well. Baudrillard, born in 1929, could easily be referred to as a Post-modernist, and even a Conspiracy theorist. He questioned reality, mistrusted the media and believed in a 'hyper-reality'. It was he who helped to coin the term 'virtual-reality' and decided that we are the "simulacrum of (ourselves)." The portrayal of Baudrillard through his obituary gives the impression that he was a very ironic, sarcastic, entertaining and somewhat cynical man. He is perceived as a very influential contemporary social theorist, but his entire arguments about how we don't exist in a real world, (yeah, the Gulf War never actually happened) sound as if he wanted to make an absurd theory just to see who would follow it.

For example, the 1999 film The Matrix takes many of his ideas and uses them to create this fictitious world where we are all controlled by machines in a world that doesn't really exist. However, Baudrillard protested against the film saying that, "The Matrix is surely the kind of film about the matrix that the matrix would have been able to produce," and so doesnt want to get involved with it personally. Despite his reasoning and firm belief of 'virtual-reality' he doesn't ever give us a way to become real; it's almost as if we are doomed to live in this 'hyper-reality'!

So the examples that my fellow students start to fling around the classroom include; Disney-isation (apparently that is a word), airbrushing, films (CGI in particular), computer games, plastic surgery, internet dating, fashion, the list is endless. According to Baudrillard, Disney films and Disneyland/world corrupt our children into believing in a false world. We are socially conditioning them to believe in the 'happily ever after' ending, that animals can talk, that, in the case of Pocahontas, history wasn't at all bloody and painful but in fact a walk in the park.

Then of course general films were brought into the mix, how we apparently believe that what happens in the films happened in real life. Seriously, the Saw franchise would have a field day if they knew that everyone completely believed in the horrendous torture that occurs throughout those films. The conversation then rambled on to airbrushing. On to how our 'virtual life' no longer knows what it is to be beautiful and how we all want to look younger and we have to look like the celebrities in the magazines who have flawless skin and are size zero.

Apparently there is this incessant need for us to want to achieve 'the American Dream' but in actual fact chasing that dream is giving in to the 'virtual reality' and embracing our simulacrum. The line between what is real and what is virtual is being blurred by our society and we are letting it. We just try to fulfil our wants, without really knowing what it is what we want, because we never have enough. We get seduced into wanting to possess objects and adopt styles that say more about who we are than we can ourselves.

Baudrillard has a point in that we are completely obsessed with the idea of celebrity and instant gratification and this idea of globalisation - that the entire (Western) world is obsessed with having one economy, one financial market that can be monopolised for capitalist gain. It was Marx who said that capitalism was the result of the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, which Baudrillard expanded on to say that it the class distinctions had 'been replaced, in the "post-industrial" era, with the problem of simulation'.

Yet is it fair to say that we don't know what is real? Taking it to the extreme, we can't honestly, 100% know anything about anyone else's lives unless we experienced it firsthand. Everything that we hear from other people we judge based on our perception and the reliability of the source, but if we have been socially conditioned to believe; the 6 o'clock news, the Guardian, the internet etc. then why would we ever have any reason to doubt it?

In reference to the ideas that people can spend their entire lives blinkered by 'virtual reality', I don't doubt that it is possible. Some people may lack actual social skills and thus spend their lives hiding away on the computer, having virtual relationships, ordering their food online, doing work at home, talking to people on networking sites, watching films and tv, reading nothing other than what is fed to them through their frequented websites, playing games in virtual worlds, and their lives do lack any form of reality, think the Disney (!) Pixar (!!) film Wall-E, set in the distant future.

However ironic Baudrillard tries and succeeds to be, he does bring up some interesting points about where we are headed. I find it difficult to understand wanting to explain the gory details of war to a child who wants nothing more than to see moving pictures and a simple storyline, or how we can honestly believe that men and women over the age of 40 can be wrinkle free without plastic surgery or airbrushing (which I accidentally said in out loud in the seminar... Didn't go down too well).

We live in a world where we care about our image and how we dress and we aspire to have a better life. How is that unreal? The Western world have it ingrained that we should be ambitious, aim high and want more than we have. How is that unreal? We want to believe what we are told because it is easier for us to believe than to question everything, we want to have easy and happy lives with no troubles or scandals. How is that unreal?

But then, in comparison to our capitalist, commodity fetishism there is the hard reality of poverty, discrimination, prejudice, environmental disasters and crime, which is impossible to escape and is the only life that some people know. They have no access to our 'hyper-reality'. Escapism escapes the very people who need it most and we are stuck in a world where we are more concerned about fashion and plastic surgery than saving lives and trying to live the most real life that we can imagine. One without the desolate hardships or the ridiculous extravagance.

Ciao Bellas
Xx

Lazy Ramble

I started this weeks ago but then got distracted by life ^_^.
<3 you all
Xx

Aloha...
I know I've been trés lax about my posts since going back to uni but as I'm waiting for a R to arrive and come spend some quality time with me this weekend (and bring me up my shoes, SERIOUS tragedy when those were all left at home!!) I thought I'd pass the time by writing here. Means I don't have to get out of bed from watching Vampire Diaries. Oh so cool.
But yeah... this is a little fiction that I wrote during the summer...

Joanna peered out the window mentally preparing herself for the ordeal ahead. She had folded her arms across her chest, the cigarette enmeshed between two of her fingers as the frustration of her mundane life once again came to the forefront of her mind. Sighing, Joanna took a final drag of the cigarette and flicked it towards the ash-tray, emblazoned with the intertwined C's of glamorous Chanel. Vintage, of course, no longer was smoking seen as a fashionable past-time. She slunk towards her desk, papers creating a dilapidated barrier between her and the keyboard of her computer and proceeded to shuffle the unnecessary mess into disorganised piles. Free at last the keyboard gleamed with anticipation, willing Joanna's meticulous nails to type it into life.

Sweeping the mouse across its pad the screen beamed into life, a tunnel of light causing a rue smile across Joanna's face. Three precise clicks later Joanna had now entered the virtual world where she was that pristine, sophisticated, epitome of elegance that she tried so hard to maintain and waited to see who had taken the time to inform her of the world's goings-on.

The usual emails ensued;

Sue, the editor of Grace, the magazine that she worked for, had forwarded the usual end-of-the-month paranoia's. Thankfully this didn't need a reply; Joanna knew that civility was no longer present in her demeanour and that would definitely come out in an email, even if it was unintentional.

Frank, her eldest son, had updated her on his mundane job in a bank, somewhere. Joanna knew that she should find it touching that he liked to keep in touch, but honestly at the age of twenty-seven you'd think that he'd be glad to relieve himself of his parents. How could her sons be more different? Joe was somewhere in South America following some Incan trail and had reported back last month with a few words congratulating her and Simon for their 29th wedding anniversary.

Speaking of Simon, his email confirmed her trip to France to meet up with him in four days. He hoped that she was not feeling alone and that the weather was not getting to her, soon she would have the well-deserved break away from work. Apparently the weather in Southern France was windy but warm.

'Married for nearly three decades and we still talk about the weather,' Joanna muttered to herself, 'some things will never change,' the rueful smile had yet to abandon the bemused look that gave small hints of past memories in her shining eyes.

She scrolled down to the next emial; Magda had written reams about her latest beau, a thirty-something entrepreneur who had invented some sort of machine-washable mobile or the like. Joanna smiled and pressed 'print', preparing to save the entire monologue for when the wind was really holwing and she needed cheering up with her cup of tea and the latest drama.

With the more familiar emails out of the way Joanna was now ready to trawl though the emails that paid for her extravagant living. Lighting a cigarette with her limited edition, vintage Chanel lighter Joanna took a satisfying drag, four more days, she chanted in her head, four more days.

Dear Mrs Miles, 

I am writing to ask for your help. I have recently had an operation but am unwilling to tell people what, as it is rather embarrassing. I don't know how to reply to questions that I get and wondered whether a white lie would be appropriate.

Yours, JM Wolverhampton


In your position I would tell a black lie; say that you were having cosmetic surgery. If anyone dares to ask 'on what' just pretend to be offended that they hadn't noticed. 
And if you were having cosmetic surgery, there is nothing to ashamed of. Unless of course it went wrong. Then believe me, everyone knows.

Mrs Miles


Dear Mrs Miles, 


I recently saw an advert for salsa classes and wondered how to approach my wife in asking her to join me in these weekly practices. We are both in our late forties and of ample size but any suggestion of physical activities has the nasty habit of turning into an argument. I do feel inspired to learn something new and feel it might benefit us both. Hope you can help.


Yours, DS West Midlands


I fully applaud your desire to learn something new, try taking up etiquette classes so as not to refer to your wife as 'ample sized' in a magazine. Or ever.

Mrs Miles

Dear Mrs Miles, 

My daughter is soon to be turning 21 and I am unwilling to break with tradition and have a family get-together. However, I have just found out that her boyfriend wants to surprise her with a trip to Paris for that weekend. I am in a dilemma of what to do and would appreciate your advice.

Yours, PS Durham

You have nothing to worry about; the trip to Paris is no longer a surprise. And now you can talk to your daughter about how you want her birthday to go. Appreciate away.

Mrs Miles

Dear Mrs Miles, 

I am about to go on holiday with my boyfriend of 8 months for the first time. We are going to Spain. I have stayed at his before but this is a whole week with one person. I'm not sure whether I should prepare for the worst and hope for the best of just enjoy myself and think nothing of it.

Yours, ST Kent


What is the problem? I'm sure he will love you even with all your bikini, waxing, body and tanning issues. And after a week if he hasn't noticed all your effort, chuck him - to use the more colloquial phrase.

Mrs Miles

Right... That's kinda it. I'm sure those of you who read Style from the Sunday paper will recognise the snide, bitchy style. Love you all and sorry it's taken me sooooo long to write here!

 

Ciao Bellas Xx

B-Rambles

There are thorns in everyone's lives.
People who get on your nerves or just people that you don't necessarily 'click' with. The sorts of people that have a tendency to rub you up the wrong way, who you can't really stand to be with even if it's for the briefest of moments.
But there are other types of thorns and brambles in our lives that we don't really think about too much because we learn to expect them.
Grief.
Death.
Losing love.
Constantly failing.
Disappointment.
I'd say we just learn to live with them and try and weigh our lives in favour of all the good things that happen to us... But right now I'm not in the mood.
That's because we don't always realise that we are the biggest thorns in our own lives.
Xx

Rambled up North

Just a lil one to say hi and that I haven't forgotten you!!
I'm back up north in Liverpool and have just about moved in, though I am waiting for my darling Mother to drive up with the rest of my suitcases.
I am currently watching Underage and Pregnant.
Wow.
What a bleak life. Too much to think about.
And it isn't about me anyway. So who really cares.
I'm so happy to be back, though I do miss all the home comforts. Far too many trips to Asda already. But oh well.
Let's just see what happens after tonight.
Ciao Bellas. Xx

What I rambled to myself the other day

28.08.09

I don't know what I want.

Of course I'm starting this talking about myself; I'm the only person that seems real to me, and then sometimes that reality isn't any more true than anyone else. It is only because I have to believe in myself.

We're all supposed to have a dream that we aspire to. So that when, if, it comes trye we can say the clichéd 'living the drea'. But how do we know what are individual dreams are when we have a steretypical dream shoved down our throats from day one? Like so many other children I was brought up on a diet of Disney. I can remember crying at the death of Mufasa, hiding behind the sofa as Gaston tried to kill the Beast and rejoicing at the love between Hercules and Meg. And - here we go with another contradiction - I don't think there is anything wrong with a child believing in a happy ending.

Even though they don't happen in real life.

How can I be so cynical at 19? Eurgh. Nearly wrote '17'. Do I still see myself as the immature 17 year old that I was? I really don't feel any different. No more mature, emotionally, at least. How could I be 'emotionally mature' when I am terrified of feeling?

I want to have that raw hope that we're supposed to have when we are young; The determination that we can change the world, that love will happen, that we don't have to be scared, that we can make our dreams (whatever they are) come true. I don't want to be scared and cynical and mean and rude and afraid. It sure does suck for wanting to have a 'normal' life. (Ok I do think that my life is 'normal' in the mundane, everyday sense). For example the most exciting that that has happened to me was bumping into my ex. Which is on a par with this fashion course that I really want to do. And the fact that I have become passionate about fashion.

God. I'm growing up into a cliché. A hypocritcal cliché! But I don't see what's so wrong with that.

Well, I mean, (Yes, I know I'm doing an English degree) I know that I lack emotional skills. I love my family - I would die for them - even though we don't always see eye to eye on certain subjects. It's what family does. I love my friends. They are always there for me. Through everything. They know me, better than I care to admit most of the time. And fortunately, better than they care to let on too.

But Eros love? The love that supposedly makes the world go round? The love that everyone secretly craves?

That's the kind of love that leaves me cold. The thought of that painstaking craving for love panics me into a denial of its existence. How can that sort of love survive when the entire world is so selfish and focussing 'I'? I know that I am responsible for this self-obsessing as much, if not more, than the next person, but I don't even have the capacity to share myself with someone else.

Why would I want to open up and be vulnerable? Why would I want to put my emotional gravity in someone else's hands? Why would I trust someone who cares for me, because that fact in itself shows that they are not worth the time or effort? I am an open person. Everyone knows everything about me. Ish.

But everything is different when you are drunk. Oh the joys of drunken talks, explosions of love and hate for your fellow drunkards. But to declare your love for someone when you are innebriated is all very well, but I do think it defeats the point - but that doesn't mean whatever is spewed isn't true.

In reality I know that anything I have voiced within my own mind 24hours prior to drinking will get splurged through the course of the night, along with vomit, dizziness and greasy chips.

Just because you say it drunk doesn't mean it isn't true. In fact it probably is true but you were too afraid to say it out loud, when sober and aware of your sense; the ones that warn you, telling you that you are an IDIOT for thinking them.

Yet I also think feelings that are blurted out when trollied should be ignored. You may now know how someone feels about you, or your crush now knows that they are the love of your life, but whoever is at the receiving end will respect you so much more if you manage to pluck up the courage to say it with pure, un-altered, tee-totalled emotion.

You know. Where you can't find the words, (instead of saying the same over and over again) where your palms are sweaty with fear of rejection, (instead of the drunken sweats) and you keep thinking to yourself that this is going to end badly - which it might - (instead of thinking that you are God's gift).

Everyone wants love. It surely is a very deluded person who denies this. Even I, with all my immature cynicism, want love. Terrified of the prospect becuase losing love is more painful than anything I could ever shoose to bear, but do I want it? There is no doubt in my mind. And what saddens me is that I want the fairytale ending; I wanting Disney to come along and write my ending where everything sorts itself out. Am I going to argue with my future love for a while before we realise we love each other? Is it a best friend that I never realised I loved? Even if it is the weirdo down the street, I just want to know who it is so I can that part of my life sorted. So I can then focus on the rest of my life.

Because without love, I can't concentrate on anything else.

For someone so cynical I spend far too much time thinking about the one thing that sends me running in the opposite direction. And that isn't even an exaggerationg. I mean, with the last man in my life, honestly I really did care about him (I feel confident to talk in the past tense now because I haven't thought about him in that way for a long time) and he made me happy and I was opening up(!) but of course I got scraed and ran away. Ok, it is more complicated than that, but in a nutshell, I can't deny it.

That's why I write this; because somewhere in the world someone said the first way to get over a problem is to accept that you have one. I have one. I am terrified of love. And I love myself. So I don't want to change. (Ok, not like creepily obsessed with myself, probably no more than your average 19 year old). Yet I can't halp thinking that my entire world is going round in circles and I'm just climbing a spiral staircase to somewhere that I might not like.

Back at the ranch...

Wow! Was I in a helluva mood when I wrote that?! Ha. I know it's quite difficult to read; in fact where I save my ramblings on my laptop is in a file called 'Narratives', or 'Streams of Consciousness'. I can never tell you what I'm going to write. It just comes out.
I know most of it doesn't make sense but it helps me to write... Think of yourselves as my guidance councellors! Literally, feel free to write down any advice if you think it's necessary. Just don't expect me to use it.

Bon nuit.
Ciao Bellas. Xx

I am who I am.

I am who I am because of you.

Every desire reminds me of you.

Every touch, every kiss, and I know it's not you.

I am who I am because of you.

Remembering when we were together;

The bliss, the ecstasy, the doubt.

How can you love me when I was nothing before you?

How can you want me when I am in awe of you?

The agony that is now about, 

Knowing that we are no longer together.

I am who I am because of you.

Every desire reminds me of you.

Every touch, every kiss, and I know it's not you.

I am who I am because of you.

No longer in your favour, why breathe?

No longer in your thoughts, why care?

But I can't.

I can't not think of you.

I am who I am because of you.

Hellooooo, just whipping out everyone's fave lil emo... This is something I wrote agggggeeeessss ago... I have loads. And most of them will probably get put up here.

The picture is from my back garden. Doesn't really have anything to do with the poem.

I love you all.

Ciao bellas. Xx

Musing... Rambling...

EVERYONE should love Muse.

They are immense.
Amazing.
Fantastical.
Incredible.
Unbelievable.
Just. Wow.
And not to mention talented.

Just. Wow.
I've been scouring muse.mu for the past couple of hours as well as listening to Radio One with Muse Night, and I couldn't be more happy. Good week.
I can feel it.
Minus the creepy bird/fish thing and a house burning down in my dream and spending far too much money...
Oh and of course I've been reading reviews to distract myself. Bring on the 14th.
Bring. It. On.

The gig I didn't go to on Friday. So. Jealous.

Sigh. Can't think about anything else. Mind is still scrambled.

Ciao Xx

ScRambled

My mind is in a tizzy so I will just show you how amazing I am!!

So yeah. A boring shift dress from a vintage (charity) shop. I love the spilt paint look - I'm sure there is a more technical word but until then - and I love the colours. So I took up my needle and thread...

Aren't I uber cool?

And I sewed and cut and stitched within an inch of my life. (As an aside, this was so I wouldn't think about my friends who were on their way down to Devon to watch the BEST band in the world, Muse).

So yeah, after a couple of hours, about six to be precise, I had created a new dress! One that I would actually wear. If only for the novelty. And before the stitches and tacking came undone.

Ta da!

 

Ciao Bellas. Xx

Self-indulgent Ramble (!)

I know that all my rambles are self-indulgent, particularly as no one really cares and its for those of you that are bored beyond your wits until university, jobs, life starts up again. Believe me. I know.

But for now... I took some photos of my cousin in July. She was THE most reluctant model but I was determined to get some photos taken at our grandparents house.

I dressed her in her bikini and then draped a black sarong around her to make different dress styles. (This was just before we were to go on holiday to Portugal.)

I used a black and gold silk belt to tie it in place and then co-ordinated with jewellery and flip-flops. 

The mask I've had for ages, there might have been some thought behind it originally but now I just think it's beautiful. I have another red, feathered one but its already in Liverpool looking after my room. My cousin has such attitude. I've never met anyone quite like her.

 

She hates her hair. 

How, I have no idea. But she does. 

When we were in Portugal we met a straight (!) hairdresser out there who loved her hair. On the night out that we met him, he handcuffed one of our guy friends and dragged him into this club called Garage and his other associate/colleague handcuffed me, put me over his shoulder, and proceeded to take advantage! It was hilarious.

On one of the other nights out, once we had the full acquaintance of... Frankenstein and Tub Tubs (they're really not half as bad as they sound), my cousin was lucky enough to have her hair backcombed within an inch of its life. I wish there were photos but I think we were all a wee bit too inebriated to really care at the time.

Back at the ranch... or rather the grandparents... we even indulged a crazy lil mofo. Or rather Crazy Lil Mofo. Yes, that is the name of the sweet, cute, fluffy, 6 month old baby bunny. You can thank my cousin for that one.

Ciao Bellas Xx

Rambling into the Future

 

Are we really supposed to know what we want to do with our life? I haven't a clue, or at least it changes so often that I can never actually concentrate on something worthwhile for long enough for it to make an impact on my life. God I'm terrible. 

I've tried everything, or at least everything that vaguely appeals to me; writing, drawing, photography, fashion, law, music in various forms and everything in between. Ok, I know I'm only 19 and I have the rest of my life to worry about mundane things like getting a job - one that pays more than the National Minimum Wage - but still, when I get asked what I want to do with my English/Sociology degree everyone assumes I want to be a teacher. Eurgh. The idea of teaching isn't horrific in itself, I just have an aversion to people assuming what I'm going to do with my life; so it has inadvertently lost the chance of even becoming an option. Plus I don't particularly like kids.

Currently I'm floating between the fashion/photography/drawing aspect of life, though I broke my camera, haven't been accepted to do the fashion course I wanted to do and of course cannot afford to buy a mannequin. Lucky me! So I make do with buying magazines and dreaming about what I would do if I were rich enough, talented enough or even lucky enough to have the sorts of opportunities that only come round once in a blue moon. 

 

I walked passed this display where I live the other day (before I broke my camera, so technically the other month) and was so distracted I was late for work. Oops. It's nothing special I guess but I find it heartwarming to walk passed every Saturday. To the cafe. Where I work. For eight hours. 

Ha. This is just a ramble of thoughts which I don't even find that interesting, but I was going to type them up anyway, I can't not write, so I thought I may as well add some pretty pictures and leave with you with worrying thoughts about my sanity. 

Ha.

Ciao Bellas. Xx

Ooh... P.S. I am writing something for you to read, that should be interesting. And if it's not I'm going to have to scratch another possible career path!

Rambling Through Youtube

I love Leighton Meester. There is no one more perfect.
And the fact that she can sing makes it so much better.
Is it wrong that I prefer people who can sing? Hmm.
Oh well.

Check out other beautiful and talented people on http://www.picturesofbeautifulwomen.blogspot.com/

Ciao Bellas Xx

Emotional Rambling

Dare I write what I'm thinking? I have one eye closed at the moment as I try and type a few coherent sentences because of this bloody conjunctivitis and I think it'd time for the boys round...
There are a couple of men in my life -  to say the least - and I care about them all in different ways. My mother says that friendship between men and women is hardly obtainable because men only want one thing... and its the ugly truth.
I was thinking about it the other day, men promise love and that makes women happy, where as we promise sex and that makes men happy. Take one away and there are issues. Obviously. But taking away 'love' is seen as the greater evil, for how can love just disappear? Whereas depriving your partner of sex, it's almost a right, though it does indicate deeper problems within the relationship. But I'm getting sidetracked down a path I don't think I'm ready to ramble...
So men. I have D., J., R., G., M. and C. and I don't even know if it's fair to write about them. I'm not going to be honest, I'm going to embellish, exaggerate, use hyperbole and all that jazz, (lie?) so that even you have difficulty working out who is who. ('You' being my friends, the only people to rummage through my ramblings).
The first of these male acquaintances is M. M who I have known since we were oh so young and innocent. He is your quintessetial good-looking, funny, sporty, academic. Yes such beings do exist. He is, to quote Mary Poppins, 'practically perfect in every way.' Except for being a flirt. And not in the sleazy kinda way, I know far too many of those, but he's the kind of guy that you feel safe with because you have his attention, even if it is fleetingly. Except now he's fallen hard under the spell of love. And I couldn't be more happy for him. And for her. Though they took their bloody time getting together!
Secondly there is C. Actually there are two C's and I'm going to combine their personalities because I can't fathom either of them so I may as well make it as complicated as possible! C is confident. No, that sounds wrong. C knows himself, self-aware maybe. He feels more than I thought it was possible for the male species to feel, but that's just my cynicism seeping through. C is a laugh, someone to have fun with, someone you can talk to but at the same time is your stereotypical bloke who wants you for what you can offer. Sex. I notice the contradictions and yes it is the clash of personalities for these two different men, but they do have one thing in common. Me. They want to possess me. Wow, could I come across as more arrogant? And that is reason enough to know that there is no point in going there. Not with C. Not with someone who wants me. Gotta be something wrong with C. Even though I care about C. Confused? Yep. Me too.
Now to J. J is amazing. The best of friends. I care about him immensely. If I'm upset at 3am who can I turn to? If I'm lost who do I call? (Ok other than R. as in girl R.) If I just need to get away and watch crap films where do I go? J is always there when I need him. He reminds me of Miss H. Ha I remember vaguely trying to set them up, before they'd even met. But J is shy. In fact I don't even know how I got to know him so well. We just click. I don't know what I'd do without him and I know that's a crappy cliché but it's true. Though don't get me wrong, I love him too pieces, but only as a friend. I couldn't go there in any other way. He needs someone who completely depends upon him and I'm not like that. Someone who only thinks about him, and I'm definitely not like that... So here I think I have my mother stumped.
As I do with G. Legend. My brother from another mother. I don't even know what there is to say about him but I can't write about the men in my life without including him! We have similar points of view on life, and we both hate missing out on anything that is going on. We are the first to say yes to a proposed night out. And the last to do any work. Legend. Can't say anymore.
Now we get to D. Words cannot describe. A player though he hates to admit it. Insecure, yes. Yet comes across as arrogant. He's an army boy, one of the lads, such a tease and has this annoying ability to read body language. But even with his outgoing personality he hates being seen as a player. Hates it. I'll never forget him telling me that he found that girls always liked him but he had to make more of an effort with guys. I laughed and said I had the same problem - well, not to the same extent - just guys always like me and the girlfriends hate me(!) D has been there to listen to all my problems with every guy that has waltzed into my life, and has made me realise that there are worse things in the world. Yet it's because of guys like D that I ruined the relationship I had with R.
R. The only person I have ever loved. And I ended it. I'm not with him and I pushed him away. Or rather forced him to choose between his girlfriend who he loves and me, the stalkerish ex-girlfriend. I don't blame him at all. And I'm not even sure if I want him back. At least not in that way. I just want him back in my life. He was my best friend. He knew everything about me. I was safe with him. Happy with him. In love with him. Why on earth did I end it? Oh, because I got bored. Eurgh. And because the prospect of staying with him was far too daunting. I got scared. I'm kinda pathetic. And now he's not in my life. I don't have a hold on him the way he still has one on me. And I hate it. I hate wanting people. I hate it. I feel so vulnerable and I'm not like that. I hate how he makes me feel. But then I remember how we were when we were together. And I can't let go. Not yet. I haven't had a relationship since him. And we broke up two years ago. And a month. Wow.
I'm not going to carry on about him because I could be here all day and I still haven't hoovered my room. But these are the men in my life. They have given me everything I could ask for, even if I threw it back in their faces. But maybe they've failed me as I haven't turned out to be kind or caring, but rather self-obsessed and vain... Yet they've stuck with me this far, well, just about. I care about all of them, differently, yet not so, because I feel their pain, I know their secrets, I don't like it when I can't get a hold of them. It saddens me to think that our relationships are only based on what we subconsciously think we can get from the other side. I know that isn't true. Or at least I can't believe it's true.
Ciao Bellas. Xx

Intertwining Ramble Between Friends

There are, quite simply, a lot of women in my life. They vary from my little cousin -who is hardly that little as she is turning 18 this year(!) - to my mother, a woman I'd much rather not get into right now, because this is about my friends; the girls who make my life whole. I hesitate to call them, you, girls but I guess it is more apt than 'women' as we have experience so little of life, it is rather teenage trivia that amuses us, but as we find it important I can't very well discard it.
I can divide my closest female friend into two groups; home and university. Even though my student life up north stretches to a single year, the girls, women, friends that I have lived with are as close to me as time has allowed. I'm not trying to make myself sound so very popular, or the best friend that you could have (far from it), but they all mean so much to me, even though I don't always show it. I wonder, is it because you are all so intertwined with my life that I know that we will be friends for life? Or is it because you mean so much more to me than you will ever know? They are my best friends, people who will easily tell me when I'm wrong - which is frequently - they have shared my tears as I have shared theirs, these are the girls who were with me when I dreamt my dreams and snorted, embarrassingly, with laughter.
I guess I should start at the beginning with E. E, the organised. E, Bree Van de Kamp reincarnated. E, Time Lady. We met when we were twelve years old and I was her guardian showing her around the school that was to become our entire lives for the next six years. She was painfully shy and cried on her first day (dare I say it was my loud, extrovert personality that got to her?), but it is something we still reminisce to this day. Unfortunately for her we struck up a strange bond, one where I took advantage of our friendship and managed to get her to do my every whim. I still feel guilty and so I should! Thankfully this soon deteriorated and now I am very much in her power. We have had our ups and downs throughout the years, mainly to do with my inability to follow golden friendship rules (ie don't get with your best friend's crush), but we survived.
Barely. By the time we were turning seventeen things change. We didn't talk. It just ended. Never before had I felt so alons in my life. It was as if a light had gone out and I was struggling to see in the dark. I realised that I had taken our friendship for granted, I had taken my role as set in stone, not realising that I was at fault and needed to change. E showed me that, painfully, especially as it was only after the spell in Coventry that I knew that I had done anything wrong. Now I know that nothing will ever come between us, at least not for long.
I see her as my conscience. In fact I think she has always been my conscience, my good angel, telling me the difference between right and wrong. Fair play to her for putting up with me, most of the time I did ignore her, but without her at university I can really tell how much I need her in my life (note to self - call her more often when up north so as to make fewer mistakes!). I could and can and do tell E everything, sometimes no words even need to be uttered, she just knows, unfortunately.
Secondly there is S. I supposed I should have put her first as nowhere else is good enough for S, but tough, you're second. For a change. Honestly I can hardly remember not having S as a friend, though I know it's only in the last five years that we have become so close. She is hilarious. Crazy. Opinionated. She doesn't trust me. Fair enough. I don't trust me. But I can't imagine my life without her. Whenever reminscing of my times with S there is laughter. And it's at something that no one else in the world would find funny. Like blatantly rape. Or McKenzie. Or my list. Or beaver, You'd think we were so immature!
Without a doubt S makes the world a brighter place. As long as she's not being moody. Or secretive. Which she does tend to do every now and again. But you get used to it and I guess it's only right to keep her in balance with the ups and downs. I think that S is my friend purely for the stream of gossip I provide. It's a good relationship, one based on gossip. We could talk about crap for Britain. In fact we could talk about crap, for years, for Britain, while running the country (though of course we couldn't do it without Time Lady). But yes, you just gotta love S.
Moving swiftly onwards we get to K. K the enigma, the dark horse, the straight A student. Perfection. Full stop. She's a legend. She's everything I'd want to be if I could be arsed. I love her. She is my idol. In a purely platonic way K.
Yeah, although she is one of my best friends there is the whole, 'I scare her', issue. There was this one time, which happens to involve a drunken me and a bathroom. But that's beside the point. K and I get on great though our common ground slips more to similar taste in guys than anything else. But that doesn't really mean anything. See what I mean about K? So close but no idea how to put it into words. All I know is that the Fab Four, (yes that would be the four of us) would be incomplete without her. And for that I respect her more than she'll ever know.
R. What can I say about her? She is the one of my friends from home who I have known the least, but once again I cannot imagine a life without her. Although sometimes I wish we weren't friends. I love her to pieces and she means so much to me but I am being the evil friend that I was toE all those years ago. So much for changing. R is so loving, so kind, so caring that she hasn't the heart to say no to me. And once I've learned that I can get my own way, I very rarely stop myself. I hate that about me. I hate that about our friendship. But I can't be told what to do, even when I know owhat the problem is and can read the solution it doesn't mean I intend to do anything about it.
R is the ray of sunshine to brighten up your day. There is no one in the world that has a kinder heart. She is a true golden girl, someone who would bend over backwards and rub your back while trying to accommodate anyone and everyone else over herself. There is no denying that she is a klutz, but it's all a part of her charm. Even the fact that she likes football(!) and doesn't EVER dress up can be forgiven because she is the most genuine person you'll ever meet. R is also fortunate enough to believe in love. And truly her world would be a worse place without it. She loves greatly and passionately and deserves love more than the Messiah himself. Even through the pain of unrequited love she doesn't reject the idea of love (unlike yours truly), nor does she torment herself, she just accepts whatever life throws at her. I admire her strength, and I do hope that she realises I will always be there for her.
Finally I get to Miss H. Once again I have known her for years but our friendship kindled in the year of 2005 what with Ted Bundy, Xbox, Jd and Uno. She is annoyingly talented at anything she puts her mind to, if she ever gets inspired enough to even try, and stops worrying about what other people think. But such is the bane of our society. H is the most random, entertaining, opinionated, sweet, cute, adorable, words-cannot-describe friend that I have ever had the fortune to meet.
She has these obsessions; Manga, Muse, unrequited love, fashion, Harry Potter, Severus Snape, Vampires in general, Japan, Xbox, the list is enormous, that rule her life. But don't think that hinders who she is. H wouldn't be H without her unique obsessions. She makes the most expressive of noises when excited and her eyes shine with glee - however clichéd there really is no other word - whenever she is happy and has thought of something that has capture her heart. H and I have so much in common, more so than any of my other friends. The only thing that R, H and myself discovered that we have in common is Geography. Odd.
But yes, these are my friends from home. Not all of them, but the ones who are in my heart and mind more than I care to let on. These five I missed more than I could imagine when I first moved up north. The summer doesn't fully arrive, in my eyes, unless I have spent some quality time with these lovely ladies; laughing, bitching and reminiscing.
And now, over to those who have changed my life for the netter in a foreign land... Ok, about 100miles up north.
I have no idea where to start with all of them and I don't think I can go into anywhere as much detail because honestly I'm embarrassed to write about what we get up to. Ok, what I get up to and what they have to deal with. All I can say to them is thank you so much for putting up with my soap opera of a life. You know I can't help it darlings. I appreciate everything you do so much and I look forward to the rest of my life with these memories as well as knowing that we are friends forever. Eurgh. Cannot believe I just wrote that. Far too soppy for my liking and I think it might ruin my image.
Ciao Bellas. Xx

A ramble down no particular path.

So, I woke up this morning with conjunctivitis. Gross really when you're eyes are stuck together with goo. But that's not really what I want to talk about.
I just bought the new issue of LOVE and have discovered that there are so many wonderful people in the world and that just makes me happy.
I think I've fallen in love with 13 year old Tavi. She is incredibly witty and has such an anadulterated pointof view that you can't help be charmed by her. Everyone who is the slightest bit interested in fashion should know about her and heed her words, in fact I am slightly ashamed that only through LOVE did I realise that this girl existed. I almost want to apologise!
Ha! I just got a text from one of my best friends, saying (and I quote) 'Have you ever read Tavi's fashion blog online? Tis really cool. Just putting it out there. X'.
Brilliant.
http://tavi-thenewgirlintown.blogspot.com/
The website that we should all have saved in our favourites, not just because I do and I'm cool, but because this little girl, hmm i wanted to refrain from saying that, actually knows what she's talking about.
And everyone should buy LOVE. The magazine, obviously.
Ciao bellas. Xx