No alarms and no surprises

She of the Bovine has a friend that she says she doesn't like, doesn't get on with, doesn't feel as close to as she does to us. But then why does she respond to messages and other things, from that friend, weeks and months before she does with me? Ugh. Jealous jealous jealous.

I'll take a quiet laughter handshake of carbon monoxide.

Those aren't the lyrics at all.

Here's the problem with me.

I can't take any careers advice at the moment, because when anyone begins to advise me I feel like shouting:

I HAVE TRIED THAT, YOU ARSE. HAVEN'T YOU BEEN LISTENING?

Or

WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TO BE ADVISING ME? I'M DOING MY GODDAMN LEVEL BEST.

The second isn't great. Because I'm not doing my level best; I should be sending more stuff, ringing more people. I send a few applications out every day, but it's so demoralising to get no response. And I can take advice from anyone. It just irks me that everyone thinks they know best and I get left feeling like a massive failure or a stupid kid. Or like I haven't tried. Or worse, the advice my second cousin gave me- keep doing a normal job and write on the side. Well, idiot, that is exactly what I was going to do, do you think I'm that retarded? Honestly.

I hate being so angry all the time, and it's not the people I'm angry with. I love my cousin. It's the fact I haven't got a job, noone thinks I'm special, boo hoo. Noone will ever say I'm fabulous or care and I will never get anywhere. That's what it reinforces, when people give me advice, and that's why I don't want to take it. Everyone else in the world seems to be floating along just fine, going out, having fun. It's just me that's ruined my life.

God I am such a drip.

The Night Watch

I adore the night, don't you? I wouldn't want it forever, but it's so refreshing. It smells like Christmas- satisfied and sharpening and full of space and infinite time to think and walk. People are scarier at night, but there's less of them and they're usually benign.

I adore you because you're a bundle of contradictions. You're soft without being weak, strong without being hard, open but you're so guarded about being unhappy, modest and attention-seeking, brave about your life but scared of letting someone get close to you. And I mean anyone, not just me. I don't think you would want me as close as I want to be, you see. You seduce without lipsticks and cigarettes and feminine airs, whilst being the most girlish, most beautiful. You've won without running the race, dear. My race, anyway.

Oh my friends I've begun to worry right; where I should be grateful I should be satisfied.

I got rejected once more yesterday, for something I really wanted. And actually believed I could get; it was a journalism training thing. I feel so stupid. I knew I wouldn't get it. I knew they'd want someone with a first from Cambridge who had managed to live through two Bolivian wars, and fashioned a camera from mud and sticks so that they could report on it at the tender age of three.

I know I'm not any of those things. But I spent days filling out the form, taking so much care, letting my parents dissect it. I thought my work experience would help.

I should be grateful, I should be satisfied.

I hate being rejected. All I wanted was an interview, and I didn't even get that. My Mum said today, don't you just feel like you're on the cusp of something? And I said, no. Because I have had one offer of an internship and a hundred offers of a big fat no no no no no.

And then Mum said my self-presentation had really slipped in the last week I was at my job, and I was miserable going in every morning, and how could I expect them to keep me on?

Which is partially true, but I did the damn thing, I forced a smile on my face as much as I goddamn could, I was as chirpy as it was possible to be there and I tried.

And even they didn't want me.

Mum couldn't have said the right thing if she'd tried. Dad tried a gambit- if they have over 2000 applications, they probably go through the first hundred. I said how the hell did he know, had he applied to this place, had he done this, had he done that? He was just being kind. He said he'd seen it happen, but it pissed me off again, worse than Mum telling me I hadn't been up to scratch, because I can't stand people making excuses for me failing. Then Dad said I would find something and I'd be brilliant at it, he was the same... but then I thought, you can't say that, you can't be sure, that's utter shit. It could just be that I'm a crap person, and the reason that noone wants me, and that noone wants to stay in touch, and that noone cares and that nothing about me is worthwhile to any companies in the world is precisely because I am a shit person, and I am worth nothing, in the eyes of employers or otherwise.

I feel unwanted. I feel like my friends don't care and my parents have to, and like I'm not worth anything. I'm like a thousand million other white spoilt rich girls overpopulating this planet. I got good marks, so I was told I was clever, I did well... and now noone cares, and I haven't got any pizazz to get me through the rest. I'm not a wonderful precious flower (stamp stamp stamp), though I never thought that precisely... I thought I was clever enough to get what I wanted, but now my system has fallen away, and I think, why bother?

I didn't wake up till three forty three today.

After the rejection, I filled out five or six other applications, all the while thinking, there's five more failings. I felt I had to. I wanted to recompense. I want to succeed, but I can't help thinking it's all futile. I stayed up till five doing it.

All my thoughts I return to summertime.

I saw some new pictures of her today, and she looks beautiful. With her sister, who knows she's beautiful, but the secret is that she isn't half as beautiful as.... She knows what she's doing, and she's going to do it, and it's a wonderful worthy thing that suits her down to the ground. And she's going to be a raging success, and I don't feel jealous. Just thinking it makes me feel happier. My other friend, JD, I feel jealous and sick when I think about how she's succeeding because she's such a brilliant person. But this girl, I just feel happy to think what she's doing. To think she's happy. And to think someone knows exactly how wonderful she is. It's almost like living vicariously. She looks like she's jumping in every picture that's taken of her. Smiling with lots of her little teeth, eyes half shut and hair exploding in blonde curls. Brilliant, and other people know it.

Oh, you've got no pictures of yourself.

So you must think some terrible things.

I don't.

I am such a stalker because...

all it takes is a two sentence message from you and I'm back, back there with you and thinking about you like that and adoring you.

Any tiny sign of interest and I'm hooked.

I harbour no delusions that you reciprocate. I think instead, oh how kind, how lovely, how I adore you for being that.

But I know that your feelings aren't that level.

The thing is

You think I'm so cool and I'm really not.

B said,

"Stop telling her she's cool, you'll give her a big head".

Because she thought you were being strange, or really I would, or because I can't say anything back when you say that?

I can't work out why you think I am.

There's nothing conclusive and brilliant ab0ut me.

You can sing and make people laugh, make audiences laugh.

You're open and honest and kind and you always know what to say.

I am not really anything. Scabby skin (yours is luminous gold)
shrunken into myself and so secretive

And most projects are doomed to fail

So wishy washy

And I can't believe anyone worth liking will ever really like me. Friend or otherwise.

I'm worried B doesn't.

And I'm so trivial and obsessed with things that don't matter, I'm such a narcissist, I get people wrong and I do things wrong.

And why?

Do you think I'm cool?

Why do you say it when

you're so much better, infinitely so.

In fact, if I was as honest as you are

I'd be responding with a cannon's bomb

of effusive comments.

But I'm not.

I lie.

And so I'm left to puzzle. And dip my head and laugh

chin down and thoughts inside

So you'll never know that I'm hoping

the reason you think I'm cool is that you're as wild and deluded about me as I am about you.

Some hope.

I replay a scene. If we were out together holding hands and someone shouted something vile. I know what it would be, ginger pubes and blondie, or preying mantis and beetle, or something to do with your smallness and my height and boniness, or my hair, or yours, or us. And I would turn round and shout, 'she's beautiful, and I don't care'. And we'd hold hands tighter and storm off, heads high.

Because

I can't be with you I like to try and analyse you instead.

I've been inside for three days moping. Life just isn't it at the moment, and I'm scared I'll never be happy doing a job- because everything seems to lack variety and....

But I do like to think about you, it's just I've lost all desire to do anything.

So thinking about you...

Brother with drug problems and a sister, who I've heard, is always the centre of attention. Bee says. That must shunt you to the back a fair bit. I can't imagine you ever being shunted back, you're so very present in every way... but I suppose you must be. Maybe at home you're the quiet one? I've seen pictures of your sister and she's very pretty but I don't know. You're prettier, bobbing about and being happy and never trying to be seductive but seducing me utterly, nontheless. Your hair's full of life and even when you're sad you laugh. Noone's ever told you this, and I would be the first to tell you that you mean this to me. I can't deny that's attractive. There's no sense of unfairness about you. I mean, I always think everything's not fair, why why why, and you never whinge and never whine and never say anything's bad. You whine about little things- blisters, not having chocolate, walking too far- but never bigger things.

And you are attention seeking and far too loud and bouncy in all situations. I wonder how you'd be at a funeral?

But none of those seem like bad things, and you always know when you're seeking attention. I'd like to write an ode to you. I just wish you could know that someone thought this about you, that you're beautiful and wonderful and all the rest of that schmaltzy rubbish, because you'd be pleased. I wish I could send you something, maybe to tell you... maybe a letter. You'd never believe it, and you'd think you were being stalked. You might go after the wrong person entirely or think it was a cruel joke, but at least you'd have about two minutes when you'd know.

I need people to like me and tell me I'm OK.

Noone will at this point.

I need to stop comparing myself to everyone else and reassure myself that people out there still care and it's OK because I can't be happy all the time.

I just want to curl into a little ball and come out when life is better.

It's not going to happen though.

He wrote to me today. Just when I was thinking, god, all I need is someone to tell me I'm not awful or...

and he did. He said I should apply to acting school and I was good.

He's biased. He says all manner of terrible things too. But that little thing made me flutter for him again, and jesus, I don't even feel like that anymore but it's just because I need someone so badly at the moment. I also like the way he calls me by my surname. He felt so comforting when I lay next to him, so strong and soft and vulnerable as well, and just... but then I never felt perfectly safe in his company.

Here's the way I'll react to this.

It's good to have encouragement and support from someone.

But I don't have to fall lovingly back into his arms or anything about it. Any port in a storm, and I will ride this one out on the waves.

Another shit day.

Because I didn't do anything. Say I'd woken up early and drawn and done things, it would have been alright. But I didn't.

Anyway.

I wrote back to Successful friend, which compounded my feelings of uselessness, because she's so successful.

I told my Mum I felt shit about it, and she just said, well she's probably had her dad know someone.

This is crap for two reasons. Firstly, it isn't true, so makes me feel worse. And secondly, even if it was true, that implies I'll never get anywhere without father connections, or that it's only people with connections that get places, and that isn't true either.

I'm pissed off because I've done three work experience placements and noone cares enough to give me a job. I'm fed up because my friend has done one internship, albeit for a longer length of time but even so, and they think she is "fabulous" and have given her a brilliant job until christmas. Noone thinks I am fabulous. Noone thinks I deserve, because I don't deserve. I just feel useless, like I'm not keeping up, like I'm not up there.
And all Mum said to this was to stop feeling so sorry for myself (fair point) and that I was being hard on myself. I'm not being hard. I'm being truthful. I am just so shit that noone will ever take a second glance and I hate it. I hate the shit people make me do, fucking filing non stop, never giving me a chance, and I hate the way that the last work experience place said I was great but still wouldn't fucking take me because I didn't have a cunting course I could have done when I was eighteen. I hate that all I'm good for is shit jobs, and I'm not even wanted at one of them because I'm not the perkiest fucker in the fucking shed. I hate that everyone else is launching themselves on the world and I'm not. I hate my stupid fucking reaction, sitting here typing away when I should get off my fat arse and do something instead of just feeling crap.

But I feel so bad that all I want to do is sit and type or tell someone, but noone wants to know and noone cares and who should because this is self pitiful drivel, so it's best just to type it.

Fucking hell.

Thoughtpanic

Not even looking at her happy face can cheer me up because I can hear what the message girl would say about it in my head.

I've got to purge this panic about what everyone else thinks of me. Who cares? Who really and truly cares?

Here are some good things about today:

1. I wrote a letter.

2. People that go to the poor school can go onto be spotlight members.

3. I sent out CVs.

Don't hang about people that make you feel bad.

Just deal with people that make you feel good.

Good rule.

Bad day, just felt sludgy and failing.

Because I don't feel like anything.

Or I'm starting to doubt acting- will it make a big enough impact?

When people are sure about things I think I'm sure about I think why would they be sure in me, I'm so unsure, I never get it right... and now I panic, what if I'm wrong all about myself and I'm doing the wrong thing entirely.

I had a message today from someone I thought was funny, clever, a good actress and, I think, who holds me in general disdain. She was one of the girls everyone liked, and I wasn't. Because I'm so silly- and I fear she knows exactly how silly I am and contact with her reminds me of all my various shortcomings.

Some people are just born better I suppose. I can't handle the fact that I'm comparatively useless, or worse in every way, to her. Email was civil- but began that she was contacting me for something only. Not to be friends, make that clear, you will never be my friend you are not cool enough.

Maybe this is not what she thinks at all. And it's all just me.

And why am I wasting time thinking about it anyway, jesus I am so self-pitiful.

I rang the woman today to let her down and tell her I wasn't going.
Telling her didn't go well- she just said, OK, OK and put the phone down. I felt bad. I'd let her down and made her angry. But then I reasoned, it's better than going somewhere you don't really want to go for six months. Then I panicked about shutting off opportunities- and then thought again, you haven't kissed goodbye to travel, just one avenue out of millions of possibles. I concluded, you can't make everyone in this world like you. And that is certainly true, I just wish I'd got a handle on making people respect me.

Why does my heart feel so sad?

Because I make it so.

Because I am dishonest.

Because I am terrified of repelling people with the truth about myself and cover it up.

Because this makes me fear I'm never genuine.

Because I'm terrified people don't like me; I'm terrified I'm like my Grandma, or Frida Kahli- I'm just a tag on people feel they have to care for else she'd drop off the edge altogether. I think people must pity me. Because what's there to like? I try things. I... I'm too uncaring about what I'm doing I can't decide I'm stupid I'm creative but not good at it, not like other people are like, Flowergirl, and like JMCD. I'm not genuine and that's not why people will like me and I hate myself and I hate being me.

So stop it you silly pitiful little girl.

Start being who you want to be, start thinking how that girl acts and says and does. Stop whining and start being happy now, stop it and shut up.

I'm wearing black and I refuse to throw anything out
Bursting to brims with ideas to shout
All I want is you to let me out and flood
Over the world with you to make my mark
A tide of pearls glowing soft in the dark
I want to make my own way without interference
Or plans that beg for common sense adherents
I can't but I can and I've lost before I start
Because my life's planned out to break all their hearts
And I think that I've discarded or been left far back
I'm too old or juvenile with jaw oh so slack
I don't commit and I'm just far too dense
Perimeter's wide so bring on the fence
I'm thinking of too many things in a state
Just waiting for terrible cares to abate.

I know what to do so why don't I?

Combined times of loveliness and despair.

Despairing because I'm not sure that what I've always wanted is what I really want.

Rada workshop today; and I didn't do it as best I could, it didn't bring out the best in me and I couldn't stand for two hours. Am I not cut out to be an actress, am I not enthusiastic enough?

I can't tell whether she liked me or not. She knew me. She knew she'd rejected me I think. I hate that I'm not an honest person.

But I don't want to back out on all the things I thought I'd want, so... if I want to be a politician or a barrister or a foreign correspondent, I still can. If I want to be a journalist and change the world, I still can.

There are all these jobs... arts marketing. Bee is going into arts marketing, or academia, and I hate that I'm so jealous of her and my other friend that are doing so well. I'm a horrible person. I hate other people being happy, even when I like them.

It's just I can't see anything good about me.

Bee said today that I see something good in wherever I am. I think that about her. She's so lovely, and I am jealous but I'm aware.

Why haven't I got talent or intelligence? Why can't I even make a simple decision? Why do I feel like I'm utterly pointless and I can't function, please help me.

That's what I wanted to say to her this weekend. Everyone's got their opinion on what I should do and it seems so much better than my own, better thought out, better argued, with more conviction but I can't help feeling not right.

Maybe it's my own stupid contrary attitude.

I am stupid and stupid and horrible and I'm getting to detest myself. I just wish I was better. I wish I was direct like Bee and genuine like JD and clever like Bovine and relaxed like GeniusC and talented like Lady Macbeth.

And I hate myself for feeling jealous of all of them but I've really got no choice when I've got nothing for them whatsoever. I wonder what they're all doing wanting to hang about with such a silly inconsequential person. I suppose I'm not intimidating. I'm malleable. I'm funny and laughable. I'm a stop gap for when you haven't got anything else to do, a sort of puddle. I feel crap.

I want to be brilliant and intimidating and...

something other than what I am now, someone who's always feeling that what she's feeling is wrong, someone who always feels ten steps behind and racing to catch up. Someone everyone else has to advise, because she's so likely to screw up her own life and make the wrong decision that everyone else needs to tell her to do this, do that, don't waste it, chill out, step up, earn it, pay it, don't pick, you aren't thinking, find it out, do it this way, don't eat that, drink this.

I am not happy. And all I really want is to be happy.

I desperately want to tell someone all of this, not my parents, someone I can sink into and sob onto and weep with, that will say exactly the right thing which is? I don't know.

I think of BL and her perfect shape. She's small and goes in and out, and she's so springy. I always think of her as a light person. Long hair, big eyes, heart face. She feels so safe, she feels so right, and sleeping next to her was so easy this weekend. I never wanted to leave. Silence is easy, speaking is easy, does she think that too or did she want me to sod off? I wanted to roll over and hold her and tell her it all, though she advises me too, and not always the right thing but she cares.

I just need someone to hold onto, to cling to, to adore.

She thought she loved someone and he turned out to be addicted to hash and she couldn't. He had no ambition, just floating around not doing.

And I don't think she could ever love me. She gets bored of me, I can feel it, though I'm never bored of her and I feel cosy and comfortable and she said she likes lounging around cuddling on the sofa, and that's exactly how I think of her.

Maybe she thinks I'm silly and reckless and hates that I take MDMA on every odd occasion. I went out this weekend and I don't know how curious she was; I told her about it, and I offered that she could come, but I knew she wouldn't want to. I'd want her to come but only if she wanted, but I didn't want her to think I'd not want her there. I'd want her anywhere. I took it and saw her the day after; she asked how I felt and I said fine, but I was hazy that day, and I had jaw ache, which always happens because of abruxia. She did the perfect thing; took me out, made me beans and tortillas, which I was sorely in need of after a vegetable deficit. There and then I wanted to wrap my arms round her comfortable little shape and say, how did you know you brilliant thing? How did you know how I was feeling and what I needed? But there's every chance she didn't and was just some sort of coincidental selfish.

I don't offer her anything. I don't offer anyone anything except worry. I feel useless.

Horrible

The things that hurt most in no particular order:

She's got her head screwed on, she has

about bee from my mother. And I haven't. Has she? Scatty B. Whose parents can pay for her career, who didn't say things in the tone my mother said them.

You haven't thought about this

And a series of assailants on my dreams that tangle up the fine thread till I can't merge back through it.

Your dad was distraught last night after you said that about the tape

Why does what I think about a bloody tape matter so much, why is he so sensitive about a half-joke, why does he think I'm this complete and utter snob, why am I not allowed to express myself in exactly the same way that he does?

I know you aren't happy. You keep picking your chin.

I am happy. I'm not overflowing with joy but I'm reasonable. I'm anxious because people shit on my plans all the time. Parents shit on my plans all the time, to be more specific. And added to this insult, you're not happy and that is your fault for doing the WRONG DEGREE and your fault and your fault (the implicit statement added by me, I feel it, I feel the waste of money and time and effort and how disappointed they must be in me). And then there's also- you're picking your face. You are becoming ugly.

I hate it when they nag me because I know they are right. I wish they'd just back the hell off and let me have a little area of my life that noone intruded into. Now they're in it I want to prove them wrong by letting other people in who think it's OK- I thought Bee thought it was OK and now I'm not sure. Maybe she thinks I'm as stupid as Mum and Dad do. I hate it when people pity me, and people frequently do. Mum did all of tonight. She pressed her lips into this line and her eyes had a sad look, like they do when she sees a fat or homeless person, both of which I will surely become in her world. I hate it. I hate being a source of worry and disappointment and pity. Why can't I be happy and reasonable? Why did my argument consist of just backing down? And hers just upped the throttle. It wasn't a throttle. It's just because they care, but caring means they're destroying my dreams and making it impossible... to think about acting without thinking about them saying you can't you can't you can't and when people say it I can't say I can. It's not my life. It's theirs. And I want it to be mine.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to.

I am unrealistic and cruel and flaky and 'I thought we'd brought you up better than to be unreliable'. And I want to weep because it's all true, and now I'm just going to sink into a pit of my own despair as usual.

You haven't thought properly.

About drama school, about financing it, about WHAT HAPPENS AFTER AND MAYBE NEVER OWNING MY OWN PROPERTY (I'd rather have a job I like but the parents are sure this will change), about how much it will cost per week to live there and where it comes from.

In my head, I was going to work this year, maybe sell some illustrations, and use that money to pay fees. I'd have a further few thousand saved for rent, and a day job to pay for food.

But I don't know how many thousands are saved. And I don't know how much student debt I'm in. And I don't know how much it will cost to live where I want to go.

I am irresponsible and flaky.

I am. I am probably going to let someone down. Why isn't it OK for me to let someone down? And I only took the goddamn thing because the parents wanted me to so much.

I am not happy, after they financed me through a degree.

What did they expect? A degree then immediate joy when I have a shit job and nothing to look forward to except courses next year that they shit all over?


Why can't they just let me be. I'd be so much happier about researching things if they weren't breathing down my shoulder.

I'm cruel because I disdained a tape my dad offered. For god's sake, he's judgemental enough about our music and tv and we don't take it as if he's constantly putting us down. People always think they're sensitive and then are utterly insensitive to others.

I had made the best of a bad day. I was happy at half past eight. Now I just feel....

Like I don't deserve anything good to happen to me, and I am cruel and snobbish and disdainful though I thought I wasn't, and I don't know where I'm going and I'm not worth it because I've wasted a degree and who cares? Who on earth actually cares how I feel, and can show it in the right way?

Couldn't stop contemplating you

Ugh, it's what gets me through my job, little fantasies. I get tired because my job is all filing and no thinking, and that means that I let my mind drift.

I let my mind drift to a comfortable bed and your arms opening and mine too, where we're both crumpled and curled into each other with supine spines. Silent or talking slow and soporific, this is where I am most weekdays 9-5.

I want to be thinner because

I want to be good enough for them, and not to embarrass myself around them.

When I have short hair I feel more efficient, and a similar feeling comes from being thinner.

A horrible spiteful bit of me thinks, you want me to give up sugar Mum? Screw your halfhearted hints and your worry about how others are judging me. I'll look like a skeleton and then let's see.

Of course, the logical reaction would be to gorge myself stupid.

I won't have to throw out my clothes.

I'll feel more confident.

I'll move freer.

I'll have some control over something.

Here's what I'm going to do.

Be thin.

I will do this by:

Eating more vegetables and soups.

Walking more or exercising more.

Drawing more.

Sleeping more.

And then I will suddenly be a size 8-10 (England).

Tired triskaidekaphobe types.

Always the same, repetitive narcissist. You'd think I'd get bored.

I'd like

To wrap up cosy with you.

To take your hand watching fireworks.

To make you a set of songs that remind me of you. Pretty by the Cranberries would be one of the first.

To waltz with you in a bedroom.

To sit facing each other like book ends and touch your neck.

To have you accompany me on late night walks. Usually I hate anyone except me being there. But I would like you being there.

I want to let you into my little world and have you let me into yours.

Then there's you.

I try to imagine you but you're different. On facebook there's only six tagged photos of you.

I wouldn't know what to say if someone asked if you were beautiful. I couldn't say you were because I'd know the person's viewpoint and I'd know they'd think I was lying though you are to me, and there's so much to offer someone besides looks, like being intelligent and kind and funny.

I could say: she looks tender and vulnerable and sweet, and she covers it all with a brash exterior.

But you can't say that to anyone and everyone who asks.

I could say: she's lovely.

But that's a cop out.

I could say: we make a good pair.

And that is the best.

Charity is giving to oneself.

I might volunteer at christmas, just to escape the house.

I like volunteering. It makes me feel useful and that I'm doing something I want to do and being the person I want to be.

Lady of the House asked me to be part of a tableau today. I can't anymore. I can't be involved in drama that isn't absolutely what I want to do. It's destroying (melodramatic). It's not that I don't want to help, it's just that I want to be me as well. I can't compromise on this thing.

I want to draw

Centaurs and fairies on a snowy mountain

Child looking at the rain

Victorian suited children having tantrums

Give up sugar

Did you say it because you think I'm getting fat? Do you want to control that? Why do you worry about our weight so much? We can tell. I wasn't that chubby a child and yet I thought I was, and now, I can feel you being anxious about the way I look and the way I dress and...

It's almost worse than B's mother, who tells her outright she's too fat. Though I think she's perfect. It's all subtle, subtle because my Mum doesn't want to hurt, she just wants us to be happy, and so she'd never say I was getting fat. The way she goes about it is far more difficult to shrug off.

Or was it just because of my skin?

I walked five miles today. And overate.

I need to start controlling food again. Going home sends me like this, and it's not good but it's necessary to control something because I am currently expanding. But not to please her.

I am going mad.

I picture you

Lying sickly on a bed, and you just need me to read to you and stroke your hair and hold you. Why do I like that picture so much?

I'm so secretive and dark and unknown that I can't trust anyone who is simply open. I need someone like me, and I'd like to believe that Lady of the House is, because... of low self esteem and her battleaxe complex.

I could be wrong.

I want to know about you.

I saw Lady of the House last night. She can be boring and day to day and a zealot. I knew this.

I only fantasise about people in suboordinate roles, or when they need me and are meeker. Why?

Lady of the House is who I want to be when I'm older and I desperately seek her approval constantly. I want her to think I am worth bothering with.

The world doesn't seem to think I'm worth bothering with, but then why should it? Why should I have a job or people telling me I'm wonderful when there's no reason to do so? I'm such a narcissist.

I want to be Lady of the House, because she's got her own little kingdom and lives her life as she wants to and has lots of people around her. I think she's happy. She's got this amazing way of making people do exactly what she wants. Like casting a spell.

I want to ask her if she always knew what she wanted to do, and what she despises in other people (because there must be something). I want to know so that it reassures me; she wasn't always like that, maybe I can grow into someone driven and passionate not afraid to speak my mind, not afraid of being a real person.

I want to know for the joy of knowing about her. I want to see if I can get deeper in, but there doesn't seem a time to ask. And she hates asking about history, she doesn't like us asking others about their history before they came here because it might be painful, so is her history painful and maybe she doesn't want to talk about it or am I reading too far?

It's the shell again.

I think she dislikes me.

Why is it so important for me to be liked when the people I want to be like aren't necessarily always likeable?

I need to learn to go my own way and screw everyone else.

I'm just not sure that I'm right about myself, and I want someone to tell me I am right. But they can't because I should know I'm the only one that knows what I want.

Even Lady of the House can't tell me.

I haven't told her about my thespian ambitions. I worry she'd cannibalise them. She's so sensitive at times, then at others...

Not being allowed to be me.

I have this feeling a lot around my parents though I shouldn't.

They're supportive and love me and all the rest of it.

But I feel like they're cannabalising me.

If I tell them what I'm doing (going abroad, going to drama school) they assassinate it with questions about fees, contracts, where, what and who. Usually I have the answers, but it sucks all the fun out of it. Then they have their own little ideas on it when I just want it to be me, mine, for me. Not about them, but it always is.

And being angry. When Mum is angry, she wants everyone else to be angry. I'd left a glass of water on the worktop and she came and shouted at me for it, and my bedroom. And yet if I was that angry, I'd be told to cut down the melodrama. When she does it I sit in angry silence because saying something will only make it worse. Me being angry isn't a serious event. Her being angry is. It makes me feel about two years old, that my emotions aren't valid.

And the way they're proud of me for keeping this shit job when I want to jack it in.

And how Mum says I should cut down on sugar for a week to help with my skin. OK, I've got spots, fine, but why does she have to go suggesting? Why can't it be my decision? I feel like I've got no power at all over my life, no control, and they're making it worse than it needs to be by trying to be helpful.

And I'm such an ungrateful bitch, because I know that they are damn good parents but I just feel like crap.