I learned the truth at seventeen...

Is love made for beauty queens? Not for me. They seem sterile and aloof and unloveable. Too plastic. I have an aversion to pneumatic beauty.

Though Mother keeps saying I'm slim and pretty, and noone else I work with must be... why not? And why should either of those things make me better than anyone else? I'm never quite what it says on the tin. People think I'll be down with the kids, but I'm really the biggest loser on the block. MC's brilliant, but I'm just a little bit Rainman with a penchant for histories and books and love lorn looks. I'm the eldest, yet I'm not a leader. I don't incite admiration or inspiration... I just am. I'm the clown and the person sitting in the corner quietly watching then joining in, occasionally producing the odd good thing.

I saw a play tonight with one black character (out of nine) in it; it was kind of historical, and I'm trying to research her character; it hasn't got any history, and I thought there would be something to back it up. The character was like that in general; to add atmosphere, not for a purpose, and the actress was brilliant. She could act amazing and sing in a voice that left me slack jawed, and definitely could have done more than that part, with nothing to locate it in history like the rest of the women. I would like to know more about her character, more than just the typical scary black voodoo woman. I hate it when people are portrayed like that, it's such a stereotype. There's something more to everyone than that.

I will not be a baby doll. I never have been, and I refuse to be vulnerable and delicate because I never have been, I've never looked young, or I have but school boy young... I'm all hips and no breasts, and I'm not ashamed anymore. I will not play the part of the ingenue because I am not her, I'm something different and I cannot be shoehorned into it. I will take up that place, for the one ugly girl, at drama school, because I am broad and masculine and I am happy.

Don't wake me, I plan on sleeping in.

Quite simply put.

I am tired, and I've ate so much today. I'm going to walk more and eat less tomorrow.

I am going to see B, or at least offer myself as viewing material. I am worried because she hasn't gotten back to me, but then I suppose it's because she's busy with things. I wonder if, maybe, she just doesn't want to see me? I have to think about it. No I don't, I've been overthinking, and Meerkat said I should just go for it, so I will.

I've got time off and I'm doing things with it. Which is nice.

Tell me am I right to think that there could be nothing better than making you my bride and slowly growing old together?

I could really do with you now, K, to say some well-cut reassuring thing and let me couch on your shoulder. That would be lovely.

You're not lovely in the way that people say, to children, "oh, that's lovely". You're not crayon on wax paper. You're like a packet that's not been opened, clean and safe, and you're incandescent. You're the lovely that means loveliness; there is nothing more lovely, or, she was loveliness personified, or, as lovely as the breaking dawn. Any of those. You're the delicate and ethereal brand of loveliness, you're valiant and strong and tender, the sort that's beautiful rather than pretty (because anyone can be pretty, it's a bland statement, like saying someone's nice. It's saying nothing much). But you're a beauty. You're lovely.

1540, minus about 400 or so for a 6 mile walk.

So I'm averaging out. I like walking.


There's a bypass I walk past with twigs grasping out into the road that I edge past, but they get the better of me and snag my headphones out of my ears, so that I have to spend time persuading them to give me my equipment back against the moon and the lurid floodlights. The branches feel concealing, as if they're hiding a dead hand or a predator, so that when they stroke me I'm always wondering if it's just twigs. I'm far happier on main roads or grass expanses by the byway.

You can play with me there sometimes if you catch me in the mood.

I walked almost a perfect semicircle round her house. I didn't think about it whilst I was doing it, but now that I think on it, I did. I need someone comforting at the moment, because I'm just feeling like I can't do a lot of things. When other people can, it throws into contrast that I can't- there's a girl my age at work that is far better than me at what I do, and I'm all wrong, especially when I'm tired- I can't even be properly enthusiastic that way. I disdained her because she was pretty, and I believed ineffective, but that's proved me wrong. Pretty and effective, people are often both. Or can be. Then there's B, and I feel guilty whining about my character flaws which are insignificant and alterable when she's got something looming so awful and definite. She's good with children as well and I know that this is a silly and self absorbed thing to be masochistic with.

I don't want to go out and see anyone. I want to go for long walks on my own and then come back to a place where B and our other three from University are, and lie down somewhere warm and watch a film instead of talking or doing anything. That's what I want. Failing that, taking some hard drugs would be a bonus. I just want something soft and comfortable and happy.

Self indulgent twaddle, as usual- do I ever write anything else?

Shining light.

It was the last of the April crisp days when we met on the heath. The northern places seemed to stay barren longer than other places, and the twigs on the trees reached like fingers for my skirts in the darkling day. I saw her coming over the dried mud and yellowed grass before she saw me. She hacked her way through the bushes and waved at me. I extended an arm to wave back. She was wearing wellingtons and a long white dress, and a red cardigan. The dress was as white as her skin, an extension of her flapping limbs. She looked like a child playing, though she was too old for that really.

Green judgement and cold blood.

clementines-40
pasta-350
400
smoothie-150
lemon pie -300
450
an oreo-50
apricots-100
200
a cornish pasty and spinach-600
2 bites of licorice-50
brownie-150

1600, if I have estimated correctly. I've got a nagging feeling that that's not all.

Tomorrow I have made myself a salad. Salad days. I hope B's salad days aren't over, because I still want to be green in judgement and cold in blood with her, but now we can't joke and I find it hard to mention my own mother, who is in rude health (there's never been a more apt expression). I am glad she is, but I hate that B hasn't got that as well. Touch wood, touch wood, toughen up because I can't do anything.

Everything is fiction, all cynic to the bone, so don't ask me to stay with you. Don't ask to see me home.

I ate another piece of cake, so another 200, but I also walked 4.1 miles, so I've burned off 300, about. I've ate 1400.

Savage.

The world is too savage. It's far too much.

Now there's a lifestyle, with painted lips.

Everybody wants it, but it don't exist.

Eating today:

some doritos-60
cake and strawberries-470

530
soup and bread-300
apricots-100
a bit of cake-70
mozarella and tomato salad-130

600
cheese-75

1200.

I have ate 4 portions of fruit and veg.

I still keep thinking about B.

When I have those thoughts I want to be held by someone soft and strong and kind, unexpectedly. I have spent most of today thinking about her to try and block out thinking about B. It's silly to be so caught up on it, or is it? I don't know. I'll have to tell my parents.
She said, "I have this unhappiness to wear around my neck. It’s a pretty piece of jewellery to show what I protect."

Savage.

This business of metastatic symptoms is far too savage for someone as soft as you are, B.

Metastasis, it's a lovely word. It sounds like cicida, or something unfurling and developing. It means changing and moving, but in relation to disease it spells out something not benign.

Now there's a lifestyle, with painted lips. Well, there's a lifestyle, everybody wants it but it don't exist.

Please, just hold me and be tender, I need something soft because I'm feeling so helpless to aid anyone. If I feel like this, how must B feel? I feel like it's inappropriate to laugh or be happy or anything like that, though that's not what she's said.

When I'm worried about everything I want to huddle into your shoulder. I can imagine you'd be quiet, or you'd say something about your Granddad and what I could do. My first reaction was to look it up and find out what the chances were, and then to think for a long time before producing the silliest message, it wasn't even properly grammatised.

I think of how happy she was a week or so ago. She said that her mother wanted to teach her how to peel a potato without a peeler, because she was worried that she wouldn't know how and she'd get embarrassed at a friend's house. There are all those little things that you should have forever to teach your daughter. The fact of a year is the biggest whack; it's put a definite timescale on it. Knowing your own mortality is the fact of it; you can't pretend you're immortal because it's a definite, a definite day.

Some days aren't yours at all.

Eating today

Marks and Spencer's salad-400
a lindor chocolate-60
an oreo-50
a smoothie-100

B's Mum has been diagnosed with metastatic cancer. She's got a year. B is being herself, practical and strong, but I can read the notes of desperation, or panic, or sadness... or all three, because these are what she must be feeling. Her Dad discusses plant life with her, and not much else. How will she cope? How will the house look after her Mum's gone? I keep picturing her at the funeral, though it's off a year away, and I keep thinking about how she must be feeling. She doesn't want anyone to ring, which is just as well because I would be terrible at that, and I just want to see her and give her a hug. I can't stop thinking about it, which must be small fry compared to the occupation of her thoughts. I sent her a message back, but I didn't know what to say really; I just didn't want her to have to go through it. Saying that is pointless because she has to, and it makes no difference. I can't listen to music or dance or smile without thinking, I bet she doesn't feel like smiling. We watched Colder than Here in second year, and thinking about the way that that woman dies, she's worried about being found because your bowels evacuate. B's Mum wouldn't like that. B wouldn't like that, but she might well be there when it happens. She sent me a message... because her best friend is away, so was I the one? Did I do well? Should I have rung her anyway, but I didn't want to because she said not to, but maybe she wants me to.

I'm grateful for my work, because I can't think about her all the time then. Correcting mistakes and lending pens and explanations take my mind off it, but she can't- she's studying, and literature's full of morbid deaths. Studying lends to mind wandering as well, it's not a focus because it's self-led.

Last night I went out with R and a bellicose male told us that 'you've got more to learn from her than she has from you', on the basis that R didn't pay as much to go to school as I did. She's more resilient and streetwise, apparently. This is true, but not because of the money; R's Mum is paranoid, and she spent a lot of sixth form caring for her, if not before. So she knows how to run a house; but I know that too, and I have worked, and I resent the implication that I am naive or stupid because I happen to have more money. This irked me tremendously. Why have I got to learn? Why have either of us got to learn from each other? It's something you do anyway, learn from friends; it shouldn't be used as a measure to beat someone with. It's not as if I am rich; I share a room with my sister. People describe my house as cosy. I know how to live. R said he was a repulsive man, with a chip on his shoulder. There are grains of truth in his opinions, but not for the right reasons.

Today I ate:

an apple-40
chocolate cake (small piece)-100

1/2 a baguette with tomato puree and cheese on it-350

500

rice and vegetables-250
a smoothie (pineapple, mango and grape juice)-150
some muesli-200

1100

You said, today, "well, it's inevitable, you're always going to compare yourself to your sister aren't you?" It's true. I worry that mine is cleverer than me, without the added attention. She's going to be prettier than I am. She's musically gifted and taller, and probably thinner, and I suppose she'll be predisposed to anorexia, being a perfectionist. The things I care about aren't the ones that are obvious; I care about her being cleverer without input, and being a perfectionist, but I'm starting to care less about physical traits, not that I could have been jealous of her because she's more like a daughter; I take glee in her accomplishments.

The girl we were discussing has been unfavourably compared. I suppose that because me and my sister are fairly similar, we only draw comments on what's the same about us- or if anyone has remarked on it, it hasn't been to my face. It would be different if we'd been chalk and cheese.

It made me wonder if you've got a sister that you compare yourself to incessantly. A pretty one? A very clever one? Both? I wonder if people see in MCT what they see that's vulnerable in themselves; Mercury sees a successful sister complex, RA sees someone that's ostracised from their peers, I see someone scared of getting it wrong because she's scared of people. I don't think she's got much ability. My first thought was genital mutilation, though that hasn't happened to me, but I suppose it says something about my mind.

So, are you compared or comparing yourself to someone you can never live up to? I don't know. I wish I could tell you that you're prime, but I think you like AG. And maybe she likes you too. You talked to her about her son today, you used careful vowels and pronounced consonants to ask about diagnoses; you don't with me, you're careful with her. Because you like and respect her or because she scares you, or all of the above?