A Revelation...

I read an article in the Daily Mail on an anorexic who says she enjoys having the body of a twelve year old because, among other reasons, people are surprised when she's intelligent and articulate as their expectations are lower because she looks so neotenous.

This is something akin to the reason I want to be thin again; to surprise people, because I believe the world is kinder when you are thinner. But why do I want lower expectations and a softer life? Isn't it better to be able to say, I can compete- and to do it with or without the sympathy or pity of others? Passive-aggressively eliciting pity with one's corporeal form isn't exactly the most ingratiating of personality traits. Is intelligence not as impressive if it's not coupled with the conditioner of a young body?

I want time to stand still at the moment, so that I can get more money and begin my life in earnest. No graduate programmes for me this year. Ugh. I feel terrible about it. I don't feel ready.

I have had a bad two days, food wise. I have been eating anything and everything, and I think it's because I am just disconsolate. Inconsolable, and by this I don't mean that I spend my time crying. I mean that I spend time moaning to one of my friends, and that I cannot be snapped out of this mode of thinking that encroaches on me night and day. I can be happy for a few hours talking about other things, but just thinking about my lack of progress and general awful life makes a lump well up in my throat, like I've got it all wrong and I've got no idea, though I thought I had, so if I thought I had and I haven't will I ever have any reasonable ideas? I need to get away and be me.

I hate myself, and I can see nothing good about being me for now, only in comparison to friends (one friend is getting married, and I'm just so very glad it's not me, but aside from this I cannot see what is good about me). And that's a horrible thing as well, to only be good in comparison. I suppose everyone's only good in comparison though- even Ghandi.

I don't make any sense. That's why the BBC don't want me. That's why Rada and Bristol
Old Vic didn't want me. That's why people don't want me.

I am thinking of moving out to The House, or just going somewhere that isn't here to be me and be me on my own terms. I just don't want people to keep telling me how ridiculous I am, or holding out too much hope. My little social world seems sharply divided into these two camps. I hate even writing about it. I prefer to write about kind things, like Lady of the House. Things that are kind and familiar, that I've written about a hundred times before, that lull me to safety and feeling alright, because her response to me could be best or worst or anywhere in between, because it's not been tested, because.

Just because.

And her, the Unexpected Kindness. I don't think she likes me at all. Cut my losses. I am always cutting losses, and I sometimes wonder if I should just chop chop chop as I'm doing.

Here is what I could do in the next few weeks to make myself happier:

Join a good amdram.
Write the damn articles.
Find work experience at the Birmingham publisher in Digbeth with three people, or go back to the paper, or do something. Don't just sit.

But I look at all of these things and feel a huge wave of resentment. Nowhere wants me, so why bother? I can do all of those things, but I'll just be donating my time and the people that get it will no doubt put me to use stuffing envelopes, or use me for a while and then chuck me aside, or flat out reject me. And I cannot take any more rejection. I want people to say yes. I know everyone goes through this, every graduate blah blah blah but I don't care. I got a degree in English and I do all this work experience, and does the bloody BBC even want to give me an interview? Do they fuck. I fucking hate everywhere and everyone, and most especially myself for being a whiny piteous cow who isn't doing anything, who's just letting the world traipse her into the ground. I'm never going to fucking well make anything of myself if I don't shut up and get going.

Noone can say anything to encourage me, or to pep talk me into it. I'm in a state where anything is a bad thing to say. Those who assure me something will come are talking out of their arses, because how the fuck do they know? To the world I'm just another grey piece of shitty nothing. Those who say no wonder, you need this or that, just make me want to scream again, because who the fuck are they to tell me what to do?

Noone can win, least of all me. What I really want is someone to take me outside and let me run and scream and kick some tree stumps. This is what would really help, someone who wouldn't think I was terrible, or who would and who wouldn't care.

Unfortunately there's noone like that.

If I told Lady of the House any of this, no doubt she'd think it incredibly spoilt. I can see it behind her eyes sometimes- she'd never say it of course, but she must be thinking, spoilt little materialist brat.

She knows a better version of me. I'm a better version of myself around her, but also, she knows that journalist that trounced me into the ground. Week long expose, as opposed to a little snippetty bit in the free rag that most people mistake for an advertising magazine. I bet the woman that wrote it isn't at all like me inside. I bet she's funny without being overly flippant and endearing and beautiful and thin and talented and not at all worried about speaking her mind and an oxbridge graduate. Me if I was better. My friends actually said, "she looks like you". Someone thought she was me. On a good day. When I'm thin and far more beautiful than I actually am. Healthy tones and lighter hair, always indicative of the heroine, whilst I skulk and sulk in the background with my pasty face and eye bags and dark blood hair. Oh, who cares? Really, who cares? I need to do more for others and less for me. I'm worthless anyway, unless it's in relation to other people. And mostly I'm worthless in relation to them anyway.

Like an ancient day and I'm on trial.

Alright. Let's say something that made me happy today.

I talked about the Lady of the House in relation to Trinny and Susannah, harridans. I was talking to a friend, who said she hated them, and I agreed. I said I didn't know who would subject those they knew to such treatment, especially when dress is so indicative of character. Lady of the House, for example, looks utterly lovely, I think. She's got cropped grey white hair and resembles a hedgehog, and like them, is spry and shockingly fast when she wants to be. She looks clever, shrewd- as if she's sized you up in two minutes and got the measure of you, but she'll treat you just the same as everyone else nontheless, as if she knows exactly what everyone's about, or doesn't care. She's got stick thin limbs and a round body, and she wears a few clothes on rotation- she's got a velour pair of purple tracksuit bottoms, a few polo necks, a velvet jacket, lots of flowy skirts that swish round her tiny ankles and a light navy cotton long sleeved empire line top with tiny floral print, a v-neck but always over some other top. She always wears good leather flat black sensible lace ups. She doesn't look groomed or primed, but she looks exactly like herself, perfect, and I'd never ever want to change the way she looks. Why do people nominate others for that sort of thing? Why can't we all just be ourselves?