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.