It also amazes me how listening to a song can give you an idea, right there out of nowhere. Or just anything can, really. Like today, I was standing outside at my washing line taking down washing gone crusty from the sun and my dog was running around my feet like she does when she wants to play soccer with me (which really just means she bites onto the soccer ball and runs frantic around the yard with it in her mouth so you can’t get it off her and then when she get’s bored and tries to get it off she can’t because she has her teeth stuck in it). And then I looked up and saw this jet plan going through the sky really high up and leaving one of those white cloud trails that they leave which made me think at first that it was a sky writer and then I figured out that it wasn’t.
But just seeing that, I had this weird feeling. It was like insane deja vu, only I wasn’t remembering something but not being sure what I was remembering, I knew exactly what it was that I had remembered. (Does this shit even make sense?) I was remembering so many Friday afternoons from when I was a kid and playing in the backyard and all of the things that made Friday like, this weird magic day or something. (I’m pretty sure this doesn’t make sense…)

And then I had this crazy urge to start writing about it. So once again I started said writing with absolutely no plot ideas and by now I’ve written like, three paragraphs* and it’s all just description, but hey, what the heck at least I’ve written something! Yipee!

My point being (and this is going to be a total letdown, so props to you if you read this whole jumble of weirdness, because the conclusion is a little bit below my usual standard, so I thought I’d let you know and save you the trouble of being disappointed), isn’t it weird how inspiration comes from the most random places?

—

You know what else is weird? Being confused. I hate being confused, and I know this for a fact because it happens regularly. And it’s happening right now. WTF life? Stop it. This is not cool. I want to know exactly what is going on all the time every time because I’m a maniacal** control freak and when I can’t control things, it makes me shitty. And right now, I have ZERO idea what is going on. AT ALL.
Ahuh.

—

The other thing that I wanted to mention is something really cool that happened to me today.

Someone asked how I was going.

And I was like woah. Because, when you think about it, people ask how you are all the time. And you’re automatic reaction (well, most people’s is anyway) is to just say ‘yeah good’ or something to that effect. But this was totally different. It wasn’t a ‘hey, how are you?’ all casual like and whatnot. It was serious and meaningful and all ‘hey, how is your life? Are you okay?’ and that meant a lot.

People say a lot of things that they don’t mean. People make passing comments and fleeting remarks that are standard, but empty. And yes, they’re unavoidable because not asking how someone is can be kind of rude sometimes, but when a person says that to you and it’s more than just  a simple standard greeting, it sort of hits home.

I want to be like this. I want to ask people how they really are more often. Because it’s important. Because it’s… I don’t know, worth it? Because it might just make someone else realise this fact, and then they might make someone else realise it and before you know it, there’s this whole snowball effect of people looking, really looking at someone and saying ‘how are you?’ and truly, deeply meaning it.

—

… Mmmhmm, don’t even question it. Just nod and accept, because really, nothing I say makes sense. Ever. ;)

And now I’m going to sleep. Because I have work at 8am TODAY. Yuck.

* That is in part because I went to watch ‘A Few Best Men’ with friends and it was absolutely HI-freaking-LARIOUS, for the record. If you like crazed British humour, then you will like this film. (:

** My laptop tried to autocorrect that to magical. I wish I was magical, dear lap top, oh how I wish. If you know how to make me magical, please, don’t hesitate to drop me a line.***

*** Hah, because I was totally going to give you my phone number. Yeah… NO.

…

And I was like shit, am I? … ‘Uh yes Dad, of course…’ … but am I… really?

I have no idea if I can do this. I can talk about it, be all excited about it  and even dream about it but could I do it? I don’t know. And it’s so easy to say ‘well you’ll never know if you don’t try’, oh it’s so, so easy to just say that but when it comes down to it, I don’t even know if I’ll make it to the trying part.
Because even when I’m so excited about it, at the same time there’s this little feeling that knows what will happen and knows that maybe putting myself in that situation is a terrible, terrible plan. Sure, if I went I can guarantee you that I’d love it, that I’d learn so much and grow so much and just be filled with all these wonderful amazing new things that I couldn’t get anywhere else because they are thoughts and feelings that only come with being totally and utterly lost and so wonderfully set free. But it’s getting there that is the hardest part. It’s the beforehand that I can’t handle. Even thinking about it makes me a little queasy.

I watch my friends plan and plot and laugh and talk about all these things they want to see and do, and I want to be that person too. I want to want things.* I want to be able to look at maps and dates and old castles that I will inevitably drag everyone too with the same excitement that they all seem so filled with. I wish I could be so totally ready for this like they are, but I don’t think I am. It’s so frustrating that I can’t even figure out what scares me about it; if ‘scares’ is even the right word. Because as much as I’m terrified, it’s not in the traditional sense. I don’t worry about the things that will happen, about what could go wrong. I know shit is going to go down and that’s okay by me, because life is the good and the bad and that’s just how it goes. I just… worry. About nothing. And everything. And things that aren’t even real things.

I want to prove that I can do this. That I’m just as strong as them and that I can make the most out of this, but I’m not sure I can even get there. Getting on that plane in January 2013 is so far away. Heck, we haven’t even booked anything, but dates are slowly being drawn and people are planning little mini pre-trips to their own choice destinations and I just don’t know if I can handle all this planning but it’s so hard with everyone watching and thinking and looking at me and asking ‘Saskia, what do you think about this date?‘ or worse, when they don’t even ask at all and it’s just too scary to speak.

And when I’m faced with all these things, it is just too simple to chicken out and hide and watch the world go by from a safe little glass cage.** And even that’s hard because then there are the questions and the ‘what’s wrong?‘s’ and the everyone not getting that just because they can handle it doesn’t mean I can and that saying it’s okay, don’t worry doesn’t help.
And to get to the bottom of all of this? I’m envious.

I want what they have. I can’t understand why I can’t have it too? Their confidence and their clarity and the way that for them it is all so okay (which is total crap because everyone’s dealing with something, right? But still… that’s not how it looks sometimes and even if it is a lie it doesn’t look like such a bad one, does it?).

…I’m going to bed before I say anything else the world doesn’t need to know.***

*Yes I am totally aware that doesn’t even make sense. But I’m running on 3 hours sleep after a full day of waterpark rides at Jamberoo. Just let the paradoxes slide, okay?

** If I ever say something so revoltingly metaphorical again, shoot me. Seriously, I sound like a whiny passive-agressive teen, and I hate it. But I’m not one to delete things so if that’s what I wrote then that’s what’s being posted and so be it. Still… hit me, at the least.

*** AHAHAHA what a lie I don’t sleep.

Other than that, enjoy! It’s unedited, as usual, because I am too lazy to go over it and even though first drafts are so messy and usually a bit shite, I sort of like them. I like the way they can be so blunt or so tangled but they’re fresh and they mean what you say they mean because it’s straight there on the page (and in this case, also the computer screen).

No, I don’t really know what it means, either. I don’t get half the stuff I write. Sure, there are some hidden meanings in there that you will probably never figure out because I’m sneaky and I’ll take them to the grave, but the rest is just waffly crap. Take what you want out of it, it’s all up for interpretation.

—

The Beach

The water rushes fierce against my ankles as I wade through the edge of the surf. My legs are a barrier and the ocean throws up against them, reaching high for the cuff of my shorts and only just falling short. It is cold, but welcome in the muggy summer air.

The beach is close to empty, bar a few small children trailing behind their parents and a couple locked in on

e another’s embrace. I focus on the children; the lover’s tableaux too private. There are three of them and they toddle along the pebbled shoreline, scooping up the rocks sent smooth from decades of weathering by the ebb and flow of the ocean tide. These rocks tinkle through their fingers, some so eroded they have almost turned back to sand. Soon they are gone, buckets loaded up with their quarry, following the beckoning calls of their parents. It is just the lovers and I on the beach now, though to them I am nothing more than a flicker in the corner of one’s eye, forgotten a little more with each resounding touch.

I seek solace on the rocks. They are jagged and I climb – teetering on the sharp edges and wicked inclines – for a few minutes before finding a spot flat enough to sit. The ocean stretches out like a blanket below the rocks, grey and blue and wavering between pure calm and chaos. It is almost calling me, whispering come, come in, I can’t hurt you. My eyes tell a different story and I am only just held back from throwing myself into it’s embrace by the water that slams violently against the rocks, spattering me with sea spray. Come or I’ll come and get you! The ocean now threatens. It cannot reach me though, and so I sit and I watch until my legs are numb and I have started to shiver.

I make my way back along the beach. The sunlight is setting, although the lovers have not noticed. I feel as though I have intruded, like I have walked into their private world and I cannot find a way out. My legs run, uncomfortable with their closeness and I feel myself drift away, though my eyes never leave their entwined silhouettes until I have rounded a corner and one of the beach’s sand dunes blocks them from view. My lungs are burning and my legs beg for mercy but I barely notice, my eyes locked on a new target now. There is a small hut at the end of the beach, and I know I must get to it.

Once again I am running. It’s like I can’t get there fast enough, like my body has no other purpose than to reach this place and everything else seems dull in comparison. I could turn around, I could go back and go home and walk past the lovers, intrude on their moment but I can’t and I won’t and I can’t.

The hut isn’t far, but my legs thank me when I climb the last rickety stair and collapse at the top. I want to stand but my limbs have given out. It isn’t even that I am that tired. Normally I cold run four times that distance before such a protest but there is something about this beach. The way

it is not just a collection of pieces; a washed up log with tiny creatures gnawing and living in its hollows, a crab skittering its way across the sand, the sea foam and the pufferfish, lying solemn, in wait at the bottem of the hut, a solitary guard with it’s empty sockets looking mournfully out onto the horizon. The beach is not all of these things, it is one and it is pulling me into it, removing the distance between us until we two are one. Until I am like the lovers, completely oblivious to anything but each other because they are one and now the beach and I are one as well.

Orange light settles over the sand as we are bathed in the last reaches of the sun, its claws losing their battle as the moon pushes it out of the sky and dusk settles in. Real time is forgotten, and the moon soon gathers us in her arms for the chill of night. We are forgotten until the morning sun arises again. We brush the sand out of our hair, and we dance past the pufferfish, it’s eyes watching us all the way.

I return home, but I have left something there. It is out there, in the sand, in the surf and in the sky and one day I will come and I will get it back.

—

Yeah… It was a little weird, I know. But I sort of like it. And it’s the first thing I’ve FINISHED writing in a while, so yay! Rejoicing!

I already love the people at USYD. No one at Macquarie was this friendly. I never had a random person come up to me and talk to me, and at first it freaked me out a little, but I’m learning to enjoy it. This is like, the third random that has started talking to me. It’s a little bit great.

And then one of my best friends was asked for her number by said random. We all laughed, and then discovered that she had given him my number. Oh lord. I may strangle her. But as the group shut-down expert, I have already prepped the perfect letdown. And trust me, it’s mean.  Because that is how I roll.

Wow, I am evil.

My house is too quiet. And I keep walking around and touching things with no idea why or what I’m doing.

I came home from a ten day holiday in Coffs Harbour (eight hours North of Sydney) with my five favourite people in the world yesterday. We spent the week swimming, sun tanning, shopping, eating (a lot) and drinking (a little) and dancing (randomly) and signing (badly). I was chased by a bush Turkey, jumped of a 10m jetty, discovered that maybe I don’t hate Pumpkin as much as I thought I did but that I still really hate peas, especially frozen ones. I got a really nice tan (and by that I mean that I’m slightly darker than I used to be, which was MEGA pale). I coloured my hair black (which I LOVED), saw a dead pufferfish, photographed said dead pufferfish, walked along beaches and ran into nudists. I made friends with a snaggletoothed man, tried to make friends, somewhat unsuccessfully, with a water dragon colony and managed to learn the entire plot of seasons one to four of Gossip Girl by watching the random episodes, out of order mind you, that my friends insisted on watching. I drove a 4WD all week, saw the sun rise for the first time, was forced into eating my special Cold Rock ice-cream order without the peanut butter (don’t even go there). I spent too much money, learnt that blackouts can be surprisingly fun as long as the people you’re with aren’t about the kill you and gnaw on you for food because they are seriously that hungry and the BBQ’s don’t require electricity to light.
I got so used to waking up to five other girls yelling and brushing teeth and eating and walking and singing and laughing and being right there next to me. I loved being able to get up and start singing and have those people sing along with me. I loved waking up to the best leftovers ever, to our own private mini bar and to turkeys tapping on our back door because I fed them the leftover blueberries one time and I don’t think they forgot. I loved going to the beach and being coated in sand and the fact that when ‘I Love It’ came on the iPod in the car whoever was next to me would take the wheel without question so I could do the somewhat shamefully dodgy rap dance thing that I MUST do when that song comes on.  I love that fist pumping was a hilariously regular occurrence and my friends indulged my check-in obsession with a resigned tolerance that only best friends can manage. I love that there is an unspoken rule in the car that no comments regarding bad singing are made and that the word ‘feral’ made it into at least every second sentence.
I loved spending every moment with these people that make my world worth it and now that they aren’t next to me, hitting me, laughing with me, giving me that look that they give me when they realise I’m a total psycho but they don’t really care… everything feels quiet. Yeah, sure, it’s nice to see towels that aren’t white (or covered in hair dye) in the bathroom, to have clothes that don’t smell slightly like beach and to have my own bed. Yeah it’s nice to have a giant pantry full of food at my disposal, or that I can cuddle my dog whenever I need to… but after those ten days? All of those things (minus my puppy), feel a little glum.

I’ve spoken to them, and they all feel the same. None of them knows what to do with themselves, everyone thinks it’s too quiet. Maybe it’s weird that we’ve become so dependant upon each other? Maybe. But you know what, who gives a shit. People always said we wouldn’t last as a group. That we’d fight or that we’d just drift away, and maybe in a few respects we have. But at the same time, I have never felt closer to anyone in my life. There are no bars with these people. They know next to everything, and even when I don’t tell them, they figure it out. They know me inside out, back to front and left to right.

They are the people I want to spend the rest of my life with. It sounds corny, but whatever. They are. Thank goodness I get to see at least two of them tomorrow. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to spend another morning with all that quiet.

Valentines Day:

I’ll keep this short and sweet, because I say it every year. I hate Valentines Day (the faux-holiday, not the movie, I LOVE the movie). It’s not because I’m bitter, that’s shit that people who like Valentines Day say to people who dare to have a different opinion than them. I hate it because I believe that if you love someone, you show them every moment of every day. You show them even when you are yelling at them and you want to stab their eyes out because the only reason you care so much to want to do those things is because you love them more than anything else. I don’t believe you show them with jewellery or weird overstuffed teddy bears or chocolates or cliche roses. I believe you show them with the way you look at them and they way you listen to them and the things you do for them, and the way they do those things back because they love you too. The original story behind Valentines Day is inspiring and holiday-worthy, yes, but now? Now it’s a commercialised holiday that people feel obliged to live up to and outdo one another for. And then you hear about girls dumping guys because they didn’t get a Valentines gift? REALLY?

I didn’t get to spend V-day my traditional way with my friends and a private screening of the movie and then general lazing around because we only arrived home the day before and various people had commitments like work and whatnot. And why is this day so unsocial for me? Because I treat it the way I treat every other day; showing the people that I love that I’m listening and that I love them and that I want to be near them and that I don’t really care where we are or what we’re doing or if they bought me anything because that isn’t why I love them. I love them because they love me and a stupid faux-holiday doesn’t make that any more or any less.

Rant complete. Moving on.

Big News:

I got another job!* As of today, I was offered to tutor one of the children of a friend. She is a lovely girl and I’ll be helping with year seven English and probably History as well. Weirdly enough, despite me not liking children at all, I am really excited to do this. Well, excited and terrified (which is not normally a combination I experience, so we’ll see how this goes). I’m pretty much horrified at the prospect of having to know things and then get other people to know things. Especially since the other day I was joking with the best friend about not being competent to teach anyone anything. But now that I think about it, maybe I can…?

I need to start thinking about how I want to do this and what I want to teach her and how that fits with the syllabus but hey, I’m sure I can sort that out. For now I just need to sort me out and convince myself that I won’t completely fail at this.

Trying New Things:

I also got a tumblr today. This is interesting because I don’t particularly like Tumblr**. Anyway, we’ll see how long this lasts consider I now have a grand total of two blogs, a Facebook (which I am attached to on a disgraceful level), a Twitter and now a Tumblr. I am virtually a social networking god, no?
Stalk away: http://sometimesiforgetidontlikecake.tumblr.com/

Other Things You Should Know:

1. It’s technically grammatically incorrect to capitalise every word in these subheadings but I am too lazy to edit that.
2. I finally got around to buying Blackadder season one. Keen to watch that!!
3. I still haven’t found time to sit down and reacquaint myself with my love of reading. I don’t know what is wrong with me. Someone slap me.
4. On that note, I’m back to double stacking my bookcases for lack of space. I have three. One of those is a cupboard masquerading as a bookcase.
5. Life is continuing it’s bitchslap-fest as usual. WTF life?
6. I’m ONCE AGAIN going back into USYD tomorrow to fix up my subject choices. Let’s hope they don’t suck this time and that they have it all straightened out because I’m starting to get the shits with them.

I am tired now. And I need to clean my room and then go and listen to Bon Iver and the Rent soundtrack on repeat because I’m a little obsessed. Yes, I clean my room at 11pm at night. Don’t judge.

*I’m still keeping my other job though. I need money for Europe in 2013 like WOAH (and I’m considering extending my visit a little now so I can go on a group Archaeology trip as part of a subject to Greece with the best friend).

**Reasons are explained on said Tumblr. Please don’t bother contesting them, my friends do it all the time and I don’t really care. Mainly because they indulge me with kitten pictures. Or, you know, actual original content that doesn’t contain a HIMYM reference.***

***Does anyone else pronounce that HIM-YIM when they see it, or is it just me?

!

But we’ve been through this, haven’t we?

What I do want to say though, is how utterly stunning USYD is. The buildings are huge and sandstone and sweeping. Gargoyles tower from every ledge with their little leery faces that are both comical and entirely unsettling. Huge sandstone lions roar at the front of the Nicholson Museum (which has a mummy! And a mummified foot! How cool is that?!) and there are giant manicured lawns which sounds so cliche but it’s so true. Trust me, the only word to describe them is manicured.

One court yard looks like a prison exercise yard, and there’s even a bell tower and they ring the bells! Like WOAH. This shit is hardcore.

There’s an underground set of corridors that look like a psych-ward (which I am terrified of, shhh). And there are jungle-y parts filled with plants and ferns that sling themselves onto the path (and in your way) and everything is so green green green except the graffiti tunnel which seems to be consistently filled with hipsters writing something entirely nonsensical like ‘THE CAKE IS A LIE’ which it may well be because who really know’s with hipsters?

My first REAL foray through USYD was magical to say the least. It is like stepping through a hundred different landscapes with each turn, each twist. I just want to sit down on the lawn and write about everything I can see. I don’t even care about plots or plans or structure, I just want to fill page upon page with it because I don’t want to forget what I can see. For most of the students there, I think it’s just an everyday thing. It’s all ‘oh, yeah, that’s my uni’. But I don’t want it to be that way for me. I want to be astounded every time I walk through the gates. I want my breath taken away by the huge buildings that look like they have so much history that has just seeped through the pores of the sandstone right into the walls. I want it to tell me it’s story (which sounds totally whacked since what the hell, architecture isn’t supposed to talk… but whatever, it’s almost three am, give me some leeway) and I want to write it down because I am swept away just looking at it and looking at it will never be enough.

I promise to take photos next time I’m there to show you all how absolutely amazing it is.

P.S. Any of you Relient K and/or Dashboard Confessional fans? Well guess who got tickets…. :DDDDDDD SO EXCITED. And then Taylor Swift/Hot Chelle Rae (!!!!!) are coming up to and just gah, pure excellence.

I was accepted into Sydney University.

And I’m no longer a student of Macquarie University.

Sounds a little weird.

…

I was seriously off my face excited to find out, mainly because I did not expect it in the slightest. I had set myself up to not get in and then bam, it happened and I was totally gobsmacked.

And now I don’t entirely know what to do with myself. I have to rethink my subjects (because until this point I’d been planning for the eventuality that I’d end up at MQ again) – especially since I will no longer be a creative writing major.

In a way, that’s good and in another way, it’s a bit scary. With writing, I knew where I stood and it all seemed fairly straightforward. Now, I’m thinking I’ll be majoring in ancient history, possibly with a minor in modern history. Or philosophy. Or something equally as cool. And that’s so different and I have no idea if I’ll need to catch up (because I have done a fair few history subjects, so I’m hoping they count enough to get me into 200 level history subjects), or if I’ll know what I’m doing.

And suddenly I’m in this new uni (that is MASSIVE compared to MQ. And I’m going to have to learn my way around and learn how everything works there and it’s all so new and different.

This time it will be different, I suppose. I know people at Sydney, I have friends there and they’ve already stepped up to help me with all this newness which is wonderful because my MQ experience was the total opposite. And maybe this is going to change a lot of things for me, which will be amazing if it happens. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

But until then – ‘then’ being on Friday when my enrolment day is scheduled, I’m going to continue to be excited because something that I never ever though I could do, that I did not ever see myself achieving happened and I am FREAKING STOKED.

For everyone starting uni this year, congratulations. I hope you got what you wanted, and even if you didn’t don’t worry (which sounds great in theory and doesn’t work at all in principle, I know, but I need to say it). Yeah, it’s scary and hard and weird, but you can do it and there are other ways to get where and what you want, even when you think there aren’t.

Read it and deal with it or piss off.

I wish being truthful was easier. It’s like every day people are lying to one another and it’s starting to weird me out. Like, not outright lying, but just saying and doing things that they don’t mean. And it’s ridiculous. I know this is never going to change, that fake niceties and obligatory pleasantries are a part of our world, that we need them to keep going, but it just feels… wrong. It’s like, well for me anyway, cake. I don’t like cake all that much (don’t hit me cake lovers! I’m a cookie girl, and my cookie brethren will get you back with knives and shackles – and so not the kinky kind). But when you’re at a birthday party you’re expected to eat the cake because well, if you don’t the party host is going to get all offended and think their cake was shit when it isn’t and you just really don’t like cake.
Life is exactly the same. I don’t want to be pretending this way, and I don’t want people to pretend this way with me either. But they’re trapped because if they don’t, how the hell is anyone going to function?

It’s not even this that’s really bugging me. It’s the things left unsaid that are getting to my brain and gnawing. Ew.
Why do I have to live my life day in and day out pretending to be a different person to suit each different person I’m with and then not even say what I really want to be saying?  There are so many people I want to tell that I love – and not stupid meaningless mushy crush-love, real you-make-my-world-turn-and-without-you-my-day-doesn’t-even-feel-worth-it love. There are people in my life that make everything worth it and I don’t know if they know. I don’t know if they realise that they are so very important to me, and there aren’t even enough words to tell them, not compared to what I feel.*

And it’s getting to me that there aren’t words for these feelings. That I can’t just say I love you and have them understand, because that phrase seems to weird and messed up after it’s bandied around all the time.

So even if I can’t say it properly, if I can’t tell those people (and I sincerely hope they know who they are, because otherwise I’ve screwed up even more than I know) that they mean everything to me; they do. They make my day worth going into even when it doesn’t feel like it.

I love you. Really.

—

Okay, I’ll stop being weird and confusing now. (: As for my ‘Dark and Disquiet Places’ writing exercise, I haven’t written more, BUT I will. I know, I know, I’m avoiding, but I’ve been working night shifts (to be fair) so I’m super tired and I sort of just want to read and sleep.

And .. that’s all for now! I hope you’re all well and that 2012 is treating you well. Remember, make her your bitch. ;)

*That sounded mushy, I know. Laugh away!
But really, these people are everything to me. They’ve saved me from some scary stuff more times than they or I can count, and for that they deserve every word I can give them even when it’s never, ever going to be enough.

So I love creepy houses (an established fact already, I know, but my love for creepy houses is so extensive that I feel I need to keep telling you. Next thing you know, I’ll be showing you through interpretive dance. Because you know it’s always legit when interpretive dance comes into play).
And I was thinking about what my most wonderful friend and the world most kickass writing buddy was telling me the other day in order to kick me out of my writing funk. She had suggested that I try writing for no reason. Just describe something with no actual plan… ramble and rave until something starts to make sense. Her suggestion included describing the room around me.

Now don’t get me wrong; I like my room, but I do not want to write about my room. It’s too boring, too mundane and lets face it, I see it every day. I don’t need to see it illustrated via text too. But then I got to thinking: what if I described someone else’s house? Maybe even a house I’ve never been too. An imaginary house of awesome. But it would be boring if I just described a plain old everyday house, so why not spice it up a little. And then it hit me with a bang: why wouldn’t I describe a creepy house.

There is so much to be said about creepy houses. Houses with dingy basements and hidden attic entrances. Houses that are so large it’s impossible for them to not be covered in dust. Houses with personality and a tendency to sound like they’re angry or sad or sometimes both. These are the houses I want to write about. So I started writing, for the first time since I failed miserably at NaNo 2011, and this is the result.

I don’t really know where it was going, but I suppose that was the point, right? It wasn’t meant to make sense, it doesn’t need an ending or a beginning or any sort of justification that most stories seem to warrant. It just is. Please don’t read it expecting any sort of sense, because you will come out disappointed. And despite being the queen of bullshit literary meanings (um, hello English degree! How’s it going?), this story has none. It isn’t a , metaphor, a simile or an excuse to psychoanalyse me. It’s pure randomness. Now go, feast your eyes on the insanity that is my brain.

(It’s really long, so click the ‘read more’ bit to uh, ‘read more’. Pretty self explanatory, huh?)

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Dark and Disquiet Places – Part One

Everything is covered in dust. I discover this when I run my hand along what looks to be a table – it’s hard to tell when huge plastic sheeting covers everything like an oversized cloak – and billowing clouds of the grey stuff churn catapult themselves into the air.
I sneeze.

When I close the front door behind me, it groans on it’s hinges, almost as if it is complaining about being made to work after what appear to be a few too many seasons of disuse. The whole house looks like it has been neglected for far too long. Before I came in I almost thought I saw it sigh, content with the notion that there was finally someone to look after it. The weeds that must have once been merely a nuisance along the front lawn and the winding path leading up to the house were now a full fronted attack. Their roots clung solidly in the soil and their gloating yellow dandelion faces swayed menacingly in the pre-storm breeze.
Inside, the house felt just as invaded. Silence had settled in and seemed to have no plans to vacate any time soon.

I’m not talking about the type of silence that you’re thinking about either. I don’t mean that the house was quiet – no, far from it. Creaks and groans wafted through the air like a pungent odour. The dark floorboards whined with every step I took, begging to be left in peace whilst each doorknob grated begrudgingly.

I’m talking about a purposeful silence. Once that is quiet not in a literal sense, but in the way the very air feels like it has paused. Like it has stopped, mid breath, and is waiting though no one is quite sure what for. But the silence is there, always; and it watches and makes no other comment bar the occasional sigh to let passers by know that it is still there, waiting. is such a silence that has taken hold of this house with taloned claws, and I already know that no matter my efforts, it will never truly let go. It will always be here, and so I must accept it and I do.

My bare feet leave indents in the dust coated floor boards. If I had never seen snow, I might have mistaken it for this, so deep was it heaped and so lightly did it fall. The floor was, excluding where I had trodden, otherwise undisturbed. The shadowed lumps of furniture rose off the floor, their shapes sometimes so odd that it was impossible to tell what they were. The kitchen was fairly self explanatory, as was what appeared to be a sitting room that branched off to the left of the entry hall. It was when I reached the upper levels that the objects became somewhat more peculiar.

The stairs threatened to collapse with each step I took but somehow I could not bring myself to stop. Where the bottom level of the house had acted like a whiny child forced to wake up after a long slumber, the second level felt wide awake and it was calling to me.

The first room I encountered was entirely empty and was the first I had found without a single piece of furniture in it. This seemed strange, considering the rest of the house was packed full of furniture, so much so that pieces appeared to have been piled onto one another in some places out of sheer lack of floor space. The room was painted what was once a buttered yellow but seemed to have tinged slightly brown and green; perhaps by age or mold, or both.

I spun around, searching for any signs of the room’s previous use. I found nothing until I moved to leave, my eyes flicking momentarily to the doorframe I was about to pass under. Just above the archway was what
appeared to be writing. I couldn’t reach it, let alone read it from my current height – such are the trials and tribulations of being short – so I hurried to the next room, a bedroom, to find something to stand on. A dining chair dumped carelessly on it’s side in the center of the room sufficed well enough and I could easily reach the writing once I had dragged it noisily into the empty room.

The mice have chewed through all our mittens in the night. They obey only him. And he is here.

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And that is it for now. I’m tired and can’t be bothered to write any more, but I’m kind of pleased with how much nonsense I managed to churn out. Ideas really started coming together and I kind of even formed a semi-plot (even if it is still a meaningless one that won’t have an ending that encompasses any sort of sense, but who cares because sense is for sane people and that I am not).
And I’m kind of keen to keep writing like this, because it’s fun and it feels like I’m accomplishing something when I’m not really but again, who gives a shit because this isn’t meant to be perfect, it’s meant to be me.

Also, once again, that writing is SEVERELY unedited. I didn’t even read over it because that felt like effort and I am possibly the world’s laziest person. Plus it sort of feels like a spoiler. I want to finish this before I read over it, or it feels wrong. But I need to get used to people reading my work and openly criticising it if I want to do this writing course at uni this semester so even though no one really reads this blog, I want to get some of my writing out there. It feels… brave?
Anywho, don’t judge me on spelling/grammar/repeated and/or terrible word choices. I don’t care right now. I know, that’s a first. Be amazed.

Right, well I’m tired and severely sunburnt from the beach yesterday (worst move EVER, even though it was sort of kind of totally worth it anyway and yes, I did wear sunscreen, thank you mother), so I am going to go read and then sleep. Or try to sleep and end up listening to Glee music on repeat.

C’est la vie.

P.S. Butt, you are so awesomely awesome that I owe you an awesome hug on Thursday to celebrate your pure awesomeness. J’taime bien mon cherie.

It freaks me out.

Like, I have spent my whole life (well part of it anyway. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I was pondering such intense issues at the ripe age of two, but you know, maybe I was a really deep kid. Anyway…) thinking this one thing, and then suddenly I realise things have changed and I didn’t really even know it. I didn’t think it was going to happen, and then bam, it’s happening, and I’m there watching it happen with my mouth open.

I’m not saying that all this happening is bad, but it’s… unexpected. Like, maybe it’s kind of a good bitch slap. Which is bad because I didn’t think this slap was coming at all and so now that it has come I feel like a complete idiot.

Maybe I should slap life back.

And yes, I always make this much sense.