Gah. Despite spending most of this evening on the phone to Bryn and Soppygit (three hours to the latter - I think the next phonebill's going to mysteriously vanish before my parents see it), and going to collect Noj fromt station (as he'd just got back from a couple of days in London), I still didn't feel socially satisfied, good conversations though they were. (Arr, I've missed Ms Git. Everyone else looks - or, while on the phone, breathes - at me weirdly when I start talking about the Atmosphere I pick up on in places, while she actually encourages me to clarify.) When I got off the phone, I was like, "Gah, it's 11, and now I can't call anyone else." Naturally, I was then too knackered to do any writing, so it wasn't a good evening creatively either. Alas, for I am clearly doomed to a life of unshakeable disappointment.


Thursday 16 September 2004

But at least it'll be a life with a funchie CD collection! Now also incoming:

Rammstein - Sehnsucht (obviously I own this already, but only a burnt copy which has been swallowed by the mess that is my burnt CD collection)
Dimmu Borgir - Stupidly Black Metal Title (have burnt copy of this too; it too has vanished)
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses
Hearse - Armageddon Mon Amour
The Ramones - Rocket To Russia (I've been meaning to get more of their stuff for ages, but have resisted as the metal side of my collection is more in need of enhancing than the punk. But today seemed an appropriate day to give in.)

Providing the house doesn't burn down, that is. Yesterday, at lunch time, my brother left the gas on, and my Dad left a plastic chopping board on top of the flame, thus rather messing up the hob, blackening the ceiling above it, and coating everything in the house with ash. Nice one.


Friday 17 September 2004

Because I only have to work seven and a half hour days, but everyone else in my family stays there for nine hours, I spend my lunch hour and the bit afterwards reading. Yesterday, I finished reading "Norwegian Wood" (while appealing in terms of setting, I didn't think it was the masterpiece it's supposed to be). Today, I finished reading "Hell Bent For Leather: Confessions Of A Heavy Metal Addict". It wasn't as good as the condensed version printed in the Guardian suggested it would be: I recommend sticking with that.

The evening started slowly: too much time was spent discussing how much we (my family) hate all the songs our dodgy prog rock covers band is doing. (Ok, we're two Stranglers numbers and "She's Not There", which I love, and some of the other stuff is ok, but some of the songs are utter tripe.) But after that, I finally, finally, for the first time since getting home, managed to start brainstorming for the novel.

Unfortunately, after about ten minutes, Bryn phoned, and we chatted for three and a half hours, after which I was too tired to write. Which was nice, but you know, not the best timing ever.

It would also be nice if I could remember what we talked about. I know I suggested classic rock tracks he can play at his friends' wedding (tomorrow) (he has a 3000W PA). I know we discussed which Scottish islands to go to next spring (odd, I know, but we both want to go to Scottish islands, and we enjoy each other's company, and no one expects our lack-of-relationship to be vaguely normal, so why not?) My newfound discovery of the wonders of Electric Wizard. (Good thing about Bryn #93402: I was able to tell him, "They sound like the colour of seventeenth century egg yolk" and he didn't question that.) A children's book he's been listening to (being dyslexic, he doesn't like reading, but likes books on tape). How unsuited we were to sharing a single bed: every night, just before I fell asleep, I'd be feeling perfectly content, only to have one of the pillows yanked out from under me. I'd protest, and Bryn would go, "Look, you can have the whole of the other pillow; I don't want that at all. Fold it in half." But neither a flat pillow nor a folded pillow would do me any good; I needed two! How I'm managing to come to terms with the idea that we may not, one day, be as close. (Namely, if he meets someone else.) While ours is a good friendship I've invested a lot of time in, I have to accept that these things happen, and I'll still have an ample quantity of other good things in life. And a couple of other things too, but nowhere near three and a half hours' worth of conversation. Ho well.


Saturday 18 September 2004

Ho dear. Today started off well enough: I wrote about 1500 words of Novel! I had to go to a band practice at eleven though, and when I got home, I had to go ont Internet to try and buy train tickets for my impending voyages, which took forever, and I went to eBay to look for CDeez and leather jackets and PVC leggings. I found a cheap copy of "Holy Wood" (which I've only got a burnt copy of), but that didn't really justify three hours' surfing. Then I started writing the three thousandth version of my "about me" page for my livejournal, and although I was happy with the result, that probably shouldn't have taken three hours either. And then I got lost reading my old stories. I hope this isn't setting a precedent for Saturday nights, as I spent the last one rereading my journal entries. Happily, doing so had the effect of totally confusing me - when did my tales become so grim? - and inspiring me a little, but I've had more productive days.


Sunday 19 September 2004

Arrrr! I'm informed that it's talk like a pirate day. I wonder why. But I won't attempt to do so, as I'll just end up sounding like a farrrrmer from Daaaarsit. Fer'iloizer!

Observed the paralysis and overthinking that afflicted me so often in Melbourne was setting in, but convinced myself to get up and Do Something, even if it just meant reading my book about death metal. After a few chapters, I managed to get up, and do a little more novel-writing and brainstorming! Yay!

Sadly, the rest of the day was lost to hiungesting. Hung around on the Internet, reading journals and downloading death metal MP3s. Although I did, this way, discover an absolutely brilliant band called Waylander. They couldn't use more cheesily Irish pipes and guitar riffs, which, combined with death metal vocals, constitutes the most hilarious thing ever! I laughed my head off!

I also spent far too much of the afternoon painting my red spiky thing (you wear it on your forearm, but as it covers the whole thing, "bracelet" seems an understatement) with black nail polish. It looks surprisingly groovy, but does this attempt to hide my colourful past make me a poser? I'm hoping not, since I would have bought a black one if I'd ever stumbled across one, but I've only ever seen them in Melbourne, and I didn't think it was worth the hassle of attempting to take metal spiky things on planes. And I only settled for a red one because it was going cheap.

Now I've run out of nail polish again, and need advice from you nail polish freaks out there. Who makes decent black nailpolish? By decent, I mean "does not run off fingers, leaving whole room coated in pale greenish grey smears, and one coat will do". Good brands: Wet 'n' Wild, Coty, Stargazer and Constance Carroll. Bad and evil brands: Blush-amour. But what of the others? And can you get it on the Internet? I found it hard enough to find in Melbourne, never mind the tiny backwater town I currently inhabit.

I've also been buying CDeez again. I'm on a major Guns 'n' Roses kick after hunting through my tapes and discovering Noj's old "Yesterdays" / "November Rain" single, so I got both "Use Your Illusion"s. Also, I reckon recent metal needs my support, so I actually pre-ordered the new Rammstein and Amon Amarth releases from Amazon itself, rather than just buying them from incomprehensibly good-priced Caiman-type people. I was going to pay full price for Megadeth's too, but I found I could get it for 25p cheaper from one of those weird suppliers, so I did.

And, on a slightly less metal note, I got "Trouble" by Shampoo for £2.23! Yessssss! I've had it on tape since it came out, when I was thirteen, but tapes are gay bi, since they go both ways, and this has an extra track! Yaaaaaay! And no, I'm not going to apologise - well, ok, sorry to all the nice gay and bi people out there for taking your labels in vain, but not for any lack of taste you may think I have. Because Shampoo are the best band in the universe, yes they are! So what if they look like Barbie dolls and sing badly, annoyingly AND about girl power? I've stood by them since BEFORE I knew they ran a Manic Street Preachers fanzine, because they're beeping punk and feelgood and when I played them at my last Pit there was a huuuuuuge delighted moshpit. So shan!


Tuesday 21 September 2004

Last night, Bryn phoned. Among other things, he told me that there'd been some people from York at the wedding in Ramsgate he DJed for at the weekend, so, because he's heard me going on about Screaming Banshee Aircrew a lot (and is coming to see them on 2 October! Yay!), he asked if they'd heard of them. Now York is a fairly populous place, and not many of its citizens had been invited to the wedding. One of them, though, turned out to be the former singer . . .