Either way I will be more boring now. And that’s boring to myself more than you, really. I feel I need to note down how I feel health wise, though, because at some point I’m going to get myself to the doctor and I remember being seventeen and having a lot of the same issues and having them being competely at loss about what to do with me. So maybe if I have more detailed stuff, it’ll be some sort of help.

Last week I worked 25 hours. Five days. It sounds like nothing, but I spent all of Saturday after work and Sunday except for a few hours with family just dozing off at random times. I called in sick Monday because I was so exhausted, and slept until three in the afternoon. Fifteen hours, all in all.

Despite this, today at work I was… well. I felt dizzy whenever I stood up, but not more than that I could still function. Headache, thanks to girl at the bus with perfume. Cold sweats, kind of like I had a fever, but without actually having one, probably. Usually when I’m like that, I think I have one, but I’m cold to the touch (says Mum). The weirdest thing is not that, though. It’s feeling really… removed. I can hear people and interact with them just fine, but it’s a struggle, like I’m listening from really far away. Through a thick fucking glass or something. I don’t know. I feel a bit shut off from the world.

I’m still going to work tomorrow and Friday, because I know it’s not going to go away because I lie down and wait for it. Or it will, but I don’t have that time. I’ll just be careful to not do too much.

Ugh, I really am boring myself to tears. I will go away now.

Boring pic, let’s move on to more exciting things! Like, the Aurealis Awards. I’m always so jealous when I follow the live tweets from this. I too want friends in my computer that turn into real people for a day or two every once in a while. I’m way too lazy to maintain proper “see each other all the time” friends, but that seems like the ideal way to go.

I was excited to see Galactic Suburbia win! And Penni Russon! And Kim Westwood! Lots of shiny.

My life, on the other hand, has this week brought the excitement of working ten hours more than normal. Five days people! That hasn’t happened in I don’t know how long. I’m now barely conscious because OMG ALL THE TIRED, and later today I will go watch the final Arsenal game of the season with my brother. Seems I got addicted to seeing it on a huge screen.

When I don’t work I am editing things and ignoring the mess in my flat. I completely failed on the unfuck your habitat thing. I might give it a go again soon, but my body is so tired and my brain is so tired and it takes all I’ve got to not sleep all day and be cranky I can’t sleep at night.

I just want to go for a run. Body says NO. Brain says YES. I wonder which one I should listen to…

I’m getting a bit bored with the challenge now, but I like to complete these things, so I’m going to go on anyway. Maybe do a couple of days at once instead. So here’s 19. I had no idea what to do for sweet, so I cheated a bit. This is an apple tree. Tiny little flowers to be. There’s nothing quite like the first taste of spring. So, yeah. I’m going with that. It’ll have to do.

I could’ve chosen a lot of things here. A lot of people. Or a cat. I had this pic in handy, though so I’ll go with this. Last week I dragged my brother along to the pub to watch Arsenal play. The game was pretty boring and disappointing and such, but it was nice to do it together anyway. Considering that his entire knowledge about Arsenal is that they play in red and whatever bits he remembers about what I tell him (not much, I bet) it was awww worthy that he came.

Arsenal. Baby brother. Things to love for sure.

And now I will go to bed, way before midnight, because I somehow agreed to try and work four days per week. Twenty hours. That’s a proper part time job. I’m not entirely sure if I’m ready for it, and doing more than this honestly makes me panic. But I’ve started doing the post and sorting bills and stuff at work, so at least I don’t have to spend all that time with customers. And Tuesday I FINALLY found the thing in the office that has been giving me headaches for the last few weeks. Scented candles. Lots of them. I stashed them away, opened the windows and it helped a bit.

I don’t know where this sensitivity to smells come from. No scented candles, no perfume. Sitting beside someone wearing a normal amount of perfume on the bus gives me a headache for hours. I even need deodorant with a neutral smell for this same reason.

It hasn’t always been that way, so I have no clue what’s going on here. At least it’s mainly artificial smells. If I became allergic to the smell of good food or fresh cut grass I would be very sad indeed.

Okay. Bed now. For real. RAMPANT is waiting for me!

PS. Looks like three or four days in Copenhagen this summer will really happen! Or København, as the Danish calls it. Or Köpenhamn as we say it. I’m excited. I’ve always wanted to go there, and even more so now, that I’ve written a story taking place there. Possibly it should be the other way around. Visit first, write later. Ah, well. I’ve always been a bit backwards.

This is the tiny, cramped space also known as my place of work. It really is this small. Let’s call this set of photos “I hope posting these pictures doesn’t jinx things seeing as my work placement runs out in a month unless something exciting happens”, okay?

.

1. Sister dearest took this one. I’ve shown it before, plaits and all, but I like even numbers of photos for extra pretty, so there you go.

2. I think we have all the ribbons and notions in the world. The ribbons, buttons and zippers, to which I dedicate my life yet I forgot to take a picture of them, were all bought by this old man who had a notions shop for about fifty years before retiring. We got thousands each of ribbons, buttons and zippers, none of which were sorted, so yes. There’s a lot.

3. Yes, there are two sets of shelves of ribbons. With more to come. God help us all.

4. A fraction of the curtains and furniture fabric shelf, and some of the fashion fabrics. Not even a quarter of it.

5. We have a special room for expensive samples of fabric that we can order special if someone wants it. It’s also somewhat of a hell-what-do-we-do-with-THIS-box room.

6.BUTTONS. That’s about a third of them. There’s also more of those to come.

7. This is what you might call storage. And also a sewing studio. And a place where broken things go to make us all crazy. Big things that we sew to people’s specifications we do in a special studio, but everything we use for the shop and smaller jobs are done here. The place is actually smaller and more cramped than my sewing corner at home.

8. Our enormously enormous break room. There’s room for a second chair, a desk and a microwave. That’s about it. The shelf on the right is filled with sewing machines we have or will fix, waiting to be picked up by the customer or by the guy that does the reparations. Sometimes they tower on all sides of the table. If nothing else this job teaches you to move carefully and not knock things over (more than you can help).

I can deal with the mess, though. What I can’t deal with? THE FUCKING READING GLASSES PEOPLE LEAVE EVERYWHERE. Seriously, guys. Go get proper ones that you can wear all the time. For my sanity and your eyes’ sake.

Rest assured, I did not buy the computer. The two things hanging out on it, however, I did buy. The pears are the most recent thing I’ve bought. The yarn, being the last exciting yarn I bought is Lima Ullgarn 100% and oh my God I love and hate it with a burning passion. I keep running out or losing it and my yarn shop only seems to have two skeins at it at any given time and it’s never the same dyelot as the previous ones. I really want to kill it, slowly. Except it’s making such shiny things and also, is a dream to felt.

My knitting mojo is a bit broken lately. I just can’t find it in me to concentrate, so all I’ve been doing lately is a few rows of stockinette here and there, while dreaming of moving onto something lacy that I don’t have the attention span for anyway. Oh woe is me.

I will give you a separate photo post in which I show you my place of work. Because I want to, that’s why.

This pic is actually from last summer, but it’s one of my favourites ever. Somehow it became blurry when I Instagrammed it, although I’m not sure why. It’s so perfect, though. Water, ducks, a boat. Lots of forest, because it’s a lake that once upon a time was hidden away in a forest.

I spent my summers by this lake. There are pictures of me as a three year old, bathing in it. There are pictures from last year when I do the same. I have a lot of happy memories from that place, although less so from the last summer. It was just strange, being there without my grandfather. He’s built ever house on the lot himself (and there’s a lot of them). So, yes. It feels weird.

I don’t think I’ll say much more about it than that, ecause I feel like I’ve written about it before. Instead I shall go for a run. I can do 3 km now! Very exciting.

Check out the table of contents:

“A memory trapped in light” by Joanne Anderton
“Time and tide” by Lyn Battersby
“Fireflies” by Steve Cameron
“Sleeping Beauty” by Thoraiya Dyer
“The Fletcher Test” by Dirk Flinthart
“Ghosts” by Stephanie Gunn
“Sleepers” by Kaia Landelius
“Solitary” by Dave Luckett
“Cold comfort” by David McDonald
“The Mornington Ride” by Jason Nahrung
“What books survive” by Tansy Rayner Roberts
“The last good town” by Elizabeth Tan
 

I now have two published stories to my name. Or I will, come June. I might need to bake a cake.

Another reason is that I’ve been feeling so strange lately. A bit like I’m living in a vacuum. I can never tell if people hear me when I talk or write, regardless if I get a response or not. I feel lonely in my actual life, and online. This is not whining, or begging for more attention, it’s just me wondering what I’m doing. Why I’m doing it. It’s some sort of an attempt to find a life, I guess. I’ve been out of it for so long, I barely even know how to do it.

I come up short, most of the time.

I don’t like being whiny. I don’t like talking about my loneliness or my actual feelings. It’s easier to say “need to switch my meds around, they’re not working, this is how things are at work, I’m tired all the time”, than trying to pinpoint why they are the way they are. Some days I think I shouldn’t write about it. Keep this blog less raw. Post links to tables of content instead, do links of awesome things, show off my knitting. Then I lose my confidence (again). Then I either blog nothing at all, or things like this. And meh. I don’t know how to do it differently. If I even want to do it differently.

I think I’ll make this today’s photo instead. Yesterday I went to this bonfire because of Valborg. There was a lot of smoke. Lots of annoying kids. A mediocre choir. Far too many people.

Or maybe this one. Maybe this should be the photo of the day.

While my parents listened to a speech by that fire I visited an old friend for the first time. I could see the way her hair curled, the freckles on her sixteen-year-old face, hear her voice and even remember the boots she loved so much as I stood there. Fucking cancer took her. I didn’t know her then. I hadn’t met her since we were teenagers. It was still so awfully sad that nothing else quite seems to matter.

Afterwards my mother, the Queen of Tactfulness (she makes Ron Weasley look like the most sensitive man on earth) tried to bring it up at the dinner table. About four times. I had to yell at her that I DIDN’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT before she shut up.

I don’t want to talk about it. It feels private. Which is obviously why I’m dumping it on the internet for everyone to see. It’s a good thing I only have a dozen readers.

I waffled for so long about what to use as a picture here. I’m not good enough of a photographer to be able to do one thing that sums up that kind of word, and also, I believe that happiness is a combination of things. Like, sitting in my parents’ garden in nice weather, seeing my name in a table of contents, when the cat cuddles up on me, a good book, and so on. All of them together.

In the end I chose this, a picture my sister took of me, hard at work. One part of my happiness is being well enough to work. It’s a struggle most days, but I do it. I’m able to do it. And that has to count for something.

I’m between books, so I’m giving you two. I finished Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi yesterday, and although I didn’t expect much, as you don’t when famous people write memoirs, I actually loved it so much that I started hunting internet for information whether she had a ghost writer or not. It looks like she wrote it on her own, and I have to say, that gives me so much respect for her.

It starts when she’s twelve and talks her way into a modelling contract. That’s when she starts crash dieting, and that lasts through decades, all the way onto her stretch at Ally McBeal, as the gorgeous Nelle Porter. Sub-zero Nelle. The ice queen. It talks about how she never felt quite good enough on the set, about how her first day, she tried to get one of the other cast members to go to lunch with her, and was told ‘we don’t do that here’. It didn’t take long for Nelle to go from ice queen to trying to sleep with the boss, and even less for the part of Ling (Lucy Liu) to be introduced. It felt, Portia writes, like they had split her role, and gave half the lines to her and half to Lucy.

I loved Ally McBeal as a teenager. I wasn’t very into Ally herself, but I did love Nelle, and found her and Ling two of the hottest women I’d ever seen. (I was totally straight then. TOTALLY. Uh huh.) It’s awful to think that meanwhile Portia de Rossi was starving herself down to nothing, feeling like that perfect face, that beautiful body was ugly, average, not good enough.

When she collapsed at a movie set, she weighed 82 pounds. She was still doing Ally at that weight, I think, or slightly more. Calista Flockhart and Courtney Thorne-Smith also had eating disorders while at that show. And that I loved. That I looked up to.

That explains a lot, really.

As for Black Heart I have looked forward to it. So much. I love the Curse Worker series, and have not read this one yet, because I kind of don’t want it to end. I love the alternate universe, I love Cassel and his hotness, I love the blowbacks from doing curses, and I love pretty much everything about it. Except for Lila. Still, she has some time to get awesome, so I’m hoping for that, because liking everything except for the female main character makes me feel icky.

And yes, I’m reading again. I read five books in the first three and a half months of the year, feeling very meh about it. Couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t quite manage how to do it. And then I ordered some books, got the parcel in the mail and in the last week I’ve read two books (Unbearable Lightness and Beauty Queens) and started a third. I love having my love of books back. I love not being able to STOP reading. It’s awesome. And I’ve missed it.