animal pictures!

I didn't feel much like writing today. I also didn't feel like homework, so I used the internet to learn stuff and taught myself to draw cartoon animals!
Enjoy. I know I did.

Yeah, I'll write something proper tomorrow.

...

- Lizzie xxx

Procrastination

"Procrastination," Ze Frank once said, "should feel like you're inserting lots and lots of commas into the sentence of your life."

Whenever we have a week off school, I have at least one day where I don't have anything planned and there isn't really any reason to leave the house, and so I decide this is the day I'm going to get things done. Today I woke up around 9 and made myself a Stuff To Do List. I was feeling productive already.
After even just getting out of bed faster than usual, then eating breakfast and washing my hair, I felt like I was on a roll and so I turned on the computer, maybe just to check Twitter and Facebook and read my emails.
I don't even need to fill in the gap because it was 1 o clock before I realised I was still here, then two and three and four. At about five o clock, I sent two emails and omgsrhsrhsr, I'd done something from my list and so, of course, I rewarded myself with a break of about three hours. It was stupid.
and, of course, that got prolonged.
At six o clock, I wrote two entire paragraphs of German for some coursework I had. All there was left to do was send another email, which would only take five minutes, to read 100 pages of a book, which I could just do before going to sleep, and memorizing a page or so of French for a test.
I'd been sat in front of a computer for too long, so I went downstairs and ate dinner with my parents, then around eight I thought about how I hadn't even stepped out of the door all day, so I put on a jacket and went for a walk, which is something I used to do a lot a few months ago and haven't recently.
I took Jonsi with me and threw myself over the fence, came to this place I go and sit sometimes, some lumpy grass, a pond which you could probably call a puddle, and it's right beside a train track, and I like it there at night when people aren't walking their dogs. For a while I just sat there and listened to "Go Do" then "Around Us" and "Grow Till Tall".
When I got home, it was about half past nine and I could have done something but Skins was nearly on and so I watched that, then my dad wasn't letting me use the internet because he was downloading something, multiple computers slow that down in our house.
I read a little of what I needed to but couldn't really tune in so put it down. I learnt the first sentence of what I needed to, but it's gone now, so instead I lay in bed and listened to BBC Five Live until about 1am for no reason at all. I felt like there was failure in the sheets, it was grease in the pores of my skin and my hair.
But I was a tenny bit proud, because even writing my list I'd known I couldn't really do any of it at all.

This whole thing was mainly just to make you see that Ze Frnak video up there, because it sums up procrastination much better than I ever could.

I wrote some of this blog wearing a hairband.

I think I've always thought names were something quite important. When I was younger, I'd always wish I was called something else, and often try to get something to catch on, even up until I was in the first year of high school I tried to get people to call me by my middle name.


But as a writer, oddly I've never thought or worried about naming characters that much, up until tonight. The first serious thing I wrote was my NaNoWriMo novel in 2009, and seeing as I was making it up as I went along, and it was set in the present day, in a mundane town in England, my characters names were Tom and Sam and Matthew and Jack, nothing exotic or out there, and the same happened for last year's Script Frenzy.

I think for the last thing I wrote (yes I'm trying to sell Walls to you some more;) ) my character's names were more special and exciting, though I didn't really mean them to be. My characters this time became more colourful, and with them so did their names. Something really special happened involving this: one character's a huge fan of David Bowie is in love with a girl named Janine (partly named after the IAMX bass/synth-ist) , and until somebody told me later on I had no idea David Bowie has a song called "Janine". Maybe it's fate.


But currently I'm in that stage of planning out something before heading into writing it, and it's strongly based around some people I know, so what I'm doing really is renaming. And it's unbelievably hard to find a new name for a friend when they already have one, especially when it suits them to the point that it becomes a part of them.
I've tried to do some kind-of tricks, for example using meanings - for one character I used behindthename.com to look up meanings for words like strong and red and fire, and also used birthdays as internation naming days, which my French exchange partner taught me about, as we don't have them here, and it turned out her naming day is my birthday.
On top of one of my best friends and some other people I was quite close with a while back, I also had to re-name myself, which was actually really hard. Because there's those names you feel you'd like to be called, though just for a while, like Lolita or Persephone, then there's obvious ones, like maybe a middle name or the name of a relative or something. But then I thought of another way and I think I have a name now. Maybe.

I don't know what the point of that was.

- lizzie

"The Girl Who Played With Fire" - a sort-of review

Yes, it's going to be another blog filled with Millenium Trilogy nerdiness. Deal with it.
So a few nights ago my friend and I rented The Girl Who Played With Fire and I'll talk about that after I've rambled about the books for a while.
Although I really like the Millenium Trilogy, admitedly I've only actually read the first and second books. Here's why.
One of the things Stieg Larsson does which sometimes annoys me is goes into way too much detail about small things. The reason my favourite bookis "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" isn't only because the first of anything almost always is (Harry Potter, Jumanji ect) but because it keeps the rambling detail to a minimum. I understand it's a complex plot and this is sometimes completley necessary, and when I started reading TGWTDT I was warned it didn't get going until page 75, to be precise. It's mostly true: the first few chapters is just explanations of things, but it's worth it because the rest of the novel sticks to the plot, uninterrupted, and it's exciting and draws you right in - I read most of the book on a beach in Turkey, and I could feel my back burning but I didn't want to leave it for a second.
In terms of plot, though, I think I probably prefer "The Girl Who Played With Fire"
SPOILER ALERT
and the investigation into Dag and Mia's murders earlier on, followed by Lisbeth and Mikael, and the way they end up communicating. Where the first book was mostly a straight up murder mystery, the sequel being about sex trafficking and also Lisbeth's past makes it much more personal to our heroine and the ways she's motivated, and I like that about it.
/K SPOILER GONE NOW.
The only thing I didn't like about the sequel was how every so often, a new character in the police force would be introduced. The next four or five pages would be spent explaining who they were, where they were brought up, their family, their involvement in Soviet Russia and this got on my nerves after a while.
I tried to rest "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" and the reason I stopped was because it seemed like it was nearly all this explanation. It's tiring, I felt like it was studying I had to do before it could offer me a story. I'm not giving up and I'll try it again soon.

The film, my friend told me, is actually made up of bits of a Swedish TV show adaptation stuck together. I "reviewed" The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo here before and I'm fairly sure I talked about my views on the casting but there's no reason not to again. (Lisbeth is excellent and I don't feel like there's much more to say about her).
But the biggest disappointment is Mikael Blomkvist. He looks wrong, he acts wrong, and all of the quirks have been taken from him. My problem with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was that compared to the book, the sense of humour from both him and Lisbeth was completley drowned out, and this took away their chemistry, and almost made us believe they'd just had sex a few times, and there was nothing else bringing them together.
I feel the same about him and Erika Berger only worse, and Erika may be my favourite character. She was cast wrong - she seemed much more scruffy and unglamorous than I imagined her, and the chemistry between her and Mikael was completley missing. I'm not fully blaming the actors, because the version I watched was dubbed and therefore it was probably the voiceovers, but there was a scene where Erika and Mikael were talking and it was juist like bored schoolchildren reading out work in English class. They're lifeless and it makes me sad.
Having said that some of the other characters, particularly Miriam Wu, Paolo and Niedermann, and even Dag and Mia were pretty much perfect - Mia was the only one of the above who didn't look at all like I imagined, but it doesn't matter, she was great, even though a small character.
Was the red-haired journalist in the Millenium offices Lotta Karim?
Reading the book there were a few things I somehow missed, because, guiltily, I think I skim-read some of the later parts. My friend was shocked that I missed completley the fact that Niedermann has a genetic disorder meaning he doesn't feel pain, and also when it turned out he was LISBETH'S BROTHER?! :o
But in summary, I liked it quite a lot: although I think it missed some, The Girl Who Played With Fire really helped tell me the story and fill me in on the things I'd missed, maybe sometimes due to Stieg Larsson's writing style. I'm also really looking forward/confused about the Hollywood remake of the films, and hoping Daniel Craig will make a much better Blomkvist.

The David Keenan Story, Part II

So maybe you'll remember a few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how when I was five, I bit a boy named David Keenan and still couldn't remember why. Though my parents punished me at the time, since they've said that it wasn't my fault and I was provoked, and he possibly even deserved it.
I mentioned this the other day when I went out for lunch with my mum, and guess what?
I found out why I bit David Keenan.

There was no need for boldness. It isn't that exciting.

I wrote a retelling of the story, but it wasn't necessary because it's too mundane. David Keenan was blowing rasberries in my ear, over and over again until I screamed at him to stop but he kept on doing it. The teacher didn't listen to me, and so I bit him.
"So he deserved it?!" I was faintly excited about the idea of finally shrugging off years of guilt. I remembered my useless primary school teacher, Mrs Hindley, her pale eyes and wrinkled lips, unflustered, lifeless tone of voice. We'd never liked each other very much. And I remembered David Keenan - huge, blonde, bright-eyed and large, cherry-coloured lips.
"... but you still shouldn't have bit him," my mother told me.
"Why?" I asked. "What would you have done?"
"Just thwacked him one. Biting him is sort of animal."
"I was a five year old girl! I didn't have much physical strength, I had to bite him!"

And thinking about it now, I sort of wish I was more like my five year old self.
We moved house and I moved schools when I was about seven, and during that time I was a one best friend at a time "sorta gal". Until we were in Year 5, Molly was my best and also only friend, and when her mother moved her to a Catholic school I didn't know what to do with myself. Interacting with pretty much only one person in my class, since falling out with Samantha, I'd become too shy to talk to anyone else and the rest of the class saw me as a laughing stock. For that year, though I didn't really realise it until now, I was lonely and bullied and depressed. That Lizzie wouldn't have bitten David Keenan.
I'm not sure whether I would now.

I've heard somewhere your entire personality's formed by the time you're eight, but I think that probably isn't true - it depends what we go through and how we have to face things. When I was five I was carefree and strong-willed and I even sort of idolise that former self. When I was eight or ten, I was the complete opposite and couldn't talk to people I was intimidated by at all, I'd simply act like I couldn't hear. I'm not sure which of those I am now, and maybe it's just a good job I don't have to deal with those situations. Because I don't know whether we grow up from being children, or it just gets easier once we're all surrounded by sort-of adults.

Music and the Internet

In interviews with my favourite writers, musicians, and just most creative/productive people, one of those things that comes up all of the time is how much the internet has changed things, especially music.
A know this topic is getting old, almost, but I still want to talk about it.

In some ways, I really disagree with the idea of downloading, even legally through iTunes. I was looking through someone's iPod the other day with mostly mainstream musical tastes, this has happened a few times recently, and you can't help but notice that there are almost no complete albums on there. I don't know whether this is good or bad, it's just different - every song they have on their iPod is a one-hit wonder, a single they downloaded because it's what they want to hear right now.
I couldn't do that, often music to me is a whole record, but I can understand why people do. Often I'd like to buy just one song by a band or artist, but often it's so unaccessible that I just buy a whole record.
In some ways, I'll be the first to admit that the music I listen to is quite restricted: I have those artists and bands that are beloved and mean everything to me, which I can probably count on two hands and possibly a foot. Then, occasionally, I'll hear some music and buy an album because I really like two or three of the songs on it, and just never really listen to the rest. Maybe iTunes is good for that. But I really hate the idea that we're moving away from the album. Every so often I think/hope all of us experience an entire CD which we'll love, memorize the order, get to know in and out and every single song is just good. No songs we skip past because they're boring or not as good as the rest, just forty minutes, or an hour, or maybe two of complete, uninterfered bliss.

The other thing the internet's come in useful for is spreading the word about music, and I couldn't be more for this, because it's helped me in a route I can trace exactly.
Maybe two years ago now, I looked up a song on Youtube called "1234" by Feist, because the video was on a TV advert and I liked it a lot. I then found a singer called Kina Grannis' cover of her song and began to love her music, both her originals and the covers she did, whether or not I knew the song.
I was already following Imogen Heap on Twitter, for some reason or other, when Kina sang "First Train Home" and I decided to listen to her a little more, after she was featured on the Youtube front page and I saw some of her vBlogs. The first song I fell in love with was "Half Life", and so I bought Ellipse just for that, and it sounds stupid but it's one of the best things I've spent money on, ever. I remember the woman in the shop telling me it was great and they'd played it in the store the other day, and I didn't say much but how much more I would now. The other 3 albums I got for Christmas, and I realised I'd known "Let Go" since I was around 10, just never known who it was by. You know those songs you just subconsciously sing in your head sometimes?
And through her I found all these other artists and bands. Some, like Amanda Palmer, I'd heard of before, just never fully listened to. Some had collaborated with each other and led me down paths, like going from Imogen Heap, to IAMX, and I even listen to Robots In Disguise sometimes.
I won't go on about this, I remember I even drew a map one time.

Artists like Amanda Palmer use Twitter to say "I'm doing a gig in *place*, just turn up and bring me some cash." For musicians whose music isn't played on the radio, who people don't know about automatically and have no other way to find a fanbase, it's both worked wonders and broken that blockade of a record company being the middle man between an artist and his or her fans. It's given us communication. The internet brought me to music in the first place, and I couldn't be more grateful.

Other stuff - yes, I know I'm more behind and totally failing and this but I'll run into March. Yesterday was my birthday and some of my friends turned up so we released Chinese lanterns in the park and they let me watch Everything In-Between, because it was my birthday.
So yay. No more stories about fighting with the woman at the cinema desk for not letting me see Black Swan.

See you soon.

Lizzie xxx

Sort-of:

Why I'd Rather Be Blind Than Deaf

A while ago, I was having a debate with one of my friends about whether I'd rather be deaf or blind.

See, given the choice I would rather be blind.
Maybe it'd be different if it was from birth, but if I woke up tomorrow deaf, although either would be awful, I wouldn't have a clue what to do. I'd have to learn to communicate all over again, I'd miss the sound of voices talking to me. I couldn't dip into conversations in groups of a lot of people. It'd take me a long time to learn how to lipread, or learn sign language.
But most of all, though it sounds a little stupid and sentimental, I would miss music.
Maybe a year and a half ago I'd have chosen deafness over blindness, but I can't bear the thought of never hearing "Tidal" again, or "Goodnight and Go" or "Bohemian Rhapsody" or "Think of England" or "Spit It Out" or "The Mirror", or anything else that'll be this important to me, someday. I haven't seen a fifth of the people perform who I want to. I can imagine going to a concert live, because although sight there's important I wouldn't care. I'd know the artist or band were there, I could smell the seat cushions or feel the bodies and smell the stickiness of beer.

There'd be bad things along with being blind though - it'd be like learning how to walk again. Katie's argument was that I couldn't ever drive, which would also be terrible. I walk to school every day, and although reading could be substituted with buying audiobooks, how would I write? Use a computer?

I don't know. That's just my priorities. And in conclusion, I think I'm lucky that I haven't been plagued with either.

... and then there were 16 (Haikus Part II)

So the other day, I ended up having a sort of haiku-off with my friend Beth Holmes. And it got stupid. The majority of these are awful. They're about life experiences, love, debate, narwhals, coffee, anything else that seemed remotely inspiring. And I don't know why I'm doing this, but I promised her I'd post them here.

I wish your lips spoke
with the same silky smoothness
as your fingers move.

Too much hot, cold, noise
We all look for that something.
You won't find it here.

Here to ponder
the invention of the wheel,
Latte and espresso.

Narwhals have horns
which are quite long and pointy.
Unicorns have horns...

Light, sketchy pencil,
Am I trying to create
masterpiece on skin?

We should go to the
seaside. I promise I'm not
kidding. Not this time.

Skin smelling of salt
Yes, there's sweat and blood but salt
Just like mermaid hair.

Every year I start
to trust, but you disappoint.
Christmas fucking day.

One, two, three, four, five
You turn, not getting dizzy
over the same clouds.

I want to grab you
by the shoulders and shake out
every drop of that.

Whittard's instant tea,
I know you're bad for my teeth
But so sweet and warm.

Though I cannot dance,
This is just political
intoxication.

Your bedroom is full,
Of Doctor Who and normal,
What brought me to here?

You're making small talk
When you tell me, in that tone
I have pretty eyes.

Around the corner
We can laugh until we cry.
For now, just hold tight.

I want to argue,
Not to be calmly informed,
That you are The Truth.

Sorry about that.
I'll write something proper soon.
Thank you for reading.

- Lizzie

A note: I know this is the second time, but I'll try not to make haiku writing a regular thing.
However if you do like haikus, follow @KimyaDawson575 on twitter.

Arguments

One of those things happened today, which I can't quite talk about yet but it'll be brilliant to make a point with in about a year. And I still want to make that point so what the hell, I'll try to do it anyway. Without telling the story.
You know what I'm just going to tell the story.

From what I can tell, an argument can only really end in one of three ways.
a) Either the cause of the argument is decided to be pointless and left alone.
b) A decision is made: one of the argue-ers is right, someone wins, and another loses.
c) Murder.

Usually when I argue with people, it's my parents, and about stupid things like putting away my socks, which can usually, after some time, end in a, and I think that's the best way to end things most of the time.
But sometimes, an argument can't fade away with ignorance. Sometimes, a decision has to be made.

My Media Studies teacher and I have had this slightly petty debate for a while now about whether a book is media - me for, her against. I'd be okay with a book not being media if we're calling The Media news, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, things only current, but she'll also say that a film which is fiction is media. But a novel, like magazines and newspapers, is printed word and like a film tells a story.
Anyway, it got pretty serious and today she kept me back after class to talk about it. She said that I was the best in the class and I always do well at everything, but I have to stop writing this in my work because it's wrong.
I kept at it, I kept explaining to her why she's wrong, why you can't say a film which is fiction is media, and she'd just repeat something like "No, it's literature". Then she was talking about exam boards and things, and how it was basic and I felt like I was being tortured until I falsely confessed to something. Eventually, I gritted my teeth, trembling, and I said, "Okay. I understand now. Books aren't media."
She told me to have a good half term and I left, and I wanted to burst into tears for the rest of the day because of how weak I felt.

That argument ended in b, and I lost and I knew it. I still feel awful for giving in like that and what annoys me is the way she was talking, as if she was calmly informing me I had cancer or something. She was talking down to me and this whole thing isn't fact, it's debate and I know that I'm right.
I suppose it could still end in c though.

Have a really good weekend.

- Lizzie

Winning Makes Things Good Again

If I ever, ever start to seem like I'm wanting to write a blog every day in a month or something again, stop me, and remind me how I feel right now. Because this, in some ways, is more physically and definitely more emotionally draining than NaNoWriMo. It's ridiculous.
I'm sick of the sound of that voice, in my head, writing all the time. I'm sick of desperately looking for some interesting story in everything that happens to me. I don't want to try to mean anything to anybody just now, I want to lie in bed and watch How I Met Your Mother.

But instead I'll talk about what I did today, because to me it was exciting.

To start with I'll explain that there are three houses at my school - for those who aren't British or just haven't read Harry Potter, a house is basically a large group of students which you're automatically and also randomly put into in starting high school. Throughout the year, there are inter-house competitions for all sorts of things, sports, arts, performance. And I never did any of these, because although I'd have liked to it always felt like something you do with your friends. The house I used to be in I shared with only one of them, though I wasn't in a form class with her and she was never really interested in doing choir and things.

The head of the house I wanted to move to explained that I'd have to go to the guidance counselleur (sp?) and talk about how lonely I was and cry, and I did though I'm a little ashamed of it. My best friend and I are now in the same form class and in the Inter-House Music contest, which was today, I sang in choir and played in the ensemble and it made me happy. My friends and I have this running joke that I was sorted wrongly into Slytherin, now I'm in Gryffindor (I've actually gone red tie -> green, but thinking about it politically it's true.)

Choir was sort of like hope to me, because since I've drifted over to the kinds of music I love I've realised how powerful a choir can be, and it annoyed me that we had so many voices and people and there was so much you could do, yet all three choirs sang pretty much one part, and with accompiniment, and one even had a backing track. Having said that, ours was fairly creative as my school goes, and everyone felt happy singing it.

One day, before I die, I will sing "Earth" in a choir and it will be magical.

There was this really cliched moment when we won, sat at the front, not in the audience but with everyone else who had performed, when everyone just cheered and hugged and I felt proud and like I belonged, which is stupid because nobody gets so enthusiastic about these things.

___________________________________________________________________

A note

Sorry for no blog yesterday but my internet's been down again - that there was Thursday's. For the time being I'm going to write a day later until we're pretty much caught up, just because it gives me the time to edit that I need, and also so there's always something there to post last minute when my internet fails, which it is doing a lot at the moment.

.Have a nice day. :)

- Lizzie xxx

Prayers

I just watched Eat, Pray, Love, and though it wasn't exactly excellent it did make me think a lot, firstly about how much I want to travel. I'm pretty lucky because for my age I've been to a lot of places, both with my family and on school trips; within the last five years or so I've been to Florida, Turkey, Kenya, Brussles, Paris, and more. But I've always been somehow restricted with the people I was with, and that's bugged me a little.

The other thing it had a lot of connotations to was religion. And this is always something I've been hesitant to talk about here, along with a few other topics just because of the worry that any of my opinions will offend someone, somewhere, somehow.
Meh.

Up until a few months ago, I was 100% athiest and wouldn't be disagreed with. So is my dad, and my mum, though I think she'd like to believe in a God of some sort, is the same, and in fact most of the people around me. My best friend, however, is a pretty liberal Protestant and we've only once really debated these things.
I wouldn't say I really had a "conversion experience", but it was in RE class, (cliched I know) that I decided to open my mind a little more. I don't know why but my mind had drifted off from what the teacher was saying, and it was hot and dark in there, and I started to think about Heaven, and it first occured to me that it compared to this idea in my head I have of a "happy place". I talked about this to a friend recently, and my happy place is this park in Berlin I saw a picture of one time, a picnic in the evening with all of the people I love.
It just occured to me that maybe Heaven can be that. And that didn't make me believe suddenly in God, but for the first time I started to think that I might want to.

I've also sort of prayed, though I don't really count it, once of twice. I have a notebook I keep at my bedside which I've titled "Letters To Nobody", and whenever I'm in one of those moods where I have to express something to someone which I could never really say, maybe they've made me secretly angry or it's someone I don't know well that's made me think a lot.
It's heartfelt love letters, apologies to friends, rants at strangers, hate mail to celebrities and, sometimes, letters to God, whoever that is.
I don't think I really believed it'd come to anything, but once or twice when I felt I've really, really needed something (things you'd think were silly, like the need to go to the Royal Albert Hall) I've "written to God" in vain hope that somehow it'd work. And I'm fairly sure I have almost no belief still but I'm a little more agnostic than I once was. It's nice, feeling like maybe someone wants good things to happen to me.
I did end up going to the Royal Albert Hall, as you know. Make what you want of that.

- Lizzie

In relation to that thing down there, I apologise for the silence yesterday, but my internet was down. I suppose I'll go one day into March or something.

Happy Valentine's Day! (caution: a little fluffy)

Happy Valentine's Day, internet! :)










Valentine's Day hasn't really been a big deal for me yet, though this year I did consider leaving an anonymous giant, fluffy dinosaur toy on someone's doorstep, though weighing out the pros and cons I feel like he'd probably have felt a little creeped out.

I spent tonight being moany with a friend, whilst she text-flirted with a boy named Kingsley, and then bought a large box of strawberry-mango tea from Asda which should make up for whatever I'm feeling. I don't want to moan too much about being single on Valentine's Day - I'm fourteen, not thirty, and it's a long time before I should start feeling hopeless, but I'd be lying if I didn't feel like there's something missing.
But I don't want to blubber on about this today, because I've ranted about my thoughts on love and stuffs enough in the past. Instead, because music is the food of love, I made you a list.
(I know I may be going into a teeny tiny list obsession again...)
When I thought about it, going with "love songs" as a theme I could go one of two different ways - there are some beautiful, amazing songs which are sad and melancholy, of loss and longings then there is the sort which is optimistic and full of hope.
I went for the latter, and I don't know why.


FIVE LOVE SONGS FOR VALENTINE'S DAY


"You and I" - Ingrid Michaelson
I only discovered Ingrid Michaelson about a week ago, and she's amazing. I also found out that she originally wrote a well-known British pop song, but I'll talk about this another time.


"Marry Me" - BackTedNTed
I got Ryan Breen's album a few weeks ago and it's, as one of my friends put it, sonic joy. His music, this song in particular, is more electronic than what I normally listen to but I don't care, it's happy and it's catchy and that night I sat on my bed and danced to this.


"The One You Say Goodnight To" - Kina Grannis
This song hasn't been released yet as far as I know, but it's pretty and catchy and also full of hope. Long after it's over, I'm still clapping along in my head.


"Spit It Out" - IAMX
Sort of an odd one out I know, because it's much less light, but from what I can tell this song is about love and devotion. It's probably one of my favourite songs in the world.


"Five Years Time" - Noah and the Whale
Couldn't help myself. Thoughtful, cheerful, doesn't take itself too seriously, and mainly just plain awesome.


"Valentine" - Kina Grannis
Yes, of course I can have two songs by the same artist, because as far as happy, lighthearted, simple love songs go, Kina is queen. Also this song is always up for free download this time of year, so there's no reason why you shouldn't download it because it's magical.


"Swoon" - Imogen Heap
I saved the best till last :) I am so, so in love with this song. It's catchy and it's full of hope and it makes me want to dance around my bedroom in the darkest times. There have been so many moments over the last year or so, when I've just stood in the shower singing "LET ME BE THE GREAT SCOTT, TIP TOP, PIT STOP IN YOUR OCEAN!" Eeeeeee.


I'll go now. I have homework I've ignored too long and such things, and sleeping to do. I hope you had a happy Valentine's day, wherever you are. And I apologize if this post was slushy at all.

love, Lizzie xx

(sorry about lack of spacing, that happens when I post numerous pictures sometimes. One day, I'll figure it out and we will all be saved.) EDIT: Never mind, sorted it I think

My Ideal Rocky Horror Cast

I found this in the back of one of my notebook's today, and I remember scribbling it down frantically in a Chinese restaurant in London last year, full of ideas and life. Maybe someone, somewhere finds it interesting.

MY IDEAL 'ROCKY HORROR SHOW' CAST

Neil Gaiman as The Criminologist
Because he has the very English accent, and a slight permanent sense of embarassment. It's hard to explain why this'd be awesome.

Marc Warren as Brad
I know, it's a little diverse, and I'm thinking too that he could be maybe too agressive but that could be a good thing. There's just a lot of the lines and arguing with Frank I can imagine.

Max Raabe as Rif-Raf
Do we even need to reason? A German, Rif-Raf?

Amanda Palmer as Magenta
I can't think of an explanation why, but I know that I probably got the idea from her cover of "Science Fiction Double Feature". And we could have a ukulele playing Magenta, right?

Dee Plume as Columbia
For some reason, the Robots in Disguise singer/guitarist just fits the image well. I have no idea whether or not she can tap dance.

Chris Corner as Dr. Frank-N-Furter
I can't even explain how perfect this seems to me. He has the voice, the charisma, and it wouldn't be the first time he'd dressed as a woman. (That's one of my favourite music videos ever, by the way).

Matthew James-Thomas as Rocky
An actor in a TV show I used to love when I was 12 or 13 called Britannia High, he was also in the musical version of Dorian Grey I believe. I think Rocky has to be quite clean and innocent, and he is this.

Robert Glenister as Eddie
Could be Phillip Glenister either, I suppose. He's around Eddie's age and would be almost as good as Meat Loaf.

Stephen Fry as Dr. Everett Scott
... just because.

Note: I didn't leave out Janet because I don't like Janet or anything. I'd written Dianna Agron to play her but now I'm doubting that and can't think of anyone quite right. Maybe if anyone's reading this for real you could send in suggestions or something? If I thought anyone would comment, I'd offer a cookie to the best imaginary Janet actress suggestion. And then it'd turn out the winner would be in Canada or somewhere, and I'd have to pay for first class postage so it didn't get mouldy.
I'm babbling.
Night.

(A note: This isn't the awesome thing I was planning to write this Sunday. I didn't have time in the end. One day, I swear).

Another Apology

Today, of all things, I'm falling in love with Noah and the Whale music - they were in my annoying email from See Tickets trying to sell me things, and I'm really thinking of going. Up until quite recently, I only knew their song "Five Years Time" and it's awesome, but they're also a lot more than that.

I should warn you that this blog has no purpose or point to it. I'm writing here because I have to. Honestly, I want to go to sleep quite a lot and I'm in one of those moods where, walking around the house, I feel like someone's trying to break in and kill me.

So. How are you?

Tomorrow I'm planning on writing something exciting, but I keep saying that and I have a feeling it's growing overrated. Over the last week or so I've lost complete organisation of life in general and so today I tried to sort all of that out a bit, and also do something productive which I sort of did, by doing a lot of novel editing and a little sticking things to my wall.

I also had this really nice moment today.
Whilst my dad will argue or agree or comment on my musical taste, my various obsessions, and most of the time encourage my guitar playing or ask about chords for something and stuff like that, generally my mother ignores it. She's the kind of person who listens to what's fed to her on the radio, occasionally she'll like a song and buy the album, but she has this thing where she won't overplay things. Usually after one of my CDs has played once or twice through in her car (meaning over a few days, not straight) she'll say she's tired of it and switch to something else. She doesn't understand, or just doesn't want that closeness with music.
Today I was reading chords from the internet, whilst playing the ukelele and singing (Israel unrememberable surname's awesome medley of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and "What A Wonderful World" and I just heard her, from the bathroom, start singing. Then she came into my bedroom, quietly, and I kept on playing and didn't turn around. She was stood right behind me singing along, reading the lyrics and we were laughing and we didn't make eye contact the whole time, we haven't mentioned it since my dad came home with dinner and she stopped, going downstairs to get out some plates.
It reminded me of that story about Christmas in 1914.

That's all, folks. Hope you're having a good weekend.

- lizzie

How Could "Hustle" Do This to Me?!

I started to watch Hustle in 2009 mostly, or at least regularly. I did see all of Series 4, two years before that, and even some of the third series which would have been 2006, I think, when the show in my opinion was at its best, but back then I was too young to understand some of it (Hustle is, after all, a lot about finance and the economy sometimes). By Series 5, I knew that I missed by old favourite characters and so I started to watch it online from the very first series, and I fell in love with it. Ash, Stacie, Danny, Albert and Mickey "Bricks" were characters who I looked up to or linked to situations I was in if I had problems. All five of them were so real and so alive to me. I don't know if it's normal to have the connection with a TV show that I did back then. I knew, and still do know, the names of not just actors but producers and writers like they were a big part of my life. They were people I admired, and I'd say that Hustle is a large part of what made me want to write.
It's understandable, then, when at twelve years old, I was angry that as I watched the original five main characters grow and develop and just be awesome online, it was irritating how every Friday I had to watch it and Danny and Stacie had not only been replaced, but replaced by characters who it was so obvious had been written to fill the purpose they bought to the group - Sean was boyish and immature and a bit of a womaniser, Emma sultry and sensible, sometimes a little feminist. I still always complained that it was never quite what it used to be, but I grew to like Emma and tolerate Sean. I didn't feel that angry at the show anymore, it was only Jaime Murray and Marc Warren who I could blame for the fact that their careers had simply taken them to different places, and I wasn't going to do that any time soon.
I still loved Hustle a lot and watched it faithfully, and had a lot of respect for anyone involved.
That is, up until tonight.
Tonight, within sixty minutes, one of my favourite fictional characters not only slipped much out of his usual self and also lost his voice, but was the central point of one of the dumbest, most unbelievable plots I think I've probably seen ever. It was stupid and not just on a Hustle scale, but compared to pretty much anything.
Let me explain. SPOILER ALERT.

The episode started off as a con the gang were playing on a football agent, to raise money to save Ash's hometown football team, who the recession had assumably hit. Already from the start I'd say I wasn't enjoying it as much as usual, only really because I don't know a lot about football, let alone the business behind it - occasionally there'll be an episode of Hustle which is almost a chore to keep up with intellectually, but most of the time it's worth it. I was already slightly annoyed about some things Ash had said in the episode, which were just so noticeably out of character.
Things were going pretty well, then halfway through, Ash was making a comment about how good everything seemed, when he walked into a glass door and fell over. Immediately, Albert panicked and called an ambulence. [Plot flaw number one - when a friend walks into a door and falls over, you laugh at them. Then if you see they're unconcious, shake them a little and start to get scared. Then maybe call an ambulence].
After this, all five of them headed to the hospital and we saw a montage of everyone sitting around worrying a little, fair enough, then Emma made a comment like, "It's been nine hours." And I'm starting to this that this is a little unbelievable...
The doctor came and said that they could see Ash now.
He was sat in bed looking fairly okay, and Emma hugged him and asked how he was feeling. Ash said something like "I'm feeling sexually aroused because your breasts are touching my chest." She pulled away and then he said, "Albert, ask me what I think of your cooking." And he did so and Ash said it tasted awful and Albert looked a little offended. Several more things like this happened.
The doctor came back in and explained that Ash's fall had given him a mental disorder type thing which I won't even bother to google and see if it's real or not, meaning he had the inability to tell lies. Then he said something like, "That's a bit of a problem, for a conman", just for the sake of signifying that Ash had told him."
Read that back and think about it.
He walked into a glass door and tripped.
He spend nine hours in A&E.
He is now unable to tell lies.
They carried on with the con realising the only problem with Ash was that he couldn't lie to direct questions people asked him, and so Emma pretended to be his lawyer and talk for him in front of the mark a lot of the time. There was a bit of a moment of fear in a bar with the mark, when he asked Ash directly if he should invest money in this, and Ash just said "Of course not, you'll never see it again, we're conmen!" which was quickly saved by them just laughing a little and pretending it was a joke.
Here's the very worst part.
At the end, having the usual celebratory drinks in Eddie's Bar, Ash walked into something, hit his head, and Sean asked him his name. He said "Bob".
He could lie again.

AAAAAH KSHGPOIESHG0PSIENGO. HOW COULD MY FAVOURITE TV SHOW HAVE SO LITTLE RESPECT OR EXPECTATIONS OF ITS AUDIENCE'S INTELLIGENCE BY ASKING US TO BELIEVE AND ACCEPT A PLOT LIKE THIS?

I'm angry at Tony Jordan (I'm sure it wasn't him that wrote that, but he let it happen!) and I'm angry at Robert Glenister, although it wasn't his fault at all, and producers and whoever wrote that. I miss the way this show used to be, and I would say something like, "That's it, I'm not watching it anymore!" but I know I will. Still, it's gone way down the drain. Now I'm going to go read some stories from "Fragile Things" to make me feel better.

Have a good weekend.

42!

Welcome to blog post 42!!!!
Sorry. I'm a nerd and I love Hitchhiker's Guide so this is pretty exciting to me. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you could google it or just go outside and look for some life experiences.

Speaking of life experiences.
I do this thing, occasionally, where I sort of write in my head. I did it a long time before I had a blog. Don't think I'm creepy or schizophrenic, it isn't voices, it's me, talking to someone else, and I just don't know who that someone else is. Nowadays, most of the time it's you.
A lot of the time, something's triggered this feeling, because I tell stories here a lot of the time and occasionally, something will have just happened to me it sets me off. It could have made me happy, or sad, or nostalgic or something, but I always know at some point during the process I usually think woah, this is going to make a good post. And I start to hear it in my head, the way that it's written.
It's happened a few times with recent events, one particularly good one today (that's for myself, to remind me of the date), when after a minute I realise I can't write it. Usually it's because I have an inkling it'll offend someone, like something I say accidentally about one of my friends or even that I'd tell these stories about them on the internet. Sometimes it's something that I would have written a while back, considering how private I used to feel this was, and I don't particularly want my friends from school to know, not just yet.
Because in five years time, simply the idea of it being later and us being older will have changed things. Anything I say here can be laughed at and not taken seriously. Because it's the past, and we were young (though in five years, we'll still be young), and I hope nobody will judge me or be mad for what I've said about them, ect.
Having said all of that, I'm hoping Eff-Paf will still be going in five years. And I know it's only been a few months, but I have an inkling it will.
This was short and I'm sorry, but I want to read "The Secret Life of Bees" for a while before I go to sleep.
Goodnight :)

- Lizzie

Inbox.

I'm really sorry.

I'm feeling slightly lazy again today and so instead of writing a blog post, I wrote a moany poem about how stressed and mainly just bored I am.



INBOX.



Do NOT reply directly to this email.

2morrow are you going to the gym swim Zumba?:)

are you up to scratch with playin 'happy birthday' CONFIRM YOUR ORDER
maths hwk? do we have our media books? is it at 6? Ask poppy where she is. what time u going?
Are you on the train?

bring your laptop tell her bring her camera weed love sick tired

Hurrr up and get there already!!!!

Help
Plz tell me!
I hate him
im depressed! too ill!
Expect me to be mad

But she can't know

Cause you have seen this
u will get kissed on Friday
He likes you he'll prove it to you on friday
Send it to ten girls or lose him
LOVE OF YOUR LIFE
BAD LUCK FOREVER

PayPal
Transactions
Expedition
Payment
Attatchment

... and I'm sorry

is now
following you on Twitter wants to be your friend visit farm Cafeworld

See Jessie J! Fashion Weekend! JLS!

19 year old Japeneese princes visitting you're country
i want to meet you!
just name adress card number.


A note: I really am sorry for the lack of structure to all of this recently. If anyone regularly reads this, I'm sorry if it seems like my standards are slipping. But I'm planning on actually dedicating my entire Sunday to writing a post I've been contemplating for months. yaaaay.

Tired and Uninspired

Here's the thing.

I have abolutely nothing interesting to say today.

... and so I'm going to talk about that.

Quietly, it's something I've been going through a lot lately and it's scaring me. At first, I think I thought I had it in me to write pointless ramblings every day for a month, and I actually have an emergency list for when I run out of ideas, but going through it, there are so many buts. But I don't have the material. But I can't phase it intelligently enough. But I'm not ready to write about that.

I'm pretty sleep deprived and I keep staying up and doing homework and things, not that I'm that overloaded, but I can never force myself to start until the very last minute. This blogging thing is driving me insane, I'm getting sick of my own mental voice and yesterday I actually fell asleep a little in Biology - I know that it doesn't sound possible, and I never believed someone could honestly fall asleep in class, though I've seen it a couple of times. You know when you're completley shattered, and your eyes keep shutting and shutting, until you start to let it, or maybe just close one... because you aren't sleeping of course, just resting it... then it's the other and then you sort of snap up and realise you've spend the last few minutes out of conscieceness. Luckily I was sat near the back of the class, and a curtain of curly dark hair is helpful. The same happened a tiny bit in English today.

I'm excited about the weekend. I had a really nice salad for lunch today. I'm worried about something which is happening on Thursday.

I feel like I've been living life on the edge more recently.

That's all for today. I'll spend time on writing something proper tomorrow, promise.

- Lizzie

THIS IS PSYCHOSIS.

IAMX have been one of my favourite bands for at least half a year now, and sometimes I have a strange sort of love/hate relationship with Chris Corner's music. The first of their CDs I bought was "Kingdom of Welcome Addiction", which I was surprised to find in a HMV store in the summer, and after I bought it and went through that newlywed phase you go through after buying an album you know will be big for you.
It was probably one of the most confusing spans of forty eight hours I've ever experienced.
Some of the songs on it I loved ("My Secret Friend", "Kingdom of Welcome Addiction", "Think of England", "The Great Shipwreck of Life", "Tear Garden"... in fact, the majoritory) but some just made me annoyed, and disappointed at how little they had to offer me.
Because there is this thing that, amoungst different other things, pretty much all IAMX songs are about, and it's hard to explain. You know that feeling, that horrible dragging down inside your head, a quiet and pessimistic understanding that there's no escape, that they're all idiotic, right-wing fuckwits who're uncapable of thinking for themselves. It's also boredom, more than anything else, and anger. But in some ways I think that's the fuel behind every song, and maybe that's a good thing, because it's good for a band to have an overall attitude, but sometimes to me it seems tired and it seems like whining, and I feel angry that someone of such musical talent puts every ounce of it into this.
I like it a lot, and it works for him, but I'd like something different every once in a while.
I was excited when they announced a new album this spring, mainly just because it could mean I get to go see them, and was even more excited back in October, when some songs from the new album they'd played in Prague were up on Youtube. They border on cabaret music, and a lot of people were angry that they seem to be slipping away from their old style. The electronica of "Kiss & Swallow" was most definitely lost. Honestly, I didn't feel like I minded that much, because in my opinion, most of the times bands and artists have evolved and changed dramatically, it's been for the best.
At some point a few weeks ago, I came home to see it all over Twitter that IAMX's new single, a song called "Ghosts of Utopia", would be debuting on Czechoslovakian radio that night. I couldn't hear it: I went out somewhere and couldn't get the internet where I was, but as soon as I was home I went on to Youtube, and luckily a few people had posted the song.
Here it is. Listen and read.
I knew within about twenty seconds that I was disappointed, and it grew inside me until after playing "Ghosts of Utopia" twice, I was in a state of anger and I turned my computer off, because everyone else seemed to like the song and I couldn't understand, and I was mad at one of my favourite bands for not being awesome when I needed them to be.
It was like listening to "Kiss & Swallow" again, back to the start, except the lesser songs, the ones you could count as album fillers. It was so electronic and shallow, and I couldn't find anything in it at all.
The next day I tried again when I got home from school, and I found I could hear better, somehow. Once the chorus was in my head and it was familiar, it started to grow on me and I started to feel better.
And then I thought about it for a while: of course the new album won't all be like this. I think maybe they chose to release this one, which was techy (is that a word?) and electro and slightly less traditional, just to prove something after the Prague show. Hopefully, the new album has a little of everything, and everyone who likes IAMX can take from it what they need to.

I told my friend I'd try to write a blog about narwhals today, and I didn't, but I will soon, honest. I'm sorry.

Today's also February 7th, the anniversary of the first time I ever saw Imogen Heap live. Yes, I'm celebrating. I actually just found the stuff I wrote for the blog I had back then, but I'll post it some other time, because I'm tired and I have a sort-of essay to write before I go to sleep. Blogger won't let me copy and paste.

Goodnight. May pretty, magical narwhals dance around in your dreams.

- Lizzie xxx

Why Eleven Year Old Lizzie Modelled Herself on Sarah Parish

There used to be this TV show on the BBC called Mistresses. It was a drama about four thirty-something women, who were best friends, and the various hiccups in their love lives. It was first on three or four years ago, as I was starting high school.
This was also the time I was swiftly turning into the complete BBC nerd which I am today, and Mistresses was one of the first TV shows which I felt that connection to where the characters became real to me, long before Hustle and even before Britannia High (I'll get on to that).
The four main characters were Trudi, (Sharon Small) a cheerful, housewife and 9-11 widow with annoyingly low self-esteem, Siobhan, (Orla Brady) a lawyer whose marriage is unstable due to her husband's apparent infertility and ends up pregnant, the father being another guy she works with, unsure whether to keep lying for the first five or so episodes. Jessica, (Shelly Conn) was a bubbly, promiscuous events planner, who fell in love unexpectedly with a lesbian whose civil ceremony she was playing and Katie, (Sarah Parish) a GP who had an affair with a terminally ill patient and helped in giving him an overdose, and now his son is on the case.
Watch it. It's so good.
The point is, the way that it inspired me. I was desperate to live this glamorously, and also to find a solid and tight group of friends, so I tried hard to match my friends to each of the characters, and so I did so, with a small, fairly tight-knitted group of friends I had through guides (I wasn't too popular at school in those days), which was obviously hard with eleven-thirteen year olds. My friend Beth (but not you, Beth ;) ) assigned me Katie and I was pretty pleased that my friends seemed to think I was mature, but I didn't start wearing tailored suits.

Sometimes with blogging, something seems interesting and like you can talk about it for a long time... and then you can't. It's sad.

Other stuff:
I've had a really awesome day today. I went out for breakfast. I moved a couple of steps towards living on the edge. I pulled a muscle in my stomach and learnt that I can't say "Ibuprofen" (sp?).

Ten Guilty Pleasures

Omgaaahflteihnhisgen.

So I saw Black Swan today.
I'd expected it to be a little dark, it was much, much gorrier (sp?) than I thought. I don't know if that was because it was the first real scary movie I've seen in a cinema or not. My friend who I was with kept laughing at me because of how squeamish I get. (we got in, they believed I was 15 this time. Ironic, I must have aged a lot in the last week)
In some ways I think it could have been gorrier than the Saw movies, because it was on a small scale. It was the slow, detailed, stinging process of ripping off of bits of skin from around the nail, not intestines dropping out everywhere. Ballet dancers feet, blisters, twisted muscles and much too easily, the mechanical clicking into place of joints and bones.
You know when you're watching a movie, and you know it's a psychological mindfiretruck movie, you're expecting a big twist. It's like that. I didn't know which characters were "goodies" and "baddies", I didn't know who we trusted and when I felt like it was safe. Natalie Portman was excellent. Like Shutter Island, I didn't even know if I trusted the character whose eyes we were seeing through and the ending had me stunned.
I know I keep trying to get you to do stuff, buy books I like and such, but srsly, go see Black Swan.

Okay, right. On with the thing that's special and thought provoking I promised.

So I'll admit, I couldn't think of anything, or find anything on my emergency blog list I wanted to write today, so I googled "good blog post ideas" and found some. One thing it told me to write about was simply the title "Ten Guilty Pleasures". And I was actually thinking about writing something to do with that anyway, because they mentioned it on the TV show Take Me Out before and I was feeling uninspired.

And I really like lists. That's a secret.

___________________________________________________________________

LIZZIE'S EIGHT GUILTY PLEASURES (I could only think of eight. I'm such a failure at blogging.)

Pop music from the nineties - The other day someone was talking about S Club 7, my favourite "band" as a child (closely followed by Steps) and I got reminiscent and nostalgic and watched a whole concert of theirs on Youtube. Twas fun.

Take Me Out - For those unfamiliar, Take Me Out is a dating show presented by a talentless, annoying Yorkshireman named Paddy McGuinness, where thirty single women "turn their lights off" and judge men presented to them who talk about themselves and then sometimes have to dance and things. It's stupid and crap, I love it and watch it most Saturdays.

Reading fanfiction - Ahh. One day soon, I'll write about all the fanfic writing I did a year or two ago. It was what got me into writing, and someone I was talking today told me that they did exactly the same, which made me feel better: I always thought it was sort of stupid. Anyways, I don't write fanfiction so much anymore, but I sometimes like reading others' on the internet.

My hair - I wouldn't say I'm super vain, but sometimes late at night, if I can't get to sleep and I've been staring at a computer screen too long, I turn my swivelly chair around and tuck my knees into my chest and take my hair down and just brush my hair for a really long time, because sometimes it's about as soothing as stroking a cat or picking lazily at guitar strings.

Facebook - I was going to just say "social media" but that's not true, I don't feel at all guilty about how much I love Twitter. One day I'll go into more depth about the Facebook thing, but I use it more than I'd like to - it's also become a responsibility, I have to check on it constantly because admitedly, it's a main thing people use to contact me, and also I get worried about stupid photos ending up on there. And I like it, also.

Computer games - I never talk about this very much, mainly just because it isn't that interesting, but my favourite way ever to kill time is playing The Sims 2. When I was 11/12, I think there were days when I'd spend around 5 hours on my computer. I don't quite do that anymore, but I still play it sometimes. I also love random things on the internet which occupy 5 minutes, like Solitaire or White Dwarf.

Bread - I haven't seen the Scott Pilgrim movie, but I remember in the advert when he says he eats bread all of the time and a girl tells him bread is really fattening and he just sort of slowly spits it out. I had an experience like that recently. I eat bread, all of the time, and I don't think I care how fattening it is. Sometimes, eating bread, I'm not even hungry, it's just for something to do with my mouth when there's nobody to talk to. Bread is good.

Nibbling my hand - ... although after seeing Black Swan, I won't be doing any of the teeniest, lamest kind of self-harm any time soon. This is only something I started about a week ago, but something was happening and I was really, really stressed and sick and happy at the same time and I was on the phone and I just started biting my hand. I sort of lay in bed nibbling my thumb as I was falling asleep, and when I woke up that morning, I got to school and quickly put some gloves on in the cloakroom (yay, well stocked locker) because I realised my hands were covered in weird little canine marks. But honest, I'm not emotionally unstable. It didn't even hurt that much, it's just like biting your nails or your lip.

That's all for today. G'night.

- lizzie

The Mice in the Walls, Enduring Love

Hello!

So Bob, my cat, brought in a mouse he'd caught which was ginormous and also still alive. We shut Bob out of the room, my dad and I, and snuck around trying to catch it for a while but it ran under the fireplace, crawled up into a further hole where it's now unachievable. So I now have a pet mouse living in the wall cavities of my house. Maybe it'll have babies, and they'll feed on bugs, and dust, and the taste of all the skin will make them start to mutate into giant, flesh-eating killer mice.
I'm not sure if I'm excited or terrified.

Today Kyle Casssidy tweeted about a photographer named Raina Matar, who's done a project photographing teenage girls from all around the world, all sorts of lifestyles, in their bedrooms. I don't know a lot about photography or art but they're beautiful and I wanted to share them with you. I don't know why. The photographs are here. My personal favourite is the second along, just because it's how I feel a lot of the time.

Also whilst we're here, I apologize that I keep plugging things like the above, and like poetry I like, books, other stuff like that but it's interesting to me and this is really the only place I can talk about it a lot. I do so, anyway, but when it's here, in some respects you have no choice but to listen, and I like that. Yay, selfish blogger.
But seriously. Tomorrow I'll write a blog which has some form of purpose to it, as an apology for my babbling over the last few days.

Tonight I watched a movie called Enduring Love, and on being told that the book it's based on is by the same writer of "Atonement", I don't think I felt that excited about it (I never read "Atonement" though, only saw the movie which was disappointing). But this was brilliant.
It starred Daniel Craig, who was traumatised after feeling he caused a man's death in a balloon accident, and throughout the story, started to realise he was being stalked by Jed (Spike from Notting Hill!!!!!), who was also at the accident. It messes with your head a lot and I really liked it. Also it was only 1 hour and a half, which was a bonus because I never have time nowadays, and a lot of movies I've seen recently I've almost got impatient with the length of, because when I want to go to sleep, everything seems like it's going on too long.
That definitely wasn't the intelligent, advertising, helpful review of Enduring Love I planned but I'm tired. Shurrup.

I'll write something proper tomorrow. Promise.

- Lizzie

Biting David Keenan

Hello.

If you don't have time to read another post made up of ramblings about stupid things when I was a child, that's fine. But please scroll down to the bottom where there's a poem by Carol Anne Duffy I found, which I've looked for since I first read it and I guarentee it will make your day a little better. I don't know how.

When I was a child, I went to two primary schools - one in Year 3, from age seven onwards, but before that I went to a different one, and there I had more confidence and I was a different person. Thinking back, I'm fairly sure that when I was about five, I was a badass in school.
I don't really remember many of the things that gained me this reputation, I just know I had it. I was intelligent but I got into a lot of trouble. I have memories of standing against the cupboard at the back of the class - the ultimate punishment - up in the stocks for townsfolk to laugh at or maybe just inspect.
But I do remember biting David Keenan.
The whilstle had just blown for the end of lunch, it was cold and we were lining up at the end of the field. I was daydreaming, looking at the sky and the grass and the seagulls, eating leftover playground crumbs of snacktime KitKats and Nutri Grain bars, and in front of me was David Keenan.
I honestly haven't seen him since, but from what I remember he was quite chubby, at five, and he had very bright hair, and for some reason he said something which made me angry and so I bit him.
I don't remember why, and it bugs me a lot, and although I think I was probably evil in a lot of ways I don't think I can have done it for no reason. Nowadays, if I ask my mother tells me I was provoked. My teachers and parents were angry, back then. I don't know why I bit him but I did, right in the stomach, and his pale skin swelled up straight away with a volcano of pink and red, swirling blue and purple patterns forming around the edges of the bruise.
I was too proud to admit it. I remember my dad getting home and me begging him to read to me but my mum said no, not until I'd told him what I'd done and I wouldn't do it. We were in the conservetory and I was screaming and crying. Everyone said I had done wrong, I should feel guilty but I couldn't because I somehow knew I was right.
They tell me now that it was almost deserved, that it isn't on my conscience but I know that I bit David Keenan, and that it was wrong but I have no idea why.
Perhaps I never will.

I'm in understanding that that was a pretty stupid thing to talk about, so here is something beautiful.

TEA
by Carol Anne Duffy

I like pouring your tea, lifting
the heavy pot, and tipping it up,
so the fragrant liquid streams in your china cup.

Or when you're away, or at work,
I like to think of your cupped hands as you sip,
as you sip, of the faint half-smile on your lips.

I like the questions - sugar? - milk?
and the answers I don't know by heart, yet,
for I see your soul in your eyes, and I forget.

Jasmine, Gunpowder, Assam, Earl Grey, Ceylon,
I love tea's names. Which tea would you like? I say
but it's any tea for you, please, any time of day,

as the women harvest the slopes
for the sweetest leaves, on Mount Wu-Yi,
and I am your lover, smitten, straining your tea.


If nothing else melancholy, or squishy or sentimental, read in a really shallow way it makes me feel like simply walking around Whittard's and smelling sweet air, examining packets, leaves and syrups and shakers I'd never have the time to use. I stick with instant pearguava, and it's delicious.
Goodnight.

- Lizzie

PS
What I was actually going to do today is write a blog about how much I love webcasts and why, but I didn't, but it was because tonight I watched some of Imogen Heap's #live4capetown and although signal was bad and I only saw some of the songs, it was mostly just awesome talking to other fans, people who like or even just know my kind of music, having fights with people about Amanda Palmer and Tori Amos, that kind of thing. I love all of it. :) But yuss, I'll go on more in detail about stuff like that one day.

Books in 2011: So Far

Hello.

So maybe you remember that a while ago, I posted a list of books I'd decided to read in 2011, which is still fairly new and therefore was going to be the year that everything was perfect, as everyone feel's around New Year's Eve. But I also this list here, of a mixture of instruction manuals, classics I haven't read yet and things that just looked good, and so far I'm sticking to it pretty well. I did worry I'd get off track and start to just reread everything I already have, I do that a lot. So seeing as this blog is sometimes about books (is it, is it about books? well I can make it be about books if I want to!) I thought it'd be a good idea to regularly keep you and myself up to date about what I've been reading over here and whether I liked them.

NOTE: Here I called it a list, there's actually only two of them because I've already written about "The Kite Runner" and "Catcher In The Rye" somewhere or other. Meh, sorry.

CRACKED UP TO BE

by Courtney Summers

... was recommended by a friend, and although it wasn't really everything I've wanted from a fully developed storyline I liked it quite a lot.

Parker is around 16, I think, a high school student who'd been balancing a perfect boyfriend, her responsibilities as cheerleader captain, a lot of friends, and straight A grades up until a recent mental breakdown. After downing a bottle of Jack Daniels and a lot of painkillers, Parker's decisions are crucial and everyone in her life is patronisingly on edge. When Jake comes into the story, a new student at our average American high school, Parker is on the brink of a second failure, until she meets someone who doesn't try to hard to see into her but only deprives her of what she really thinks she wants: to be left alone.

I liked the novel at first, it was written cynically and every few chapters, one is made up of flashbacks. By the middle of the story, I partly detested main character but I had to find out what would happened, or more what already had. Sometimes reading this was a test of patience, mainly just because the protagonist was whining so much, but it's fairly well-written and it's easy and, sometimes, maybe even relatable. Shameless, angsty teenage chick-lit, something all of us need sometimes.

4.5/10

REBECCA

by Daphne du Maurier

"Last night, I went to Manderly again..."

Thinking about it, I honestly don't think I've ever read a book you could describe as a "classic" outside of English class - I know this is also quite modern, but I think it counts, but from what my mum had told me I was really expecting to like "Rebecca" after a while.

When "Rebecca" drew me in, it did so slowly. Our narrator (who's name is never revealed) is a young, employed "companion" to a rich American woman when she meets Max de Winter, widower and owner of Manderly, a huge house and estate in Cornwall. She marries him, partly out of love and partly to get away, and wasn't expecting to be so overwhelmed, not by the size of the house and the quality of living, now, but by the sudden change of lifestyle, the unfriendliness of the servents at Manderly, particularly housekeeper Mrs Danvers*, and the presense in the house, in the eyes of all of the people she meets of Maxim's beautiful late wife, Rebecca, who the second Mrs de Winter will never compare to.

I loved this book so, so much. There are two shocking twists (spoiler coming up, go way down if you plan on reading it)

and after reading the book I read the afterward in my copy by Susan Hill who'd read so many things into the story which I didn't notice, most of all, Rebecca's sexuality, which was again hinted at much more in the film I saw.

9.5/10

* THIS WOMAN SCARES ME MORE THAN VOLDEMORT.

That's all. There will be more about these.

Speaking of my list, the book I'm currently reading is "Neverwhere", which is by Neil Gaiman, and anyone's reading who's a Neil Gaiman fan, you'll know that on Twitter recently, a trending topic has been #worstneilgaimanpickuplines

This has been making me laugh all day, from the moment I got home, so I compiled a list, because I like lists.

LIZZIE'S FAVOURITE NEIL GAIMAN RELATED PICK-UP LINES FROM TWITTER IN THE LAST 24 HOURS

"I killed Batman. No, really."

"Need company? We can get them for you wholesale."

"Y'like Duran Duran? 'Cuz I wroted a book 'bout those guys."

"I should like very much to be your falafel."

"Do you wanna see an offensive passport photo?"

"Let's go back to my mausoleum and work this out."

"You. Me. Macabray. You won't remember a thing."

"Wanna see why Facebook removed my photo?"

"Mind if my bees watch?"

"I've been in an episode of Arthur."

"You know, Terry Pratchett told me that the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact..."

"I'd give up my entire collection of troll dolls to be with you."

"This wine is from Atlantis..."

And my personal favourite,

"I can go all night, 'cause you'll Neverwhere me out!"

thankyou for your patience if you aren't nerdy enough to have understood those.

More tomorrow. (more blogging, I mean, not Gaiman related pick-up lines. Well, you never know.)

k then. goodnight.

- Lizzie

How a Pencil and a Potplant Lost Me an Entire Night's Sleep

From when I was around seven years old, up until the year I turned eleven, I entered a phase where things scared me all of the time.

When I was in Year 4 (that's Grade 3 for you 'mericans, so I was about eight), my best friend's name was Samantha. I was also friends with her twin sister, Bethan, and our parents were also friends which was useful. They had a lot of money and their father, now I think back or just listen to my parents talk about them, was very, very right-wing. This doesn't really come into the story, because I was nine, and all that I cared about was that I had some close friends whom I liked even though they bossed me around a little.
One day, at school, Samantha told us all a story which rocketed throughout my primary school and became known as "Dolly On The First Step" - you probably heard it at some point in your childhood. I was a fragile little girl, an only child with too much of an imagination, and it stayed with me for days. I couldn't sleep alone. I would come to my parents room at night crying and trembling because at the time, it was the most terrifying thing I could imagine, and they were patient at first but lost it. Because after two or three days, gave up on letting me sleep at the end of their bed and I lay in my room alone, and it was quiet and I kept on hearing noises and it ruined me for about a month.

Another traumatising experience I've had as a child was a couple of years later. I was about ten or eleven when my cousins, Sam and Annie, came to my house. Annie was about seventeen at the time and my dad was helping her write a CV I think, so they were upstairs in the study.
Let's back up slightly. I have no siblings but my cousins were kind of the equivalent of that, when I was growing up. Aside from Annie, who was a teenager when I was younger and wasn't around as much as she is nowadays, I have four cousins, a set of two sisters and two brothers, and when we were together a strange kind of politics went on between us all; we had an age range of four years I think. There's a time every year, a little before my birthday in February when Sam is 16, Kate 15, onwards until Jake, the youngest, is 12. I'm the middle one.
Sam was always sort of a leader for us; he came up with the dares, decided which games we were going to play and, in this case, he picked the movie.
The movie was The Others and he reassured me it wasn't scary, because it was rated a twelve and, of course, it couldn't be.
I didn't want Sam and my dad to think I was being a winp, and I watched it just because of the pressure, because, even though we were at my house there wasn't much else to do and because even though I didn't believe him my cousin said it wouldn't be scary.
He lied. At the time, it was firetrucking terrifying.
This led, of course, to another period of over dramatisation and of lost sleep. There were never nightmares, I was just scared that they'd happen. Instead of shutting my eyes and letting it be dark, I'd turn my bedside lamp on and simply stare at the wall whilst I was falling asleep, until my eyes shut themselves because I was too tired.
And I was probably angry at my cousin and my dad at the time, but now I'm not because I'm generally a hard-ass when it comes to scary movies.

Apart from a few things, the only thing nowadays most of all which can keep me awake for a while, fictionwise, is the idea of rape. I don't want to go into detail because it makes me shudder and my head hurt, but a part of "The Kite Runner", and one particular scene in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" involving an anal plug (at this in the movie adaptation, I even cried a little) left me lying in bed afterwards in foetal position, gripping a duvet protectively around me and shaking slightly. I don't know why I'm such a wimp when it comes to that, it's like some people get with blood or needles or vomit.
So that's just a thing. But then recently, something happened which set this off.
It was last week and I was leaving French class, moving down the stairs to Catering when I noticed straight away the yelling, the signs of excitement, a crowd and the grumpy school receptionist frantically trying to block off a certain area of the corridor.
I only ever heard it second hand, from several people, but what had happened was that in a kind of relaxed lesson, two guys my age had been messing around, and thought it'd be a good idea to sit on a pencil. Whilst his friend held it still, he sat on the pencil and myehhidontwanttotalkaboutitbutyougetthegist. He left the classroom, quite calmly, and didn't come back, so the teacher sent his friend to find him and they did, in pain and rapidly bleeding. They carried him off on a stretcher, his face covered with blankets because he was embarassed. Everyone seemed to think it was pretty funny, I suppose it is slightly, and I tried to laugh too because I don't like talking about my weird hysterical fear of anal pains, so I was sort of quietly choking in my throat and crossing and uncrossing my legs and wanting to vomit the whole time my Catering teacher was talking about how serious it was, what the consequences could be, the parts of his body it's affected and how it must have felt....
fpskhgjhoishejgp0ishg.

Let's back up a little. Another thing that day, was that that morning we'd been potting plants in Biology and following the recent death of my desk cactus due to running cats, my friend Poppy decided that it was important that I take this geranium home to replace it and I agreed, thought I think that both of us were mainly doing it for the thrill of stealing a plant from school.
That night I was with my friends at our favourite coffee shop, where I took the plant out of my pocket and put it on the table.
When we left, I realised I'd left it on the table.
I wasn't so worried that I'd lost the plant, but that our Biology teacher would get them out again and spot ours was missing or why the people working at Costa would think we'd left a plant there.
Anyways, that's a secret: I worry a lot. I know it isn't very badass.

The combination of the two, the guilt and the panic and the imagination of all the surgery and the skin and just that moment of shock and slow, slow pain left my lying awake in bed. My muscles were twitching, I gasped for breath and rolled to a different side every time I imagined the pain again.
And that's how a pencil and a potplant lost me an entire night's sleep.

For once, I'll be back tomorrow. I'm sorry that it was probably sort of a waste of time reading that. I do try to be interesting.

- Lizzie