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.

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

Juno + parents = hypothetical pregnancy awkwardness

Yo.

it's December 23rd today - which makes it Christmas Eve Eve, and I'm off school now for two weeks. Instead of novel editing and rewriting, or doing some much needed physics revision I've spent my time off so far buying last minute Christmas presents.

I just watched the movie Juno (GREAT film) with my mum which turned out to be a mistake, because she's been going through a stage where she confronts me about anything teenage pregnancy related whether it's a story from a friend, an Amanda Palmer song. If I mention one of my friends' boyfriends or anything like that, she'll raise an eyebrow and a little glint appears in her eye. I went out for lunch with her today and made the mistake of bringing up two of my friends who she knows have been in a relationship since about August.
"So who else is dating?" she'll say, all of a sudden patronising and smiley, like she's asking one of the kids in her class what Santa's bringing them for Christmas. "What about you, are you dating?", which I shrug off with a "mhnehh." "No, you're not ready for dating yet," she assures me, which always makes me feel about 12 years old. The worst thing she says is, "So do they snog?"
She's more immature than we are.
But today I decided to come right out with an honest answer instead of being evasive, so when she asked me how soon I'd tell her if I got pregnant now, I said, "I probably wouldn't. I'd go get an abortion sneakily and you'd never know."
She blinked at me. "How would you get an abortion?" she challenged.
"I'd use a fake name. And I could pay for it, there's money in my account and I hope some of my friends would chip in. They care about me."
"So you couldn't tell me?"
"If I needed to. But that's only in an emergency."
And I would: telling her would be inconvenient. She'd want to know who I'd had sex with and then describe him to all of her friends on the phone. In some ways she's more gosspiy than my teenage girl friends.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5VgLOs0LwQ
This is Jonsi, who I came across just a few days ago and I really like so far. Jonsi is an openly gay musician from Iceland, who is blind in one eye and was lead singer of the band Sigur Ros. I was completley surprised today to find that HMV actually had not one but two copies of his album "Go", and Wikipedia defines his music as post-rock, ambient and baroque pop. I bought "Go" (a present from my great-aunt, who always gives me £20 at Christmas to "buy myself something nice), and I'm loving it so far, it's calm and magical and sort of takes me away somewhere.. The track I posted above, "Go Do" is complete beauty. To me it sounds like horses hooves and fields, and something else. It's lighthearted and happy, dances between soft and strong, loud and quiet, peaceful.

Tomorrow I'm singing Christmas songs and playing guitar at something called Plot 13 (that's the place it's at, I call it so because it makes it sound so much more exciting than it really is) in front of fifty or so people. The upside is, they aren't people I know. I'm excited and also nervous, it's probably good for me even though I'm going to have to wake up at 7am on Christmas Eve -> eventual sleep deprivation. It's the holidays but I've been so busy that it looks like I'm still sticking to my school sleeping pattern for the time being.
So I have to go and sleep now, see?

If we don't speak before, or I'm not back here, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

- lizzie