Well that's how it feels. I suddenly realised how little time there is left for all the usual gift getting and started to hyperventillate when I realised that with the unexpected tax bill I'll be managing on £20 a week BEFORE festive expenses. This is not good. I've messaged my closest friends and family of the same age to see if we can make a Yule pact to see each other and enjoy the season that way rather than exchange gifts. I hope they don't think I'm stingy - I also hope they don't agree and then buy something anyway. It's funny because that is exactly what I would have done when I didn't have to worry about money. Now it just feels like the most humiliating thing anyone could ever do to you. I really don't normally mind the lack of disposable income. In fact, in many ways, I like my life so much better these days. Money really isn't terribly important to me. In general I'd rather read a good series of books than go on holiday, it's just at times like Christmas it gets horribly hard.

Anyway, my practical streak is very much in place and I have finally sucumbed and put my collectable Barbie dolls on Ebay. All my DVD's and a good number of my books are on Amazon and I'm seriously going through  my jewellery working out what is saleable. The tax man needs his pennies by the end of January and I will not disappoint him! I have drawn the line at parting with one of my laptops...for the moment. We'll see how much the dolls and other stuff raise before I scrape the bottom of that particular barrell. I do love my technology.

I'm off to Norwich this evening. It's going to be a slightly different type of weekend than the one I had planned. My cousin has double booked himself this weekend so won't be taking me out to see the band on Saturday night. I am going to have to go alone. It will be the first time I've socialised with his friends (I still feel strange calling them my friends) without him there. I'm guessing I'll find out if they actually ARE my friends or if I feel like a spare part.... I guess I'll know by Sunday. Eek!

Right better go as am at work and have just been given a task...

Well the fun of last weeks break in routine is most definately over and I'm back to the somewhat dreary 9-5. I feel a bit odd. There is the usual 'coming down' that i always go through after show week, but there is also a sort of frenzied frustration with the way I can't really start organising the move yet. Yet on the other hand the bits I could sort, should I be so inclined, such as updating my CV, selling DVD's and other unwanted items on Amazon to raise funds and clear clutter somehow aren't being done. Instead I am retreating into a little bubble consisting of books, downloaded TV shows and porn. Oh and junk food. I suppose after a busy period I just want to chill and not think about too much...except part of me is sort of bored. I need things to plan and look forward to. So with that in mind I have sorted another trip to Norwich and a girls dinner out and an evening with NG over the next 2 weeks. Of course I have the GBSex II trip to Manchester this month as well. The funny thing is people seem to think that I have a very active social life and am always out. I feel like a couch potato! Well a bed potato..I don't actually have a couch.

Ooh! That brings me ontp my other favourite mental distraction...Bedsit decoration in Norwich. Unless the place is furnished I have decided not to have a sofa....Instead I plan to offer guests bean bags and cushions. Yes I am about 12. Actually it depends on where my TV / computer go...Oh the delicious choices that run thorugh my head! You can see that the degree to which I am enjoying the mental decorating is in direct reverse proprtion to the amount of work I am ACTUALLY doing to achieve the move. Hmph.

On my next Norwich trip I'm going to try and get some meetings sorted with recruitment agencies. Get my (by then) updated CV to them and let them have a chat with me. At least I'll be doing something more practical than wool gathering.

I'm reading the Twilight series of books again at the moment. I wanted to re-read the Sookie novels from the beginning as I think I've probably missed a lot of detail in reading them so fast, but I've already lent the first 4 books to a friend so I can't. Anyway, someone sent me a 'Star Wars Episode II in 5 seconds' You Tube clip....after watching it i saw several others in a similar vein...including Twilight in 5 secs, which i watched and it was funny - but I didn't remember the clips from the movie at all so I decided to rewatch it....and then the movie didn't have all the lot elements i recalled - so I started re-reading the books to see if I was misremembering the nuances...I wasn't....and am once again embarrisingly engrossssed by books I know to be essentially written for 14 year old girls. *sigh* I guess there's a 14 year old girl still lurking inside most women and i'm no exception....except after all the junk food last week and this I kind of look a bit like I ate mine!

I have just read the above lines giving my justification for re-reading Twilight. I think I might be trying to hard to convince myself that there is a rational adult reason for picking them up again. Epic FAIL on that.

Right better get some work done. I am being a bit useless and woolley today. Ho hum. The sun is out and I am cheerful and not at all in the mood for computers....

How life gets away from you sometimes. I write a big ole update the other night after dress rehearsal and managed to delete it by accident before posting. Perhaps I should learn from past experience and not post after a cheeky beer or two. Well the show goes pretty well but the after hours too-ings and fro-ings are far more interesting to watch unfold. For once, however they don't involve me. I am torn between feeling superior and old. Ho hum. Well not that old....

Actually it's kind of nice to see people feeling their way through new beginnings. Even if it does take some of the groups eye candy off the market!

Tonight I find myself finally crashing at four something in the morning in someone elses bed. I dread to think of the state I will be in tomorrow. Beer wine and gin are sure to make for a bad morning. The bed is uber comfy though so I'm not worrying about the morning right now.

Anyhoo better attempt at least a little sleep.

Blessed be

X


-- From the iPhone of Technominx

Some days you just need to write.

Not because, you're sad and need to emote, or angry and need to vent, or happy and want to share your joy with anyone willing to listen, but just to write for it's own sake. It helps if you have something specific to say. But I don't. Then again I'm not doing this for anyone but me - even though the whole 'lets put my diary on the internet' thing might make it seem otherwise!

Insert smiley face.

See Not even feeling emoticons today - just words. Perhaps it's because I've been reading a lot lately. I'm not quite sure where the time has been aquired from, but I've managed to create enough time from somewhere to get through several books at the average rate of about 2 every three days. I know I know..I'm working 7 day weeks and reading more than I have in years. I'm way behind on TV shows obviously!

I am a regular reader of Wil Wheatons blog. I finally made the decision to part with some of my hard earned cash and buy copies of his books. I already had 'Dancing Barefoot' which I hadn't read, but have now got Just a Geek, with Sunken Treasure and his new book Memories of the Future Volume 1 on order from Lulu. Hopefully they'll be here soon.

I've been looking forward to Memories of the Future for a while. Wil has been Podcasting excepts from the book and generally reminiscing on the subject matter for a few weeks now. He's quite the accidental salesman. I really love his writing style. It's evocative and descriptive while still feeling like modern, natural language. I bet it reads great out loud, but I no longer have anyone to read to. It's funny I didn't read much to G other than childrens stories, and even then not that often, but I really do love reading aloud. Maybe it's why my collection of audio books is on the rise and why the only BBC I-Player channel I use with any regularity is BBC Radio7 which had lots of the plays and stories.

As well as obsessing about all things Wil Weaton, I'm also reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris. I'm loving them. In fact I'm loving them so much I've had to slow down so they last a bit longer. How sad is that? I just want to zoom thorough the last 2 stories, but am refusing to let myself...in fact I'm debating re-reading everything up to this point just to create suspense....except I know I don't actually have the self discipline to do that. I am but a weak woman don't cha know...

Or not.

I would go with the not if you ever want me to play nicely with you again...

There have been several thoughts percollating like good coffee in my head over the last week. I'm not quite sure if they're fully brewed yet, but I suspect that going over them here will help the process.

I know I'm not totally 'fixed' after the whole marriage ending extravaganza - that it's all a very long term work in progress. But I am functioning on pretty normal level these days...well as normal as I ever am...hmmm I now want to digress into a "What is normal?" ramble but it'll have to wait...

Sorry where was I? Oh yes..fixed...sort of... Well what I was thinking about was how many people have contributed to the healing process who don't even know it. Frankly how many people have contributed to the healing process who don't even know me!

Most of these are connected to me via this blog or other bloggers. When this blog was exclusively on Xanga I came across a highly read blogger known as The Loquacious Lady from Lousiana. She was married and settled raising her adopted and step children, pregnant with her own first child. She is a deeply spiritual woman of the Catholic faith. Her blog gave comfort and wisdom and helped restore my own faith, which is far from the Catholic one. We are very different women, but as she talked about a rape in her younger years and other aspects of her life, she gave me courage and strength and passion and fire and grit that I had forgotten how to raise from inside by myself. Then her husband walked out on her and each day I still see her magnificent strength and it makes me bold and confident in my own ability to survive. We are woman. We can deal with anything. We just probably won't mention that we're doing it so you might not notice. Or maybe, just maybe, you'll read our blogs and hear us roar.

Another blogger that has helped me mend is the aforementioned Wil Wheaton. Now this is a man who really has no idea I exist. Jess (the Loquacious Lady) and I have at least had a little dialog at a couple of points along the way. Wils blog is usually funny, always well written, and like mine is almost always just about life. In his case it's a pretty geeky life, but that's good. I like reading something where i understand the references. I have a couple of extremely well read and intellegent friends who can often lose me with their lit refs. I can handle MMORPG refs just fine. So thank you Mr Wil Wheaton for being so lovely, and honest and real. I live in London and those three qualities are often pretty absent from my life.

There were a couple of people who I didn't even know read my blog - actually I didn't know anyone really read my blog until afetr the seperation when I got a small bundle of messages from people saying they were sorry I was having a shitty time etc and they wished me well and happier moments etc. It was amazing to think that even if it was just for the few moments it took to post me a comment or write me a message people from the other side of the globe who I'd never heard of were thinking of me and wishing me less pain. It restored a little bit of my faith in the general goodness of human nature. I needed all the happies I could get in the early days and believe me I grabbed them wherever I could find them.

IRL there was the boy who stood outside in the freezing cold with me on so many occasions, smoking too many cigarettes and just letting me ramble on about how fine I really was when I REALLY wasn't. Who made me realise that there could be friends and lovers after G. That life didn't have to be over.

Marvellous Mel who when I asked her how long it was before she felt OK again after her split with her long term boyfriend lied and told me a year, because she knew I couldn't handle the truth. Who then commenced to be on the phone for me every time I melted down and needed to be called Moomin while I cried.

F who gave me a home when I didn't have one. Who, I suspect, saved my life and continues to tell me that I'm doing marvellously and am way ahead of schedule on the healing curve. I still can't believe that this amazing woman took me into her home and her life when were were not that much more than salsa friends. I know I drove her crazy at first, but we settled into things and now I would seriously think about doing permenant damage to anyone who hurt her.

SJ who could somewhow get  into G's head and talk me through the other side of the equation. She helped me understand where all the crap errupted from. She has helped me move twice and keeps me rooted by being my remaining family in London.

My Mum and Dad who rushed to London to see me and stood with their arms around me in a family huddle in a hotel room at Tower Bridge and who told me that they knew it was going to be bad sometimes but when it got bad and I was alone, to remember that evening and them with their arms around me telling me they loved me and were always there, and that I wasn't ever alone. Mum and Dad who have not once mentioned to me that they too miss G. That they lost a family member too. Although I know it to be true. Mum and Dad who accepted me leaving my good job to go it alone without a blink to my face and worried in private, who continue to support my determined but somewhat impulsive plan to move to Norwich though they'd prefer me to come home to Nottingham. MY Mum, MY Dad. The best people ever to have been made parents.

Woh, I didn't expect to talk about this really. But that's what happens when thoughts are allowed to percollate on 'paper' rather than in my head.

If I ever have a happy ending maybe I'll write a book.

Maybe.

Proabably not. I suspect my idea of a happy ending wouldn't be very satisfying for most people.

I don't actually feel that far away from it right now to be honest. A quiet home. A computer, internet access, food in the fridge and a selection of books. Not sure what else you need to be content really.

Except from time to time a good cry.

Blessed Be
 

I am a very tipsy girly. Have spent the evening at F's for her bday celebrations and am riotously drunk. Assuming that is how you would spell it. Can't wax lyrical, need to crash. So good night and blessed be.


-- From the iPhone of Technominx