Work is treating me well. After so many years of unemployment, I find myself leaving the house at 9 in the morning, flapping around all day, pausing only for a diet coke/fag/email/chip cob break, then arriving back home at 9 pm, knowing that I have to do it all the next day. In the time that I was not working, when I was sitting on the sofa watching daytime TV, while the mad (now ex) boyfriend sat smoking spliffs and pontificating about the sins of the middle classes, I found that I was prone to procrastination and over-analysis to the point of self indulgence. I found that, without outside stimulation, my brain starting stimulating itself, without anything else to chew on, it began eating itself, chasing its own tail. I saw problems where they didn't exist, or maybe they did exist but they weren't *really* important, were they? My brain needed something outside myself and outside the smoke filled council flat to get its teeth into. Otherwise I'd be left feeling so confused and crackers that I'd feel like I needed to take my brain out and rinse it under the tap. And now I have it. And it's grand. I think. Well, it's tiring and dull and irritating because I'd rather be at home smoking fags and trying out new hair-dos, but at least it's not self-indulgent wallowing. My job is note taking for disabled students at my university, but the loved one says I'm a "learning facilitator". You can see why the loved one is so loved, can't you, saying things like that? This talk of love recently has been interesting. I used to think that love was something that hit you like a flash of lightning, changed your life forever, made you, somehow, something that you weren't. You'd meld with someone and become so much like them that you couldn't breathe unless they were sitting next to you. That no one in the world had ever felt a love like this. Then I threw up on his feet at a Suede gig and he dumped me. Now I think that love is something that creeps up, silently, when you're not looking. When you're walking down the street, debating this pub or that cinema and you look at them and a huge tenderness falls over you and you think "I might be in love with you". And then you kick around together a while longer and it seems silly not to say it, so you do, and then you carry on saying it and saying it makes you as happy as hearing it. And sometimes you finish each others' sentences, but sometimes you don't understand what the hell the other one is on about. And it just feels like the pieces of the jigsaw have finally fit, or not even that, but that you've managed to do the sky and the edges of the jigsaw, and now you can finish the middle bit yourself. Actually, here's the thing that I meant to post about. I was in uni today talking to a girl I had just met and she said "So, what music are you into?" Me: Well, I really like Belle and Sebastian. I went to see them this summer. Her (hysterical laughter): Really? That must have been brilliant! Me: Yes, errrr, it was good. Her: U G L Y, you aint got no alibi! You ugly! Me (baffled): What? Her: Belle and Sebastian? They did that, right? Me: Um, I think that was Daphne and Celeste. Her: Oh yeah..... I don't think I know much about music..... Well, I thought it was funny. Air strikes. Want to say something, but I can't, really. All I know is that the first time I hear someone mention "collateral damage" (they may have done already, I haven't had much chance to watch the news) I will scream and vomit with rage and disbelief. Sorry I've gone on a bit. Love Madeleine xxx PS Shouts out to Sir David Stankin. He gives good email. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+