My Mumbling Thoughts

Holy shit, have you guys ever used Clinique's pore minimizer thermal-active skin refiner? Fuck me, this shit is INTENSE. I literally just used it a couple of minutes ago to...well...minimize my pores and all I can say is SHIT. It does the job. I mean, if the "warming sensation" doesn't freak you out, then maybe the slight redness of your face will after you rinse it off and you look like you have mini forest fires happening around some of your pimples. It's SCARY.

But after all of that weirdness, your face - and more importantly - the pores on your face are instantly smaller! Yeah, it's probably classified under "caution: use at your own risk," but I don't really mind. My pores have never looked better!

Okay, that's the end of that little public service announcement. Really, I'm not here to babble on about a beauty product (even though it's freakishly amazing!). I just had to share with y'all, because that stuff is serious.

***

What I am here to babble on about is, um, well, myself. What else! Hello, this is my blog.

Welcome 2009! (well, in roughly 20 hours and 45 minutes). All I'm really going to be doing when that clock strikes midnight is sitting on the floor rocking back 'n' forth with my fingers crossed saying to myself, please, lord, let this year be good. PLEASE. I can't bear for another bad year. 2008 was really bad for the most part and all I'm hoping for is a nice and neat little ending to wrap this chapter up.

I am walking into this with high hopes, though, as I always do. God, when will I wise up and stop hoping for each year to be better than the last one? But no matter what, I always end up thinking to myself, yep, this year is going to be different. I can feel it. Really, I don't feel shit except even more hopeful than the year before. I'm sure I'll get it into my little head one day to stop hoping and just accept that a new year doesn't mean anything really. It's just another day on the calendar and a way for keeping ourselves organized with the dates.

I was having a little browse, though, through some of my old archives (because with me being hopeful, I also get nostalgic) and perused through some of the past new year's that I've shared here on My Mumbling Thoughts. There was one time when I celebrated early and another one that I didn't post, but where I ended up passing out at half ten and waking up on my bathroom floor alone with an empty bottle of vodka in my hand. 'Cos you know, I'm a classy gal like that.

Oh, this shitty holiday.

This year, I'm not going anywhere, I'm not doing anything particularly special or acknowledging it in any way shape or form. Wednesday is Wednesday, just like how it always is, and when I wake up, hey! it's going to be Thursday. Look at that.

I was thinking of going out with Mendy and celebrating with some of her friends, but to be quite honest, I'd much rather sit at home with my fingers crossed and a bottle of wine. I guess that would be considered "acknowledging" this so-called "holiday," but whatever. I never was good with following through anyway.

I did have a laugh looking through some old posts, though. I mean old posts. Old for me, considering my wee blog is only a mere three years old. First of all, I used to ramble! Good lord, I would never shut up! All I did was bitch about this thing in the office, or that thing in the office. Blah, blah, blah, moan, moan, moan. And my writing style wasn't very good either. I was quite boring and who knows how I managed to snag some pretty cool readers (I love y'all!). But I was consistent and wrote pretty much Monday through Friday like a dedicated little bee. I have certainly come far since being an administrative assistant in a power company working for stereotypical archetypes that get turned into sketches for SNL. Now I want to go back to the admin world, but with a little more life experience under my belt and a better understanding of who I am as a person and my voice that I want to project into the world.

Sure, these past two and a half years at university have been a rough ride for me. I know I've blogged about how this sucks, or that sucks, or how goddamned depressed I am one day and how I'm perfectly fine the next. I am a constant, never-ending bouncy ball that hammers through each day completely blind and yet still sees everything in front of me. But it has overall been AMAZING and I wouldn't change one goddamned thing for the whole world. Coming here to university and being surrounded by my uni life has been tremendously helpful (while at the same time being curse since I can NEVER get away from it). I've learned a lot at good 'ol RoeHo about being a writer, myself as a writer and how I want to continue my writing "career" whenever that gets started. My expectations have been put into perspective and while I do think that my degree is a bit of a toss off, it's still challenging and forces writers today to really look at what they're doing and think twice about putting something out there for people to read. So aside from all of my "life issues," being at university has helped me, I think, in more ways than one.

One of my lecturers, Leone Ross, said to a room full of 25 potential and - here's that word again - hopeful writers that about five us will move on to have successful writing careers and get published in some form. The writing industry is more competitive than the music industry and perhaps if we're lucky, one of us might even be the next J.K. Rowling* even though it's highly unlikely. She didn't want to tell us to crush all of our hopes and dreams, but really, c'mon...we're not all going to get published, be successful and live happily ever after. That just doesn't happen in real life.

She did say, though, that there are different alternatives for us all other than aspiring to be the next Big Thing. We can publish short stories in anthologies, work for freelance newspapers and magazines, publish online and still have a successful writing career. It may not always be glitz and glam, but hey, who said we were writing for the big bucks anyway? Those who write solely for money will eventually run out of steam and their lack of passion will end up being their downfall.

I'm excited to see where I'll be in the next three years. If anything, these past three years have been a means to answer some of my very own quesitons I had for myself before I even stepped one foot at university. The girl who once didn't know what she was going to do with her life, now has a better idea and clearer picture of where I want to be in this world and how to get there. I suppose ending each year with a big celebration is fun or necessary for some people. I certainly know what it's like to need closure for some things. But I don't want to stop or pause or put an end to things. I just want to keep going and going until I'm satisfied with where I end up.

* Why is it that J.K. Rowling is always the one person to get compared to whenever being judged on how successful you are? I can't stand it anymore.

Posted by Sam at 04:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

6:05a.m. - Wake up, shower.

6:41a.m. - Eat a bowl of Honey Combs, drink a glass of orange juice, make first cup of tea of the day.

7:02a.m. - Begin to see the morning sunrise. Feel happy to be home and see familiar sunshine.

7:08a.m. - Check facebook. Proceed to facebook stalk for the next ten minutes.

7:18a.m. - Put load of laundry in the washing machine.

7:27a.m. - Tidy room.

7:43a.m. - Decide that this is the perfect time of day.

7:44a.m. - Check facebook.

8:00a.m. - Start cruising iTunes for new music. Folk is definitely my new thing to listen to.

8:51a.m. - Go to the toilet and move soaking wet clothes around in the washing machine because it's off balance.

9:07a.m. - Speak to Elisa from Diary of an Unlikely Housewife on the phone.

9:22a.m. - Move clothes around in the washing machine again.

9:25a.m. - Listen to more music.

9:26a.m. - Check facebook.

9:38a.m. - Open up a new Word document and write down my Chapter Plan for Chapter 1 of Sleep Better Alone.

9:45a.m. - Move clothes around in washing machine again.

9:47a.m. - Go downstairs to make second cup of tea and eat chocolate chip biscuits that Livvi and Katie got for Momma and Mel from Marks&Spencer.

10:00a.m. - Move clothes around in washing machine again.

10:07a.m. - Load Foals CD to Carrie (external hard drive).

10:08a.m. - Notice that it's past ten in the morning and wonder if the clocks are wrong.

10:09a.m. - Realize that the clocks are fine and now realize that I've wasted the entire morning doing fuck all.

10:10a.m. - Check facebook.

10:18a.m. - Move clothes around in washing machine again.

10:22a.m. - Try to buy Blind Pilot from iTunes.

10:22a.m. - Fail. No monies.

10:22a.m. - Check facebook.

10:30a.m. - Pick up pen and finally begin writing.

11:12a.m. - Break for food, another cup of tea and update blog.

11:13a.m. - Forgot about the clothes in the washing machine and get up to move them around once again.

Posted by Sam at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

There is something about this house, about being inside of it when I'm both alone and also when Momma and Mel are here; there's something about it that I get lost in. The first few days I was back all I wanted to do was purge my stories from my fingertips, and yet the longer I stay I sink lower into our living room couch and my memories just as easily fade. And a scary feeling washes over me.

I could live right here, on this couch forever and be perfectly fine with that.

I don't want to move. Do you see how frightening this is? I need to get up. I need to move. For fuck's sake, I need to get out of this goddamn house!

I've been away from all of these comforts for one whole year. That's the longest I've been away from any of my comforts my entire life, which might seem kind of sad and pathetic to some people who have been living away from home and doing everything for themselves for years and years now. But for me, it's pretty damn tiring. I've been living my days in London day after day in Roehampton waiting and looking for something in the city, and not being entirely sure what it is I'm waiting on or what I should be looking out for. So now that I'm back at home I'm sinking quickly back into a life that I remember so well and I've been missing for so many months now.

I remember, oh so many fucking years ago now, when I did the so-called "boring" admin job and lived my "boring" life here in Virginia and wished for something so big, so grand, so much more than what I already had. Out There, there were so many other things that I had yet to discover, to see and learn and experience all for myself. While I was stuck doing my boring 9-5 job, out There is where everything else was happening without me.

So I left. It took me a while, but I managed to eventually peace out, pack my shit up and move over 3,000 miles away from everything that I know and considered familiar. Now look at me, three years later and wishing that I could sit on this couch forever and never have to leave the house ever again. What was so wrong with being right here with Momma and Mel? Why could I never appreciate all the things that I had before I left?

It really is one of those cases of "you never know what you have until it's gone." Well, I've been gone, away, far far away and now I'm ready to come back home. I definitely do not regret one bit my decision to leave, because lord knows I had to go out there and figure some things out for myself. I have met some amazing people and will have these friends that I've met along the way for the rest of my life. I know this. And as much as I love London and our extremely dysfunctional love/hate relationship, I know now that I belong close to home with my family.

With my third year starting to round up and having the end so near to me, people are always asking if I plan on staying after I graduate. Before I came back home I always said that I was undecided, and that if something were to pop up before I left then I might consider it. But this trip back home would be a big factor in that decision. If I was just homesick and needed some time to recharge my batteries before I headed back in for the umpteenth round with London, then three weeks would probably be enough for me. But its only been a week and a half and already I want to dig my heels into the ground and slow time down just a little bit longer. Can't I drag this out a little more please? I know I have a little over two weeks left, but that's just not enough for me.

I know my family needs me right now. Mel has been stressed recently with some of her own problems, and I think Momma is just glad to have someone else to have long conversations with, because Mel isn't really the type to sit and have a heart to heart on any day of the week. It's time for me to come back and recover from this three year stint that I've been on.

Only six more months, though. Really, I think I can manage a little bit longer before I have to come back and be American once again. Besides, my southern accent is back in full swing and I didn't realize how much I'd miss that too.

Posted by Sam at 08:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Since I've been living in London for the most part over the past two and a half years, I've decided to compile a small list of things that I've learned while I've been over there. Yeah, I've learned some life lessons, but there are also some things I've learned about being an American in big 'ol London Town. And when I tell people about them over here, the looks on their faces are hilarious. Things like...

- If you were born in England, then you are English. Do not confuse that with Irish, Welsh or heaven forbid, Scottish. Also, all of the UK is British. England is just English.

- How to properly say the word 'twat'. It rhymes with 'matt' not 'watt'.

- That their 'chavs' are kind of like our trailer park trash or wannabe gangsta's.

- That 'toad in the hole' and 'bangers 'n' mash' are names of dinner meals, not cool drinking games.

- Yorkshire pudding is not a dessert.

- It's okay to have about five tea breaks during the day. Hell, maybe even more if you feel like it. (Tetley tea is my favorite)

- Asda is like Wal-Mart, but with the sales tax already included in the price, so there's none of that guessing about the final price.

- Double decker buses are the shit.

- When talking about 'squash' it probably isn't about the vegetable, but rather a tasty drink.

- Brown sauce is the way forward.

- Throughout all of the UK, fries are generally known as 'chips' except in McDonald's where they are still called fries.

- Football only makes sense to me when I'm in London. After I leave the city, I have no care for it.

- Also, once you pick your football team, you better damn well stick with it, through the good and the bad.

- It's not impossible to take your leftover's home if you're out eating, but you might get some odd looks for taking your leftover's home (unless the place has a takeaway option, like Pizza Hut).

- You cannot trick vending machines, CoinStar, bank tellers or sales folks into taking American coins. I've tried it.

- My favorite word that I've adopted into my own vocabulary that everyone here in Virginia hates is 'innit'.

Posted by Sam at 06:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I cannot write in London: FACT.

There is something about being back home that makes it so much easier to write here. Perhaps it's the fact that it's so quiet and I'm back out in the "country" without any distractions whatsoever. Perhaps it's my strange sleeping pattern that wakes me up well before the sun rises, and I stay up well into the evening with a continuous urge to write. I feel like I want to stand up with my laptop at my feet and shake all of the words off of me and into Bridget. It's always there, this feeling, this very familiar feeling that I have been missing so much in London. I just want to take my Writing Feeling, pick it up, stroke it like a cat, kiss it and whisper in its ear how I've missed it so much.

My story, this "novel" that I was supposed to be working on for the past three months at uni, has been at a complete standstill until now. When I locked myself in my room and tried to force the words out of my fingertips, I'd read back every word and part of me would cringe at the computer screen.

"WHY DID I WRITE THAT?!" I'd scream at myself and then punch myself in the face, because only a loser, shit writer would ever write that ridiculous piece of shit.

But here, at home....things are different. I haven't even been back a week, and already my fingers are taking to the keyboard with a vengeance, and want to make up for so much lost time. I don't bother distracting myself with re-reading over what I wrote, distracting myself with the whole editing process. No. I just write and write, endless paragraphs that probably have a million mistakes, but I needed to get the words out of my system otherwise I might explode.

Oh, it's good to be back.

My story, this novel that is required for me to pass my third year at university, is autobiographical. I won't lie. I can only write about what I know, and what I know is that I've just been through a three year personality transformation and I want to talk about it. Yeah, not everything will be exactly the same (because, good lord, I like to think I'm a lot more creative than that), but those who know me, that know everything, will know the specifics of the story.

When I was in London, though, I couldn't write it, because...well...it's set in London. I'm pretty much still living the story, so to speak, and things change, things are always changing, and after I wrote something, I'd have to change it to incorporate something else, something new, something different, and then that would go on to fuck up the rest of the story. I couldn't focus and I was so frustrated at one point that I wanted to scrap the entire thing and write some kind of stupid story about a girl and her dog.

But at home, I'm away from it all. I'm away from the whole mess of things and have such a clearer picture of everything. I can take more of an "outsider's perspective" on things and write about the girl that used to live over there. I can separate the two people and not get stressed about things changing all of a sudden, because I no longer live there. It's so much easier that way.

So I'm going to take advantage of this time away, this exorcism of words and go ballistic, which is something I've been missing for such a long time. If only my time here at home was a little bit longer.

Posted by Sam at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The plane journey was extra long this time. I think it's because I was just so damn impatient about getting here. In my head all I kept thinking was, "oh, come on! I've done this a million times, let's just get this show on the road already!" I was thinking that, and of course, "please don't let me die on this plane ride and drown in the Atlantic or be eaten alive by sharks." Because that, is one of my worst nightmares about flying. And losing my luggage. Yes. Those two would be my worst nightmares.

I made it all in one piece, though, with both gigantic suitcases (one, which was filled entirely with dirty clothes, because our washer and dryer at the house are the two greatest appliances that we own). We arrived a little bit later than we should have, but it was fine. I made it through customs like the haggard student I am, and almost kissed the officer when he said, "welcome home."

Yes, thank you! I AM HOME.

It's the second full day that I'm back, and I think my body and brain are still trying to catch up with everything around me. I know I'm home. I see I'm home. But it is actually exhausting for me to believe I'm home, if that makes sense. My head hurts when I look around and see all of the changes. To be fair, things haven't changed that much, but it's enough for me to have to sit and process it all. They've moved lots of furniture around. They've gotten rid of old things and replaced them with new, fancier, more high-tech things. I don't know how to work the new TV remotes, but I try not to fuss with the TV too much anyway, because it's all too much for my brain to take in. I can watch Mtv again?! Holy shit, THE TODAY SHOW?!

Yeah, I had to turn it off.

It appears that we've accumulated a lot more stuff as well. Our house is too cluttered and I don't know how or why we've got all of these extra bits and bobs that we don't really need, but it's irritating me to sit in it all. Mel has obviously gone shopping to fill up her time when she's off on Wednesdays, and Momma is too busy to run down to the local Salvation Army to drop off the mountain of boxes and bags that are collecting in random corners of the house. It needs to go. All of it.

Everywhere I look there's something I see that I want to change, that I want to clean or organize and tidy up, because...well, why not? It doesn't really feel like mine anymore, but rather it's Momma and Mel's stuff that they've gotten without me here. I figure if I do something with it, like clean it, or move it or something, then it can be mine too.

Aside from the house being different from the past year, it's good to be home. I have forgotten a lot about being back, and some little habits of mine I've discovered never change despite that I've been away. One thing that's still taking some time to get used to, though, is the silence. It's so quiet here and I've found that I always need something on in the background just so it doesn't feel like I'm in some kind of self-contained quarantine building. The silence is deafening and actually hurts the top of my head. I sometimes think that I might explode it's so quiet. Where are the people? Where's the sound of traffic outside? Airplanes? Birds? ANYTHING?

I'm going to have to take things one day at a time. Now that I'm here I feel like I should be doing something every minute, because I'm on a countdown. I haven't actually relaxed yet, or chilled out or took some time to just sit and be, because I'm always up and looking around to find something to do. I'll just chill out, though, take a second and slowly work my way through the house, re-acquainting myself with each part one day at a time. I don't have to do everything in one go. I can't wait to see what else I find or discover while I'm sifting through it all.

Posted by Sam at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I walk around outside these days, I'm no longer part of my body; I'm not myself. I am simply just a means of transportation to get from one place to another. The rubber on the bottom of my faux Vans are the wheels, and through the soles of my shoes I can feel the cold from the sidewalk seep through my socks and begin to freeze my feet. My hands are the cup holders that transfer my cup of tea from one fingerless glove to the other. My glasses are the windshield that occasionally fog up whenever I exhale. My iPod, the radio. And my legs, constantly moving, walking, going without stopping until finally I reach the front doors of the clinic and I can step inside and begin the semi-painful process of thawing out like a human block of ice.

I cannot wait until it's time for me to go home. The closer I get to the 16th of December, the more excited I get and become all jumpy like a terrier on speed. Even though I have a full schedule from now until that plane leaves the ground, all I want to do is lay in bed and sleep until I have to leave for the airport. But, my suitcases will not pack themselves. My dishes will not wash themselves. Money (as I definitely know these days) will not magically appear in my bank account. I do have to do things before I can spend three blissful weeks back home in the comfort of Virginia and Momma's cooking.

Uni is cold and dead to me. London is cold and dead to me. I definitely have the winter time blues and am so impatient to go into hibernation mode. I cannot wait until I can flop down onto my full bed with the pillow-top mattress, catch up on my American TV shows and just relax back at home. I hear the Christmas songs, I see the Christmas adverts and eat the chocolate out of my Barbie advent calendar, but it won't officially be Christmas for me until I watch A Charlie Brown Christmas with Momma, or listen to Mel try and guess what all of the gifts are under the tree. The closer I get to actually being at home, the more vivid my memories become as well. For some reason I can remember our wooden floors, and what it's like to shower in a proper tub, rather than a basin down on the floor.

2008 has been dreadful. This entire year, overall, has been one big pile of shit. True, there have been some good times, and I'm nowhere as depressed as I have been round this time of year, but I'm hoping for 2009 to kick this year's ass. Never in my life have I gone through so many different emotional upheavals and have had so many different arguments, fights and fall-outs. Third year of uni is almost finished, and all I can say is, thank fuck. I'm exhausted! Do you know what it's like being constantly poor? Or having people let you down time and time again? Or always feeling like you work and work but never get anywhere? 2008 was just that for me.

I thought that getting a job would make me feel instantly better, and while it has given me something to do during the day other than sit around and feel sorry for myself, I'm not entirely happy. No matter how hard I try to budget and save and keep an eye on my finances, things are always coming up that require me to shell out more cash for one reason or another. My time has been slashed in half, I'm always tired and spending most of my time traveling to places that I don't want to go to. I can't seem to really catch up with myself and it's exhausting.

Not only that, the dynamics of university life are completely different for me this year. Everything is different. Zoe's not here, Helen's not here, Alex is always busy with something and our entire little "group" has disintegrated. When I sit back and think about everything that has happened over the past couple of years, I can't help but think that a good reason why our group is no longer together, is because of me. I seem to be at the center of all of the major fall-outs, and because of me things are awkward whenever I go out to a uni event and see someone that I don't necessarily get on with anymore. The weird vibe is constantly there and while I sit alone with my drink, I look around at all of the other groups that have survived these past years at The Roe, and wonder how they managed to stick together. Am I that difficult? Am I that unreasonable? Am I the reason that LB400/18 Ramsdean are no longer close knit?

I was talking to Livvi about it the other night, and about how reflective I've been recently about certain things. I was proper beating myself up, because while I don't accept all of the blame for why I no longer speak to certain people, I do feel partly responsible for the weirdness that lingers whenever a group of us will go out. I can't seem to forgive and forget. I am incapable of sitting people down and telling them how I feel in a calm manner and instead completely write them off as being dick-heads that I no longer want to deal with. Entire relationships I will turn my back on in one swift instance and just like that, I'm one friend down. We are no more. They no longer exist.

I do have my reasons, though, and they aren't stupid little reasons like, "oh, she didn't return a shirt of mine that I let her borrow." They are true, deep reasons that are usually bothering me and fester for long periods of time until I lose my shit over something completely unrelated, i.e. a text message or pie dishes (you don't want to know). And just like that, I'm done.

Momma hasn't spoken to her own mother in over ten years. She hasn't spoken to one of her sister in over twenty years. She also hasn't spoken to our father, one of her best friends and another sister. Once you piss Momma off, that's it. You don't get anymore chances. She always tells me that I shouldn't have to put up with people that give you a legitimate reason to be fucked off with them. It's true, people do squabble and have fights, but in the end, why should I have to deal with people that have screwed me over?

Her answer? I don't. Don't deal with them. It's not worth it to waste your time on someone who doesn't care or won't bother to try and make things right.

But then I got to thinking, whenever I've done something in the past that hasn't been an amazing shining moment, I want people to be able to forgive me for the wrong that I've done. I can think of two instances with Helen in particular where I didn't deserve the World's Greatest Friend Award, but still asked for forgiveness. And she did. And we're fine now. All has been forgotten and I do believe that our friendship is better for it.

It's a bit hypocritical of me to want people to forgive me whenever I've done something wrong, but I can't forgive them whenever they've made a mistake. Like I said not even a couple of months ago, nobody is perfect. Don't we all deserve a second chance? At least once?

I want to be able to forgive. I want to be able to trust and be completely honest and talk calmly to people about my irritations with them. But it's hard for me. Thinking about it actually makes me want to cry. I don't want to hang out with people that have hurt me, but at the same time, I don't want to completely shut others out as well.

I know that things will never be like they once were. I have got to stop trying to re-live my first year. I need to leap out of the past and spring far into my future. I'm behind. All of this time that I spend clinging onto things that have been bothering me so long ago, has been wasting precious time, yet I can't seem to shake. It has only just been recently that I've been able to forgive myself for what I did to Ash at the beginning of my first year, and finally lay that to rest. When will I be able to get over the other things? Santos? Carlene? Even Fiona and now Trish? Why can't I just let it go? Even if things are never the same like how they once were, surely I can at least be able to go out and have a civil conversation?

That is quite possibly one of the scariest thoughts for me.

Once I step on that plane, 2008 is over for me. I know I don't ever set resolutions, (because I generally can never stick to them), but I want 2009 to be a year of forgiveness. I want to be able to get past this clog that has been holding me back. And I want the last few months I spend in London to be filled with happiness like the other groups in the bar; not awkward tension that leaves me sitting bitter and alone in a bar that I once used to call my own.

Posted by Sam at 09:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)