Blonde

Blonde
Originally uploaded by louisemills.

Never Enough

I wield the remote control like a weapon
And the screen goes blank and the world fades
Reduced to the austerity of a bleak black
Desert landscape in which bombs have been tested
Memories vaporised, reduced to nothingness
Those long afternoons of childhood are lost

Dry shimmering light dissipates and stars appear
And I worship them. They represent my voice
My multitudes of words. Marks of ink
On pale paper. They compensate for my sallow eyes
And broken wings and I am destroyed
By the solidity, by the magnitude of things

I pace the floor. I tried to fly
I tried to bid the earth goodbye
By I am bound to this planet by gravity
Words are not enough. They will never be enough
To liberate me…

Get Out of My Head

The situation with Royal and Sun Alliance is going round and round in my head. Their smug, complacent voices echo through my mind. There is a public information broadcast that is aired on the radio almost every night: 'A fire doesn't have to kill you to take your life.' I know exactly what they mean and the fire wasn't even in my flat. Tomorrow I will march into Lloyds Bank where I purchased the insurance. I will also ring my housing officer (who has been pretty darned useless thus far) and request emergency insurance. Banks and big business, it seems, are all-powerful and the law appears to be on their side. They're prevaricating because they believe I will give up.

Well, they couldn't be more wrong.

The Free Press

The Free Press
Originally uploaded by Marie1973.

A none-smoking Pub

Blitz

A city on fire
And I know, I know
I must get home
And all those books
Burning, burning

And the air raid sirens wail
And wail and wail
He gave his life to
Protect those books
Attacked by incendiaries
And high explosives

That dark cloud spreading
Across the sky and then the air
Is brimming over with light
And those bombs are let loose
And they fall, they fall

Another wave
Guided by fires already lit,
Beacons to their brothers
And paper burns, paper burns
Precious paper burns
And the train stops
It stops, it stops

We are at the heart
Of this conflagration
While American correspondents
In expensive hotels
Raise their glasses and say,
'The show must go on.'

Medication and Writer's Block

I have been afflicted by overwhelming writer's block. I am now on four different types of medication: a neuroleptic- Zyprexa, an SSRI- Venlafaxine, a hypnotic- Zolpidem and my faithful friend: Valium. Mother's Little Helper. 'Pumped up with valium. Will you give me some'. Suede. This is probably contributing to my inability to write. Barrenness in my head. My useless dead brain. Is it dead or merely sleeping. I sincerely hope so. And, no, I don't rattle when I walk.

A little bit of politics, for a change. The case of George Galloway. I don't have much sympathy with his political stance. The way he toadied to Saddam Hussein and his murderous regime was quite nauseating. 'Sir, I salute your courage, your indefatigability.' I bet he regrets that line. It almost constituted treason in my very humble opinion. However, the vindictive manner in which he is being treated by the US Senate just because he embarrassed them is quite worrying.

Leave our Village Idiot alone. He may be an idiot but he's our idiot. What is it they say about absolute power corrupting absolutely?

Theo

Theo
Originally uploaded by Bella the Cat.

The Return

Returning
From a war
That seemed to last
A thousand years
And there is nothing left
Nothing left but debris
And then of course
There is me

Beaten
And battle-scarred
With no identity
And my destiny
Has been stolen from me
Grounded once more
And this house
That stands before me

A picture
Of neglect and desolation
A neglected garden
With its old, gnarled oak
Colonised by rats
Their imperial paradise
Our very own
Occupying army

This house
Is empty and there
Is no one here to greet me
Only the rats
In their newly formed colony
Waging a miniature war
Of their own.

Procrastination

I was supposed to go to church with D who is a Catholic convert and, as we all know, they are much more zealous than 'cradle Catholics'. Which was why I was disappointed when he rang and cancelled at the last minute. Catholicism still holds some attraction to me, it reminds me of childhood comforts. Yes, I know that's not its purpose. I think most people 'cherry pick' when it comes to religion. I know very few people who follow their religion precisely. The only people who seem to have a problem with my 'take what you need and leave the rest' approach are what I call 'militant atheists'. We didn't meet up for our daily pub crawl yesterday either. My liver is profoundly grateful.

I have yet to go to the Citizens' Advice Bureau about my issues with Royal and Sun Alliance. I have sent an email to their Complaints Department and, as yet, I have not received a response. People keep telling me not to give up but all they can offer is moral support. I have also not received the promised report on my neighbour from hell upstairs. That fire really did disrupt my life and I need to resolve it before I can move on.

Awakening

Awakening, to see pigeons perched on my windowsill
They have invaded, taken possession
They rouse me with twittering and the occasional shriek
The morning sun illuminates my eastward facing room
The bed before me graced with pale blue flowers
My head is twisted and confused
This heat makes me long for rain
For soft boots crunching upon winter snow
Or carving a path through autumn leaves
Or anchored down by a oppressive breeze

What ghost decided to desecrate my room?
What phantom decided to embed itself in the stone?
Each night something sinister stalks me
They come in pairs, one on each side
Captured by the blink of an eye
A flash of colour, a hint of a sigh
As midnight storm-sirens wail
And roof tiles clatter to the ground
And neighbours gather to gossip
Their boots crunching on gravel

Such a Small Act...

Rosa Parks is dead - she is the woman who was responsible for the birth of the civil rights movement in the deep south of the U.S. when she refused to give her seat up to a white man and move to the back of the bus. Such a small act but with such significant consequences. A fork in the road of history. What was that all about anyway? What did white Southerners think should happen to them if they drank at the same water fountain as someone with a different skin pigmentation?

More insanity - leave Cherie Blair alone. Personally, I am completely indifferent to the woman because she is not an elected representative. Did the media pursue Dennis Thatcher in the fashion? Absolutely not. But then he was not born to be chained to the kitchen sink.

Nostalgia Bites

Nineteen twenty-nine and the Great Depression
But my eyes are misted over with nostalgia
The decades have digested the hunger and the sorrow
And my past is a Utopia and you sit with me
Undoing that complicated cat’s cradle that are
The stories I tell you. My history, for they are
Permissible lies. A kind of comfort blanket
I wrap around myself. A land in which I was Queen
And I always played the role of heroine. Perpetually
At the centre of my own epic tales
And I despise

The pity in your eyes
That disbelieving smile playing around your lips
Why did you come? Why are you here?
I remember explosions, muffled by time,
Remote now, clattering deep within my head
Embedded, the pulsating ground rose up to greet me
Carnage without agony. Numbed now, I no longer feel
That venom toward the enemy. For every village
Has been wiped off the map. And death’s discharge
Is so distant now. And I wonder if it was
Really me who witness all those atrocities
And I wonder if they really happened

And your eyes
Those disbelieving eyes, cannot help me now
I am ancient and incapable. How could I
Have ever been young. And time ticks by
You have accepted the inevitability of my demise
And you wince and you turn away from the thought
That someday it will be you who will be sitting
Where I am sitting now, wondering
If I was ever really here at all.

Misconceptions

I am boiling over with frustration at the misconceptions and down right ignorant comments made about my city. (Birmingham). It is the UK's second city and my hometown and I feel the need to apologise for this. Perhaps I should go back and fix things. Perhaps my very presence there made things stable.

I had a rather interesting conversation with a work colleague who said she resented the fact that families with children got tax credit and because she was married and childless, she was denied these perks. Strangely, although I have no children and have no intention of ever having any, I don't resent this. Surely, as that rather nauseating song says 'the children are our future'? But perhaps that's only certain children, from certain backgrounds, from a certain, dare I say, class?

Speaking of class, over to my favourite forum: 'Snobs Reunited' (not its real name) a young woman whose screenname is that of a classic Russian novel stated that she couldn't bring herself to become involved in a relationship with someone who is relatively less intelligent than herself. I asked what her definition of intelligence was and, of course, I got the standard 'Why three grade As at A'level, of course.' Oh, dear, ever heard of grade inflation, sweetie? That might explain her own results. Seriously though, that forum has a multitude of members who claim to be straight A students and yet their grammar, spelling and punctuation are atrocious. This young woman also fails to take into account the impact personal circumstances can have on one's academic performance - illness, abuse, alienation. The most intelligent, engaging, charming young woman I have ever met was inpatient with me and didn't have an A'level to her name. She had been sexually abused and had developed a serious eating disorder at the age of fourteen. Sadly, she is no longer a resident on this wonderful planet of ours.

Finally, a message to Royal and Sun Alliance: I will not give up.

Colouring the Night Bright

We make the night bright
With stones and bricks and Molotov cocktails
We are the casualties of peace
Who long to live
In troubled regions

We are the moving dead
And we push against the thrust
Of authority. It is the thing
That gives our lives
Some meaning

We are born warriors
With no war to fight and peace
Is not good enough for us
We stand in crooked lines
And wait

For the battle to begin
And the dry heat of the fires
From the little war we started
Illuminates the frigid
Winter night

Birmingham Is a City Not a Village

This is something I've needed to get off my chest all day. So much so I shall break a cardinal rule and type this in all caps: BIRMINGHAM IS A CITY, NOT A VILLAGE. In fact, like London, it is divided into numerous districts or suburbs. Kensington is not judged on the basis of what happens in say, Brixton so why should Rednal be judged on the basis of what happens in Aston? I have been asking this question all day. 'How are your parents? They're in Birmingham? And you've had riots there haven't you?'

Bashes head against wall. They live so far away from the area in which these riots are occurring that they may as well be living on another planet. So, people, I appreciate your concern but go and get yourselves a geography lesson. Okay?

One more thing: Does anyone have any tips on dealing with old and cranky cats?

Butterfly, Butterfly

The Landlady

Limes, lemons, peaches and pickles
Stand on the shelves of my skinflint landlady’s larder
Rounded, corpulent. There is meat on those bones
But a granite heart beats within
Cold as the iced-over mill pond

And in my cobwebbed attic room
Hunger pursues me by night and by day
Menacing, predatory, preparing to pounce
And I gaze out at the slate-grey rooftops
I will not dine tonight

I hear the dinner guests gathering, gossiping,
I hear the crunch of their boots on gravel
And the stench of hotpot floats up the stairs
I hear her carry the pot to the table
Heavy footed.

They sit down to eat. And minute by minute
I waste away. Starvation is a slow
And agonising process. A great colossus
Pressing me to the ground
As I walk alone.

'She is a peculiar girl!'
Their voices rising, rising
And I will not sit at her table
I will not partake of her feast
Instead I sleep

And sleep and sleep...…

Frustration

This radio station must be the most frustrating in the history of this planet. And yet it is strangely adductive. The current presenter - Mike Dickin - whose tone resembles that of a curmudgeonly grandfather. He cannot understand why Saddam Hussein was not shot on sight and was instead captured. 'They'd already decided he was guilty,' he said. 'So why wasn't he summarily executed?' He went on to allege that this was a mere show trial which will be of no value. I e-mailed him to remind him that when the Allies captured Himmler at the end of the Second World War they did their best to revive him after he had taken a cyanide pill. Naturally, I did not receive a response - presumably because I did not preface my email with a load of sycophantic nonsense about how great his show is. I wonder if Dickin feels that the Nuremberg Trials were show trials. And what of the trial of Eichmann? I read a fascinating autobiography when I went home for Christmas - that of Peter Z. Malkin - a Mossad Agent who took part in the capture of Eichmann in 1960 - Eichmann In My Hands - in which he recounted an episode in which he had a conversation with a fellow agent who said: 'Why are we bothering with this? We could shoot him right now.' Malkin responded: 'Because we are not like him.' For the Israelis and his victims the trial was a cathartic process. I think parallels can be drawn with the current legal processes surrounding Saddam Hussein.

Although I was born on the Isle of Wight, I was raised in Birmingham. I cannot ascertain exactly what has happened tonight. Apparently, there have been riots on the street. Further investigation reveals that it is in an area I am ashamed to say I have never even set foot in. Strangely I've never noticed how segregated Birmingham is, in terms of race and class. And, of course, there was a kind of selfish relief that it occurred far away from the areas in which my parents live. Birmingham is not treated like the sprawling metropolis it is. It is the UK's second city - almost as big as London. In comparison, Cambridge is a village - which is probably why I love it so much.

Wondering

Waltzing Round the Edge of the World

I am one, in the midst of this global sprawl
On these long summer days, bereft of rain
Listening to the lies broadcast over the radio

About some distant war in some far off land
Between peoples I can never hope to understand
Rocking back and forth, protected, sheltered

Or maybe imprisoned within these magnolia-
Coated walls. And outside the cats they call
How those Toms yowl! How those Queens howl!

And that tower of lies collapses in on itself
And I rise from my chair and I dance,
Waltzing around the edge of the world.

Dead Comrades

Remembrance Day is approaching. This is always a difficult time for Doug. Out of fifty men in his Special Services reconnaissance Commando Unit, only half a dozen survived. Doug himself only survived because he was recalled to England before his comrades. The war took Doug halfway round the world - to North Africa, to what was then known as Palestine, to Sicily and Southern Italy. He met and married his wife a few months after his return to England and they went on have four children. He never went abroad again. 'I rather lost my appetite for travelling,' he said. Needless to say he is not the usual dependable, cheerful Doug. His wartime experiences invade his every thought and the ghosts of his dead comrades visit him in dreams.

I can't do anything to stop this. I can only listen.

This illustrates how, when it comes to dealing with cruelty to animals, the law is pitifully inadequate. Don't look if you're squeamish. My initial reaction was: 'Give me five minutes in a room with one of those people, accompanied by a clawhammer'. Okay, not very civilised, I admit. I just want to know why. I don't understand and I'm not sure I want to.

In the meantime, my hometown - Birmingham (England, not Alabama) has been voted the most miserable city in the UK. I can't say I'm surprised. That city went downhill without the benefit of my presence. ;-)

Two Girls

Seafarer

I am a seasoned seafarer
And I stalk the decks
Of this great ship
As it surges through
Froth topped waves

And I feel
Some watery spirit
Eyeing me, stalking me
Someone who drowned
When a vessel was dragged down

Into the blue-green garden
Beneath my feet
And my eye
Like a camera shutter
Snaps its black shadow

Storm-struck,
and whipped by the wind
I am wild
I have summoned up the dead
I have sinned.

Political Agnosticism

Did I ever tell you that I was a political agnostic?
This should be preceded a sharp intake of breath. And people will turn and look at you in shock when you utter these words, uncertain of how to respond. I think I identified this condition in a previous entry: polarisation complex. Left or right - you have to align yourself to one end of the political spectrum or there is something missing from your world, a yawning gap in your personality. And that's one less insult they can throw at you: you are neither from the loony left or the rabid right. Sorry sweetie, I have distanced myself from the whole process. I'll go outside and shoot myself. I won't jump on the 'Bash Bush Bandwagon' but neither will I jump onto the 'Liberal? I ain't no stinking Liberal' bandwagon. (Although I am - according to the OED definition of the word). And given the amount of red wine I have consumed tonight, perhaps that's a good idea. I'd probably fall off.
And besides, they probably wouldn't want me on their bandwagon anyway. 'Hey you, get off a my bandwagon.'

Bleeding Dew

Dark green leaves bleed dew
Onto the flat, neat green lawn
The sword is pointed at my back
Unsheathed and the globe is a realm
Of endless connections and my face
Is a mask of blue ice. Cold,
So cold. There is a glacier between us
On the morning of your departure
And those eyes of venom
They spit at me

Quintessentially middle class
I chatter while the unenlightened masses
Breed and we indulge our greed
And we pass and we hiss
At those beggars on our doorstep
And you are one of them
But we will not let you in
And I suffocate in the sickening,
Thickening violet stench
And this was my sin

I dreamt I knew, I dreamt I grew
But I remained dwarf-like
I did not resist, I did not insist
I stayed in place
I failed to tear
This mask from my face
And you no longer lie in wait
And I am a caricature
Of what I was meant to be
Destined never to be free

Bella: A Tribute

Mein Katz: - composed of fur and blood and bone. Mortal. Old. Liquid eyes staring at me. She will not be with me forever. I always had this insane notion that she was a physical manifestation of the baby my mother aborted when I was nineteen, having risen like a phoenix from whatever deep, dark place in which she was imprisoned. And then she turned up one day, unexpectedly, on my door step. Insanity? Maybe. I have always been terrified that she would desert me but she never has. She has always remained faithful. A friend to me but not to the wounded birds she drags home as gifts for me. And I am forced to feign gratitude. She touched a heart that remained untouched for years. She broke through the layers of ice in which I had sought refuge. She seems to understand me than any member of my own species. I don't want to let her go. But I may have to.

Last Sunflower

The Grin of Midwinter

The grin of midwinter slaughters me
And despondency drifts
Through my arteries, my cherished one
I hear the sound of my blood pumping, it resounds

Words exit like kisses from my mouth
And in my mind morality abounds, cleansed,
Purified, discrepancies identified. Emerging
From a steel heart. Making dresses, making coats

Catering for a dynasty
And my lips open and shut
Jewelled perfection with well-oiled hinges
But at my core is chaos
And my eyes are flashing.

Media Hysteria?

I see the media (or certain parts of it) are having great fun whipping people into a frenzy about Avian flu. And, as always, we are responding to this media hysteria like Pavlov's dogs, salivating over every headline. Yes, you've got it I am not over my addiction to Talksport. It's useful for those endless insomnia filled nights and, yes, I know there are more useful things I could be doing - reading the Bible, the Koran, the Torah. But I can't help it - I love listening to what Sylvia Plath called 'the Peanut Crunching Crowd'.

I am fairly lucky with infectious diseases. Maybe that 's because I don't get close enough to anyone to catch one. I have, however, persuaded Doug to get his flu jab this winter. He is obviously more vulnerable than I am.

Talksport presenters are still apoplectic about the proposed increase in the BBC license fee. I have to say that I'm a tad irritated myself. And if people like me, who are supporters of the BBC are upset then they really have lost the plot. I know it's better than Sky and I.T.V. but isn't anything? What are they doing with the money we're giving them already? What are they doing with all their overseas revenue? By the way, to all students out there, watch TV through your laptop. No one can prove you're not watching TV with your battery running.

Must go. Talksport's Charlie Wolfe is whining about the Satanic Left again.

What Motivates Them?

What motivates them, these men
Whose greedy hands reach out
Scrabbling, in the mud

For money, money
And yet more money
For land, land
And yet more land

Is that God's voice
Whispering in their ear
Or some mischievous daemon
Sent by Satan
To force our ship
Off its steady course

I ask them why
'Grow or die,'
Is their reply

But I know
And you know
We all know

That a country will never be enough,
A continent will never be enough
The whole world will never be enough

The Bath

I actually socialised with a 3-D Human being. I went to The Bath with Lisa, a pub next to The Eagle, which tonight was stuffed to the brim with Freshers. Truly excellent band. They played an awful lot of eighties music. I got chatted up at the bar by a guy who bought me a bottle of Irish cider. 'Better than that muck,' he said, nodding at my Strongbow. I think I encountered a cider snob. I am reconnecting with the world. Something has shaken me awake.

I am dealing with Doug's wartime photograph collection. See last entry - he is wearing the helmet of a German P.O.W. More to come.

Revolution

Phantom, show yourself
This darkness becomes bitter
We fly, sledge-hammered
Through that furious air
Empty brown eyes wide,
Ravenous, imposing irritation
On twisted sheets. We wait
Until those birds awake at dawn
They tear the air with brazen talons
Pecking out the eyes of the dead
And our dreams flee
In the face of daylight
Grandeur is gone
Our wealth is snatched away
And that gold crown
Is redundant now.

A Conspiracy?

Or am I really paranoid?

There's something seriously amiss with this insurance business. I had a look at my diary entries from last March. When I hate that interview with that brown-suited automaton from Royal and Sun Alliance and there was one mistake I made: I voiced my suspicions about the woman who lives above me. I strongly suspect this had just a little to do with their decision to terminate my policy. I have been given some homework by my C.A.B. advisor - try to remember every little detail of that interview.

Fortunately, I'm a committed diarist.

Nobby at War

The inscription on the back reads:
'1943:
CPL Clarke
49 Reccie Unit
Special Service
Combined Operations'

Something is Happening

Between the library and the Common Room
Something is happening
And they have come to take her by the hand
And she names her daemons

All men, bearded and bereft of ideas
Moving through unlit halls
Sliding across marble floors
They reach the tavern
The bubbling gold liquid
In the glass
More beautiful than
All the colours in the artist's pallet
And they escape all consequences
For they are young barbarians
Mapping out inner wars
Within their minds

Cold Fury

Needless to say, I, the super-procrastinator, have yet to march into Lloyds Bank or contact the Citizens' Advice Bureau. This is probably a good thing - cold fury is a much more effective weapon than hot rage. Incidentally the C.A.B. commissioned a report on the 'socially disenfranchised' (how cool does that sound? Like 'Outlaw') mentally ill and consumer issues. It can be found here.

I went to the pub and then on to an Indian restaurant with Daniel - a friend from hospital. It is a purely platonic friendship. He spoke of his family with a venom that startled me. He despises them and everything they stand for. They are, he claims, 'academic liberals' who have carved out a comfortable niche for themselves in British society (his words, not mine) but it is based on lies and hypocrisy. In reality they are conservative and narrow minded. This manifests itself in their lack of understanding of their son's mental illness. They resent him, I suppose, for being the only flaw in the picture of a perfect family. There are parallels with my own situation. (Although my family have never claimed to be perfect.)

Music Envelopes Me

Music envelopes me
I look up. The Stars remain
I won't let my story fade
I need to keep going
On this road

Did you think that I would fall?
Did you think that I would fail?
The sky fades, then emerges again
I cannot rely on reality
The world - it has betrayed me

Blame the Parents

Why am I here? I need a sense of perspective. Should I ponder upon the earthquake in Pakistan? Or the Boy Whose Skin Fell Off: a channel four documentary about a young man with a rare skin condition which was exacerbated by cancer. He died during the making of the documentary - it makes my problems seem sily and trivial by comparison. The only problem is dreams and visions and voices have convinced me that I may die in a certain way and the fact that I have an arsonist living above me increases the odds of this. I spent the morning with Doug. He is prepared to act as a witness in a court of law if necessary. My parents offered to come up but (and I hate to sound ungrateful) unless they can turn themselves into top-flight lawyers overnight there is very little they can do.

This is my second night without sleep. I hope Little Miss Pyromaniac realises what she has done. I have drawn out a plan for next week. I am going to march into Lloyds Bank and demand an explanation for the way I am being treated. I'll chain myself to their railings if necessary. (Ooh, get me! What a good little Sufragette I would have made!) I want to speak to a human being, not an automaton. Is that too much to ask? I'll try to be coherent. I'll try to be calm. But it's kind of difficult when your brain feels like scrambled eggs.

Battered Old Teddy Bear

Darkness Discharged

Is it discipline? Is it brutality?
Or is it a kind of mockery
My ersatz mother beside me
Succumbs to slow decay

And we watch the war in the sky
For tomorrow we may die
But we are untouched by bomb or bullet
For we are not strategic targets

We are just weary travellers
Sailors home from the sea
Soldiers home from the war
And still my mother clings to me.

The World is Collapsing

The world is collapsing around my ears. And music plays on the radio in my head. So I cannot sleep. I am listening to Charlie Wolfe - irritating - am I a glutton for punishment - do I seek out things that annoy me? It is the only connection I have to the world at this time of night. They are doing religion tonight. His views are ill-thought out. Oh, there he goes again - condemning the BBC and the NHS. This man is working for Rupert Murdoch. Says it all really.

And I have no insurance. Oh, come all ye burglars and arsonists. My stomach is twisting in on itself and the planet is sending out a message: 'You do not belong here!'

A Childhood Holiday in Amsterdam

In Amsterdam the clocks chime
And cracks appear in the daylight
It is God smiling, Mother says
But then realpolitik storms in
And we lose all feeling
Emotions abandoned and we are all
Duped by scientists, by technocrats,
By bureaucrats. Monstrous
And Machiavellian and I am the one
Who tries to retain some kind
Of purity of mind but I agonise
All day, all night, pondering
The possibility of God's existence.

The Brutality of Bureaucracy

I have been accused of fraud by an insurance company I have been paying into without fail for the last ten years. Here is what the Royal Sun Alliance have to say:

There is a principle underlying all insurance contracts - it is the continuing duty of 'utmost good faith'*. This required honesty and openness on the part of both policy and policyholder. It is clear that you have not complied with this principle in the manner in which you have submitted that claim to us**

Our underwriters take a very serious view of such matters and, so as a result, they are not prepared to continue providing cover. Your policy is, therefore, void from the date of your claim, 26 March 2005***. This means that cover was not operative at the time of your loss and we are unable to consider your claim.

*I have exhibited nothing but good faith throughout, ensuring I had a witness at every turn and simply following instructions issued to me by them. (the underwriters).

**What 'manner'? I did as the council suggested.

***The 26th March was before the fire - a mistake with the date there methinks.

They will not get away with treating me in such a brutal and inhumane fashion. I have made an appointment with the Citizens' Advice Bureau and will contact as many consumer advice people as I can. In the meantime, I need emergency insurance and I shall insist that the council provides this. I will not be ground down by 'The Machine'.

I rang that Great Radio Station: Sky's very own Talksport after one of its presenters, Charlie Wolfe, suggested that most 'poor' people are 'stupid'. I tried to tell him to check out Thomas Chatterton and Van Gogh but his show is more of a monologue than a 'talk show' so I barely got a word in edgeways (or edgewise, as the Americans say, for reasons best known to themselves). However, I did manage to establish that he's not exactly a walking thesaurus. He's very bitter about the BBC. He was probably rejected by them at some time during his great journalistic career. By the way, nobody I know has heard of him.

Photobucket

This is a test post from Photobucket.com

Spreading Inwards

Blood spreading inwards
Towards the heart
That diamond shaped lie
With the emerald at the centre
That cricifix hanging around my neck

Memories racing back
Home across the ice
An out of season bright-red flower
Makes the blue-black sky
Look bleak...

Lost Keys

Every time I go out with anyone connected to Andy Lee it always ends up in disaster. I had a wonderful time with D.M. last night. I met D.M. in hospital in the mid nineties. He is strictly a friend. Nothing more. But I suspect deep within him there is still a glimmer of hope. We got very drunk (something I don't do often, as I hate losing control.) D, is not the most tactful of people and suggested that I should employ a cleaner for my flat. In fact, he mentioned in to one of his friends in The Globe and she said she'd be around on Wednesday at 3.00. I was insulted but managed to hide it. We got home and D left. When I woke up in the morning I could not find my keys. Now these are an huge, jangling set of keys. I panicked and phoned David who said he hadn't seen where I had put them. He then rang back sounding concerned: 'Perhaps you should ring the locksmith and get the locks refitted. It's only about fifty quid.' It turned out to be £140 but I am calm now. All sorts of mad thoughts flashed through my brain - everyone was conspiring against me. The universe is not my friend.

My near heart-attack was off-set by the fact that I now have a new desktop Acer Pentium 4 with a monitor that doesn't occupy my entire desk. It was Lisa's old computer. My mother has insisted on paying something for it.

Lisa and I have arranged to meet next Friday.

Scan004

Scan004
Originally uploaded by bellacatrielouise.

High School Girls

Once we were high school girls
Worshipped like movie stars
By the local boys
But our sweet, cherubic faces
Are now drawn, lined
Once athletic, now rotund
And memories

Crushing,
Crushing,
Crushing...

We were red-cheeked, laughing,
Exchanging Valentine kisses
But nobody calls anymore
And things change so fast
Is that a ghost, we ask
No, it's an old sheet flapping in the wind
And wisdom does not compensate.

Slowly Growing

I am slowly growing out of my youthful egocentrism. Others are becoming more important than me. I have accepted my insignificance. My treatment for bulimia begins next week. The Olanzapine seems to be working as it should: filtering out the 'veil' thoughts and fears and yet still permitting me to be relatively creative. It's quite sedating though - I am sleeping ten hours a night. I am sketching a lot - not terribly well - like a dog dancing on its hindlegs. The final essay of my OU course is due in next week.

I am re-connecting with friends. I saw Lisa over the weekend. She is giving (yes giving) me her old desktop. My current one is driven and associated with the pseudo-messiah (I bought it from him a few years ago when he impulsively decided that 'computers are evil' and that he did not wish to be a slave to technology. Anyway, it's so old, it's steam driven. I can't wait. I love new gadgets.