Sunday 26 August 2012

High Fidelity Style...

Okay, so I realise that I'm not very good at this whole daily blog thing, but I might not be able to write about my day very well, but I can write about what's going on in my head...

I know, a very dangerous place to be, but I'll give it a go.

I used to watch RomComs for the endorphins, the rush of happiness to top the happiness levels that I was already consuming. I suppose that's a bit greedy of me. But now, I've started to try and learn from them, how to apologise, how to get things back to normal, or maybe even better than normal.

I know I'm conning myself, but I thought I'd just let you know perhaps the Top 5 best ways - in the only way High Fidelity could do it. And then you can vote on it and we'll have a whole competition thing, and then I don't know, perhaps you could all dare me to do the one we vote on or something...

I know you're thinking this is a bad idea, but like I've said before, it's better that it gets written here than actually floating around in my head for the foreseeable future making me less mental.

#5 - 10 Things I Hate About You



Nothing says I love you better than most musicians. Though saying that, they're also quite good at singing about death and making it sound beautiful too, hmm...so why not buy her a musical instrument? Causing endless moments of 'do you remember the time's and apparent poetry.

#4 -How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days



Because you know she's lying to you and she knows that she's lying to you, so you should probably confront her about it before she disappears to Washington and out of your life. This also goes back to the running away from something thing I was talking about in a previous blog - you've gotta stick it out and see what's on the other side.

#3 - Failure to Launch



Get your friends to tie you up and lock you in a room with the person you're arguing with, without your consent and see what happens. As this is a movie I'm glad things worked out, because if they didn't then I'm sure it wouldn't have made the Top 5.

#2 - When Harry Met Sally



Big soppy, spontaneous and yet strangely scripted speeches are always the way to go aren't they? I don't know, and if that doesn't help, then I'm sure New Year's Eve is the perfect time of year. But I'm sure big speeches work all the time.

#1 - Just Friends


Or the truth. I don't think Ryan Reynolds can say it any honester than that. You've just go to have charisma, charm, and wit. And looking like Ryan Reynolds wouldn't hurt your chances either. Is it the be yourself thing? First you've got to find out who you are I suppose.

So that's my Top 5 - do you agree? Let me know in the comments, and I might High Fidelity a few more things a few more times, some other time.

Carpe diem, until next time bloggers...

Saturday 25 August 2012

A Wall Of Wine...

A lot has been happening in Bridgend recently, well, not just Bridgend, but you get the drift...

So, Wednesday I wake up to see that our garden wall had been demolished, and a lot of excess sand, cement, and bricks later the builders charged too much and left it all in our garden. So today, when I should have been doing The Writing People's #SubSat...

...that's Submission Saturday for all of you who don't know, where by we showcase work that has been sent to us and that we have found quite interesting to read...

...I was instead shifting half a ton of sand with my family, and cleaning up the garden, then I built a path out of bricks and sand, which involved me moving the sand from the back to the front again. All in all, the garden's a mess. I love these days, 'family days'...erm wait, no I don't. Every time we go out into the garden there's always something we get called in to do. There's never a day off in this house.

I get to work on my writing in the week, but on weekends, the house is full, its busy, and there's always someone who wants you to do something for them. Writing never gets done on the weekend, and that truly pisses me off.

I can't wait to see where life takes me when I do write on weekends/get the chance to write on weekends. So anyway, that means I'm yet another day behind writing Real Magic. Oh well, you can't rush these things I suppose.

I particularly hate the weekends at the moment, mainly because I can't write, and writing, for me, at the moment is the only thing that gets me away from my horrible situation. I find myself on car journeys, in ad breaks, in the shower, just getting angry. I look at myself in the mirror and practice things I'm going to say to her about the whole situation. 

The idea is to not try and care, but the issue I have is...I seem to care.

There's been plenty of things recently, this weekend, so far, that have been a welcome distraction last night I was invited to my friend Jess' 21st Birthday, where there were friends, people off the internet/YouTube, directors in the early stages, and booze. Oh, and beer pong, which I might be good at.


And the second thing of the weekend, was quite a surprise. Wodge got in contact and said 'Hi'. We caught up on things, well a few things, and it turns out she's been reading the Blogs. So hello again Wodge if you're reading.

Carpe diem, until next time bloggers...

P.S. I don't think I'm very good at this daily blog thing. For one, I don't do it daily, and on the days that I don't very much, I can't really write very well about the things I didn't do. But we'll see...

Thursday 23 August 2012

Everyday? Aww Man...

After being told I should probably write this every day to try and help me remember stuff, here I am 6-days later writing this after I remembered what TAG said about it and record keeping.

And it particularly difficult to write this because I know, and you do, the way I'm feeling right  now. It came as a great shock to me on Sunday when I went to a Pub Quiz with my home friends (we came 3rd if you were wondering) and I discovered that they, or at least some of them, read this - so hello to you, I'm very grateful everyone's getting the message, or at least some of you.

To be honest, at the moment, I feel like the most miserable s.o.b. out there. I know I'm not, but I feel like it. I wake up angry and sad, I go to bed angry and sad and I spend my days keeping my mind busy ignoring the issue as best I can. That would be really good if I wasn't then distracted from the tasks that I wanted to do to distract me by the situation at hand. 

I've lost all appetite for everything: Xbox, movies, alcohol, writing, reading, drawing, cooking, everything, life, blah, blah, blah.

I know everyone knows, I know they can tell. Some people have even started treating me differently and choosing sides. They're treating it like a break-up, as far as I know this isn't a break-up, it can't be, we weren't going out. Some of them are just being so fake, I don't know why, it's weird. Pill is the worst for it at the moment. I think he's the only one who knows both sides of the story, or most of it for the most part.

It's weird. TAG's being the one who's being the most honest at the moment.

Oh, I don't know what to say, I never know what to say or how to say it. I suppose that's why I'm in this situation.

The prospect of running away is always at the forefront of my mind. Just packing a bag and disappearing. Getting lost and coming back a different person, is such a good plan. I hate myself, I've always hated myself. How I am, how I look, the only thing I like is my writing, and that's not even good.

I'm polishing up Real Magic now, that's going to be good, it's going to be very good, and popular.

My Prince's Trust Mentor psycho-analyses me every time I see him. His first inclining of my psyche was that I was trying to get away from something from life perhaps (bearing in mind this was all before the incident) his advice to me was that I should stop running, because I can't out run life. The second time he met me he could see that I was obviously suffering from this incident, and he saw that I was feeling a lot of rejection this month...

...no one wants to employ me, HB doesn't want to see/speak to me, the BBC didn't like my script, and everyone else (for the most part) is acting weird around me...

I'm an outcast at the moment. Just floating through life.

My Job Centre Adviser has every hope in me, she's brilliant as well. It's odd, but the Prince's Trust and the Job Centre have inadvertently listened to me and asked me questions allowing me to see how to proceed.

I love my friends, but they might be a little close to the situation to try and help. Pill says talk, it's good to talk - no, I didn't want to talk, I still don't want to talk - not about this, not to anyone else but her. It's our business, and it's too public. And TAG, he didn't ask anything, and I didn't want to say anything, but I don't know what it is about him, but I opened up, I told him everything Pill pried from me.

He was a listener, he took it all in, and I'm glad for it. I really am, I'm glad for all of them, except maybe Dark Horse who has chosen to not treat me as a friend as I think she's already 'chosen her side'. 

I've had enough. I'm not going to run any more. I'm going to be as stubborn as ever, but in the other way. I will not stop until we've discussed this. I'm not going to just roll over and scream at nothing again. I'm going to fix this, and we will be friends again - I admit that we might not be as close as we were - but we're going to become close again.

I've had enough, I'm not going to stop until I've stopped feeling like this. 

Carpe diem, until next time bloggers!...

P.S. Btw, that was a positive blog. Not bad, not bad.

P.S.S. Advice for my friends - or at least friends who know both me and HB - watch 'Failure to Launch', it's on Netflix at the moment - it might give you a few ideas...

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Hmm...

Well I was hoping to say something more positive this time, but all I can think manage is that I miss her...

She might not want to here it, but I really do, I miss her. There was an ounce of hope for me when I caught a lift back with her from Dark Horse's. It certainly saved me some cash, but what it did give me was opportunity.

Yeah about an hour's worth of opportunity that I used to do nothing with, much to the relief of all of you I'm sure.

I've been trying to focus on Real Magic, I'm finding that I like it more and more with every draft - I hope others do as well, but I think the one reason why I like it more and more is because I know HB is a part of it. It's an adventure that we're all a part of, like we're friends again. 

I am a mental.

I don't know, this just really hurts. And I'm refusing to let this die. I was told today that everyone was under the impression that HB and I were dating - is this true? Did everyone really think that?

Which might explain my current predicament. 

But if we were dating, then why didn't anyone tell us? And for that matter, if this is a break up, they why didn't we have a relationship like that?!

I just want my friend HB back. I just want to be able to invite her to the cinema without her looking at the text and then ignoring it. I want to be able to go shopping in Cardiff with her, I want to hang out, I want to spend time with someone who wanted to spend time to me. She invited me out as often as I invited her.

And then I get a piece of advice from Pill. 'If you want HB and you to be friends again, just get a girlfriend.'

Oh yeah, simple as anything isn't it?

The one thing being that I'm not looking for a girlfriend. I never have been. I just meet people I like, people I may even love. I never look for them - it just happens.

But really, why I'm writing any of this is not to complain, or get sympathy. I just want to be able to remember how I felt, I want to know how I feel. At the moment it's certainly a mixed array of things. 

I think it would make me feel better if I knew that she was feeling the same way, but I fear that she isn't. 

I don't know.

Carpe diem, until next time bloggers...

Tuesday 7 August 2012

Feelings#2...

Okay, where was I?...

Mid-June, the Prince's Trust week. What more can I say about it? It was brilliant fun, free, I got to meet new people and learn something about business - a world I had no clue about before I started The Writing People with the guys. So that was good, I got to feel like I was doing something, a day job, for a week - all the while still going to the Job Centre and being unemployed. It was nice, and convinced me that what I was doing was what I wanted to do - which is always a win.

I should mention at this point, that I had managed to drag HB to my volunteering many months earlier and we had been given the opportunity to make a Creative Writing Course. She had given up a Summer Temp Job at St Fagans so she could work on it with me. But more on that in a bit...

Anyway, Prince's Trust stuff down, now we were given mentors to work with until we had succeeded in our goals. And mine is a brilliant man, interested in Creative Writing, who seemed to analyse me like a therapist and decided that I write to escape, but also the help others try and escape. He also came to the conclusion that the only reason I do something was to help others, and that if I was running from something, or whatever, then I should probably stop running and face the thing I'm running from. It wasn't until now that I know why I'm running. But anyway, the long and short of it was, I'm to complete and send away a completed manuscript of Real Magic by 17th August - wish me luck.

Anyway...skipping ahead the week leading up to the 20th July - Cherrybelly and Pill's joint birthday Masquerade BBQ. It was good fun, HB invited me over to watch Avatar the Last Airbender, and we baked birthday cakes for Cherrybelly and Pill. The whole thing took a grand total of two days, I stayed over, and many cartoons were watched, things were baked, and xbox was played - mainly on our joint character Stuart, a Khajit in Skyrim.

The Friday, I drove to Pill's, where the party was taking place, after picking up GG at the station - a pleasant surprise. And yes, I can drive now - though I don't own a car.

We get there, all suited and booted, masks on, and party on.

I don't remember anything. I drank too much and ate too little, but there are two memories I have. 

1. HB and I were arguing in Pill's dinning room. I seem to remember defending myself against a statement she said - that I had never asked her out when it mattered...

When it mattered? WHEN IT MATTERED?! Every time I asked it mattered, as far as I knew. ARGH! Hence the argument. It's quite good to note that HB and I didn't really argue, so it was odd.

2. Much later on, HB came and sat with me on one of the sofas and she cried on my shoulder saying she didn't feel the same, and it was sad (as in boo hoo) that she did because of the way I felt. I don't know, it could have been guilt, sadness, or just frustration. (Here's where everything in my head gets over thought, as it always does - but it's better I say it here rather than to someone else, otherwise I'd be carted away by the men in white coats.)

Anyway I spent most of the rest of the night outside, after the girls had dragged HB away upstairs so she didn't cry in front of people - ah yes, both occurrences happened in front of a dozen people or so. Perhaps I should ask them all what happened and piece together what happened. I even tried going to see HB, but I was warded away by TAG and Pill, both saying that it was a bad idea. I don't know, are my instincts that bad?!

I drove HB home the next day, music on and in silence. I don't know, it felt like silence, it might not have been. We shared a nice hug on her doorstep and I thought everything I had just been a memory that I had made up in my drunken state.

We texted a few times in the days that followed, but then came the silence after she spent an evening with Dark Horse.

I don't know what they discussed, or even if they did, but the silence definitely followed the Dark Horse trip.

It's been three weeks and I've seen her a grand total of twice, once with people, the second time without.

With people, barely two words said to one and other, but we were civil - mainly because we had to be. There was even a part of me that hoped she would offer me a lift home in her empty car as she watched me walk to the station.

Without people, barely two words said to one and other. On Saturday, I got to have the car for the first time since Pill's, and I went to HB's to see if I could apologize, or just talk to her.

Before this whole thing we had spoken almost every day and met up two, three, four times a week. So you can imagine how tough the change would be - well it's been tough for me.

The apology didn't go well. And I've tried twice on this occasion. I wrote one down, because I'm much better on paper than speaking in person. Anyway the paper one went much like this:

Actually, I think that's too personal, even for this. Either way, I said sorry for a degree-worth of mistakes and hurt, and so on and so forth. It still goes unanswered.

The in person sorry went a little like a dying seagull trying to crawl out of the oil spill covered beach away from the ever approaching tide.

ARGH!

I've talked too long now, and I've still not managed to say anything I need to say, not need. I want to say, just to get them out of my mind - or at least somewhere else. They're driving me slightly mental. 

I don't see any point to most things at the moment. The Writing People involves HB, the Creative Writing Course involves HB, even Real fucking Magic involves HB, the job seeking never goes well, everyone's asking me what's going on? how am I feeling? Heard from HB yet? 

It's too much.

Hi, my name's Tom, and I've had a crush on my best friend for four years. My name's Tom, and three weeks ago, I lost my best friend.

Carpe diem, until next time bloggers...

P.S. I don't think the amount of John Cusack films I've been watching recently are helping - though they are brilliant.

Feelings...

Well hello emoto-storm, it's been a while...

I was reading over my last post just now and it turns out that that was a stupid thing to write and to blurt out into the populace of an empty room, so I think I'll finally get around to letting you know what I've been up to - and yes Master, you'll finally get to know about the Newsagents.

So we might as well start there. I got a job at a Newsagents, at the start of June, and I managed to work there a grand total of 4-days before I had to resign my position as Shop Assistant and cover Paper Boy. Thrilling stuff I assure you. Being there 4-days I managed to break a few laws, all under the guidance and forceful nature of my boss, who no one had anything good to say about him. So there we are, a kindly old man, who's employees loathe - that should have been my first indicator. The second was the amount of fag smoking ingrates I had to serve with children by the armful, begging for sweets but never receiving their sugary snacks because their parents wanted them to live healthy life-styles. Ironic, I know.

And then a kid came in asking: 'Will you serve me?' and I was wondering what I'd serve him, the yellow signs shouting at me MUST BE OVER 18 and then the shadow of the tall hunchbacked bossman loomed over me, I turned to see his crooked stained smile and there it was, what everyone else thought - the evil psycho. He looked at the kid, and I could see that he was like 14, I would have hoped that everyone else in the shop would see the crime being committed, but the boss made me type in the fag's price and the kid handed over the money, and the no one was any the wiser, except the bossman who was an extra fiver up.

I should have resigned then, but I was in the thinking - MONEY, MONEY, MONEY. It was £6.70 an hour, 10-hours a week - not bad, better than the Job Centre and easy work...selling fags to the under age.

Then would come the weekend, 5am start, and pay for an hour. Easy? Yes. Back-broken? Yes, how all those old folks do it, I'll never know. We all worked on the floor, except the bossman, it was weird. But then I got to go out with one of the guys to show me one of the four rounds I would be covering - 4 hours later, and a grateful paperman, glad to have finished his round and hour and a half earlier, I saddled back on up the road to home. I get a text saying, you got a car?

It was from bossman, I said I could. He knew I could drive from the CV, but there was no question of a car. Return text, you got a bike? I said no. Can you walk? Okay, he didn't ask me that one, but I'm sure he expected that sort of dedication from me. 

I get there the next morning, and he tells me that dates and where, and I said I couldn't do some of the dates, his reply being - 'do you have any friends?'

He obviously meant do you have any friends willing to help out for those days, and I thought - 5am, for half of my wage. No, I wouldn't do that - it's insane. And I was only there for an hour on the Sunday, and it came down to my realisation that I would be covering two rounds on the days I had to do, but couldn't, and without a car, delivering to my local area and beyond.

So, to sum it up for you, that's would have involved me walking 10-miles, with 200+ papers over my shoulder, for a maximum of 3-hours pay (the time frame was something the bossman made very clear to me at the end of day one). And that evening I wrote my resignation, as I felt I couldn't do the job, and in fact, I couldn't do the job - the job description said drivers license optional - what a lie.

Well, that's something I went into too much detail about and I'm tired now, so what I wanted to talk about will no doubt errupt again on another evening.

Thanks TAG for inspiring me to start doing this again. I'll see you soon, and Master, I hope I filled you in slightly about my short stint in employment. We should start writing again, but I think we're probably too busy for that sort of thing. Who knows...

Carpe diem, until next time bloggers...