I was saying to one of my friends that it’s been a while since I blogged one of my dreams! I guess that sometimes if you speak something, it has a funny way of coming into existence. I also must give some credit to the kebab I bought with Mike on the way back from our last course night out watching the England match (which was dull, although cheering along with the mindless supporters was amusing; I don’t think they realised Penny and I were taking the piss out of them) – the stomach ache I bear as a result, coupled with the disrupted night’s sleep I had, worked together to produce this crazy dream as well as my decision that, like crisps and popcorn, I will never eat another kebab again. Anyway, here goes:
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I found myself at university, staying in a dorm building which had several of my friends living on the same corridor as me. The hall was brightly lit, with a peach coloured carpet, and Toby lived a couple of doors down from me. A few doors in the opposite direction, towards the end of our corridor, lived this random guy whom I don’t know in real life, and whom I didn’t know much about in the dream, except he was gay and had quite a youthful face and a happy-go-lucky, slightly crazy manner. I remember on this particular day, Toby was getting ready to present a presentation he had worked on with his friend on a song they had written for a team they’d been given in a World Cup sweepstake. He hadn’t let me hear the song, and he was quite nervous about it but pretending as if everything were fine. To give him some space, I decided to get a bus and go to a string of shops which looked similar to the top of Gloucester Road, except with less shops and shops which looked even more run down than what’s there in reality. The trip seemed fruitless, and I remember returning back to my corridor pretty promptly.
On my return, I bumped into the guy who lived near the end of the corridor. He was burbling about something, and invited me to go back to his room. I was reluctant to go as I wanted to wish Toby luck before he started his presentation / performance, but at the same time I wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea to disturb him, so I decided to follow the guy to his room. We chatted for a while, and then ended up having (anatomically incorrect – orifices do NOT look / contort like that!) sex. Immediately afterwards I felt guilty, and made small talk while hurriedly getting out of there. I ran down the corridor to find Toby, who was due to start his presentation. I located the classroom (oddly enough further down the same corridor as where all our bedrooms were) and burst in through the open door, where Toby and his classmates were gathered in front of a lecturer standing at a lectern in front of a giant screen filled with the flags of the World Cup in some kaleidoscopic Powerpoint presentation. Toby was stood on a chair, ostensibly about to sing his song, but everyone turned to look at me and Toby’s mouth gaped as I ran towards him, hugged his legs and nuzzled my face into his crotch. He asked me what was wrong, but I decided to keep my infidelity to myself and said that nothing was wrong and I just wanted to wish him luck and let him know I was there for him. At that moment, he smiled (which made me feel a combination of guilt and immense love), and the whole class sighed as if they wanted to get on with the presentation of the songs.
At this point, my stomach ache woke me up again as it had done periodically throughout the night. I remember getting up to open the window; it was light outside and I hoped that some fresh air would do me good (as it happened, it made no difference) before getting back into bed and falling back to sleep.
I found myself going into a giant record store which reminded me of a huge Virgin Megastore from back in the day. When I walked in, the front of store display advertised hordes of Paulina Rubio CDs, books, DVDs and other memorabilia at knock-down prices. I was about to start browsing – there were items that certainly caught my eye even at first glance, when I bumped into my tutor from university, Mary. She was sat reading a book on a cube seat, and she smiled at me and started asking how I was. We had a conversation about the book she was reading, and about what some of my favourite books were. I then saw two women approaching her wearing skirt suits, and Mary explained that she was interviewing for the course intake for next year, so she would have to say goodbye for now. I smiled and left the seating area as one woman sat down and began to talk to Mary, who had closed her book; the other sat on an adjacent cube and began to read a book of her own. I was about to start browsing the Paulina Rubio merchandise, which including products which both do and don’t exist in real life, when I bumped into Simon from the careers guidance course. He asked me if I had seen Mary; I responded by indicating the cubed seating area, but then explaining that she was doing interviews so he might have to wait for a while before he was able to speak to her. With nothing much else to say to him, I left Simon and began to browse the shelves.
However, during my conversations with Mary and Simon, a lot of the CDs had been snapped up, and I could barely find half of the products which had been on offer when I’d first entered the shop. I spent quite a long time rummaging and amassing quite a collection of items, when I bumped into my mother, Deena and Davina. They said that they had come shopping looking for a birthday present for me, and immediately handed me a big box of some kind of board game, and a smaller box on top. They said that they were going to look for some other gifts for me. My mother immediately disappeared, and Davina and Deena went off in different directions. I followed Deena and asked her if there was anything I could buy for Davina, but I don’t think she had any suggestions. Eventually, I found myself left alone by them and I had to go to the till and pay for my Paulina Rubio stuff, and also for my own birthday presents!
Afterwards, I returned home with all my purchases only to find that my mother had already arrived at home. She looked at the amount of carrier bags I had, and then she engaged me in some meaningless, forgettable conversation. I don’t remember what was said, but I remember taking a yellow sleeping bag with me and leaving the house. I wandered the streets and before long, found a wide grey pavement outside a run-down block of flats. For some reason, in my head I had decided that this was an orphanage, and the area of town did not look very Bristolian nor very friendly; it was all quite dilapidated, and I felt quite tired so I decided to lay down on the pavement and curled up in my sleeping bag. However, the sleeping bag was double-sized, so I still only took up half of the bag; the other half covered the rest of the pavement. After a few moments, Mike came strolling by as if by chance, looked down and noticed me laying on the floor (I wasn’t asleep). He spoke to me briefly, and we chatted before he told me to budge up, got down on the pavement and slid into the sleeping bag next to me. This time, nothing sexual happened but we just chatted for a while and I remember feeling happy and lucky that I had a friend to spend time with.
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That is about it! As always, any thoughts or light that you can shed on this is more than welcome. A few connections that I can make: I watched the World Cup match last night, so perhaps the football was in my head; I’d seen Deena earlier in the week and I remember we were walking around HMV and she was considering looking for a present for her friend’s girlfriend. During the night out last night, I was speaking to Mike about how much his friendship meant to me and how lucky I was to have him in my life. I also spent a lot of the evening texting Toby, who is currently sunning it up in Florida (lucky man); I miss him. Finally, Simon was the only person who hadn’t managed to get into the bar last night where we were watching the football; although Mary wasn’t invited to watch the football with us, it is interesting that Simon is the one who was asking me about her whereabouts, as if he were looking for someone from our course just as he was last night. But the rest of it is beyond me!!!
The last 8 months have represented the happiest period in my life that I can remember. I’ve grown so much as a person, I have made some terrific friends, I have started the longest relationship of my life to date, I have lost weight, I have tattoos (it’s my most recent tattoo‘s one-month anniversary today!) and I have finally started learning to drive again. It’s like I was in a chrysalis up until this point, and now I’m finally starting to spread my wings.
However, I can slowly but surely feel that happiness starting to fade a bit. Perhaps it’s growing pains, because in December I had a tough couple of weeks – maybe I just need to ride it out. I still have all the things I named above, so I can’t really complain too much. But my growing discontent I think is largely due to the fact that I’ve not had instant success when applying for jobs. I haven’t had an interview out of the six jobs I’ve applied to so far. I won’t give up – I am committed to this new careers guidance career, I want to make a difference in other people’s lives, to young people. And I want to carve out my own life, get a car, get a job, get a place to live. I can’t do any of those things without the finances that come from a well-paying job. So I really need this, and although I’ve had my applications checked and approved my tutors, and my CV was given a glowing review by the UWE Careers Service, I guess it won’t come that easy.
So here’s the part where I start to connect my life at the moment with the song above. Listen to the words, and things will make more sense. I was complaining to Mike about the fact that I have yet to secure an interview for any jobs, and he said to me “Well, I am sure there’s nothing wrong with your applications and it’s probably bad luck, nothing personal, but I don’t know if we have the skills for some of the jobs you applied for”. In other words, try not to worry, but don’t apply for such weird stuff. But I thought that I had a good shot at being capable of the jobs I went for, and the fact I was able to fill out the application without really questioning it means that I didn’t really think that the jobs I applied for were that leftfield.
Then I bumped into Henna (from the Perfume Shop) and her friends in the uni café, and after chatting for a while, one of them turns to me and says “So you did languages at Oxford, why on earth aren’t you becoming a teacher?” I explained that even after my teaching assistantship in Spain, and enjoying teaching more than I expected to, I’d never gravitated towards teaching and it wasn’t ever on my radar. Even though I’m now working towards becoming a careers guidance practitioner and working with young people, it feels quite different to me because I’m instrumental in helping a young person shape their entire life and future, rather than wholly responsible for one component of that. I just feel that this fits me better, but perhaps I’m missing a trick? Then I start to think that perhaps I am just running away from the one true vocation I’ve always wanted: music. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to sing, dance, perform, record and entertain. I’m good at it; I’ve won prizes for it. People loved what I did at high school, sixth form and university, and since then I’ve grown as a musician, performer and person. Why aren’t I following my heart? Although I release my music online and I have very positive responses, will that ever truly be enough? By keeping total control, am I sacrificing my dream of making it big? Is being spurned by employers left right and centre a subtle hint that I can’t really avoid my destiny?
I keep wondering if I’m missing something. I’ve had other reasons to lately wonder what the hell is wrong with my brain (read my previous post for some of that), and I don’t consider myself so eccentric or out of the ordinary to have made it to age 24 that I haven’t realised. But sometimes, I look at the way things are and just think, what is going on? Am I on another planet? I do often think I’m an alien, from another galaxy: in Kingswood, I seem to dress like nobody else, have desires for things that just pass everyone else by. In my family, I have different aims, different values. I seem to have been only partly informed by my upbringing, and a lot by the media, and my parents say that I am 10% of them, and 90% of something mysterious and random. Where do I get it from, who am I, and when I find out, where do I go from there? I am glad I am my own person and I wouldn’t change that for anything, but sometimes it gets a bit lonely out here.
A running joke between me and my friends is the various bizarre/random questions, comments and general synaptic misfires that I make. Although sometimes they are decent thought-provoking questions, I have only just this last week or so learned the difference between ducks and geese, my UK geography is pretty horrendous, and Cabot Circus is neither a wheeled contraption that might roll away overnight, nor an alien which secretly digests money or shoppers.
I’ve come out with these sorts of things far too often for far too long for it to be false: I will freely admit that I can be a bit ditzy. Or as Mike says, “pretty but dumb”. But part of me has always felt enamoured with the idea of playing up to that: back when I was at school, I hated being intelligent in one way because I knew that I could be perceived as a keener or a geek. I didn’t want people to look at me that way, I wanted people to see that I had a fun sociable side, so I used to play up to being a bit airheaded for laughs, but also to show people that I do know how to have fun. And it’s worked – my true friends know that when I make fun of myself, I am in on the joke 😉
However, I would conversely be pretty damn offended when someone who didn’t know me that well would assume I was stupid, because they only knew me socially without seeing how I was in study or in the workplace. Now, it is judgemental for people to quickly form that opinion of me, let alone incorrect – I know that I am not stupid, and sometimes when I come out with my bizarre little observations or my basic questions, it’s often because nobody told me these things, therefore I ask. It’s not my fault. But also, if I play up to the bimbo effect, how can I be that mad when people take that at face value? Perhaps this is why I have a soft spot for celebrities like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, because I think that they are terrifically fun but I have a sneaking suspicion that they are definitely in on the joke and not as unintelligent as they portray themselves. At the end of the day, you still have an amount of control, like a puppetmaster, over the image that you portray to everyone.
Generally, society is against the idea that beauty and brains can co-exist – usually, people are one or the other. But I learned from a young age that I have had to change everything about myself in order to feel attractive, to feel beautiful or handsome or whatever. I lost a large amount of weight, I work out (although once I get a damn job I will be re-enrolling at the gym full time!), I cut and dye my hair, I moisturise and diet and although it doesn’t rule my life, my appearance is something I end up dedicating a lot of time to. I’m not naturally this way – it took and takes a lot of hard work. Now, if people are willing to study and enhance their knowledge, skills and qualifications, then that’s commended and lauded as intelligence. If people dedicate time to looking after their appearance and feeling good in their own skin, that’s considered vanity?
Let me tell you something. I know I’m not stupid, even if sometimes I act it and sometimes I ask silly questions. I know I’m not ugly, even if I don’t need to spend the amount of time and money that I do on making myself look good. But I always wanted to be beautiful rather than brainy, because I felt that beauty was something that couldn’t really be taught or learned. I knew that I already had a decent brain and I know how to make it absorb knowledge – I however also was fortunate to have a decent face that isn’t repellent, so I just had to quest for the body to set it off. I’m not there yet, and considering I’m near 25, I probably won’t get there in time to fulfil my ambition of becoming a supermodel, but if I can look at myself and really think I am genuinely pretty, I will be happy. I guess that in a world where most people take looks for granted and value brainpower, I’ve rebelled against that and done the opposite. Perhaps that’s a little bit stupid or ditzy, I don’t know. Because really, the best thing in the world (and my overarching aim) would be, of course, to have it all.
Happy New Year! Here’s to the next decade! Last night I went to Panache with Hannah and Alex to dance the night away. And I certainly did! The music was generally very good (though it did prove just how dire music is at the moment, since the older hits from the earlier part of the decade, and even hits in the past 3 or 4 years stand head and shoulders above most of what is released today), and we all seemed to enjoy ourselves. We bumped into a couple of people we knew from school, and I generally ended up feeling very old (I am 24, the others were all 20 or 21) but it was a nice impromptu reunion with people whom I actually didn’t despise at school (generally, the idea of a school reunion fills me with dread and revulsion).
However, on my journey home from Hannah’s house today, I was thinking about some things that I need to get a grip on. After the afternoon’s passed and I’ve relaxed at home, these things don’t seem quite as urgent as they did at the time, but I still think it’d be good to write them down just so that I have a record of what I was thinking (or wasn’t, as the case may be). I know that when we went to the club, I looked good and I felt good, and I had drunk some but I wasn’t smashed. However, by the end of the night, I was embarrassingly off my face. I remember being aware of it, not being able to focus my eyes, coordinate my limbs (my dancing, usually pretty decent, had deteriorated into a bit of a joke) and slumping in the seating area while Hannah brought me water. In the taxi home, it was only shame and finance that stopped me from vomiting all over the back seat (motion sickness really gets to me when I’m drunk – I know that it’s motion sickness because as soon as I get out of the car, I’m fine – and I wasn’t sick at all that night nor in the morning. It’s happened before when I first met Mike and we went to the student bar and then he drove me home – I wasn’t sick then and I wasn’t about to start now). I wasn’t going to have to pay £70 for the privilege of being sick in a moving vehicle, and I wasn’t going to embarrass myself by not being able to control my own basic bodily functions. But it was a close one! Somehow I managed to wake up and not feel hungover – a small miracle, but also not really the point.
I also drank so much that although I was perfectly happy and I didn’t do anything embarrassing, I sorta did behave flirtatiously with one guy who was dancing up against me and vice versa (it was all unwitting but funny) – but more seriously, I ended up slightly coming onto one of the people we bumped into from my old school later in that evening. After a while, I gave up which was a really good move, because in the morning I just was like “OMG WHAT was I thinking?” The guy is ok, but somewhat immature and really not that attractive. It would have purely been because he was there, and because to try and take my mind off Mike, I would be distracting myself by whoring myself out to other people. As has been proven over this Christmas break, that’s not the way to go. I’m worth much more than random forced encounters, and I’m certainly worth much more than lowering myself to the standards of any average-looking person. And Mike is better than that, and it’s sorta a disgrace to try and replace what he means to me with the first random who shows an interest. Plus, I get frustrated at the fact that I have to make effort and chase these people – why isn’t anyone chasing me? I like how I look more than I ever did before, so why is it suddenly so difficult to find someone? I’m in Gucci, Armani, Prada – most guys my age don’t know what those even are. And I guess I answered my own question – I try to be solid gold on the outside as well as on the inside (I know that I have a good heart) but I try too hard and it goes unappreciated, and I forget my earlier wisdom of being ice king and not easily won. Overall I’m glad that nothing happened, and I’m mortified that I even entertained the thought. I thought about giving up alcohol, but that would never happen; lo and behold, I appear to be staying over at Mike’s on Monday night, so drinking will definitely happen then anyway!
Alcohol also makes me (as it did during the Christmas party a few weeks ago; although last night I was about 3 times as drunk) seem to run off in random directions. Hannah and Tess went missing during one period of the evening, and I spent half an hour pushing through people in the club in an effort to find them – it turned out they had gone to the kebab van without telling anyone! Then I ended up helping a girl who was in tears, had acquired another girl’s phone but had lost her own, and needed a lift from her friend but didn’t know where to meet him. I was out of the club wandering around Broadmead for half an hour with this girl who clung to me tighter than a starfish on a rock, who was using my phone (luckily I’m on contract so it was fine) and smoking my cigarette – she was appreciative, but it’s not something I would ever have taken the time to do had I been sober! And I hazard a guess that if she had been sober, she wouldn’t have been in that situation anyway 😉 The moral of this post seems to be that alcohol is messy! And it is. But I suppose that compared to what could have happened, it was all pretty harmless. I did have a good time, and I didn’t do anything wrong or bad. We got there and back in one piece, I wasn’t sick anywhere, I didn’t embarrass myself (as far as I’m aware) at Hannah’s house in front of her parents, and I don’t appear to have lost anything vital.
But the reason why I wanted to write this post was to say more than “don’t drink too much or you may act like a twat”. Everyone knows that. I just wanted to say that although it’s not a complete excuse, alcohol made me forget myself. It made me forget my own sense of dignity, which I nearly compromised by being sick, by pulling someone below my station and ultimately, by forgetting that I am worth more. I guess I’m disappointed in myself because I felt and acted weak last night, and I should be strong – most of the time, I am strong. But last night, I forgot that a meaningless encounter won’t hold a candle to a strong friendship and infatuation with a close friend; I forgot that I am a good person inside as well as on the outside, and I shouldn’t settle. I deserve more, so why did I entertain settling for less? That’s my first regret of 2010 (I start early!), but I hope that it’s something I can do something about. 🙂
☆ I am... chase. ★ 