off · the · rails

i'm in love with a boy who looks like peter doherty and julian casablancas, and is slightly geeky and adorable and oh my oh my. we went to hyde park the other day, spent what seemed like hours wandering around trying to find speakers corner, and then approximately 0.0000001 seconds after we actually sat down, it started pouring (ferciously, the ocean upturned on our heads). we ran around laughing hysterically, practically drowned and all with me in a white dress which rapidly became pornographic. i had his jumper to (almost) protect my modesty. we wandered up streets that convinced us we had stumbled into some alternate reality, it was bizarre and somehow everyone else seemed to be dry, while we dripped on the floors of wherever we took shelter.
and oh last week, he took me to chanel and we pretended to be rich and going to buy things. ended up in primark helping him buy underwear and, yet again, wearing his jumper. (which he tells me now smells like my perfume.)
then to the pub, sitting so close together that it was hard to see our two separate forms. running here, there and everywhere and ignoring everyone else. laughing, laughing, laughing. so carefree and ridiculous in our youth. he drunkenly walked me to my bus and worried about my safety.
then, he was outrageously late back from his lunch, after walking me to my bus again. when he was meant to be at work, we stood waiting for the 88 with him poking fun at my love of harry potter, and then, when i threatened to cry, he stood with his arms around me. and we tried to have the converstaion like that.

oh these little moments that make my day and my week and my life.

but my happiness is more, more about everything. friends, friends who really are. the realisation that i love love love and treasure people. some here, some far away, some almost unknown except through the screen.
and the almost sunny, but still chilly london weather. makes my dress fly up in monroe moments in the middle of leicester square. makes sitting by the window on the bus such a necessity, just to look up and see the sun break through the clouds, the expanse of blue blue sky, which seems so utterly different to the same sky of australia.

reading on the road, and understanding somethign infinite in me and these people and these places and time. time time time. that is what it comes down to. the past, the future, who knows! it's all irrelevent to me now. now. now. now. that's what i'm all about. the clock is ticking down and i can't stay young and impossibly irresponsible forever, but i've seen and realised that i needn't grow up into what people want and expect me to be. it's whatever. whoever.

oh there's more, so so so much more. trips to brick lane and camden and missing missing missing something, someone (wishing they were here. knowing how much they're growing and i'm growing and wishing, wishing, dreaming we could see it in each other, first hand). and that's obviously ruthy.

my friends, i apologise for being so absent from our community, our place. know that i think of you all and that i am happy being so occupied by life.

xxxx

days in hyde park, caught in the rain, too many drinks, dancing, being those people (no queues, just guestlist and friends and afterparties and 'known'), being asked out by customers, getting an agent (wtf? my friends have even taken to calling me 'peaches' because i'm some topshop it girl), insomnia, alcohol, beat beat beat, unrequited love (maybe), spice girls reuniting, london pride and dancing in the streets, drinking vodka in the lift, PAYDAY, freedom, happiness, reading, thinking, fighting, liquid lives, responsibility and fucking things up, hope, mood swings like you wouldn't believe, missing you, selfishness, narcissism (this job and these friends and this 'aesthetic movement' look aren't helping), money, money, his blue eyes, maybe maybe true love, the phrase 'hey sexy', getting exactly what i want, never going back, university is for losers, doing is for winners...

that's the very brief outline / introduction to my life, currently.

i am, actually, much much better than before.

there's too much to say. i can't possible fit all of today into an entry, let alone the past weeks. so ask me ask me ask me, if you are curious, or there's anything in particular that i've mentionned (or haven't) that you want to know about.

my brain has actually stopped working. i find it so ridiculously and frustratingly difficult to think about things properly. and i do spend most of my time thinking, so this is a pretty big issue.

but wednesday of this week was purely blissful, boy-i'm-in-love-with stayed back after he had finished work just so he could walk me to my department. we're going to get married. that's the only positive thing happening.

it's just impossible because i'm really unhappy right now. but i was so so so unhappy back in australia. and i just feel as though maybe there's nowhere in the world that can accomodate me. i feel stateless and homeless and hopeless.

but there's love and there's people who really are what i've been searching for. and everything is going to be alright. it's going to be alright. it's going to be alright.

i just need sleep and food. and then i'll be able to sort this all out.

my head is in such a state right now. when night falls i just watch the progress of the sky out of the window and then it's morning and i'm up and off again to battle with this responsibility that might be called adulthood.

and i said to a friend the other day that i don't think i'll ever be a real, proper adult. because i'm always just pretending. pretend shopping and pretend planning and pretend self-reliance.

but oh, i live alone in a foreign country and there's rent and bills, and maybe i can't cling to innocence anymore.

today was the first day of my third week at topshop. i've been made the customer service motivator for my department. more money and more security. but right now i'm still poor and exhausted.

as the rain spat at my feet, i sat at the bus stop with that dress, that cardigan, that bag, that hair, those eyes, that leg just so: to be perfectly and alluringly casual, gazing whistfully into the distance, but really staring at my reflection in a thousand panes of glass. of course some man also waiting struck up a conversation, and i measured my words, so carelessly thrown out that every ear was captivated. and oh i hate being like this, using everything to validate myself because i'm just so lonely.

i can't stand having no home, no place or person on which i can absolutely rely.

but then i suppose it's always been like this. and really it's me who's never been able to fully grasp reality, never able to understand why and how things can be like this.

and my mother told me this morning that it's all because i'm trying for something more, something beautiful and unreal.

i didn't realise it would be this difficult. and i don't mean moving to london, i mean life.

i'm just not entirely convinced by the world yet.

must go and change now.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

as i said in an email to my mother, i don't think i'm going to be worried much anymore.

the world has never seemed as beautiful as it does to me right now. days wasted away in museums and just wandering the streets. reading and writing and yes yes drinking shots before 6. and it's not even the impossible, imagined beauty of old, this is real and manifest and dirty and degraded and far more wonderful than anything my cracked out, deluded mind ever managed to produce.

and it isn't good. it isn't pure. it isn't remote or removed from despair. this is the world east of eden. post glory days of heroes and ideals.

this is so full of good and bad that all you can do is feel.

timshel.

it's funny, people i know over here are so sick of dark clouds with their threat of rain, but to me there's nothing more beautiful. in australia there was only one rainy day in a haze of heat. and heat, and sunshine, they're the way of life there. somehow the hot weather is indicative of everything. and it's as though rain is some small respite against the seemingly ever-present glorification of the bleached and beached, of everything i am not. but here that's normal, slightly frizzy fly-aways and cheeks made pink by the cold wind. having dark hair and pale skin is not a problem to be rectified.

the criticism i hear of london is that it's difficult to be different, to stand out. because everyone is different.
in australia at every moment i felt vaguely uncomfortable. people staring, people appalled, people shocked. and to me, just to fade into anonymity, to not be unusual or always on the edge of being beaten up or egged or yelled at, oh it's very nice.
for a while there i did perhaps feel a little overwhelmed and without any definite sense of who i am. but being lost in the crowd, being part of the heaving mass, and yet wearing bright green in a sea of black and grey people off to work, it's not so bad.

i feel like i've remembered something integral to why i do what i do. and occasionally there is that rising panic of the great looming future, which reminds me that this cannot last forever. but who cares?! surely one moment, one day, one year of bright, clean happiness is good enough. well no. but i'll try and pretend that nothing exists outside of this.

STARTING NEXT MONDAY. 

HOORAH.

oh i told myself that i'd tell my mother that i need money. but i didn't, yet again, laughed it off and changed the topic, swiftly. 

applied for a million jobs and am quite unlikely to hear from any of them at all. 

decided to disregard the future (fuck forever eh?) and cash in (or credit in really, travel around europe on what was supposed to be my ticket home) 

erm what else.

days spent with a bottle (or maybe a cup when a kind italian gentleman decides that it's 'far more beauitful') in leicester square, and dalston the night before and walking from bus stop to bus stop. awaking late, and then traisping through the unknown parts of town. dreaming of a time when all this is slightly more accessible. oh money money money. i wrote a list late last night of everything i'll do and buy once success somehow knocks on my door.

regent's park in the sunshine and 3 litres of lambrini. shaking uncontrollably at some distressing, but untrue news. drink, after drink guzzled down at the dublin castle (our pub) and epiphanies involving love and london and new found home. but not epiphanies really. known all along and just not spoken aloud.

death on the stairs of kings cross station. falling and forgotten oyster cards and fairly wasted, yes. stumbling back alone, but with company in my heart (now and forever and ever and ever). take-away food (how did i afford that?) and my bag and all it's contents covered in what was supposed to be my dinner. beyond caring of course. 

death on the stairs of home too, as i wobbled up (and crawled too) the many many flights. almost gave up and just deposited myself on the landing. but some super human force spurred me on and into bed. where i lay for six hours not sleeping a wink. thinking and pondering and planning and hoping that somehow things would actually work out. 

so much to do. 

in some vague (and doubtlessly tactless) way, i let my mother know that i'm staying. something along the lines of "i can't be completely happy because you're not here, but i can't be at all happy anywhere else" 

it's funny how you find something or some place (or some people. oh yes.) who you just realise you cannot. CANNOT. leave. ever.

REMEMBER HOW I TOLD YOU I WAS ONLY GOING TO SHOWS THAT I WAS ON THE GUESTLIST FOR. YEAH?

ALRIGHT, SO DO YOU WANNA COME WITH ME TO BOYS OF BRAZIL ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT? I'VE GOT A PLUS ONE. 

YEAH. THAT'S RIGHT. I'M A WINNER. 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

ps. the reason i'm not just posting this as a comment to hannah specifically is because i like showing off okay? i'm just that kind of a girl. LOLS.

queued from 3pm. 
drank from 3pm.
saw carl and didz entering, but being drunk actually failed to do anything about it. (five minutes later i was like, "oh that was carl and didz. fuck.")
met some totally brilliant lj people.
was on the barrier. even after weird ticketing incident.
got a setlist.
met gary, stan, didz, timmy (errrrrrr right) and carlos.
got journal signed by the boys.

my interaction with carl:

strange fanboy / ghey incident (see dptband)
carl: *looks at me*
me: *makes o rly? face* 
carl: *makes ya rly face*
me: erm, can you sign this for me? *shoves journal in front of him*
carl: *looks at me with LOLZ written all over his face as he angles my journal away from me and writes something*
me: ...
carl: there you go *amused look again*
me: *puts out my arms*
carl: of course
*hugs*
carl: *looks at me like he's really really impressed with himself*

....

me: *reads (and finally deciphers) what carl wrote in my journal* which is '4 me. ♥ carlos x' 
me: oh carl. *facepalm*

and omg i love gary. charlotte told him i'd come all the way from australia to see them and he just looked over at me, made an 'o rly?' face and said "i think that's a bit of a factual inaccuracy."
oh gary. 
and then we discussed shoe care. (both wearing white shoes you see)
me: gary. how do you keep your shoes so white?
gary: *looks down at both our feet* god, what happened!?!
me: i went to the camden crawl
gary: oh! that'll do it. 
me: lolz. yes.
gary: i actually clean mine. 

oh yeah. i hugged (TOPLESS) stan. and then when i pulled back he grabbed my hand and i just stood there holding stan's hand and listening to him talk about something for actually about thirty seconds and then we hugged again. 

and omg alan mcgee was there. in a hat. LOLZ. 

and timmy was dressed like an emo flasher. SRSLY.

i forget the rest. it was super though.

it did take a ridiculous amount of time and shivering to get home on several buses though. but still. 

i don't know. it wasn't the same as meeting peter. (well, obviously). i was just so much less starstruck by carl than i thought i'd be. i didn't feel the need to randomly scream out declarations of love and start kissing him. which is probably a good thing actually. it was just kind of weird is all.

i think it's one of a series of things that is leading me to believe that my concept of london is being de-idealised (erm, if that's a word. wtf). another in this long list is my absolute poverty. i no longer eat or drink anything that hasn't been bought for me. god. but we don't talk about that...

love and kisses and wishes upon stars to you all 

there's so much to say! i queued from before 7am to get tickets. (it was a secret show and so it was free, but you could only get tickets if you were going to the camden crawl and put babyshambles and myspace secret shows in your top 8) so anyway, after 5 hours of being absolutely freezing cold and making lots of pete-obsessed friends, we finally were given free babyshambles t-shirts and our wristbands, which is what we needed to get into the gig. we were told that it was ar koko and that we needed to be there before 2.30. so we all went off and got ridiculously wasted and met outside koko at 2. when it reached 3.30 and there was no sign of life inside, we started to freakout a bit, thinking he wouldn't turn up or something. there were myspace and channel 4 and mtv and nme reporters hanginjg around filming us and asking us about how we'd met in the queue, and then one of them told us that babyshambles weren't playing at koko, but that we were going to be taken to a secret location. hilariously, none of us believed him...until a whole fleet of taxis pulled up. then we started screaming and running around and going completely mental. i couldn't even tell where we were going because i was so busy screaming out the windows "we're going to see pete! omg omg omg!"
erm, then we pulled up at a tiny TINY bar called studio 88. and we were lead into a TINY back room where their equipment was set up. i actually lost my mind then because omg seeing babyshambles in a room the size of my kitchen! we had to wait for another hour. which made us all freakout again. and then he walked down the stairs, through the crowd, and onto the 'stage'. i was less than a metre away from him for the whole gig! they played fuck forever, killamangiro, albion (during which peter crowdsurfed!), 8 dead boys and the blinding. during the blinding everyone pretty much trashed the stage and equipment and peter was throwing stuff everywhere! then he ran up the stairs and outside. i dragged all my friends outside. peter was sitting down getting snapped by the paps, and drew was sort of standing to the side so i went over to him and hugged him and spoke to him for a second. then peter started going over to his car and we all sort of swarmed him and kept hugging and kissing him and saying how much he'd inspired us and how nuch we loved him. (and he wasn't wasted actually, so he was taking notice of what we said and being all sweet about it) and then he was about to get into his car and i yelled out "peter! can i have another hug" and he turned around and came back and i hugged him and again and told him i loved him and other embarasssing things that you say when you're right trashed.

oh dear. i just realised how much i wrote! sorry! i could really keep going on about it forever! but i wont because i've got to go and get ready to see dpt :)

queuing from 7am is never fun... except when you make awesome queue-friends!
seeing babyshambles at koko is the best thing ever... except when instead you're taken by taxi to a tiny bar and then see them from a metre away, and afterwards get to meet pete and drew and molest them and then be interviewed by channel four about it!
it doesn't get any better than that... except when afterwards it's only 5pm and you're already ridiculously wasted and then you go and see i am kloot, emmy the great and hadouken! (who omg, make you want to spak-dance and scream out your adoration)
and yes, it certainly doesn't get any better than that... except when after that you see scanners, and then as you're making your way to the next venue, you meet these new puritans on the street, and then xerox teens (at which time you decide to lead a stage invasion and experience pretty much the most insane (and probably significant) gig of you life)
but it definately doesn't get any better than that... except when you see john (of libertines and yeti fame) walking down camden high street and (having had waaaay too many alcopops) you leer at him inappropriately and he smiles back.

and now the only way that could ever be improved upon is if you did it all again the next day. and then went to blood red shoes and help she can't swim the day after that, and dirty pretty things the day after that.

yeah. i'm actually drowning in joy. 

AND ALL THIS IS ALL IN THE NEXT 7 DAYS. 

ACES.

I don't even know where to begin. i feel as though, for the past few days, i've been cocooned in a wonderful world of dreams and ridiculous happiness. 

Katheryn, my friend from Leeds, arrived on thursday. We went off in search of good times and better clothes in camden. and spent the whole day spending, spending, spending. we then got hammered on vodka, sitting in my kitchen, and just talking for 6 hours.  Then on friday we went over to Brick Lane. and i couldn't help but fangirl because EAST LONDON. PETE&CARL. OMFG ETC ETC ETC. then when we were in absolute vintage (which owns my soul omg) i bumped into my old drama teacher lauren (who is awesome in every way. except when she sat me down and tried to give me a 'drug talk' while i was coming down. not fun. ewwwwwww.) anyway, yes. lauren is awesome and she's living in london too (in holloway) and we're going to hang out because she's the best and i love her. i still can't believe that of all the places in the world, we'd both be in a)the UK b)london c)brick lane d)absolute vintage. it was just great. but my gosh, I've been to what seems like every vintage shop in London now. Bought belts and bags and dresses and shoes and every other good thing. (am now desperately in poverty but really, i don't mind. £20 to last me all next week. ha. yeah. it can be done) 

erm, NOW TO THE AWESOMENESS OF LAST NIGHT. 
so katheryn and i took about 4 hours to get dressed and do our hair and everything. then we tubed to Elephant and Castle. Went to the Coronet. Used the special guestlist entrance. then, as we were being checked off on the list, we had to get our wristbands for the afterparty. but we had to show id for that. and of course Katheryn is 17, so we were a bit OH NOES. and then, magically Rhys' (Spider Webb) mum (who knows Katheryn) came past and told the owner of the Coronet that she knew us and we were both overage and that we were with the band and djs etc etc. and so then we got ushered through all the other queues and got to put our bags and coats away. 
now, we were already quite drunk by this stage because we'd had beer and wine at mine place. but too much is never enough, so we drank a bottle of vodka in the toilets. classy. we then went and met up with Rhiannon (Rhys' mum) and met Rhys' siblings (omg his brother Huw is super attractive and also very sweet. but when i hugged him i was like 'OMFG WHERE ARE YOU???? SO THIN WTF') and Tom's brother was there too and just various siblings / girlfriends who i lost track of). anyway then NEILS CHILDREN came on and katheryn and i spazzed and went down to the dancefloor and shook our hips to something you said. then in the break between neils children and the horrors we talked more to Rhiannon (who must be the coolest mum ever omg.) and then with her help we got an afterparty wristband for a blatantly underage friend of ours, Hubert, who is great because he likes the birthday party. hoorah. anyway, the horrors played. we danced. good times.

the afterparty was such quality. but at first it was really awkward because we were all on one side of a barrier thing, and everyone who was leaving was on the other side and they were staring and stuffs. strangeee. anyway, what followed was many hours of sixties garage, surf, 80s trash, a bunch of quality freakbeat tracks. dj-ed first by Tom and then Joe. We danced a lot. sat down and drank a lot. got all excited about a neils child dancing next to us. spoke to Rhys who invited us to an after afterparty at his place in hackney (omgz) and who is actually made of awesome. we also vaguely saw Faris a lot, but he didn't actually speak to anyone. weirdo. and omg when we were talking to rhys, he asked how we'd liked neils children and we were like 'OMGZ LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM OMGZZZ!!!!ONEONE!!!!1111!!' and then we looked beside us and the drummer was standing there giving us a funny look. oh dear, much embarassment.
then sadly the party had to end because security was trying to kick us all out. Rhiannon was all motherly to us and worried about how we'd get home, but we ended up going back to the dorm of two boys we'd met at the afterparty, who lived right around the corner. they bought us loads and loads of alcohol and we danced and spazzed and generally had a super time. i woke up with bite marks in unmentionable places which is always, i think, an indicator of a good evening. 

somehow we managed to take the tube home at 10am, and then after showering, we went back out to camden to take polaroids and buy more clothes. and a few hours ago Katheryn caught the coach back to Leeds. but we're going to visit each other and replicate the awesomeness of the past few days.

reunions and guestlists and dancing and shopping. oh it's all bliss.

OH YEAH. AND SOMEWHERE ALONG THE LINE I VISITED THE V&A MUSEUM AND HAD A PICNIC LUNCH IN KENSINGTON GARDENS AND WENT TO ROUGH TRADE AND AND AND IT WAS AWESOME.

THE END.

PS. I LOVE CHARLOTTE. FACT.

ahaha omg. i apologise for that last post. it was a bit cracked out. (i was like a junkie having her long awaited fix. oh boy, i do love the internet)

anyway, now i've properly got the webz at home (yesterday i was at an internet cafe. lame.) so i can update properly. sort of. 

yesterday morning, after spazzing on lj, i tubed to blackfriars. i walked over millennium bridge to the tate modern, and walked around there for quite some time. then i went to the globe theatre. i walked back over millennium bridge to st pauls. i wandered (in a slightly lost fashion) around london, until i found a sainsburys where i bought the ingredients for a picnic. i then tubed to hype park. where i had a yummy (and most importantly, cheap!) lunch by the lake thingy. then, upon realising that i was sort of near rough trade, i set off through kensington gardens to find notting hill. OMG ON THE WAY I SAW SQUIRRELS. LIKE. ACTUAL SQUIRRELS. IN THE PARK. BOUNCING AROUND AND BEING CUTE. 4REALZ. 

it was so cool. but i was incredibly uncool. i fangirled the squirrels. lolz at me. 

anyway, after what seemed to be approximately 11239740762970347 hours of walking, i managed to make it to notting hill. and i went to some nice vintage stores, but they were all a bit ridiculously expensive. 

sadly, my desire to appear cool won out over my desire to find rough trade. (i couldn't get out my map to try and figure out where i was / where to go, because the people were attractive and i didn't want them to think i was a lame tourist. ha.)

but, i did find a phone shop, where i bought a new phone. but i'm not actually getting it until monday (so i have to go back. and by then i will have perfected my navigation and wont need a map to find rough trade :D )

anyway, i'll post my new number on monday so you can all spam me with love etc. 

i haven't really decided what to do today. probably just sitting around. i might go down to the shops and see if anywhere that sells easter eggs (or chocolate of any sort really.) is open....


oh and OMG I FORGOT THE MOST EXCITING THING.

I LIVE AROUND THE CORNER FROM THE FORUM. SO PRETTY MUCH I AM GOING TO STALK A WHOLE LOT OF BANDS. YEAH.