Friday, 30 April 2010

Caved

So I caved. And after twenty days of being without Facebook I reactivated my account. This was not done because I missed it, because quite honestly I didn't. It was nice to live without the pressures of a cyber reality, to be contacted by my real friends through other methods, to see people rather than to talk to them for hours over one word wall comments that in reality meant nothing. In the last twenty days I have seen my friends more, had actual conversations, and felt a little lost.

It is amazing the amount of comfort that can come from an online existence, no matter how shallow or superficial it may be. To sit in a room at home with nothing to do can sometimes be a pleasure, other times it becomes a curse.

Part of my decision to leave Facebook is due to the distraction it created for me regarding my work. This distraction has not left me when Facebook did, instead I have found other ways to procrastinate from my work. Granted it has been more productive at times, such as physically seeing my friends, writing songs and learning the guitar, but it has still been there.

I still disagree with a lot of what Facebook represents, a society in which we can no longer communicate in through god given sources, a place where things are no longer 'official' until stated on Facebook and a tool by which we are able to create a false sense of self available to anyone to see, judge and comment via the simple aid of a 'like' button or a comment box.

We are slowly becoming a world where friendships will be unable to form and grow unless a computer screen is appropriately placed in front of ones eyes or a mobile with Internet access is held in ones hand. It is a world where major companies are beginning to rely on the fan pages of a social networking site and where a profile page literally has power over the user.

I can see us as a society, as a race, being sucked into an artificial world and as much as I am against it I am a part of it.

In the twenty minutes that I have been back on Facebook I have had 'best friends' talk to me more than in the entire 20 days I have been absent from it. I have been contacted about upcoming shows and have been welcomed back as though I were a family member who had not been home for a long time. This is the world we live in now and I am afraid to say that I am a part of it.

Surely it is better to be surrounded by cyber friends in an electronic world than to be all alone in a living breathing one?

Facebook is comfort. It is the place I go to and speak to friends when I am home alone and with no where to go for whatever reason. It is the site I visit to pass my time and to put off doing work and it is apparently the place where all my 'best friends' reside.

The Fall of Sleep

And I would like, Like to sing you to sleep
To sit beside you, Be there with you

And I would like, To be the one in the house
Who knew the night was cold
Who knew the night was cold

And I would like, Like to sing you to sleep
To sit beside you, Be there with you

<3

Go get your shovel and we'll dig a big hole

I blame you.
You bastard you will never know what you did to me! arghhhhh


Anyway... Time to go buy fake tan :)

Wednesday, 28 April 2010

When life keeps getting in the way..

How sad is it that I can sort of relate to a song from High School Musical! I think it is time to escape for a bit with some tea and pasta and cheese and Greys Anatomy with the best friend.

Another song to waste my time with

But it was a trick
And the clock struck 12
Well make sure to build your home brick by boring brick
or the wolves gonna blow it down


I Love You, Not

Don't you just love how some songs can take you right back to a certain moment.

What an afternoon!

Well although I have still not done any of the work that I need to do, I do feel that my afternoon has been spent wisely.

After a lazy morning with one of my best friends and lots of cups of tea, then a much too short visit off the 'the boy', I went for a much needed shower, only to do that really annoying thing I always do when I get in the shower... Sing.

I always do it, much too often, some of my best lyrics have been lost due to showers. It always happens the same way. I get in there, stick my head under the almost-boiling-peel-off-your-skin water and begin to sing words. And from these words sentences are formed, and from these - verses, and then they begin to get a general tune, a rhythm, a gentle rhyme, and, even if I do say so myself, they don't sound half bad.

And then I get out of the shower and can't remember a single thing!

Today was one of these days. My shower brought with it a truck load of inspiration, words flowed from my mouth like never before and I decided that I was determined not to let these lyrics go down the plughole along with my shampoo. As I then tried in vain not to forget these lyrics, more came to me, and much more than a single line or two, but a whole verse, then accompanied by a chorus. Next thing you know I am using all of my brain power - which isn't much - to try and remember two songs well enough for me to finish washing my hair, get out of the shower and back in my room so that I can write them both down.

By some amazing stroke of luck I managed to part remember them. The first one I rushed down, singing it as I had in the shower, trying to remember how it went, but finding that it was destined to change slightly.

The second. As soon as my hands hit the keyboard the words flowed out of my mouth like a well known song that had been sung for years. It changed a lot from how I sang it in the shower, the whole tune to it was different, but from this came new lyrics and before I knew it I was on my second page of a Microsoft Word document.

The second song especially, seemed to take quite an angry-teen-"the-world-is-against-me"-pop/punk-Paramore-did-I-mention-angry tone to it, which a lot of is not at all what I am feeling right now. But I have read it back a few times and sent the lyrics to a friend for approval and I happen to think that it isn't half bad.

So who knows, maybe one day soon I will be putting actual music to it and getting someone to sing it for me or with me. But I have to say, I feel as though I am starting to find my inspiration again, its just a shame that it no longer seems to be from the subject that I am paying 3000 odd pounds a year for.

I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles ey!

Nathan's play list - part two

I have finally begun to work my way down Nathan's play list of songs for me to listen to. I have decided not to listen to them all in one go as I do not want to overload my mind with too many new songs and lose any appreciation for them so I have decided to listen to them in threes. This may be three, three times a day, it could be three a week, I have not thought about it that much!

But here is my thoughts on the first three songs off the list...

Bad Brains - Banned in DC

This is the first song I listened to and after listening to the opening line I decided I needed the lyrics up for me to even begin to understand what the song was going on about. I listened to it a few times to make any judgements fair and I have decided that I like this song only as a background noise.

I like the music, and the break between the first and second verse is enjoyable but I feel that the music often drowns out the lyrics. I understand that given the genre of music is it to be quite angry and fast and slurred, which I suppose if this is your type of music they do very well, but this is not really for me to be honest.


Screeching Weasel - My Brain Hurts
I really enjoyed the introduction to the this song. As soon as the guitars started I knew that this would be a song I would like. Again I decided to read the lyrics as I listened to the song as I love my lyrics, they are after all the essence of the song!

I think my favourite lyric from this song has to be..

Milk fed little beauty queen
she's straight out of a magazine
she sits beside me
breathing different air than me
This is definitely a song I will listen to again!


Screeching Weasel - Veronica Hates Me
Unfortunately every time I tried to listen to this song my laptop decided to have a spaz and kept stopping and starting the song, yet even with this interference I still enjoyed this song. Some of the lyrics made me laugh and it is such a man song in the way that everything Veronica does is because she 'hates' him. Parts of the song reminded me of things my mom says to my dad or brother and it also reminded me of my brothers response to some of these things.

Again the song was very catchy and I like the repetition of the lyrics, as well as the back ground "Veronica hates me" during different parts of the verses.

I think I am a new fan of Screeching Weasel as what I have heard so far I do quite enjoy! More listening to come I think!



Straying slightly from Nathan's play list I began listening to The Queers - Teenage Gluesniffer as Youtube suggested it to me after listening to Screeching Weasels and I must say I rather enjoyed that too! Towards the end of the song the line "Well he's a teenager gluesniffer" began to get a bit tiresome with its repetition but apart from that I did quite enjoy it, with the simple rhyming of the lyrics making me smile at times :)


So there it it. My first lot of review type thoughts on some of the songs my lovely brother suggested to me. If anyone has any other suggestions of songs to add to the list feel free to leave a comment and I shall do my best to get to it at some point.


Nathan's Play list....

Bad Brains - Banned in DC
Screeching Weasel - My Brain Hurts, Veronica Hates Me + Science of Myth
Agent Orange - Everything Turns Grey
Capdown - Ska Wars
Mustard Plug - Beer Song
Madness - One Step Beyond
Rancid - Tropical London, Red Hot Moon + Time Bomb
The Only Ones - Another Girl Another Planet
The Ziggens - Goin' Richter + Can't We All Just Get A Longboard
Dead Kennedys - Holiday In Cambodia
Reel Big Fish - Sell Out, Take On Me, Beer + Monkey Man
Spunge
Streetlight Manifesto
Nofx - Linoleum
Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear The Reaper
The Vandals - My Girlfriend's Dead
Kings of Leon - Ragoo
Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition
David Bowie - Life On Mars
Smashing Pumpkins - Today + 1979
The Animals - House Of The Rising Sun
The Cure - Inbetween Days, Close To Me + Boys Don't Cry
Harry Becafonte - Jumpin' The Line
Bob Marley - Redemption Song + No Woman No Cry
Spin Doctors - Two Princes

Monday, 26 April 2010

There's gotta be more

Sometimes it is hard to process all the thoughts you have in your head. Even when none of them are particularly that bad.

It is difficult when you have things you want to talk about, but you do not want to feel as though you are talking forever.

Sometimes words lend themselves so perfectly to everything you are trying to express. Other times you just sit in silence, staring at the blank page.

------------------------------------------------

Last night I had my first guitar 'lesson'. It was actually me and my best friend Boodge Lane, sitting with our guitars and him teaching me his favourite chords in hopes of me learning an RDD song - I still have a way to go!

After an hour or so of me going over the same four chords and sitting listening to Tom and Iain playing without flaw and wishing that I could one day be that good Iain left and me and Tom began to mess about with lyrics.

Within half an hour my blank sheet of paper was filled with lyrics, all sections of different potential songs. I began to feel inspired to write lyrics as Tom played on his guitar, adding in 'ch ch's whenever I felt necessary and I began to remember how magical writing music can be.

I literally didn't want to leave his room. I wanted to play and write and sing all night. I wanted to learn the guitar inside out there and then. I wanted to remember that passion, that drive, that love and affection for something again.

I've got it all, but I feel so deprived
I go up, I come down and I'm emptier inside
Tell me what is this thing that I feel like I'm missing
And why can't I let it go

I often wonder where it went. My passion. It used to be all I had. It used to be me. It was what got me up in a morning and what stopped me going to sleep at night. It was what I thought about all day every day and it was the only thing I ever saw myself ever doing. Now I don't have that.

Passion is now a lazy friend, a visitor who only makes an appearance every once in a while. Someone who you can not wait to see and when it finally gets there times passes too quickly and it has to leave almost as soon as it arrived. Passion is no longer me.

Sometimes I don't know who I am anymore. More importantly a lot of the time I don't know what I am doing. I don't know where my path is taking me anymore and I am starting to lose the road ahead. I no longer trust the tour guide and I feel it is all a waste of my money and effort.

But I paid and I guess that means I'm in this till the end, until I reach my destination, wherever that may be.

It worries me sometimes that maybe it is not my passion that has been lost but my belief. I don't know if I believe in myself. I do not trust that I am anything special, but then I never really have. But how long can you expect your passion to stay alive without the belief that it will shine brighter than any other light in the universe?!


I'm always waiting on something other than this
Why am I feelin' like there's something I missed

I am scared. I am petrified. About many things really. About the path my life is taking. About my disability to actually focus enough and to care enough to do the things I need to do such as coursework and filling out important forms. About falling too fast and too hard for someone. About letting them fall for me. About them not falling for me at all. About the high pitched nuisance who always seems to creep into my days. About deleting Facebook and all the friends who suddenly find the idea of sending a text message a tiring taxing task. About the society I am part of that I feel invisible in. About the job I do not really care for. About the bank balance I am dying to blow on crap. About the money I need to save for hen parties abroad and dresses and general life. About what I want to do in life. About where I want to live. About where I want to go back to.

So I sit. And I waste my time drinking tea and pondering over the emptiness of my life. I idly dream about the possibility that there might actually be something more and I snatch it all away in the same thought knowing that even if there was I am not and never will be capable of reaching it.

I've got the time and I'm wasting it slowly
Here in this moment I'm half-way out the door
Onto the next thing, I'm searching for something that's missing

I want people to reach for the stars and to grab them with both hands and not let go.

I want people to believe in themselves and everyone around them. Yet I am incapable of doing it myself.


There's gotta be more to life
Than chasing down every temporary high to satisfy me
Cause the more that I'm
Trippin' out thinkin' there must be more to life
Well it's life, but I'm sure. There's gotta be more

Hehehe

Isn't it funny the things you can find on Google!

Saturday, 24 April 2010

The beginning of those summer nights

It's half eight on a Saturday evening. Your shirt is infested with dry grass cuttings from the grass fight you had two hours ago. The sky is beginning to dim and only the street lights on the main roads have begun to light up. Side streets are lit by the dusty salmon sky which lights up the skyline flawlessly. Today has been a good day.

It's the beginning of those summer nights, where everywhere you walk you can smell the fading scent of the memorable sunny afternoon garden barbeque's, the air feels light and warm against your skin and even as dusk begins to fall you still do not require a coat or jacket.

You get home after a long day of work, seeing friends and lengthened walks along the river and you sit in the garden with your house mate while she smokes a cigarette and catches up with you about the last few days.

These are the days I remember most. These are the days I love.




Yet as much as I love them, and as perfect as they are, and as many of the loving butterflies-in-your-tummy kisses your boyfriend gives you and the amount of times he honestly truthfully tells you that you are beautiful; and as much as I enjoy the grass fights with best friends, and the walks along the river and the lazying in the sun; and as enjoyable as the shift at work is, and as comfortable as the summers day walk around town was, I still can not escape that tiny little nagging irritation in the back of my mind whenever the high pitched annoyance appears.

I will not let this ruin my day :)

Thursday, 22 April 2010

Because my orchid tells me so

I have an orchid. They are my favourite flower. My orchid tells me things.

It was first bought for me as a gift about two and a half years ago by a boyfriend. From the moment I had it it was in constant blossom, as soon as one flower fell off a new one appeared in its place almost instantly. It was never without bloom...

Until the day we broke up.

Petal by petal my orchid began to revert into a thin tired green stem with three leaves which eventually all fell off bar one.

Last month my orchid began to show signs of life again, after a year and a half of nothing but a limp muddy green leaf.

This week I notice that a new leaf has begun to grow as well as colour returning to the old one.

I can't help but think that my orchid is telling me positive lovely things about 'the boy' <3


Tuesday, 13 April 2010

Breathe

Sometimes I hate my mind.

Sunday, 11 April 2010

Nathan's play list

After reading my blog post about A Fine Frenzy and some of the music I have started listening to my brother decided to create me a play list of music he rates highly. At this moment in time I have not yet listened to any of the songs he has suggested, but, as promised, I am going to write a blog listing the songs and bands he has suggested I should listen to, then as I work my way down the list I shall write a small review on each song and what I thought of them.
Here goes.


Nathan's Play list....

Bad Brains - Banned in DC
Screeching Weasel - My Brain Hurts, Veronica Hates Me + Science of Myth
Agent Orange - Everything Turns Grey
Capdown - Ska Wars
Mustard Plug - Beer Song
Madness - One Step Beyond
Rancid - Tropical London, Red Hot Moon + Time Bomb
The Only Ones - Another Girl Another Planet
The Ziggens - Goin' Richter + Can't We All Just Get A Longboard
Dead Kennedys - Holiday In Cambodia
Reel Big Fish - Sell Out, Take On Me, Beer + Monkey Man
Spunge
Streetlight Manifesto
Nofx - Linoleum
Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear The Reaper
The Vandals - My Girlfriend's Dead
Kings of Leon - Ragoo
Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition
David Bowie - Life On Mars
Smashing Pumpkins - Today + 1979
The Animals - House Of The Rising Sun
The Cure - Inbetween Days, Close To Me + Boys Don't Cry
Harry Becafonte - Jumpin' The Line
Bob Marley - Redemption Song + No Woman No Cry
Spin Doctors - Two Princes

Saturday, 10 April 2010

Today I deleted Facebook

Today I deleted Facebook, the thought of doing so has been with me for several weeks now and today I decided to finally stop talking about it and actually do it.
Actions speak louder than words
I'm not going to lie and pretend that Facebook is the devil and evil, because it isn't, it is only what you make it, and while it has helped me reconnect with people I knew years ago and form some truly wonderful friendships it has also become a means by which I live my life, and that is no longer the way I wish to live.

I am at university paying thousands of pounds a year for a degree which I constantly procrastinate from via the aid of Facebook. I'm in a relationship which is not classed as official by many because it isn't declared on our profiles. I'm sent requests to be friends with people I have never met but feel pressure into clicking the accept button simply because I have 43 friends in common with them. It is only when I start asking our mutual friends who this person is that we realise that none us really know them we just saw them one time in Bushwakers.


A perfect example of the power Facebook has and the popularity contest it has become is that of Mark O'Herbert. It all started a couple of months ago when people at uni began getting friend requests from this person, when I got my request I had about 30 friends in common with him, now I have over 70. I declined my request after having it sitting on my profile for about 3 weeks, the decision for this came after I had sent him a message asking if I knew him, when after 3 weeks he hadn't replied I decided that my friendship to him was not that important. However a lot of my friends did accept, and the more and more who added him, the more and more they began talking about him. His profile only contained very limited information and he only had one picture, that of which had three people in it, any of whom he could have been. No one knew.

Eventually the more and more people who added him, the more and more everyone began to realise that this person did not actually exist. Groups were made asking if anyone had seen him, theories were passed around as to who was behind the fake profile and people still continued to add him.

As far as I aware, the mystery of Mark O'Herbert has still not yet been solved. The person most people believe is behind the creation of him has become quite vocal, placing blame on other people and online status arguments between the 'creator' and the creation have taken place.

This single example, is reason enough for me to decide to delete my account. People are no longer your friends because they know you or plan on getting to know you, they are simply your friend in order to seem popular.

Two days ago I deleted over 200 friends on Facebook and I bet not one of them even noticed. This thought does not offend me as I didn't notice that I had deleted them either and with a lot of them I did not even have to think about it before I did it. I just did.


A brilliant portrayal of everything Facebook has become and what it has turned us, its users, in to is the new South Park. Here, Gawker.tv have taken the best bits of the episode and written an article on it. It is a very honest portrayal and an eye opening read for those who may not have seen the episode titled You've Got 0 Friends.

For now at least my life, and that of my best friend, is now Facebook free. I believe in my friends enough that they will stay in contact with me through text, call, email and actual real conversations. Those who find these methods too difficult I guess were never that good of friends in the first place.

You know you're back home when...

You get to Stourbridge Junction and have drunken chavs on both sides of the track, shouting to each other, grabbing their crotches and pretending to throw one another off the platform.

Someone presses their face right up against the side of the train, trying to look inside.


A chav comes on the train with a can in one hand and a fag in the other to shout to his friends the other side of the track through the window.


You get off the train and the first thing you see as you leave the station doors are two big piles of sick.


How I love to be home.


Thursday, 8 April 2010

She's got a boyfriend now

Recently it seems that all the poopyness of single life has evaporated from my life and I am now in a relationship. Now some could argue that as technically neither of us have 'asked the other out' that we are still just 'dating' but we both know, without defining it, that we are together. He is "the boy" and I am "the lady" - which now in writing makes me feel old so maybe something needs doing about this title - I know that I am not interested in anyone else and so does he so as far as I'm concerned I am happy with that. "The boy" makes me happy.

Yet a lot of people this last week have been asking me about when we are going to become 'official'. Of course by official they do not mean, when is one of us going to ask the other out, but, when are we going to put it on Facebook. It has become so much of an interest to my friends recently that my online Facebook wife this week divorced me!



Now while the banter with my friends has been lovely, and while I truly enjoy talking about the boy who makes me smile and thinking about that fun beginning part of a relationship and all the things to follow, I do find it annoying that a relationship can no longer be official until Facebook says so.

Would I like to be "In a relationship with" on Facebook?

Yes. I suppose I would as being listed as "Single" does feel like some what of a fib as I no longer class myself as that, but at the same time I am not going to stress and worry and lose sleep over the fact that we are not "Facebook official".

It almost feels like relationship status' on Facebook have come much like the couples at secondary school who got 'engaged' with no plans of ever getting married, simply because they needed to prove their relationship.

I feel that I have no need to prove my relationship to anyone. The people who matter will already know or will soon find out by seeing us together or speaking to us, so why should I feel the need to broadcast it to a million other people who I never speak to just so they can gossip and gawp?!

Today a friend of mine deleted her Facebook account after returning to it for a total of four days after giving it up for lent. She found that the forty days and forty nights without it were much more stress free. Similarly "the boy" deleted his Facebook account for a couple of months a while ago and since returning to it has not moulded to the obsessed 24/7 user that I and my friends have been known to be. Therefore I can not imagine that becoming "Facebook official" has even crossed his mind!

I already feel that Facebook has too much of a role in my life, of course that is no ones fault but my own and I do not pretend otherwise. To me, Facebook seems to rule everything. I fall behind on my university work because I am sitting staring at the screen waiting for something to happen, I go to bed late because I am sending
Friends quotes back and forth to friends, I wake up and update my status to tell people things they are not at all interested in, then I rush home before work and change it again to tell people that that is where I am off to and then I come home after my shift and feel a little bit neglected that after 6 hours not one person has commented or 'liked' my status! I do not want my relationship to take the same path.

Equally I believe that a relationship should be between two people and as soon as you publicly announce it on Facebook you lose some of that intimacy as people are allowed to comment and 'like' it. And then if things don't work out you are left to once again broadcast the failure to people who only ask you if you're okay simply so they can get the gossip.

Therefore, for the moment I am going to remain listed as "Single" on Facebook and maybe even hide my relationship status altogether. Not because I am not serious about "the boy" and not because I do not care about him because I do, but because I do not want to feel as though I have defined our status for anyone other than ourselves. So maybe when all the pressure from friends has piped down I will send him that request to be "In a relationship with", or maybe I will just wait and see if he sends it to me :)

Monday, 5 April 2010

Until The Last Of Days

A few weeks ago I was blogging about my lack of love for current music and how I wanted to broaden my play list with songs I can get lost in. Well I have certainly done that. In the last week I have started listening to music by artists such as Less Than Jake, Mumford & Sons, Frou Frou, Dropkick Murphys, A Fine Frenzy and rekindling my love for artists such as The All-American Rejects, Popa Roach, Imogen Heap, Foo Fighters and Sarah McLaughlin. I have also found songs by bands that I am yet to explore further, such as Today Has Been A Good Day by Emiliana Torrini and Sunny Day by Joy Williams.

My biggest favourite new find has to be A Fine Frenzy. It started with
Almost Lover, a song from their 2007 debut album One Cell In The Sea. After listening to it on repeat a few hundred times I decided to YouTube them and see if they were a one song wonder or if they, in fact, could potentially be my new favorite band.


My ears have been delighted with every song I have found!! The twenty four year old singer, Alison Sudol, has the most beautiful of voices and brings forth some amazing lyrics which have sent shivers down my spine and tears to my eyes, not to mention the slightly racing pulse I seem to get every time I see a picture of the beautiful red head. Each song is so relaxed yet upbeat, deep and meaningful yet easy to listen to. They are songs you can fall in love to and songs you can fall apart to.

Bring us back talent.
Bring us back lyrics.
Bring us back music.

A Fine Frenzy has brought back the talent to me, it has brought back the lyrics and it has brought back the music.

Bring back the music we can fall in love to.
Bring back the music with can get lost in.
Bring back the music that fills peoples hearts with ambition and makes dreams a reality.





If I were old, my dearest, you would be older
But I would crawl upon your lap
Wrap a blanket round our frail little shoulders
And I'd die happily like that

Friday, 2 April 2010

I love those days.

Don't you just love those amazing showers that come towards the end of the day, right after a long tiring shift at work that began after a sleepless night because you couldn't help but stay up talking and not talking with the boy who meets you from work and makes you cups of tea, that was followed by a twenty minute walk to the train station, which then led to a bumpy noisy 45 minute train journey home, only to be left waiting in the wind and rain because your lift is late to pick you up; that starts off boiling hot, massaging your entire body as it begins to steal your reflection away from the mirror, before being turned down to freezing to refresh every part of you as the last rushes of water escape, spiraling down the plug hole while you stand still for a moment, letting the coolness take over and relax you entirely.

I love those showers.