Pyjama Party

Woke up, did a bit of a cry, then thought "Actually, thank fuck we're putting out the single. At least now I have something to look forward to."

Wasted too much of my life trying to impress rubbish boys who don't actually care, sick of this script, want another one. I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille.

Sat up all night with AMP getting drunk and talking about the rubbishness of boys, and this morning woke up and lay in bed talking about music and Riot Grrrl and everything we wanted to accomplish - she's writing a book (!!!!!) and songs are leaping into my head, time to work on an album. I'm the Candle, and she's the Camera, and together we are Art.

And I wanted to hate it, wanted to think it was crap, but the Tom Yum Fun track (Sorry, I know that's not what they're called, but I was doing a drunk and it was funny) is actually really good. Lots of tinkling glockenspiels and atmospheric Duran Duran whooosh synth noises and steel drums and blokey singing like Magnetic Fields minus the adenoids. OK, it would be better if we did Squeeze style "coooooool for cats" harmonies in the background, but we won't tell him that. This is exciting. Now we have to decide what colour to make it.

Blown Away

First, it's the fear. The tightening of the chest, because you know what's coming when you see his number in your missed calls register. The hurt, as he stumbles his way through saying it. Then the anger, the pissed off BILE as you throw it back in his face. "Just don't say it, just don't give me the fucking line, I've heard them all before. Sorry but you don't think about me *that way*. If I had a fucking dollar for every time I've heard the old 'I hope we can still be friends' line..."

Then the self loathing. How dare you even dream? You stupid fucking shit! How could I forget that I'm an ugly, mishapen, lump of flesh, a ball of neurosis and madness and what the fuck was I even *thinking*, believing that someone might actually be attracted to me? Don't get your hopes up. The Black Dog was right, you *are* unlovable.

Anger again. You fucking LEAD ME ON. It wasn't just my imagination, there was some kind of spark there. There was that *click*. What the fuck, how dare you?

Self loathing and self doubt. What was I thinking? You always end up alone. Why do you bother? Why do you fuck things up like this? Why do you sabotague yourself by reading too much into things? Don't be stupid, were you *mad* thinking it might be mutual? Look at the girls he likes, look at the girls he's attracted to, the silthlike willowly little things. Do you look like that? Does he look at you like he looked at your sister, like he looked at your bandmate? Look at the girls he dates - do you think you have a *chance*?

Then the outrage. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING. This is *your* loss, if you can't see what could have been. You will never meet anyone like me ever again." Fuck it, I will never meet anyone like *you* again. Every little tiny detail, every shared conversation, every spark of interest shared, the way our brains just *fit* together, the same connections. I'm shy, I'm awkward, I'm difficult, but it was never like that with you, the words, the ideas just flowed. That's something so rare, and so beautiful, and I've smashed it to bits by daring to presume.

It's not my fault I'm ugly. I've always been. I could never slide by on my looks. I had to learn to be funny, to be clever, to be quick with a turn of phrase, to be *talented* - to be *brilliant* - when I wanted attention. I liked to think that made up for not being "hott". Thanks for the slap in the face, the reminder that it *doesn't*. The brains, the songs, the pictures, the stories, I would trade them all if I could just love and *feel* loved. But it doesn't work that way, does it? I'm not the brain, floating in the jar, I'm the humped back and the bulldog face, that's all you see. I can't even claim "I'm pretty on the inside" because I'm not, I'm a labyrinth, I'm a multitude, I'm complicated and challenging and a bit too intense and who wants that?

What happened? Did you get too close? I always loved Andre Gide's story about shipwrecks, that the survivors must cut the fingers off the people in the water, to prevent them from climbing in the boat and swamping it. So Gide's heroine cut the fingers off any emotions that might climb into her boat and swamp it. The quickest way to dispose of a man is to tell him that you might be able to love him. Sex as a weapon? Was that it?

For once, I actually don't think it was. You ticked all my boxes, the rare combination of maths brilliance and creative inspiration. Our friends used to laugh at us when we would disappear into our private rants about M Theory or the Doppler Effect or phase effects and tease me "why don't you and him just go out already?" For all my bitterness and anger and "I cannot be BOTHERED with sex or relationships ever again!" poses, you'd walk into the room and I'd just GOOEY, and think "well, actually, just maybe..."

It's a familiar pattern. Self sabotague. Disappointment. Things will never be the same again. Look on the bright side. I'll probably get a couple of songs out of it.

Don't worry. This is the last I'll write about it.

Bedsheets and Record Deals

I actually went to John Lewis to spend the vouchers my dad gave me on a bookcase, to help with the Book Problem. But the one that I wanted, which had been just on £200 on the Christmas sales, was now back to £300 and I just couldn't do it. So instead I floated around, buying everything that took my fancy. My favourite perfume, Spellbound, which I haven't worn in ages, because I needed to break its association with my awful ex. Paisley table napkins. Posh tights. Portmeirion China, Botanic Garden pattern, in an utter panic as the shop was closing in ten minutes, which I realised was a stroke of genius when I woke up this morning and ate my oatmeal off it.

Oh, and bed linen. It turns out that AMP, Anna and I have all simultaneously and spontaneously bought new bed linen, for effectively the same reason. If - shock horror - we actually managed to get a hott boy back to our respective flats, we wanted to have beautiful bedding to attract and ensnare them into the bedroom. Hence my paisley sheets.

Anyway, I walked back to the Champion to meet AMP for a glass of wine, thinking we were just going to have a girly chat to make up for all the squabbling but no, I found myself dragged into a Proper Band Meeting with our manager and everything. The subject under discussion was the single for Brainlove Records. I've been of two minds about this for various reasons, some personal, some aesthetic, some business related. My former band had such negative experiences with record labels that I've been loathe to get involved with one again. (Especially after a press release landed in my inbox stating that we were going to release it BEFORE I had actually agreed. Grrrrrr.)

The ins and outs of the discussion were tedious and I shall spare you them. The song being discussed is "Stronger". The deal would be a split single as part of a singles club. I finally broke down, feeling a bit strong-armed and outvoted, and agreed with the sole condition that I listen to and like the flipside. My bandmates are over the moon with joy and excitement and anticipation. I wish I could share it. I feel a rising sense of panic and "oh no, here we go again..."

Now I know that this is the same "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory*" type logic that turned having a dirty dronerock boy in my bed into a disaster of national proportions earlier in the week. Maybe it's PMT (I was so jangled and hormonal that I cried on the train today when I got to the big of Big Bang where it looked like the Space Shuttle Disaster was going to scupper the COBE project), maybe it's my Gut Instinct peeking through, maybe it's just the old Black Dog trying to tell me that everything I touch turns to shite.

Anyway, who cares? I have paisley sheets and a sofa of sex. And we might have a single coming out. Now I've just got to re-record the guitars and MIX the bloody thing. ::bashes head against the desk::

*Sorry - I hate this phrase. It was a standard cliche of the same ex that the bloody song is about. Why has he been on my mind so much lately?

To Counteract All The Emo... Two Good Things

AMP:

1) we are going to do the single
2) i have lost nearly a STONE!!!!!!!

Kate:

1) Paisley SHEETS
2) Portmerion China (Botanic Gardens pattern)

Anna:

1) We are going to do a single!
2) Even if they can't keep me full time, ***Anna's Workplace*** want to give me lots of regular work.

Interstellar Clouds Of Booze

Don't get excited... according to Dr. Harvey-Smith at Jodrell Bank, "Although it is exciting to discover a cloud of alcohol almost 300 billion miles across, unfortunately methanol, unlike it's chemical cousin ethanol, is not suitable for human consumption!"

Well, that's my interstellar jaunt to the Pan Galactic Gargle Clouds cancelled...

Disambiguation

So some genius (yes, we have googled and we know who you are) has given us a Wikipedia Entry.

I'm vaguely disappointed there's not a disambiguation entry for the *real* Shimura Curves.



I'm coming to the end of Simon Singh's Big Bang and the story is winding down as CMB has been discovered and the Steady State Theory disproved and there are nice pictures of radio telescopes like Jodrell Bank, where my dad used to work back in the 60s when he was doing his PhD. My Ex couldn't sleep unless he had the radio on, turned to the static between radio stations, and he claimed it was because he liked to listen to the lullabye of the Big Bang, but really it was just his tinitus.

When I was a child, I was terrified by the Big Bang, which I knew about from my dad's bedtime stories. I didn't understand that the process of expansion and entropy increasing would take hundreds of millions of billions of years, and I would have nightmares about the galaxies slipping apart, and everything going cold and dark when the sun ran out of nuclear fuel.

When things got really bad between my ex and I, I would lie in bed, listening to the static echoes of the Big Bang, and wondering what would happen when our fuel ran out, and we drifted lightyears apart. (It's not a new metaphor, my astronomy/loneliness thing - it goes right back to the Deep Field stories.) I'm terrified of drifting apart from people, of them slipping out of my gravitational field.

There was more emo crap, but I deleted it. Sick of feeling like this, the fear, the panic that is triggered by getting close to someone.

ELEPHANTS!!!!

Watch out, there's elephants in London!

Sofa of Sexxx

Oh yes, I nearly forgot. My Chesterfield turned up today. It's obscene. It gives me the horn just looking at it. It's antique red leather, with brass studs and buttons, it just looks like sex. And sitting on it... oh my!

By Definition A Crush Must Hurt, And They Do...

ILX is down, so my random thoughts must go here.

They say every really great friendship starts with a crush. There's something romantic about the process, the massive rush of growing intimacy, staying up all night, just talking, hanging on their every word, stories and anecdotes triggering associations and stories of your own, until the conversation wraps around itself like a vine, following each others' thoughts and finishing each others' sentences.

And I get confused between the head and the heart - I always have.

When you're drunk, it's perfect, brain to brain seems like body to body should follow. But when you're sober, the insecurities kick in. ("It's the mind that is evil. Sometimes I think if I turned off my mind, then my heart and my soul could be free...") All the things I'm not. Pretty. Skinny. Cute. All the things I'm too much of. Too fat, too clever by half, too bonkers, too intense, too self destructive. I've spent half my life in the shadow of glamourous, beautiful, more attractive sisX0r, friends, bandmates - and who the hell would want me by comparison? And that kind of overcomes the rush of "OMIGODYOUARETHEMOSTAMAZINGBOYEVER" with "ooh, errr, if you're so great, why would you want to be with me?"

This is the best part of the crush, when it's still nothing but possibility, before the "Sorry, but I don't think about you *that* way" conversation, before it crystalises into disappointment or relief, settles down into friendship or blows up into Weirdness, when it's still that excruciating balance of joy and agony and a word, a look, a text message can make you feel like the world is a good place.

Oh yeah, we played a gig in there, too. I find gigs traumatic lately. I just do. Everything that goes wrong feeds the rising panic, and then the littlest thing can set me off. I flubbed words, forgot to even play an entire guitar solo on one song. And at the end of the set, the rest of the band pissed off, leaving me to clear up and take down everything. And the entire Kissing Time totally bumrushed the stage before I'd packed up my stuff, terrible etiquette, terrible vibes, I just felt rushed and harried and hurried and snarled at anyone who came near me until I'd gone outside and cried and kicked walls in the alley behind the Windmill for ten minutes. I hate getting offstage and feeling like that. You don't feel euphoric like a rock star, you just feel drained and awful.

Came back in, got drunk. Talked to people I haven't seen in ages, (Matt hew, Simon, Jane) which was actually lovely, though it's hard to do any kind of catchup at a gig because then the band comes on, or you have to do another bit of schmooze. And there were strops and urgent meetings in the Ladies' Room, conferences and confidences and suddenly, fiercely, I started to love my band again, realised exactly what it was I loved about us. We were the freaks at school, the fat chicks, the scholarship chicks, the ginger chicks, the weird chicks who hid in the library during recess. Those kinds of scars don't go away, but you overcome them by becoming FABULOUS, by forming your own gang.

So here are my glamourous band, looking like Russian Dolls, thanks to ACB:

Cathedrals of Sound

So I went to Sonic Cathedrals las night. Why, oh why, do the bands always start so LATE there? Don't they know that most shoegazer fans are now in our 30s? And consequently have mortgages and dayjobs amd last trains that must be caught? Howling Bells (advertised at going on about 10.15) didn't hit the stage until 11.30 which meant I only caught 4 or 5 songs before I had to dash to try and catch (with moments to spare) the last train to Brixton. Bah.

I'd had a good dinner and gossip with Catty, which meant I was in a good mood. Even though I had to shout at her for violating the Girl Code and fancying the same bandmember as I did. (Grrr, the lovely Carlos Barat is MINE, dammit!) Explained all about why Dylan Moran is the new Black and she was all "Oh, he's the Irish dude from Shaun of the Dead?" and her eyes went DOING! and lit up. But I've never seen that film because Hilton Betegeuse is in it, and even though being turned into a zombie and getting his head smashed open is the best fate you could wish on a former BoyThing, I was boycotting it for ages.

However, sitting around a club, by myself, waiting... and waiting... for the band to come on is, well, Rubbitch. Yes, the music was fantastic, as it always is, but after a while you start to think "But I've got all these records at home..." Ah well, loads of Telescopes videos (wow, psychedelic!) and a cute, floppy bartender, and when the hott shoegazer boys finally turned up, it was nice to have a bit of an oogle.

But then Nobody's Prawn turned up, and we had a good natter about cider and her upcoming all expenses paid jaunt to Rome (damn style journalists and their amazing perks!) and about why the support band just weren't doing it for us. So close and yet so far. Lovely guitar textures, but a bit too much of the old Sigur Ros and NO CHOONS. Yes, I know this is dronerock, but still. If you're going to have a singer, you should bother with a melody.

Waited... and waited... and waited... and I got so bored I curled all the strings of all the balloons in the venue. And Howling Bells came on (eventually) and they were amazing - sort of Opal meets JAMC meets Drugstore in an Australian spaghetti western (and oh my lord, they are Teh Hottness). The singer's voice has that quality of... otherworld-weariness that is quite hard to match. But, like I said, I had to leave after only 5 songs. Bah.

Going to see Bellowhead, an 11 piece folk orchestra with tubas and everything in Blackheath tonight. I used to go to folk gigs a lot with my father when I was younger, but I've not been to one willingly since I was a teenager. I'm reviewing it for Plan B, as well. Should be interesting, especially if it involves some of this:



Dirty Folk Boys, oh yes.

Boredom, Boredom, Boredom

I'm bored. I am CONSUMED with ennui.

I have half an hour to kill before going off to meet Catty for Messican food, then I'm going to Sonic Cathedrals to gaze at the beautiful shoegazer boys. Swoon. I've worn my best stripey shirt and everything. But right now I am bouncing off the walls, beating my head against the desk in frustration at what passes for "documentation" in this company.

People ask for reports, my job is to find the information, code the reports, set them up - but people ask for the VAGUEST things. So I wrote out this whole form asking exactly what they wanted. So what do they do? They type out the vague random nonsense in the "description" box, fill out nothing else, and pass it back to me.

Today I want to quit my job and become a painter because Rex Whistler looked so pretty in the article about him in Country Life. Apparently, he was the inspiration for Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisted. He certainly inspired me to paint murals on my walls.

I'm having a cranky day WRT the band. The spectre of record companies and dealing with them rears its ugly head. I had such bad experiences in The Lollies that I'm gunshy. But we've been asked to be on a couple of compilations, which is good. Good things are happening, it's just hard for me to get as excited about it as I probably should, because of the feeling of "here we go again, none of this will actually happen." Ooh, negativity.

The Girls are getting together without me tonight, to come up with dance routines. I am excused dancing, on account of my having to play guitar, which is an immense relief, as I'm a rubbish dancer. (n.b. this refers to actual, proper, synchronised and choreographed dance routines - I'm a GRATE dancer when I'm drunk and cutting loose on the dancer floor, but who isn't?) I feel a bit funny, though, like I'm being left out of the fun. Especially with the random floating fits of paranoia about detachment and alientation and OH NO, THEY ALL HAAAAATE ME OH NO. But really. I think I would only find it frustrating.

Trying to discourage myself from developping an inconvenient IRL crush. Which is kind of counter-productive, because the problem with trying not to develop a crush by telling yourself all the problems and reasons it wouldn't work out only makes it seem DOOMED and ROMANTIC and MORE APPEALING. I just wish it would go away. Or something.

For Comparison Purposes Only

See? Yes, the same shade of pink. But he doesn't have any paisley.

About The Weather

There's something meteorological about the way that moods change. Sometimes depression lifts like the sun burning off a morning fog. Sometimes it's more like a glacial melt, icebergs breaking up, sometimes it's more dramatic, like a sudden squall blown out to sea.

Either way, I don't complain so long as it goes.

Colours help. Like these beautiful flowers that Anna brought to rehearsal last night, to cheer me up. They match my flat - like my flat now matches me, as if the paisley crawled off my shirt and onto my walls.

Beautiful music helps. Rehearsal last night sounded good, we sounded like a band again. It's important to rehearse often, and keep ourselves in good voice, even if it gets tedious sometimes, it does pay off.

Alcohol doesn't help. But that was such a gorgeous bottle of Argentinian Malbec that perfectly complimented the curry. I should try buying more random wines because I like the labels.

But I'm So NOT! I'm The Pop Kid!

It's not fair. I *hate* Free Jazz! It was the questions about Can lyrics and organ drones that made me get this. Sigh.

You Know Yer Indie. Let's Sub-Categorize.

You're Avante Garde Indie. You listen to abstract music like free-jazz and Krautrock. You drink too much coffee and you scare the fuck out of the rest of us. We're afraid to call you pretentious because we know that we all just don't get it. There are few of you out there, and most of you will probably die soon.
Take this quiz!

Depression Headache

...when the depression is so bad it actually feels like a physical pressure on the inside of your skull.

*****

Carry on, little hammer - you were always my favourite toy. The Pale Saints' Comforts Of Madness and paint fumes have been keeping me sane for the past week. I wish I had the CD here.

*****

Was the interweb always this boring, or did I just forget the tedious bits while I was off it? FOR GODS SAKE, SOMEONE SAY SOMETHING, ANYTHING BEFORE MY BRAIN EXPLODES FROM ATROPHY!

*****

My lunchtime curry is not hot enough. This is because I made it in a panic at 10pm last night when I realised I'd been painting for about 12 hours straight and I had nothing to eat for lunch the rest of the week.

*****

OK, so I went out at lunchtime, mainly to buy some tea as I've nearly run out, and my bandmates insist that they are not drinking tonight at rehearsal (which is a shame, as I picked up some nice Rioja on a tip from Mr. Nite), and as I was on my way back from Sainsburys with my PG Tips (I always buy PG Tips because they are pyramid shaped, and I'm convinced that this ads ORGONE ENERGY to the anti-oxidants) I really really did intend to stop at a coffeeshop and get some Proper Coffee for the first time since Lent is over, but as I walked in, I was assaulted by a wall of smoke so solid and inpenetrable that I had to turn back, coughing, and now I'm back in the office, and back on the methadone green tea.

I have vague memories of smoking a cigarette on Saturday afternoon. This is odd, as I don't smoke. I blame Dylan Moran. Or peer pressure. Or something.

Black Dog

I'm back in the office, which is, surprisingly, a bit of a relief. I got hit quite badly by the Black Dog On My Shoulder last week, and the depression hasn't broken yet. :-(

At least my flat is paisley. My brother is giving me a digital camera so there may be pictures of this soon.

Oh, and apparently we're on Fluxblog which is pretty durn cool. Wow, someone who *gets it*.

More later...

I've Been To The Most Marvellous Party

I've been drunk for the past three days straight, so please bear with me.

I woke yesterday morning with the most horrendous hangover in the history of drinking. When I moved my purse (open on the bed next to me) another bottle of wine rolled out. Oh yes. That's right. I'd been to Anna's party the night before. Slowly scraped myself into some semblance of order and got on the train to AMP's. I don't like the DLR, it scares me with its driverless ways. But hurrah for small mercies, I found an entire Observer on the train and nicked the magazines.

After a taxi to London Fields, we set up at Amy Prior's house, pushing the sofas back and turning it from a living room into a "space" with chairs all set out like a children's piano recital. Amy has the coolest house in the world; she described it as being designed "in three weeks by a person having a nervous breakdown, with builders who didn't speak English" and it's amazing and Alice In Wonderland with fantastic strange rooms that look out over balconies and stairways to nowhere made out of wires and bedrooms like nests that you can't quite stand up in. Fantastic amazing artwork on all the walls (and I'm not just saying that because she's got one of mine. Heh.)

So we set up, and the time for the party came and went. And no one arrived. So I thought "sod this" and walked to Broadway Market to get some sandwiches and pink wine (and oh my lord, they grow the boys cute in London Fields) and by the time I got back the party had started and all my fabulous friends were there. Hurrah!

AMP's sister Lisa DJ'ed and we drank rum or pimms and ate cake and everybody gave me fantastic presents! Hurrah, birthdays are great! I should have them more often. I got pink pears and a Liberty bracelet from my mum, the Tim Burton book, an amazing teapot, 2 mix CDs and a Powerpuff Girls ornament. Wa-hey! Oh, and some balloons, which I tied to my guitar.

Johnney B arrived with the treacle pudding (unfortunately not in a flaming wheelbarrow, due to the rain). We watched Guys and Dolls with the sound off on the wall. What else happened?

Oh yes, we played a gig of sorts. I don't think we were very good - we were unbelivably drunk and kind of too giggly (Anna has the plan that if we fail as a band, we can always become a comedy improv act. Even though I Hate. Comedy. You know, cause I've not got a sense of humour.) I made random party guests (especially poor The Lex) act as my guitar stand - Matt took a photo of him looking like a bulldog licking piss from a nettle at the thought he might be mistaken for indie. So yeah, singing, dancing, ELEPHANTS, ARRRRGGGHHH!!! though I had to shout at my bandmates to make them do sex noises on Insecurities Trader. The new dance routine for Noyfriend went down with great aplomb.

And then Charlie arrived, sopping wet, after the gig had finished with the Liquid Wiggle with our first proper, published, printed review! In The Fly! Apart from dropping the dreaded P-word, it was by all accounts a good review. We got compared to St.Etienne and the Shortwave Set, and apparently we "ride the Routemaster of pop, giggling" (oops, who told him about our adventures out-chavving the chavvy girls at the back of the 43.)

And then we got to the read fun of the evening - MADONNA KARAOKE!!! There's this great new chazz shop that's opened up down the road (Yes, what does Streatham need more of? Clearly charity shops! It sells nothing but books and CDs and I bought an Ackroyd novel, a big illustrated book about the history of sailing and my former housemate's first novel for £2 each!) which sells things like this.

I can't even remember who did what. I think I mangled Beautiful Stranger and then next thing I know everyone is bouncing around and Joe did Death Metal Madonna and everybody danced and it was great. Walked back in the rain through London Fields and passed out on Emsk's sofa. Hurrah!

The Best Banner Ad Ever!

Drunk At Work

It's the tits!

I love birthday.s

HIc!

Good Morning My Little Shower Of Shit

I'm in a bad mood today. I'm in a *gloriously* bad mood. I'm in a swearing at random people on the train, shouting at traffic and glowering at my colleagues Bad Mood. I'm in such a Bad Mood that I'm actually *enjoying* being in a bad mood. Which sort of defeats the purpose of a Bad Mood - it's a bit like rooting for the bad guys in Bond films so you don't get scared by the tension.

I have a hangover. This is an apalling state of affairs considering how little I drank last night. I scowered my cupboards until I found the bottle of good South African red I hid around my last birthday. I intended merely to have a glass while I was cooking Special Soup (last night I added oyster mushrooms to the mix - heavenly) but, after over a month of sobriety, halfway through it I was well on my way to be schnockered. This is outrageous! The body is not equipped to handle six weeks of not drinking; it saps the constitution and weakens the liver's ability to process booze.

However, I do feel like myself again. Sod sobriety and SSRI's and anger management and the fluffy version of Kate that my shrink would like to propegate. Today I am enjoying being a curmudgeon.

Crash

I was going to post this to ILX, but I changed my mind, due to its utter EMO EMO EMO content. But then I suddenly grew paranoid at the thought of posting it here because of my contingent of stalkers. But fuck that. It's *MY* blog. If you don't like it, don't read it.

And now I am in a bad mood and can't even articulate why. Something akin to frustration or loneliness, or I don't even know. The realisation that I've finished most things that need desperately to be done at work, and I could go home. But what for? Why bother? I've realised I habitually work such long hours because I've got nothing and no one to go home for.

It's spring, the weather is beautiful. I'd like to go to the pub - or even just go get a pizza. I've been trying to convince someone, anyone, to go get a pizza with me for nearly a week. Isn't that pathetic? I just want to go out and have a good time and can't find anyone to share it.

You lock yourself away and you insulate yourself from hurt, to prevent yourself from EVER being hurt again. (Yes, I know this is impossible. But argh, the memory of that hurt. The anger, the self loathing at the stupidity of allowing yourself to be hurt so badly.) It's easier being alone. And it's far better being alone than being with someone you detest (or worse, detests you) - which often seems like the only option available on a romantic front.

But every now and then, the loneliness just stabs through. "Do I deserve just to be alone" as The Church once sang.

A phone full of friends and no one to call. I try to round people up and whip up excitement and get people to go to PARTIES! GIGS! COUNTRY WALKS!!! But you know what? The last few gigs we played, I ended up sitting by myself backstage, just feeling stressed and unable to enjoy it. Organisational fatigue. I'd have given anything to just give up and go get a pizza. I thought I joined a band to make friends. Oh wait, no, that's a lie. I first started a band, a million twenty years ago, so I'd have something to do at parties and nightclubs to stop me sitting in a corner reading a book.

This will pass. I will return to being smooth and self contained, and prattle on about Simon Singh books and whatever pointy nosed boy I'm currently lusting after. I'll go home and cook Special Soup and get into bed with my biography of Nelson. Maybe you'll read this, maybe you'll skip it as soon as you see the Emo Warning. Maybe you'll leave me a comment telling me to cheer up, but probably not. Probably you'll just feel vaguely superior because I'm wallowing in self pity or whatever. Or maybe someone will finally go get a sodding pizza with me.

Is It Just Spring Or Are The Boys Actually Getting Cuter?

So what is it? Is it the nip in the air? The sunshine? Some hormonal rush caused by lambing season and fresh air and estrogen in the water supply?

Boys are horrible! They're annoying, frustrating, irritating and they smell faintly of goats. Yet somehow, lately, is it me, or have they become the most fasinating thing in the world to look at? Bah. Make it stop, the pointy noses and the jawlines and the set of their skinny shoulders, slouched in tweed jackets.

I've demoed two new(ish) songs. Not Afraid or Unified or whatever I'm going to end up calling the song about the Grand Unification Theory has turned into a lovely, space-shuffle with whispery vocals and cooing angel harmonies of the spheres. I can't stop listening to it! And Pwned (AMP's first lyrical Shimuras credit) has turned into a joyous stomp with crazy West African guitar and video game noises and even a computerised voice at the end going "SHIMURA CURVES WINS AGAIN, AH HA HA HA!!!" (thanks, Stephen Hawking Percy the Laptop.) It even makes *me* want to beat boys at videogames and I *hate* games!

We seem to have booked more shows, too. It turns out that Marianna is going to see Take That on the 10th May, so we are playing at How Does It Feel To Be Loved on the 11th May. Hurrah. We're on first so we can get drunk afterwards. Excellent!

Anyway, here's another totally gratuitous picture of Dylan Moran. Sigh.



Oh yeah, some cnut who doesn't even like him Steve Mannion of ILX* wrote this, presumably as a dis on to why woman are attracted to him: The accent obviously, it is great - charming and effortlessly seductive. He looks like he desperately needs feeding/looking after...but comfortable with it. Wild eyes, the look of a man who slept in the street after some random drunken adventures, the craving for hedonistic excess and gay abandon, recklessness, but also the blatant passion and belief in ideas, standards (however contradictory), the evidence of intelligence (specs, plus rantings about Chaucer or whatever) despite ridiculous, chaotic way of living suggesting shades of genius, unpredictable, emotional... God, am I that predictable? Honestly, I can't wait until this is all over and I'm miserable and happy again.

*apologies for not quoting name, chapter and verse previously. Apparently this makes me a "creepy stalker" - though honestly, what's more "creepy" - commenting on something you read on a message board, or obsessively reading (and commenting on) the blog of someone you claim to dislike?

This Is Not Just A Gratuitous Picture Of Dylan Moran

...it is the exact colour of pink that I am going to be painting my living room.



OK, it is also a gratuitous picture of Dylan Moran, but my god, LOOK how pointed his nose is!