Music, Love, Tats and Wellies

“How do beerflies know we’re a pub?”
/ Vickie

Oh dear me its been a long time since I blogged.

Since the last time I blogged everything important and precious in my life has gone down the shitter. My relationship with the love of my life, my soulmate, who I hoped and dreamed would be my husband and father of my future kids (I know, reach for the sickbucket)… might not be anymore. This breakdown in the relationship is due to reasons beyong my control which makes it that much worse and harder to deal with… This breakdown has resulted in me “having” to move out of the house and in to Halls of Residence on campus. I am not forced to move out and am not being kicked out, but if I want the relationship to have a chance and for the break to work, we need space from each other and that means moving out.

I have two new jobs, one as a barmaid and one working as student support staff at the SU (students union). I love love loooove my job at the bar, Babylon, which is a stylish bar that plays 90′s music. Working there is so much fun, we have two staff dances that are so much fun to perform and all the staff get along really well, so it is like going to see your mates rather than going to work.
I don’t know what the job at the SU is going to be like yet, as it is my first day on wednesday, but I have a feeling that it is going to be along the lines of the other “reception” like jobs I have had previously.

I have also been to Creamfields 10th Anniversary and got to see Tiesto play, definately the highlight of the weekend. Saturday was very messy, in more ways than one, which is apparent by these pictures.

Gina and I at Creamfields

The morning after

Sunday wasn’t as bad, mainly because by then we had figured out which items of clothing worked for us and which type of footwear that should be worn. This was mainly me, as Gina had wellies on from the get-go, whereas I did not. So on the Saturday I had to fork out 20 quid for a pair of wellies, which hurt at the time, but turned out to be a very good buy, as the mud situation got worse every minute of every day.Sunday was mainly spent recouperating from the shenanigans we got up to the night before, but it was also spent in the Cream & Goodgreef tent, listening to the master spinning his shit.

The Master at work

I have also gotten 4 new tattoos. Well, I say 4, but they are intended as one piece. It’s four runes, done in my lower back. They stand for different things that are important in my life at the moment, well, always but especially now that my relationship is in turmoil.

My newest tattoo editions

Explanation, from left to right:
Kenaz Rune – Character and Personality, Element = Fire
Inguz Rune – True Love, Friendship, Element = Earth
Laguz Rune – Hope,Sustenance of Life, Element = Water
Raido Rune – Renewal and safe journeys, Element = Air

For some reason these four little pretty images hurt alot more than my dreamcatcher did, but not all four hurt equally. The two on the left, Kenaz and Inguz, hurt ALOT more than those on the right, Laguz and Raido. But the most painful one out of the two, was the Inguz rune. For some reason, every time he tattooed on that tat, my blood sugar levels took a nose dive and we had to stop for five minutes to allow for some air and a glass of water. The other tattoos just hurt a bit, but I was perfectly fine whilst he inked them, but as soon as he started on the Inguz rune, I felt faint and generally very poorly. But luckily that was all quickly rectified by a glass of water and opening a window.

I have also planned my next tattoo, that I will have booked in as soon as I get my money back from Gina that I loaned her for the Creamfields ticket.
I’m getting the Nyana bird from one of Tiestos albums, how’s THAT for dedication!

Anyways, it’s now getting late, and I feel that I have offloaded enough and updated people as to what is going on in my life at the moment… well, a little bit anyway, will have to post again soon to cover the stuff that I couldn’t be arsed to write in this post at half past one in the morning! :p

Problem feathers in my hat

What is the problem here exactly?

I go to bed at a reasonable time, and I can’t fall asleep. So I get up and do something to make me tired, or, I simply won’t go to bed til I’m tired – which in my case makes it a not so reasonable time anymore. Then, when I eventually manage to drop off, I could sleep til the end of the world if I didn’t set alarms to wake me up. But, to make things really annoying, no matter how much sleep I get, I always wake up more tired than when I went to bed!
And this ladies and gents, is what I call a problem.

Another problem in my life, cause apparently I don’t quite have enough of the little fuckers at the moment, is that the shirts we have to wear for our uniforms were meant for midgets. Or atleast flatchested women. Now, for those of you who don’t know, I am anything but flatchested, I got big boobies. I’m a curvy lady, no shame in that, although I admit I’d love to loose a few pounds here and there.
So, as I am not flatchested, you can imagine what happens when I put on the blouse that goes with my uniform… Yes, that’s right, big gaping holes between the buttons over my boobs. Now I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that having gaping holes in your shirt isn’t very professional. So I have been told that I need to buy my own blouse. Now, ordinarily this wouldn’t be a problem. Because when I have been out shopping previously, I have seen plain black button up short sleeve blouses EVERYWHERE. But do you think any place sells them when I desperately need one? NO! They are all patterned or crinkly or ruffled or something which means that I can’t wear them as part of my uniform. But there seems to be an abundance of WHITE plain button up short sleeve blouses. Everywhere I go, the blouses are white. Now, I’d take a long sleeve blouse and cut the arms off, but they don’t even have that in black, because then the buttons are huge or the sleeves are puffed or the fabric is too thin or they are patterned or they are ruffled or crinkled….

So a plan has emerged.
I shall wear a thin black strappy top underneath the damned flatchested blouse, which means that I don’t have to button it over the boobs, which means – no gaping holes! Which in turn means that I can wear my uniform and am quids in as I don’t have to go out and spend money on a stupid blouse that was made for a human being and not a plank.

But on a lighter note…
CREAMFIELDS!!!!
Next weekend I am off to Creamfields, and I cannot wait. I have bought t-shirts, UV facepaint and haircolors from Adjamiba, a pair of trousers from IncyWincy Cyber that should arrive on Wednesday and Dave has bought a tent and blow-up mattress for Bloodstock (metal festival that he is going to this weekend) that I am taking to Creamfields. I was originally coming to Bloodstock as well, but I got a new job working in Babylon Bar here in Wolverhampton and we open on wednesday, so asking for our opening weekend off just wasn’t going to happen. Especially not as I’d need the following weekend off aswell. So I decided to cut Bloodstock and keep Creamfields, as CF is more my thing anyways.

So speaking of my new job. I work as a bartender in this newly opened bar in Wolves called Babylon Bar. There they play 90s music and they focus mainly on cocktails. We have a pretty extensive cocktail menu, 14 different cocktails to be exact, and we have to learn how to make them off the top of our heads by Tuesday. I know most of them, in fact, when testing myself I know all of them, but when at training for work and prompted how to make one, I forget everything. Stage fright maybe? Another problem “feather” to add to my hat, which is now so full of problem feathers that it soon won’t be able to house anymore.

So, as I am now so tired that I want to curl up into a ball and sleep forever, I figure I’d better have a power-nap before revising the cocktail menu again.

See you soon all my little chickens, and be well.

Musical Emotional Understanding

Todays feeling can be described very neatly, which is unusual for me, in one single song.

I have liked this song for ages, but never really listened to the lyrics. The song is Walk on Water by Milk Inc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jtz7t19_NE

There was a time
When nothing would last
There was a time
I held on to the past

I would walk on water
Just to be with you
Walk on water
Just to be with you
Split the ocean
Cross the sea
Walk on water
If you believe

There was a time
I lost my faith
There was a time
I could only hate

You are my shepherd
You are my guide
I follow your dark eyes
Right into the night
You are my savior
You took control
You came and touched my soul

I would walk on water
Just to be with you
Walk on water
Just to be with you
Split the ocean
Cross the sea
Walk on water
If you believe

There was a time
When nothing would last
There was a time
I held on to the past

You are my shepherd
You are my guide
I follow your dark eyes
Right into the night
You are my savior
You took control
You came and touched my soul

But why are you still overshadowed by a doubt
If only you could see the love that carries me

I would walk on water
Just to be with you
Walk on water
Just to be with you
Split the ocean
Cross the sea
Walk on water
If you believe

I would walk on water
Just to be with you
Walk on water
Just to be with you
Split the ocean
Cross the sea
Walk on water
If you believe

I would walk on water
Just to be with you
Walk on water
Just to be with you
Split the ocean
Cross the sea
Walk on water
If you believe

No rest for the wicked, time to get back to cleaning.

Hope you enjoy the tune as much as I do! And if not, tough shit, I’ll keep imposing my musical taste upon you! Muhahahahaha *attempted evil laughter*

A little Tiësto Magic

So I haven’t blogged in a while, which is down to me having been at work and far too tired and busy to have even thought of blogging.

But today I figured that blogging would be a good idea.

 

I started today with listening to DJ Tiësto tunes on YouTube, and quickly discovered that it is the best way to wake up. It is the best thing since sliced bread.
It gives me goosebumps and such a rush of pure energy when I hear the tunes that he plays, the rush of energy flows through me from my toes to my head, and it’s the kind of rush that you can only get from a certain something. Even though I have this energy rushing and coursing through me, it is a gentle way to wake up your senses and your body. You arrive at this state of bliss and with your eyes still closed you can feel every last particle of energy that runs through your veins. You can almost see the music and the colors that carry the beat. It gives you that all over body tingle and you are all of a sudden aware of everyone and everythingaround you. Your senses are hightened, you can hear and feel things that you are normally obvlivious to, but you are oblivious to the trivial meaningless things that you are normally so attached and obsessed about. This is why they call it Ecstasy.

My friend Gina and I, she’s actually my fiancés best mate, have decided that we are going to the 10th anniversary of Creamfields this year in august together. My parents, bless them, have agreed to buy my ticket for me as a birthday present (I turn 21 in September). This is a relief for me as the tickets are £120 and as a poor student I do not have that kind of cash just laying about. Instead, what little cash I have will be spent on outfits, accessories, and necessities when there, like drink and food etc.

There are so many acts on, that I don’t know how we are possibly going to make them all, but there are a few that I am not missing for the world. You couldn’t make me miss them even if you tried, and those are DJ Tiësto, Ferry Corsten, Paul van Dyk, Paul Oakenfold, Underworld and most of the acts on the Tidy stage. Then there are the ones that I’d like to see, but wouldn’t start crying if I missed, such as Pendulum and some of the acts on the Swedish House Mafia stage.

I am so excited about this that I am about to implode. I have already ordered 3 t-shirts that are going to make me look fabulous, from the T-Shirt Shack and I am waiting til Friday for my next paycheck to order a pair of custom made trousers from IncyWincy Cyber. And I am looking on ebay and other places online for a cute backpack that I can purchase that won’t cost me a small fortune and that I won’t be upset if it breaks, to store cameras, water etc in whilst at the gigs. I have purchased two disposable cameras á 27 exposures, but as this is my first hard dance festival I want to immortalize it as much as I can so I am planning on doubling up on the cameras. That way I have two cameras each day to take pictures with, which should be enough.
And as Freefall Feat. Jan Johnston so brilliantly said in their tune ‘Skydive (I Feel Wonderful)’
“I feel Wonderful, I could skydive from the Moon“

Two jobs in one day

Yesterday was a particularly mundane and ordinary day, hence the lack of a posting. I managed only to accomplish a few things, did a test run to my two brand new shiny jobs that I started today (more on this later in this post), do some shopping, go to the gym and sort out most of the clothes that had been dumped in one giant pile in the master bedroom. The gym was, as always, less fun than having your eyes gauged out with a fork, a chainsaw shoved up your rear whilst cutting your tongue into little pieces with a dull pair of rusty scissors.

Today I have, in a way, managed even less, and in a way even more than I did yesterday.
For starters I managed to will myself out of bed on time this morning, which is always a small victory for me nowadays. I then managed to get myself to eat breakfast, do my make up, pack some lunch AND get to work on time. I was even early, arriving at 08:20 (due to start 08:30). The drive was relatively uneventful with little to no traffic on some roads and some just starting to feel the strain of the morning rush hour. I arrived at the first company where I will be providing my services from the 1st until the 15th of July, for my handover with the receptionist. She was very nice, although far too mellow for my taste and I sense that she might actually have found me frightening. Their current, and may I say much loved, receptionist is going on holiday for a fortnight hence the need for holiday cover in the form of me. Some of the employees of said company gave me disgusting looks as if I was taking the current receptionists job, but when they found out that she would be returning in approximately 2 weeks, their attitudes softened and became almost polite. The position is a run-of-the-mill receptionist position, including answering the phones, postal duties as well as meeting and greeting visitors. The pay isn’t too shabby, although it’s nothing to write home about. But the best bit about this position, by far, is the working hours. I start at 08:30 every day, but Monday-Thursday I finish at 16:45 and on Fridays I finish at 15:30 – H E A V E N in a small jar!!

My second job, just down the road from my first one, is also a holiday cover, although only for two days starting tomorrow. This is a much more watered down version of the role of a receptionist, basically I answer the phones and meet and greet the odd visitor. The pay is better than the other job, although still nothing to get besides one self over. The hours are 08:30 til 17:00 both days, with 15 minutes break in the morning and 30 minutes lunch in the afternoon. This current receptionist is also very loved by her fellow colleagues, but as I’m only there for 2 days their attitude towards me was very reserved, although not as “hostile” as at the other company. But to be fair, I am a stranger coming in to work in these companies for a few days and then their regular co-worker comes back, so why should they instantly like me?
The receptionist of this company has a lot more spunk and personality than the other one, she takes shit from noone and she has a sense of humour. Although I sense that you need that to work on that switchboard which is constantly bombarded with calls. Never a quiet minute at this place, compared to the other company where half an hour would go by without a single call and then all of a sudden you’d get two calls and then nothing again.

Got friends coming over this weekend, our friend Ed and his girlfriend. We’re going out to get smashed for Ed’s birthday. Or atleast that was the suggestion made to the happy couple via text message not half an hour ago. Hopefully they will accept.

Today I leave you, not with a final thought or question, but with song lyrics. Or atleast part of some.
This is taken from Snow Partol – Run and really shows the situation that I at the moment find myself in:

And I can barely look at you
But every single time I do
I know we’ll make it anywhere
Away from here

Do we work to live, or live to work?

Today has been a particularly “gloom and doom”-y day. The skies had in the wee hours of this morning, or maybe it was in the late hours of last night, decided that today us mere mortals were going to be subjected to wind, intermittent sunshine, grey clouds and chill temperatures. And the heat lamp for our beloved snake Kex had conveniently decided to pack in last night so it was of great importance that I today venture out and purchase a new one. However this was not the only mundane thing on my exceptionally mundane “to do” list for this particularly mundane doom and gloom day. Before mentioned list also contained the items of :

• Mowing the lawn
• Going to the skip
• Washing up
• Washing clothes
• Put washed clothes into the closet

However, not all these items have been ticked off my to do list, the last two are still glaring out at me from the paper… tick-less. I managed to get mowing the lawn out of the way fairly early this morning, directly after breakfast. My breakfasts have changed drastically from what they used to be. They have gone from none at all, to cereal, to porridge, to toast, to none, to a bowl full of fruit. Which is what I have at the moment. A bowl full of apple, bananas and raspberries accompanied by a glass of orange juice and a multivitamin tablet.
Back to the subject matter at hand. I also managed to  do the washing up and stuff the car full of rubbish to take to the skip, and all this before 12 o’clock. I then managed to fit in 5 minutes of staring into nothingness letting my thoughts run wild through my head. Which I quickly regretted, as my thoughts started to wander into a territory rife with raw emotions and pain. Right to the farthest corner of my consciousness where I had stowed away the pieces of my broken heart to stop it from disintegrating when trying to put it back together. I had closed it off from the world and hid it in the deepest darkest place accessible to me, in order for it to start the healing process on its own, to stop the pain.

Just after 12 I made my way to the skip, unloaded all of the rubbish and placed each item in its correct recepticle, being the responsible recycler that I am.  After leaving all the rubbish at the skip I made my way to the “local” pet shop that has been providing us with all our reptile related items so far. This has mainly been food, i.e. little teeny rat babies, especially farmed for freezing and then feeding to your snake, and occasionally it has meant the purchase of a new heat lamp. Unfortunately it is not the lovely little corner pet shop where I purchase items for the two other animals in this household, the two house-rabbits. However this little corner shop does not carry items for reptiles, thus the need for a second pet shop.

Our “snake-shop” did however not produce a satisfactory result, it was in fact a wasted journey as they did not have a red night spot lamp for Kex’s viv. This resulted in an additional trip, to Bilston, to visit a reptile and aquatic animals pet shop. Only this time I made the wise decision of phoning ahead to make sure that they had them in stock before I headed out on the road. I managed to find my way to Bilston without any major hiccups, only went the wrong way twice, which was quickly and dare I say illegally corrected
After purchasing the light in Bilston I then proceeded to make my way home, only driving the wrong way once, due to a misjudged left hand turn, I took it a little sharper than I was supposed to, I was meant to drive in more of a curved line rather than take a left hand turn.

Upon returning home I turned on the TV and booted up the laptop to search for directions to my new job that I start on Thursday.  This I am approaching with mixed feelings. Mostly due to the “diagnosis” made by my GP yesterday, on the referral form to the psychologist he wrote down that he feels I suffer from depression. And with this diagnosis some of the “symptoms” experienced now makes more sense, especially the lack of motivation, concentration, appetite and sleep. Only, with the appetite and sleep, it moves from none to overdoing it. Not in the sense of binging and then purging, more like overeating one day and then feeling sick at the sight of food the next, or having trouble going to sleep and when eventually managing to fall asleep I could sleep all day unless I set several alarms to ensure that I do not sleep through the alarm and stay in bed all day. This poses a problem when one works, as one has to be focused and motivated as well as rested. Which is something that I am not, at least not at the moment. When one cannot find the strenght or motivation, any reason rather than a good one, to get out of bed in the morning or even open ones eyes, how are you supposed to find the motivation to work? Or does the prospect of money pose a good enough reason to combat the fatigue and lack of motivation? Is money the ultimate reason for people getting out of bed in the morning? One can safely assume that the money people receive is from working, and one could therefore ask, does work present reason enough to get out of bed? If work is money, and money is work, if one accepts this assumption it is therefore safe to say that money and therefore work is what gets people out of bed in the morning.
In that case… Do we work to live, or live to work?

I suppose the answer to this question is dependent upon what one does with the money. But then that gives rise to another conundrum; what if you save all your money in order to live, but your only goal in life is to climb the corporate career ladder? Meaning you live for your work. So does that make the old question about working to live or living to work, obsolete? Or is there a possibility of a hybrid individual who considers working, living? Does that then give stance that there would be an individual who considers living, working?

Amazing how many thoughts, completely irrelevant to the purpose of this blog, are raised by one simple question; How the hell am I going to be able to hold down a job in this situation?

You do not know it all

09:15 Monday morning

Today could be a typical English Monday morning, the skies have yet to decide what weather they wish to inflict on us mere mortals and I find myself wishing I’d never gotten out of bed this morning.

I’ve made myself some breakfast, trying to be healthy, and I’m anxiously awaiting 09:30.
See, was it not for 09:30 this morning, this would be a typical English Monday morning. But, alas, it is not. Because you see, today, I am going to see the doctor. Not because I’m ill (unless you class a few aches and pains due to a cold ill), but because I am asking the good doctor to refer me to one of those that I wish to become one day. That’s right, a psychologist.

They say the first step is to acknowledge that you have a problem and the rest will come. Well I suppose that this is me, acknowledging my problem. As if acknowledging the problem wasn’t scary enough, I now have to go and talk to a complete stranger about it, and other problems that have been “dormant” since my childhood. So dormant that they might be destroying my relationship.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know that by acknowledging this I have done the hard part, but that doesn’t stop me shitting myself at the prospect of having to unearth and talk through some of the most painful memories I have worked so hard to bury deep within my conscious mind. But as a psychology student, I know both the reasons for why and why not in this case. Why not is because I believe that I might be able to fix this myself, and why is because I at the same time realise that I cannot.

So I leave you with this final thought;

Does me being a psychology student help or hinder me in my recovery? Does knowing too much about the ways of help and the road to recovery, actually hinder me from getting on that road?
Does knowledge stop recovery?

11:10 Back from the doctors

Now it’s official, I’m the crazy lady that cries in the doctors office.
I am now on the waiting list for an appointment with a professional psychologist within the NHS. The doctor, bless his little cotton socks, seemed genuinely worried about me as I unfolded the least painful of my repressed memories. And not just the kind of worry you sometimes see people put on because it seems like the right thing to do in that situation, but genuine, actual worry. Almost as if he recognised the fact that my request to see a professional was grossly overdue.

As I was sitting in his cold, sterile office with pictures of silly cats on the walls, telling him the reasons for this request, my brain (the brain of an aspiring psychologist) started ticking over into psychology mode. I found myself weighing and carefully selecting my words, almost as if I was censuring what I was saying in order to appear like less of a victim. I then resumed the role of the emotionally challenged victim that I indeed am and continued telling him the ugly story that is my past. I could not help but start to analyse myself and what I was saying in order to grasp what I must sound like to the doctor and what I should and should not say for the conversation to have the desirable outcome that I had phoned up the doctor for early this morning, to get to see someone to talk to in confidence.

Unfortunately I came to the conclusion that allowing myself to slip into aspiring psychologist mode would only damage my case and make me both sound and look like someone who is faking it in order to receive medical attention and medication. I then started to really wonder, did my being a psychology student really hinder me that much in my search for the proverbial road to recovery? Or was it more so that I was hindering myself due to fear of what I was about to do to myself and my at the moment fragile psyche? I then started to regret having spent those ten minutes in the waiting area getting my “story” straight, figuring out which memories I could safely relive in the presence of my GP and trying to figure out what questions he could ask. So I decided to drop everything I had planned and just go wherever the questions and my wandering mind would take me. And it took me right where I was unprepared, not ready and unwilling, to go. The question about social and emotional support networks.

This was particularly unpleasant as one of the main reasons for me being there, unknown to my GP, was the fact that my support networks are extremely limited and the few (one) people in said network are getting overworkd and irritated. And I am trying to alleviate the demands and pressure on my support network person in order to keep them sane and not to ruin the relationship between the two of us, by seeing someone else who can now bare the burden of helping me deal with my past.

To conclude, knowledge does seem to hinder ones discovery of the road to recovery, supporting the notion that knowledge stops recovery, but knowledge about certain things also allowes you to see the need for letting go and reaching out for help to reach said road. They say ignorance is bliss, which would mean that knowing is a burden, which in some of us rings true.

But for me, knowing was both the burden and the bliss. It helped me see that although I knew what was wrong and needed fixing, I could not go about fixing it myself, and was maybe not able to scope the full “severity” of problems and would thus not be able to truly see what was wrong and needed fixing. It helped me realise that no matter how much knowledge you have, you do not know it all. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is something that rings true in all of us. It is also something, that I believe, is crucial to truly finding ones way through the treacherous minefield that is recovery.