i'm up to date now.

at last.

and i have free internet.

no new dreams last night. so this is from a wednesday after 11th November 2001:

teacher hates me says i'm a troublemaker is going to give me a one-to-one with the doctor. no one has a one-to-one with the doctor. like a comic strip. the one-to-one will be a dream within a dream that i can see now before it happens it will be a post-mortem while i'm still alive. they'll clamp my ribcage and snap my chest open while i'm still conscious.

i run away but everyone's on the streets looking for me with shotguns. no one knows what i look like so i dodge them. i have 2 friends with rifles who walk with me, protecting me. one is loveday kitto. there's no freedom without guns.

i see no god so i make up my own commandments like not using public toilets and never answering the phone when entertaining.

yesterday:

jon kept asking me to dye his hair orange and i said you do realise it will be orange don't you and he said no it won't and told me to shut up and just dye it.

mon 21? july

we're all studying in a group at the hospital. after it's our turn i go to find cigarettes and look up people's health records. i have a lot of problems getting the lights on and off and the office looks like the girls' toilets. when i'm finally done i go outside and see mark. he was new. "you're coming in here every night, stealing people's drug supplies - i've been watching you." "no - no i'm not on drugs - no" i scream and he says he won't tell anyone tonight. he'll see me tomorrow. i go back to my flat in the tower block. the next day, i am a little late for the lesson. everone leaves except me and mark. he smiles and says he won't tell this time - everyone deserves a second chance. i begin to cry and he strokes my hair and i know everything will be okay.

thurs 24

my husband is dead and i can't bear to give away any of his shirts. i keep looking at views. i'm on trial suddenly to see if i've ever changed. i say i haven't changed here because here is home, but i changed somewhere else, somewhere different, as soon as i'd gone away from this place. then an old man in the audience stands up and says that he could never move away from anywhere unless he'd felt like he'd changed. i say, "but i have changed", but they condemn me anyway. they say that always behaving the same in one particular place is like never having changed in any place at all.

have been slack. time is money. something. so here are the fragments i half scribbled from the last few weeks:

sat

i left my books in a bookshop for storage. i was afraid people in the shop might think they were for sale on the shelves, so i checked with the guy and told him no that's fine sell them for £15.

tues

i was being hunted so i went to cumbria to hide. alec parked my car for me. he parked over a bug and it was trapped in his footrest or the rear door. then miles came and read me his film script which he knew off by heart. he goes swimming with mum and dad. miles writes me a letter about how not talking to people and having too much space is fine. we are closer. questions questions and i feel reassured.

sat 5th

welcome to the doll house

mon 7th

what were we doing in auschwitz? i was making cakes. the old men said they'd had enough. then we walked up hills and there were bogs everywhere and motorways. and i was at work.

weds

the poor black lab with the flies weeping out of the sore under his eye. i go to help the man more and he tells me i can help in the kitchen. all the boys came. claire nodded to me, turned and went upstairs. she didn't want to disturb me.

sun 13

we were prisoners we were slaves we are going to be executed then the boss a kind silverhaired old man says no, and set us free. i fell asleep with joel in my arms we were saved. enormous halls all shiny and silver. we drive away through the snow slides and susie never got the chance to embroider the lace on the front of the nightgown she made me.

tues 15

they came round to play with me in my head. i finally played a song and they left because my amp was too small. so i went mad at the boy. he backed down. i am okay.

today

Ben's leaving do in topsham/Los Angeles. everyone was worried about how the different people would get on - topsham folk, boyz from the hood and ramblers in gators who would win? i went to the last pub first and worked my way backwards to find them. mum was making cucumber sandwiches.


will try to update regliar-like soon...

this was the following friday...:

we're going to the opera only we're ten minutes late so we have to wait by the doors for one of the songs to finish. lauren bacall is late too. she arrives by helicopter which lets her out in the middle of the actual stage. she doesn't understand what's going on. silly lauren. everyone knows she's old.

house above beach. dog in garden with bird. big snake - dad ran out to save the dog and bring him in. seeing lots of fish on bicycles. tiny. maybe an inch in height each. i'm trying to take their photos.

lots of toys and silly games being launched into the sea. i'm going to sail the atlantic with bryan.

jess uncovers a mystery about a shed where a man used to gas people to death. they think i'm jewish and lock me up in the attic with all the others.

it's all good fun and games.





that was tuesday last week. i'll catch up on the rest soon...

this was found on the morning of friday 13th:

staying up in the mountains with tim julie claire and 2 other people. i go out for a cigarette and look down at the town. the centre is a little hilly, and i see a ring around the rest of it. i see things flying past in the air. it's lots of ash, and molten lava. the volcano is exploding. the town is slowly being covered with molten lava, down in the basin at the bottom of the mountains. "come here" i struggle to say, "come here." gradually people come up and look. no one knows what to do. i say we have to leave now because i know the lava will continue to rise and, anyway, the eruption might get bigger, so we have to get away. i have my car, but tim julie and claire decide to walk. the other two and i drive away. winding up the hills opposite the volcano i look down and can see the three of them on the road below, like pilgrims, ash and lava drifting past them all the time, their heads down, walking one behind the other, striking a path through the rich brown rock and soil. i become certain that the town below was in hell, and that we have done well to get away while we can.

jess asks me to help her mind. she asks me to help her find the right sized hat, as all the ones she finds are too small. "it's to keep the brains in," she explains i think. i wake up not knowing where i am or what day it is.

i was eating prawn sandwiches

julie and i came back to my house for lunch but it was in exeter. we slept through lunch which meant we'd overslept and would be late back to work. we walked towards work for five minutes before i realised my car was still outside my house - if we didn't take it then it meant another twenty minutes walking. i sent julie back to the car (for some reason even though i was the one with the keys) and while she was gone i went and checked myself into the lunatic asylum behind me. they gave me some paperwork to do but i couldn't fill it in because i'd forgotten how to write. i was clutching the pen in my fist, stabbing the pages with it, getting more and more irate that i couldn't get my name onto the paper. anyway they took the papers away and when they came back i was lifting my bag up and saying "well anyway, i'm just off to work then". "oh no" they said, "it doesn't work like that here." "can't i just go to work and come back to the asylum at night?" i asked. "oh no" they said and went off to try and do my paperwork for me. so i ran away.

there was a nurse shark in the water with us and my best friend who i've never met before was holding its nose shut calmly. she told me to dive down and hold my breath - find somewhere to hide under the rocks - and the shark would get bored and go away. it worked. so we clambered out of the water into a glass pagoda. 360 degrees of flat calm ocean views. then i saw some dolphins and we watched the dawn. after that we got to the jungle and i was telling everyone that david seamen was going to man city but no one would believe me. i was quite drunk at this point and dad said i was talking rubbish so i called him a cunt. then i was upset and looked into the mirror. sam orchard came and put his hand on my shoulder and said "you just have to be who you are". i woke up very upset.

this morning:

"we've time travelled and noone wants to touch anything and we don't know what to do. "is this the past or the future it all looks the same" i say "it's okay i've seen back to the future" and we're okay. we sit there."

it was quite boring. i don't remember any details. it all looked grey to me.

the short bald man looks at me weirdly and says "is this how you kill people in your country? in my home we do it much more quickly." the only thing else i know is that the lightning was super-thick and on fire.

it's the end of the world. we're the last humans alive. i'm an advisor to someone. i have two very important duties. i can't remember what they are. we live in the foreground of a nuclear power station. how does it end?

new year's eve. huw asks me out. my mum is left in alone. dad's just absent. we go with some friends to a christian church do thing. it's downstairs. i don't want to be here. i think about my mum. so i go and other people follow me out.

we don't go to george square, we go to a big manor house and break in. i find a way to keep the door from locking us in using elastic bands and a plaster (i think).

eventually the alarm does go off because huw and his friends have made a machine explode by trying to scan someone's head whilst wearing white lab coats. but we get out. but the machine sets fire to things.

i go back to the manor house the next day because they offer me a job.

the boss (who is offering me a job) is the richest man in town - he also wants me to marry his son. the son is cute but i'm not sure. it feels wrong to me. we all go outside to clear our heads. everyone suddenly has a dog. the morning is early, green, misty and brisk. i don't have a dog.

i realise that i'm selling my soul, and then i suddenly notice that i'm dr jekyll and mr hyde.

6:59 am thursday morning

"swimming instructor in a pool in a desert in nowhere. this little girl comes and is scared but i reassure her. i tell her how i wasn't a strong swimmer in school, but now i'm strong enough to save people, and i lead a good life. it's cool actually - i'm not baywatch bikini babe woman - i'm me, and it feels good."

snow fire

there are three of us trying to get to sleep in sleeping bags, in a trench that's been dug for us in the snow. my sleeping bag is going to catch fire if i stay in this position - i'm lower down than the others, so i put the fire out to protect myself. "well done" they sneer, and i have to relight it with my lighter.

but, it was only burning off of the snow, so i'm hunched in my sleeping bag with a 59p refillable lighter trying to spark up the snow. little bits catch. maybe a couple of square inches here and there, and it looks like magic to me, but the little bits all go out. the others are angry. so i go back to the library.

stephen is reading about the life of dreams from a big brown cartoon book. then jess comes in and says that the toilets on that level are shut and please can we all use the ones on the top floor. she and stephen argue over who gets to use the ladies'. i go home and try to stop my flat from getting burgled by the monster who lit our snow fire, and i realise it was a set-up all along.

i'm going out with tom/marc (he's one person). we go to the beach for the day with tom/marc's family. they don't like me as they see i am too neurotic. marc's mother chooses to ignore me entirely and at the end of the day says "we keep passing that girl in blue - could someone please tell me who she is?" marc says "that's my girlfriend and i love her".

so he and i go back to his flat and spend the next day in bed inventing board games. tom/marc's friend is cynical and very attractive. he seems more realistic to me. they have a party tonight in their attic. i get bored and go and hang out of tom's bedroom window.

it's 6am in london and 2 boys have fallen asleep on the pavement across the road, flat on their backs, with their t-shirts pulled up over their heads, revealing their chests, both non-furry. they wake up and go and sit by the wall, pulling their t-shirts back down, looking confused. they don't know where they are. i am definitely bored by now and decide i should have gone out with the cynical boy after all.

so i woke up then went back to sleep for 20 minutes and it all ends badly. some of us end up together and some of us are killed in the stampede.

a saturday in april 2001:

Village of the suicides. they are all smiling. some of them can't be suicides — they're too elaborate, yet I know they all are, even the ones with blood patterns like frost on a window. I think the river is running red, and all the rooms have aquariums below them with hungry sharks snapping at our ankles. Everyone is chain smoking and trying to drink alcohol. But they are all doing it quite cheerfully. On the outside, no one seems perturbed by the suicides. I only came to find somewhere to eat.

it was this huge ridiculous rambling time and i was trying to sleep and a black bony demony thing was choking me. i actually couldn't breathe. kind of like in an approaching death way. then i snapped out of it and sarah michelle gellar was sitting on my bed and she said "maybe i should tell buffy". then i realised that i wasn't really me, only the outer shell of me, and that the strong brave me was inside somewhere else and i had absolutely no idea how to get hold of her. then i thought things were bad. and then life was beautiful for a minute because i knew that at least i had a strong person inside somewhere. then buffy wandered off. that's about it.

great.